Amused by the thought of other types of mimics...

[krazyhades]

"That Huan, Wolfhound of the Valar was really a monster!"

[Patashu]

There's a Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup vault that goes on the floor of the dungeon and displays a shiny Orb of Zot (think nethack amulet of yendor) and four runes behind glass. (They're all mimics.)

[ekolis]

Originally Posted by krazyhades

"That Huan, Wolfhound of the Valar was really a monster!"

Mimics that mimic monsters? But *why*?

[fizzix]

I think the monster you're looking for is a shapeshifter or a doppelganger. Something that could mimic another monster. The question is whether it should just appear like it outwardly, or whether it should have some of its powers.

[Derakon]

I've long wanted for hallucination to spawn phantom monsters that couldn't hurt you but would only vanish when both a) you stopped hallucinating, and b) when you tried to damage them (we can assume they just never would try to cast spells, and all of their melee attacks mysteriously miss). Combine that with the game not actually telling you when you weren't hallucinating any more; it'd just stop spawning phantoms. But the existing ones would stick around until "disproved".

As an added bonus, they should appear by being cloned from existing monsters, so you wouldn't be able to tell which one is the real one.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by fizzix

I think the monster you're looking for is a shapeshifter or a doppelganger. Something that could mimic another monster. The question is whether it should just appear like it outwardly, or whether it should have some of its powers.

FAangband has this. Shapechanged monsters get all the powers of the new shape, but retain things like HP. They change back after a few turns, or when you kill them.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by ekolis

Mimics that mimic monsters? But *why*?

Huan is no monster. It's intelligent dog. Those cuddly not-so-little hairball-things that youtube is full of.

Huan is almost as bad as Radagast as monster. Or Farmer Maggot.

[half]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I've long wanted for hallucination to spawn phantom monsters that couldn't hurt you but would only vanish when both a) you stopped hallucinating, and b) when you tried to damage them (we can assume they just never would try to cast spells, and all of their melee attacks mysteriously miss). Combine that with the game not actually telling you when you weren't hallucinating any more; it'd just stop spawning phantoms. But the existing ones would stick around until "disproved".

As an added bonus, they should appear by being cloned from existing monsters, so you wouldn't be able to tell which one is the real one.

This is an excellent idea and not actually all that hard to implement. Sil takes a different approach: each monster is generated with the r_idx of the monster it will appear as when you are hallucinating (all monsters in a group change to the same new monster), so you see interesting consistent hallucinations with creatures (and items) swapped around. I think your approach is at least as good and one could also do both.

[taptap]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

Huan is no monster. It's intelligent dog. Those cuddly not-so-little hairball-things that youtube is full of.

Huan is almost as bad as Radagast as monster. Or Farmer Maggot.

Indeed. Apparently the player is not trying to rid the world of evil, but to claim the throne of Morgoth for himself. That is one of the things that just feels wrong in Angband (not that I got very deep in the dungeon, but I already killed plenty of good guys in the early floors).

[buzzkill]

IIRC DaJ has illusiory monsters that appear, among other times, while hallucinating. They appear identical to their normal counterparts, but in actuality have nerfed HP and attacks (plus there are resists that make them non-issues as well as magical means to dispell). In compenstaion, and to put a good scare into the player, they sometime spawn OoD which also means that they can still be quite dangerous. A nerfed mature red dragon doesn't sound like a player killer... unless your on DL10.