I have an idea for a hostile mob that is unique from all the other mobs in the game. It can spawn in the Nether or in the Overworld. It is hostile, but does not attack the player. Instead it uses a special ability to make undead mobs do the fighting for it. It is a mixture between a support mob for the undead and a miniboss, and it only has a 1% spawn chance, equal to a Spider Jockey. Meet the Wraith.
General Stats
Health: 10+X
(X = the current combined health of all its followers. See the Attracting Followers section)
Size: 2 blocks tall, 2 blocks wide, and one block thick (basically the size of two zombies standing side by side)
Damage: 0
Special Ability: Attract Undead Followers (See the Attracting Followers section)
Attracting Followers
As mentioned above, the Wraith cannot harm a player directly. They need other undead to fight you. It does this by controlling up to 5 nearby undead (any types of Skeletons, Zombies, or Zombie Pigmen). How it works is once the Wraith spawns, it will move towards the closest undead mob it can find. Once within 16 blocks, it draws them in and turns them into a follower of sorts. Once the undead mob becomes a follower, it stands near the Wraith and protects it. If the Wraith moves, the followers move with it. If the Wraith targets a player and starts to chase it, the followers will stay gathered around it, protecting it while they get close enough to attack you.
Once an undead becomes a follower, it is a slave to the Wraith and loses all of the regular AI routines it had. Zombie followers will not chase Villagers, Zombie Pigmen followers will not cause regular Zombie Pigmen to attack if it is damaged, and if a Skeleton follower accidentally hits another follower, they will not start attacking each other. Also for balance reasons, the Wraith can only have up to 2 Skeleton mobs as followers at any one time. This is because having 5 Skeletons or Wither Skeletons all in close proximity would be a death sentence for a lot of players.
Why does this happen? The Wraith is quite the frail mob by itself. It has no attack and only a measly 10 health. However, it shares the health of any followers it has. So if it attracts a Zombie (20 health), it adds the Zombie's health to its own, giving it 30 health. In return for the added health and protection, it gives the followers Strength 1 and Resistance 1, making them harder to kill and thus further protecting itself. It is quite the synergistic relationship.
The drawback to this is that if a follower gets hurt, so does the Wraith that is controlling it. Likewise, if the Wraith takes damage, the damage is actually dealt to the followers, rather than hurting the Wraith directly. Once the Wraith has no more followers and is back to 10 Health, attacks will damage it directly. To prevent this, once a Wraith loses a follower it will attract any other nearby undead and replenish its ranks and its health.
However, a Wraith's power is not infinite. The 10 health it starts with is separate from the health it shares with the followers. Every time a follower is killed, 1 damage is dealt to the Wraith's personal health. This caps the Wraith at having a maximum of 10 followers before it dies. Also, if the Wraith starts to die from Sunlight, it will sense its impending death and vanish, abandoning the followers and preventing you from killing it.
Fighting the Wraith
Method 1: Attack the Followers
This method makes the most sense for most situations. The Wraith can't actually hurt you, so it isn't a threat by itself. And by killing the followers, you make the Wraith weaker in the process. It also allows you to focus on each follower individually, so you can choose what to kill in any order you choose. This works better if you can isolate the group from other undead, because of the fact that it can gather more followers.
If you kill the followers directly, you will get a maximum of 1 for their normal drops. Meaning if you kill a Skeleton normally, you can get 0-2 Bones. If it is a follower when you kill it, you can only get 0-1 Bones. In addition to that, the base chance (ie, before calculating a sword with the Looting enchantment) of rare items being dropped by followers is cut in half if you kill them directly. That means if you kill a follower directly, you only have a 1.25% chance of a rare drop, or a 2.75% chance with Looting 3.
Method 2: Attack the Wraith
This is a risky strategy that pays off if you can do it (see the Drops section). Because the Wraith shares the health of its followers, you can attack it to damage all of the followers simultaneously. The damage is applied to the follower with the highest health first, so if there is one follower with 5 Health and another with 10 Health and you do 5 damage, the damage will be applied to the follower with 10 Health. So if you have a Bow you can try and take out the Wraith from a distance, or if you feel lucky and/or crazy you can rush in and attack the Wraith directly, weaving in and out of the followers as you fight.
