Line #40 Main/MooksAteMyEquipment


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4	[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zelda_ocarina_like_like.png]]]]
5	[[caption-width-right:300:[[NakedPeopleAreFunny Just be glad it let you keep your default tunic]]...]]
6	%%
7	->''"It eats whatever you're carrying. You'd better defeat it if you want your stuff back."''
8	-->-- '''[[ExpositionFairy Tatl's Note]]''' on Like-Likes, ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''
9
10	An enemy in a game that dines on equipment or items that the player character needs. If it gets its mouth or whichever form of digestive organ it possesses around you, you might suffer damage but a weapon/item/tool/piece of armor that you have is the real meal.
11
12	Or they might even find items lying on the ground. As long as you are going to need it, they are going to try to eat it.
13
14	Now even though the item eaten can vary, it's almost never something that would make the game {{Unwinnable}}, or even render the item [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable again]], just something that makes you really hate this enemy.
15
16	Sometimes you have the chance to get the item back, often by killing this enemy quickly. Other times it's just lost and you have to get another copy of the item.
17
18	A SisterTrope to BanditMook.
19
20	Compare VideoGameStealing, NinjaLooting, NoItemUseForYou. Contrast FeedItABomb and SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear.
21
22	----
23	!!Examples
24	%%
25	%% This section has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct place. Thanks!
26	%%
27	[[foldercontrol]]
28
29	[[folder:Card Games]]
30	* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has a few creatures that can do this including [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=209290 Acid Web Spider]] which destroys an equipment card when it comes into play and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230764 Manic Vandal]] which can destroy any artifact, equipment included.
31	* ''{{TabletopGame/Munchkin}}''
32	** There is a creature that counts as a curse rather than as a monster. It keeps eating your equipment until it randomly eats itself.
33	** An item in ''Munchkin Cthulhu'' is a set of Bagpipes. Rather than try to eat it, there's a chance the monsters will attempt to ''[[CargoShip mate with it]]''. And yes, if they do, you lose the item.
34	* There's a lot of equipment-destroying stuff in ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'', mostly because without them characters like Absolute Zero and the Wraith get out of control. For example, Pterodactyl Thief steals all your equipment and then murders you, while Omnitron's Technological Singularity wipes out all your equipment...and then murders you even more.
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:Gamebooks]]
38	* On the world of Titan from the ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' gamebooks, you have the Iron Eater, a BlobMonster that lurks on ceilings to fall on unwary adventurers if it smells metal. It's inoffensive to living flesh, but will devour steel armors, helmets or weapons with glee.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
42	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
43	** Rust monsters are universally loathed by warrior types for their penchant for instantly destroying and eating anything metal that they strike or are struck by, such as prized magical swords and armor. Some crafty players have tried cutting off a rust monster's antennae so they could [[InvokedTrope inflict this trope upon their foes]]. 4th edition adds augmented rust monsters called dweomer eaters, which decay magic items (even ranged weapons or implements), but there's still no long-term risk: the magic item can be reconstructed from residuum in the monster's stomach.
44	** Rust ''dragons'' take the above up a notch. Their bite attacks cause metal items to corrode and crumble into uselessness in an instant, and any metal weapon that so much as makes contact with their scales will suffer a similar fate. Worse, their secondary BreathWeapon is a line of corrosive red-brown liquid that can destroy ''any'' metallic item it hits, even the likes of gold, mithral and adamantine. Only enchanted metal items can attempt to resist the effect; everything else is destroyed with NoSavingThrow. Unsurprisingly, in some versions of the game, they're what rust monsters ''grow up into''.
45	** Some oozes are notorious for eating away anything they touch that isn't immune to acid -- striking a gray ooze, for example, is a good way to ruin your weapon.
46	** Xorn and xara are monsters that respectively eat iron and enchanted metal, and are prone to demanding adventurers supply them with metal (i.e. their weapons and armor) or face a fight -- and then they can try to eat the weapons and armor in the middle of the battle.
47	** Disenchanters are monsters resembling blue humpless camels with trunks that can [[MagicEater suck the magic right out of an enchanted object.]]
48	** Folugubs are large beetles whose long tongue turns any crystalline object it touches into a runny slime, which the folugub then ingests. They're a particular problem to psionic characters, since most psychically-attuned gear is made out of crystal and thus very edible to the beetles.
