Koala

z koala
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Touch 0d0 calm

z koala
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Touch 0d0 calm
Base level	7
Base experience	95
Speed	4
Base AC	9
Base MR	10
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	2 (Quite rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	150
Nutritional value	50
Size	Small
Resistances	poison resistance
Resistances conveyed	None
A koala: is an animal. can see invisible creatures. is herbivorous. can be tamed by feeding. does not appear in Gehennom.
Reference	SLASH'EM_0.0.7E7F2/monst.c#line1872

A koala, z, is a type of animal that appears in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM, SpliceHack, and Hack'EM. The koala is a herbivorous domestic zouthern animal that can see invisible, and its diet consists entirely of eucalyptus leaves: throwing the leaves at a koala will tame them.

Koalas have a unique calming touch attack that can abort the hero's techniques, and renders monsters peaceful while ignoring monster MR when used against them, dealing no direct damage in either case.

Strategy

To the hero themselves, koalas are harmless: their ability to disrupt techniques is relatively insignificant, they have poor AC and a low monster MR of 10 (which makes it the only zouthern animal to have any), and their attacks deal no direct damage. The koala's primary threat lies in its ability to untame any pet that it hits with its touch attack, which can include rare and difficult-to-tame pets.

Players who rely heavily on pets should make taking out koalas a priority, as even a peaceful Solar is about as useful as a dead one to most pacifists; peaceful koalas are just as dangerous since pets will still attack them, giving the koala a chance to retaliate and potentially untame them. As the attack can only be blocked by having high AC, the only defense for pets is to avoid being hit by a koala in the first place, and while this is not always guaranteed, very diligent players can take several steps to minimize risks, such as keeping pets nearby with magic whistles. While the koala's calming ability could make it a powerful pet in theory, in practice its slow speed and poor defenses combine to make it fairly impractical as one.

Origin

The koala, sometimes called "koala bear", is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is found in coastal areas of the mainland's eastern and southern regions, inhabiting Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. A koala is easily recognizable by its stout, tailless body and large head with round, fluffy ears and large, spoon-shaped nose. Koalas typically inhabit open Eucalyptus woodland, as the leaves of these trees make up most of their diet - this diet has low nutritional and caloric content, and the leaves contain toxic compounds that deter most other mammals from feeding on it.