# 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

The rock mole is a monster that appears in NetHack. It is a rodent that can dig tunnels through the dungeon. They are able to eat anything metal, including amulets and some rings, as well as zorkmids. Sometimes they will even eat the iron spikes out of pits! Somewhat surprisingly, they cannot actually eat rocks or stones outside of variants.

Strategy
Rock moles pick up gems they find buried in the walls. If you leave a rock mole alone for a while and then kill it, you can pick up the fruits of its mining. They will eat the gold pieces that also tend to be buried in walls, though. If you find a rock mole in a treasure zoo, it is wise to kill it quickly before it eats all the gold.
You can remove punishment by getting a rock mole to eat your ball and chain.
Players polymorphed into rock moles can try eating jewelry. However, polymorphing into a xorn also allows for this, and xorns are generally better polymorph forms.

Variants
In SlashTHEM, rock moles are lithivores and can eat stone and other lithic materials. Polymorphing into a rock mole allows you to eat a loadstone and dispose of it.

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.

 

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