49	* ''TabletopGame/FabulaUltima'': Both the [[ElectricJellyfish Hydrozoa]] and the [[ChestMonster Mimic]] have attacks which deplete the victim's Inventory Points, making it harder for them to produce useful consumable items at a critical moment.
50	* ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld'': Hoops, a type of mutant rabbit, don't actually ''eat'' your equipment, but have the ability to turn metal to rubber. WordOfGod has it that they were intentionally given this power so that gamemasters can use them to take away high-tech equipment that turns out to be too powerful for game balance. Hence, they serve the same purpose as rust monsters, even if they don't actually chow down on the resulting rubber gear.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:Video Games]]
54	* ''VideoGame/AlternateReality'': The Devourer, which even has an in-game song about it. This creature appears when you have too many inventory items and eats them.
55	* For a currency version, Brainsuckers from ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' drain your Insight points on a hit.
56	* In ''VideoGame/CastleCrashers'', the Thief can eat away both the foods and golds lying on the ground.
57	* ''Videogame/CavesOfQud:''
58	** Qudzu vines may be stationary, easy to kill and not too damaging, but have a chance to rust your equipment or anything you're carrying whenever they make contact: Once makes the item useless until repaired, twice just renders it a pile of worthless rust. They also have a tendency to spawn in narrow corridors where you can't avoid them.
59	** Sludges in the Rainbow Woods can disarm you, pulling both melee and ranged weapons right out of your hands. At least you can get them back if you can deal with them this time.
60	* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' has quite a few examples, most involving [[HollywoodAcid Acid]]
61	** ''VideoGame/DarkSouls1'' has the Gaping Dragon boss, certain enemies in the [[LethalLavaLand Demon Ruins]], and you yourself can weaponize it in the form of the Acid Surge pyromancy. All of which will reduce the condition of your gear dramatically. Hope you weren't using unrepairable crystal weapons.
62	** ''VideoGame/DarkSouls2'':
63	*** Acid hazards rapidly [[BreakableWeapons degrade the quality of your equipment]].
64	*** The [[DownloadableContent Lost Crowns Trilogy]] has 3 bosses that inflict this. Crown of the Sunken King has [[PoisonousPerson Sihn]] and Crown of the Ivory King has Alva and his two reskins at the end of the [[BrutalBonusLevel Frigid Outskirts]], each of whom inflicts much more weapon degradation when attacked than every other enemy.
65	*** The Covetous Demon actually has an attack where it swallows you whole then spits you out with all your items unequipped, but it's so exceedingly rare that a vast majority of players are unaware of it.
66	* The objective in ''VideoGame/DefenseGridTheAwakening'' is to prevent the aliens from stealing your power cores. If any leave the map, which occurs most easily with flying enemies, they are [[PermanentlyMissableContent gone]] for that level.
67	* ''VideoGame/DokaponKingdom'' has the Big Black Bug which can be forced onto you. As long as you have it, it randomly eats an item in your inventory. You can either wait for it to eventually disappear, eat the last item from your pack, or defeat another player and force them to pick it up.
68	* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'' has [[BlobMonster jellies]] that eat items left on the dungeon floor or even ''doors''. Feeding items to jellies is even necessary if you want to gain favor with Jiyva, the [[OddJobGods god of slime]].
69	* The crows at the beginning of ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound\|1994}}'' steal food items from you. At least after they do so, they sit there with a smug grin on their face for several turns rather than attacking, and they drop cookies when defeated.
70	* ''{{VideoGame/Eye of the Beholder}}'', being based on ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons AD&D]]'', has one type of such monsters in each game:
71	** The rust monsters in ''[=EotB1=]'' will eat any metal item.
72	** The gelatinous cubes in ''[=EotB2=]'' can also destroy items on a hit.
73	** The black puddings in ''[=EotB3=]'' will eat your weapons if you attack them in melee.
74	* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
75	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' features Bladebiters, who will eat your weapons if given the opportunity. Also, the Sniper class has several skills that can destroy pieces of armor. Luckily they're not that accurate, but you really don't want to take the chance of your [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One equipment]] vanishing completely. Fortunately nearly ever race has access to the Maintenace support ability, which will NoSell equipment destruction.
