DataType: "MO", File: lists/monsters.txt
This file lists all the monsters that appear in the game. You may have up to 255 monsters in your adventure, but keep in mind that each one adds about 60 bytes to your game. The following fields must be provided, in order, for each monster:
- Monster ID (0..255). Must be sequential, start at zero, and have no gaps or duplicate id numbers.
- Monster Name (must be given in quotes). There are three possible formats for monster names:
- Single word name, less than 10 characters (“GHOUL”)
- Two word name, less than 10 characters (“GIANT ANT”)
- Two or more word names greater than 10 characters must be made to fit on at most two lines, where each line can hold up to 9 characters. (“GOBLIN#GUARD”, “THREE WORD#NAME”). You must supply a '#' (newline) character in the spot where you want to split the two-line name.
- Tile ID (0..255)
- Chance (0..255). Chance of 0 means the monster does not appear in a random encounter. Postitive chance values are all relative, and you can use any scale you want. If you give every monster a chance of “1”, then they all have an equal chance of appearing (in places where they can appear). If you give every monster a chance of “100”, then they still all have an equal chance to appear. But if you choose to give one monster 50 and another 100, then the one with 100 is twice as likely to get picked (in places it can appear) than the one with chance of 50.
- Physical damage (0 .. 255). This is the damage done when the monster is successful at a melee attack.
- Fire damage (0..255) This is the fire damage done when the monster is successful at a melee attack. Note that fire damage is always reduced by the target character’s fire resistance before being applied.
- Magic damage (0..255) This is the fire damage done when the monster is successful at a melee attack. Note that magic damage is always reduced by the target character’s magic resistance before being applied.
- Summons (“-“ or 0..max monsterID). If “-“ then the monster cannot summon another monster. Otherwise, if any number is given, that monster will be able to summon that monster ID during combat.
- Spell1: (“-“ or 0..max spellID). If “-“ then no spell is known. Otherwise, monster will be capable of casting the given spellID.
- Spell2: (“-“ or 0..max spellID). If “-“ then no spell is known. Otherwise, monster will be capable of casting the given spellID. Note that spells should fill the earlier slots first. That is, you should not give a monster who knows only one spell a spellID in the Spell2 slot.
- Spell3: (“-“ or 0..max spellID). If “-“ then no spell is known. Otherwise, monster will be capable of casting the given spellID. Note that spells should fill the earlier slots first. That is, you should not give a monster who knows only one spell a spellID in the Spell2 slot.
- Range (1..7) Monster appears at distance of 10’ to 70’
- Monster hitpoings (1..65535)
- Monster AC (-15..15)
- Monster’s fire resistance (0..99). Any character’s fire attack is reduced according to the monster’s fire resistance.
- Monster’s magic resistance (0..99). Any character’s magic attack is reduced according to the monster’s magic resistance.
- Minimum number of monsters appearing in a random encounter group (1..15)
- Maximum number of monsters appearing in random encounter group (1..15)
- Special flags:
- 0 = no flags
- 1 = Monster travels alone and cannot be encountered with other monster groups.
- 2 = Monster is imaginary and can be dispelled
- 3 = Enable both flags 1 and 2
- Monster level (1..99) Monster level is only used to compute whether an attack is successful. See the level/AC chart in the DBII documentation for more information.
- Monster dexterity (1..99) Used to determine order of attack.
- Special damage (0..255) Bit field representing special damage types the monster is vulnerable to. If zero, then monster is vulnerable to all types of damage. Otherwise, monster can only be damaged by weapons who’s special damage mask matches the monster’s vulnerabilities. In Return of Kra’an, only one monster and one weapon used this field. Kra’an had a special damage of 1, and the Dragon Bane sword (completed) had a special damage field of 1. Note that means the sword can damage any monster with special damage of 0 or 1, but Kra'an could only be damaged by a weapon with special damage of 1. You may use this to create any number of intersecting or non-intersecting sets of special monsters and weapons for added play-balancing control.
- Plural form of monster name (0..5) Refer to text_interface.txt for TEXT_PLURAL0..5. Theses plurals can be changed if you have monsters that require special cases, or for foreign language plural forms. The Dragon Bane II engine can remove ending characters from the singular form before appending the plural suffix if you include the special "." character in your plural form.
- 0 = "S" ("WARLOCK" -> "WARLOCKS")
- 1 = "ES" ("WITCH" -> "WITCHES")
- 2 = ".VES" ("WOLF" -> "WOLVES")
- 3 = "..EN" ("BEAKMAN" -> "BEAKMEN")
- Gold (0..9999) Amount of gold rewarded to party for killing one monster of this kind.
- Experience (0..9999) One tenth the amount of exp rewarded to party for killing one monster of this kind. Experience of 100 means you are awarded 1000 exp for each monster killed.
- Level bitfield. A string of 32 bits representing which maps the monster can appear on. A "0" indicates the monster does not appear in random encounters on that map, and a "1" indicates it can be picked (according to its "chance") in random encounters.
Example:
## "SEG2-678901234567890123456" bitmap chance damage fire magic summons spell1 spell2 spell3 rng HP AC fire magic min max flags level dex spcl plurl gold exp 01234567890123456789012345678901
0 "GIANT#ANT" 55 20 4 0 0 - - - - 1 9 8 0 0 2 5 0 1 16 0 0 0 4 01100000000000000000000000000000
1 "BLACK#BEAR" 58 20 6 0 0 - - - - 1 18 7 0 0 1 2 0 1 13 0 0 0 6 01000000000000000000000000000000