Be Your Own Monster

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Be Your Own Monster or BYOM is a modification for Quake made by Micheal Keane. With this modification, players can take on the role of a couple different Monsters in Deathmatch games. These Monsters form the basis of teams, meaning Monsters of a similar type work together. This modification requires DOS 1.06, modern Source Ports will not work properly with this. While this modification is open-source, trying to compile the code provided shall result in the compiler crashing due to a pagefault.

The player can decide which monster they wish to be by using a couple impulses. Each impulse shall result in the player being unable to move and a message appearing that they have changed their type. The player will need to suicide to respawn as the new class. Monsters can pick up Ammo and most Powerups, but cannot pick up any Weapons or Armor. Walking over a Weapon/Armor shall result in it being temporarily destroyed - "You destroy that which you cannot possess".

Impulse 101 changes the player into a Ranger, referred to in the mod as a Marine. This is essentially the normal player and is the team players default to. To make Monsters not pick up Weapons, the modification makes it so that the player always has all Weapons, but it is not visually shown on the HUD until the player picks up another Weapon. This means a player can press the button to switch to the Nailgun and use it, granted they find some Nails, even if the HUD states they do not have one in their possession.

Impulse 102 changes the player into a Demolitions Expert (according to the Readme, it is intended to be a Scrag). Impulse 103 changes the player into a Fiend. Impulse 104 changes the player into a Shambler. Note that all three of these are nearly identical in the game, regardless of the text file talking about varying attacks. The player can still pick up Weapons by collecting them off Backpacks of dead Marines, plus can switch to them using the number keys.

The one difference between teams is healing. picking up 15 Health or 25 Health is only 1/3 as effective if the player is a Fiend and 1/6 as effective if the player is a Shambler. Both round up to the higher value in the event of a decimal. However, picking up 100 Health will boost the Fiend's health to 300 and a Shambler's health to 600, whereupon they shall retain this heightened value (and can heal as needed) until they die.