DUNGEON CRAWL Stone Soup - the manual - Contents -------- A. Overview B. Starting Screen C. Attributes and Stats D. Exploring the Dungeon E. Experience and Skills F. Monsters G. Items H. Spellcasting I. Targeting J. Religion K. Mutations L. Licence, Contact, History M. Macros, Options, Performance N. Philosophy Appendices 1. List of Character Species 2. List of Jobs 3. List of Skills 4. List of Keys and Commands 5. List of Enchantments 6. Inscriptions ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A. OVERVIEW ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crawl is a fun game in the grand tradition of games like Rogue, Hack and Moria. Your objective is to travel deep into a subterranean cave complex and retrieve the Orb of Zot, which is guarded by many horrible and hideous creatures. If you have never played Crawl (or a similar game) before, you may want to try out a tutorial. In order to do so, press 'Ctrl-T' in the species or job selection screens. You can choose among three popular and rather straightforward combinations: a Minotaur fighter following a mighty war god, a Centaur hunter using a bow and arrows, and an Elven magician. The prime aim of the tutorial is to explain Crawl's interface. They do not focus on 'optimal' gameplay (also, many experienced players will share different views on the latter). The tutorial has a special help screen (viewed by pressing '??') and ends when you reach the seventh experience level. Detailed instructions for playing Crawl follow. To simplify this manual, we assume that you use the standard distribution and that you've not changed the default options. If you don't want to read the whole manual and would prefer a short summary of the important points, look at the quick-start guide (quickstart.txt) and learn as you play. You can also read these documents while playing Crawl, by hitting '?' at the help menu. There is also a list of frequently asked questions about gameplay and design, to be accessed by pressing '?Q' in the game. While Dungeon Crawl is a strict single player game, you can play on a server together with many others. These are the relevant webpage and telnet and ssh addresses (akrasiac.org is situated in Northern America, while develz.org is located in Europe): http://crawl.akrasiac.org telnet://crawl.akrasiac.org ssh joshua@crawl.akrasiac.org (password joshua) http://crawl.develz.org telnet://crawl.develz.org:345 This has several interesting consequences. You can: * watch other players, and even communicate with them * replay games from you or others * meet ghosts of other players * compete using a common score list The server carries no guarantees, though it is pretty much always running and no one has lost their save file yet. :) More information is available at the URLs above. There is also a lively IRC channel dedicated to Crawl at ##crawl on freenode. You can ask for help and there will always be someone to supervise your game and give hints if you happen to play on a server. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ B. STARTING SCREEN ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After starting Crawl, you'll be asked to type in a name. Press Enter if you wish to choose a name after deciding on the species and job of your new character. The full list of saved games is also displayed, which you can navigate with the cursor Up and Down keys, and entering a name that is already attached to a save game will continue that game. Otherwise, enter a new name, and you will proceed to choose a species and job for a new character. You can make these two choices in either order, and you can randomize your choice of job, species, or both if you would rather have the game decide for you. If both are randomized, you will be prompted with the chosen combination before the game starts. The choice of species affects several important characteristics, in particular the speed at which you learn different skills. This is very important, and helps to clearly differentiate the many available species. The following factors are species-dependent: Major: * Your rate of level advancement * Your rate of skill advancement * Your initial primary attributes (this also depends on job) Minor: * Occasional bonus points added to some primary attributes * The amount of hit points you get each level * The amount of magic points you get each level * Your initial equipment (this also depends on job) * Various special abilities, powers and limitations Note that Humans are the average to which all other species are compared. The choice of job is definitely less decisive than that of species in Crawl. Basically, the job determines what the character has learned prior to entering the dungeon (i.e. the starting skills), and also helps determine equipment and hit/magic points at start. Some species are slower than humans in most/all skills. For some jobs these species may seem to have very few starting skills because they haven't quite earned the first level of several of their skills (Centaurs are notable in this regard... although non-human Wanderers can appear to start with no skills at all). This isn't a bug or an oversight, these species are just particularly weaker than humans at these jobs. They may have other advantages beyond skill development, though in some cases they may not. You will notice that a different set of jobs will be recommended (light grey) for all species. Although you are free to pick any job with almost any species (the only restrictions are for jobs that start with a religion that may not be open to all species), looking at the recommended combinations should give you a rough impression about the weaknesses and strengths of the different species. For some combinations of species and jobs, you must make further choices before starting the game: For example, you must pick a starting god for Chaos Knights, and a starting weapon for Gladiators. You can choose a tutorial from the species and job selection screens by pressing 'Ctrl-T'. Three different tutorial combinations are available. When you start a new character and want to get a rough impression, you may examine it with the following commands: A - shows any peculiarities like unusual speed or eating behaviours m - shows your skills and lets you switch off some if wanted i - the equipment ^ - the text for your god, should you have started with a religion % - a general, if terse, overview over your gear and most attributes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ C. ATTRIBUTES AND STATS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The stat area to the right of the playing map shows a lot of information. It starts with the character's name and title (determined by the character's highest skill), followed by a lot of numbers. These describe different aspects of the hero. Level: Starting characters have experience level 1; the highest possible level is 27. Gaining a level nets additional hit and magic points, and will sometimes grant spell slots or primary attributes (see below). Health: A measure of life force. Synonymous with hit points and sometimes abbreviated as HP. You die if your health drops to zero or less (although you can die in other ways, too). The main screen shows hit points in the format Health: 8/10, showing that your character's maximum hit points are 10, and the character currently has 8. Usually, you regain hit points slowly over time. Pressing '5' or Shift-Num-5 lets you wait for a longer period. Some very battle-fixated characters may end up with more than 250 hit points, yet some spellcasters are known to have finished the game victorious with less than 100. Magic: A measure of magic or other intrinsic power. This is used primarily for spellcasting, but is sometimes also used for the evoking and invoking of many other special abilities. They are displayed in the same way as hit points; nothing bad happens if these drop to zero. (Except, of course, that you can't cast any spells.) Resting restores these, too. It is uncommon to have more than 50 magic points (without using external devices). Next come your defences. For all of them, more is better. Armour Class: Abbreviated to "AC". When something injures you, your AC reduces the amount of damage you suffer. Shield: Abbreviated to "SH". This number is a measure of how good your shield (if any) is at blocking attacks. Evasion: Abbreviated to "EV". This helps you avoid being hit by unpleasant things (but will not reduce the amount of damage you suffer if you do get hit). Your hero's primary attributes are Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence: Strength: Abbreviated to "Str". Affects the amount of damage you do in combat, as well as how much stuff you can carry. Intelligence: Abbreviated to "Int". Affects how well you can cast spells as well as how much nutrition spellcasting takes. Your ability to use some magical items is also influenced by your intelligence. Dexterity: Abbreviated to "Dex". Affects your accuracy in combat, your ability to dodge attacks aimed at you, your general effectiveness with missile weapons, and your ability to use thiefly skills such as backstabbing and disarming traps. They grow permanently from gaining levels, and may increase or decrease temporarily from mutations or using appropriate artefacts or abilities. If any one of these drops to zero for some reason, you die. This can be a nasty and deadly surprise. As a rule of thumb, you are safe from this type of death if all of your attributes are at least 7. Upon gaining Levels 3, 6, 9, etc., you get to choose an attribute to raise. Random increases can also occur; which levels give an increase is determined by species, as is the attribute to be increased. The next numbers shown are the Experience Pool and the (dungeon) Level: Exp Pool: This is different to all the other figures you can see in the stat area. The Pool is a highly fluctuating number ranging between 0 and 20000. It is increased whenever you gain some experience (usually by killing monsters). It is decreased by all sorts of action and does train these actions that way. Having an eye on the Pool is important if you want to train specific skills. See section E for more details. Level: Not to be confused with the experience level above, this shows which level of the dungeon you are on. There are some additional stats that aren't as important on a turn to turn basis and thus aren't listed in the main stats area. They can easily be checked with the '@' or '%' commands, though. Magic Affects your ability to resist the effects of enchantments Resistance: and similar magic directed at you. Although your magic resistance increases with your level to an extent determined by your character's species, the creatures you will meet deeper in the dungeon are better at casting spells, and are more likely to be able to affect you. MR is an internal variable, so you can't see what yours is, but you can get a rough idea by pressing '@' or '%'. Stealth: Another internal variable like Magic Resistance. First, there is a Stealth skill which every character can learn (but again, the different species' aptitudes for this vary greatly). Next, some armours affect stealth in a positive way (all Elven pieces are notable in this regard), while heavy armours will hamper it. High stealth allows your character to move through the dungeon undetected. There are many ailments or enchantments that can temporarily befall you. These are noted in the stats area below the experience line. Many of them are self-explaining, like Pray or Hungry. Many others, however, can be subtle, and a full list with explanations is given in Appendix 5. Monsters within your field of vision are listed on a special panel, the monster list. Single monsters also get indicators of their health status in the form of a coloured box, and also on effects they enjoy or suffer from; additionally, for those who worship The Shining One, monsters whom it would be unchivalric to attack have their name and effect status coloured magenta. Within target mode you can directly target single monsters by use of the monster list. Use 'Ctrl-L' to toggle this. Sometimes characters will be able to use special abilities, e.g. the Naga's ability to spit poison, or the magical power to turn invisible granted by a ring. These are accessed through the 'a' command. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ D. EXPLORING THE DUNGEON ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Movement -------- You can make your character walk around with the numeric keypad (try both Numlock on and off) or the "Rogue" keys (hjklyubn). If this is too slow, you can make your character walk repeatedly by pressing Shift and a direction; alternatively, press '/' followed by a direction. You will walk in that direction until any of a number of things happen: a hostile monster is visible on the screen, a message is sent to the message window for any reason, you press a key, or you are about to step on anything other than normal floor or an undiscovered trap and it is not your first move of the long walk. Note that this is functionally equivalent to just pressing the direction key several times. Another convenient method for moving long distances is described in the section on Automated Travel and Exploration below. Resting and Searching --------------------- If you press Shift and '5' on the numeric keypad (or just the number '5' on the keyboard), you rest for 100 turns or until your hit points or magic return to full, whichever is sooner. You can rest for just one turn by pressing '.', Delete, 's' or '5' on the keypad. Whenever you are resting, you are assumed to be observing your surroundings, so you have a chance of detecting any traps or secret doors near you. Resting stops if a monster appears. Examining your surroundings --------------------------- The section of the viewing window which is coloured (with the "@" representing you at the centre) is what you can see around you. The dark grey around it is the parts of the level which you have visited, but cannot currently see. The 'x' command lets you move the cursor around to get a description of the various dungeon features, and typing 'v' when the cursor is over a monster or feature brings up a short description of that monster. This is generally useful with monsters you've never encountered before. You can get a map of the whole level (which shows where you've already been) by typing 'X'. You can see the full set of commands available while looking around by pressing '?', both in the 'x' and 'X' modes. Staircases and Portals ---------------------- You can make your way between levels by using staircases, which appear as ">" (down) and "<" (up), by pressing the '>' or '<' keys. It is important to know that most monsters adjacent to you will follow when you change levels; this holds both for hostile and allied monsters. Notable exceptions are zombies (and other mindless undead, who are too stupid to properly operate stairs) and ghosts (who feel they belong to their level). If you ascend an up staircase on level one, you will leave the dungeon forever; if you are carrying the magical Orb of Zot, you win the game by doing this. Otherwise, the game ends, and you lose. Besides the dungeon you start in, Crawl's dungeon has many branches. All of them are themed and host opponents of some special sort. It is not mandatory to visit any particular branch, but you must explore some of them: Progress to the Realms of Zot (where the Orb is located) is only possible for adventurers who have at least three magical runes of Zot. The bottoms of several branches contain such runes. Occasionally you will find an archway (displayed as "\" or as an actual arch); these lead to special places like shops, magical labyrinths, or Hell. Depending on which type of archway it is, you can enter it by typing '<' or '>'. Doors and Traps --------------- Doors can usually be opened by just walking into them (there is an option for disabling this); else this can also be done using the 'O' command. They can be closed with the 'C' command. Pressing Ctrl plus a direction, or '*' followed by a direction, will open/close doors, too. If there is no door in the indicated space, both Ctrl-direction and '*'-direction will attempt to attack any monster which may be