Baron of hell

From Doom Wiki

Barons of hell are enemy monsters. Barons of hell resemble minotaurs or satyrs, with pink torsos and brown legs.

A pair of barons, referred to internally by id Software as the "bruiser brothers," star as the bosses at the end of Knee-Deep in the Dead, the first episode of Doom. Barons also appear as regular enemies in the later episodes and in the sequels.

They are described in the Doom manual as "tough as a dump truck and nearly as big, these Goliaths are the worst things on two legs since Tyrannosaurus rex"; the Doom II manual later described them as follows: "The Hell Knight was bad news but this is Big Daddy. These bruisers are a lot like Hell Knights, but look a little different and are twice as tough to kill.". The original baron of hell description was given to the hell knight in Doom II's manual instead.

Contents 1 Combat characteristics 2 Tactical analysis 3 Inspiration and development 4 Notes 5 Data 6 Appearance statistics 7 Doom RPG 8 See also 9 External links 10 Source

[edit] Combat characteristics

With 1000 hit points, barons are the strongest of all creatures in Doom except for the cyberdemon and the spiderdemon. They attack opponents by scratching when close or by throwing green comet shaped fireballs when distant.

[edit] Tactical analysis

Baron attacks are dodged relatively easily, but are faster than those of imps or cacodemons and can do very heavy damage on a successful hit. Because barons take very heavy beatings before going down, and because their pain chance is low, use of the rocket launcher, plasma rifle, or super shotgun is recommended. However, provided that the player can get at sufficient range without being hit, the chaingun and shotgun will also work, but may take a while. Melee attacks against them are hazardous, as they put the player at risk of being clawed.

To kill them requires about five rockets, 45 plasma cell shots or cacodemon fireballs, 100 bullets, 28 Mancubus flame bursts, 23 revenant missiles, 11 seconds with the chainsaw, 15 well-placed shotgun blasts, or five point-blank super shotgun blasts. The BFG9000 at close range can kill a baron in a single shot, however.

Despite their endurance, barons of hell often pose a lesser immediate threat than some of the weaker monsters because they make a single attack without special effects and, given sufficient space, their unswerving fireballs are not too hard to dodge (especially by circlestrafing). In confined spaces, however, they are hard to move around and can be more lethal.

[edit] Inspiration and development

The barons were known as the "bruiser brothers" internally to id because of the first encounter with them and as a parody of the Hammer Brothers in Super Mario Brothers.

Having many hit points, the baron of hell appears only sparingly in Doom, as a boss or a champion-type monster. In Doom II the game dynamics change with the inclusion of a greater variety of relatively tough monsters, the super shotgun, and the megasphere. The hell knight, essentially the same as the baron but with only half as much health, was added to serve as a standard medium-strength monster, falling more quickly to small arms fire such as from the shotgun or chaingun, or offering some resistance without slowing the action down, against more heavily equipped players.

[edit] Notes

• The baron of hell's face is displayed in the textures MARBFAC3 & MARBFAC4.

• The thing name assigned to them within the Doom source code is MT_BRUISER.

[edit] Data

Attributes ID # 3003 (decimal), BBB (hex) Hit points 1000 Speed 8 map units/frame (93.3 map units/second) Width 48 Height 64 Reaction time 8 Pain chance 50 (19.53%) Mass 1000 Bits 4194310 Bits list 1: Obstacle 2: Shootable 22: Affects Kill %

Sprites & sounds Sprite name BOSS Alert sound DSBRSSIT Action sound DSDMACT Pain sound DSDMPAIN Death sound DSBRSDTH

Melee attack Damage 10-80 Sound DSCLAW Ranged attack Type Projectile Speed 15 map units/tic (525 map units/second) Damage 8-64 Width 6 Height 8 Sprite name BAL7 Sound DSFIRSHT (firing) DSFIRXPL (impact)

