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[catpaw]

For me, any creature that rises above a Tile should be truely massive.

Truely massive..... like a .... hmmm.... caravan wagon!

[Sabin Stargem]

I thought the Colossal Headbutt was a good a solution as any for making a dragon capable of attacking fortress.  By bashing a wall outside of the fortress, the dragon can make the fortress have internal stress, dropping rocks and such onto unfortunate dwarves.  Kind of like Smaug in the hobbit. (again)

My reasoning for multiple tile creatures goes as follows:  Bigger creature are harder to kill since a large creature has much longer reach than most creatures.  Anything it walks on is likely to die, and something like the Hydra can attack anything that is within striking distance.  Granted, most Megabeasts can't enter the Fortress with such huge sizes, but that is why we can get creative - the solutions to such problems can improve gameplay*.  Furthermore, such huge megabeasts can't captured by the traditional cage, because of their size.  Beyond what I have said, though - I feel multiple tile creatures would further help the game take on it's own style, to make the creatures in the game feel more impressive.

I don't want just Megabeasts to be multiple tile.  I want elephants, whales, bears, and minotaurs to be large in the game world.  However, Megabeasts are the best creatures to try out the concept on, since they would be the most affected creatures.


*For example, the hydra can poison the surrounding land around the fortress, preventing new trees from growing for years, and ruining the local water holes.  So rather than being an immediate and obvious threat, the Hydra can cause the fort's long term prospects to go down when it settles in the area, and preying upon the local life.


Neonivek:  It is true that dragons should gain experience from fighting, but I think the biggest factors for a Dragon's growth is how long it has lived, and how much wealth it has acquired without injury.  Maybe each 'stage' for a Dragon could require an combined amount of gained wealth, experience, and age? 

[catpaw]

I consider dragon to running directly into little dwarf fortresses to be very counterintuative too.

When a dragon cannot enter due to small tunnels, he will do like everybody else would do in this situation. Siege! Just like a cat, waiting directly outside a hole, and greedly grap anything that gets outside. If the dwarves are going to start another exit en masse, switch hole to siege.

[Tormy]

For the most part... Multiple tile creatures are VERY difficult to obtain in the game... Since the game can't make a Giant D (though It can make a giant Green square with many little green squares)

Yeah, I'm not sure either, that its possible or not to code in "multi-tile creatures". I just fail to see that how would that work in action.

[Silverionmox]

The immortal head of the hydra was also reputed to be made of gold; could be fun. When Heracles cut off the head of his hydra he buried it alive under a rock. (Though he could have kept it and used it, like Perseus with Medusa's head). He did use burning arrows to draw it from its lair; he had to hold his breath though to be able to hit it, so maybe the poisoning effect should be limited to its direct vicinity. Make it an agressive and agile melee fighter to compensate. He can get seven archers at once, after all.
Also, since the hydra symbolizes the fertility that water brings, I wouldn't have it poison its environment, but rather purify the pools, make plant growth increase and raise the water table by 1.. in addition to their eating habits, that's surely a mixed blessing for a fortress, but still consistent with mythology. For the vanilla world, of course. Let no one be stopped from modding its heads into rocket launchers, if they desire.

And please save the world from yet another set of dragons with colors matching their "breath weapon" one-on-one.

[Granite26]

The immortal head of the hydra was also reputed to be made of gold; could be fun. When Heracles cut off the head of his hydra he buried it alive under a rock. (Though he could have kept it and used it, like Perseus with Medusa's head). He did use burning arrows to draw it from its lair; he had to hold his breath though to be able to hit it, so maybe the poisoning effect should be limited to its direct vicinity. Make it an agressive and agile melee fighter to compensate. He can get seven archers at once, after all.
Also, since the hydra symbolizes the fertility that water brings, I wouldn't have it poison its environment, but rather purify the pools, make plant growth increase and raise the water table by 1.. in addition to their eating habits, that's surely a mixed blessing for a fortress, but still consistent with mythology. For the vanilla world, of course. Let no one be stopped from modding its heads into rocket launchers, if they desire.

And please save the world from yet another set of dragons with colors matching their "breath weapon" one-on-one.