standing there (this is the only way to attack a friendly creature hand-to-hand). If there is no creature there, you will attempt to disarm any trap in the target square. If there is apparently nothing there, you will still attack it, just in case there's something invisible lurking around. A variety of dangerous and irritating traps are hidden around the dungeon. Traps look like normal floor until discovered. Some traps can be disarmed with the Ctrl-direction commands. Shops ----- When you visit a shop, you are shown what the shopkeeper has in stock and can choose what to buy. Unfortunately, the shopkeepers all have an exclusive deal with the Guild of Dungeon Procurers which prevents them using non-guild labour to obtain stock, so you can't sell anything in a shop. (But then, what shopkeeper would buy stolen goods from a disreputable adventurer, anyway?) You can check your inventory and the items you've identified while you're shopping, which may help to decide if you really need that expensive item. To purchase one or more items, select them by pressing the letters of the item in the shop menu and then press Enter to make the purchase; you can examine stuff before you buy it by pressing '!' and then the letter of the item. If you've lost track of the shops in the dungeon, you can get a list of all the shops you've found in the dungeon overview (use 'Ctrl-O'). You can also use the stash search: Hitting 'Ctrl-F' and searching for "shop" will list all stores. The stash-search menu allows you travel quickly to a particular shop; if you just want to know what's in the shop, you can also examine the shop's inventory from the search menu without having to travel all the way to the shop. Some shops are antique stores that sell items of unknown provenance, usually at a good discount. The dungeon overview screen displays these with yellow glyphs. Automated Travel and Exploration -------------------------------- Crawl has an extensive automated travel system: pressing 'Ctrl-G' or 'G' lets you choose any dungeon level; the game will then take the shortest path to reach this destination. You can also use autotravel on the level map ('X'): Move the cursor to the place where you want to go and hit Enter. There are several shortcuts when choosing destinations: For example, try '<' and '>' to quickly reach the staircases. When your autotravel gets interrupted, Crawl will remember the previous destination. Hitting 'Ctrl-G' or 'G' again and following with Enter puts the cursor on that square. See Appendix 4 for all commands and shortcuts in level-map mode, or press 'X?' within the game. Another use of autotravel is exploration: 'o' makes your character move to the nearest unexplored area. This can be dangerous - do not use it when known hostiles are around! Also note that this algorithm is not optimal: By manual exploration you can save turns, but auto-explore will usually save real time. If you like the use of automated exploration, take note of the option setting 'explore_greedy = true' (default setting) in the init file. This will cause Crawl to run to and pick up all items seen which are on the autopickup list. It also makes the character go to piles of items, in order to check the contents. Stashes and Searching --------------------- Since you can only carry 52 items, you will occasionally want to safely stash things away (by dropping them with the 'd' command). When you want to search for something in your stashes, you can do this with the Find command 'Ctrl-F'. The parser even accepts regular expressions, although you will mostly just need strings like 'mutation', 'heal wounds', etc. You will be presented with a list of all places where objects matching the search are (or have been) located; you can then travel there or examine the pile. The Find command will also search in shop inventories. Furthermore, you can search skills like 'long blades' (this will find all weapons training the long blades skill) or general terms like 'shop', 'altar', 'portal', 'artefact', 'dart trap', etc. The Goal -------- Your goal is to locate the Orb of Zot, which is held somewhere deep beneath the world's surface. The Orb is an ancient and incredibly powerful artefact, and the legends promise great things for anyone brave enough to extract it from the fearsome Dungeon. Some say it will grant immortality or even godhood to the one who carries it into the sunlight; many undead creatures seek it in the hope that it will restore them to life. But then, some people will believe anything. Good luck! Further Help ------------ To access Crawl's help menu, press '?'. To get the list of all commands, press '?' again. A different, more verbose description of the commands also appears in Appendix 4 of this text. Various other help texts are available as well, including this manual. You can also read the logbook from there by pressing ':'. Note that several commands have their own help screens, among them are targeting ('f'), level map ('X'), travel ('Ctrl-G' or 'G') and searching ('Ctrl-F'); again, press '?' when asked for input. If you don't like the standard keyset (either because some keys do not work properly, or because you want to decrease the amount of typing necessary), you can use keymaps and macros. See macros_guide.txt in the docs/ directory, or read it from the in-game help menu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ E. EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When you kill monsters, you gain experience points (XP). You receive half normal experience for monsters killed by friendly creatures. When you get enough XP, you gain an experience level, making your character more powerful. As they gain levels, characters gain more hit points, magic points, and spell levels. Whenever you are curious about the total amount of experience accumulated so far, or how much experience is needed to advance to the next level, press 'E' or '%'. Additionally, the experience you gain goes into your Experience Pool. The pool is capped at 20000 points. This pool of points is used up whenever you practise a skill. These skills represent proficiency with all areas of endeavour an ambitious adventurer might need in the dungeons. They range from different weapon skills (both for close and ranged combat) to many magical skills and several additional activities like Dodging or Stabbing. See Appendix 3 for a detailed description of all skills present in Crawl. The ease with which a character learns a skill depends solely on species. These aptitudes are hinted at in the list of species (see Appendix 1). For the curious, the full table can be checked in aptitudes.txt (also from the help screen during play), though it is not necessary to bother with the numbers in order to win! You can see your character's skills by pressing the 'm' key; the higher the level of a skill, the better you are at it. Almost all characters start with a few skills already trained (which depends essentially on their job), those which are not present have to be learned from scratch. Each skill can go up to 27. Each time your character gains experience points, those points become available to increase skills. You convert experience points into skill levels by practising the skill in question (e.g. fighting with a certain type of weapon, casting a certain type of spell, or walking around unnoticed to practise stealth). The amount of unassigned experience points is shown on the main screen as well as on the skills screen, and the number in blue next to each skill counts up from 0% to 100% as you get closer to gaining a level in that skill. You can elect not to practise a particular skill by selecting it in the skill screen (making it turn dark grey). This means that you will be less likely to increase that skill when you practise it (and will also not spend as many experience points on it). The main use of turning off skills is to spend more points on other skills: You will not lose any experience by deselecting skills, you will rather spend it elsewhere. It can happen that the pool grows rather large in this way; the maximum is 20000 experience points. Occasionally you may find a manual of a skill which allows to make quick progress in this area. Whenever you read it, all free experience is transferred into exercising this particular skill. This can be done until the manual crumbles, which will occur after a random number of uses. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ F. MONSTERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In the caverns of Crawl, you will find a great variety of creatures, most of which are displayed by capital or small letters of the alphabet. Many of them would very much like to eat you. To stop them from doing this, you will generally need to fight them. To attack a monster, stand next to it and move in its direction; this makes you attack it with your wielded weapon. Of course, some monsters are just too nasty to beat, and you will find that discretion is often the better part of valour. Sneaky characters are known to choose encounters to their liking. There are several other less dangerous methods you can use to kill monsters. Hunters and similarly oriented characters will prefer ranged combat to mindless bashing. When wielding some launcher, the 'f' and 'F' commands will fire appropriate missiles. See the section on Targeting in the Items Chapter for more on this. Likewise, many magicians will prefer to use spells from a safe distance. They can use the 'z' command to cast spells previously memorised. Again, see the Targeting section. Some monsters can be friendly; friendly monsters will follow you around and fight on your behalf (you gain half the normal experience points for any kills they make). You can command your allies using the 't' key, which lets you shout to attract them or tell them who to attack, or else tell them to stay where they are or to follow you again. You can also shout to get the attention of all monsters in range if, for some reason, you want to do that. Your allied monsters may or may not pick up items from the ground - you can set their behaviour with the 'Ctrl-T' command. Some special monsters are Uniques. You can identify a unique because he or she will have a name and personality. Many of these come up with very nasty ideas how to rid the dungeon of you. Treat them very carefully, particularly if you meet one of them for the first time. Other, even rarer, obstacles are statues. A variety of statues can appear, ranging from harmless granite ones (who still often signify something of interest) to really dreadful ones. Be alert whenever seeing such a statue. The best method to destroy most statues is by using wands of disintegration; you can also bash some of them into pieces by brute force, however. When playing Crawl, you will undoubtedly want to develop a feeling for the different monster types. For example, some monsters leave edible corpses, others don't, and still others do so sometimes. Likewise, ranged or magic attackers will prove a different kind of threat from melee fighters. Learn from past deaths and remember which monsters pose the most problems. If particular monsters are giving you trouble, try to alter your tactics for future encounters. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ G. ITEMS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In the dungeons of Crawl there are many different kinds of normal and magical artefacts to be found and used. Some of them are useful, some are nasty, and some give great power, but at a price. Some items are unique; these have interesting properties which can make your life rather bizarre for a while. They all fall into several classes of items, each of which is used in a different way. Here is a general list of what you might find in the course of your adventures, how these are displayed, and what commands there are to use them: ) weapons (use 'w'ield) ( missiles (use 'f'ire) [ armour (use 'W'ear and 'T'ake off) % food (use 'e'at; also 'c'hop up corpses) ? scrolls (use 'r'ead) ! potions (use 'q'uaff) / wands (use 'V' to evoke) = rings (use 'P'ut on and 'R'emove) " amulets (use 'P'ut on and 'R'emove) \ or | staves, rods (use 'w'ield for staves; 'v' for evoking rods) + or : spellbooks (use 'r'ead and 'M'emorise and 'z'ap) } miscellaneous (use generally 'w'ield and 'v' for evoking) $ gold (picking it up takes no turns) There are several general keys for item management: 'd' drop item 'g' pick up item from the ground (also with the comma key ',') for several items press 'g' or ',' twice to get a pickup menu '=' reassign item slot (works also for spell slots and abilities) 'i' shows inventory - pressing the key of an item shows additional information '{' inscribe item (see Appendix 6) '\' check list of already discovered items Item usage ---------- You pick up items with the 'g'et or ',' (comma) command, and drop them with the 'd'rop command. When you are given a prompt like "drop which item?", if you type a number before the letter of the item, you will drop that quantity of the item (similarly when picking up). Note that picking up items from one square takes exactly one turn. However, dropping several items at once takes more turns. Typing 'i' displays your inventory (what you are carrying). When you are given a prompt like "Throw [or Wield, Wear, etc] which item?", you usually get a list of all available options (this behaviour can be changed with the auto_list option). You can press '*' in case you want to wield something unusual. When the inventory screen shows "-more-", to show you that there is another page of items, you can type the letter of the item you want, even if it is not visible, instead of pressing Space or Enter to see the next page. You can carry at most 52 items at once, and the total weight is bounded by your carrying capacity. Both of these are printed at the top of the inventory screen. You can use the adjust command (the '=' key) to change the letters to which your possessions are assigned. This command can be used to change spell or ability letters, too. Some items can be sticky-cursed, in which case they weld themselves to your body when you use them. Such items usually carry some kind of disadvantage: a weapon or armour may be damaged or negatively enchanted, while rings can have all manner of unpleasant effects on you. If you are lucky, you might find magic which can rid you of these curses. Items like scrolls, potions, and some other types each have a characteristic, like a label or a colour, which will let you tell them apart on the basis of their function. However, these characteristics change between each game, so while in one game every potion of healing may be yellow, in another game they might all be purple and bubbly. Once you have discovered the function of such an item, you will remember it for the rest of the current game. You can access your item discoveries with the '\' key. In order to get a description of what an item does, bring up the inventory (with 'i') and press the letter of that item. Try this when comparing different types of armours and weapons, but don't expect too much information from examining unidentified items. Another useful command is the '{' key, which lets you inscribe items with a comment. This is often used to denote special properties of an item, making for easier navigation of large quantities of artefacts. For more details, and how to automatise this process, check Appendix 6. ) Weapons --------- These are rather important. You will find a variety of weapons in the dungeon, ranging from small and quick daggers to huge, cumbersome battleaxes and polearms. Each type of weapon does a different amount of damage, has a different chance of hitting its target, and takes a different amount of time to swing. There are several weapon skills (press 'm' to show a list of those that you are training) like Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes, etc. These skills affect damage, accuracy, and speed. (The same goes for Unarmed Combat.) Weapons can be enchanted; when they are identified, they have values which tell you how much more effective they are than an unenchanted version. The first number is the enchantment to-hit, which affects the weapon's accuracy, and the second is its damage enchantment; weapons which are