Dungeon Crawl: Difference between revisions

[[File:SS_8_8023.png|frame|[[YASD|TeSu-01 Slain by a goblin.]]]]

 

 

{{quote|that's what's so great about Crawl: every time, you don't even have rage at the chance of the heavens to sustain you; you know, with a cold certainty something like that of a priest who has lost his faith in God, that your death was caused by none other than yourself, and that a better man could have avoided it.|'''<nrook>''', as quoted by the [[Dungeon Crawl]] knowledge bots under "fair."}}

The original was ''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'', made by Linley Henzell in the late 1990s. It was updated a few times but development stopped in the early 2000s.

 

 

 

Despite all this, there are two areas where it's actually much more merciful than most roguelikes: very few hazards can even weaken your equipment, and none can destroy outright anything other than scrolls and potions. Also, (with the sole exception of statdeath from artifacts) identifying items by using them very rarely causes any life-threatening consequences, and nothing other than weapons, armor, and jewelery can be cursed. The dev team has made avoiding cheap shots one of their highest priorities, and instant kills or unavoidable deaths are nearly unheard of.

 

You can download it [http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ here] or play it [http://crawl.akrasiac.org/ online]. ''Crawl'' even has its own [http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=CrawlWiki wiki] and [https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/index.php forum].

* [[Agony Beam]]: Necromancy school offers two - the relatively mild Pain and the [[Percent Damage Attack]] Agony. There is also Torment, which is a multiple-target variant of Agony and is not a normally available spell.

* [[Animate Inanimate Object]]: There's a spell which makes weapons come to life and fight alongside you.

** After Stone Soup version 0.8, Draconians gain a 30% bonus to success rate of Dragon Form spell, along with enhanced breath weapons that suit the draconian's bloodline.

* [[Annoying Arrows]]: Arrow traps are like this; you can normally shrug them off. The first time you meet a centaur, however, you'll find that arrows are not merely annoying, since centaurs really know how to use them. Add to this the fact that they are fast enough to pursue you while still firing an arrow every turn, and you’ll soon respect their ability to kill you.

* [[Anti-Grinding]]:

** The limited amount of food forces the player to continue deeper and deeper instead of remaining on the same level for extended periods of time. There are a few ways to get off the food clock - mummies and people in lichform do not eat at all and vampires can survive indefinitely without blood, although this stops their regeneration.

* [[Black Magic]]: Necromancy is considered to be this by Zin, The Shining One and Elyvilon.

* [[Blade on a Stick]]: ''Crawl'' doesn't have as many as ''[[Nethack]]'', but it does have a few, all classed under the Polearms school. The spear is the simplest and most common one (and handily also doubles as a throw-able projectile), but there are also halberds, tridents, scythes, glaives, and bardiches. Polearms tend to be big on damage and short on accuracy, but can reach an extra tile to attack like whips of reaching.

* [[Body Horror]]: Demonspawns and their mutations can eventually become one of those.

** Worshipping the Slime God can also result in your gaining mutations that eventually culminate in you becoming a slime monster in all but name.

* [[Bonus Level of Hell]]: (As if the main game isn't one of these already.) Four of them, so you can pick which one your character is most likely to survive 10 seconds in, or, for the truly insane, try to retrieve the extra runes on the last levels of all four branches. All of them are, in fact, based on different parts of [[Divine Comedy|Dante's Inferno]].

* [[Boom Stick]]: Many magic wands are Boom Sticks, since they fire out bolts, beams and enchantments. The rods are also boomsticks, but slightly more complex; most carry their own set of spells which can be evoked by the wielder.

** Okawaru, the god of war offers only equipment gifts and two fairly non-flashy powers. Despite lacking in flavor text, though, Okawaru is often considered to be the best god for melee characters.

** This applies to several spells:

* [[Evil Is Easy]]: Played straight with the gods. See [[God of Evil]] below.

* [[Excuse Plot]]: The main plot is literally a one-liner.

* [[Extreme Omnivore]]: Jellies. They eat any item they touch, except stones. This also means that they eat anything you throw or fire at them. AND it heals them. You'd better hope those arrows you're wasting are doing more damage than the jelly is gaining from eating them.

* [[The Fair Folk]]: while the elves in the game are clearly Tolkien-ish, there is a spriggan race (based on the mythological Cornish fairy of the same name) that keeps all its fair-folk features. Most notably the lack of wings.

** Worshipers of Fehdas Madash can plant said Oklob plants, turning the game into a turn based strategy game.

* [[Gender Neutral Writing]]: The gods in the game are supposed to be beyond gender, and thus it's wrong to refer to them as male or female. Therefore, on the god description screens, there are no mentions of gender, even though [[Fanon]] tends to refer to Lugonu, Elyvilon, and Sif Muna as female, and the rest as male. Also applies to monsters, although there it’s more due to convenience than any in-game reason.

* [[Genie in a Bottle]]: An efreet, actually. It doesn't give you wishes. And it might kill you.

