Module talk:Table of monsters

It is necessary to check every single monster's stats using the online knowledge bots with @?? queries in Discord, ##crawl or in-game to update this page. I anticipate this will take a long time. A few notes as we go down the list:

• The XP value is ambiguous - I have checked it against multiple sources and each one seems to disagree. Therefore don't worry so much about updating the XP values.
• Holy vulnerability 2 doesn't exist. Please remove "Holy vulnerability" flags when holy is not explicitly listed in the @?? queries, and change any "Holy vulnerability 2" flags simply to "Holy vulnerability".
• Please check all monster information when updating an entry.
• Lich spellsets used to be randomised, and so lich and ancient lich information on articles does not display chances. The list of lich spells is found in Module:Monster, and I will do this later, unless someone else wants to do it first.

Thank you for helping to update this module, it is the most important module on this Wiki and affects a huge number of articles (including all of the monster pages, and several spell pages). The first few entries (specifically all those starting with uppercase A) have already been updated, as examples, and more will be over time, so when updating please leave an intelligible note in the summary box, and before you update, check which sections of the module have already been updated by looking at the page's history.

Finally, if someone could figure out how to automatically update this page, you would be very welcome - however the scripts for it are years out of date, so I don't have much hope for it.

--NormalPerson7 (talk) 15:05, 25 February 2018 (CET)

Technical help please

I am super unsure about what is wrong with the following entry for imperial myrmidon. I tried as much as I could to find the error, but I give up. I would appreciate someone looking at this for me please:

m["Imperial myrmidon"] = {
 Name = "Imperial myrmidon",
 Colour = "LightBlue",
 Glyph = "p",
 Tile = "[[File:Imperial myrmidon.png]]",
 Speed = "12",
 HD = 16,
 ["HD"] = 16,
 ["Average HP 10x"] = 750,
 AC = 1,
 EV = 21,
 Attacks = {
   {Damage = 30, Type = "Hit", Flavour = "Vuln"},
 },
 Holiness = "Natural",
 ["Item Use"] = {"Open doors", "Weapons armour", "Starting equipment"},
 Habitat = "Land",
 Spellsets = { 
   {
     {Spell = "Slow", Flags = {"Wizard",}},
     {Spell = "Confuse", Flags = {"Wizard",}},
     {Spell = "Agony", Flags = {"Wizard",}},
   },
 },
 Flags = {"Speaks flag", "See invisible flag", Warm blood flag",},
 MR = "60",
 Resistances = {},
 Vulnerabilities = {},
 Corpse = "Clean",
 XP = 1041,
 Size = "Medium",
 Intelligence = "Human",
 Genus = "human",
 Species = "human",
 Description = [=[A warrior initiated in the mysteries of a dying cult, dedicated to serve thrones long-fallen. Its blows strip away magical defenses, leaving its foes vulnerable to even the simplest hexes.]=],
}
--NormalPerson7 (talk) 22:39, 29 July 2018 (CEST)

Looks to me like everything's working normally? Well, apart from the fact "imperial" in the name isn't supposed to be capitalized, but I've already fixed that.

Sometimes the wiki takes a little bit to update after saving the edit, so maybe you were running into that delay? The only other think I can see is the spaces between the flags, but since the article is displaying normally for me, I don't think it matters if those are there or not. --spudwalt (talk) 03:03, 30 July 2018 (CEST)

Ge0ff applied the fix to this before you came to look at it. Thanks anyway; yes it's working fine now. If you look closely, more closely than I did in staring at this for half an hour (god this system is awful) then you will find I missed a single quotation mark on the Warm blood flag.

For now, no more action is required on this thread; at least for now. --NormalPerson7 (talk) 09:19, 30 July 2018 (CEST)

It's always that one missing punctuation mark, isn't it? And the "Script error" message you get when something goes horribly wrong is distinctly unhelpful for figuring out what went wrong.