not enchanted are simply '+0'. Some weapons also have special magical effects which make them very effective in certain situations. Some types of hand weapons (especially daggers, spears and hand axes) are quite effective when thrown. You can wield weapons with the 'w' command, which is a very quick action. If for some reason you want to go bare-handed, type 'w' followed by a hyphen ('-'). Note that weapons are not the only class of item which is useful to wield. The ' (apostrophe) key is a shortcut which automatically wields the item in slot a. If item a is being wielded, ' causes you to wield item b instead, if possible. Try assigning the letter a to your primary weapon, and b to your bow or something else you need to wield only sometimes. Note that this is just a typing shortcut and is not functionally different to wielding these items normally. You can press ']' to show your primary (wielded) and secondary (slot b) weapons, as well as the preferred missiles (to be shot when using 'f' to fire). ( Missiles ---------- If you would rather pick off monsters from a safe distance, you will need missiles for your sling, bow or other appropriate launcher. Several kinds of missiles, such as javelins, are effective when simply thrown; other kinds require you to wield an appropriate device to inflict worthwhile damage. Missiles have only one "plus" value, which affects both accuracy and damage. Upon impact, missiles may become destroyed. The chance for this to occur depends on the type of missile. A higher "plus" value also helps. The 'f' command fires or throws a missile, typically chosen from lots suitable for your weapon. The default lot (your "quiver") is displayed on the main screen beneath your wielded weapon. The quivered item will always be what Crawl thinks is most likely to be what you want. Thus it will either be an item you previously chose and fired (with 'f') or directly quivered (with 'Q'), or the item in your inventory that ranks highest in fire_order - if there are several of similar order, the one with the lowest inventory slot is chosen. See Appendix 6 (Inscriptions) for inscriptions which let you fine-tune the list of items to choose from. See also the Missiles section of options_guide.txt. The firing interface also allows you to manually select an item to throw with 'i'; but it may not be very effective if you lack the correct launcher. At times it is sensible to throw weapons like daggers, clubs, spears or hand axes. Use the '(', ')' to cycle through your quiver without firing, and 'Q' to choose the quivered item. If you'd like to throw something without inserting it into the quiver use 'F' instead. Note that non-weapon, non-missile items will never be quivered. The interface for shooting or throwing things is also used for evoking wands and casting certain spells, and is described in detail in section I (Targeting). [ Armour -------- This is also rather important. Most worn armour improves your Armour Class, which decreases the amount of damage you take when something injures you. Body armour (robes, mails, etc.) come in two types: light armours (e.g. robes and leather armours, also all Elven armours) and heavy armours (ring mails, scale mails, etc.). Both help with damage reduction, but heavy armours do so more reliably. Unfortunately, the heavier types of armour also hamper your melee speed, making it easier for monsters to hit you (i.e. reducing the evasion score) and making it harder for you to hit monsters. These effects can be mitigated by a high Armour skill. Wearing heavy armour also increases your chances of miscasting spells, an effect which is only slightly reduced by your Armour skill. A Shield normally affects neither your AC or your evasion, but it lets you block some of the attacks aimed at you and absorbs some of the damage you would otherwise receive from things like dragon breath and lightning bolts. Wearing a shield (especially a large shield) makes you less effective in hand combat. Shields are more effective when you're fighting a small number of foes than when you're surrounded. There are three types: bucklers, shields, and large shields. While it is possible to use bows (or other launchers) and rods while wearing a shield, you will be less effective at doing so. Some magical armours have special powers. These powers are sometimes automatic, affecting you whenever you wear the armour, and sometimes must be activated with the 'a' command. You can wear armour with the 'W' command, and take it off with the 'T' command. With '[' you can have a quick look at your current gear. Most armours can be improved by reading the appropriate scroll. Be aware that the bonus limit for all normal pieces of gear is +2, except for body armour and bardings. % Food and Carrion ------------------ Food is extremely important. You can find many different kinds of food in the dungeon. If you don't eat when you get hungry, you will eventually die of starvation. Fighting, carrying heavy loads, casting spells, and using some magical items will make you hungry. When you are starving, you fight less effectively as well. You can eat food with the 'e' command. You may wish to dine on the corpses of your casualties (unless you are a Spriggan, and cannot eat meat, or you are a Mummy, who need not, and cannot, eat at all). Despite the fact that corpses are represented by the same '%' sign as food, you can't eat them without first cutting them into pieces with the 'c' command. Being extremely hungry helps you choke down the raw flesh. Even then, you should choose your homemade food with great care. In order to chop up a corpse with the 'c' command, you need to have a proper tool (like a knife or short sword), although claws will also do. Cutting off the best parts will take some turns and produce a number of 'chunks' eventually. These can be eaten with 'e' command as above. Your character will automatically switch to an uncursed butchering tool when you type 'c', and will also switch back to your previous weapon unless you get interrupted while butchering your food. Some species are less fastidious about their food. Trolls and Ghouls can use their claws, and so do not need a cutting device. Also, Orcs, Ogres, Kobolds, Trolls and Ghouls care less (in different degrees) about the quality of the corpse. Kobolds, Trolls and Ghouls are happy to eat raw meat at any time. Vampires are a special case. Members of this species can try to drink blood from a fresh corpse (use the 'e' command). ? Magical Scrolls ----------------- Scrolls have many different magical spells inscribed on them, some good and some bad. One of the most useful scrolls is the scroll of identify, which will tell you the function of any item you have in your inventory; save these up for the more powerful and inscrutable magic items, such as rings. You can read scrolls (and by doing so invoke their magic) with the 'r' command. ! Magical Potions ----------------- While scrolls tend to affect your equipment or your environment, most potions affect your character in some way. The most common type is the simple healing potion, which restores some hit points and cures many ailments, but there are many other varieties of potions to be found. Potions can be quaffed (drunk) with the 'q' command. Try to avoid drinking poisonous potions! By the way, you can also drink from the fountains you encounter in the dungeon. / Wands ------- Sometimes you will be lucky enough to find a stick which contains stored magical energies. Wands each have a certain amount of charges, and a wand will cease to function when its charges run out. You must identify a wand to find out how many uses it has left. This can be done with a scroll of identify; characters with a good Evocations skill may also deduce the number of charges simply upon evoking the wand. Wands are aimed in the same way as missile weapons, and you can release the power of a wand by evoking it with 'V'. See section I for targeting. There are also a number of wands that may be useful to aim at yourself, but it is usually prudent to know what you are evoking before you do so. =" Rings and Amulets -------------------- Magical rings are among the most useful of the items you will find in the dungeon, but can also be some of the most hazardous. They transfer various magical abilities onto their wearer, but powerful rings like rings of regeneration or invisibility make you hunger very quickly when they are activated. Use the 'P' command to put on rings, and 'R' to remove them. You can wear up to two rings simultaneously, one on each hand; which hand you put a ring on is immaterial to its function. If you try to put on a ring while both ring fingers are full, you will be asked which one to remove. Some rings function automatically, while others require activation (the 'a' command). Amulets are similar to rings, but have a different range of effects (which tend to be more subtle). Amulets are worn around the neck, and you can wear only one at a time. You can press '"' to quickly check what jewellery you're wearing. \| Staves --------- There are a number of types of magical staves. Some enhance your general spellcasting ability, while some greatly increase the power of a certain class of spells (and possibly reduce your effectiveness with others). They can even be used in hand-to-hand combat, about as effectively as quarterstaves. Spell staves (called "rods" in the game) are a totally different kind of item. They hold spells which you can cast without having to memorise them first. You must wield a rod like a weapon in order to gain from its power. Rods can be invoked with the 'v' command when wielded. They have a pool of magical energy which regenerates rather quickly when you are wielding it (drawing from your own Magic), or at a much slower rate when it just sits in your backpack. Unlike other staves, rods are unsuited for physical combat. +: Books -------- Most books contain magical spells which your character may be able to learn. You can read a book with the 'r' command, which lets you access a description of each spell, or memorise spells from it with the 'M' command. Use 'z' to cast previously memorised spells. For spells demanding a target, the comments on using missile weapons apply. Many spells have a limited range and casting will be aborted if there are no potential targets within this range. If this case, neither magic nor time are expended. If, for whatever reason, you want to cast the spell nonetheless, you can use the 'Z' command. You can also press 'I' to just have a look at all spells memorised. From this screen, you can read the descriptions of the spells and check various details about your casting abilities. Note that '=' allows you to change what spells are assigned to what keys. Some books have other special effects, and powerful spellbooks have been known to resent the attentions of incompetent magicians. Occasionally you will find manuals of some skill. Reading these will cause your free experience to go straight into that skill. { Miscellaneous --------------- These are items which don't fall into any other category. You can use many of them, as well as some special weapons, by wielding and then evoking them with 'v'. Runes, a particular item in this category, have no function whatsoever except to open the endgame. You must collect at least three in order to enter the Realm of Zot. Some people like to brag about retrieving many more runes but those would probably boast of any other silly little thing they've done. $ Gold ------ Gold can be used to buy items should you run across shops. (Shops do not buy, by the way.) There are also a few more esoteric uses for gold. Gold coins do not have any weight in Crawl, and picking up some coins does not take a turn. Whenever you pick up gold, your total wealth is shown as well. Should you want to have a glance at your finances at some other opportunity, pressing '$' (or '%') allows you to do so. Racial Items ------------ Some items have been crafted by members of a gifted species, and have special properties. Dwarven weapons and armours are very durable, and do not rust or corrode easily. All species get a bonus when wearing Dwarven armours at the expense that these mails make spellcasting slightly more difficult. Dwarves get a larger bonus without the magical hampering. Orcish (cross)bows do a bit more damage with Orcish arrows/bolts. In general, Orcs do better with gear from their own kin; this applies to weapons, as well as to armours. Elven armour is unusually light, and does not affect the dodging or stealth of its wearer to the extent that other armours do. It also is less restrictive for spellcasting than other armours. Elven cloaks and boots are particularly useful to those who wish to be stealthy. Elven bows are particularly effective in conjunction with Elven arrows. An Elf does even a bit better whenever using armour or weapons of his own kind. Centaurs and Nagas have uniquely shaped bodies. With luck, however, a character of these species might find a Centaur or Naga barding. Artefacts --------- Weapons, armour, jewellery and spellbooks can be artefacts. These come in two flavours: randomly created artefacts ('randarts') and predefined ones ('unrandarts'). Artefacts will always carry unusual names, such as "golden sword" or "shimmering scale mail". Also, artefacts cannot be modified in any way, including enchantments. Apart from that, otherwise mundane items can get one special property. These are called 'ego items', and examples are: boots of running, a weapon of flaming, a helmet of see invisible, and so on. Note that such items can be modified, and thus are subject to corrosion and enchanting scrolls. All ego items are noted with special adjectives but not all items noted in this way need have a special property (they often have some positive or negative enchantment, though): - general: glowing, runed; - metal armours: shiny; - leather armours, animal skins: dyed; - other armours: embroidered. Normal and ego helmets can both have extra decorations ("winged", "plumed", etc.). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ H. SPELLCASTING ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Magical spells are a very important part of surviving in the dungeon. Every character can make use of magical spells, although those who enter the dungeon without magical skills must practise by reading scrolls before they can attempt spellcasting. There are many skills related to magic, the principal one being Spellcasting. This determines the number of Magic available and higher Spellcasting helps at several places when spells are involved. Next there are several general areas (Conjuration, Enchantment, Summoning, Necromancy, Translocation, Transmutation and Divination) as well as several elemental areas (Fire, Ice, Air and Earth) and, finally, Poison. A particular spell can belong to (and thus train) up to three areas. Being good in the areas of a spell will improve the casting chance and, in many cases, the effect as well. Spells are stored in books, which you will occasionally find in the dungeon. You can read books with 'r' to check what spells they contain; doing so will allow you to read the individual spells' descriptions. In order to try to memorise a certain spell, use the 'M' command. Memorising can take a while and, for high-level spells, be hazardous. Each spell has a level. A spell's level denotes the amount of skill required to use it and indicates how powerful it may be. You can only memorise a certain number of levels of spells; type 'M' to find out how many. When you gain experience levels or advance the Spellcasting skill, your maximum increases; you will need to save up for several levels to memorise the more powerful spells. When casting a spell, you temporarily expend some of your magical energy and become hungrier (although high intelligence and Spellcasting help against hunger from spells). Pressing 'II' (or 'I!') displays the hunger costs of your spells in terms of food, on a scale of none, sultana, strawberry, choko, honeycomb and ration. Casting the spell five times will cost at most the displayed fruit. You activate a memorised spell by pressing 'z' (for Zap). Use 'I' to display a list of all memorised spells without actually casting one. The spells available are labelled with letters; you are free to change this labelling with the '=' command. You can assign both lowercase and uppercase letters to spells. Some spells, for example most damage dealing ones, require a target. See the next section for details on how to target. Most spells have caps on their effects: no matter how intelligent and proficient you are, there is a limit to the damage you can achieve with a Magic Dart. In generally, it is a good idea to look at the output of the 'I' and 'II' screens to get a picture on your casting abilities. This is especially useful if you're about to change armour or rings. High level spells are difficult to cast, and you may miscast them every once in a while (resulting in a waste of magic and possibly dangerous side-effects). Your chance of failing to cast a spell properly depends on your skills, your intelligence, the level of the spell and whether you are wearing heavy armour. Failing to cast a spell exercises your spell skills, but not by as much as casting it successfully. Many of the more powerful spells carry disadvantages or risks; you should read the spell description (obtained by reading the spellbook in which you found the spell) before casting anything. There is a completely different way to the use spells: via rods. These are magical staves holding a number of spells. Rods store a certain number of magic points, which are used for powering the spells they contain; when not fully charged, they regenerate magic points from their owner's pool (this happens much more quickly if the rod is wielded). You can spend scrolls of recharging on rods in order to increase the maximal size of their magical reservoir. The effectiveness of your rod's spells are governed by your Evocations skill. Be careful of magic-using enemies! Some of them can use magic just as well as you, if not better, and often use it intelligently. