Heroic: boss monsters
Heroic: boss monsters
This topic was spawned from here.
(For the record, this design predates the HoMM 6 implementation of boss monsters. I haven’t played either the demo or the beta, so I don’t know how HoMM 6 handles them.)
I think it would be fair to say that, in taking creatures from the world’s mythologies and making them available for recruitment in numbers, the HoMM games have taken the extraordinary and made it ordinary. Boss monsters are my attempt at reintroducing the extraordinary into the game, and hopefully keeping it that way. My intention is to use boss monsters to enrich the fantasy world with mighty yet elusive creatures and their lairs, and thereby stimulate awe and wonder of interacting with it.
Boss monsters are immensely powerful units (vastly more powerful than HoMM 3 Azure Dragon) that can only be encountered at special adventure map locations. They occupy a hefty chunk of the battlefield arena. They don’t stack, but exist in solitary fashion. This allows variation in basic attributes, so two boss monsters of the same type (two Behemoths, say) won’t be the same.
Boss monsters are aware of their immense power, so even if they join forces with a player, they will only take commands from a hero in battle if the hero has mastered the necessary (very advanced) skills. Until then, they will fight on the same side by exercising their own judgement. During this time, they won’t benefit from combat bonuses that the hero bestows on his troops. When boss monsters are fighting for a player, they need not be killed in order to defeat the player’s army. If the regular troops are defeated, depending on their nature, the boss monsters will simply leave or disappear.
Territorial beasts
Territorial beasts are the most straightforward example of boss monsters. Their name derives from the fact that each terrain type has a boss monster beast associated with it. They have many special abilities, most of which are not shared by other creatures. They live in special lairs that are uniquely suited to their abilities.
This is my list of territorial beasts:
• Titan [snow]: lives on Mount Olympus, atop Magic Clouds. It has Lightning immunity. It can draw on the storm clouds to cast Lightning Bolt, as well as strike units with its gladius, to generate the chain lightning effect
• Kong [jungle]: lives at the World Tree. It can travel across the battlefield by swinging on tree branches, it can climb on the tree to hide from ground-based melee attacks, and its landing causes tremors that inflict damage on non-flying units
• Colossus [desert]: a kind of Golem that resides at the Artificer’s Workshop. It has complete magic immunity, it can animate other objects found in the workshop to fight against its enemies, and, once destroyed, it disintegrates into smaller Golems that continue to fight
• Abomination [lava]: resides in The Void. It intimidates its enemies through Fear, Terror, Frightful Presence and Fright Aura abilities
• Erawan [grassland]: the many-headed white elephant from Hindu mythology. It knocks back units based on the distance of its run up, and is able to trample all land-based non-boss monster units
• Behemoth [dirt]: can pick up objects and hurl them across the battlefield, and pick up tree trunks to use them as clubs
• Kraken [sea]: can grip units with its tentacles, bash them against each other, throw them about, devour small unit stacks, and detach its tentacles when damaged
Elemental
It has always bugged me that elementals, which, to me, embody nature’s raw power, have been designed as such mediocre units.
In this design, Elemental is a result of the Force of Nature spell being cast at a high level of sophistication. It is immune to non-magical attacks. It disappears at the end of combat.
Elemental is able to occupy combat arena tiles simultaneously with material units. It attacks by simply moving across the battlefield, leaving devastation in its wake.
When the Force of Nature spell is cast at a high level of sophistication for all four schools of magic, the resulting Elemental has the ability to bring about Armageddon.
Elementals also occur in the wild, at special locations renowned for their high concentration of elemental power.
Archons
Archons serve as divine protectors of the factions that have been entrusted to their care. Each faction has one. Archons don’t reside anywhere on the map, but only materialise once summoned onto the battlefield.
In order to use an Archon, the following prerequisites have to be met:
• The player must build the Temple structure (very advanced) in at least one of his towns
• A hero of the same alignment as the town must visit the Temple structure
• The hero must now master the Divine Favour skill to be able to call on the Archon in battle
The Archon’s power is directly dependent on the power of the kingdom – the more powerful the kingdom, the more powerful its protector. Specifically:
• The Archon’s health is equal to the total number of units of the same alignment in all the kingdom’s armies
• The Archon can cast all the spells that are available in the mage guilds from the kingdom’s towns of the same alignment that have built the Temple structure
• The Archon’s attack, defence, spell power and knowledge attributes are equal to the sum of these attributes from all the kingdom’s heroes of the same alignment that have mastered the Divine Favour skill
• The Archon’s skills correspond to the skills of the hero who has summoned it
• The Archon’s special abilities derive from the shards that have been placed in all the kingdom’s Temples of the same alignment; shards must be of the same alignment as the Temple to be placed inside it
This means that a Human hero, for example, can only summon the Archon that is associated with the human faction (Angelic Archon), and that the Archon’s power is directly proportional to the power of the Human faction component of the player’s kingdom.
