Dungeon Crawl: Difference between revisions

Not wanting to waste the game's potential, a group of people made an open source fork called ''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' (look up Stone soup on Wikipedia if you feel that's an odd title), and their version is now [[Weird Al Effect|dominant]] (similar to the way Hack became [[Nethack]]). It is still updated as of 2012, with new versions released every few months.

 

 

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.

** 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:

* [[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.

* [[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.