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I. TARGETING ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When throwing something, evoking certain wands or casting spells, you are asked for a direction. There are several ways to tell Crawl which monster to target. (The following list assumes the option setting default_target = true which is default.) You can press '?' when asked for a direction; this will bring up a help screen. Else, you use the following commands: - The cursor will target on the monster which is closest to your position. Should you have been firing at something previously, with the offender still being in sight, the cursor will instead rest on the previous target. - Pressing '+' or '=' moves the cursor to the next monster, going from nearer to further away. Similarly, '-' cycles backwards. - Any direction key moves the cursor by one square. Occasionally, it can be useful to target non-inhabited squares. - When you are content with your choice of target, press one of '!', Del, Enter or Space to fire at the target. If you press '.', you also fire, but the spell/missile will stop at the target's square if it misses. This can be useful to keep friendlies out of the fire, and is also the only way to attack submerged creatures. You can press Escape if you changed your mind - no turns are deducted. There are some shortcuts while targeting: - Typing Shift-direction on your keypad fires straight away in that direction. - Pressing 'p' or 'f' fires at the previous target (if it is still alive and in sight). Due to this, most hunters can go a long way by pressing 'ff' to fire their ammunition at a monster and then keep firing at it with further 'ff' strokes. At times, it will be useful to switch targets with the '+' or '-' commands, though. It is possible to target yourself: obviously beneficial effects like hasting or healing will actually target the cursor on you, leaving to you only the pressing of '.', Enter, etc. - except if you want to heal or haste someone else. If you target yourself while firing something harmful (which can be sensible at times), you will be asked for confirmation. Finally, there are some more targeting related commands: - Ctrl-F changes which monsters are cycled when using '+', '=' or '-': hostiles, friends or all monsters. - '(' and ')' allow to change the ammunition. This is useful when you have several types of appropriate ammunition, say poisoned needles and curare needles. Your last usage will be remembered. Note that you can use '(' for changing the quiver ammunition even outside of targeting. - The ':' key allows you to display the path of your spell/wand/missile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ J. RELIGION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are a number of gods, demons and other assorted powers who will accept your character's worship, and sometimes give out favours in exchange. You can use the '^' command to check the requirements of whoever it is that you worship, and if you find religion to be an inconvenience you can always renounce your faith (use the 'a' command - but most gods resent being scorned). For most gods, there is a second page with additional details, press '^!' to access it. The 'p' command lets you pray to your god. Most gods take note of your actions throughout, but by praying you ask for attention. This is how you dedicate corpse-sacrifices to your god, for example: press 'pc' to pray first, and then chop up a corpse. Note that not all gods like this. Praying also gives you a sense of what your god thinks of you, and can be used to sacrifice things at altars. To use any powers which your god deems you fit for, access the abilities menu via the 'a' command; god-given abilities are listed as invocations. Some jobs start out religious; others have to pray at an altar to dedicate themselves to a life of servitude. There are altars scattered all over the dungeon, and your character has heard rumours of a special temple somewhere near the surface. At an altar, you can read a description of that god's general attitude by pressing 'p'. You will be asked afterwards if you really want to attend this circle. Note that the good gods will not accept demonic or undead devotees. If you like to start the game with a religion, choose your job from Healer, Priest, Paladin, Berserker, Chaos Knight or Death Knight (the last only if you draw your power from your god, instead of from necromancy). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ K. MUTATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Although it would doubtless be a nice thing if you could remain genetically pure, there are too many toxic wastes and mutagenic radiations in the Dungeon for that to be possible. If your character is so affected by these that he or she undergoes physiological change, you can use the 'A' command to see how much of a freak they've become and the 'a' command to activate any mutations which can be controlled. Many mutations are actually beneficial to the characters, but there are plenty of nasty ones as well. Many mutations have three levels, each of which counts as a single mutation. Some changes to the primary attributes Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity (apart from those by levelling) are also handled as mutations - in particular, these are not permanent. You can also become mutated by overusing certain powerful enchantments, particularly Haste (not the kind you get from being berserk) and Invisibility, as your system absorbs too much magical energy - but you would have to spend almost all of your time hasted or invisible to be affected. However, some powerful items also radiate dangerous levels of magical energy. More often than not, the mutations caused by magical radiations express harmfully. Furthermore, certain corpses are mutagenic, and there are traps with mutation effects. There are also some spells and potions that cause mutations. It is much more difficult to get rid of bad mutations than to get one. A lucky mutation attempt can actually remove mutations. However, the only sure-fire way is to quaff a potion of cure mutation, which will attempt to remove one or more random mutations. A special case are Demonspawn. Characters of this species get certain special powers during their career; these are listed in red. They are permanent and can never be removed. If one of your Demonspawn powers has been augmented by a mutation, it is displayed in a lighter red colour. Many a species starts with some special intrinsic feats, like the greater speed of Centaurs or Spriggans, or the eating habits of Trolls, Kobolds and others. These are often, but not always, like a preset mutation. In case such an innate feature gets amplified by an ordinary mutation, it is displayed in a light blue colour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ L. LICENCE, CONTACT, HISTORY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Licence: Read licence.txt for information about the Crawl licence (which is nearly identical to the NetHack General Public License). Disclaimer: This software is provided as is, with absolutely no warranty express or implied. Use of it is at the sole risk of the user. No liability is accepted for any damage to the user or to any of the user's possessions. If you'd like to discuss Crawl, a good place to do so is the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.misc. Flag queries with -crawl- as other games are also discussed there. All topics related to this game usually meet a warm response, including tales of victories (going under 'YAVP', i.e. 'Yet Another Victory Post'), especially first victories (YAFVP) as well as sad stories of deceased characters (being 'YAAD' or 'YASD', i.e. 'Yet Another Annoying/Stupid Death'). Some players, especially those on crawl.akrasiac.org, also frequent ##crawl on IRC's freenode network. Stone Soup's homepage is at http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net Use this page for direct links to downloads of the most recent version. You can also submit bug reports and feature requests there. Be sure to make sure that your bug/feature isn't already in the list. For more complicated requests, it might be a good idea to discuss them in the newsgroup first. The history of Crawl is somewhat convoluted: Crawl was created in 1995 by Linley Henzell. Linley based Crawl loosely on Angband and NetHack, but avoided several annoying aspects of these games, and added a lot of original ideas of his own. Crawl was a hit, and Linley produced Crawl versions up to 3.30 in March 1999. Further work was then carried out by a group of developers who released 3.40 in February 2000. Of them, Brent Ross emerged as the single maintainer, producing versions until 4.0 beta 26 in 2002. After a long period of silent work, he went a great step by releasing 4.1.2 alpha in August 2005. This alpha contained a lot of good ideas, but was nearly unplayable due to balance issues. In the meantime, several patchers appeared, improving Crawl's interface tremendously. Several of them formed a new devteam; reasoning that rebalancing 4.1.2 was a very difficult task, they decided to fork Crawl 4.0 beta 26 and selectively include good ideas from 4.1.2 and other sources. This fork is Stone Soup, and is the game this manual describes. Stone Soup's release versions were restarted at 0.1 to avoid confusion with the existing plethora of Crawl versions. It should be mentioned that there have been other Crawl variants over the years, among them Ax-Crawl, Tile Crawl and Dungeon Crawl Alternative. The object of your quest in Crawl (the Orb of Zot) was taken from Wizard's Castle, a text adventure written in BASIC. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ M. MACROS, OPTIONS, PERFORMANCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crawl supports redefining keys via key maps. This is useful when your keyboard layout makes some key awkward to use. You can also define macros: these are command sequences which can make playing a great deal more convenient. Note that mapping 'a' to some other key will treat almost all pressings of 'a' in that new way (including dropping and wielding, etc.), so is not recommended. Macroing 'a' to some other key will only change the command key 'a'. You can set up key maps and macros in-game with the '~' key ('Ctrl-D' will also work); this also allows for saving all current key bindings and macros. Alternatively, you can directly edit the macro.txt file. For more information on both and for examples, see macros_guide.txt. Crawl supports a large number of options that allow for great flexibility in the interface. They are fully documented in the file options_guide.txt. The options themselves are set in the file ~/.crawlrc (for UNIX systems - copy over init.txt to ~/.crawlrc) or init.txt (for Windows). Several interface routines are outsourced to external Lua scripts. The standard distribution has them in the dat/lua/ directory. Have a look at the single scripts for short descriptions. Generally, Crawl should run swiftly on all machines (it compiles out of the box for Linux, Windows, OS X and, to some lesser extent, DOS and Unix). If, for some reason, you find Crawl runs unacceptably slowly on your machine, there are a few measures which may improve the situation: - avoid greedy autoexplore - set travel_delay = -1 to avoid screen redraws during travel (this might be useful if playing on a remote server) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ N. PHILOSOPHY (pas de faq) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In a nutshell: This game aims to be a tactical fantasy-themed dungeon crawl. We strive for strategy being a concern, too, and for exquisite gameplay and interface. However, don't expect plots or quests. You may ponder about the wisdom of certain design decisions of Crawl. This section tries to explain some of them. It could also be of interest if you are used to other roguelikes and want a bit of background on the differences. Prime mainstays of Crawl development are the following, most of which are explained in more detail below. Note that many of these date back to Linley's first versions. Major design goals: * challenging and random gameplay, with skill making a real difference * meaningful decisions (no no-brainers) * avoidance of grinding (no scumming) * gameplay supporting painless interface and newbie support Minor design goals: * clarity (playability without need for spoilers) * internal consistency * replayability (using branches, species, playing styles and gods) * proper use of out of depth monsters Balance ------- The notions of balance, or being imbalanced, are extremely vague. Here is our definition: Crawl is designed to be a challenging game, and is also renowned for its randomness. However, this does not mean that wins are an arbitrary matter of luck: Skill of the players will have the largest impact. So, yes, there may be situations where you are doomed - no action could have saved your life. But then, from the midgame on, most deaths are not of this type: By this stage, almost all casualties can be traced back to actual mistakes; if not tactical ones, then of a strategical type, like wrong skilling (too broad or too narrow), unwise use of resources (too conservative or too liberal), or wrong decisions about branch/god/gear. The possibility of unavoidable deaths is a larger topic in computer games: Ideally, a game like this would be really challenging and have both random layout and random course of action; yet still be winnable with perfect play. This goal seems out of reach. Thus, computer games can be soft in the sense that optimal play ensures a win. Apart from puzzles, though, this means that the game is solved from the outset; this is where the lack of a human game-master is obvious. Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides much more fun in the long run. Crawl has a huge number of handmade vaults/maps to tweak the randomness. While the placement, and often parts of the contents, of such vaults are random as well, they provide several advantages: vaults offer challenges that are very hard to get via just random monster and layout generation; they may centre on some theme, providing additional immersion; finally, they will often contain some loot, forcing players to decide between safety and greed. (The next topic can also be filed under balance; see Replayability for what balance does not mean to us.) Crusade against no-brainers --------------------------- A very important point in Crawl is steering away from no-brainers. Speaking about games in general, wherever there's a no-brainer, that means the development team put a lot of effort into providing a "choice" that's really not an interesting choice at all. And that's a horrible lost opportunity for fun. Examples for this are the resistances: there are very few permanent sources, most involve a choice (like rings or specific armour) or are only semi-permanent (like mutations). Another example is the absence of clear-cut best items, which comes from the fact that most artefacts are randomly generated. Furthermore, even non-random artefacts cannot be wished for, as scrolls of acquirement produce random items in general. Likewise, there are no sure-fire means of life saving (the closest equivalents are controlled blinks, and good religious standings for some deities). Anti-grinding ------------- Another basic design principle is avoidance of grinding (also known as scumming). These are activities that have low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward. This is bad for a game's design because it encourages players to bore themselves. Even worse, it may be optimal to do so. We try to avoid this! This explains why shops don't buy: otherwise players would hoover the dungeon for items to sell. Another instance: there's no infinite commodity available: food, monster and item generation is generally not enough to support infinite play. Not messing with lighting also falls into this category: there might be a benefit to mood when players have to carry candles/torches, but we don't see any gameplay benefit as yet. The deep tactical gameplay Crawl aims for necessitates permanent dungeon levels. Many a time characters have to choose between descending or battling. While caution is a virtue in Crawl, as it is in many other roguelikes, there are strong forces driving characters deeper. Interface --------- The interface is radically designed to make gameplay easy - this sounds trivial, but we mean it. All tedious, but necessary, chores should be automated. Examples are long-distance travel, exploration and taking notes. Also, we try to cater for different preferences: both ASCII and tiles are supported; as are vi-keys and numpad. Documentation is plenty, context-specific and always available in-game. Finally, we ease getting started via tutorials. Clarity ------- Things ought to work in an intuitive way. Crawl definitely is winnable without spoiler access. Concerning important but hidden details (i.e. facts subject to spoilers) our policy is this: The joy of discovering something spoily is nice, once. (And disappears before it can start if you feel you need to read spoilers - a legitimate feeling.) The joy of dealing with ever-changing, unexpected and challenging strategic and tactical situations that arise out of transparent rules, on the other hand, is nice again and again. That said, we believe that qualitative feedback is often better than precise numbers. In concrete terms, we either spell out a gameplay mechanic explicitly (either in the manual, or by in-game feedback) or leave it to min-maxers if we feel that the naive approach is good enough. Consistency ----------- While there is no plot to speak of, the game should still be set in a consistent Crawl universe. For example, names of artefacts should fit the mood, vaults should be sensibly placed and monsters should somehow fit as well. Essentially, this is about player immersion. As such, it's good to have in mind, but consistency is always secondary to gameplay. A typical example is player vs. monster behaviour: while we try to make these identical (or similar), there are good reasons for keeping them distinct in certain cases. Replayability ------------- This is actually quite important, but in some sense just a corollary to the major design goals. Besides these, there are several other points helping to make playing Crawl fun over and over again: Diversity: whenever there are choices to the player, be that choice of species, god, weapon or spell, the various options should be genuinely different. It is no good to provide dozens of weapons with different names (and perhaps even numbers) if, in the end, they all play the same. Many different species: This is partly due to the skills and aptitude system. Similarly important are the built-in starting bonuses/handicaps of species; these often have great impact on play. To us, balance does not mean that all combinations of job and species play equally well! Some are much more challenging than others, and this is fine with us. Each species has at least some jobs playing rather well, though. Dungeon layout: Even veteran players will find the Tomb or the Hells exciting (which are construed such that life endangering situations can always pop up). These and other branches may or may not fit a given character's buildup. By the way, we strongly believe that games are pointless if you can reach the invincible state. Religion: This addresses new players, as getting to the Temple and choosing a god becomes the first major task of most games. But religion is also a point in favour of replayability for experienced players, since the choice of god can matter as much as species does. Playing styles: Related to, but encompassing, species, job, god are fundamentally different playing styles like melee oriented fighter, stabber, etc. Deciding on whether (and when!) to make a transition of style can make or break games. Out of the depths ----------------- From time to time a discussion about Crawl's unfair OOD (out of depth) monsters turns up, like a dragon on the second dungeon level. These are not bugs! Actually, they are part of the randomness design goal. In this case, they also serve as additional motivation: in many situations, the OOD monster can be survived somehow, and the mental bond with the character will then surely grow. OOD monsters also help to keep players on their toes by making shallow, or cleared, levels still not trivial. In a similar vein, early trips to the Abyss are not deficits: there's more than one way out, and successfully escaping is exciting for anyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. LIST OF CHARACTER SPECIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Humans ------ Humans tend to be hardworking and industrious, and learn new things quickly. The Human species is the most versatile of all the species available to players: Humans can be of any job. Humans advance quickly in levels and have equal abilities in all skills. Elves ----- There are a number of distinct species of Elf. Elves are all physically slight but long-lived people, quicker-witted than Humans, but sometimes slower to learn new things. Elves are especially good at using those skills which require a degree of finesse, such as stealth, sword-fighting and archery, but tend to be poor at using brute force and inelegant forms of combat. They find heavy armour to be uncomfortable, and make the finest, lightest armours to be found anywhere. Elves are particularly good at using Elven weapons. Due to their fey natures, all Elves are good at using magic in general and air elemental magic in particular, while their affinity for other types of magic varies among the different sub-species. High Elves This is a tall and powerful Elven species who advance in levels very slowly, requiring half again as much experience as Humans. They have good intelligence and dexterity, but suffer in strength. Compared with Humans, they have fewer HP but more magic. Among all Elves, they are best with blades and bows. Deep Elves This is an Elven species who long ago fled the overworld to live in darkness underground. There, they developed their mental powers, evolving a natural gift for all forms of magic (including necromancy and earth magic), and adapted physically to their new environment, becoming shorter and weaker than other elves and losing all colouration. They are poor at hand-to-hand combat, but excellent at fighting from a distance. They advance in levels slightly faster than High Elves. Sludge Elves This is a somewhat degenerate species of Elves. They are mirror images of normal Elves in some respects: they have no special proficiency with bows or swords (long or short), nor do they have any aptitude in the traditional areas of High Elven magic (enchantments and conjurations). On the other hand, they are superlative transmuters, and are comfortable dabbling in necromantic, poison and elemental magic. As fighters, they are often more dangerous unarmed than armed. They advance in levels slightly slower than Humans. Dwarves ------- Dwarves are generally short, hardy people. Originally inhabiting deep underground caverns, some of them moved closer to the surface while still sticking to the mountainous habitat. All Dwarves are particularly dangerous when using Dwarven weaponry. Their armour and weapons are very well-crafted and much more durable than the products of lesser artisans. Mountain Dwarves Mountain Dwarves, as opposed to the subterranean specimen, come from cities far above the Dungeon. They love to fight, and often venture forth to seek fame and fortune through battle. As such, they are very robust and excellent at hand combat, especially favouring axes or bludgeoning weapons, and are good at using armour and shields. They are poor at missile combat, the single exception being crossbows. Polearms usually are too big for them to wield comfortably and so make quite bad weapons for Mountain Dwarves. In general, they are not capable of dealing with magic, and are suspectible to charms and enchantments. However, they are very proficient at earth and fire magics. Thus, many a Mountain Dwarf started career as an elementalist in those schools. They advance in levels at a similar rate to Deep Elves. Deep Dwarves Deep Dwarves are a species who, unlike their Mountain Dwarf relatives, never left the underground homelands. Living there for countless generations made them turn pale and lose all ability to regenerate on their own (nor are they receptive to any effects which merely hasten regeneration), as well as all ability to recover from losses to their primary attributes over time. On the other hand, Deep Dwarves have developed the ability to instantly counteract small doses of damage. They can also use their empathy with the earth to sense much of their surroundings; this ability increases in power as they gain experience levels. Given their lack of innate healing, few Deep Dwarves venture out for adventures or even combat. Those who do bring a wand of healing, or rely on divine assistance. Naturally, Deep Dwarves are quite adept with all arts of avoiding blows and damage and ungifted in the ways of physical combat. Those who have to defend their ground most often go with ranged combat (except for bows, which are too unwieldy for them) or spells. Deep Dwarves are highly spiritual beings, often portrayed as actual spirits by outsiders. They are most at home with the magics of earth and death. Like all other Dwarves, they are gifted forgers. In addition, Deep Dwarves can tinker with gadgets so as to recharge them. However, each time they do so, they lose a bit of their magical essence. Hill Orcs --------- Hill Orcs are Orcs from the upper world who, jealous of the riches which their cousins the Cave Orcs possess below the ground, descend in search of plunder and adventure. Hill Orcs are as robust as the Mountain Dwarves, and similarly have trouble with magic. Their forte is brute-force fighting, and they are skilled at using most hand weapons (with the exception of short blades, at which they are only fair), although they are not particularly good at using missile weapons. They prefer to use their own weapons. Orcs are poor at using most types of magic, with the exception of conjurations, summoning, necromancy, and the elemental magic of earth, fire and ice. They advance in levels as quickly as Humans. Merfolk ------- The Merfolk are a hybrid species of half-human, half-fish that typically live in the oceans and rivers and seldom come onto the land. The Merfolk aren't as limited on land as some myths suggest; their tails will quickly reform into legs once they leave the water (and, likewise, their legs will quickly reform into a tail should they ever enter water). Their agility is often misjudged, and they tend to be surprisingly nimble on land as well as in the water. Experts at swimming, they need not fear drowning, as they can quickly slip out of any encumbering armour during the transformation into their half-fish form. The Merfolk have developed their martial arts strongly on thrusting and grappling, since those are the most efficient ways to fight underwater. They therefore prefer polearms and short swords above all other weapons, although they can also use longer swords quite well. As spellcasters, they tend to be quite good in specific areas. Their mystical relationship with water makes it easier for them to use divination, poison and ice magics... which use water occasionally as a material component. The legendary water magic of the Merfolk was lost in ancient times, but some of that affinity still remains. The instability of their own morphogenic matrix has made them very accomplished transmuters, but most other magics seem foreign to them. Halflings --------- Halflings, who are named for being about half the size of Humans, live in small villages. They live simple lives and have simple interests. Sometimes a particularly restless Halfling will leave his or her village in search of adventure. Halflings are very small and are among the least robust of any character species. Although only average at most fighting skills, they can use short blades well and are good at all forms of missile combat. They are also very stealthy and good at dodging and stabbing, but are poor at magic (except enchantments and, for some reason, translocations). They advance in levels as rapidly as Humans. Halflings cannot wield large weapons. Kobolds ------- Kobolds are small, ugly creatures with few redeeming features. They are not the sort of people you would want to spend much time with, unless you happened to be a Kobold yourself. They have poor abilities and similar aptitudes to Halflings, except for a tendency to be stronger and less agile. Also, they are better than Halflings at using some types of magic, particularly summonings and necromancy. They often live as scavengers, surviving on carrion (which they can eat even when not hungry), but are carnivorous and can only eat meat. Kobolds advance in levels as quickly as Humans. Spriggans --------- Spriggans are small magical creatures distantly related to Elves. They love to frolic and cast mischievous spells. They are poor fighters, have little physical resilience and are terrible at destructive magic - conjurations, summonings, necromancy and elemental spells. On the other hand, they are excellent at other forms of magic, and are very good at moving silently and quickly. So great is their speed that a Spriggan can overtake a Centaur. Due to their tiny size, they need very little food. However, they are herbivorous and cannot eat meat. Their size also makes them unable to wear most armour. Nagas ----- Nagas are a hybrid species: Human from the waist up with a large snake tail instead of legs. They are reasonably good at most things and advance in experience levels at the same rate as Sludge Elves. They are naturally immune to poisons, can see invisible creatures and have tough skin, but their tails are relatively slow and cannot move them around as quickly as can other creatures' legs (this only affects their movement rate; all other actions are at normal speed). Their body shape also prevents them from gaining full protection from most armour. A Naga's biggest forte is stealth: Nagas are very good at moving unnoticed. Every now and then, a Naga can spit poison; the range, accuracy and damage of this poison increases with the Naga's experience level. Centaurs -------- The Centaurs are another species of hybrid creatures: horses with Human torsos. They usually live in forests, surviving by hunting. Centaurs can move very quickly on their four legs, and are excellent with bows and other missile weapons; they are also reasonable at fighting in general while being slow learners at specific weapon skills. They advance quite slowly in experience levels and are rather sub-average at using magic. Due to their large bulk, they need a little extra food to survive. Ogres ----- Ogres are huge, chunky creatures who typically are strong rather than smart, and not nimble at all. Their size also makes them hunger more than smaller folk. Ogres mature almost as quickly as Humans. Their preferred methods of avoiding beatings are dodging and the use of shields. Many Ogres find it natural to wield some large and blunt weapon. (Countless lethal incidents have taught them to leave most edged weapons be.) While all sophisticated forms of missile combat are too awkward for them, they are good at throwing things, in particular boulders. Contrary to expectations, Ogres are not reduced to mindless brutes. They possess a raw talent for witchcraft, letting them pick up the basics of spellcasting at an amazing speed. However, the more arcane schools of magic are foreign to them and are only learned at poor rates. Trolls ------ Trolls are like Ogres, but even nastier. They have thick, knobbly skins of any colour from putrid green to mucky brown, which are covered in patches of thick fur, and their mouths are full of ichor-dripping fangs. They can rip creatures apart with their claws, and regenerate very quickly from even the most terrible wounds. They learn very slowly indeed - as slowly as High Elves - and need a great amount of food to survive. Minotaurs --------- The Minotaurs are yet another species of hybrids - Human bodies with bovine heads. They delve into the Dungeon because of their instinctive love of twisting passageways. Minotaurs are extremely good at all forms of physical combat, but are awful at using any type of magic. They can wear all armour except for some headgear. Kenku ----- The Kenku are an ancient and feared species of bird-people with a legendary propensity for violence. Basically humanoid with bird-like heads and clawed feet, the Kenku can wear all types of armour except helmets and boots. Despite their lack of wings, powerful Kenku can fly, and very powerful members of this species can stay in the air for as long as they wish to do so. They fly a bit faster if they carry little load. They are experts at all forms of fighting, including the magical arts of combat (conjurations, summonings and, to a lesser extent, necromancy). They are good at air and fire elemental magic, but poor at ice and earth magic. Kenku do not appreciate any form of servitude, and so are poor at using invocations. Their light avian bodies cannot sustain a great deal of injury. Draconians ---------- Draconians are human-dragon hybrids: humanoid in form and approximately human-sized, with wings, tails and scaly skins. Draconians start out in an immature form with brown scales, but as they grow in power they take on a variety of colours. This happens at an early stage in their career, and the colour is determined by chromosomes, not by behaviour. Some types of Draconians have breath weapons or special resistances. Draconians advance very slowly in levels, but are reasonably good at all skills but armour (most types of which they cannot wear) and missile weapons. Still, each colour has its own strengths and some have complementary weaknesses, which sometimes requires a bit of flexibility on the part of the player. Red Draconians feel at home in fiery surroundings. They are bad with ice magic but very proficient with fire. White Draconians stem from frost-bitten lands, and are naturally resistant to frost. They are versed in ice magic, but bad at fire. Green Draconians are used to venomous surroundings. They are especially good in the arts of poison and without deficiencies in other magic realms. Yellow Draconians have sulphurous breath. Unlike other Draconians, they need no time to gain back their breath. They are acid resistant, too. Grey Draconians have no particular weaknesses or strengths when it comes to learning, and they get no breath weapon. Their scales, however, become particularly hard over time, they gain more HP than other Draconians, and they grow a spiked tail, making them particularly fit for battle. Black Draconians command lightning bolts and are naturally insulated. They are good at air magic but feel cumbersome with earth magic. Mottled Draconians are somewhat in touch with fire, yet are not weak with ice. Their breath consists of special sticky fire which burns the target. Purple Draconians are highly adapted to all spellcasting in general, and to enchantments in particular. They are a bit better at evoking things than most other Draconians. Pale Draconians are slightly biased towards fire magic, and have no restrictions otherwise. They breathe steam and, like their Purple cousins, have a slight advantage at Evocations. Demigods -------- Demigods are mortals (Humans, Orcs or Elves, for example) with some divine or angelic ancestry, however distant; they can be created by a number of processes, including magical experiments and the time-honoured practice of interplanar miscegenation. Demigods look more or less like members of their mortal part's species, but have excellent attributes (Str, Int, Dex) and are extremely robust; they can also draw on great supplies of magical energy. On the downside, they advance very slowly in experience, gain skills slightly less quickly than Humans and, due to their status, cannot worship the various gods and powers available to other classes of being. Demonspawn ---------- Demonspawn are horrible half-mortal, half-infernal creatures - the flip side of the Demigods. Demonspawn can be created in any number of ways: magical experiments, breeding, unholy pacts, etc. Although many Demonspawn may be indistinguishable from those of pure mortal stock, they often grow horns, scales or other unusual features. Powerful members of this class of beings also develop a range of unholy abilities, which are listed as mutations (and can sometimes be activated with the 'a' command). Demonspawn advance quite slowly in experience and learn most skills at about the same rate as do Demigods. However, they are a little better at fighting and much better at conjurations, summonings, necromancy and invocations. Note that unlike Demigods, they can take on gods, although not all will accept them. The Undead ---------- As creatures brought back from beyond the grave, the undead are naturally immune to poisons, negative energy and torment; have little warmth left to be affected by cold; and are not susceptible to mutations. There are three types of undead available to players: Mummies, Ghouls, and Vampires. Mummies These are undead creatures who travel into the depths in search of revenge, redemption, or just because they want to. Mummies progress very slowly in levels, half again as slowly as Humans in all skills except fighting, spellcasting and necromancy. As they increase in levels, they become increasingly in touch with the powers of death, but cannot use some types of necromancy which only affect living creatures. The side effects of necromantic magic tend to be relatively harmless to Mummies. However, their desiccated bodies are highly flammable. They also do not need to eat or drink and, in any case, are incapable of doing so. Ghouls They are horrible undead creatures, slowly rotting away. Although Ghouls can sleep in their graves for years on end, when they rise to walk among the living, they must eat flesh to survive. Raw flesh is preferred, especially rotting or tainted meat, and Ghouls gain resilience from consuming it. They aren't very good at doing most things, although they make decent fighters and, due to their contact with the grave, can use ice, earth and death magic without too many difficulties. Vampires Vampires are another form of undead, but with a peculiarity: by consuming fresh blood, they may become alive. A bloodless Vampire has all the traits of an undead, but cannot regain lost physical attributes or regenerate from wounds over time - in particular, magical items or spells which increase the rate of regeneration will not work. On the other hand, a Vampire full with blood will regenerate very quickly, but lose all undead powers. Vampires can never starve. They can drink from fresh corpses with the 'e' command. Upon growing, they learn to transform into quick bats and, later, how to draw potions of blood from fresh corpses. Note: Use 'A' to check for which particular peculiarities a species might have. Also, some species have special abilities which can be accessed by the 'a' abilities menu. Some also have physical characteristics which allow them to make extra attacks using the Unarmed Combat skill. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. LIST OF JOBS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In your quest, you play as one of a large number of different types of characters. Although each has its own strengths and weaknesses, some are definitely easier than others, at least to begin with. The best jobs for a beginner are probably Fighters, Gladiators and Berserkers; if you really want to play a magician, try a Conjurer. However, not all species are equally well suited for all jobs. The lighter coloured choices on the selection screen are generally considered to be the more accessible ones. Each job starts out with a different set of skills and items, but from there you can shape them as you will. Note that due to peculiarities of size or body shape, some characters start with a different inventory. Fighters: --------- Fighters usually start with a decent weapon, a suit of heavy armour and a shield. They have a good general grounding in the arts of fighting. Gladiators: ----------- The Gladiator has been trained to fight in the ring, and so is versed in the art of fighting, but is not so good at anything else. In fact, Gladiators have never learned anything except bashing monsters with heavy things. They start with a nasty weapon, a small shield, light armour, a helmet (if they can wear one) and some nets or stones. Monks: ------ The Monk is a member of an ascetic order dedicated to the perfection of one's body and soul through the discipline of the martial arts. Monks start with very little equipment, but can survive without the weighty weapons and spellbooks needed by other jobs. Berserkers: ----------- Berserkers are hardy warriors who worship Trog the Wrathful, from whom they get the power to go berserk (as well as a number of other powers, should they prove worthy), but who forbids the use of spell magic. They usually enter the dungeon with a mace or axe, and dressed in animal skins. Paladins: --------- The Paladin is a servant of the Shining One, and has many of the abilities of the Fighter and the Priest. He or she enters the dungeon with a long sword, a shield, a ring mail or robe, and a healing potion. Priests: -------- Priests serve either Zin, the ancient and revered God of Law, or Yredelemnul, the rather less pleasant God of Death. In addition, Hill Orcs may choose to follow the Orc god Beogh instead. Priests enter the dungeon with a traditional weapon and a priestly robe. Those who serve Zin also get a few healing potions. Healers: -------- The Healer is a priest of Elyvilon. Healers begin with minor healing powers, but can gain far greater abilities in the long run. They are able to persuade monsters to abstain from bloodshed, gaining both piety and experience that way. Chaos Knights: -------------- The Chaos Knight is a fighter who chooses to serve one of the Gods of Chaos. There are three choices: Xom, Makhleb or Lugonu. Xom is a very unpredictable (and possibly psychotic) entity who rewards or punishes according to whim. Makhleb the Destroyer is a more purposeful God, who appreciates destruction and offers a variety of very violent powers to the faithful. Lugonu the Unformed rules over the Abyss, and grants followers some control over that unpleasant place in return for spreading death and disorder. Death Knights: -------------- The Death Knight is a fighter who aligns him or herself with the powers of death. There are two types of Death Knights: those who worship and draw their abilities from the Death-God Yredelemnul, and those who study the fearsome arts of necromancy. Crusaders: ---------- The Crusader is a decent fighter who can use the magical arts of enchantment to become more dangerous in battle. Crusaders start out lightly armed and armoured, but equipped with a book of martial spells. Reavers: -------- Reavers are warriors who learn the magics of destruction in order to complement their deadliness in hand combat. Warpers: -------- Warpers specialise in translocation magic, and are experts in travelling long distances and positioning themselves precisely and use this to their advantage in melee or missile combat. Arcane Marksmen: -------- Arcane Marksmen specialize in dealing ranged damage via enchanted weapons. Initially, they may choose either elemental damage types or translocation effects. Additionally, they have spells which will aid in staying at a distance and defend against other ranged weapon users. Magicians: A magician is not a job by itself, but a type of job, including Wizards, Conjurers, Enchanters, Summoners, Necromancers, Transmuters, various Elementalists and Venom Mages. Magicians are the best at using magic. Among other things, they start with a robe and a book of spells which should see them through the first several levels. Wizards: -------- A Wizard is a magician who does not specialise in any area of magic. Wizards start with a variety of magical skills and with either Magic Dart or Summon Small Mammals in memory, depending on their starting book. Conjurers: ---------- The Conjurer specialises in the violent and destructive magic of conjuration spells. Like most Wizards, the Conjurer starts with the Magic Dart spell. Enchanters: ----------- The Enchanter specialises in the more subtle area of enchantment magic. Although not as directly powerful as conjurations, high-level enchantments offer a wide range of very handy effects. The Enchanter begins with lightly enchanted weapons and armour, but no direct damage spell (since enchantments do not deal with direct attacks). Instead, they begin with the Corona spell and some enchanted darts, which should help them out until they can use the higher level enchantment spells. Summoners: ---------- The Summoner specialises in calling creatures from this and other worlds to give assistance. Although they can at first summon only very wimpy creatures, the more advanced summoning spells allow summoners to call on such powers as elementals and demons. Necromancers: ------------- The Necromancer is a magician who specialises in the less pleasant side of magic. Necromantic spells are a varied bunch, but many involve some degree of risk or harm to the caster. Transmuters: ------------ Transmuters specialise in transmutation magic, and can cause strange changes in themselves and others. Elementalists: -------------- Elementalists are magicians who specialise in one of the four types of elemental magic: air, fire, earth or ice. Fire Magic tends towards destructive conjurations. Ice Magic offers a balance between destructive conjurations and protective enchantments. Air Magic provides many useful enchantments in addition to some unique destructive capabilities. Earth Magic is a mixed bag, with destructive, defensive and utility spells available. Venom Mages: ------------ Venom Mages specialise in poison magic, which is extremely useful in the shallower levels of the dungeon where few creatures are immune to it. Poison is especially effective when used against insects, damaging their tracheae quite effectively. Stalkers: --------- The Stalker is an Assassin who has trained in the use of poison magic. Thieves: -------- The Thief is one of the trickiest jobs to play. Thieves start out with a large variety of useful skills, and need to use all of them to survive. They enter the Dungeon with a short sword, a hand crossbow, some darts and light armour. Assassins: ---------- An Assassin is a Thief who is especially good at killing. Assassins are like Thieves in most respects, but are more dangerous in combat. Hunters: -------- The Hunter is a type of fighter who specialises in missile weapons. A Hunter starts with either some throwing weapons or a ranged weapon and some ammunition, as well as an edged weapon and a set of leathers. Artificers: ----------- Artificers are attuned to gadgets, mechanics and magic elicited from arcane items, as opposed to casting magic themselves. As a consequence, they enter the Dungeon with an assortment of wands or a rod of striking. Artificers are skilled at evoking magical items and finding Traps and Doors, and understand the basics of melee combat. Those with wands also have some prior experience with scrolls of recharging. Wanderers: ---------- Wanderers are people who have not learned a specific trade. Instead, they've travelled around becoming "jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none". They start the game with a large assortment of skills and maybe some small items they picked up along the way, but, other than that, they're pretty much on their own. Non-human wanderers might not even know which skills they have (since they haven't quite learned enough for one full level), and therefore make for an additional challenge. You shouldn't expect Human Wanderers to be easy, either, as this job is typically harder to play than the others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. LIST OF SKILLS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here is a description of the skills you may have. You can check your current skills with the 'm' command, and therein toggle between progress display and aptitude display using '!'