Monsters
There are many different monster types you will encounter throughout Desktop Dungeons. Each have different stats and traits, and thus present a specific challenge to the player.
Contents
Monster Types
XP-wise, there are three types of enemies.
General monsters are XP-valuable, and they gives experience points when killed.
No Experience monsters don't give you experience points when killed, and don't trigger several effects.
-
Dracul or 
Taurog do not give piety from killing no xp monsters. - Dracul does not give piety from stealing life.
-
Glowing Guardian does not give 
from killing undeads or burning monsters. - Under
The Earthmother, 
IMAWAL gives you only 5 piety. -
Tikki Tooki does not give piety from killing lower level monsters. -
Body Pact or 
Warrior's Pact does not trigger. -
Crusader's momentum does not increase nor decrease when you kill those. - Casting IMAWAL on these will only give you 5 instead of 10, won't remove curse, and won't drop gold.
-
Stone Sigil / 
Gloves of Midas / 
Balanced Dagger / 
Blue Bead effect does not trigger.
However, these effects still trigger:
- Dracul still deducts piety when you kill no xp undeads.
-
Mystera Annur still deducts piety when you kill magic attackers. - Tikki Tooki still deducts piety when you are harmed more than twice.
- Crusader's momentum does decrease when you attack a monster without killing it.
Also there are plants. All plants are No Experience, so they have the interactions written above. Plants also have some other interactions.
- Killing plants will invoke The Earthmother's anger.
-
Entanglement will not slow plants.
List of Monsters
See Traits for a full list of traits and what they do. Also see the list of bosses.
Basic Monsters
Common monsters found in just about any dungeon.
| Name | Attack | Health | Traits | Location | Unlock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Bandit
|
70% | 100% |  Cursed
|
Any |  Mossy Isle Casino
|
 Dragon Spawn
|
100% | 125% |  Magical attack
|
Any | Upgrade Church to Lvl 3 |
 Goat
|
100% | 90% |  Magic resist 25%
|
Any | Upgrade Mage Tower to Lvl 2 |
 Goblin
|
120% | 100% |  First Strike
|
Any | |
 Golem
|
100% | 100% | Magic resist 50%
|
Any | Upgrade Mage Tower to Lvl 3 |
 Goo Blob
|
100% | 100% |  Physical resist 50%
|
Any |  Heroic Headquarters
|
 Gorgon
|
100% | 90% | First Strike,  Death-gaze 50%
|
Any |  Legitimate Pawn Shoppe
|
 Meat Man
|
65% | 200% | Any | ||
 Serpent
|
100% | 100% |  Poisonous
|
Any | Upgrade Church to Lvl 2 |
 Warlock
|
135% | 100% | Magical attack
|
Any | |
 Wraith
|
100% | 75% |  Undead,  Mana Burn, Magical attack, Physical resist 30%
|
Any |  Mead Hall
|
 Zombie
|
100% | 150% | Undead
|
Any |
Advanced Monsters
Stronger monsters found as you venture further outside the kingdom. This list does not include any variety of Plant.
Monster stats, level, type and dungeon difficulty
Basically the monster have a range of abilities and stats, and each type present a unique difficulty to the player. Also, the higher their level, the stronger they are.
Base stats and level
For every monster, two formulas to determine the base stats depending on the level. Then, depending on the monster type, modifiers are applied :
- for base hp, you use (n(n+6)-1), where n is the monsters level,
- for base attack, you use (n*(n+5))/2, where n is the monsters level.
The monsters base stat depending on the level are shown below :
| Level | Base Attack | Base Health |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 6 |
| 2 | 7 | 15 |
| 3 | 12 | 26 |
| 4 | 18 | 39 |
| 5 | 25 | 54 |
| 6 | 33 | 71 |
| 7 | 42 | 90 |
| 8 | 52 | 111 |
| 9 | 63 | 134 |
| 10 | 75 | 159 |
Monster type modifiers and traits
After these base stats have been calculated, modifiers and traits are applied. So each monster type present a unique difficulty to the player :
- Each monster type has an attack and hp modifiers, which indicates what percent of the base number provided below they have. For example, Bandits have 100% hp and 70% attack. Therefore a level 3 Bandit would do 8 damage and have 26 hp.
- They also receive traits, which give them special abilities (such as Curse Bearer for the bandit, which will add one layer of Cursed to the player every time he gets hit by the Bandit, or when he kills it)
However, note that bosses don't follow the same progression as other monsters : they usually are stronger (better stats, and different traits) than what would a regular level 10 monster have.
Monster stats and dungeon level
| Dungeon | Monster Difficulty | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hobbler's Hold | 80% | - |
| Den of Danger | 100% | - |
| Venture Cave | 100% | - |
| Western Jungle | 100% | - |
| Eastern Tundra | 100% | - |
| Northern Desert | 100% | - |
| Southern Swamp | 100% | - |
| Doubledoom | 110% | - |
| Grimm's Grotto | 140% | - |
| Rock Garden | 100% | - |
| Cursed Oasis | 115% | - |
| Shifting Passages | 130% | Curse Shade boss is based on 100% |
| Havendale Bridge | 105% | - |
| The Labyrinth | 130% | - |
| Magma Mines | 130% | - |
| Hexx Ruins | 100% | - |
| Ick Swamp | 120% | - |
| The Slime Pit | 120% | - |
| Berserker Camp | 100% | - |
| Creeplight Ruins | 110% | - |
| Halls of Steel | 120% | - |
| Demonic Library | 140% | Arena: 100% |
| Dragon Isles | 140% | Corridor: 100% |
| Naga City | 150% | Arena: 120% |
| Vicious Steel | 140% | - |
| Namtar's Lair | 150% | Underworld: 100% |
| Towers of Gaan-Telet | 100% | Each tower has cumulative +10% difficulty, 100% on final floor |
| Vicious Gaan-telet | 100% | Each tower has cumulative +10% difficulty, 100% on final floor |
The indicated percentages get applied to increase both the Attack and Health of all monsters present on the map. If you prepare the Vicious Token, then the above percentages get ignored, and instead each monster has 160% Attack / 200% Health. (This also means that on towers 7-9 of Vicious Gaan Telet, monsters will have lower Attack if you prepared the Vicious Token, than if you did not.)
Distribution and level
Not counting bosses and special uniques, each dungeon contains 38 monsters, with the following level distribution
| Level | Number | Total XP |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 10 | 10 |
| 2nd | 5 | 10 |
| 3rd | 4 | 12 |
| 4th | 4 | 16 |
| 5th | 4 | 20 |
| 6th | 3 | 18 |
| 7th | 3 | 21 |
| 8th | 3 | 24 |
| 9th | 2 | 18 |
Or, in graphic form:
