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[Captain Mayday]

I've decided to share the method to changing a few currently existing creatures.
You can add the following to Bears and Cats to allow them to swipe with their claws. It's a bludgeoning attack, but could be changed to SLASH if you wanted.
   [ATTACK:MAIN:BYTOKEN:LH:swipe at:swipes at:1:3:BLUDGEON][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
   [ATTACK:MAIN:BYTOKEN:RH:swipe at:swipes at:1:3:BLUDGEON][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]

You can also modify the dragon, to be a bit more dangerous. Here's my dragon.
[CREATURE :DRAGON]
   [NAME:dragon:dragons:draconic]
   [TILE:'D'][COLOR:2:0:0]
   [MODVALUE:50]
   [DRAGONFIREBREATH][FIREIMMUNE_SUPER]
   [FANCIFUL]
   [MEGABEAST]
   [GENPOWER:5]
   [FREQUENCY:5]
   [PETVALUE:10000]
   [GRASSTRAMPLE:50]
   [BONECARN][PET_EXOTIC]
   [BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
   [NOFEAR]
   [LIKES_FIGHTING]
   [PREFSTRING:terrible majesty]
   [BODY:HUMANOID_REPTILE:TAIL:2EYES:NOSE:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:THROAT:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN]
   [BODYGLOSS:CLAW_FOOT:foot:claw]
   [BODYGLOSS:TALON_FOOT:foot:talon]
   [SIZE:20]
   [ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:HEAD:bite:bites:1:6:GORE][ATTACKFLAG_CANLATCH]
   [ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:GRASP :swipe at :swipes at:1:2:SLASH][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
   [FAT:10]
   [ALL_ACTIVE]
   [BIOME_ANY_LAND]

You will also need to add the following to body_default.txt

[BODY:HUMANOID_REPTILE]
[BP:UB:upper body][UPPERBODY]
[BP:LB:lower body][CON:UB][LOWERBODY]
[BP:HD:head][CON:UB][HEAD]
[BP:RUA:right upper arm][CON:UB][LIMB]

[BP:LUA:left upper arm][CON:UB][LIMB]

[BP:RLA:right lower arm][CON:RUA][LIMB]

[BP:LLA:left lower arm][CON:LUA][LIMB]

[BP:RH:right hand][CON:RLA][GRASP]

[BP:LH:left hand][CON:LLA][GRASP]

[BP:RUL:right upper leg][CON:LB][LIMB]

[BP:LUL:left upper leg][CON:LB][LIMB]

[BP:RLL:right lower leg][CON:RUL][LIMB]

[BP:LLL:left lower leg][CON:LUL][LIMB]

[BP:RF:right foot][CON:RLL][STANCE]

[BP:LF:left foot][CON:LLL][STANCE]

Bear in mind that this stops the front claws from behaving as legs.

[ September 21, 2006: Message edited by: Mayday ]

[Captain Mayday]

I recently found myself in the ridiculous situation of a single man slaying a hydra. This came about when the man in question, a spearman, managed to stick it in the neck and kept twisting.

Effectively this made the hydra pass out after a bit, and then bleed out.

I have now added the following to the Hydra to stop this happening again. After all, they're supposed to have amazing regenerative powers.

[NOPAIN][NOBLEED]

[aeroue]

This is just my opinion but....

A hydra would surely die after having a spear put in its neck and twisted around. And how would it regenerate WHILST the spear was in its neck. And why would it not bleed?

[Captain Mayday]

The problem is a Hydra has 7 heads, and is rather enormous. Traditionally, a head struck off would regrow. In more recent myth, it would also regrow double.

The [NOBLEED] solution is not optimal, however, and is currently a workaround at best. Effectively I have done this in order to prevent the death of a titanic creature to a single lucky strike. The hydra bled out awful fast and didn't put up anything resembling a fight.

You could always remove [NOBLEED], and leave [NOPAIN] so that the Hydra never passes out from the wound and will therefore keep fighting. However, at the moment, it would just keep bleeding until it died, as there's no 'rapid healing' sort of tag to prevent this.

[Aquillion]

Killing it with a spear makes sense to me, though.  None of the myths mentioned anything about hydras being immune to bleeding or pain; it's just that the heroes back then were too stupid to take advantage of this, and kept trying to cut off its heads even though that was the one thing it was actually protected against.

Personally, I think choking a hydra to death would be more fun...  although you'd probably have to choke each of its seven heads.

[Abyssal Squid]

I always thought immunity to pain was common to all mythical monsters.

[Aquillion]

Not so.  Grendel gave in to pain and fled when Beowolf wrestled with him and ripped off his arm.

After Heracles defeated the Hydra, he dipped his arrows in its venomous blood, and the intense pain caused by that venom proved useful in many of his other tasks, and was described in detail.  It would eventually, of course, claim Heracles himself.

The pain of Nessus the centaur as he was killed by these arrows was described in detail, and when the immortal centaur Chiron was struck by one, the agony it caused him was so great that he gave up his immortality to escape it.

Heracles also strangled the Nemean Lion which, while not specific to pain, generally requires something along those lines to be feasible.  Such a strategy will, in any case, certainly be familiar to any Dwarf Fortress fans.

The pain of the cyclops Polyphemus when blinded by Odysseus is also mentioned.

Hmm...  while not pain, exactly, the Japanese hero Susanoo slew the eight-headed dragon Orochi by getting it so drunk that it fell asleep, then slicing off all its heads.

In one version of his myth, the Hittite dragon Illuyanka is killed by the same ruse...

The dragon Smok Wawelski was defeated by a cobbler's apprentice, who fed it a lamb stuffed with sulphur.  The pain this caused the dragon was so great that it drank itself to death trying to wash the sulphur out of its mouth.

[PNB]

very simple, strike at the base of the neck, hydra is screwed, its head isn't removed so it can't get more, and the blood will keep flowing out, so it is valid.

[Captain Mayday]

Like I said, it isn't an optimal solution, but the Hydra shouldn't be able to be killed in a single blow. Where's the fun in that?

[Aquillion]

Eh.  I get that it's just a temporary measure to try account for the fact that more complicated abilities aren't in yet, but I still don't like the idea of it.  If you follow that route, soon anyone who wants to make a strong creature whose proper abilities aren't represented by the game will be giving it [NOBLEED] and [NOPAIN] instead, and they'll become like poison resistance or stat-reduction resistance in most console RPGs, where you end up with one set of rules for normal enemies and one set for bosses.  That doesn't strike me as the Dwarf Fortress way...  a game should be able to make tough opponents without having to invoke, basically, DM fiat to inexplicably protect them from skills that the player legitimately possesses.  Doing that cheapens the battle system and gives a general aura of fakeness to the entire game universe.

Bleeding and pain are major, major parts of the DF combat system.  Immunity to them probably shouldn't be given to anyone but monsters with clear, straightforward reasons as to why they'd have no blood or no functional nervous system, respectively, or some equivalent explicit magical protection against those dangers.  (Like Excalibur's scabbard for bleeding, I suppose.)

[Telok]

Well the game isn't finished so we'll live with the pain/blood for a while. Although it would be nice to have regeneration as a critter option.

On a different track does anyone know how to increase the birth rate of a critter? I have a nice little monster, slightly weaker than an untrained dwarf peasant, that should fight by overwhelming mob attacks. I have it working pretty well but it needs to breed so I don't have to dump 60+ of them on the map at once.

I'm sort of hoping to eventually get them spawining in clumps of 20 to 50 and breeding at a rate of 1 child per 10 adults every three to five minutes.