However, if a follower dies because you have dealt damage to the Wraith, you will get a minimum of 1 for each of their normal drops. Meaning if you hit the Wraith and the damage kills a Skeleton follower, you will get 1-2 Bones no matter what. The base chance of rare items being dropped for follower killed by attacking the Wraith is doubled, meaning you have a 5% chance of a rare drop normally, or a 6.5% chance with Looting 3. This gives players slightly more reward for taking the riskier strategy.
Drops
No matter how you kill it, it will always drop these items:
0-2 Wraith Husk
100 Experience + the Experience of all followers killed (a maximum of 150 XP if it uses all 10 followers)
The Wraith Husk can be used in Brewing. When made into a potion, it gives a temporary effect that makes undead mobs ignore you, even if they were in the middle of attacking you. And if you are attacked by something else (like a Spider) any undead mobs within 8 blocks of you will aggro your attacker. Note that it has to actually damage you, you can't drink the potion and then attack something to make them attack it like you can with Wolves. Making a level 2 version of the potion will cause undead within 16 blocks to attack anything that hurts you.
This potion can be corrupted using the Fermented Spider Eye, and will make the person who is under the effect slightly stronger (Basically giving them Strength 1 and Resistance 1), but increases their aggro range for undead mobs by 8 blocks. If you make a level 2 version of that potion, the person with the effect basically has Strength 2 and Resistance 2, but the aggro range for undead is increased by 16 blocks.
Both of these potions can be used on any player or mob. You can use the normal potion on Villagers to make Zombies leave them alone and you can use the corrupted potion on enemy mobs to make them fight each other or on another player to make them a distraction. The level 1 potions last 20 seconds, the level 2 potions last 10 seconds, and the extended level 1 potions last 30 seconds.
I think that about wraps up my idea. If you have any suggestions or tweaks I am more than willing to listen. I'm especially unsure about the drops and am open to ideas.
Also, fun fact about the Wraith: Because it uses the health of its followers, the maximum amount of health the Wraith can have at any time is 210 HP. that is more than the Ender Dragon And if you keep letting it regain followers, you may have to do a total of 410 damage just to kill it. That is more than the Wither! What keeps this fair is that the more you hurt it the less potential it has to do damage, plus it doesn't break blocks like the regular boss mobs, it despawns, and it isn't much smarter than the mobs it can control so it is basically just like dealing with a cluster of undead mobs.
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I can see why a limit of two Skeleton followers per Wraith would make sense, seeing as their rate of fire makes it nearly impossible to dodge one skeleton, let alone a horde. However, the Wither Skeleton cap makes a bit less sense. They don't have a nigh-undodgeable ranged attack like regular skeletons do (and from my experience are quite content to be pelted with arrows from a good distance away), and since a Wraith would have to spawn in a Netherfortress in order for it to have Wither Skeleton followers, a player should be prepared enough to deal with a horde of Wither Skeletons anyway.
The Wraith itself would seem a bit anticlimatic for a miniboss, but it is balanced fairly well according to other mobs (which to be fair aren't really balanced well for the most part). It's rather weak to arrows (though again pretty much everything in the game is) and a player could easily bowsnipe the Wraith or it's followers to kill it in short order. The Wraith itself should have some form of long-ranged harassment in order to deal with archers, though it shouldn't be directly lethal (perhaps a projectile that inflicts an annoying status effect or sics the undead horde on the player, possibly giving the horde a speed buff on normal and hard difficulties).
The Wraith Husks should also have some use beyond brewing, though I don't know what. Brewing isn't terribly useful in normal gameplay anyway, and to be honest the potion effects don't seem useful compared to the other effects (which themselves are generally overkill for normal gameplay). Being able to ignore among the weakest mob in the game (zombies) isn't terribly useful, and the other three mobs that are undead (skeletons, wither skeletons, and the Wither though I doubt he'll actually be affected by the potion) have useful drops and are thus desirable to engage, which if you choose to engage them kind of ruins the point of drinking the potion in the first place. Receiving assistance against non-undead mobs isn't terribly useful either, as creepers aren't affected by the potion (they have to damage you in order to aggro undead, except their only means of damaging you kills them) spiders are already weak (deal low damage and have reduced health), blazes will fly out of reach of Wither Skeletons when they charge up their shots, and Endermen will dodge skeleton arrows via teleportation (unless i'm wrong on that). The inverted potion is decent, I suppose, although like the rest of the potions the strength and resistance bonuses are overkill; unlike the other potions, however, it lasts for such little time that you can barely make use of it. Though, it would be pretty decent for getting music discs.
