Used: Devourer Beetles

Two suggestions for these nasty little creatures.

1) They spawn in 'neutral', and I found in many of the areas they spawn in, the area's PvP settings prevent AoE's and hostile attack spells from working on them until they actually turn hostile. And since they -are- going to turn hostile on PC's whether the PC is carrying food or not, it puts the player at a disadvantage of having to act like a dumdum and stand in front of them waving "woohoo, here I am! come eat me!".

That well prepared mage who goes invis or the rogue who goes into stealth with a wand of fireballs ready cannot employ that invis/stealth against the beetles effectively. It would make more sense that the beetles spawn in as hostile, since they're going to turn such anyways. There's just no logical reason why we shouldn't be able to blast the beetles away with ambush tactics without having to first get them to see us to turn them hostile.

2) They are able to penetrate damage reduction as high as +5/20. They are even able to damage characters with as much as -/20 DR (epic damage reduction + dwarven defender DR).... This is the beetles simply 'breaking the rules' as it were since to penetrate that -/20 DR, they have to be able to dish out 21 or more damage in a single hit. I could almost understand the +5/20 DR if they had the +5 needed to penetrate, but they don't as far as I know. Could whatever is allowing them to penetrate DR that they shouldn't be removed?

I agree with these ideas and the intent behind them, but just an observation... I have found that when my PC is not carrying any food at all, they do not go hostile on me unless I attack them.

Still, yes it is *incredibly* annoying to have a stoneskin spell active, a fireball memorized, and be invis when I walk into the area.... and not be able to blast them... and then when I pop out of invis to turn them hostile.... they have *evasion* and can sometimes completely avoid my fireballs and burning hands, all the while ignoring my stoneskin spell and eating all my food while they damage me through it.

Hrmm, they've always attacked my PCs, food or not.

After the next planned reset...

Devourer beetles are having their classic 1 point "bite" replaced with a "no combat damage" weapon. It will still have a large attack bonus so that they can get past DR in order to eat food, but shouldn't be able to cause any physical damage. There were always supposed to be a pest, rather than a danger to anyone. They will also have few hitpoints and a slightly lower armor class and will be part of the "hostile" faction instead of the neutral one.