Small becomes big

So the devs have discussed how they want to make combat against large creatures different, in that the monster will be able to hit multiple opponents at once.

What about the reverse : having a swarm of small creatures that can attack players, and which the player can also hit in multiples. For instance, swarms of small spiders. Insect swarms, as its been done in previous Ultimas. Swarms of rats. You could even have some diminutive humanoid/fomorian creature, like gremlins in Ultima, but could act as a small creature and swarm the player. If not gremlins (which I do like) then some other small creature from folklore, like trows, bogles, etc.

 

I was just discussing swarms last night. I'd like to see a swarm of some incredibly cute little creatures that make meep-meep and tribble sounds - ohh just so cute - but they have needle-like sucking tongues that can get between the chinks of your plate or chain armor. The best armor against them is leather. Maybe they even call out "Mommy!" when they die.

 

And what about monsters that have multiple parts that can each be defeated separately? Like, for instance, U6 had tangle vines; they had a central pod with vines extending from it. Martian Dreams had leviathans, which had a central maw with tentacles. I remember from LOTRO, trees would extend their roots to grab at you, and you had to kill their roots and then the trees. I imagine that the "root" spell could actually create a destructible root.

Plus, eventually, I think any injury system applied to players could also apply to monsters, and this would matter in fighting large monsters such as dragons. So you could injure their wings to ground them, for instance.

 

With the free attack mode I've noticed that the attack will hit all mobs in front of you, so far I've hit up to three with a single blow.

 

I personally cannot take a stick and hit multiple ants, so I am not favoring our avatars being able to do the same with small creatures with a single attack. I may hit a few ants with one swipe by luck but not skill.

 

Well it wouldn't be ants; it would be large enough that a blow at them would do damage, but small enough that they couldn't be targeted as single creatures. So lets say, just for conversation, they were as big as a rabbit. If you swung a mace or sword at a bunch of rabbits swarming you, it would definitely hurt more than one of them.

 

Like humans against trolls.

 

I don't know if that's an effect of the new free attack mechanic, but I've clearly noticed in R19 that even my locked deck attacks (especially magic "fists" and the Double Slash) already do damage to more than one mob, if they're very, very close together. I hit the targeted one and also (sometimes) damage the closest ones. Happened already a lot of times with wolf packs and tight groups of skeletons. I already try to "pull" groups so to have some of them overlap, and apply generous doses of hurt to the ones in the middle of the fray. It works!

 

Can we swat at a sworm of Tinkerbells?