Doom Roguelike Enemy Analysis: Former Human

HP: 10

Protection: 0

Ranged Accuracy: +0

Melee Accuracy: -4

Ranged Damage: 2d4 Bullet

Melee Damage: 1d3 (-1) Melee

Speed: 90%

Inventory: 10mm ammo*24, plus their Pistol

Experience: 23

Danger: 1

Minimum floor: 1

Maximum floor: 12

Experience per Danger: 23

Can open doors, equip Armor, and pick up and use Medpacks, Phase Devices, and Homing Phase Devices.

Evasion: Base of 10%, +3% per tile of distance, making for a maximum of 34%

Attack Chance: 75%

The very first enemy you'll encounter if you're doing a standard run. (And often even if you're doing a non-standard run)

It might seem a bizarre bit of pointlessness that Former Human melee damage is a d3 that subtracts 1 from the roll instead of a d2 (Both of which result in a damage range of 1-2), but it shifts the odds; a d2 would result in a 50% chance to do 1 damage and a 50% chance to do 2 damage. A d3 that subtracts 1 skews the odds toward 1 damage; 2/3rds of the time, the Former Human will roll 1 or 2 and this will result in 1 damage, and only 1/3rd of the time will they roll the 3 they need to do 2 damage.

Mind, all this only matters if Doomguy has no Protection whatsoever; even 1 point of Protection ensures a Former Human's punch is always 1 damage. So Doomguy has to be naked (Or wearing an Armor that has no Protection and no Melee resistance) and also have no ranks in Tough as Nails. (And no ranks in Ironman, as of 0.9.9.8)

Though there's another reason for this bit of melee quirkiness: all melee attacks that aren't a player weapon are a d3 that then modifies the damage with a fixed number. Even Doomguy's fists are a d3! I'm not sure why Doom Roguelike went with this convention, especially when melee weapon equipment isn't held to it, but there you go.

Some explanations before we start on the Former Human per se.

First, inventory. Enemy inventory in Doom Roguelike is a little weird.

Firstly, while we're starting with an enemy that has an inventory and can pick up and use certain player gear, these are actually uncommon behaviors. Secondly, these are actually disconnected behaviors; some enemies can pick up and use Armors and whatnot but don't have an innate inventory, some enemies have an innate inventory but don't have the ability to pick up and use player gear. Only the assorted zombies actually have both going on.

Thirdly, the 'inventory' is handled a bit inconsistently. A Former Human, when killed, will always drop the Pistol they were using, with this including that the Pistol's current ammo count will be retained; if a Former Human shoots twice and then you kill it, its Pistol will have four bullets left rather than its maximum of six. If they reload, they do in fact pull from their 24 bullets in storage, too, where letting a Former Human fire three clips of bullets is in fact reducing how many bullets you get out of them by 18...

... but not every enemy works this way. Some enemies have a conceptually appropriate drop they don't interact with at all, such as Arachnotrons always dropping 20 Power Cells no matter how many shots they fired.

Second, evasion. I've alluded to the point that Dodge values differ based on what is firing on Doomguy, and I will be listing the Dodge values on individual enemies, to the best of my knowledge. This is Doomguy's chance of evading their attacks, to be clear.

Anyway, Former Humans themselves are of course the game's most basic, generally least threatening enemy type. They're pathetic in melee, hitting less than 10% of the time (Or about 26% of the time on Nightmare!) for laughable damage, they're slightly slow at 90% speed meaning by default Doomguy gets 10 turns for every 9 turns a Former Human gets, their melee damage is basically a technicality...

... their capacity to threaten you at range is better than the above numbers might suggest, though, as one of the more 'simulationist' elements to Doom Roguelike is that some enemies are mechanically equipped with an equippable weapon, with this working just like Doomguy. In the Former Human's case, their personal ranged Accuracy modifier is +0, but they're equipped with a basic Pistol, which of course has +4 Accuracy. As such, at line of sight they actually hit about 74% of the time, or almost 91% of the time on Nightmare! difficulty. AI factors into their threat profile as well, in that most enemies in Doom Roguelike have less than a 50% chance per turn to decide to attack Doomguy when they're 'locked on' to him, whereas Former Humans have a 75% chance to do so. As such, even though Former Humans are on paper much less dangerous shooters than eg Imps (Who only lob a fireball 40% of the time), in practice they're much more reliable about delivering damage.

