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[Chevaleresse]

[complaining ahead, be warned]


Bogeymen are bullshit.


They completely bar a new adventurer from traveling at night. There's no real reason for them to be as powerful as they are, especially given the obscene difficulty of finding equipment sized for one's character (armor being the only way to survive a bogeyman attack; dodging can have you moving back toward(!) the pack of bogeymen you're fleeing) and getting to decent combat skill in general without resorting to mind-crushingly boring things like knocking out a squirrel's teeth with a whip, breaking every bone in it's body, then finally putting the critter out of it's misery with a lash to the head. DF already has an uncomfortable amount of RNG involved in the combat; enemy attacks could target your shield arm, your head, or your left toe, then they have a chance to hit, and that hit could bruise, shatter bone, sever the part, or be deflected by the *cat leather sock*.


To cite what prompted this complaint, I was actually having an enjoyable adventure. I managed to defeat a goblin ambush singlehandedly, having accidentally drowned by companions. The map goes screwy and I can't find the fort I had just been to, so I go to the nearest village, except it wasn't a village, it was a huge-ass area of silt and a few roads labeled as a village. Night falls, and I am "surrounded by incessant cackling." Cue about twenty minutes of careful running, in which I actually managed to injure a couple due to my superior speed, ended by a punch to the head that "bruised" me but instantly knocked me out. Eight kicks later, my skull gets caved in. Adventure over.

[Xvareon]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Campfire

Use campfires to create barriers to give you an edge against Bogeymen. Campfires can be created instantly by pressing the 'g' key (by default), and then the key corresponding to a tile adjacent to your character you want to build it on. Walking into a tile occupied by a campfire is not possible, and they cannot be destroyed. Completely surrounding yourself with campfires will make it so that Bogeymen cannot path to you, giving you time to wait out the night. All you need to do at that point is mash the . key or stand up/go prone repeatedly until either the fires go out, or dawn breaks.

I do agree, though... Bogeymen are naaaaasty. I always travel with at least a few armed companions with my usual adventurer, Curgen Darkwhisper, though, so they don't bother me at all. As soon as I get a full set of metal armor, though, I'm ditching the riffraff and braving the night. If you kill all the Bogeymen, the event will end anyway -- or so I've heard.

RETURN TO THE SHADOWS, THOU FOUL SPAWN OF FOG MACHINES!

[Arcvasti]

Plus, you can [j]ump through campfires now, so you aren't even immobilixing yourself that much. If they're THAT annoying[Which they are], just use advanced world gen and set bogeymen types to 0. That's usually my method of dealing with them.

[Chevaleresse]

This is in 34.11, though I don't believe bogeymen have changed. The game doesn't allow me to make campfires while in combat, and the one time i did so preemptively, they burned out at 2 AM and I "died in the night."

[lue]

A couple things:

• If the automatic dodging is giving you grief, you can always press [C] to go to combat preferences and change to "Stand Ground" for dodging. In the new version you'd also be able to manually dodge.
• That hamlet surely was one, you just weren't in the residential area (marked in amber/yellow areas on the fast travel maps).
• And finally, as stated above me, you can always turn off bogeymen in your next world. Or bring a friend along with you on your trips.

[Ilue]

A pretty reliable way to kill bogeymen is biting their necks and shaking them around so their heads get torn off and stay in your mouth. I can usually survive them even right after starting up a new adventurer that way.

[Shadow_Hornet]

I just tried adventure mode for the 1st time today and lost 3 or 4 adventurers to those things.

I was trying to get the the site of my old fort.

[gnome]

I'm not bothered by them anymore. I either get a companion right off the bat or build a series of campfires around myself. Doesn't take long. No more bogeymen.

[Chevaleresse]

A couple things:

• If the automatic dodging is giving you grief, you can always press [C] to go to combat preferences and change to "Stand Ground" for dodging. In the new version you'd also be able to manually dodge.
• That hamlet surely was one, you just weren't in the residential area (marked in amber/yellow areas on the fast travel maps).
• And finally, as stated above me, you can always turn off bogeymen in your next world. Or bring a friend along with you on your trips.

Being armorless, turning off auto-dodge would have resulted in an extremely quick death.

The hamlet had no residential area, just a bunch of farms and a road to another one.

I had friends but they drowned.

[Witty]

As you can see, the biggest issue with bogeymen is their ability cause instantaneous lethal head trauma. The old fix for this was to increase the size of the skull, since it was smaller than the brain in 34.11. However, Toady fixed this in .40, but the new pulping system makes it pretty much useless and provides the same problem we had in 34.11, except there isn't a fix now (at least not a known one).