A Temple can only be activated to summon an Archon once per week.
(For the record, this design predates the HoMM 6 implementation of boss monsters. I haven’t played either the demo or the beta, so I don’t know how HoMM 6 handles them.)
I think it would be fair to say that, in taking creatures from the world’s mythologies and making them available for recruitment in numbers, the HoMM games have taken the extraordinary and made it ordinary. Boss monsters are my attempt at reintroducing the extraordinary into the game, and hopefully keeping it that way. My intention is to use boss monsters to enrich the fantasy world with mighty yet elusive creatures and their lairs, and thereby stimulate awe and wonder of interacting with it.
Boss monsters are immensely powerful units (vastly more powerful than HoMM 3 Azure Dragon) that can only be encountered at special adventure map locations. They occupy a hefty chunk of the battlefield arena. They don’t stack, but exist in solitary fashion. This allows variation in basic attributes, so two boss monsters of the same type (two Behemoths, say) won’t be the same.
Boss monsters are aware of their immense power, so even if they join forces with a player, they will only take commands from a hero in battle if the hero has mastered the necessary (very advanced) skills. Until then, they will fight on the same side by exercising their own judgement. During this time, they won’t benefit from combat bonuses that the hero bestows on his troops. When boss monsters are fighting for a player, they need not be killed in order to defeat the player’s army. If the regular troops are defeated, depending on their nature, the boss monsters will simply leave or disappear.
Territorial beasts
Territorial beasts are the most straightforward example of boss monsters. Their name derives from the fact that each terrain type has a boss monster beast associated with it. They have many special abilities, most of which are not shared by other creatures. They live in special lairs that are uniquely suited to their abilities.
This is my list of territorial beasts:
• Titan [snow]: lives on Mount Olympus, atop Magic Clouds. It has Lightning immunity. It can draw on the storm clouds to cast Lightning Bolt, as well as strike units with its gladius, to generate the chain lightning effect
• Kong [jungle]: lives at the World Tree. It can travel across the battlefield by swinging on tree branches, it can climb on the tree to hide from ground-based melee attacks, and its landing causes tremors that inflict damage on non-flying units
• Colossus [desert]: a kind of Golem that resides at the Artificer’s Workshop. It has complete magic immunity, it can animate other objects found in the workshop to fight against its enemies, and, once destroyed, it disintegrates into smaller Golems that continue to fight
• Abomination [lava]: resides in The Void. It intimidates its enemies through Fear, Terror, Frightful Presence and Fright Aura abilities
• Erawan [grassland]: the many-headed white elephant from Hindu mythology. It knocks back units based on the distance of its run up, and is able to trample all land-based non-boss monster units
• Behemoth [dirt]: can pick up objects and hurl them across the battlefield, and pick up tree trunks to use them as clubs
• Kraken [sea]: can grip units with its tentacles, bash them against each other, throw them about, devour small unit stacks, and detach its tentacles when damaged
Elemental
It has always bugged me that elementals, which, to me, embody nature’s raw power, have been designed as such mediocre units.
In this design, Elemental is a result of the Force of Nature spell being cast at a high level of sophistication. It is immune to non-magical attacks. It disappears at the end of combat.
Elemental is able to occupy combat arena tiles simultaneously with material units. It attacks by simply moving across the battlefield, leaving devastation in its wake.
When the Force of Nature spell is cast at a high level of sophistication for all four schools of magic, the resulting Elemental has the ability to bring about Armageddon.
Elementals also occur in the wild, at special locations renowned for their high concentration of elemental power.
Archons
Archons serve as divine protectors of the factions that have been entrusted to their care. Each faction has one. Archons don’t reside anywhere on the map, but only materialise once summoned onto the battlefield.
