ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

One thing that I really enjoy when playing Tome is finding one of the 'stand out' mobs that cause you to change up your strategy, such as Umbral Horrors, Liches, Wyrms. Not necessarily out of sheer difficulty, but just because they behave in a way that most other mobs don't.
What's not so enjoyable is how many other mobs are dull blobs of health. Having a fair majority of mobs being something for players to mow down is definitely a good thing, but at times I think it goes too far. Some mob families could do with tweaks to make them stand out among the crowd:

Vampires - These are one of the biggest offenders. When you think of vampires, typically they're intelligent and highly dangerous foes. In Tome they're arguably less threatening than the average skeleton. They might be able to cast a weak spell or 2, or maybe land a stun, but even Vampire Lords have 1 threatening attack with Impending Doom and then nothing. Maybe they should be given some thematic abilities, such as the ability to grapple and drain life, a bite attack that inflicts bleed, bonus lifedrain against bleeding targets, and give them some Darkness/Cold themed spells at higher ranks. They could even get some Cursed abilities, things like Beckon and Dominate seem thematically appropriate.

Wights - Amusingly, in the code these are described as supposed to be hard. In reality, they might land a Confuse or Flameshock on you, and that's it. Their AI seems really bad, and apart from that initial status effect they don't seem to do much in addition to dying fast. On top of that, only the Emperor Wight is unique with Thunderstorm, the rest are identical apart from minor stat differences and skins. Wights seem to be themed around the whole mental disruption and being rare+scary, perhaps up the rarity and give them Gloom/Fear talents and maybe a few extra spells based on type?

Treant - I feel sorry for these. No real resistances, their health isn't any higher than something like a troll, deal fairly low damage and have absolutely no abilities. They could do with some general all-round stat increases, give them some basic attack abilities like Crush so they'll threaten in melee. For the whole Treant theme, I'd give them Nature's Touch, allow them to use copies of Mindstar attacks like Thorn Grasp/Leaves Tide without needing one equip. You could also have some stronger variations, such as Rimebarks with cold attacks, a Treant with a plant version of Stone Vines and so on.

Earth Elementals - Compared to their Air/Fire relatives, these feel alot weaker. While slightly durable, they never seem to actually hurt much and Constrict isn't exactly going to suffocate you. Maybe give them (the new and improved) Grappling talents or other Brawler attacks, and a handful of Earth/Stone spells?

I'd like to see if anyone else has other suggestions on making existing mobs more exciting and unique without increasing the difficulty too much.

I would find it more interesting, at the very least, if those Drake packs that you can find actually worked as a team. I'm nnot expecting military-grade precision, but perhaps having them share sight would boost their team unity. That way, if one sees you, they all detect you. Would that actually make them any different to fight, though?

The Vampires and Wights, I agree, should have some serious buffing done.

Treants, conceptually, feel like their supposed to be tough to fell, even if they can't exactly dish out damage like a Berserker. To me, anyway. Having them get a huge boost to health might just make them annoying, though...

The hatchling packs aren't bad at low levels as they deal fairly high damage and are quite resilient. They do get a little pointless later on though, so maybe some sort of stacking buff to their combat effectiveness if they're in close proximity on top of the shared vision. Maybe even give them a weak elemental spit or some sort of ability at 20-30+ so they can threaten ranged characters rather than being a speedbump.
Yeah, a mob that's just a big sack of health with no offence is bad. You could have them act as a supporter though, give them high health/regen, then lockdown abilities like pinning roots, let them heal/buff other mobs and so on. There's quite a lot of things you could do with the treant race.

Speaking of making the hatchlings more distinct i would love it if they looked different as well cause it is really weird how only the venom drakes look different. also i have a hard time telling storm and ice hatchlings apart.

I second the request for more visually distinct storm/cold dragons.

I would like to see an enemy that actually had a high regen - high enough so that they went from strong basic enemy to weak basic enemy if you had a heal reducing attack. Those kind of moves generally not useful enough, and I'd like to see more excuses for the player to use them.

Higher level Trolls could get better regen.

