Rock mole

r rock mole
Difficulty	4
Attacks	Bite 1d6

r rock mole
Difficulty	4
Attacks	Bite 1d6
Base level	3
Base experience	35
Speed	3
Base AC	0
Base MR	20
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	2 (Quite rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	30
Nutritional value	30
Size	Small
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	None
A rock mole: can tunnel through walls. has no hands. is an animal. can eat metal. is normally generated hostile. likes gold. likes gems. can pick up weapons and food. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	monst.c#line754

A rock mole, r is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a metallivorous rodent that can tunnel through the dungeon, pick up gold and gems, and can be seen via infravision. The woodchuck is a near-identical monster in the same monster class.

A rock mole has a single bite attack.

Generation

Randomly-generated rock moles are always created hostile.

Rock moles appear among the random r that are part of the first quest monster class for Healers and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Healer quest.

Strategy

Rock moles are generally more of an annoyance than a threat: their bite is not too damaging on its own, and they move at a very slow 3 speed, but their AC of 0 will make it difficult for early characters to hit them, and their meager MR score of 20 can still interfere with some magical means of eliminating rock moles.

A rock mole will generally tunnel to and fro towards any gold and other metal items that it wants to eat, which also makes it prudent for loot-seeking characters to eliminate one as soon as possible. Kicking a rock mole can suffice to slowly kill one if you are having trouble hitting with other weapons and/or are trying to conserve resources - do not use projectiles made of materials that a rock mole can eat! Like other metallivores, rock moles are especially annoying in treasure zoos, where they will usually attempt to eat all the gold present once awakened: stealth can give you time to work your way towards the offender.

Rock moles can also be somewhat useful as well: a rock mole can end punishment by eating the heavy iron ball, and polymorphing into a rock mole allows a character to eat metallic jewewlry; the xorn is generally a better polymorph form for this purpose, though there are some scenarios where it is not available (e.g. a Wizard genociding xorns to generate more wraiths for farming purposes). Also of note is that the rock mole is the only other rodent that is capable of vomiting alongside the woodchuck.

History

The rock mole first appears in NetHack 1.3d, where it does not yet eat gold - from this version to NetHack 2.3e, the rock mole appears if the ROCKMOLE compile-time option is defined, and is otherwise replaced by the giant rat. NetHack 3.0.0 includes both the giant rat and rock mole in its default bestiary.

Origin

A mole is any species of small mammal in the family Talpidae (from the Latin talpa, "mole"). Moles are adapted to subterranean lifestyles: they have cylindrical bodies, velvety fur, very small, inconspicuous eyes and ears, reduced hindlimbs, and short and powerful forelimbs that have large paws adapted for digging. Moles are found in most parts of North America, Europe and Asia, and are generally viewed as pests to gardeners, but also provide positive contributions to soil, gardens, and ecosystems; their diet includes slugs and small invertebrates that eat plant roots, and they provide prey for other wildlife.

Variants

Many variants remove the rock mole's ability to pass between iron bars, which is typically made redundant by their ability to eat the bars.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, rock moles are not randomly generated in Gehennom.

Rock moles appear among the random r that are part of the first quest monster class for Yeomen and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Yeoman quest.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM changes, rock moles are lithivores and can also eat stone and other lithic materials.

The Geek quest home level has an upper enclosure with monsters whose glyphs spell out "May the force be with you" - the r is explicitly made a sewer rat to avoid generating rock moles, since they can tunnel through the walls.

Encyclopedia entry

A rock mole is a member of the rodent family. They get their name from their ability to tunnel through rock in the same fashion that a mole tunnels through earth. They are known to eat anything they come across in their diggings, although it is still unknown how they convert some of these things into something of nutritional value.