. You can also read the table of aptitudes from the help menu using '?%', and during character choice with '%'. Fighting skills: ---------------- Fighting is the basic skill used in hand-to-hand combat, and applies no matter which weapon your character is wielding (if any). Fighting is also the skill that determines the number of hit points your character gets as they increase in levels (note that this is calculated so that you don't get a long run advantage by starting out with a high Fighting skill). The first level of Fighting skill can be obtained by training melee combat against plants and fungi. Weapon skills affect your ability to fight with specific melee weapons. Weapon skills include: * Short Blades * Long Blades * Maces & Flails * Axes * Staves * Polearms If you are already good at a weapon, say a long sword, and you practise for a while with a similar weapon such as a short sword, your practise will be sped up (and will require less experience) until both skills are equal; this is called crosstraining. Similar types of weapons are: * Short Blades and Long Blades * Maces & Flails and Axes * Polearms and Axes * Staves and Polearms * Staves and Maces & Flails Being good at a specific weapon improves the speed with which you can use it by about 10% every two skill levels. Although lighter weapons are easier to use initially, as they strike quickly and accurately, heavier weapons increase in damage potential very quickly as you improve your skill with them. Unarmed Combat is a special fighting skill. It allows your character to make a powerful attack when unarmed and also to make special secondary attacks (and increases the power of those attacks for characters who get them anyway). You can practise Unarmed Combat by attacking empty-handed, and it is also exercised when you make a secondary attack (a kick, punch, etc.). Unarmed combat is particularly difficult to use in combination with heavy armour or shields or very big weapons. As with Fighting, the first level of this skill can be obtained by training it against plants and fungi. Ranged combat skills: --------------------- There are a number of individual weapon skills for missile weapons: * Throwing * Darts (including blowguns) * Bows * Crossbows * Slings Throwing is the skill for all things hurled without a launcher: axes, spears, stones, nets, etc. The other skills refer to various types of missiles shot with a launcher. An exception to this are needles: these are launched using blowguns, an action which uses and trains the Throwing skill. Since stones can be thrown without launchers to good effect, these skills crosstrain: * Throwing and Slings Magic skills: ------------- Spellcasting is the basic skill for magic use. It affects your reserves of magical energy (Magic) in the same way that Fighting affects your hit points: every time you increase the Spellcasting skill you gain some magic points and spell levels. This skills greatly influences the amount by which casting causes hunger. Spellcasting also helps with the power of your spells, but to a lesser extent than the more specialised magical skills. This skill is very difficult to learn, and requires a large amount of practice and experience. Only those characters with at least one magic skill at level one or above can learn magical spells. If your character has no magic skills, he or she can learn the basic principles of the hermetic arts by reading and reciting the spells inscribed on magical scrolls (this stops being useful once you reach level one in Spellcasting). Note that characters starting with spells always have at least one level of Spellcasting. There are also individual skills for each different type of magic; the higher the skill, the more powerful the spell. Multidisciplinary spells use an average of the two or three skills. Elemental magic is a special case. When you practise an elemental magic skill (fire, ice, air or earth magic) you will improve much less quickly than normal if you already have one or more elemental magic skills higher than the one you are practising. This is especially true if those skills are 'opposed' to the one you're practising: fire and ice are mutually opposed, as are earth and air. Say you have level 2 fire magic, level 4 ice magic and level 1 air magic. Practising ice magic won't be a problem. Practising air magic will be a bit slow, as you have other elemental skills at higher levels. Practising fire magic will be very slow, as you have a higher level in ice magic. Miscellaneous skills: Armour: ------- Body armours come in two types: heavy and light. Heavy armours give some reliable protection from damage (in contrast to light armours), but have several disadvantages. Having a high Armour skill means that you are used to wearing heavy armour, allowing you to move more freely and gain more protection. When you look at an armour's description (from within the inventory), you can see in particular show you how cumbersome it is. This is measured by the Evasion modifier. Most armours with EV penalty of 0 or -1 are considered light, and all others are considered heavy - except for Elven armour (which is always light). Walking and fighting in heavy armour will train the Armour skill. If the Armour skill is high enough to offset the EV penalty, even a heavy armour will train Dodging. Also, Armour skill helps mitigate the bad effects of heavy armour on spellcasting. A really high Armour skill will also increase the AC provided by other types of armour (gloves, cloaks, etc.). Dodging: -------- Fighting in light armour trains Dodging. A high dodging skill helps you evade attacks. See the paragraph above on the Armour skill for which armours are light. You also train the Dodging skill when wearing a heavy armour, once your Armour skill is high enough to cancel the EV penalty. Stealth: -------- Helps you avoid being noticed. Try not to wear heavy armour or be encumbered if you want to be stealthy. Large creatures (like Trolls) are bad at stealth. The big exception are Nagas, which are unusually stealthy. Stealth is trained by walking around lightly armoured, and especially by walking around unnoticed. Stabbing: --------- Lets you make a very powerful first strike against a sleeping/resting monster who hasn't noticed you yet. This is most effective with a dagger, slightly less effective with other short blades and less useful (although by no means negligible) with any other weapon. Shields: -------- Affects the amount of protection you gain by using a shield, and the degree to which it hinders you. Traps & Doors: -------------- Affects your ability to notice hidden traps and doors and to disarm traps when you find them. With this skill at a high level, you will often find hidden things without actively looking for them. Note that you scan your vicinity in every move (not just with commands like 's', '.' or '5'). Without (or with low) Traps & Doors skill, you search only the eight adjacent squares. The area covered gets larger with higher skill, as well as the chance to detect something. Invocations: ------------ An easy-to-learn skill which affects your ability to call on your god for aid. Those skilled at invoking have reduced fail rates and produce more powerful effects. Some gods (such as Trog) do not require followers to learn this skill. Like Spellcasting, this skill also affects your supply of magic, though Invocations gives a bit less than Spellcasting in this regard. In any case, these two effects are not cumulative: the higher contribution of Spellcasting or Invocations is used. Evocations ---------- This skill lets you use wands much more effectively, in terms of both damage and precision. Furthermore, with high Evocations, you can easily deduce the number of charges in a wand through usage. Similarly, all other items that have certain powers (like crystal balls) work better for characters trained in this skill. Like Invocations, Evocations is easier to learn than other skills. If your character does not have a particular skill, he or she can gain it by practising the activities mentioned above. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. LIST OF KEYS AND COMMANDS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Main screen ----------- Crawl has many commands to be issued by single key strokes. This can become confusing, since there are also several modes; here is the full list. Some commands are particularly useful in combination with certain interface options; such options are mentioned in the list. For a description of them, please look into options_guide.txt. For a more terse list of all commands, use '??' in-game. Most modes (targeting, level map, interlevel travel) also have help menus via '?' on their own. Saving games: S Save game with query and exit. Ctrl-S Save game without query and exit. Ctrl-Q Quit without saving (you're asked before). Movement: direction Moves one square, direction is either one of the numpad cursor keys (try both Numlock on and off) or one of the Rogue vi keys (hjklyubn). Shift-direction This moves straight until something interesting or / direction is found (like a monster). If the first square is a trap, movement starts nonetheless. o Auto-explore. Setting the option explore_greedy to true makes auto-explore run to interesting items (those that get picked up automatically) or piles (checking the contents). Autoexploration will open doors on its own except if you set easy_open to false. Ctrl-G Interlevel travel (to arbitrary dungeon levels or G or waypoints). Remembers old destinations if interrupted. This command has its own set of shortcuts; use ? for help on them. Ctrl-W Set waypoint (a digit between 0 and 9). Check the option show_waypoints. You can go to a waypoint by pressing Ctrl-G or G and the digit. Resting and Searching: s, Del, . or Rests and searches (these are not distinguished) Numpad 5 for one turn. This is most often used tactically for waiting a few turns. Serious resting or searching should be done with the 5 command. 5 or Long resting/searching (until both health and Shift-Numpad 5 magic points are full or something is found or 100 turns are over). Dungeon interaction: O Open door. This is usually done automatically by walking into the door, unless you set the option easy_open to false. C Close door. Ctrl-direction Tries to untrap a known trap on the specified or * direction square, else opens/closes door if there is one, else attacks without move (even if no monster is seen). < Use staircase to go higher, also enters shops. > Use staircase to go deeper, also enters branch. ; Examine occupied tile, also causes auto-pickup. x Examine surroundings, see below. Has '?' help. X Examine level map, see below. Has '?' help. Ctrl-X Lists all monsters, items and features in sight. You may read their descriptions and travel to an item or feature. Ctrl-O Show dungeon overview (branches, shops, etc.). ! Annotate current level: you can enter any string. This annotation is then listed in the dungeon overview (Ctrl-O) and also shown whenever you enter that level again. If you use this command when standing on a staircase, you may also annotate the level that staircase leads to. Should your annotation contain an exclamation mark (!), you will be prompted before entering the level. An empty string clears annotations. Character information: 'display' below means usage of the message area, 'show' means usage of the whole screen. @ Display character status. [ Display worn armour. } Display wielded and secondary weapons, and missiles (to be shot with the 'f' command). " Display worn jewellery. E Display experience info. ^ Show religion screen. A Show abilities/mutations. a Choose an ability or read its description. a? or a* show current abilities as a menu. \ Show item knowledge. m Show skill screen. You can get descriptions of present skills from that screen, as well as the aptitudes. i Show inventory list. Inside this list, pressing a slot key shows information on that item. ] Shows a restricted inventory, only containing worn, wielded and quivered items. I Show list of memorised spells. % Show resistances and general character overview: health, experience, money, gear, and status, mutations, abilities (the latter three more terse than with the command @, A, a). This is a highly condensed conglomeration of [, ", E, ^, @, A, a, $ on a single screen. Pressing the key of a displayed item views it. Item interaction (inventory): { Inscribe item (check the autoinscribe option). An empty inscription or inscribing only space will remove prior inscriptions. See Appendix 6. You can also inscribe items when viewing them by pressing their slot key in the inventory. f Fire quivered missile. If some monster is in sight, either the last target or the nearest monster will be automatically targeted. Pressing f again shoots. F Directly choose an item and fire. Contrary to fi this does not change the quiver. (, ) Cycle quiver to next/previous suitable missile. Q Quiver item from a menu. q Quaff a potion. e Eat food (tries floor first, inventory next). In the eating prompt, e is synonymous to y. r Read a scroll or book. M Memorise a spell from a book. w Wield an item ( - for none). ' Wield item a, or switch to b. v Evoke power of wielded item. Also used to attack non-adjacent monsters with weapons of reaching. V Evoke an item from the inventory. This includes using of wands. W Wear armour. Also allows to take off armour. T Take off armour. P Put on jewellery. Also allows to remove it. R Remove jewellery. Item interaction (floor): d Drop an item. Within the drop list, you can select slots based on a regular expression by pressing Ctrl-F, followed by the regex. #d Drop exact number of items, where # is a number. g or , Pick up items; press twice for pick up menu. Use a prefix to pick up smaller quantities. As with dropping, Ctrl-F allows you to pick up items matching a regular expression. c Chop up a corpse. This will switch to an uncursed edged weapon (unless you have claws or wield such a weapon already), cut up a single corpse on the ground and switch back to your primary weapon. In case there are several corpses on the ground, you are prompted one by one. There, you can answer y, c yes (chop up this corpse) n, Space no (skip this corpse) a yes to all (chop up all corpses) q, Esc stop chopping altogether Other game-playing commands: a Use special ability. p Pray (or renew an existing prayer). z Cast a spell. Should the spell demand monsters as target but there are none within range, casting will be stopped. In this case, neither turns nor magic are used. If you want to cast the spell nonetheless, use Z. Z Cast a spell, regardless of range limitations. I List spells. t Tell commands to allies, or shout (with tt). Ctrl-A Toggle autopickup. Note that encounters with invisible monsters always turns autopickup off. You need to switch it on with Ctrl-A afterwards. Ctrl-T Toggle your allies' pickup behaviour between three settings: don't pick up anything, only pick up items dropped by allies, pick up anything. This toggle only works for some kind of characters who can gain permanent, intelligent allies. ` Re-do previous command 0 Repeat next command a given number of times Non-game playing commands: ? The help menu. Ctrl-P Show previous messages. Ctrl-R Redraw screen. Ctrl-C Clear main and level maps. # Dump character to file (name.txt). : Add note to dump file (see option take_notes). ?: Read the notes in-game. ?V Display version information. ?