Weredragon

Weredragon in Heretic E2M5

Weredragons are big, half-beast, half-dragons. They make their first appearance on E2M1, The Crater. Weredragons, like the player and the gargoyle, can be gibbed if killed by an attack that inflicts significant damage.

Description from the manual: The Weredragons infest the darkest lairs of the Order. Possessing all of the strength and agility of a tank, these lumbering creatures belch a body-blasting fireball.

Note: The Heretic manual incorrectly states that the player will encounter ghost Weredragons.

Weredragon attacks the player in e3m6

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Tactical analysis

Their skin color allows them to blend in somewhat in caves and dark areas. Weredragons attack the player by spitting out fireballs which inflict up to 32 points of damage. Weredragons do not have a melee attack.

Despite the manual's indication that the Weredragon is sluggish and not very mobile, which is somewhat reinforced by the creature's sloth-like appearance, it is actually as fast-moving as a Sabreclaw, making it the joint fastest opponent in Heretic.

When killed, they fall flat on their back, swinging their arms and sloth-like claws in a wide circle while doing so, releasing a copious amount of blood. Their corpses are among the goriest in the game. Weredragons sometimes drop Ethereal Arrows giving twice as much ammo as the normal arrow items.

Data

Attributes
ID #	70 (decimal), 46 (hex)
Hit points	220
Speed	14 map units per frame (163.3 map units per second)
Width	64
Height	74
Reaction time	8
Pain chance	100 (39.22%)
Mass	200
Bits	?

Bits list
Obstacle Shootable Affects Kill % Foot Clip Pass Mobj

Sprites & sounds
Sprite name	BEAS
Alert sound	BSTSIT
Action sound	BSTACT
Pain sound	BSTPAI
Attack sound	BSTATK
Death sound	BSTDTH

Fireball ranged attack
Type	Projectile
Speed	12 map units per tic (420 map units per second)
Damage	4-32
Width	18
Height	8
Sprite name	FRB1

Fireballs needed to kill1	Mean	Standard deviation	Min	Max
Player (100% health, no armor)	?	?	?	?
Player (100% health, Silver Shield)	?	?	?	?
Player (200% health, Enchanted Shield)	?	?	?	?
Player Chicken	?	?	?	?
Bad Guy Chicken	?	?	?	?
Gargoyle	?	?	?	?
Fire Gargoyle	?	?	?	?
Golem (normal and ghost)	?	?	?	?
Nitro Golem (normal and ghost)	?	?	?	?
Undead Warrior (normal and ghost)	?	?	?	?
Disciple of D'Sparil	?	?	?	?
Sabreclaw	?	?	?	?
Weredragon2
Ophidian	?	?	?
Iron Lich	?	?	?	?
Maulotaur	?	?	?	?
Green Chaos Serpent	?	?	?	?
D'Sparil	?	?	?	?

1. These tables assume that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, impact animations, backfire checks, and smoke trails 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. Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding puff pods).

Appearance statistics

The Weredragon is first encountered on these maps:

Game	TNAWN and YRU	BTO	TAASM and BPPT
Episode 1	-	-	-
Episode 2	E2M1: The Crater	E2M1: The Crater	E2M1: The Crater
Episode 3	E3M1: The Storehouse	E3M1: The Storehouse	E3M1: The Storehouse
Episode 4	E4M5: The Great Stair	E4M5: The Great Stair	E4M5: The Great Stair
Episode 5	E5M2: Rapids	E5M2: Rapids	E5M2: Rapids

The IWAD contains the following numbers of Weredragons:

Game	TNAWN and YRU	BTO	TAASM and BPPT
Episode 1	0	0	0
Episode 2	66	98	137
Episode 3	23	36	50
Episode 4	18	26	34
Episode 5	17	22	27