So yeah, either wait for Toady to decide that the pulping system needs work, or just don't go out at night.

[Trif]

Bogeymen are bullshit.

They completely bar a new adventurer from traveling at night.

Yes? That's their purpose.

There's no real reason for them to be as powerful as they are [...]

Of course there is. If they were weaker, you'd just kill them and there would be little incentive to stay inside at night.

To cite what prompted this complaint, I was actually having an enjoyable adventure. I managed to defeat a goblin ambush singlehandedly, having accidentally drowned by companions. The map goes screwy and I can't find the fort I had just been to, so I go to the nearest village, except it wasn't a village, it was a huge-ass area of silt and a few roads labeled as a village. Night falls, and I am "surrounded by incessant cackling." Cue about twenty minutes of careful running, in which I actually managed to injure a couple due to my superior speed, ended by a punch to the head that "bruised" me but instantly knocked me out. Eight kicks later, my skull gets caved in. Adventure over.

You made two mistakes: you drowned your companions (granted, that's common if you don't know how to cross rivers), and you traveled too far away from a village. You can't expect Dwarf Fortress to give you a pass on that. Bogeymen aren't unpredictable, they always appear at night, meaning you can always factor them into your travel plans.

[quekwoambojish]

+1 here, I can't stand bogeymen

I posted a thread about this a while ago, to me they are just an underdeveloped placeholder for why people are supposed to fear the night

[Footkerchief]

Yeah, they're bland and do nothing for the gameplay.

[Shizmoo]

Nothing wrong with bogeymen. Once you get skilled or a companion they are a non issue

[Nikow]

Bogeymen are bullshit.

No, They're nightmare. Now you know why you fear at night.

They completely bar a new adventurer from traveling at night. There's no real reason for them to be as powerful as they are, especially given the obscene difficulty of finding equipment sized for one's character (armor being the only way to survive a bogeyman attack; dodging can have you moving back toward(!) the pack of bogeymen you're fleeing) and getting to decent combat skill in general without resorting to mind-crushingly boring things like knocking out a squirrel's teeth with a whip, breaking every bone in it's body, then finally putting the critter out of it's misery with a lash to the head. DF already has an uncomfortable amount of RNG involved in the combat; enemy attacks could target your shield arm, your head, or your left toe, then they have a chance to hit, and that hit could bruise, shatter bone, sever the part, or be deflected by the *cat leather sock*.

New adventurer is not experienced well enought to stay in night alone. He can freak out from sounds... His mind is tricking him. There are bad powers. Armor is not for everyone, but it's quite easy to get. Just knock out some soldier (punch him in the head courple times) and using wresling get out his/her armor. Look for one with iron helmet. You can just stole some iron helmet and ruuununnnn as fast as you can. He will propobly be pissed out, but he will not use his weapon... propobly. I ususaly surviving bogeymens as hero at day one. But it depends from luck and world savage level. Some bogeymens are not threading one, some are nasty powerfull. If i am correct, now you can kill ALL bogeymens. Do not travel all the time, just wait some night, on tree and wait. Prepared, ready to strike. They can fly, but you can jump into one, knocking him out and fast stabing into legs. You can very fast defeat any bogeyman just waiting using ',' button, when he will be close just FAST swing him into legs and jump out. Using two swords is awesome, shields are for soldiers, you're adventurer. You're one man army!

Please, anybody confirm if you can kill all bogeymans. I think i killed it in my world... They just not comming anymore. Meybe it's bug?

To cite what prompted this complaint, I was actually having an enjoyable adventure. I managed to defeat a goblin ambush singlehandedly, having accidentally drowned by companions. The map goes screwy and I can't find the fort I had just been to, so I go to the nearest village, except it wasn't a village, it was a huge-ass area of silt and a few roads labeled as a village. Night falls, and I am "surrounded by incessant cackling." Cue about twenty minutes of careful running, in which I actually managed to injure a couple due to my superior speed, ended by a punch to the head that "bruised" me but instantly knocked me out. Eight kicks later, my skull gets caved in. Adventure over.

You was traveling with people who trusted you. And... you drowned them out! You're hearthless... World punished yourself for your actions, RP wise. If you can't find village just find some hills, montains, cave, home, river, tree, ocean. And yes, you can be knocked out by every punch in your head, like in real life. You must be carefull. Bogeymans must be killed, not wounded. Defeat your horrors! Defeat nighmares!