So here is an idea for the wrathful rabbit king to make him more of a fair survival element for hapless newbies who may incur his fury.
Not a simplistic one, but one that is a fair punishment for a new player who gets thrown into an unexpected combat encounter like the tree guards.
- Currently there is no way to negotiate with the rabbit king like there is to the tree guards.
- A krampus style counter is somewhat punishing to new players who adopt simple winter survival tactics, but its baby mode easy for players who know how to fight.
- Rabbits dislike murderers, so why is their king one (Even if his murders are justifiable.)
I propose three adjustments that make him more interesting as a character, and a better warning for new players to vary their food sources.
- The rabbit king will prefer to beat you within an inch of your life (Less than 1 hit remaining) instead of killing you when not pushed to defend himself. If you don't inflict serious harm (20% or more of his health, and you haven't triggered him in the last 20 days,) before he gets you to the killing blow on you, he and his guards have a mercy effect. He will warn you to learn to live righteously and give you 4-6 carrot seeds to correct your ways on a first offense in his domain, with capital punishment being doled out for repeat offenses.
- When the rabbit king stuns you, his guards will confiscate murderers belongings from you instead of pummeling/stunlocking you: Meat and the like. They will also hammer traps you have, as well as clothing made from rabbits.
- The rabbit kings threshold for mauling you can be improved by dropping/freeing rabbits to appease them.
- Cruelty for killing small rabbits is reduced at base. Cruelty for killing small rabbits while carrying more than 3-5-8 morsels is increased. Carrying rabbits while having many morsels has a temporary cruelty effect you can remove by freeing the rabbit when the rabbit king anger noise is played. Bunny tails count as 3 morsels for small rabbit cruelty.
My reasoning is simple.
- New players struggle to restore health so being greatly injured is a more interesting survival challenge than just needing a revive.
- As a warning the rabbit king is a radically different experience from the treeguards where there are many non-combat solutions, since he lacks a way of appeasing him, and the only way to run away is to switch shards. Being able to partially appease a rabbit king thats already attacking, or fully appease one who is upset with cruel treatment of rabbits in your inventory but hasn't spawned yet is good.
- This exposes new survival tactics, as carrots are a great crop to use to try and survive winter.
- The cruelty rework punishes new players who are barely making it less, but makes it so players who are greedy with morsels more readily encounter the rabbit king.
This makes the rabbit king a fair, but brutal mentor character to newbies as well as a survival challenge, rather than simply a combat encounter that a counter ticks off in the name of survival when really its just a farmable boss for veteran players. His inclusion as a character is more interesting and it reveals more about the game than it did previously.