Dungeon Crawl: Difference between revisions

** 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.

* [[The Archer]]: Hunters (those which use bows), and Arcane Marksmen.

* [[Arc Number]]: [http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=27 Crawl seems to have a fondness for the number 27.]

* [[Attack Animal]]: Summoners can summon monsters to fight for them, and a wand of enslavement (or the spell Enslavement) can temporarily get you a really good one, if you pick the right monster...

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Lehudib's Crystal Spear is the most powerful conjuration in the game. What's the problem? It has a short range (bad for spell casters), it's inaccurate, and it requires a player to train a somewhat mediocre spell school to high levels in order to cast it. Oh, and it's overkill against anything other than a few unique demon lords. Iron Shot, Crystal Spear's little brother, is cheaper, has better range, is easier to cast, and most enemies will die after a few hits.

** Most races can’t eat chunks of freshly butchered meat while not hungry, but Trolls, Kobolds, and Ghouls can. Other races can obtain this ability by wearing an Amulet of the Gourmand.

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

* [[Blood Knight]]: While many gods like the killing of certain enemies, a few are ''only'' happy if the player is killing everything they come across. For fighters Trog will bestow [[The Berserker|berserker strength]] and protect his followers from its [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|harmful effects]] as long as they keep a steady stream of death and corpses coming his way. Casters have Vehumet, who doesn't even care about the corpses part, probably because his [[Wave Motion Gun|preferred]] [[Fantastic Nuke|methods]] [[Ludicrous Gibs|don't leave any]].

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

** 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:

*** Conjure Flame. It deals no damage directly, but is immensely useful in early game because it can block most enemies, and later on when stronger enemies can be lured into the flames created.

*** Mephitic cloud is very low on direct damage output, but it has a chance of confusing its target, making it tremendously useful until late game.

** A more literal example: With Fedhas Madash's sunlight ability, you can dry up the pools of water you find in the dungeon, possibly resulting in literal fish out of water.

* [[Flaming Sword]]: Flaming is a brand some weapons can have, including swords.

** And the few times they aren't useless he likes to animate them so they try to kill you.

** "Cursed gloves? [[It Amused Me|Have a ring!]]"

* [[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.

** Crawl is also the only major roguelike that [[AFGNCAAP|doesn't give the player character a gender]].

* [[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.

* [[Green Thumb]]: Worshippers of Fedhas, god of plants, can move past plants, cause corpses to decompose into mushrooms, and cause plants to grow.

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

{{quote| You feel nature experimenting on you. Don't worry, failures die fast.}}

* [[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.

* [[Hammerspace]]: ''Crawl'' has the typical Roguelike variety: the player can carry anything that is not too heavy for the player to carry, until all 52 item slots are filled up. Because an item stack takes only one item slot, 20 javelins take just as much room as a single dart.

* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: ''Crawl'' seems to agree. The katana is the best long blade of its kind (better than the scimitar, long sword, and falchion). The only better long blades are demon blades (which are supernatural), great swords (which are just really big swords), and double and triple swords (which are just silly, and also explicitly said to be magical).

** Katanas were removed in later versions, however; the only remaining katana is an artifact (though a rather good one).

** Certain player characters may gain the ability to breathe fire via mutations, spells or racial abilities(Red Draconian). Demonspawns may obtain a racial mutation that allows them to hurl hellfire.

** Almost every spell in the Fire Magic school is designed as an offensive conjuration spell, except for two spells that are used defensively.

* [[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.

* [[MacGuffin]]: The Orb of Zot! It's apparently so valuable that it's held deep underground in a realm which you can't even get into without magic runes, guarded by hundreds of monsters... but nobody knows what it actually does, or what its powers are.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Wizard Needs Food Badly]]: The need to eat (the "food clock") and the lack of dungeon level regeneration constantly pushes the adventurer forward and down in search of sustenance. Though it’s worse for magic users, as most forms of magic increase hunger to the point where a ring of sustenance is a prized possession.

** Mummies, however, don't need to eat, although they have rather terrible skill aptitudes and can’t use potions (including healing potions).