Statue gargoyle
g statue gargoyle 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 5 |
| Attacks |
Claw 1d3, Claw 1d3 |
| Base level | 4 |
| Base experience | 41 |
| Speed | 9 |
| Base AC | 5 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 900 |
| Nutritional value | 0 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | death magic, poison, sleep, stone |
| Resistances conveyed | None |
|
A statue gargoyle:
| |
| Reference | SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2/monst.c#line729 |
A statue gargoyle is a new, somewhat weaker variant of a gargoyle in SLASH'EM. It is distinctive, because it will very likely be the first monster the player encounters with the SLASH'EM-distinctive property "need +1 weapon to hit."
Strategy
The enchantment resistance can be a vexing property for those without an enchanted weapon, especially since pets that don't possess the "hits creatures as a +1 (or greater) weapon" property will not be able to harm it either, unless they are wielding a sufficiently enchanted weapon. This includes all domestic animals, and in fact most monsters that are not in some way magical. Note that for the purposes of the enchantment check, if a weapon is an artifact weapon, it gives +2 to that check. In the case of the statue gargoyle, any artifact weapon will thus harm it if its enchantment is greater than -2.
Casting stone-to-flesh on a statue gargoyle will turn it into a normal gargoyle, which can be destroyed with an unenchanted weapon. However, since normal gargoyles are far stronger and better armored than statue gargoyles, it is probably easier to leave the statue gargoyle alone until you can find an enchanted or artifact weapon. Statue gargoyles do possess two attacks; however, neither is particularly strong, and they are not particularly fast, and so retreat is always an option. Oddly enough, although attacks with an insufficiently enchanted weapon will do no damage to a statue gargoyle, it will increase your skill counter, making it possible to use them to train skills indefinitely, provided you have sufficient AC to survive their attacks.
Pick-axes have no special effect on statue gargoyles. A wand of digging, however, will cut their current hit points in half. Unfortunately, this will never kill them directly, so it is somewhat less than useful.
Statue gargoyles have no particular resistance to spells, so a few well-placed force bolts can easily take them out. A vampire player can also drain a statue gargoyle to death through their bite attack, though this may take a while as the drain effect doesn't always trigger.
In Vulture's Claw, statue gargoyles look like normal gnomes, so keep an eye on the combat log.
