Draconian

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Draconian (monster).

Version 0.12: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

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 level, but are reasonably good at all skills except armour (much 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.

Innate Abilities

• Your tail gives you an auxiliary tail-slap attack.
• Your protective scales prevent you from wearing any body armour or helmets.
• Your scales are tough (AC+4). (As the draconian levels up this will go up to AC+13.)
• You are cold-blooded, meaning certain cold-based attacks will slow you down.
• The spell Dragon Form functions differently for draconians. They treat it as a single school spell (only Transmutations), making it significantly easier to train up to high spell power. They also modify the sort of dragon they become based on their scale color; red ones become dragons, white ones become ice dragons, etc.

Preferred Classes

Draconians prefer to become Monks, Berserkers, Abyssal Knights, Death Knights, Healers, Skalds, Transmuters, Wizards, Conjurers, Summoners, Necromancers, Fire Elementalists, Ice Elementalists, Air Elementalists, Earth Elementalists, Venom Mages, and Artificers.

Level Bonuses

A draconian attains its mature color at Level 7 (changing aptitudes and intrinsics) and some colors get another bonus at Level 14.

• Draconians gain a random stat increase every 4 levels.
• Draconians have 10% more HP than average.
• Draconians have average MP.
• Draconians gain 3 magic resistance per level (6 per level for Purple Draconians).
• Draconian scales become tougher (+1 AC) every 3 Levels.

Difficulty of Play

Draconians are a difficult race to play because of their slow leveling, average aptitudes, low overall attributes (especially Dexterity), lack of specialization, and the randomness of the adult form. Breath attacks also quickly become obsolete in power. However, they do make excellent transmuters and flexible spellcasters, enjoying high HP pools, ability to make use of any weapons they come across, and good AC for a race that lacks body armour and thus GDR. Also, since their equipment use is limited, scrolls of acquirement are somewhat more likely to give you what you want (in terms of armour, anyway).

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	1	Armour	N/A	Spellcasting	-1
Short Blades	0	Dodging	-1	Conjurations	0
Long Blades	0	Stealth	0	Hexes	-1
Axes	0	Stabbing	0	Charms	-1
Maces & Flails	0	Shields	0	Summonings	0
Polearms	0	Traps	0	Necromancy	0
Staves	0			Translocations	0
Unarmed Combat	0			Transmutation	0
		Fire Magic	0
Throwing	-1	Ice Magic	0	Invocations	1
Slings	-1	Air Magic	0	Evocations	1
Bows	-1	Earth Magic	0
Crossbows	-1	Poison Magic	0	Experience	-1

Flavors

Draconians start at an immature brown with no special abilities, and reach their mature color at level 7. They receive a breath attack, resistances, and an adjustment to their aptitudes which will retroactively adjust their skill levels.

• Red
  • Skills: +2 Fire Magic, -2 Ice Magic
  • Resists: rF+
  • Breath: A bolt of flame, which leaves a cloud of flame at the end of its range. (Can be aimed at the ground with [.])
• White
  • Skills: +2 Ice Magic, -2 Fire Magic
  • Resists: rC+ (negates effects of being cold-blooded)
  • Breath: A bolt of frost, which ignores AC and knocks back flying monsters.
• Green
  • Skills: +2 Poison Magic
  • Resists: rPois
  • Breath: A bolt of noxious fumes, that leaves behind Mephitic Clouds on the affected tiles.
  • Melee: Gains a venomous stinger at level 14.
• Yellow
  • Resists: rAcid (but not rCorr!)
  • Breath: An acidic glob that corrodes equipment and can cause bleeding.
  • Melee: Gains acidic saliva at level 14.
• Grey
  • Skills: +2 Earth Magic, -2 Air Magic
  • Resists: Immediate +5 to AC; does not need to breathe, and is thus immune to drowning and noxious fumes and resistant to asphyxiation.
  • Movement: Amphibious (Can enter deep water, but will incur the penalties from shallow water.)
• Black
  • Skills: +2 Air Magic, -2 Earth Magic
  • Resists: rElec
  • Breath: Wild explosions of lightning, mixing lightning bolts and orbs (powerful but uncontrollable).
  • Movement: Gains big wings at level 14. (Which can be used to fly.)
• Purple
  • Skills: +2 Spellcasting, +1 Hexes, +1 Charms, +1 Evocations
  • Breath: A bolt of power, which deals irresistible damage and removes buffs (ex. Haste, Invisibility).
• Mottled
  • Skills: +1 Fire Magic
  • Resists: Sticky Flame
  • Breath: Sticky Flame against an adjacent monster (though it may splash onto more than one target).
• Pale
  • Skills: +1 Fire Magic, +1 Air Magic, +1 Evocations
  • Resists: rSteam
  • Breath: Steam clouds, which do little damage but block LOS.

Lichform draconians have their abilities adjusted further:

• Undead
  • Resists: Same as mature form, plus undead resistances and vulnerabilities

Player ghost draconians are treated much like lichform draconians, except they also have a negative energy breath weapon similar to a Bolt of Draining.

History

Prior to 0.7, gray draconians got better stats to make up for their lack of a breath attack.

Prior to 0.11, gray draconians were elementally neutral, receiving bonuses to Stealth and Stabbing in place of the Earth Magic boost, and they did not gain the +5 bonus to AC.

As of 0.12, all draconians are considered cold-blooded.