The_Red_Hawk
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Remember this? The Deadliest Monster, now in JtRH version.

Last time it was tar followed by goblins. Will that change...or not?

Don't forget, the definition of "deadliest" is open to interpretation.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

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[Last edited by The_Red_Hawk at 10-30-2005 07:01 PM]

larrymurk
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I had to vote for wubbas because of their potential deadly/annoyingness.

Alneyan
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Serpents definitively. I can run away from 12 goblins, and kill them first chance I get; I can get killed by 12 serpents while running away first chance they get.

MeckMeck GRE
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Every monster can be deadly if its placed well. Even a roach or an evil eye. Also ,in a bad place, any monster is weak. So this poll is quite nonsense to be done the third time.

Roach / Tar Babie / Mud Babie / Spider :

+ You cant get round one (without killing it)
+ When brained, they can get quite annoying
+ Attak from multiple sides is dangerous
+ Only spider : invisible
- Easy to manipulate (out of mazes / in or NOT in traps...)
- In battle only strong in numbers and right formation
- No defense

Roach Queen :

+ Tricky to manipulate
+ Produces roaches
+ Hard to get (especially when brained)
- No offence

Tar (Mother) :

+ It cant always be removed to zero
+ It spreads fast
+ Beethro can be forced to use it as a shelter
- You get through quickly (Easy to cut)
- Mothers without wall/door shelter are cannon food

Mud (Mother) :

+ It spreads fast
+ Hard to cut
+ Mothers are often tricky to reach
+ Can envelope Beethro
+ Beethro can be forced to use it as a shelter
- Can always be fully remove

Snake :

+ Needs to be lured into a death end
+ Beethro can be forced to use it as a shelter
+ Complex movement
- Snakes cant kill each other


Rattlesnake :

+ Hard to kill
+ Snakes dont kill each other
+ Beethro can be forced to use it as a shelter
- Needs not to be lured into a death end

Wubba :

+ Blocks Beethros path
+ Little tricky to manipulate
- No offence
- You dont need to kill them

Rock Golem :

+ Blocks Beethros path when killed
+ Little tricky to manipulate
- No defense

Wraithwing :

+ Very complex movement
+ Flies over pits
+ Beethro can be forced to use it as blocker/snake killer
+ Great defense when alone
- Weak offense

Goblin :

+ Powerful offense/defense
+ Beethro can be forced to use it as snake killer
- Groups above 4 arent getting really stronger with more

Brain :

+ Increases all monsters offense/defense movement
- Can make some rooms easier
- cant move (so no offense/defense)

Guard :

+ Is armed with a sword
+ In groupes one backups each other
- Suicide-KI

Slayer :

+ Finds Beethro with his wisp
+ Beethro can be forced to "use" the slayer (orbs !)
+ Moves perfect (perfect defense/ok offense)
- Killable with mimics/decoys

Halph ( ) :

+ Opens/Closes doors
+ Can be moved
- Tends to do things Beethro dont want
- Cant be pushed
- Is killable


Ah, never mind, Ill vote annyway. A vote for the BRAIN !

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[Last edited by MeckMeck GRE at 10-30-2005 08:33 PM]

Chaco
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I'd have to vote brains, because they only exacerbate that whole multiple-fronts issue.

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Jacob
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MeckMeck GRE wrote:
Roach Queen :
- No offence

None taken

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Chaco
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No, you're thinking of "no offense". No offence is correct.

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Alneyan
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Offence would be the way Brits spell it (not only them, but I am feeling lazy), with offense being for the people not spelling it offence (I really am a slacker). "No offence meant" seems about as common as "no offense meant", so spelling does not change alongside meaning.

Methinks Jacob was just having a little fun.

StuartK
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I probably get killed by roaches more than anything else. There are also creature combinations (e.g. brained wubbas) that are also more dangerous than the individual creatures.

Oh, and two creatures are missing from the list...



Make that three, because guards/poppies are also missing.

