User:Karlos/Species

Species
Definition: Species denotes the creature's type. This affects what traits the creature has such as it's vulnerability to certain weapons and skills as well as it's resistance to certain types of damage.

Hierarchy: The assumption is that there are arch-species and sub-species. The clear dividing line seems to be Fleshy vs non-Fleshy as there seems to be no creatures that blur this line (i.e. get poisoned, but do not leave corpses). Within that, there are arch sub-types (such as Undead) that cause certain traits (such as taking double damage from holy damage) but still have sub-species such as Skeletons that are non-fleshy and take extra damage from "Skeleton slaying" mods as well as fleshy creatures.

Criteria: See below.

Species categorization:

Political affiliation
Definition: Affiliation defines creatures' allegiance to a specific diety/group and it's hostility to other groups.

Effect: The effect of affiliattion can be seen in a few ways:
 * 1) Groups of monsters being hostile to each other, such as Outcasts being hostile to all other creatures in the Jade Sea or the Afflicted being hostile to the creatures of the Echovald Forest and the Jade Sea.
 * 2) Certain bounties reward slaying creatures allied with a specific cause (Anguish creatures, Servants of Dhuum) than actual species.

Criteria: See below.

 * denotes intelligent species that seems to be able to form tribes and alliances with/against humans

Slaying mods
These will always determine species. Sometimes they determine sub-species, as in the case of Skeleton-slaying

Bounties
These sometimes indicate political allegiance, but most of the times, it's species. In very rare cases (see Undead Hunt) it indicates BOTH:

Anomalies

 * Do Shadow Beasts trigger EoE on other Shadow Army units or vice versa? (This would "greatly" weaken EoE's credibility as a clear cut decider of species as Shadow Beasts are decidedly not even Fleshy while all other Shadow Army units are)
 * Are Corrupted Scales and Explosive Growths affected by Gaze of Fury? They are unhexable and cannot suffer conditions with a message saying they are spirits. Is it just a glitch (i.e. misderivation of the base class of the creature)?
 * Explosive Growths are labeled as spirits by the game, they trigger EoE on Urgoz... Is HE a spirit? Can he be killed with Gaze of Fury? If not, EoE's credibility as a clear cut decider agains is questionable. It basically shows the Devs can give arch-types that clash with the creature's EoE species.
 * Do all ghosts in the game take double-damage from holy damage? Need to test on the UW ghosts (Tortured Spirits). The evil Ghostly Hero in Dunes of Despair is fleshy and leaves a corpse. :(
 * Are Wraiths -humanoid spectres, with tendancy to be affiliated with guys like the Lich and Dhuum- (like Wraiths and Smoke Phantoms and Mindblade Spectres) and Phantoms -squids- (like Phantoms and posibly Mragga Spawn) the same species? Do they share a common arch-species with Nighmares?
 * Do Smite Crawlers take double damage from holy damage? (I never solo farmed them back in the day)

Level 2 Information: Species Traits
Once we are set on which creatures belong to which species, we need to build up a list of Species traits. This is a list of some traits I observed over the years: