Monster frequency

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Revision as of 15:19, 29 September 2006 by SGrunt (talk | contribs) (Remove old description (which wasn't removed) and add a bit more explanation on the meaning of the number)
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The term monster frequency refers to a number which can technically range 0-7 (though 6 and 7 are not used) used internally to determine how frequently a monster is generated; it can be thought of as a relative probability that a particular monster will be selected.

When a monster is randomly being selected, the game picks a random monster subject to the following list of conditions with relative probabilities equal to the ratios of numberic monster frequencies (thus a monster with a 4 is twice as common as a monster with a 2); this can be thought of as generating a list of monsters with each monster appearing a number of times equal to its monster frequency and choosing purely randomly off of this list.

Randomly generated monsters must be:

  • No greater in difficulty than the average of the level's difficulty and the player level [1]
  • No lower in difficulty than one-sixth that of the current level's difficulty
  • Represented by an upper case letter, if you are on the rogue level [2]
  • Neither unique or marked as not randomly generated (G_NOGEN) [3]
  • Not genocided or extinct
  • Not Lawful, if you are in Gehennom
  • Not marked as only generated in Gehennom (G_HELL) (e.g. hell hound) while you are not in Gehennom
  • Not marked as not generated in Gehennom (G_NOHELL) (e.g. winter wolf) while you are in Gehennom

Before monster frequencies are used for generation, a number is added to them depending on the relationship between the monster's alignment and the dungeon or special level's alignment. [4]

References

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