This is especially so on Nightmare! difficulty, where Former Humans rise to the cap of a 90% chance to attack on a given turn, and so will pretty regularly fire 6 times in a row instead of wasting a turn on movement.

Note that while Former Humans stop being eligible for placement directly after floor 12 (ie halfway through Deimos), they don't actually vanish forever, due to a non-obvious aspect of enemy generation in Doom Roguelike: monster groups!

Basically, in addition to the regular list of enemies Danger can purchase, there are 15 'slots' that a Danger purchase can grab that are actually made of multiple enemies at once, and in fact most of them are made of multiple enemy types at once. These slots have their own minimum and maximum floors that are generally quite different from the ranges the units that make them up have. In the case of Former Humans, floor 12 is simply the last floor a Former Human can spawn alone.

Here's the specific layouts:

1 Former Sergeant

2-6 Former Humans

Minimum floor: 7/4/1

Maximum floor: 16

Notice that on Ultraviolence and Nightmare! you can get a pack of Formers spawning all the way to the beginning of a run. This is particularly noticeable in Angel of 100/Archangel of 666, where you will in fact occasionally start in view of such a mob.

Also, I should explicitly note that the Danger costs of monster groups are simply the Danger costs of what spawned. So this group costs 4-8 Danger based on how many Former Humans rolled to spawn. (The Former Sergeant is 2 Danger) The only non-obvious aspect to this is that monster groups are an especially extreme example of 'overdrawing' on Danger purchases, where eg if floor 1 selects this monster group when it has 1 Danger remaining, it is in fact allowed to roll max on the Former Human count and so you'd get your floor having 6 more Danger than its ostensible max of 32 (Ultraviolence) or 40. (Nightmare!) Monster groups have late-ish base floors on a consistent basis so this doesn't skew things too much (6 Danger over 32 is around a 20% increase over the ostensible max), but it's one of many contributors to experience per floor being pretty variable.

Conversely, I should point out that monster groups are a case where the game's logic for placing enemies breaks down a bit in specific ways. Normally, enemies never start a floor over Acid or Lava tiles (Unless the enemy in question can move safely through such), but with monster groups this check only occurs on one tile, which one enemy gets placed in and then the rest of the group gets plunked down around that one tile without regard to whether it's safe for them in those tiles. As such, in the later stages of a run it's pretty normal to end up with monster groups slapped down adjacent to a Lava river or the like and so some members take damage or even die without ever being seen by the player. Incidentally, this is one of the situations that's most blatant about 'you get experience anytime an enemy dies regardless of why it died', where you can sometimes level up shortly after descending a floor even if you never saw an enemy and have done nothing to potentially harm an enemy.

Less funny but still worth pointing out is that the placement logic can get similarly janky when the center tile is in a corridor or at the edge of a room, next to one of its walls. In such cases, the placement logic can end up dumping members of a monster group on the other side of walls, breaking up the monster group; it's entirely possible to descend into view of a member of a monster group and not realize that this is so because the rest of their group is on the other side of a wall, giving the impression that eg a lone Former Human spawned on floor 15.

This particular group just helps make Former Humans a little less sad by giving them opportunities to mob you, offsetting their individual weakness some.

That said, I should point out that monster groups only control initial placement. Monster groups don't attempt to stick together as they randomly wander about, and so unless a monster group is either trapped by terrain or is placed pretty close to where Doomguy descends to, monster groups don't often result in particularly more swarming than what already happens with random placement of individual enemies.

5-8 Imps

Minimum floor: 5/2/1

Maximum floor: 8

Another 'this basic unthreatening enemy can show up in groups to be more threatening' formation, but for Imps, also ultimately phased out. On I'm Too Young To Die, it is in fact directly replaced by...

1 Hell Knight

2-6 Imps

Minimum floor: 9/6/3

Maximum floor: 12

... this group, where the Imp count is dropped but they have a Hell Knight to stiffen their spines.

