Rock mole
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:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line754 |
A rock mole, r is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a metalllivorous rodent that can tunnel through the dungeon, pick up gold and gems, and can be seen via infravision.
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 when they first appear. 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.
History
The rock mole first appears in NetHack 1.3d - 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.
Variants
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, rock moles are lithivores and can eat stone and other lithic materials.
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.
