Imp

The imp is a human-sized humanoid monster, the most common opponent encountered in id Software's IWADs. It is leather brown in color, with red eyes, a number of white bony spikes on its body, and equally white claws on its hands and feet.

The Doom instruction manual says:
 * You thought an imp was a cute little dude in a red suit with a pitchfork. Where did these brown bastards come from? They heave balls o' fire down your throat and take several bullets to die. It's time to find a weapon better than that pistol if you're going to face more than one of these S.O.B.s.

Combat characteristics
An imp attacks by hurling a single fireball, which inflicts direct projectile damage. At melee range, it employs a clawing attack. When killed, a hole opens up in its torso, unleashing lots of blood as it falls on its back. This is the only other enemy outside of zombies that can be gibbed with rockets, Berserk fist attacks, toxin barrels, or BFG blasts.

Tactical analysis
The imp moves slowly, as do its fireballs. The player should practice until evading both sorts of objects becomes completely straightforward (except perhaps under highly unusual circumstances, such as a teleportation trap, in close quarters, or when surrounded).

An imp can usually be killed by a single shotgun shell and often by six bullets. As the citation above implies, facing multiple imps with a pistol takes concentration, but it can be done, given sufficient maneuvering room and adequate footwork on the player's part. In fact, the imp's relatively high pain chance sometimes makes it difficult for it to retaliate when damaged often.

Imps often come in packs, and the super shotgun or rocket launcher are both particularly effective here. While the standard shotgun is not completely reliable in dispatching an imp per shell, a blast from the super shotgun usually brings two down and, in rare cases, even three. The rocket launcher can take out entire crowds with little difficulty if used carefully.

Melee against an imp should usually be avoided by novices as it is much trickier than against a demon, as the imp is quicker with its clawing attack than the generally less dexterous demon. The chainsaw takes only a bit of time to dispatch an imp, so it is convenient against a single enemy, but the player risks being surrounded if there are several imps. If the encounter takes place in a large open area, hit-and-run tactics with the berserk fist are safe and effective, as long as the player is not under fire from different sides.

Although its ranged attack and hit point total give it an advantage against the lesser zombies, the imp can easily find itself outmatched during monster infighting. A single imp fighting a shotgun guy may yet call victory, but a demon or spectre can almost always overpower the first two or three imps they engage in melee, and a couple of blows from any even larger monster will more than likely put an imp out of its misery.

Imp fireballs move fifty percent faster than usual when either the Nightmare! skill level or the -fast command line parameter are used, and these are hurled rather persistently by the monster as long as a target is in sight.

Data



 * 1) These tables assume that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, impact animations, and backfire checks 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) Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
 * 3) Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding barrels).

Appearance statistics
In classic Doom, the imp is first encountered on these maps:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of imps:

Doom 64
The imp is featured in Doom 64, though with a sleeker appearance, only having noticeable spikes along its back.

A more powerful variant known as the Nightmare Imp is also one of the new monsters in the game.

Doom RPG
In Doom RPG, the imp appears as a class of monster. There are three variations, identified by color: Imps are most susceptible to attacks from shotguns.
 * Impling (green)
 * Imp (normal colors)
 * Imp lord (red with green eyes)