On I'm Too Young To Die, this too gets directly replaced by...

1 Baron of Hell

4-9 Imps

Minimum floor: 13/10/7

Maximum floor: 21

... subbing out the Hell Knight for a Baron of Hell, and increasing the number of Imps to something more comparable to the original all-Imp group.

Of course, on any other difficulty these groups end up with overlapping spawn ranges, where on the upper two difficulties you can in fact have floors 7 and 8 both produce the all-Imp blob and the Baron-led Imp group. (Well, only floor 7 in a standard run...) It's kind of weird how I'm Too Young To Die is clearly the conceptual base for floor distribution of monster groups given that in most respects the game treats it as a special easy mode not representative of the 'real' game.

Then there's...

1 Former Commando

2-6 Former Sergeants

Minimum floor: 15/12/9

Maximum floor: 21

... this group, which heavily overlaps with regular Former Commando spawn ranges. So basically if you see a Commando, there's decent odds there's also some Sergeants in the area.

Note that Former Sergeants stop appearing on their own past floor 15. This and two other monster groups are the only ways for Sergeants to show up past that point, and all three monster groups involve some very deadly enemies. As such, if you spot a Sergeant in a Hell floor (Or Beyond, in Angel of 100/Archangel of 666) you should assume there's at least one much nastier enemy nearby and move accordingly.

1 Pain Elemental

3-8 Lost Souls

Minimum floor: 13/10/7

Maximum floor: 21

This group existing is sort of whatever, and can easily be basically invisible in regular play since Pain Elementals are willing to spawn Lost Souls even when out of vision so long as they've been hurt recently. The only way to tell the difference between 'a Pain Elemental and a bunch of Lost Souls that spawned together and I provoked collectively with my Shotgun blast' and 'I provoked a lone Pain Elemental who spawned a bunch of Lost Souls' is to scrutinize if you're gaining experience from the Lost Souls or not. It makes a kind of 'realistic' sense, but in terms of gameplay experience?... not terribly clear.

4-9 Pinkie Demons

Minimum floor: 10/7/4

Maximum floor: 22

This is one of the more subtle-yet-vicious ways in which Ultraviolence (and Nightmare!) make for rough early games. Having up to 9 Pinkies spawn in the open as early as floor 4 is kind of nuts: the player may well be 2-3 Levels away from getting their build to the point of being able to efficiently cut through such a horde. It's also not at all obvious player-side that this is happening, because you can already see a huge horde of Pinkies running about very early, it's just that on lower difficulties they have to have started out confined in a Vault, where on Ultraviolence (and Nightmare!) you might find such a horde standing in view right after you descend to floor 4.

Conversely, the fact that they ultimately get phased out is very reasonable: early Pinkies are vicious, but generally by the time you have your Mastery online Pinkies have become easy experience with minimal danger involved. Indeed, Pinkies are one of the few enemies in the game to be completely phased out: there is no other monster group that includes Pinkies, and their personal maximum floor is 20, so past floor 22 you can't see them at all without special circumstances involved. (By which I mostly mean Special Levels)

1 Baron of Hell

2-4 Hell Knights

Minimum floor: 20/17/14

Maximum floor: Infinite

Hell Knights stop spawning on their own after floor 15, and the Hell Knight-leading-Imps group is the only other monster group containing Hell Knights, so if you see one Hell Knight past floor 15, there's at least one more Hell Knight running around, not to mention a Baron of Hell.

3-6 Arachnotrons

Minimum floor: 20/17/14

Maximum floor: Infinite

Arachnotrons do in fact have a max floor for regular generation, but floor 50 is well past the City of Dis, so for a standard run they effectively have no cap.

