It doesn´t make sense that when a predator kills another monster they don ´ t do anything with the corpse even when they aught too. This also creates a weird situation where the player can easely profit from a situation by just luring one monster into another and than just wait for the other monster to wonder off and get a free prestine corpse.
It would make more sense for the monster to stick around and consume the corpse for a time. Degraiding it´s condition quickly and reducing it in mass. Meaning that if you want the prestine corpse you will have to confront whatever is eating it or if the corpse is big enough you will have to make do with the leftovers. It should probably also prevent rivivavication as predators tend to eat the internal organs first and when we gut a carcass to similar effect it doesn´t get back up.
I agree, it would also be beneficial if there were a hunger mechanic added to monsters, additionally they could become increasingly aggressive and eventually a lot weaker the longer they go without feeding. Naturally the undead monsters want to kill living creatures just for existing, so using a corpse as bait or a distraction would only be effective towards a ravenous monster, otherwise they would just focus on spreading their influence into the interloper.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to assume predators just sit around waiting (and starving) when the PC isn’t around. Instead, they ought to abstractly kill small (untracked) critters while the PC is away. I agree they ought to consume/degrade corpses, though.
This definitely seems like a good idea to me, and makes a lot of sense, plus it could be an interesting way to help deal with some monsters. Undead kill everything not undead, but other things explicitly need to eat.
It would be interesting to be able to bring a corpse with you somewhere just as bait for a predator you know is nearby. You can distract them with it until they are done eating, and walk around without issue within sight range. But they will still grow hostile if you get too close.
However, that kind of thing would only reasonably work with those that are up for scavenging.
Full on starvation I don’t think should be a thing for monsters, as that would likely cause issues like lots of randomly dead creatures.
Starvation wouldn’t outright kill the monsters, just put them into a weakened state to the point of becoming a crawler. Perhaps the blob within would abandon the host and use the corpse as bait to then infect carrion scavengers. Or the starving undead, in desperation, could begin to feed on each other which would eventually mutate into a dissoluted devourer.
or maybe make the starvation take extremely long to kill the creatures. And if the creature finds food, it could reset the starvation value.
that way the likelihood of a creature dying from starvation isnt likely but is possible.
For example lets say you get chased by a (idk dinosuar, zombie, bear, etc…) if you have enough food you could wait them out. and wait for them to wander off.
But if you get chased by a horde, you could wait for them to slowly kill themselves off
Simulating starvation for every monster sounds like a chore and something very hard to balance. Most likely you would just make something where if the ratio of plant to herbivores or herbivores to carnivores goes over a certain treshhold you remove a few of those creatures and either move them to adjacent area´s that do have those resources or delete them outright.