These guys who I take it are the mobs who keep destroying my equipment are annoying the heck out of me. and then I do not notice it and save the game..And then the equipment is permanently gone. Have lost 2 swords and a nice cloak to these critters.

Agreed, although they're much less annoying for bow or magic using characters. They're also pretty slow, so you don't really need to fight them if you don't want. And if it makes you feel any better, nothing similar appears in Book II.

My bow user had lots of fun with them, in fact. Run around to group them and see how many mobs could be killed with that single final arrow.

Those little guys are one of the main reasons you need a ranged weapon. You probably have accumulated a lot of nice armor by the time you meet them, and you will lose it all if you don't have a way of hurting them from a distance.

And, the bad news is that there are a whole lot more of them to be dealt with before the game is over. Best to think about your abilities now..........

I dunno if this will work, but there's a Book II "trick" they might help in this situation:

In Book II, whenever my character has to cross a lava field, I would simply take off my boots and leggings - doing that would protect them from any harm (and the rest of my armor is unaffected by the lava). Similarly, any situation where I was dealing with something that I knew was going to explode adjacent to me, I would simply take off all my armor - putting armor in the inventory protects it against damage from explosions.

Thus, it seems to me, you could strip down to you bare essentials, and put all of your armor in your inventory, if you want to fight Acid Grubs hand-to-hand. That still won't protect your weapon from exploding Grubs. But it should at least protect your armor from destruction by exploding Grubs.

I dunno if this works in Book I, though - I've never tried it...

It does work. It's just more convenient if you can kill them from a distance to avoid all the mouse clicks (since changing armor takes no game time in Book I, it's not a problem from that perspective).

I'll be surprised if the Acid Grubb doesn't return in Book III.

Honestly, I'm hoping that Book III is a "medley" of all the (bestiary) things we've seen before.

In fact, I was going to start a thread on this (eventually) on the Book III forum - sort of, "What creatures do you hope make a return appearance in Book III?" I guess I'll go start one right now...