monster level higher than 5

[FeMaiden]

is there a way to set a monster's level higher than 5? like if I wanted to make a really tough boss thats level 10 or 16 or something?

[THOM]

No, there isn't.

AFAIK leveling up a monster just means it gets more lifepoints and spends more experiencepoints.

If you really want to make a monster stronger then clone it and change it stats as you want.

Personal comment: would be good to change also brain or other things concerning tactic behaviour. And you have to have in mind, what Level your Party will have at the moment when meeting your Monster. Just making it stronger can a) make the fight impossible to win, because your Party is still too weak, or b) make the fight boring because your party can beat the Monster, but it just needs more time.

[minmay]

Um, yes there is. You just have to use the MonsterComponent:setLevel() method instead of trying to do it with the editor menu.
I don't really see the point of using levels other than 1 though.

[THOM]

You just have to use the MonsterComponent:setLevel() method

Hu?! Didn't knew that. But I agree that it's not very advisable to use this.

[Dr.Disaster]

An alternate to setting monster levels are custom monster definitions i.e. a skeleton_commander_boss made from a customized skeleton_commander. This way you can set all stats of the monster to your liking i.e. xx,000 Health, high Protection/AttackPower, faster animation or the ability to fly.

[Komag]

Fiddling with monster levels was essential to getting Master Quest to scale properly, but I also had to make a custom definition for every single monster to adjust the scaling factors so they would actually work reasonably well for very high levels, far above 5. But I'm not sure how monster levels work in Grimrock 2.

[minmay]

monster level does basically the same stuff as it does in grimrock 1

[FeMaiden]

I am aware of "mobflation" and I realize that higher monster level can make fights tedious.
however, increasing the level increases the monster attack power. I know how to setHealth and setMaxHealth so i can decrease health to make the monster less inflated. in this way, i can put end game monsters early in the adventure and it's still possible to beat them because i set their health much lower. like I could have a pack of malnourished starving sand wargs that still hit just as hard but only have 100 health instead of their usual 400 and therefore are much easier to kill but still a challenge for a low level party.
what i wanted was to make something along the lines of a turtle with turtle behavior but hits like an ogre...and has a lot more health than a regular turtle but not something insane, just something along the lines between of 900-2000 which is barely more than some of the other monsters have at level 1. of course i will play it myself legit, to see just how annoying it is before publishing it.

if there's a setAttackPower command or something, I could just do that instead.
although, I don't really understand how damage is calculated in this game. high armor rating does seem to reduce the damage but some monsters still seem to hit really hard even with 100+ armor rating, unless maybe the devs gave some monsters armor piercing?

it's true I have no idea how strong the player will be when they reach any given boss in my mod because of the open nature of it. and i'm not going to meticulously count every experience point each monster gives to make sure the players are a specific level, i just pepper my landscape with whatever monsters I think are appropriate and whatever level the player ends up being, will be.
I'm hoping to make my mod large enough that the player might end up being level 17-19 by the time they beat the end boss.

my end boss...I scripted it, but I have not tested it. it might be really easy or it might just be insanely impossible. the player can theoretically enter the end boss fight right from the beginning of the mod (intentional by design, it's open ended, you can fight the end boss now but you are not "supposed" to) and of course it's gonna be impossible for a level 1 party...
and there's also a side area thats in there as more of an "easter egg" and if the player goes there before beating the final boss, it's impossible and they get killed, but I give plenty of warnings so the player does not just blunder into it.

[FeMaiden]

just for the sake of argument...I think in certain instances, level 1 monsters just don't have enough oomph.
take this for example.
I just finished my 3rd level map..out of 32 planned...and on that level i created a boss fight with 6 twigroots in a tree arena.

using the test party at character level 3, which is what i predict the player might be when the get here, wielding nothing but a dagger and a cudgel and the mage casting fire. with no armor on anyone (keep in mind, there's enough stuff laying about that the player will be better equipped by this time.), I beat them quite easily, only losing about half our health..and the test party seems ridiculously underpowered compared to what I usually make...

then iwent through the trouble of rasing the each twigroot to level 2 and then adding the additional 12 lines of script to set their helath and make the life bar display correctly...
and it was slightly more difficult, the minotaur almost died but I still beat them.

and i'm not even that great at this game lol. I suppose i'm better than average.

so now i might test them at level 3.

my point is that some of the weaker monsters need those extra levels.

I know thats what the higher tier monsters are for but this is only the third map I don't want to start throwing medusas and fire elementals at people this early

[Dr.Disaster]

using the test party at character level 3, which is what i predict the player might be when the get here, wielding nothing but a dagger and a cudgel and the mage casting fire. with no armor on anyone (keep in mind, there's enough stuff laying about that the player will be better equipped by this time.), I beat them quite easily, only losing about half our health..and the test party seems ridiculously underpowered compared to what I usually make...

You need to keep in mind that Twigroots are weak to fire. Even with 6 of them any party with a fire caster has an advantage. Now not everybody picks fire at the start or a caster at all which changes the difficulty of such a battle.