Truffle Crab
| Truffle Crab | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Monster |
| Location | The Farm |
| HP | 30 |
| Damage | 5 |
| Defence | 1 |
| Speed | 2 |
| XP | 4 |
The Truffle Crab is the only monster that turns up on a farm because of something a pig did. A pig rooting through the grass occasionally digs up something that looks like a truffle, lies there like a truffle, and sprouts small green legs the moment the farmer walks over to collect it. Underneath the disguise it is a crab, with the same habits as the ones hiding under rocks in the Mines: motionless and untouchable, then upright and running. It is weak and short-lived once it moves, and it pays out generously, since one almost always leaves a Truffle behind and often two or three, with Truffle Oil and a Crab on top. For a farm with a pig, it is the cheapest monster fight in the game.
Behaviour
A Truffle Crab sits perfectly still and takes no damage at all in that state. Swings pass through it and nothing happens, which is the single most confusing thing about a first encounter.
Walking within a tile of it changes everything. The legs appear, the crab stands up, and it runs away from the farmer rather than towards them. From that moment it can be hurt, and any melee weapon finishes the job in a swing or two. The chase is the only awkward part, since a fleeing crab makes for open ground and a farm is mostly open ground.
Telling one apart before it moves is easy with a habit. Hovering the cursor over a real Truffle shows the small green plus that marks anything forageable. A Truffle Crab shows nothing, so a glance at the cursor settles it from several tiles away. Players who skip that step tend to notice the moment the truffle starts walking.
It is not a dangerous monster, but it is not harmless either. A farmer sprinting through the fields with a watering can out can lose a slice of health to a crab they never acknowledged, and in the first year that is a real cost.
Location
Truffle Crabs appear on the farm, wherever a pig has been foraging. A pig only digs when it has been let out of the barn, and an adult pig needs a Deluxe Barn before it will forage at all, so the crab belongs to a farm that has already invested in pigs. Pigs stay indoors through Winter, which keeps the crab to the other three seasons.
Unlike the golems and slimes that visit at night, a Truffle Crab arrives whether or not monster spawns have been switched on for the farm. It is produced by the pig's dig rather than by the night-time spawner, so a Standard Farm with no Dark Shrine offering made gets them just the same. The odds are low, a fraction of a percent of all digs, which is why a crab is usually a surprise rather than a routine.
Kills on the farm hand over only a third of the usual Combat experience, so the crab is worth killing for the loot and not for the skill.
Drops
A Truffle is almost guaranteed, a second comes on roughly half of all kills and a third on about one in ten, so a single crab usually gives back more than the truffle it replaced. That is the neat part of the design: the pig appears to have lost a truffle, and killing the impostor returns it with interest.
Truffle Oil drops from one kill in ten, which is a genuine shortcut. The normal route puts a Truffle into an Oil Maker and waits six hours for the machine to finish, and Truffle Oil is worth considerably more than the raw truffle, so a bottle handed over for free is one of the better small windfalls on a farm.
A Crab drops from one kill in four. The usual way to get one is a Crab Pot sunk in saltwater at the beach, so a crab delivered on dry land in the middle of the farm saves a trip and a pot.
Deep into a save, once the bottom of the Mines has been reached, the universal rolls apply here too, and a Diamond or a Prismatic Shard can come out of a truffle with legs.
Items this monster can drop when it is defeated, with the chance of each.
| Item | Image | Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Crab | 
|
25% |
| Truffle | 
|
99.9% |
| Truffle |
|
50% |
| Truffle |
|
10% |
| Truffle Oil | 
|
10% |
| Diamond | 
|
0.05% |
| Prismatic Shard | 
|
0.05% |
Notes
The Truffle Crab belongs to a small group of monsters that pretend to be scenery. A Rock Crab wears a rock in the Mines, a Stick Bug lies on the floor as firewood, and this one poses as the most valuable thing a pig can find. The lesson in all three cases is the same: anything that looks slightly wrong in a familiar place is worth a cursor check before a swing.
For a farm running several pigs, the crabs turn up often enough to be worth watching for and rarely enough that nobody plans around them. The sensible approach is to walk the truffle round each morning with a weapon equipped rather than a tool, so the one impostor in the batch costs a second rather than a chunk of health.