And then there's scripting, which I suppose is a subset of 'nasty things an architect might do'

So really, the architect is the one who should come right at the top of the list, or maybe whoever is at the top of the highscores

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[Last edited by StuartK at 10-30-2005 09:55 PM]

Banjooie
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Don't forget that Rattlesnakes can render themselves invincible if they coil the right way.

The_Red_Hawk
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I think more votes are needed.

(well, now that I've remembered that this thread exists, since the Truthbringers is over)

Right now we have:

Goblins (9)
Wubbas (7)
Brains (6)

With tar at a lowly 1 this time round.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Banjooie
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....does anyone else find it amusing that one of the /winning/ monsters is one that can't actually kill you?

Bombadil
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Banjooie wrote:
....does anyone else find it amusing that one of the /winning/ monsters is one that can't actually kill you?

Let that be two monsters.

The_Red_Hawk
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Come on, people, it's still the same order!

Goblins 11
Wubbas 9
Brains 8

And tar is at 3. Come on...vote!

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

bradwall
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I think that too much depends on the situation you are in and what the goal of the room is. I mean, a roach (given certain circumstances) can be the most deadly.

mrimer
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Of course. I think a quantatative summary of what monster actually kills players most often would be illuminating. (I can't remember whether anyone has remarked on this before.)

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Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

eytanz
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mrimer wrote:
Of course. I think a quantatative summary of what monster actually kills players most often would be illuminating. (I can't remember whether anyone has remarked on this before.)

Well, you could always modify caravelnet to also upload death demos, and run statistics on them

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TripleM
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mrimer wrote:
Of course. I think a quantatative summary of what monster actually kills players most often would be illuminating. (I can't remember whether anyone has remarked on this before.)

That would end up being roach by a mile. I mean, theres far more roaches in rooms than any other monster. People would die from them often just from not being careful, even more so with the undo feature meaning you can be even less careful.

Chalks
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I vote brains! I would have voted for wubbas, but they don't actually kill you. You're the one who has to press the reset button.

goblins rank pretty high up on my list too.


edit: my list of deadliestness, that is.

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[Last edited by Chalks at 11-18-2005 04:46 AM]

Oneiromancer
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Chalks wrote:
I vote brains! I would have voted for wubbas, but they don't actually kill you. You're the one who has to press the reset button.

Well, technically, brains don't actually kill you either. The monsters they control do.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Znirk
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Well, technically, brains don't actually kill you either. The monsters they control do.

And now, of course, I need a new signature.

Alneyan
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I beg to disagree with you Oneiromancer. Wubbas have no property that would make dying more likely, so long as proper care is used with them; wubbas actually make it easier to kill other monsters, given the protection they offer. On this matter, we are in agreement.

However, I do believe brains kill people, even though they use other tools to reach this end (namely monsters). Let's consider two subjects fighting together: one of them is a talented brawler, whereas the other one is a puny [Insert any job except your own here] with no previous experience in fighting. The brawler is expected to win in a fair fight, given the difference in potential between the two individuals. If you were to give a tool to the other subject, the end result of the experiment would likely be different. While weapons are adequate tools, something like poison may be more relevant to our discussion: once introduced, poison requires no motion from any of the subjects, and works on its own.

Likewise, a sword or poison alone presents no threat whatsoever, until some evidence of swords moving around on their own volition can be produced. It is the combination of a tool and a subject that make them deadly, similarly to the combination of a monster and a brain. Killing someone thanks to poison still makes you a murderer according to law; so the brain can be held responsible for the murder of our delver. The above thesis requires that the murder could not have taken place without the introduction of the tool element: a dying subject is not killed because of poison, but because of all the previous wounds, and so the delver has to die because of the tactical involvement of the brain.

Thus, brains do kill people, albeit in a non-straightforward manner, in a similar manner to the use of weapons to kill people, or other similar factors. So long as the death was primarily caused by the tool, instead of underlying reasons not related to the subject doing the kill, the brain is indeed deadly.

