[D'sP] Monster Specific Loot Rules - Chapter 514 (Patreon)

Now with a list of loot drops, both from rules and floor automation, Doyle felt ready to finish overhauling the entire setup.

First up were the goats. Some dropped a specific piece of armor, though most would drop a helmet. Or rather, a leather helmet was the most common piece of equipment for them to wear. You could even get special leather helmets with bronze supports and occasionally bronze spikes.

Which brought Doyle to his first rule.

If a monster is set to drop loot from a pool of loot and is physically in possession of any loot within that pool, those items have an increased ratio to drop based on the number of items in the pool divided by ten.

This meant if a goat had a pool of five items that could drop and one of them was a helmet it was wearing? Then the ratio at which items would drop, with the helmet being first, is 1.5:1:1:1:1. A little awkward to write out and Doyle had attempted to reduce it to percentages or odds, but he didn’t have the language for it that got exactly what he wanted. Not that it wasn’t possible, he just wasn’t going to bother hunting down that “perfect” answer.

Besides, this was only a small auxiliary Rule, not even on the level of the coin to plate one. Doyle had simply wanted to maintain an increased chance of dropping things already being used by a monster so that people could target certain monsters for better odds. Not too much and the loot still had to drop in the first place, but more than nothing.

Doyle turned back to the goats. The minor distraction taken care of, he could properly consider what kind of loot they would get. Especially considering the variety of goats available.

So first up, they would be able to drop armor and weapons. While Doyle had somewhat dropped that later on, the first five floors clearly showed that he didn’t mind them having that capacity. On top of that, grassen goats should drop herbs and alchemy products, wooden goats should drop higher quality wood gear, and cyclone goats.

Doyle pauses and takes a quick once-over of his patterns. Yes, cyclone goats would get air energized crystals and any bronze they drop will be wind bronze.

Oh, and that brought up another general loot Rule. Though after trying to figure out the right wording, he decides against it and instead just staples the rule to specific monsters. So every goat’s leather-based loot would drop leather of their own kind.

Doyle just wasn’t able to figure out a wording that didn’t have a chance to create an awkward leather item in the future. After all, it is technically possible for him to make a human leather item. Which yeah, would be a thing. Anyway, eventually after a few passes, Doyle came up with the following Rule for goats.

All goats have a chance to drop either a weapon or piece of armor and any leather will be of that goat’s type unless the goat was wearing the item, in which case it will be an item from an equivalent type of cattle, any metal item dropped by a cyclone goats that can be, will be made of air bronze and they can also drop air energized crystals, any wooden item dropped by a wooden goat will be of a higher quality wood, and grassen goats can in addition drop 5 herbs as well as an alchemical products.

Doyle shudders as that rule forms. Not yet initialized, just hanging there feeling as if he had just gone to a buffet and didn’t control himself. That Rule should be on the very edge of what will fit as a “single” Rule. It might have been better to break things out by loot type instead of monster type?

But no, Doyle shakes his core at the thought. It needed to be by monster because the type of monster dropping the loot provided the biggest variables and it will be easier in the future to figure out what is going on this way.

Anyway, with the goats taken care of, next up was the kobolds. They were both easy and hard. On one hand? Just toss weapons and armor at them. Simple enough. Except then you get into the specific drops by floor.

And sure, Doyle could just leave that to the floor automation to take care of. Why bother trying to fit all the various potion setups and strange add-ons. In fact, monster-specific loot was still very much going to be a thing.

Doyle simply wanted a good foundation to build upon. So he analyzed all the kobold drops. Of which, an absurd 60 kobolds has some amount of silver coins added to their loot table. After that were antidotes with a measly 7.

Below those four got a selection of auxiliary potions, four received a chance at any healing potion, two had the healers trio, and one lone kobold got a minor cure all. Or if you just lump all the healing options together, that was 14. Still nowhere near 60, but there was overlap as many kobolds that got something special added would also tend to get a silver coin or two thrown at them as well.

Well, good thing the silver coins basically never dropped on the first four floors because Doyle was going to cut the silver off completely. Floor five with the boss would likely still have some silver splashed around and it was dropping there so would be noticed if removed, anyway. However, the amount of silver per kobold would be lopped off at a single coin.

Oh, and while Doyle is cutting coins, the random gold coin applied to each grassen goat on floor six was gone as well. Actually, more than that, all special consideration given to goats and them dropping money will be removed.

Now back to the kobolds!

