Doyle sat back after that little multi-day diversion and took a moment to think if any of his current monsters could use a nudge.

That didn’t take long. Since the beginning his assassin vines have underperformed. So, Doyle set about checking each of the plant’s stats. Which was honestly one of the reasons he chose the monster besides the whole “underperforming” thing. After all, it only has three.

This took a few days even after the experience with the goat and a ton of note taking. Though in the end, he reduced it down to a few things from each stat that might work.

Strength - toughness of the vines, grip strength, pneumatic pressure

Agility - grab speed, vine flexibility

Constitution - pneumatic fluid

That last one was honestly the most interesting. While Constitution only had pneumatic fluid listed, that actually could go multiple ways. Did Doyle want the fluid poisonous, acidic, sticky, or any other interesting quality? One particular nuisance change was that the fluid could cause a nasty rash like what you would get from poison ivy, except requiring magical healing or a healing factor to go away.

While the rash wouldn’t kill anyone, it could potentially be a run ender if the vine grabbed the right person. A tank with a rash running down their back from when the choking vine was slashed off of them wasn’t going to be doing their best. Though Doyle wasn’t too worried about changing those up right away.

After all, those properties would eventually start appearing with points into the stat. In fact, at the moment the rash option was at the front of the line to develop. Though it was a close one with the sticky option. A nasty combo as the fluid would not only cause a rash, but it would stick to everything and spread even further.

But no, Doyle was looking at vine flexibility. Toughness, grip, and fluid pressure from Strength were all good. Though fluid pressure would be best for if the fluid had been adjusted. Otherwise, having the stuff spurt all over the place after people cut the vines wouldn’t be doing much.

As for grab speed? The plants weren’t currently having a problem with grabbing their prey. Rather, they just could last long enough. That might make others consider the toughness of the vines, except to increase that would overly affect speed and so that would need adjusting as well. No, the most straightforward change to make with the best upside was flexibility.

While blunt and piercing weapons would still blast through the vines. With increased flexibility, chopping and slicing weapons would have reduced effectiveness. So plan in mind, Doyle dives back into the assassin vine’s Agility stat and spent a handful of days tweaking things until he got the result he wanted.

{Vine flexibility and resistance to cuts has increased, this will cost 8 Monster Pattern Adjustment Points

Accept/Deny}

Doyle nods, ‘[Accept]’.

{Confirm the purchase of increased vine flexibility for the Assassin Vine for 8 Monster Pattern Adjustment Points?

Deny/Confirm}

Doyle chuckles to himself when he sees what the system did. Not only was the deny option flipped to the other side so someone couldn’t mindlessly just spam the accept button, but it wasn’t even an accept button anymore. That way verbal cues wouldn’t work either.

Doyle nods, ‘[Confirm]’.

With that Doyle feels something odd, as if a part of his crystal had shifted. Though after a quick check, everything looks fine and even the assassin vine pattern was the same level. In fact, even the assassin vines currently in the dungeon didn’t experience any change.

That is, they didn’t until Doyle ran a quick refresh on any from a floor not currently being delved. So, after removing and respawning the assassin vines, the change was obvious. Not, however, because of how flexible the vines were. Rather, the change in vine structure also caused a change in vine appearance.

From an almost rough and craggy look, the vines now took on a smoother and plastic appearance. Mind you, the vines were still rough, otherwise how would they catch prey? Still, this visual change wasn't what Doyle was trying to judge and so he sat back to watch how they performed.

Good thing that even with them not needing to hit up the boss much, people still needed to get to the third floor. The ore deposits there were perfect bait and so it took only until the next morning before someone got to experience the changed assassin vines.

First thing about the fight that caught Doyle's eye was that the vine did a better job at ambushing the delvers. Before, it would keep the long vines close to the central mass, whipping them out to catch prey. Now, the extra flexibility allowed them to hide their vines on the ground by snaking them along.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Sure, before the vines could choke a man, but that didn't mean they could follow the contour of a cave wall. Now though, the capture went a lot smoother as the vines whips off the wall and wraps a tank around the neck. Of course, this is to be expected at this point and so the tank had a decent neck guard on his armor, preventing suffocation.

The good news for them is that the armor design still worked. The bad news for that guy is that he was the one in the group with a blunt weapon. Not saying that just 8 points is enough to completely change a monster, but remember that you can get key skills for only a couple points. In fact, if those points had been spent on a skill to resist being sliced, that tank would have likely died.