Overall: I like the concept, but he (like most mobs) is vulnerable to arrows due to lacking decent ranged options. The potions also seem relatively useless in most situations. I'm pretty much neutral on this idea right now, waiting to see how it develops.
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Did something happen to you in your childhood to give you this unreasonable fear of rutabaga?
I see what you mean. To be honest I'm fine with completely changing the unique drop for this, or what it is used for. I actually built the idea around the combat and didn't have much of an idea for a drop. I was originally thinking it would just affect the drops of its followers plus some experience but didn't think people would like that. So if anyone has alternatives I'm more than open to them. I also see the issue with arrows. Admittedly it is a problem that most mobs have, so I'm not really sure of a work around for that. I suppose seeing how a Wraith would be ethereal, it could be immune to arrows but that doesn't make the followers any harder to kill.
So we have two problems with the idea so far. I'll think on them but if anyone has ideas just post em and we can find something most of us agree on.
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Attracting Followers
As mentioned above, the Wraith cannot harm a player directly. They need other undead to fight you. It does this by controlling up to 5 nearby undead (any types of Skeletons, Zombies, or Zombie Pigmen). How it works is once the Wraith spawns, it will move towards the closest undead mob it can find. Once within 16 blocks, it draws them in and turns them into a follower of sorts. Once the undead mob becomes a follower, it stands near the Wraith and protects it. If the Wraith moves, the followers move with it. If the Wraith targets a player and starts to chase it, the followers will stay gathered around it, protecting it while they get close enough to attack you.
Once an undead becomes a follower, it is a slave to the Wraith and loses all of the regular AI routines it had. Zombie followers will not chase Villagers, Zombie Pigmen followers will not cause regular Zombie Pigmen to attack if it is damaged, and if a Skeleton follower accidentally hits another follower, they will not start attacking each other. Also for balance reasons, the Wraith can only have up to 2 Skeleton mobs as followers at any one time. This is because having 5 Skeletons or Wither Skeletons all in close proximity would be a death sentence for a lot of players.
Why does this happen? The Wraith is quite the frail mob by itself. It has no attack and only a measly 10 health. However, it shares the health of any followers it has. So if it attracts a Zombie (20 health), it adds the Zombie's health to its own, giving it 30 health. In return for the added health and protection, it gives the followers Strength 1 and Resistance 1, making them harder to kill and thus further protecting itself. It is quite the synergistic relationship.
The drawback to this is that if a follower gets hurt, so does the Wraith that is controlling it. Likewise, if the Wraith takes damage, the damage is actually dealt to the followers, rather than hurting the Wraith directly. Once the Wraith has no more followers and is back to 10 Health, attacks will damage it directly. To prevent this, once a Wraith loses a follower it will attract any other nearby undead and replenish its ranks and its health.
However, a Wraith's power is not infinite. The 10 health it starts with is separate from the health it shares with the followers. Every time a follower is killed, 1 damage is dealt to the Wraith's personal health. This caps the Wraith at having a maximum of 10 followers before it dies. Also, if the Wraith starts to die from Sunlight, it will sense its impending death and vanish, abandoning the followers and preventing you from killing it.
Fighting the Wraith
Method 1: Attack the Followers
This method makes the most sense for most situations. The Wraith can't actually hurt you, so it isn't a threat by itself. And by killing the followers, you make the Wraith weaker in the process. It also allows you to focus on each follower individually, so you can choose what to kill in any order you choose. This works better if you can isolate the group from other undead, because of the fact that it can gather more followers.
If you kill the followers directly, you will get a maximum of 1 for their normal drops. Meaning if you kill a Skeleton normally, you can get 0-2 Bones. If it is a follower when you kill it, you can only get 0-1 Bones. In addition to that, the base chance (ie, before calculating a sword with the Looting enchantment) of rare items being dropped by followers is cut in half if you kill them directly. That means if you kill a follower directly, you only have a 1.25% chance of a rare drop, or a 2.75% chance with Looting 3.
Method 2: Attack the Wraith
This is a risky strategy that pays off if you can do it (see the Drops section). Because the Wraith shares the health of its followers, you can attack it to damage all of the followers simultaneously. The damage is applied to the follower with the highest health first, so if there is one follower with 5 Health and another with 10 Health and you do 5 damage, the damage will be applied to the follower with 10 Health. So if you have a Bow you can try and take out the Wraith from a distance, or if you feel lucky and/or crazy you can rush in and attack the Wraith directly, weaving in and out of the followers as you fight.