In order to use an Archon, the following prerequisites have to be met:
• The player must build the Temple structure (very advanced) in at least one of his towns
• A hero of the same alignment as the town must visit the Temple structure
• The hero must now master the Divine Favour skill to be able to call on the Archon in battle
The Archon’s power is directly dependent on the power of the kingdom – the more powerful the kingdom, the more powerful its protector. Specifically:
• The Archon’s health is equal to the total number of units of the same alignment in all the kingdom’s armies
• The Archon can cast all the spells that are available in the mage guilds from the kingdom’s towns of the same alignment that have built the Temple structure
• The Archon’s attack, defence, spell power and knowledge attributes are equal to the sum of these attributes from all the kingdom’s heroes of the same alignment that have mastered the Divine Favour skill
• The Archon’s skills correspond to the skills of the hero who has summoned it
• The Archon’s special abilities derive from the shards that have been placed in all the kingdom’s Temples of the same alignment; shards must be of the same alignment as the Temple to be placed inside it
This means that a Human hero, for example, can only summon the Archon that is associated with the human faction (Angelic Archon), and that the Archon’s power is directly proportional to the power of the Human faction component of the player’s kingdom.
A Temple can only be activated to summon an Archon once per week.
- hatsforclowns
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I would recommend calling it something other than "bosses." "Heroes, beasts, champions," whatever, just not "bosses."
Last edited by hatsforclowns on 19 Sep 2011, 20:54, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Heroic: boss monsters
Hum...must they?Groovy wrote: They occupy a hefty chunk of the battlefield arena.
I like the idea of bosses, in general. It gives certain identity to the being, rather than just numbers and numbers. But that can also be settled by having a general name (like a race) and then you create a Fiction name picking one of that kind but making it really special (like when you had special monsters in Diablo. There were zombies and then there was a unique zombie called Cold touch (or else), for example, much more stronger, with special abilities). Minotaur was supposed to be only one, just like cerberus. But Medusa, iirc, was 1 of 3 gorgons, sisters or something.
It's like creating a hero amongst the units. You can have then these Heroic Monsters; Territorial Monsters; Elementals; Anchons; and perhaps something older, greater, like part of the world itself, that can suddenly come to life and enter a battle whenever something is starting to overwhelm the world (e.g. general number of killed units on that month is too high, calling forth the "Death").
Hehe, Kraken is also present on my designs, some abilities really matching. Although they're the topmost unit from the Coral Abyss faction, not really a unique beast.Groovy wrote:Territorial beasts
This is my list of territorial beasts:
• Kraken [sea]: can grip units with its tentacles, bash them against each other, throw them about, devour small unit stacks, and detach its tentacles when damaged
Also think that Elementals are a bit undeveloped. The solution you gave looks nice.Groovy wrote:Elemental
It has always bugged me that elementals, which, to me, embody nature’s raw power, have been designed as such mediocre units.
Elementals also occur in the wild, at special locations renowned for their high concentration of elemental power.
Regarding Anchons, (I went looking for what anchon meant ) which is a good idea, I believe there are some balancing issues as I separated above on your quote:Groovy wrote:Archons
• The Archon’s health is equal to the total number of units of the same alignment in all the kingdom’s armies
• The Archon’s skills correspond to the skills of the hero who has summoned it
A Temple can only be activated to summon an Archon once per week.
- Health: I believe the number of units might get too favorable to some factions than to others. Unless some specific special abilties make the balance more fair, perhaps you can take the total of HP of all units and divide by 50, for example.
Skills: perhaps having Heroes skills at maximum cap?
Time: a week is too short for such feature, imho. It's difficult engaging enemies too often (I'm mainly talking about engaging enemy heroes), specially too strong which would compel you to procure such power. Maybe...15-20 days?
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2.
I thought it was natural for a mighty beast to look like a mighty beast.Panda Tar wrote:Hum...must they?Groovy wrote: They occupy a hefty chunk of the battlefield arena.
I like the idea of distinguished monsters. They give personality to otherwise nameless masses, especially if they actually behave like leaders in combat. But as you say, they are more like heroes than boss monsters.Panda Tar wrote:I like the idea of bosses, in general. It gives certain identity to the being, rather than just numbers and numbers. But that can also be settled by having a general name (like a race) and then you create a Fiction name picking one of that kind but making it really special (like when you had special monsters in Diablo. There were zombies and then there was a unique zombie called Cold touch (or else), for example, much more stronger, with special abilities). Minotaur was supposed to be only one, just like cerberus. But Medusa, iirc, was 1 of 3 gorgons, sisters or something.
