Bestiary/Giant Beetle
 | |
| General | |
|---|---|
| Type | Animal |
| Category | Mounts |
| Alignment | Evil |
| Karma | −4,000 |
| Fame | 4,000 |
| Behavior | Attacks on sight |
| Speed | Medium |
| Stats | |
| Strength | 300 |
| Dexterity | 100 |
| Intelligence | 500 |
| Hit points | 200 |
| Stamina | 100 |
| Mana | 500 |
| Damage | 7–20 |
| Armor | 0 |
| Taming | |
| Tameable | Yes |
| Min. skill | 29.1 |
| Control slots | 3 |
| Bondable | Yes |
| Rideable | Yes |
| Favorite food | Meat |
| Resources | |
| Carving | Nothing |
The Giant Beetle is a huge beetle that you can ride and use as a pack animal. It attacks on sight and has to be beaten down before it will let you tame it, but it needs only 29.1 Animal Taming, so even a new tamer can own one.
Overview
- In-game name: a giant beetle
- Corpse: a giant beetle corpse
- Behavior: it attacks the nearest target it sees and fights in melee.
- Pack animal: it carries a large backpack (a strong backpack that holds more weight than a normal one). Only its owner and the pet's friends can open it, and if it dies, everything in its pack moves to its corpse.
- Gets faster when hit by magic: if a wild giant beetle is hit by a harmful spell, it speeds up to a very fast speed until it loses its target.
Stats
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Strength | 300 |
| Dexterity | 100 |
| Intelligence | 500 |
| Hit points | 200 |
| Stamina | 100 (same as its Dexterity) |
| Mana | 500 (same as its Intelligence) |
| Melee damage | 7–20 |
| Armor rating | 0 |
| Fame / Karma | 4,000 / −4,000 |
Skills
| Skill | Range |
|---|---|
| Tactics | 100.0 |
| Wrestling | 100.0 |
| Magic Resistance | 80.0 |
Taming
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum Animal Taming | 29.1 (below this you have no chance) |
| Control slots | 3 |
| Maximum owners | 5 (each previous owner makes it harder to tame) |
| Bonding | Yes |
| Rideable | Yes |
| Favorite food | Meat |
- Beat it into submission first. You have to subdue it first: while its hit points are above 10% of its maximum, every attempt stops with "You must subdue this creature before you can tame it!". Bring the giant beetle below one tenth of its hit points (for a full-health one with 200 hit points that's under 20), then start taming.
- Success chance. For a first-time tame, your chance of success at the end of an attempt rises by about 2% per skill point and reaches 100% at 79.0 skill. Every previous owner adds 6 points to the difficulty.
- Don't hurt it during the attempt. Once you've started taming, any damage makes it fail with "The animal is too angry to continue taming." Do the subduing first, then tame.
- Stay close. You must stay within 6 tiles of it and keep a clear path to it.
- Obedience. Once tamed, its taming requirement is 29.1 or lower, so it always obeys its owner.
- Re-taming. If you've owned this one before, taming it again always succeeds ("That wasn't even challenging.").
- After its first tame, its skills drop to 90% of their wild values (86% if it was paralyzed while you tamed it), and taming also halves its stats (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and hit points).
Pack animal
Your tamed beetle's backpack can be opened by you (and anyone you've made a friend of the pet). Drop items onto the beetle to put them in its pack. Its backpack can't be removed, and if the beetle dies its contents fall into its corpse, so don't leave it unattended full of valuables.
Bonding
Only the owner can bond with a giant beetle. Its taming requirement is 29.1 or lower, so there's no Animal Taming requirement to bond. Feed it to start bonding, then feed it again after 7 days to finish. When you see "Your pet has bonded with you!", it's done.
Riding
Double-click your tamed giant beetle to ride it. It can run 4,480 steps before it gets too tired to move, compared with 3,840 for a horse. Only running counts (walking doesn't tire it unless you're overloaded), and it recovers 1 step per second while it isn't running.
Loot
It carries no loot.
Carving
There's nothing to carve from its corpse.
Tips
- You need to wear it down below 10% of its hit points before you can tame it. A weapon or low-damage spells work; stop attacking as soon as it's low, then tame.
- Taming starts at 29.1 and always succeeds from 79.0, and its low requirement means it always obeys.
- Its stats are halved after taming (300 Strength becomes 150, 200 hit points become 100), so it's mainly a mount and pack animal, not a fighter.
- It costs 3 control slots, so it's expensive to keep alongside other pets.
- Be careful with harmful spells while subduing it: any harmful spell makes a wild beetle switch to a very fast speed until it loses its target. Melee is the calmer way to wear it down.