However, if a follower dies because you have dealt damage to the Wraith, you will get a minimum of 1 for each of their normal drops. Meaning if you hit the Wraith and the damage kills a Skeleton follower, you will get 1-2 Bones no matter what. The base chance of rare items being dropped for follower killed by attacking the Wraith is doubled, meaning you have a 5% chance of a rare drop normally, or a 6.5% chance with Looting 3. This gives players slightly more reward for taking the riskier strategy.
Drops
No matter how you kill it, it will always drop these items:
0-2 Wraith Husk
100 Experience + the Experience of all followers killed (a maximum of 150 XP if it uses all 10 followers)
The Wraith Husk can be used in Brewing. When made into a potion, it gives a temporary effect that makes undead mobs ignore you, even if they were in the middle of attacking you. And if you are attacked by something else (like a Spider) any undead mobs within 8 blocks of you will aggro your attacker. Note that it has to actually damage you, you can't drink the potion and then attack something to make them attack it like you can with Wolves. Making a level 2 version of the potion will cause undead within 16 blocks to attack anything that hurts you.
This potion can be corrupted using the Fermented Spider Eye, and will make the person who is under the effect slightly stronger (Basically giving them Strength 1 and Resistance 1), but increases their aggro range for undead mobs by 8 blocks. If you make a level 2 version of that potion, the person with the effect basically has Strength 2 and Resistance 2, but the aggro range for undead is increased by 16 blocks.
Both of these potions can be used on any player or mob. You can use the normal potion on Villagers to make Zombies leave them alone and you can use the corrupted potion on enemy mobs to make them fight each other or on another player to make them a distraction. The level 1 potions last 20 seconds, the level 2 potions last 10 seconds, and the extended level 1 potions last 30 seconds.
I think that about wraps up my idea. If you have any suggestions or tweaks I am more than willing to listen. I'm especially unsure about the drops and am open to ideas.
Also, fun fact about the Wraith: Because it uses the health of its followers, the maximum amount of health the Wraith can have at any time is 210 HP. that is more than the Ender Dragon And if you keep letting it regain followers, you may have to do a total of 410 damage just to kill it. That is more than the Wither! What keeps this fair is that the more you hurt it the less potential it has to do damage, plus it doesn't break blocks like the regular boss mobs, it despawns, and it isn't much smarter than the mobs it can control so it is basically just like dealing with a cluster of undead mobs.
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support.
The Wraith itself would seem a bit anticlimatic for a miniboss, but it is balanced fairly well according to other mobs (which to be fair aren't really balanced well for the most part). It's rather weak to arrows (though again pretty much everything in the game is) and a player could easily bowsnipe the Wraith or it's followers to kill it in short order. The Wraith itself should have some form of long-ranged harassment in order to deal with archers, though it shouldn't be directly lethal (perhaps a projectile that inflicts an annoying status effect or sics the undead horde on the player, possibly giving the horde a speed buff on normal and hard difficulties).
The Wraith Husks should also have some use beyond brewing, though I don't know what. Brewing isn't terribly useful in normal gameplay anyway, and to be honest the potion effects don't seem useful compared to the other effects (which themselves are generally overkill for normal gameplay). Being able to ignore among the weakest mob in the game (zombies) isn't terribly useful, and the other three mobs that are undead (skeletons, wither skeletons, and the Wither though I doubt he'll actually be affected by the potion) have useful drops and are thus desirable to engage, which if you choose to engage them kind of ruins the point of drinking the potion in the first place. Receiving assistance against non-undead mobs isn't terribly useful either, as creepers aren't affected by the potion (they have to damage you in order to aggro undead, except their only means of damaging you kills them) spiders are already weak (deal low damage and have reduced health), blazes will fly out of reach of Wither Skeletons when they charge up their shots, and Endermen will dodge skeleton arrows via teleportation (unless i'm wrong on that). The inverted potion is decent, I suppose, although like the rest of the potions the strength and resistance bonuses are overkill; unlike the other potions, however, it lasts for such little time that you can barely make use of it. Though, it would be pretty decent for getting music discs.
Overall: I like the concept, but he (like most mobs) is vulnerable to arrows due to lacking decent ranged options. The potions also seem relatively useless in most situations. I'm pretty much neutral on this idea right now, waiting to see how it develops.
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ModeratorSo we have two problems with the idea so far. I'll think on them but if anyone has ideas just post em and we can find something most of us agree on.
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