Could give Vampires a couple of Curses instead of Stun and Rotting Disease.

Wights should have more fear/mind affecting attacks. So Cursed/Gloom and Cursed/Fears stuff. Throw in Fear the Night as well for some damage? Or just stick with some of the Cursed/Punishments.

A Treant with Leaves Tide could be quite powerful. I approve. Could give Treants some armour as well.

I also like the idea of trolls getting much higher regen at high level. For flavour, you could even suppress the regen if they take fire/acid damage, or maybe that's just fond memories of D&D talking. Fire/Acid damage is also relatively easy to come by in the form of on-hit attacks and runes, so it'd give everyone an easy way to disable the regen if we went that route.
I think Wights should keep their elemental attacks, but maybe vary them abit. So some would have flame/lightning/vapours, stronger ones may also get fireflash or shock and so on. Then layer on the Gloom and Fear talents and you'd have a pretty scary encounter.

Personally, with the Emperor Wight's graphic, I expect it to also be effective in melee - 50% chance of cursing/hexing when it hits?
Maybe even apply a lesser effect of that to other wights?

Could give them the on-hit Gloom damage you get with some weapons, making them more dangerous in melee. Although yeah, Emperor Wights could do with something special. What about a pseudo-Arcane Combat to go with their elemental theme? Give them a chance to cast Lightning/Flame on strike.
So currently we have Emperor Wights with a couple of decent nukes and an annoying thunderstorm. New EWs will now be terrifying foes that apply multiple Gloom and Fear status effects, pelt you with elemental blasts as they close in, then layer on even more debuffs and lethal elemental bolts when they enter melee combat. Seeing as their flavour text is 'Your life force is torn from your body as this powerful unearthly being approaches', this certainly fits them better.

Am I the only person who thinks wights are already dangerous? They aren't exactly distinct, but they spam plenty of lightning already.

I like the idea of using gloom on hit instead of aura gloom since I think multiple gloom auras would get absurd. Perhaps give gloom to the Emperor Wight, and gloom on hit to the lesser wights to give the elite more distinction.

I'd also change the wight's lightning to a darkness beam for thematic reasons. Or maybe Blood Grasp for a life drain?


Somewhat on topic, though I don't have a particular monster in mind, I'd like to see some melee enemies which are harder to kite. I feel like ToME has a pretty huge gap between melee and casters which doesn't come from melee enemies being weak in melee, but from them being easy to kite. One idea that stands out to me is to simply have some melee enemies with high movement speed, not global speed which can't go too high without making absurd rares, but something with 200% movement speed while still being decently meaty. Another melee skill that could make a difference is being able to move around the player to trap him like when ghouls use their ghoulish leap, if some melees did that even in melee range only they could clear space for more melees trapped behind them and box the player in.

I think it's HousePet's Necromancy+ that makes barrow wights have a cooler spell selection (at least for minion wights). They have blood grasp, chain lightning, flameshock, glacial vapour, and mind disruption, IIRC. It somewhat sets them apart, but I still think they should go more for the gloom/fear stuff. Perhaps drop lightning from their repertoire in exchange for instill fear?

I'm not against making mobs more distinct, however I think attention has to be drawn to when some of these Mobs become Rares with additional skills.

Vampires might not be threatening outside of their Circle of Death - but combining them with some class Talents can make their arguably quite dangerous (I know I have at least 2 separate deaths due to Vampire Rares). Wights are much the same, along with any enemies that become rares with potentially dangerous talents. One also has to take into account that Enemies are encountered with others enemies and the manner in which they are presented - the Monster rooms in Dreadfall where you spawn something that can really cause you trouble along with 15 other Enemies are a lot different then say finding the Oozing Horror in a lone Hallway of Lake of Nur.

Additionally, with Vampires, you obviously have the sort of 'Vampire Hierarchy' present. I think it's fine if you have the Lesser Vampire and regular Vampire remaining sort of Weak. Making the Master, Elder, and Lord Vampires more distinct and powerful as you progressively go up the Hierarchy seems like a good conventional direction to go.