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Hints and Tips for Setting Mobs
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The first thing to know when creating a new mob, or editing an existing mob, are the commands. If you have the shortcuts made, you can use medit When you're making your mobs, you need to keep a few things in mind. First, what kind of an area are you writing? Do the mobs need to be strong or weak? The hitpoint/damroll suggestions here are just that: Suggestions. These will make moderately weak mobs.
Sanctuary, spec_cast, prot_evil/good:
Levels 1-48
The AC(armor class) listed here is what the END RESULT should be once the mob is loaded. You may need to play around a bit with the AC to get it correct. Also, this is the AC for everything but magic, which usually is a little lower.
The Damdice is what the mobs damroll is going to be. Try not to go overboard here. We don't want 50 level 300 mobs with damrolls of 500 wandering around everywhere. If you don't want your mob killed, just make it immune to everything (or to magic/weapon).
With hitpoints and damdice, try to use as many dice as possible, with as few sides as possible. This will make your mobs more stable hitpoint/damroll wise. It gets a little confusing to the mortals if a mob has 10000 hitpoints when they kill it one day, and 18000 the next. (It also tends to get rid of that annoying problem of having a mob be a snap for a character one kill, then suddenly almost impossible because they're getting hit so hard.)
Guidelines:
Level Specific HitPoint Generation
Levels 1-100:
When the mob is loaded, their hitpoints should be *roughly* their level squared. So, a level 5 mob would have 25 hitpoints.
Levels 101-200:
While 10k hitpoints isn't overly outrageous for a level 100 mob (level 100x100=10,000), 22,500 hitpoints at level 150 is a bit much (level 150x150=22,500). The easiest thing to do is to multiply their level by 100 for the total hitpoints.
Levels 201 and higher:
This is really personal choice how you do the hitpoints once you get this high. But a good rule of thumb would be the level squared x .75 .. So if it were a level 250 mob, you would use 250x250 which = 62,500, then take 75% of that (or multiply it by .75) which gives you 46,875 hitpoints. (Note: this would be an extremely LONG fight, trying to kill a mob with almost 50k hitpoints, especially if they're immune to anything. If you're going to add imm/res to any level 200+ mobs, please use the level squared x.50 so you only use 50% of the squared total. [i.e. level 250x250=62,500 - 50% of that = 31,250])
General Guidelines
There are a number of things you can do to make the mobs either easier, or harder to kill. A lot of vulnerabilities obviously makes for an easier mob. This is something we really want to avoid. However, we also want to avoid having too many mobs with a ton of immunities. No one is going to play in your area if *every* mob is immune magic and weapon.
These are probably the best rules I've found on setting the imm/res/vuln:
First: Not every mob has to have an imm/res/vuln!
Second: If you feel that a mob really needs one (for instance, Zeus would, logically, be immune lightning) then great. Use it. But this is *NOT* the case with vulnerabilities. Try to use vuln's sparingly. A good rule of thumb is: For every 2 immunities, set a vulnerability if you feel one is needed. For every 3-4 resistances, set a vulnerability if you feel one is needed. If you have 1 immunity and 2 resistances, then a vulnerability can be set if you feel one is needed. Please Note: This does not state that a vulnerability must be set every time you get 2 immunities. Simply that a vulnerability should not be set if you don't.
Third: Don't be a smartass. Making a mob immune *and* vulnerable to cold is pointless. Once they're immune, they're immune - no amount of vulnerability is going to change that. You're just giving yourself more work.
When you cast sanctuary on a mob, it does exactly what it would do to a player. Every hit does 50% of the damage it normally would have done. So, a 10k sanc'd mob, is going to take twice as long to kill as an UNsanc'd 10k mob. When a mob is going to be sanc'd, lower their hitpoints (by about 25% - make that 10k mob have 7500 hitpoints) so that they're not impossible to kill.
When a mob is set as spec_cast *any sort of breath and/or cleric/mage* they will usually do more damage than normal. Gas breath poisons, Fire breath burns inventory, Acid breath ruins eq, Frost breath freezes inventory and eq, and Lightning breath will freeze the victim so they can't move for 1-4 rounds. Cleric spells will plague, poison, blind, etc. the victim. Again, this makes the mob a little tougher to kill. Take off some of their hitpoints, maybe 10% (a 10k mob would then only have 9k).
The same general rule applies with protection evil/good. Again, if a mob is affected by these spells, players of good/evil align will do 1/4 the damage they normally would to the mob. Also, please remember, there is no protection neutral, so if the mob is set as neutral, the player can't cast any protection on themselves. So a neutral mob, with protection good and evil on it will do more damage than they would if they were of good/evil align. I don't recommend setting it this way, but if you must, please take off between 15-20% of the total hitpoints and/or lower the damage they do. If the mob is of a definate alignment (+500 to +1000/-500 to -1000) and you set a protection on them, take off between 5-10%.
How The Dice Work
Every time you set hitpoint/damage dice on a mob, use this format: XdY+Z
X = the number of dice rolled
Y = the number of sides per die
Z = the bonus on that mob.
For instance, lets say you have a mob that has 10D10+100 for their hitpoint dice. That means you're rolling 10 dice, with 10 sides on EVERY REPOP. All 10 of those dice *could* land on 1, leaving the mobile with 10 hitpoints. Or they *could* all land on 10, leaving the mobile with 100 hitpoints. The +100 is then added on to whatever the total roll is, giving the mob anywhere from 110-200 hitpoints.
Which is why, if you want your mobs to be relatively stable and repop with roughly the same amount of hitpoints every time, you need more dice with less sides. You could use 50d2+100 which would only give the hitpoints a range of 150-200 hitpoints. Or, to have a mob *constantly* repop with the same amount of hitpoints, you could do: 100d1+100. That way the mob would repop with 200 hitpoints every time.
Levels 50-98
Levels 100-148
Levels 150-212
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