I strongly second this. I've noticed that this feature, if nothing else, really adds to the feel of a rougelike.

The best implementation of friendly creatures I've seen is in the rougelike "Incursion", which I suggest any of you play if you haven't. It could be used as reference for adding them.

Currently there are already genies, which I think count as borderline to this.

Personally... I'm against that. It's just not in the spirit of IVAN. Although perhaps there should be some more neutral creatures, ignoring you unless you hang around for too long, and maybe monster infighting - kamikaze dwarves blowing up zombies, goblins fighting hedgehogs, etc.

(easy to do in theory, I guess, just split monsters into teams, eg. "undead", "neutrals", "demons", "animals" etc - the downside would be that the monster behaviour as it is will cause most enemies to kill each other before you have a chance to see them)

But I think the most useful thing would be fixing the AI of pets and friendly characters - that'd just make them more useful.

Ps. I've just downloaded Incursion and - wow. Complex. An RPG where you create character for several minutes, more than how long you can usually survive

Yeah, but the "reincarnate a character" choice in the main menu helps with that.

Unce you've played a few times and you're more used to the menu, it goes faster. It also helps if you've played D&D a little bit.

carry a bunch of bones and all the canines will be your buddies - puppies, jackals, wolves, and blink dogs. pray do dulcis or use the lyre and you will have even more friendlies, use a wand o necromancy for friendly zombies, or tame a necromance for hordes of friendly zombies and skeletons, not to mentions mistresses, angels, and friendly fountain spawn (spiders, snakes, rats, dark frogs of all sorts, slimes, and even the odd dolphin).

Given the above I don't really think friendly randomly spawned creatures are necessary.

Actually slob, the bone trick doesn't work for jackals and wolves, just puppies and blink dogs (any other canines?).

Huh, I thought it worked with wolves.

i seem to recall taming jackals with bones before

It worked with wolves for me. Maybe it's a bit random.

More likely it has something to do with the version. Everything I say is for 0.50

i met ivan and after a while he turned into a snake and i got all his items. is he important or something? (newbie)

edit: he makes a nice pet and i suddenly got a Vladimir gigantic carnivorous mutant bunny as well. it is destroying a lot of things

First of all, wrong topic.

Second of all, if you got to Ivan, that means you're not a newbie, at least not in IVAN terms (except if you used wizard mode, of course)

Third of all, he's a sidekick, another adventurer sent into the dungeon by Petrus. He's not crucial, he's just helpful. The turning into a snake thing must have been a ring of polymorph or a gas/trap effect.

Heck, if you got out of UT alive, I say you're not a newbie.

Ivan should not be polymorphed by a gas, as he is wearing a gas mask.

speaking of Ivan how good are his hammer and sickle? do they have any special properties? I dont think they have a page on the wiki. Is there any combo benefit to wielding them both?

Not that I'm aware of.