It's like creating a hero amongst the units. You can have then these Heroic Monsters; Territorial Monsters; Elementals; Anchons; and perhaps something older, greater, like part of the world itself, that can suddenly come to life and enter a battle whenever something is starting to overwhelm the world (e.g. general number of killed units on that month is too high, calling forth the "Death").
Your suggestion of a primordial power has me intrigued. I don’t think that the boss monster concept suits it, though. Perhaps something that messes with the combat arena itself. Hmm... Let me think about it...
Much better. Thanks.Panda Tar wrote:
- Health: I believe the number of units might get too favorable to some factions than to others. Unless some specific special abilties make the balance more fair, perhaps you can take the total of HP of all units and divide by 50, for example.
Possibly. Not sure about this one. I kind of wanted to set apart good heroes and great ones.Panda Tar wrote:Skills: perhaps having Heroes skills at maximum cap?
That sounds like a good compromise. However, I’m tempted to think that, if we have to restrict the feature to such an extent, then we have a balance issue on our hands. I would prefer the decision of when to summon the Archon generally not to be a game-winning or losing one.Panda Tar wrote:Time: a week is too short for such feature, imho. It's difficult engaging enemies too often (I'm mainly talking about engaging enemy heroes), specially too strong which would compel you to procure such power. Maybe...15-20 days?[/list]
Yeah, finding a balance there might be a bit tricky. They must be important, but not like settling the game all the time. Hum...dunno, but there's also the idea of making Anchon a sort of State of Grace of a hero. A powerful aura of sorts that changes the hero temporaly. It's a bit like Naruto's Demon Fox Cloak. Just a thought.Groovy wrote: That sounds like a good compromise. However, I’m tempted to think that, if we have to restrict the feature to such an extent, then we have a balance issue on our hands. I would prefer the decision of when to summon the Archon generally not to be a game-winning or losing one.
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2.
Okay, got it! The Divine Favour skill can be seen as a skill that enhances the hero, in a way similar to Archon attributes above, but much less extreme. The town’s Temples can provide this kind of enhancement to all the heroes who use the skill continuously, in a sustainable manner. However, one of the heroes can also tap that power all at once, by summoning an Archon. This causes all the hero-level Divine Favour enhancements to cease until the Temples are able to recharge. So it’s a trade off of sorts.Panda Tar wrote:but there's also the idea of making Anchon a sort of State of Grace of a hero. A powerful aura of sorts that changes the hero temporaly. It's a bit like Naruto's Demon Fox Cloak. Just a thought.
How about a boss unit that increases in strength as time goes by, so it starts off at like a level 7 or so, but then gets tougher from there?
Also, I never liked the idea of elementals, so I came up with an alternative idea, Animentals, basically animal shaped elementals which would be by the old measure would be around tier 5+ in terms of basic strength, and could then be upgraded into tier 7 strength critters. I figured:
Fire: Lion -> Rakshasa
Water: Serpent -> Leviathan
Earth: Bear -> Behemoth
Air: Eagle -> Thunderbird
With possible additions of:
Light: Peacock -> Phoenix
Dark: Spider -> Shelob (or something like it)
Also, I never liked the idea of elementals, so I came up with an alternative idea, Animentals, basically animal shaped elementals which would be by the old measure would be around tier 5+ in terms of basic strength, and could then be upgraded into tier 7 strength critters. I figured:
Fire: Lion -> Rakshasa
Water: Serpent -> Leviathan
Earth: Bear -> Behemoth
Air: Eagle -> Thunderbird
With possible additions of:
Light: Peacock -> Phoenix
Dark: Spider -> Shelob (or something like it)
I was going to include boss monster toughening up with time in a way similar to how creature stacks grow in size on the adventure map. Is this what you had in mind?MattII wrote:How about a boss unit that increases in strength as time goes by, so it starts off at like a level 7 or so, but then gets tougher from there?
I’m not sure that I understand how this works. Are animentals available for recruitment in the town and exhibit weekly growth? Or are they unaligned? Assuming that you are using HoMM 3/5 tier measure, tier 7 wouldn’t make them powerful enough to serve as boss monsters.MattII wrote:Also, I never liked the idea of elementals, so I came up with an alternative idea, Animentals, basically animal shaped elementals which would be by the old measure would be around tier 5+ in terms of basic strength, and could then be upgraded into tier 7 strength critters. I figured:
Fire: Lion -> Rakshasa
Water: Serpent -> Leviathan
Earth: Bear -> Behemoth
Air: Eagle -> Thunderbird
With possible additions of:
Light: Peacock -> Phoenix
Dark: Spider -> Shelob (or something like it)
More-or-less, yes. Heck, maybe make this the basis of boss creatures, they don't stack, but to compensate, their individual strength improves as the game goes on.Groovy wrote:I was going to include boss monster toughening up with time in a way similar to how creature stacks grow in size on the adventure map. Is this what you had in mind?
Unaligned, no dwellings (in towns or on the map), not subject to numerical increase, but are to 'toughening up'. Basically, it was just an idea for some interesting, element-aligned 'bosses'.I’m not sure that I understand how this works. Are animentals available for recruitment in the town and exhibit weekly growth? Or are they unaligned?
Sort of, yes, but they only occupy "large" sized spaces, not the huge number normal bosses do.Assuming that you are using HoMM 3/5 tier measure, tier 7 wouldn’t make them powerful enough to serve as boss monsters.
I’ve been thinking about animentals. The idea seems to have a lot of potential. It actually makes sense to me to have animals develop in two directions – beastly and mystical. So, for example, a wolf could assume the form of a beast (Fenrir) or a spirit (Tengu). The two forms would have very different qualities. The wolf-beast would be oriented towards uncontrolled brute strength, whereas the wolf-spirit would primarily seek to enhance other units with the power of the wolf pack.
My only concern is with animals in their natural form. They are not all that exotic and don’t really fit into the fantasy setting. Compare leading an army of peacocks, eagles and bears with an army of phoenixes, thunderbirds and behemoths. The former just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Even an army of “ordinary” fantasy creatures like zombies, elves and goblins sounds more exciting to me.
Any ideas on how we can spruce animals up? Or do you think that it’s not a problem?
My only concern is with animals in their natural form. They are not all that exotic and don’t really fit into the fantasy setting. Compare leading an army of peacocks, eagles and bears with an army of phoenixes, thunderbirds and behemoths. The former just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Even an army of “ordinary” fantasy creatures like zombies, elves and goblins sounds more exciting to me.
Any ideas on how we can spruce animals up? Or do you think that it’s not a problem?
Oh the animal-names weren't supposed to be the creature names, just what the creatures looked like, so for example the Fire Animental is called just that, but looks like a lion.
As for sprucing up the animals, just find (or invent) mythical creatures based on it. For example:
Stag (charge bonus) -> Cerenan (corruption of Ceryneian) Stag (charge bonus, unlimited combat movement) / Qilin (charge bonus, breath attack, double damage vs. undead and demonic creatures)
Leopard (?) -> Panther (?, can become invisible, can move invisible, reveals itself when attacking) / Balam (from B'alam, Mayan for Jaguar) (?, kills at least one creature in each equal or lesser stack it attacks)
As for sprucing up the animals, just find (or invent) mythical creatures based on it. For example:
Stag (charge bonus) -> Cerenan (corruption of Ceryneian) Stag (charge bonus, unlimited combat movement) / Qilin (charge bonus, breath attack, double damage vs. undead and demonic creatures)
Leopard (?) -> Panther (?, can become invisible, can move invisible, reveals itself when attacking) / Balam (from B'alam, Mayan for Jaguar) (?, kills at least one creature in each equal or lesser stack it attacks)
Got you. That makes a lot more sense.MattII wrote:Oh the animal-names weren't supposed to be the creature names, just what the creatures looked like, so for example the Fire Animental is called just that, but looks like a lion.
In other words, try to stay away from ordinary animals and use similar-looking mythical creatures instead? Yes, that might be best.MattII wrote:As for sprucing up the animals, just find (or invent) mythical creatures based on it. For example:
Stag (charge bonus) -> Cerenan (corruption of Ceryneian) Stag (charge bonus, unlimited combat movement) / Qilin (charge bonus, breath attack, double damage vs. undead and demonic creatures)
Leopard (?) -> Panther (?, can become invisible, can move invisible, reveals itself when attacking) / Balam (from B'alam, Mayan for Jaguar) (?, kills at least one creature in each equal or lesser stack it attacks)
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