Pretty much what's in the title. It would be nice for there to be a 'spawnCorpse' effect, as spawning a monster and then killing it is unreliable due to the fact you can't spawn a monster on top of another monster. As an example of this, see how the Rogue Scientist's gas canister 'bounces off' monsters. It would be nice if it was possible to not have it 'bounce' like this. Old post + more complicated reasons about why existing stuff doesn't work: Spoiler Ok, so I'm trying to make a mod for DoD, but I need some spells to activate (via effects) on the targeted square some turns after casting. It seems the game needs a target available in these later turns to do this. I found I could do this by using a monster corpse, and later found that the gas canister from the Rogue Scientist used this principle, if you want to look at some example code. This arrangement works by spawning a monster, and then killing it. But the problem is is that you can't spawn a monster on top of another monster, so you can't target a monster with the spell without the spell getting displaced, as the spawn (and the rest of the spell) gets moved a few squares over. You can't displace the monster-in-the-way first because the displace and spawn happen at the same time, so the spawn still gets displaced. You can't use amount="1" on the spawn to delay it, because then it needs a target. Aargh. Anyway, I can think of a few possible solutions to the problem, none of which seem to be awfully hard to add: -Add a 'SpawnCorpse' effect, which can be used to spawn corpses directly under monsters with no problem. -Add a flag to the spawn code to force the game to spawn the new monster on top of the one already there. (i.e. to force it not to displace your spawn) -Allow the floor to be a valid target for spells triggered via effects on subsequent turns. Anyway, end of the small wall of text. I hope I made everything clear. Edit: Made things clearer.
Look at the Ninjitsu skill from Complete Essential Skills. It has some of what you want, and Essence is a wondrously good coder.
@Omni: Thanks! Unfortunately, it doesn't help. I'm assuming you're talking about the 'Substitution!' spell, but that's doing something kinda different...
i was just thinking, what happens when you spawn a hostile with a negative health buff that keeps its hp perpetually at zero?
@Fax: ...I have. I mentioned that in the original post. We both use the same principle - a corpse for a target in subsequent turns - and the canister has 'rebounds'. i.e. displacing off monsters that you target. (and due to the first stage being a missile, also off of stuff getting in the way.) @Ruigi: You mean where in the monster definition it has a <secondarybuff id="0" amount="-500"/> sort of thing? I already tried that, it doesn't work.