That said, for Angel of 100 and Archangel of 666, this monster group is the only way for Arachnotrons to appear past floor 50, so once you're that deep, seeing one Arachnotron means there's others about, period. Notably, Arachnotrons can't open doors, so it's very easy to end up with a blob of them trapped in a room together, ready to unload on you en mass the second you open the door, so you should be wary of smaller rooms if you're hearing Arachnotrons about so late. (Assuming your defensive setup hasn't gotten so monstrous that Arachnotrons are basically beneath notice, anyway)

2 Barons of Hell

2-3 Former Captains

2-3 Former Sergeants

Minimum floor: 20/17/14

Maximum floor: Infinite

One of two monster groups that let Former Sergeants still spawn in the late game, and one of three that let Former Captains do the same. All three such groups involve much nastier monsters than Captains and Sergeants, so if you spot either about in the late game, you shouldn't relax: there's bigger threats nearby.

2 Archviles

4 Former Captains

4 Former Sergeants

3-6 Former Humans

Minimum floor: 20/17/14

Maximum floor: Infinite

This is literally the only way for Former Humans to spawn once you're past floor 16, so if you see Former Humans anywhere in Hell (Or past it, in Angel of 100/Archangel of 666), you should assume there's Archviles, Captains, and Sergeants nearby. This is appreciated for runs reliant on 10mm ammo and/or Shotgun Shells, letting you harvest the zombies repeatedly for their ammo by letting Archviles revive them, but can be an unpleasant surprise if you're going 'oh, it's just some zombies, those guys haven't been threatening in ages' and don't properly prepare for Archviles.

2 Archviles

2-5 Mancubi

Minimum floor: 20/17/14

Maximum floor: Infinite

Potentially nice if you need Rocket ammo?

But mostly, it's one of the nastier late-game formations.

2 Archviles

2-5 Revenants

Minimum floor: 20/17/14

Maximum floor: Infinite

Same basic commentary as its Mancubi-filled equivalent I just covered.

2 Archviles

3-9 Barons of hell

Minimum floor: 25/22/19

Maximum floor: Infinite

As Barons of Hell have a lot of bulk, this is one of the formations that can be a big problem if your firepower is good but not amazing, where you might severely deplete your ammo in the process of killing and re-killing so many Barons with two Archviles ready to put them right back into the fight. One of the better use-cases for corpse destruction tools.

That said, outside Angel of 100/Archangel of 666, you won't see this very often. It's literally impossible to see on I'm Too Young To Die, it only has two floors to potentially be picked when on Hey, Not Too Rough or Hurt Me Plenty, and still only has five floors of relevancy to Ultraviolence and Nightmare! runs.

2 Archvile

2-8 Former Captains

2-3 Mancubi

Minimum floor: 25/22/19

Maximum floor: Infinite

Uh, okay?

This can actually be really mean on Angel of Max Carnage, mind, as Former Captains are honestly one of the more unavoidably lethal enemies in Angel of Max Carnage, so a blob of 8 of them can chew through your HP in no time flat. They're frail, yeah, but if the Mancubi and Archviles are grabbing your attention and firepower... you might be leaving the Former Captains unmolested and die very suddenly.

I suspect this group is in fact disproportionately prone to getting Angel of Max Carnage runs killed relatively late. It's often been a long time since you last saw a Captain, and in most runs a Captain showing up this late is basically just free ammo, so it's easy to fall back on a usually-correct habit that is very, very wrong in this particular Angel Challenge.

Like the Barons and Archviles group, though, you'll see it only rarely due to its small window to appear in the context of a standard run.

2 Pain Elementals

2-5 Cacodemons

Minimum floor: 30/27/24

Maximum floor: Infinite

This is notable for the fact that Pain Elementals stop being able to spawn on their own after floor 40, and Cacodemons stop being able to spawn on their own after floor 50. As such, in Angel of 100 and Archangel of 666 runs, eventually Pain Elementals being sighted means Cacodemons are about, and Cacodemons being sighted probably means Pain Elemental are about. Only probably, though, as there's a very long period where a Vault spawning will be populated solely by Cacodemons, so you can see Cacodemons without Pain Elementals being about because some enemy opened the Vault door and Cacodemons wandered out of it.

Note that this monster group is (oddly) completely exclusive to Angel of 100/Archangel of 666. Floor 24 exists in a standard run, but it marks the end of random floor generation in a standard run, so even on Ultraviolence and Nightmare! this isn't pushed low enough to be relevant to a standard run.

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Next time, we move on to Former Sergeants.

See you then.