* [[Genius Bruiser]]: The ogre-mage is an ogre which, unlike most ogres which only know how to hit people with heavy weapons, is intelligent enough to use magic. Player ogres are something between standard ogres and ogre-mages - they are moderate at both hitting and casting. A second example of this would be fighting characters who have learned magical skill.

* [[Good Hurts Evil]]: Reciting Zin's scripts in front of certain evil creatures often results in this.

* [[Good News, Bad News]]: The bad news come first, and the good news are hardly comforting:

* [[Good Thing You Can Heal]]: Inversion: Deep Dwarves have a damage shaving feature that reduces all damage they take, but they [[Blessed with Suck|can't regain HP by themselves.]] They will need magical devices, potions, divine help or magic to heal. People don't play a whole lot of [[Red Shirt|Deep Dwarf Fighters]].

* [[Gradual Regeneration]]: Mostly played straight - as in most Roguelikes, characters in Dungeon Crawl regenerate their hit points and magic points over time. The deep dwarf race avert this by not being able to heal naturally.

* [[Healing Factor]]: Trolls and satiated vampires heal extremely fast, as does anyone with troll leather armor, ring of regeneration or the regeneration spell. Each of these has the drawback of speeding up one's metabolism significantly.

* [[Healing Potion]]: ''Crawl'' uses two kinds of healing potion; one heals only a small amount of HP, but will cure you of any negative status effects. The other is pure hit-point healing, but a much greater amount of it.

* [[Hellfire]]: Available to some demons and demonspawn. Even nastier than regular fire, as it's not subject to fire resistance.

* [[Holy Halo]]: The Shining One's followers eventually receive one. It serves several purposes: monsters inside the halo are easier to hit, invisible creatures turn visible and one's stealth is crippled (which isn't that bad, given that The Shining One dislikes stealth attacks anyway). Holy NPCs such as angels have similar halos.

* [[Hornet Hole]]: The Hive is a giant beehive, filled with killer bees.

** Occasional bee chambers. Occuring even at the Realm of Zot. Where do they get the material for honey?

* [[Human Sacrifice]]: Several temple designs of evil gods feature these. And of course, the gods who like corpse sacrifices aren't averse to human corpses either.

* [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]: The Abyss is a plane of chaos, with no recognizable structure, and full of demons and awful monsters. It's a VERY dangerous place to be. It's not established whether it is Crawl's 'hyperspace' dimension, but it is associated with translocation - miscasted teleportation spells can send you here, as can distortion weapons. It's also the place where the evil god Lugonu the Unformed lives; altars to her are scattered about, and are the easiest way to escape if you don't mind the wrath of your former deity (if applicable). Followers of Lugonu can get the ability to jump in and out of the abyss at will. Banished monsters also end up here.

* [[Life Drain]]: the level 3 spell Vampiric Draining does this - it drains life from enemies and adds it to your health. Weapons can also be vampiric, healing and feeding the wielder when they hit.

* [[Life Meter]]: nicely shows just how much damage that last hit did.

* [[Loads and Loads of Races]]: The latest version has 24 playable species, most with odd natural abilities/disadvantages (the large races, for example, cannot wear most of the armour in the game).

* [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]]: Unlike a lot of roguelikes, ''Crawl'' takes this trope a little more seriously. While in most, a shield is merely considered a boost to one's armour no different from, say, chainmail or a helmet, in ''Crawl'' shields are a defensive tool. They provide no armour boost, but give the player a chance of completely blocking a hit, which increases as they increase their Shields skill.

* [[Macrogame]]: The player may encounter ghosts of previous characters in the Dungeon. Ghosts have similar strengths and weaknesses as they had while alive.

* [[Mage Killer]]: Berserkers and other servants of Trog. Trog despises and hates magic, and will not only reward slaying magic users, but will also gift followers with [[Anti-Magic]] perks and weapons.

* [[Magic Pants]]: Clothing merges into a shapeshifted player's new form.

* [[Magic Misfire]]: Of every shape and color. They range from harmless (an ice mage getting a bit frosty, an enchanter making the dirt glow) to [[YASD]] (a necromancer rotting from the inside out, a translocator getting stuck in [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|Abyss]]. Even minor failures can become dangerous as magical contamination builds up in the caster, ending in a [[Your Head Asplode|violent terminus]] for those too desperate or stupid to stop casting.

* [[Nerf|Nerfing]]: This tends to happen between versions. The most obvious nerf is for Summoners, who can summon monsters to kill for them; the rule is that any monster killed by a player's summon is worth only half the experience it would be otherwise.

** In particular, the devs like to nerf anything that's considered obviously better than any other choice and ends up being [[Complacent Gaming Syndrome|used regardless of your play style]]. The recent halving of extra damage done by vorpal weapons and removal of the "Detect Creatures" spell fall into this category, as did the removal of the "Tomb of Doroklohe" spell in the first Stone Soup versions.

* [[Nitro Boost]]: the potion of speed.