I rest my case.

eytanz
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You know, I've found the argument convincing that wubbas aren't the deadliest monster - if I could change my vote, I would. I think wubbas are one of the most dangerous monsters - since being surrounded by wubbas is a major threat, but that's not what we were asked here.

That said, I don't accept that brains are the deadliest monster easier, for the simple reason that in about 50% of the brain rooms, brains help you kill monsters rather than vice versa.

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Mattcrampy
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Brains don't kill people, moving before they've thought things through kills people!

Matt,
contributing nothing to this thread.

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trick
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Alneyan, you're forgetting that monsters aren't brainless inanimate objects. Monsters have their own brain, most of them just don't know how to use it very well. They want to kill, but sometimes they don't know how. This is where Brains come in: All they do is showing the monsters how to do reach their victims; the monsters still have to carry out the actions themselves. Thus, while brains may be guilty of being an accomplice of the murder of delvers, the monsters are still the ones carrying it out, of their own free will.

Of course, there's also the question of who created that "free" will. Empire, I'm looking at you.

- Gerry

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[Last edited by trick at 11-18-2005 01:00 PM : stuff]

Alneyan
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Aha! But how do you know monsters do have a brain, and an in-bred instinct to kill Beethro? The prosecution seems to be going a bit too far here. Monsters are innocent of all the murders that have been committed of all. Would the present court dare jail a sword because it was used in the slaughter of a man? I think not, as shown in the previous rulings that...

Notice that Beethro himself said something about brains being a sinister influence in dungeons, and quite responsible for all the dangers involved in delving (KDD 2.0, the End). Surely his testimony cannot be dismissed so easily? I suspect he is correct in his assessment: brains control all the monsters in the dungeon, but they need to be nearby to provide their minions with tactical support. The very presence of brains instill malice in the hearts of otherwise friendly goblins, mothers, and so on and so forth.

Evidence to backup this claim include, but is not limited to, the creation of the so-called monsters by human beings, and the impossibility of controlling the brain of other people (that would be psionics, as of yet unsubstantiated). Most, if not all, monsters are merely artificial creatures, obviously built by someone else, and are not actually living beings. As such, it seems safe to assume they cannot and do not have a brain of their own. If they had, how could a brain override their own thought processes, and supplement them with the killer instinct so often witnessed in the Beneath?

Stay tuned for our next exciting program, "What are the thoughts of a rock golem once it has been smashed down by a delver?"

trick
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You make some good points, my good sir. However, if your theories were correct, why do the different monster types all behave in different ways ? If we for a moment assume that you are correct, and all monsters are indeed completely controlled by these Brains, why do not brained roaches behave like brained goblins ? Why do not the Brain always choose the best logic for any individual monster in the situation at hand, regardless of monster type, in stead of resorting to what is often inferior behavior ?

No. The existence of Roach Queens alone should be proof enough that these creatures are not merely hollow shells whose sole purpose is to be controlled by some external entity; obviously roaches are able to reproduce, and are therefore living organic creatures, ergo they must have a brain.

Further, it is documented that Goblins live in little houses, carve wooden figurines, and have a king. In this years Film Festival, it was also shown that these creatures go to school (note; it was also shown that roach queens argue with brains). Surely this sort of behavior suggests that goblins have a brain of their own ? Yet, goblins' behavior clearly changes in the presence of a Brain. How can this be explained if not by psionics ?

- Gerry

Alneyan
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Sir, your comments are utter floccinaucinihilipilification. Hey, it's not everyday that you get to use this word.

Brains have been described as being "extremely malevolent creatures" in the classical study known as the Choice. There, brains operate a whole hold for their nefarious purposes, and their possession abilities go so far as to allow them to make statues speak (this particular behaviour has been evidenced in other holds). By your reasoning, statues have a brain and existence of their own, while this clearly appears not to be the case at all.

