From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Subject: Re: Intelligent opponents:Dragon
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
	<Qen9xn200Uh_051CEr@andrew.cmu.edu>
	<1992Oct5.120254.13349@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>
	<1992Oct7.004210.15057@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU>
	<1992Oct7.015837.43652@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
	<1992Oct8.031237.15843@eng.ufl.edu>
	<1992Oct8.144022.29006@Princeton.EDU>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:29:04 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.144022.29006@Princeton.EDU> tao@ginger.princeton.edu (Terry Tao) writes:

   However, perhaps the dragons themselves spread stories of easy kills and huge
   loads of treasure.  After all, the treasure has to come from somewhere... (this
   is for incredibly cruel DMs only).

Hooo, this one's low... but i guess it's real, too (some dragon like human
flesh... particlularly knight's flesh -canning keeps food fresh longer!-)

   One thing I liked in other posts was the use of other dragon weapons: wings,
   tails, roar.  claw/claw/bite/breath is after all, not much different from other
   monsters (except for the breath).  I can imagine fire-resistant munchkins, with
   armor that protects against piercing weapons like the claws, suddenly assailed
   with dust storms and sonic vibrations.  A good dragon will always have a
   variety of attacks: the red dragon (which I keep using as an example) will know
   the danger of having mainly fire attacks, and will keep, say, a cauldron
of green
^^^^^^^^
   slime, and some heavy boulders, pit traps, etc in strategic places.  Plus there
   may be an entire tribe of small creatures (E.g. salamanders, fire lizards) who
   cohabit with the dragon and maybe even worship it.  As mentioned before, an
   entire horde of humanoids can be a lot worse than one single big monster.

 Why do everyone (or is it the same guy?) trip so much about GS?

It's a CREATURE, for god's sake, not a PLANT! This thing CAN move. Else it
couldn't go onto a ceiling to fall over passing adventurers. It just moves
so damn slowly...

But it moves FASTER than one inch per hour, that's for sure. Because
otherwise random dungeon's monsters (remember those "random encounters
tables?) would find it a problem when one GS blocks an important passage...
scraping it off is hard, since it's jelly-like... you must burn the rest of
it and be sure not make a false move with that wooden bucket (remember that
we always tend to fumble more when we're nervous...).

I'd say that at most a week must pass for the GS to climb to a ceiling. And
that's not such a good rate, because to survive in a hostile environment
(i.e. the dungeon denizens DON'T want a GS in their lair, for instance), it
must be able to re-hide itself quite fast in order to noty be burned by
simple retaliaton. Presently, I use a move of 1/600. Every hour, it can move
one feet. In a night's sleep it can thus get back to his ceiling, or escape
from the cauldron. In a full day, it can move 20 feets (it isn't always on
them ove and 20 is easier to handle than 24...). By the way, doesn't a GS
eats through metal??? Bye bye cauldron! So, unless your dragon come check
on things every few hours, the GS will continually get out of it's "trap".
Remember, it can "climb" most surfaces...

Try to make the GS quasi-immobile. Say, one feet per week...

If a GS can drop on an adventurer from above, then it MUST be able to move.
If it moves to slowly, and the dungeon is inhabited by creatures that don't
know that the GS is there, then with the frequency of their passing the
green slime will never have time to climb back the wall. also, it will be
easily discovered and destroyed after the initial attack on it's victims.
And if they don't attack it, well they must scrape it off with wooden
instruments to be able to pass, and then put it in another region of the
dungoen entirely. Anyway, GS isn't supposed to be common. A dragon could
have one, yes (tough I wonder how it will control it...)... maybe.

If you make the GS be THAT slow, then you should seriously consider have
the GS appear on the SIDE of the wall also, because it takes him so log
getting up. And from the picture in MM1, it's clear that the creature CAN
move, even if it`s very slowly.

I make a minimum speed of 1/600" to be the maximum acceptable result.
Maybe 1/60 would be even nicer, since it then could move 10 feet every
hour... thus being able to sometimes attack the PCs if they put no one on
guard (80 feet in a 8 hour resting period, if it moves at max speed, is
just enough to have it appear it the middle of the night, the climb the
room's ceiling, and drop on the PCs just before they wake up.... he he
he.). After all, if the PCs are so foolish as to put NO ONE on guard for an
entire night, they deserve it!

Moving 10 feet per hour is moving 2 inches per round, or 1/30 inch per
second if you use one-minute rounds (like I do outside of combat). At this
rate, it is possible to notce movement, though just barely.

My best rate is 1/10"... i.e. 1 feet per round. or 1/5 inch per second,
whatever you like. IDEAL for replacing those old "You are trapped between
two walls, and one of them is slowly grinding it's way toward you all"
traps... he he he.








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