Yaaaaaay coding. --spudwalt (talk) 19:15, 30 July 2018 (CEST)

Starting equipment and base stats

Recently several editors have started using AC/EV values from mon-data.h instead of values from the knowledge bots, and I don't understand why.

AC and EV from mon-data.h are just the base values, they are not really useful since some monsters have starting equipment. For example, Asterion's base stats are 4 AC/4 EV (see mon-data.h), but he always spawns with a leather armour/ring mail/scale mail/chain mail (see mon-gear.cc). Knowledge bots get the stats from the monster utility which creates 100 monsters of the requested type (with armour!) and then calculates the average values for AC, EV and XP. That's why you get "AC/EV: 10/1" for Asterion from the bots. A more extreme example would be orc warriors: the base stats are 0 AC/13 EV, but they always spawn with either a chain mail or plate armour, so the average values are 9 AC/10 EV.

I suggest that we continue using AC and EV values from the knowledge bots because those are more useful. Ge0ff (talk) 15:58, 8 August 2018 (CEST)

I had mostly been using the base values since we don't include any other equipment bonuses in the monster data tables (like weapons or cloaks, for example) and because a lot of monsters with armor can have different types of armor (orc priests, for example, can have anywhere from leather to chain (if I'm reading mon-gear.cc right), which will greatly affect how well various types of attacks work on them).

I personally would use the base values and then just kinda mentally compute the stats based on individual monsters' armor (okay, orc warriors in general just have 13 EV, but that one over there is wearing plate, so it'd have 10 AC and low EV), but I see your point about values that players are more likely to see being more helpful in general. What are other people's votes? --spudwalt (talk) 19:26, 8 August 2018 (CEST)

I think the best option would be to find a way to cite both AC/EV with no armour and AC/EV with standard armours for that monster, however this would require updating the script which converts this Module into the {{monster data}} template. If that is not an option, I would suggest using the base values is best and then making sure the article comments about the standard armour/equipment of the monster. I prefer this approach because monsters can have many different armours; for example you can find regular orcs wearing anything from robes to chain mail, and an orc in robes will have very different stats to one in chain mail - therefore quoting any particular average of these stats is not a good representation. For example, for orc warriors, you could write in the article, "Orc warriors that generate naturally wear either a chain mail or a plate armour, rarely with an ego. This means their actual AC is 8 or 10, for each armour respectively, and their actual EV is...".

Side note that is irrelevant to this discussion: monster max HP ranges are universally inaccurate at the moment; it only requires a simple knowledge bot search to find that, for example, hydras have max HP in the range of 54-88 instead of the 47-96 cited on the wiki. I don't know how to fix this. --NormalPerson7 (talk) 20:10, 8 August 2018 (CEST)

Having thought on this more and discussing this with Ge0ff, I think my preferred options in listed order are:

* Make a new template which shows monsters' standard starting equipment in detail, to outline the monster's stats for a particular armour and weapon

* Modify the script to show both base AC and average adjusted AC

* Show the base AC and clarify in the article what the adjusted AC values are and the monsters' standard armours

* Show the adjusted AC

--NormalPerson7 (talk) 20:41, 8 August 2018 (CEST)

I think that trying to summarize the AC and EV of a monster capable of wearing armour is not something that can easily be integrated into the stat table. Even the attack information is inadequate when the monster could be wielding a randart. For monsters that can wield weapons and wear armour why don't we just list AC as xx + armour, EV as yy - encumbrance, and Attack as zz + weapon in the stat table. A new table (and explaining text) called Weapons and Armour could be added under Useful Info or Tips and Tricks. The new table can describe the variety of gear the monster could spawn with and complement the individualized text in the existing sections. Creation of this table can be handled in the same way as the stats table included by all monster pages. A separate Monster Weapons and Armour page could be created to complement this table. This suggestion is not much different than how existing monster spells are handled --Wwf (talk) 08:52, 9 April 2022 (CEST)