All Monsters
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
| Name | Image | Location | HP | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armored Bug | 
|
Skull Cavern | 1 | 8 |
| Armored Bug (dangerous) | 
|
Skull Cavern | 250 | 20-27 |
| Bats | 
|
The Mines & Skull Cavern | 24, 36, 80, 300,; 268, 277 | 06, 07, 15, 30, 13, 14 |
| Blue Squid | 
|
The Dangerous Mines | 310 | 18 |
| Bug | 
|
The Mines | 1 | 8 |
| Bug (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 250 | 15-16 |
| Carbon Ghost | 
|
Skull Cavern; The Dangerous Mines | 190 | 25 |
| Cave Fly | 
|
The Mines | 22 | 6 |
| Cave Fly (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 266 | 13-15 |
| Duggy | 
|
The Mines | 40 | 6 |
| Duggy (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 280 | 8 |
| Dust Sprite | 
|
The Mines | 40 | 6 |
| Dust Sprite (dangerous) | 
|
The Mines | 280 | 13-15 |
| Dwarvish Sentry | 
|
Volcano Dungeon | 300 | 18 |
| False Magma Cap | 
|
Volcano Dungeon | 290 | 15 |
| Ghost | 
|
The Mines | 96 | 10 |
| Grub | 
|
The Mines | 20 | 4 |
| Grub (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 265 | 12-13 |
| Haunted Skull | 
|
Quarry Mine; The Mines random dungeon floors | 160 | 15 |
| Haunted Skull (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 310 | 19-26 |
| Hot Head | 
|
Volcano Dungeon | 215 | 18 |
| Iridium Crab | 
|
Skull Cavern | 240 | 15 |
| Iridium Golem | 
|
Wilderness Farm | 430 | 15 |
| Lava Crab | 
|
The Mines | 120 | 15 |
| Lava Crab (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 340 | 19-26 |
| Lava Lurk | 
|
Volcano Dungeon | 220 | 15 |
| Magma Duggy | 
|
Volcano Dungeon | 380 | 16 |
| Magma Sparker | 
|
Volcano Dungeon | 310 | 15 |
| Magma Sprite | 
|
Volcano Dungeon | 220 | 15 |
| Metal Head | 
|
The Mines | 40 | 15 |
| Metal Head (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 280 | 19-26 |
| Mummy | 
|
Skull Cavern | 260 | 30 |
| Mummy (dangerous) | 
|
Skull Cavern | 445 | 38-55 |
| Mutant Fly | 
|
Mutant Bug Lair, Skull Cavern | 66 | 12 |
| Mutant Grub | 
|
Mutant Bug Lair | 100 | 12 |
| Pepper Rex | 
|
Skull Cavern | 300 | 15 |
| Putrid Ghost | 
|
The Dangerous Mines | 500 | 25 |
| Rock Crab | 
|
The Mines | 30 | 5 |
| Rock Crab (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 272 | 13 |
| Royal Serpent | 
|
Skull Cavern | 150 + (50 × tail segments) | 32-48 |
| Serpent | 
|
Skull Cavern | 150 | 23 |
| Shadow Brute | 
|
The Mines | 160 | 18 |
| Shadow Brute (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 370 | 22-32 |
| Shadow Shaman | 
|
The Mines | 80 | 17 |
| Shadow Shaman (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 310 | 21-30 |
| Shadow Sniper | 
|
The Mines | 300 | 18 |
| Skeleton | 
|
The Mines | 140 | 10 |
| Skeleton (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine | 655 | 16-18 |
| Skeleton Mage | 
|
Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine | 355 | 20-25 |
| Slimes | 
|
The Mines, Skull Cavern, Quarry Mine, Secret Woods, Tiger Slime Grove, and Volcano Dungeon | Varies | Varies |
| Spider | 
|
The Mines (Shrine ON) | 200 | 15 |
| Squid Kid | 
|
The Mines | 1 | 18 |
| Squid Kid (dangerous) | 
|
The Dangerous Mines; Skull Cavern | 250 | 22-32 |
| Stick Bug | 
|
The Dangerous Mines | 700 | 20 |
| Stone Golem | 
|
The Mines | 45 | 5 |
| Stone Golem (dangerous) | 
|
Dangerous Mines | 283 | 13 |
| Truffle Crab | 
|
The Farm | 30 | 5 |
| Wilderness Golem | 
|
The Farm | 30 | 5 |