Which makes its own sense. The vines being more flexible is a completely different matter from just being more resistant to getting sliced and covers a lot more. Though this did bring up a question for Doyle. ‘Ally, I just thought of something. What is the difference between giving one of my monsters the skill Charge and changing a stat so they are better at charging?’

Ally shrugs, ‘The fact you can give a monster the skill and not all your monsters of that type? Though more seriously, there are enough differences that this is important. The first of which is that there is no limit on how many changes you can make, whereas unless it is a boss with a path, all monsters are limited to only five skills. You give your goats a skill for charging, tougher hides, tougher horns, better piercing on the horns, and resistance to slashing and you’ll be out of skill slots you could have used on more impactful things like using one of the various powers like Qi or Mana.

‘Also, the skill charge does more than just make them better at charging. It also bundles in a bunch of tiny bonus effects like a slight amount of protection from any resulting collision and a whole lot of mental and muscle memory on how best to charge. I’m sure you’ve watched your goats charge more than enough and noticed they tend to look the same when charging.

‘That isn’t because they’re all copies or some such. Rather, it is because they have the same level of skill with charge and so when on the same sort of terrain will have similar ideas on what the best way to charge is. Whereas if you just make their bodies better at charging, they’re stuck with whatever instinctual charging style they might have had.’

Doyle nods, ‘Okay, but I noticed with the goats Strength that skills can actually add onto the skills expression of legs for charging. If skills are able to not only improve the corresponding stats, but do so above what is naturally possible, why not just find the best skills instead of changing a stat?’

Ally laughed, ‘Huh, I didn’t know that. Though I guess it does make some degree of sense. After all, skills like carving can steady a person's hands even when not carving. However, while I’m not 100% certain, I can guess what is actually happening.

‘While it might look like the skill is adjusting potential, I’m willing to bet that the bit added on doesn’t actually grow with the stat, rather with the skill. A good example would be someone young with a prosthetic. As the person grows, that prosthetic isn’t and will only match them again when a new one is acquired. The growth is like a stat increasing, while the new prosthetic is like skill growth.’

Doyle, ‘I guess it would be too much to ask for skills to pull double duty like that.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘Don’t get me wrong, that bonus is pretty powerful. The thing is, you’re missing that actual play. Yes, that bonus to the stat is just added on top of what is already there, but that means it doesn’t count towards changing what is already there.

‘It would be like trying to build the highest sandcastle and then being allowed to just add a couple inches to the count just because you're good at building sandcastles. Complete nonsense and I love it. You can modify the goats to be better at charging and reap the rewards of synergy from the stat then capping it off by making the goats better at charging.

‘The only thing about changing stats is that there are catches. So far you haven’t run into them as you’ve kept to the basics. However, even your kobolds are going to be interesting. They’re mostly the same except the males are good at Mana and the females are good at Qi. Have you considered what that will mean for changing their stats?’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘That is a strange one. Is there a stat for controlling those types of things?’

Ally, 'Yes, but not in the way you're thinking. Rather, you will have to make individual changes to the stats for male and female kobolds. In fact, you're lucky the goats you have are the type with equal horns on both genders and the fact that the system isn't cruel enough to split all stats by what's under the belt, as it were.

'Just look at mushrooms, they can have over a thousand, let alone a simple male/female divide. It would make changing your myconids quite frustrating. Though if you want to, for instance, get more milk from your cows, that is better done through skills so the system doesn't "remember" to split them up for you.

'Oh, and your ants are a little screwed as well. The queens and each of the different types of worker will have their own stat layout to change. Though with that it makes some sense. Each is basically its own thing.'

Doyle, 'Or I could focus all my changes on the queens so anything I do trickles down to the drones.'

Ally shrugs, 'That isn't wrong and honestly how the sapient hives tend to work. Though as the termitekin working for the system up in the town shows, things don't always work out the way you expect.'

Doyle, 'How does that work anyway? I'm sort of on my way to that already with my ant hive mind thing.'

Ally, 'As long as your ants stay ant-shaped, at most the queens will gain sapience. The way the drones' very brain structure is setup makes it near impossible for them to gain sapience. Not impossible, I will admit, but we're likely to have outlived this universe by the time we get one and at that it would have to be a giant ant drone and not one of the normal sized drones.

'The catch is if they start changing their base shape. With ants that will likely either mean going full humanoid with the kin route or going taur with the folk route. At that point queens are either 100% sapient or at the very least grow into it. Drones though still lag behind as even then a lot of their mental make-up is based on following the queen and not much else. However, at that point it goes from near impossible to about the same chance as any of your other monsters.'