Doyle looked over what each kobold with a potion did. And that was not form a pattern. Which made things both much harder and easier for Doyle. The potions had made their way out into the general population with the pauper’s fix being a big export. Mainly because Wolf’s Rest had some of the best healers and a large pool of trainees that needed, well, training.

So if you didn’t mind a gaggle of people watching as a healer slowly healed you so they could point out how it was being done? Well, it wouldn’t be free, but cheaper than a potion. The normal healing potions end up mostly being re-invested into dungeon delving, especially if a team doesn’t have a strong enough healer.

Now, some people might question, and more than a few delvers have done so out loud before being smacked by a teammate, why a dungeon would want to give them healing potions. And the reason is exactly why Doyle decided to just toss the healers trio with an antidote for flavor onto all kobolds.

When a healing potion is used while in a dungeon? The potions power pushes the user’s cruft out. This does happen to some extent when a healer does their thing, but in that case some of the healer’s cruft gets stuck in the person being healed so the process isn’t doubly efficient or some such. Better to have two people need to drink potions than a healer to heal one person.

As for the rest of the potions, especially those provided by Moota? Well, that did cause Doyle to maybe reconsider things. Not that he was against every kobold potentially dropping a healing potion. They’d still have the potential, just an equal chance of any other potion.

So after some mental juggling, Doyle settles on giving every kobold the chance to drop an alchemical product, and any kobold in charge of another kobold an additional potion drop of coagulation, flesh mending, regeneration, and antidote. After all, they’re in charge, so having an extra healing item would make sense.

Not that the loot drops have to make sense. Doyle just prefers that they do. Though with that decided, it meant he was ready to make the rule for his kobolds.

All kobolds have a chance to drop a piece of armor, charcoal on floors with an ore deposit or forge, quartz polymer on floor 13 and deeper, and either a weapon, with male kobolds chance to drop a wand doubled, or an alchemical product and kobolds who are in a leadership position have an additional chance to drop either a potion of coagulation, flesh mending, regeneration, or antidote.

Seeing it written out, Doyle was quite happy with the Rule! Technically, it would reduce the amount of loot that could drop at once. After all, before a kobold who could drop multiple pieces of armor had the chance to drop them all of someone got lucky and they were all ready. Now they’d only be able to drop a single piece of armor. Nevermind the fact that weapons and potions shared the same slot to drop from.

However, there never was too many examples of monsters dropping more than one piece of loot to begin with. Though Doyle did give the chance for a wand to drop a tweak for his male kobolds. Twice the chance might sound like a lot, but there was a decent number of weapons, so even though it stacks with the other rule about wielded items getting a boosted chance? The result wouldn’t be too outsized.

Or rather, even if it was? Doyle was fine with that. The town hasn’t mastered the art of wand crafting yet and while you don’t need a wand to cast magic? It was an excellent beginners tool and well? Doyle loves magic. So making it easier for people to pick it up was A-okay in his book.

Now with kobolds settled, it was time for a bit of a grab bag rule, which he hoped would all fit. This didn’t really take any extra thought as it was pretty straightforward. Axebeaks, cattle, wolves, bears, myconids, and assassin vines all had their own little specialties.

A shame that no matter how Doyle worded it, they took two Rules.

Axebeaks all drop axes, assassin vines all drop insulated quartz Mana cable and runic cooling plates, each myconid sprout in a swarm gets its own coin drop, and adult myconids and higher all drop runic heating plates.

Bears, wolves, and cattle all drop leather armor that matches their species while wolves and herb cattle all additionally drop 5 herbs and an alchemical product.

Honestly, the length of the two Rules together was shorter than the Rule for the goats. However, while the first Rule with all the miscellaneous drops went together just fine and Doyle figures he can likely stuff a few more into it later? The second rule was thematically too tight to go with them. After all, the three all dropped leather armor pieces.

Sure, maybe he could have plugged the wolves and herb cattle rule in with the first rule, but that would be a waste! Since they fit with the leather Rule, why take up a misc Rule slot? Maybe that will change in the future if Doyle gains enough monsters he wants to drop leather armor that matches the monster it drops from? Right now, though, this was the most efficient way to organize things.

And also meant Doyle was left with only the specialty drops. Things that were unique to a floor or even a single monster. Except he had sort of smoothed that out. The fact that axebeaks on the second floor could drop axes? Now all axebeaks could do that.

Which meant now he needed to go back in and add that uniqueness back! Besides, Doyle still needed to add some silver coins to the various kobolds or at least confirm they got to keep their current coin drops.

What Does Everything Drop? - Chapter 513

Finishing Up The Loot Distribution - Chapter 515