100% pure genius.  I don't know about the feasibility of the aura, but it's a good idea.

Anywho, there are no multitile creatures yet do to coding limitations.  The wagon is a hack.
 

And please save the world from yet another set of dragons with colors matching their "breath weapon" one-on-one.

One more time... IMHO, one of the best efforts in DF so far is how far it's managed to stay from the tired D&D tropes.  (Dracos, this might be a good place to repost 'our dragons are not their dragons')

If you want truly epic hydras, put in 6-1 headed hydras and have them drop the lower headcount hydra on death.

For a truly invincible MB, a creature that drops a copy of itself on death.  The Phoenix would be a good candidate for this.  (Need to capture it in a steel cage, since you can't kill it)

the Hulk type creature, starts as a basic human and drops more and more monstrous versions of itself until you finally kill it. (especially with a negative damblock)

a prismatic critter that changes shapes as it's hit

[Sabin Stargem]

I don't think dragons in game format are tired.  Rather, they usually are not implemented well.  In Castle of the Winds and Nethack, they only had breath abilities with not much to differentiate them.  Sacred?  Well, no flying but they sometimes had extra effects for their breath.  Life cycles?  No game that I know of, which pretty much means that the field is clear of any real kings for making a good dragon.  Dwarf Fortress, with spanning history, roguelike mechanics, and early development is prime material for making Dragons worthwhile foes.

[Neonivek]

Even though this is not as cool... I kinda like the idea of a Hydra not having a poison weapon (like I think it does currently)

It just needs to be able to take advantage of its multiple heads more and you won't feel like it is a weak version of a Dragon.

Then again, it using moving clouds of toxic gas could make it a very interesting battle.

[korora]

Making megabeasts with specific methods required to kill them is awesome for adventure mode (or will be when you can aim weapon attacks), less so for dwarf mode until we have tighter control over the military.  Or until we can jump down into a champion and do a psuedo-adventure mode duel with it.  Granted, something along these lines is probably coming pretty soon.

Ideally, randomly-generated beasts could have random ways of dying, so you'd have to either get lucky or do some asking around.

[Neonivek]

Well Fortress mode you have access to things Adventurers don't... Namely

1) Siege weapons
2) Traps (Tons of them)
3) Strategic fortress design
4) Overall a large skilled military (Try getting a large group of skilled individuals in Adventure mode?)
5) Easier to obtain equipment and Artifacts

So I guess how it could work is that the specific way of killing a Megabeast is just the easier method used because otherwise you and your ragtag group of adventurers would most likely die. While in Fortress mode you have the equipment to cripple if not kill the beast!

[Virex]

Another possibility for Hydras would be that it instantly regenerates any damage done to the head (or just any damage in general) by anything that's not fire related. I seem to recall that either Hercules or Jason killed a Hydra by burning the wound created by cutting off a head before the head could grow back.

[Neonivek]

Another possibility for Hydras would be that it instantly regenerates any damage done to the head (or just any damage in general) by anything that's not fire related. I seem to recall that either Hercules or Jason killed a Hydra by burning the wound created by cutting off a head before the head could grow back.

Yep, I love the Hydra as a regeneration beast!

[Granite26]

Making megabeasts with specific methods required to kill them is awesome for adventure mode (or will be when you can aim weapon attacks), less so for dwarf mode until we have tighter control over the military.  Or until we can jump down into a champion and do a psuedo-adventure mode duel with it.  Granted, something along these lines is probably coming pretty soon.

Ideally, randomly-generated beasts could have random ways of dying, so you'd have to either get lucky or do some asking around.

I'm thinking less 'flaming sword' and more 'high crit slashing weapons' here.  For the most part, a diversified military should cover your issues there. (I.E. Mr. I only use crossbows gets pwned)

[Neonivek]

Perhaps Super Strong individuals could carry larger weapons which would counteract the bulk of the size advantage

[i2amroy]

I suggested something similar before (but not just for dragons, for any species). Essentially it's a simple tag in the raw text files that let you transform a creature into another creature when certain requirements are met (depending on the values in the tag). It works perfectly for things like lifecycles.

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=24740.0

Just wanted to say that all of you who like this idea go vote for it on the DF eternal suggestion voting