Sewer Rats: The Worst Enemy

[razor]

After starting a new character I have had the annoyance of encountering rats that spawn from the stairs of basements. Even though they do not do any damage they are almost impossible to hit and destroy clothing. After holding down the attack button for just over a minuet of real life time I had sustained two points of leg damage, had several articles of clothing destroyed and most importantly had not hit the rat a single time.

Small enemies in general can be annoying to fight but this is unreal.

[Eric]

Leave the rats alone, come back when your combat skills improve.

[FrAvatar]

if your melee skill is to low to hit, try a ranged weapon. If you don’t have a ranged weapon, throw something. If you’re already in melee range and failing every swing and have nothing else to throw, then throw your melee weapon. You can always try a couple rounds of punching and if those miss again you can pick up your weapon and throw it again. A rat shouldn’t last more than two or 3 throw hits. at the start of the game I always tr to make a point to carry 4-10 rocks if I can to throw at targets to soften them up or kite them completely. A skill 0 throwing it can take a long time to kill even one zombie with rocks, but every throw improves your skill and every level makes you more accurate and do more damage with throwing.

I’ve even used a fire axe, a machete, and my current katana as throwing weapons from time to time against enemies that dodge range weapons like skeleton zombie/dog. If I think it’s going to dodge my range or scrap my clothes in melee, then I use throw.

[Coolthulhu]

Small enemies are notoriously hard to hit in melee.
Not just by the player, but in general. You can easily see it by having a horde of zombies meet a single giant wasp.

If you want to melee those, use light weapons or start with high dexterity. Or, as others mentioned, throw rocks and shards of glass at it. Throwing is extremely accurate when you have unencumbered arms and hands.

[TinHeadDays]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:4, topic:8834”]Small enemies are notoriously hard to hit in melee.
Not just by the player, but in general. You can easily see it by having a horde of zombies meet a single giant wasp.

If you want to melee those, use light weapons or start with high dexterity. Or, as others mentioned, throw rocks and shards of glass at it. Throwing is extremely accurate when you have unencumbered arms and hands.[/quote]
AOE is also very affective, so if you feel like using a flame-thrower, go right ahead.
[size=8pt]I am not responisble for any burns or deaths using a flamethrower. [/size]

[FrankyPlaysGames]

Do flames work well underground? I kinda remember that killing me/crashing the game last I did something like that.

[Coolthulhu]

Do flames work well underground? I kinda remember that killing me/crashing the game last I did something like that.

Lots, lots of smoke.
Smoke can easily get far deadlier than any number of sewer rats. And it won’t do much to the rats themselves.
Other than that, it works better than on the surface due to lack of rain.

[FrankyPlaysGames]

Requesting a way to capture rats, and then attach bombs/set them on fire and sick them to an enemy somehow.

[TheStoryteller]

I hereby request a way to capture the rats, feed them, train them, and breed them into an army wholly dedicated to serving me.

[Burnt_Earth]

Isn’t it a torso encumbrance thing? Like a backpack and a sweater gives you -3 skill in melee so you can’t ever actually hit anything?

I remember grinding my melee skills to god-like levels trying to batter cornered squirrels that spawned inside mansions with awkward non-weapons a couple dozen versions ago.

IN every version, sometimes melee just doesn’t work and you need a pistol or something to dispatch creatures you can’t otherwise deal with in melee. In this recent version my overpowered beast-mutant blackbelt girl got wrecked by a single zombie soldier for some reason.

[Coolthulhu]

[quote=“Burnt Earth, post:10, topic:8834”]Isn’t it a torso encumbrance thing? Like a backpack and a sweater gives you -3 skill in melee so you can’t ever actually hit anything?

I remember grinding my melee skills to god-like levels trying to batter cornered squirrels that spawned inside mansions with awkward non-weapons a couple dozen versions ago.

IN every version, sometimes melee just doesn’t work and you need a pistol or something to dispatch creatures you can’t otherwise deal with in melee. In this recent version my overpowered beast-mutant blackbelt girl got wrecked by a single zombie soldier for some reason.[/quote]

Low torso encumbrance isn’t always enough.

Dodge rolls matter a lot early on. A LOT.
Their importance decreases with increasing melee/dodge skills: 0 melee vs 3 dodge is suicide, 5 melee vs 10 dodge is doable.

I was wrong about wasps being small - they’re medium and just have 4 dodge. Still, they can easily wreck zombie brutes, who can’t reliably hit them (except with smash, which uses different aiming).

[hexman]

Small enemies like sewer rats are hard to hit with a melee weapon so your best bet would be a ranged weapon. Any weapon with enough damage will suffice. Throwing weapons like knives or axes, Bows like longbow or reflex-recurve bow (short bow for low strength/low level chars), crossbow (repeating crossbow works good, stone bow for low hp enemies), small caliber ammunition (.22 CB or .32 acp if you’re looking for a easily re-loadable ammunition, paper cartridge will also work but perhaps thats overkill) even a slingshot + good skills can work. Do not try to hit 'em in melee, your clothing will get damaged while you’ll deal almost no damage. They’re good for grinding melee skills though but not to a good level. Most of the characters I’ve played with are archer/ranged chars, even if I keep a melee character, I always keep a bow handy. A reflex recurve bow with good skills + strength can prove much more lethal than your trusty machete.

Try keeping a ranged weapon with you always, then you’ll not have to deal with these in melee.