* [[Nominal Importance]]: The unique enemies have names, and when you see one you know you're in for a more difficult battle than normal.

** Eventually the game reaches a point where monsters are almost immune to any attacks that are not non-elemental. Fortunately for mages, all earth magic, a bit of air magic and three pure conjurations spells are non-elemental, and a few other spells are only partly resistable.

* [[Odd Job Gods]]: Jiyva, the god of slime, and Cheibriados, the god of slowness.

* [[Oh Crap]]: Xom (The God of Chaos who sees you as his plaything) is getting BORED.

* [[One Size Fits All]]: Averted. Some races are so tiny they can't wear armour at all, or wield large weapons. Some races are so huge they need enormous armour.

* [[One-Handed Zweihander]]: Larger races can wield some two-handed weapons as one handed weapons, but they're still more effective when used with two hands. Also inverted with the smaller races - they may need two hands to hold a weapon which the larger species can hold with just one.

* [[One Stat to Rule Them All]]: Intelligence for any characters that desire any magical capabilities. The other two basic stats have little to no point unless you're a transmuter or your character is totally magic-free.

* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: Angels are present as monsters that are typically quite tough to deal with - especially if one is undead and relies on black magic to kill stuff. Angels and their tougher cousins Daevas are [[Good Is Not Nice|very aggressive]], unless the player is a very zealous follower of a good god in which case they'll be indifferent.

* [[Our Demons Are Different]]:

** [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. Demonspawn are a [[Jack of All Stats]] race not much unlike humans, with special mutations and the inability to worship the three good gods.

* [[Our Ghosts Are Different]]: [[Undeath Always Ends|And slayable]]. A player character who dies may leave a ghost that carries on most of the deceased player's abilities and weaknesses as well as a [[Ghostly Goals|fair share of hatred]] towards anyone attempting to complete the Orb quest - that is, [[Macrogame|new player characters]].

* [[Our Ghouls Are Creepier]]: [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. They have to eat a lot of meat to prevent themselves from rotting, but can tear enemies to shreds with their claws, and have a nice set of immunities.

* [[Halfling|Our Halflings Are Different]]: [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. Fast XP gain, good stealth, good with shields. In previous versions, they were a [[Joke Character]] race, but this has improved.

* [[Our Liches Are Different]]: And playable - not as a race, but as a form. The player can learn the Necromutation spell which will result in a temporary transformation into lich form. As a result, the player gains improved stats, a fairly potent draining touch and the various resistances and vulnerabilities associated with being undead. In addition, they lose the ability (and the need to) eat.

* [[Theme Twin Naming]]: Dowan and Duvessa.

* [[The Unpronounceable]]: Crawl is notorious for featuring gods and monsters with names that are hard to spell correctly and often equally hard to pronounce: Kikubaaqudgha, Yredelemnul, Neqoxec, Ynoxinul, Ilsuiw... some of these names were reportedly created by allowing a cat to walk on the keyboard.

* [[Transformation Ray]]: the wand of polymorph other can transform a monster into another monster. This is actually quite risky, since it's very possible to create a worse threat than the original. The wand is ''supposed'' to transform a monster into a monster of similar threat, so a rat will never turn into a dragon, but even so, what the game considers a 'similar threat' is often quite unpredictable. The best use for this wand is to change a monster that you are poorly equipped to fight - for example, an ice beast when you only have ice spells.

* [[Trick Arrow]]: In 0.6 a variety of new projectile kinds have been added; <s> for example, arrows of reaping which, if they kill a monster and that monster leaves a corpse, turns that monster into a loyal zombie.</s> (...which were pulled right back out in 0.7. Oh well.) In 0.7, there was a new class, the Arcane Marksman, who can use magical enchantments on his bow to fire different kinds of magical arrows, but this was removed for 0.8

* [[Villain Forgot to Level Grind]]: the reason why [[Dungeon Bypass]] works (sometimes). If you can't kill Sigmund the first time you meet, come back after you've levelled up (or else found something which will make it easier to kill him).

* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]]: There's a school of magic which specializes in this, and vampires can change into bats. Merfolk transform their legs into mermaid-style tail when in water and back into feet when on land.

* [[Walk It Off]]: Most characters and monsters will gradually heal from almost all wounds. Some creatures can't regenerate - deep dwarves will never gain passive healing and vampires need blood to do so.

* [[Wall Crawl]]: some monsters have the ability to cling to walls. This allows them to pass over obstacles like deep water.

* [[Weak but Skilled]]: In a way, this is a Dungeon Crawler's normal mode of operation - there is rarely a point where you're powerful enough to be 'safe' from attack. It's especially true at the very start of the game, where a couple of hits from even the lowest level monsters can finish off a weak character. Wanderers are probably the best example; they begin with a random skill set and random equipment, and are thus in a worse position than any other class upon entering the dungeon, since they are literally not equipped to fight.

[[Category:Roguelike]]

[[Category:Freeware Games]]