76	** Colibri, exotic pink birds added to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' in its 3rd expansion, ''Treasures of Aht'Urgan'', don't eat your armor weapon or items, but if you try fighting them with a food buff they will steal it from you. That's right, apparently these bird fly down your throat and rip food right out of you stomach.
77	* ''VideoGame/ForTheKing'':
78	** The {{Status Effect\|s}} "Acid" destroys a random piece of equipment unless the target gets an AntiDebuff or ends the combat before the start of their second turn. It can be inflicted as a [[StatusInflictionAttack special attack]] by a few monsters, including the Festering Blob.
79	** [[ChestMonster Mimics]] and a rare few other monsters have a special attack that threatens to destroy a random item the target is carrying. It's appropriately called "Chomp".
80	%%* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar 3'': Feral Tickers.
81	* The floating skull in the bridge in ''VideoGame/TheGoonies II'', which eat your boomerang.
82	* ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' has enemies that grab your [[AttackDrone options]] and run off with them.
83	* ''VideoGame/KidIcarus''
84	** 'VideoGame/KidIcarus1986'' features the greedy Pluton, which will swipe your arrows of strength if they touch you.
85	** The Pluton returns in ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', where it'll steal weapons and powers you've collected in the level. Thankfully, now you can kill them to claim your items back, but beware -- if you don't do it quickly, they will disappear with your re-appropriated loot.
86	* The Jestabocky Dream Eaters in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' will steal any pick-ups that are on the ground if left unattended, whether they be HP balls, munny, or items. You can't get them back by defeating them, either. On the plus side, if you have them as allies, they'll gather the items for you.
87	* Iron Grazers in ''VideoGame/LandsOfLore: The Throne of Chaos'' can dissolve your armor if you don't kill them quickly enough. There are a few other enemies in the game that do the same thing, but the Iron Grazers are the only ones you get warned about.
88	* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
89	** Like Likes. They started off eating your shield, but in later games they can eat other equipment or even rupees. Depending on the game you can save your equipment if you kill/escape them quickly enough.
90	*** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'': If you let one Like-Like touch you, it quickly envelops you and you can pretty much kiss your Magical Shield (if you have one) goodbye. Your only chance to escape without losing your Magical Shield is to have the Magical Sword and give it the required three stabs as quickly as possible. If you have anything less than the Magical Sword, you'd better hope you were caught by one that has already taken damage!
91	*** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'': Like Likes can not only eat your shield, they can also yank Link's Zora or Goron Tunic off his back (very inconvenient since they are encountered in both of the dungeons that require those to be equipped). Fortunately, one-of-a-kind items like the Mirror Shield and Link's starting green Kokiri Tunic can't be stolen (losing a different tunic will switch Link back into his Kokiri clothes as if he was wearing them underneath the whole time).
92	*** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': Like Likes will steal whatever weapon Link happens to have equipped if they manage to snatch him up with their mouths. Killing them will return the item among their regular drops.
93	** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'': The [[https://zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/Pikit Pikit]] is a hopping, plantlike creature that can snatch several different items from Link, not just the shield. Fortunately, it never eats anything that can't be replaced. You can get back the most recently stolen item by killing it.
94	** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures'': If you leave force gems (what you need to beat the game) on the ground for too long, Tingle will show up and try to steal them.
95	** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': A subverted example. Rock Octoroks inhale a bunch of debris, then compress it into a giant flaming boulder to spit at you. They also consume any weapons left on the ground when they inhale, and, after chewing them up a bit, hurl them back at you at high speed. However, when a Rusty weapon is inhaled, pink gas will be emitted from the Rock Octorok and it spits out your weapon, but cleaned and upgraded to either Traveler, Soldier, Knight or Royal rank (though what you actually get is a crapshoot).
96	** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': A variant. Little Frox are drawn to and will voraciously consume any Brightbloom seeds or sprouted Brightblooms near them, making them an active danger to Link's temporary light sources when traversing the Depths (and fittingly, of course, they drop these same seeds when killed -- which will also cause them to beeline towards wherever one of their number is killed).
97	* ''VideoGame/LunarLux'': Specters can eat Ener-G out of the player's inventory, and don't give it back on victory, but at least they don't heal like the player would when using one.