/ Describe a monster, spell or feature. You can enter a partial name or a regex instead of the full name. ~ or Ctrl-D Add or save macros and key mappings. = Reassign inventory/spell/abilities letters. _ Read messages (when playing online; not for local games). Stashes: Ctrl-F Find. This searches in stashes and shops, you can use regular expressions and also terms like 'long blades', 'shop', 'altar', 'artefact'. If you are looking for altars to a special god, a search for 'Trog' , etc. works. If all items are stashed (the default), then a string like 'D:13' will list all known items on that level. 'D:1}' will search for items on level 1 only, as opposed to 'D:1', which will also list items on D:10 through D:19. Once the list of all found places is displayed, you can cause auto-travel to go there (press the associated letter) or you can examine the items (press ? followed by the letter). Ctrl-E Excludes a square from stash tracking. Level map ('X') --------------- The level map (brought up by 'X' in the main screen) uses the whole screen to show the dungeon. The first line of that screen usually gives the name of the level and a hint on the help screen. You can use the level_map_title option to get rid of that. Esc, Space Leave level map. ? Level map help. - Scroll level map up. + Scroll level map down. direction Move cursor. Shift-direction Move cursor in bigger steps (check the option or / direction level_map_cursor_step). . Travel to cursor (also Enter, Del, ',' and ';'). If the cursor is on the character, move cursor to last travel destination instead. < Cycle through up stairs. > Cycle through down stairs. ^ Cycle through traps. _ Cycle through altars. Tab Cycle through shops and portals. * Cycle forwards through stashes (if the option stash_tracking is set to all, this cycles through all items and piles). / Cycle backward through stashes. Ctrl-C Clear level and main maps (from temporarily seen monsters, clouds, etc.). Ctrl-F Forget level map. Waypoints can be set on the level map. You can travel to waypoints using G. Check the option show_waypoints. The commands are Ctrl-W Set waypoint. W Cycle through waypoints. Travel exclusions mark certain spots of the map as no-go areas for autotravel and explore. e Set travel exclusion. If an exclusion is already present, change size (from single square to full field of vision); after that, remove exclusion. Ctrl-E Erase all travel exclusions at once. E Cycle through travel exclusions. Examining surroundings ('x') ---------------------------- When roaming the dungeon, the surroundings mode is activated by 'x'. It lets you have a look at items or monsters in line of sight. You may also examine stashed items outside current view using the option target_oos = true (if using this, check the option target_los_first). Esc, Space, x Return to playing mode. ? Special help screen. * or ' Cycle objects forward. / or ; Cycle objects backward. + or = Cycle monsters forward. - Cycle monsters backward. direction Move cursor. . or Enter Travel to cursor (also Del). v Describe feature or monster under cursor. Some branch entries have special information. > Cycle downstairs. < Cycle upstairs. _ Cycle through altars. Tab Cycle shops and portals. Targeting --------- Targeting mode is similar to examining surroundings. It is activated whenever you fire projectiles, evoke a wand or cast spells which use targets. All of the commands described for examination of surroundings work, with the exception of Space (which fires). Esc or x Stop targeting. ? Special help screen. . or Enter Fire at cursor direction (also Del and Space). ! Fire at cursor position and stop there with slightly reduced impact. This can be useful to avoid damaging pets, or to attack submerged water creatures. p Fire at previous target (if still in sight). f Smart-firing: fire at previous target, if it is still in sight; and else fire at the cursor position. Together with the default_target option (which is on by default) this allows to start shooting at an opponent with 'ff' and then keep firing with 'ff'. : Toggle display of the beam path. Ctrl-F Toggle target modes (between enemies, all, friends; see also option target_zero_exp). (, ) These two commands allow you to change ammunition while targeting. The choice is subject to the fire_order option. Usually, you change missiles according to your launcher; i.e. when wielding a bow, ( and ) will cycle through all stacks of arrows in your inventory. Shift-direction Fire straight in that direction. You can go back to the old targeting mode (allowing straight firing by pressing just the direction key) using the option target_unshifted_dirs. Note that target_unshifted_dirs is mutually exclusive with default_target. Shortcuts in lists (like multidrop): ------------------------------------ When dropping (with the drop_mode = multi option), the drop menu accepts several shortcuts. The same applies to the pickup menu. In the following, if an item is already selected, the key will deselect it (except for ',' and '-', obviously). ( Select all missiles. ) Select all hand weapons. [ Select all armour. ? Select all scrolls. % Select all food. & Select all carrion and inedible food. + or : Select all books. / Select all wands. \ or | Select all staves. ! Select all potions. = Select all rings. " Select all amulets. } Select all miscellaneous items. , Global select (subject to drop_filter option). - Global deselect (subject to drop_filter option). * Invert selection. This will allow you to select all items even if you use the drop_filter option. . Selects next item. (If you have pressed the key of an item in the list, '.' will toggle the next item. This can be repeated, quickly selecting several subsequent items). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. LIST OF ENCHANTMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The stats area has room for showing the enchantments which you currently enjoy or have to suffer. Quite generally, these are only shown for temporary effects. So a Kenku's native flying ability is not noted, and neither is the effect of a ring of regeneration. Here is a list of these, as some are abbreviations or may not be obvious: General enchantments: --------------------- Hungry Most species can eat chunks of corpses only if hungry. Very Hungry You are even hungrier than usual. Near Starving You are in desperate need of food. Starving You should really eat something; death is not far away. Full You have eaten a lot. Very Full You have eaten almost all you can for now. Engorged You can't eat any more for now. Sick You are sick, usually from bad food. Hit points don't regenerate until cured (wait it out or quaff a potion of healing). Occasionally a primary attribute might drop. Pois You are poisoned and continually lose hit points. There are several levels of poisoning. Cure with potions of healing or by waiting it out. Pray You are praying. Any action taken under prayer is done in the name of your god. For example, chopping up a corpse offers it. Depending on the scope of your religion, this may or may not be a good idea. Encumbered Your load is heavy enough to slow you down. You also need more food than when walking around encumbered. Try to avoid this! Overloaded You carry too much to do anything sensible. Drop stuff! Conf You are confused. Actions may not work properly. Wait it out or drink a potion of healing for immediate cure. Fast All of your actions are twice as fast (this can cause magic contamination). Swift You move at a somewhat higher speed. This only means movement speed. Slow All actions are slowed. Note: ending berserking will slow you. Special enchantments: --------------------- BWpn Some characters have a breath weapon (like Nagas or experienced Draconians), which will show "BWpn" when used. Further breaths have to wait until this disappears. Invis You are invisible. This can cause glowing, if used too much. Tele You are about to teleport, i.e. feeling "unstable". If you are about to teleport, another teleport (by any source) will cancel it. Lev You levitate, i.e. hover a few inches above the ground. While enough to cross water and lava, movement is not completely controlled. It will usually time out. Fly You fly, gaining the benefits of levitation with none of the drawbacks. This is only accessible for experienced Kenku, lucky Draconians, characters using Dragon form, or those levitating and wearing an amulet of controlled flight. Flying provides a speed bonus to swiftness. Held You are held in a net: you cannot move freely and will instead only try to fight your way out of the net. Mesm You are mesmerised: you cannot move away from the monster(s) mesmerising you. Fire You are plagued with sticky fire. It will time out, probably burning scrolls in the process. Drop the most important ones! Regen You regenerate: hit points will increase at an unnaturally fast rate. This is only shown for temporary regeneration. Glow You glow from mutagenic radiation: you can mutate anytime soon - usually with a bad outcome. The colour indicates the severity: the first level (grey) is only a warning - no mutation will occur from this. RMsl You repel missiles, i.e. there's a good chance to evade them. DMsl You deflect missiles, i.e. there's a great chance to evade them. Still, this protection is not bulletproof. Rot This is a very harmful, necromantic ailment. You will lose maximum hit points over time. Only healing potions and wands or and certain abilities restore these. The rotting itself is cured with potions of healing or by waiting it out. Ins You are insulated, i.e. immune to electric shocks. Touch Your hands are glowing, and any monster you touch might become confused. Blade You are bonded with your blade, so it strikes more accurately. -MR You are vulnerable to magic. MR You are more resistant to magic. There are several more enchantment messages for various spells. The description of the spell causing the enchantment will explain these. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. INSCRIPTIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can use the { command to manually inscribe items; alternatively, you can also inscribe when viewing items from the inventory (done by pressing the item's letter). This adds a note in curly braces to the item description. Besides simply allowing you to make comments about items, there are several further uses. Automatic inscriptions ---------------------- These are done by the game to help you to identify items. For example, rings or scrolls which did not do anything obvious upon trying will be automatically inscribed with "{tried}". Inscriptions as shortcuts ------------------------- You can use inscriptions to define shortcuts for easy access to items, regardless of their actual inventory letter. For example, if an item's inscription contains "@w9", you can type 'w9' in order to wield it. Instead of the 9, any other digit works as well. And instead of 'w'ield, any other command used for handling items can be used: 'e'at, r'ead, 'q'uaff, 'z'ap, 'f'ire, etc. Using "@*9" will make any action command followed by '9' use this item. Safety inscriptions ------------------- Inscriptions containing the following strings affect the behaviour of some commands: !* prompt before any action using this item !w prompt before wielding and unwielding !a prompt before attacking when wielding this item Non-weapons and ranged weapons prompt automatically. Also, if you answer 'y', you won't be prompted again until you switch weapons. !e prompt before eating !q prompt before quaffing !r prompt before reading !f prompt before firing or throwing !W prompt before wearing armour !T prompt before taking off armour !P prompt before putting on jewellery !R prompt before removing jewellery !v prompt before evoking an item !Q prompt before explicitly quivering an item !p prompt before sacrificing a stack containing an item with this inscription; if the answer is "No", the whole stack will be skipped, and no items will be sacrificed =p prompt before sacrificing this particular item; if the answer is "No", then Crawl will go on to sacrifice further items in the stack =g item will be picked up automatically if autopickup is on =k item will be ignored in all listings on the ground (it can still be picked up if all items on the ground have this inscription) =s If stash tracking is explicit, then dropping this item will cause a stash to automatically be marked. =f item is excluded when cycling ammunition and from automatic quivering +f item is included when cycling ammunition and in automatic quivering !D prompt before performing an action that might destroy this item If you're attempting to destroy an item thus inscribed by sacrificing it, destroying a weapon or burning a book in the names of various deities, the game won't even ask you for confirmation but silently ignore this item. It also protects against accidentally casting Sticks to Snakes on your favourite weapon. However, it won't protect against lava accidents or hungry jellies. You can use the autoinscribe option to have some items automatically inscribed. See options_guide.txt for details. Some examples are autoinscribe = royal jell:=g autoinscribe = wand of healing:!v Artefacts autoinscriptions ------------------------ Many players use inscriptions for properties of artefacts. This makes browsing the inventory or stashes easier. Crawl provides a scheme for automatic inscription (you can switch this off using the option autoinscribe_artefacts=false). Here, one has to negotiate between two concurrent objectives: terseness for better use of limited line lengths versus verboseness for easier reading. The default inscriptions use the following general ideas: rXXX signifies a resistance +XXX signifies an ability you can invoke via the 'a' command -XXX signifies a suppressed ability XXX+ is a stronger version of property XXX XX+6 means a boost to some numerical stat (similar with XX-2, etc.) Here is the full list: rC+ one level of cold resistance rC++ two levels of cold resistance rC- one level of cold susceptibility rF+ one level of fire resistance rF++ two levels of fire resistance rF- one level of fire susceptibility rN+ one level of negative resistance (life protection) rPois poison resistance rElec electricity resistance (insulation) AC+3 AC (armour class) modifier EV+3 EV (evasion) modifier Str+3 strength modifier Dex+3 dexterity modifier Int+3 intelligence modifier Dam+3 damage modifier Acc+3 accuracy modifier MR boost to magical resistance Stlth stealth boost Stlth+ higher stealth boost rSlow resist slowing rCorr resist corrosion rMut resist mutation +Lev can invoke levitation +Inv can invoke invisibility +Blink can invoke blink +Rage can invoke berserk *RAGE uncontrolled berserk (anger) *TELE random teleporting -TELE prevents teleportation -CAST prevents spellcasting MUT mutagenic (will cause mutations) MUT+ highly mutagenic Noisy makes noises Hunger increased hunger Hunger+ highly increased hunger Fire ring of Fire Ice ring of Ice SustAb sustain abilities Hunger- sustenance Regen regeneration Wiz wizardry MP magical power (additional Magic points) cTele controlled teleport cFly controlled flight SInv see invisible Clar clarity Cons conservation Gourm gourmand Ward warding Debugging inscriptions ---------------------- If you've entered wizard mode, then you can change the zapping range of a wand by inscribing it with 'range:number' (e.g., 'range:50'). This only works for wands zapped by the player.