Opponent Mix in Felltower

This post was sparked by a tangential discussion in the comments of one of my posts.

What kind of foes are encounter in Felltower? Are they mostly monsters or mostly PC-like, template-built or template-like, "human-like" foes?

I could split it by appearance, but that gets even wonkier. The question really was about template use, so let's try to keep it there. Foes who use any templates will count as non-monsters for this purpose.

If we're comparing "monsters" versus "PC races and PC templates," flat-out, hands-down, monsters win.

Encounter Mix in Felltower by Type

The vast majority by types are monsters.

That is, I've used more unique monster types than non-monster types.

You can see this list here.

Some of that is inevitable - ten bandits is just one listing, but an ooze and an ape demon are two monsters.

By type, then, hands-down it is monsters.

Encounter Mix By Numbers

Here it is like to be more "even." I use a lot of orcs at once. A lot of cone-hatted cultists. Dozens of norkers.

On the other hand, I use much smaller numbers per-encounter of monster types. I'm very likely to deploy 50 orcs at once but dragons and beholders are likely to be singular.

Overall totals are tough . . . but it's possible that non-monsters win here just because of the orcs.

Encounter Mix by Frequency

Monsters win here.

In a given session, it's much more likely that all encounters will be with non-human, non-human-like monster types.

It's extremely rare for a session that's only human-like foes. I'm not certain there has been any recently.

Encounter Mix by Importance

Most of the big, important, carefully-placed encounters in Felltower are non-template built monsters.

There are a few - Rangol Grot is built with a template. So are some wizards and high priest types. The cone-hatted cultist group was partly built with templates for most of the group. But thinking it through, most of what I place down aren't basically Mirror, Mirror PC groups. I'm not really as interested in whowouldwins between Wizards and Clerics, or Barbarians and Martial Artists, or can you kill the Bard with your Knight before he makes you join him. It tires me out to my soul, almost instantly, when that comes up. I'm vastly more interested in when all six of them team up and fight a black reaver or a napalm-spitting dragon or a beholder. So I don't set up a lot of fights.


So, in Felltower, Monsters basically win.


But, if you think about it, humans are the real monsters!

So what? I live in a world where there is no magic, no treasures waiting to be pried out of the hands of monsters, and where humans are the real monsters. So I'm playing a game where those are all incorrect assumptions. I've also played fantasy games mostly not about treasure, or fighting monsters, and where most of the enemies were humans. Or specific to this post, they were basically like the PCs. Inhuman foes showed up, but they were vastly outnumbered by simple country bandits, guardsmen, soldiers, wandering warriors, wizards, and other "normal" types. This is not that game. We did that for 10 years or more, coming out of another game that was 5 years of about the same.