The link between statues, brains, and society is obvious. Brains have a very limited social life, since they cannot move to begin with. Therefore, all manifestations of social instincts to be found in other creatures are merely the projection of such desires coming from the master brain. Delvers seldom see such behaviour because they are a major disturbance in hold life. If it were possible to observe a hold without being noticed, we would certainly notice that your examples, far from being anecdocts, are the norm, disturbed by the involvement of a delver.

I am of the opinion that roach queens act as tar mothers, and nothing else. Tar is merely an extension of the mother; so roaches are the projection of the queen. Notice how the queens alone can reproduce, and their offspring cannot: if roaches were natural creatures, there would be a way for them to reproduce. Every single study carried out in the field has reported that roach queens have never given birth to another roach queen, and roaches, of course, cannot reproduce. However, the Beneath Census Bureau has noticed that the number of roaches was at least stable over the years, despite the wholesale slaughter of queens. Therefore, an outside force is creating new queens to bolster the number of roaches; roaches would be extinct otherwise.

Your last point concerns the diversity of behaviours witnessed among monsters. Several theories exist regarding this matter:
- Brains live in solitude, and thus have likely developped mental pathologies. Renowned psychologists believe brains suffer from a multiple personality disorder, and so regard themselves as several, distinct individuals with their own operating mode. The roach personality will be direct and to the point, unlike the more cunning goblin personality, and so on.
- There is a hierarchy between brains, with lesser brains presiding over the least threatening creatures, and on top of the ladder, the master brain rules over all other brains. This theory helps understand why brains sometimes make tactical mistakes: not all brains are created equal.
- Different movement patterns allow for a greater chance of killing the offending delver. However, why would brains limit themselves to two movement patterns per creature in this case? Full randomness would work a lot better, and does not seem any harder to achieve.
- Brains were created with certain limitations in mind, thereby allowing their ultimate defeat. The Creators certainly did not wish their guests to be doomed to failure; they merely wanted to discourage them, while still making victory theorically achievable. Holds are indeed made to be very secure, but *someone* has to beaten them sooner or later ("who" this might be has been the subject of much discussion of late). Therefore, brains cannot be given green card to smite the intruders, for they would set up a perfect hold otherwise.
- Brains have a pretty foul personality, and cannot get along with their minions, and their fellow brains. Some evidence support this claim, but further research needs to be conducted in this field before we can reach a conclusion.

Znirk
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Alneyan wrote:
brains kill people, even though they use other tools to reach this end (namely monsters).[...] brains do kill people, albeit in a non-straightforward manner, in a similar manner to the use of weapons to kill people, or other similar factors [like e.g. poison].

Heh. Feature request: iocaine powder potions in brained rooms ... and a special "Incontheivable!" death sound for the delvers who fall for them.

trick
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My dear chap Alneyan, your comments are honorificabilitudinitatibus, but unfortunately their level of watertightness is on the level of a cruise ship made out of poor quality copy paper, sailing its maiden voyage in icy waters.

It is true that statues haven't been observed to move around by themselves or indeed show any sign of life unless possessed by a Brain like you describe, but that does by no means mean that statues aren't living creatures with a mind of their own. It has been observed that Rock Giants can stand completely still for unmeasurable periods of time, appearing like a -- yes, a statue, until something prompts them to move. What we call statues may simply be a different species of living creatures waiting for something we are not aware of -- what that may be we may never know. In any case, there is no evidence that they are not as living as you and me.

Also, by your logic, our world's mules are unnatural creatures lacking a brain, because they cannot reproduce. In any case, it has not been proved that roach queens are unable to give birth to other roach queens -- the fact that it hasn't been observed only suggests that it doesn't happen very often, or in the presence of observers (somewhat like statues, I might add). My theory is that roaches are in fact closely related to our ants; their queen constantly spawn new workers but only rarely does a new queen see the light of day. This does not even suggest that roaches are not natural living creatures, of course.

As for your theories about Brains, I choose not to point out that, while they are interesting and intriguing in their own way, they are also pure speculation and you can't prove anything, so there.

- Gerry

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[Last edited by trick at 11-18-2005 04:34 PM]