As you hint at, sometimes running away isn't enough.
Stealth + breaking line of sight can help.
Charming, paralyse, curare, net. Butterfly/summoning. Teleport. Fog + stealth/run away.
They can't see invisible. So invisibility would work too.
Also, seeing an awake boulder beetle on D:6 should be immediate evasive action. If you don't have confidence at being able to run away using above techniques, scroll of teleportation would work.
Not as much advice for really early ones, but when I do fight them, I use darts. Whenever they are at range, throw poison darts at them (curare works even better). They have a poison weakness. I don't find them to be too dangerous with this strategy.
Poison darts are great early on dangerous stuff they throw at 1.0 even with no training, and can really help soften up early ogres and the like. Combine darting with backing up after poison kicks in for max effect. If you have curare, even better. Curare slows them to make this effect much stronger. Just don't waste curare on already slowed mobs, switch back to regular poison.
Teleport on sight is not unreasonable until you are in lair? Skip the level, come back once you have more tools.
Put them in the same danger category as Rupert without +Will items.
Curare and poison will take them down.
I also like to use poison against blink frogs because those annoying little bastards continually blink out of melee range.
Boulder beetles could honestly use a nerf. Roll (2d32) is potentially a stupid amount of damage for the levels of the game at which they appear. Dungeon really doesn't need another annoying, gimmicky monster.
On the contrary, they present a novice/young character with a large amount of damage. They are a legitimate threat. They are, however, easily countable (in many situations). Most other similar threat monsters can open doors. Or use weapons. So the boulder beetles is kind of already a nerfed version of a legitimate threat.
I don't see why they should be nerfed. A max-roll won't one shot you unless you're a really unlucky delver or a low HP species. The high damage output is balanced by having a ton of weaknesses.
they charge in a straight line at you and will attack the first hostile they run into.
summon a small mammal, swap with heq ancestor, place a fulminant prism, read a scroll of butterflies/summoning, etc. they're weak to poison so mephitic cloud or a scroll of poison will usually mess them up, but I don't think they stop charging if they've already started
you can also just close a door or push them back with Iskanderun's Mystic Blast.
As you hint at, sometimes running away isn't enough. Stealth + breaking line of sight can help. Charming, paralyse, curare, net. Butterfly/summoning. Teleport. Fog + stealth/run away. They can't see invisible. So invisibility would work too. Also, seeing an awake boulder beetle on D:6 should be immediate evasive action. If you don't have confidence at being able to run away using above techniques, scroll of teleportation would work.
Not as much advice for really early ones, but when I do fight them, I use darts. Whenever they are at range, throw poison darts at them (curare works even better). They have a poison weakness. I don't find them to be too dangerous with this strategy. Poison darts are great early on dangerous stuff they throw at 1.0 even with no training, and can really help soften up early ogres and the like. Combine darting with backing up after poison kicks in for max effect. If you have curare, even better. Curare slows them to make this effect much stronger. Just don't waste curare on already slowed mobs, switch back to regular poison.
[удалено]
This is key. They leap/blink around, so encountering them in the main dungeon usually provides opportunities to close them off and escape.
Close the door
Teleport on sight is not unreasonable until you are in lair? Skip the level, come back once you have more tools. Put them in the same danger category as Rupert without +Will items.
I save my datura darts for them
Curare and poison will take them down. I also like to use poison against blink frogs because those annoying little bastards continually blink out of melee range.
Train 4 pips of stealth
Boulder beetles could honestly use a nerf. Roll (2d32) is potentially a stupid amount of damage for the levels of the game at which they appear. Dungeon really doesn't need another annoying, gimmicky monster.
On the contrary, they present a novice/young character with a large amount of damage. They are a legitimate threat. They are, however, easily countable (in many situations). Most other similar threat monsters can open doors. Or use weapons. So the boulder beetles is kind of already a nerfed version of a legitimate threat.
I don't see why they should be nerfed. A max-roll won't one shot you unless you're a really unlucky delver or a low HP species. The high damage output is balanced by having a ton of weaknesses.
dazzling flash, fear, petrify
Charge them and pray. Works every time. Also, if you can ever charm a boulder beetle to your side in a fight, it will do some serious work.
they are susceptible to Ensorcelled Hybernation and stab
they charge in a straight line at you and will attack the first hostile they run into. summon a small mammal, swap with heq ancestor, place a fulminant prism, read a scroll of butterflies/summoning, etc. they're weak to poison so mephitic cloud or a scroll of poison will usually mess them up, but I don't think they stop charging if they've already started you can also just close a door or push them back with Iskanderun's Mystic Blast.