98	* ''Videogame/MegamanLegends2'': Sukaritt follow you around but do not actually do anything to you. Once you blow up another Reaverbot, though, the bugger goes and tries to steal the refractor shards before you can.
99	* The mummies in ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'' can eat the Miis' weapons, severely reducing the offensive powers of the poor despoiled things. Thankfully, they spit the weapons out when defeated (the Miis comment that their weapon is all slimy, though).
100	* The old roguelike ''Moraff's World'' has white dragons, who breath acid which instantly dissolves your equipped armor. Thankfully, swapping out your +25 Titanium plate for your own (thankfully immune) skin is a free action.
101	* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' has acidic monsters whose slime/blood erodes your weapons, rust monsters and rust traps to rust iron, gelatinous cubes that eat organic materials and disenchanters who eat your items' magic. Some can be negated by enchanting your gear to make it rust/fire/rot-proof, but disenchanters cannot.
102	* One dungeon in chapter 3 of ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights: Hordes of the Underdark'' featured a Mimic (living treasure chest monster) that would grab your armor at the beginning of the level (leading to much [[NakedPeopleAreFunny commentary from your allies]]) and then run off. In order to defeat it, you had to use piles of gemstones, which it also ate, to lure it into striking range. Fortunately, once you beat it up enough you could get your armor back.
103	* In ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonGatesToInfinity'', if an enemy Pokemon successfully damages you with Bug Bite or Pluck, they'll use a random edible item in your inventory, which can be extremely detrimental if they happen to target your Reviver Seeds. Not surprisingly, the toughest dungeons tend to have stretches that are swarming with Pokemon that know those moves for the sake of exhausting your supplies. These moves also exist in the main ''Pokémon'' [=RPGs=], where they consume the target's held berry if there is one.
104	* In ''VideoGame/{{Raft}}'' the ThreateningShark will munch squares of your raft and whatever happens to be on them.
105	* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'':
106	** The various species of Poring like to munch on whatever items are on the floor. It's possible to kill them to retrieve whatever you lost, but if you somehow manage to drop something valuable, have that thing eaten, and are then killed by a high-tier Poring, those items are up for grabs to whomever takes the offending jelly-bulb down.
107	** There are numerous other monsters like the aptly named Thief Bugs who are fond of doing this, and they have the nerve to drastically increase their already high movement speed when they notice something on the ground. This wouldn't be much of an issue if not for the fact that after a monster picks up a certain amount of items, any further items it "collects" are simply ''destroyed'' instead. It just so happens that one of the most valuable items in the game is dropped by a boss found in an area positively swarming with aforementioned monsters...
108	* ''VideoGame/RivieraThePromisedLand'' has the Slime [[PaletteSwap category]] of enemies. Most of their attacks will drain a point of durability from everything you bring into the battle. Frustratingly, this still applies in practice battles.
109	* ''VideoGame/SonicShuffle'' features "forcejewels", gems you could use for an assortment of effects. One of the forcejewels you can pick up isn't a gem at all, but a fairy called "carbuncle" that ate forcejewels; once it runs out of gems, it will eat itself.
110	* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', [[{{Franchise/Pokemon}} Munchlax]] eats items on the ground.
111	* In ''VideoGame/WarioMasterOfDisguise'', fish enemies called Snackerals [[LavaIsBoilingKoolAid swim in the magma]] at Sweatmore Peak and will bite off Wario's Sweatmore Hotpants (an item necessary for him to survive in the magma) if he touches them. A purple chest containing a replacement for them will spawn in place of a regular chest if this happens.
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Webcomics]]
115	* ''Webcomic/RustyAndCo'': One of the MonsterAdventurers is a rust monster from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', capable of [[MetalMuncher eating any metal item]]. He manages feats like eating enemies' weapons mid-swing and munching an aspiring EvilOverlord's colossal metal {{Golem}} to the point of uselessness.
116	[[/folder]]
117
118	[[folder:Real Life]]
119	* Moths. Well, their caterpillars to be more specific. Say good-bye to that nice wool shirt or comforter of yours, because those little buggers thought it was ''delicious''!
120	* Never put your pet rats' cage within grabbing range of anything fabric you don't want destroyed. They may not actually ''swallow'' your brand new curtains, but they'll certainly chew them until they become your brand new fishing net.
121	[[/folder]]

Context Main / MooksAteMyEquipment