Blows needed to kill1	Mean	Standard deviation	Min	Max
Player (100% health, no armor)	2.77	0.78	2	5
Player (100% health, security armor)	3.87	1.02	2	7
Player (200% health, combat armor)	9.41	1.48	6	13
Barrel	1.12	0.33	1	2
Trooper	1.12	0.33	1	2
Sergeant	1.25	0.46	1	3
Wolfenstein SS	1.61	0.70	1	4
Imp	1.81	0.76	1	4
Chaingunner	2.04	0.79	1	4
Lost Soul	2.77	0.78	2	5
Commander Keen	2.77	0.78	2	5
Demon	3.87	1.02	2	7
Spectre	3.87	1.02	2	7
Boss Brain2	6.12	1.19	4	10
Revenant	7.22	1.33	5	11
Cacodemon	9.41	1.48	6	13
Pain Elemental	9.41	1.48	6	13
Hell Knight	11.65	1.67	8	16
Arachnotron	11.65	1.67	8	16
Mancubus	13.84	1.72	10	18
Arch-Vile	16.07	1.78	12	20
Baron of Hell	22.81	2.10	17	27
Spider Mastermind	67.42	2.81	61	74
Cyberdemon	89.66	2.76	83	95

Shots needed to kill	Mean	Standard deviation	Min	Max
Player (100% health, no armor)	3.37	0.88	2	6
Player (100% health, security armor)	4.78	1.04	3	8
Player (200% health, combat armor)	11.68	1.70	8	16
Barrel	1.27	0.51	1	3
Trooper	1.27	0.51	1	3
Sergeant	1.44	0.60	1	4
Wolfenstein SS	2.04	0.77	1	5
Imp	2.25	0.76	1	5
Chaingunner	2.56	0.73	2	5
Lost Soul	3.37	0.88	2	6
Commander Keen	3.37	0.88	2	6
Demon	4.78	1.04	3	8
Spectre	4.78	1.04	3	8
Boss Brain2	7.66	1.32	5	11
Revenant	9.04	1.46	6	13
Cacodemon	11.68	1.70	8	16
Pain Elemental	11.68	1.70	8	16
Hell Knight3
Arachnotron	14.55	1.88	10	19
Mancubus	17.27	2.00	12	21
Arch-Vile	20.10	2.11	14	25
Baron of Hell3
Spider Mastermind	84.14	2.60	79	93
Cyberdemon	112.12	2.48	107	117

1. These tables assume that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, impact animations, and backfire checks are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
2. Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
3. Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding barrels).

[edit] Appearance statistics

In classic Doom, the baron is first encountered on these maps:

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	E1M8: Phobos Anomaly	E1M8: Phobos Anomaly	E1M8: Phobos Anomaly
Doom II	MAP08: Tricks and Traps	MAP08: Tricks and Traps	MAP08: Tricks and Traps
TNT: Evilution	MAP07: Prison	MAP02: Human BBQ	MAP02: Human BBQ
Plutonia	MAP03: Aztec	MAP02: Well of Souls	MAP02: Well of Souls

The IWADs contain the following numbers of barons:

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	26	44	82
Doom II	24	27	31
TNT: Evilution	15	44	61
Plutonia	58	76	90

[edit] Doom RPG

In Doom RPG, the baron of hell and hell knight both belong to the "baron" monster class. There are three variations, identified by color:

• Ogre (green torso, red hands, brown legs)
• Hell knight (brown torso, brown hands, pink legs)
• Baron (pink torso, orange hands, brown legs)

As in the original, the hell knight is not as powerful as the baron, though both are more powerful than the new "ogre" variation. This class of monster is especially weak against attacks from shotguns.

[edit] See also

• Models

[edit] External links

• Adrian Carmack's baron of hell sketch

[edit] Source

• This article incorporates text from the open-content Wikipedia online encyclopedia article Baron of Hell.

Monsters from Doom and Doom II
Arachnotron | Arch-vile | Baron of hell | Cacodemon | Commander Keen | Cyberdemon | Demon | Heavy weapon dude | Hell knight | Imp | Lost soul | Mancubus | Pain elemental | Revenant | Shotgun guy | Spectre | Spiderdemon | Zombieman | Wolfenstein SS | See also final boss