Felid

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

Felids are a breed of cats that have been granted sentience. Originally they were witches' familiars that were magically augmented to provide help for their masters' rituals, yet many have abandoned, outlived, or, in at least one case, eviscerated their former masters and gone out into the world. While fully capable of using speech and most forms of magic, Felids are at a serious disadvantage due to their inability to use armour or weapons, or even grasping items well enough to throw a dart or point a wand. They can use their mouths and paws for simple manipulation like uncorking a bottle or unrolling a scroll. Like all cats, Felids are incapable of thriving on vegetable food, and need meat to survive. Their agility and stealth are legendary, as is their ability to get to hard to reach places. They move faster than most races, but don't run as fast as Centaurs or Spriggans. Felids advance in levels very slowly. They are skilled with many forms of magic, though less so with raw elemental magic. The tale of a Felid who had nine lives isn't far from truth, as well.

Innate Abilities

• Felids cannot wear any form of armour (though they may still wear jewellery).
• Felids lack opposable thumbs and are incapable of any form of advanced item manipulation. They cannot evoke wands, wield weapons, or throw items.
  • Felids may, however, draw cards from decks, evoke items like a lamp of fire or bottled efreet, wield a lantern of shadows, or wield ammunition (for the purpose of casting Sticks to Snakes or Sandblast).
• Felids have paw-claws, which is equivalent to Claws 1.
• Fangs 3: Felids have an auxiliary bite attack in melee.
• Acute Vision: Felids can see invisible.
• Carnivorous 3: Felids can eat meat at any time and gain more nutrition from doing so, but cannot eat any form of plant.
• Fast 1: Felids move quickly.
• Shaggy Fur 1: Felids have AC +1.
• Slow Metabolism 1: Felids require less food than usual.
• Felids cannot memorize any spells related to weapons: Fire Brand, Freezing Aura, Lethal Infusion, Warp Weapon, Excruciating Wounds, Poison Weapon, Portal Projectile, Sure Blade, Tukima's Dance.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter, Monk
• Zealots: Berserker
• Warrior-mages: Transmuter, Warper
• Mages: Summoner, Necromancer, Venom Mage.

Due to their inability to use most items, Felids are prohibited from becoming Gladiators, Hunters, Assassins, Arcane Marksmen, and Artificers. (Without weapons, armour, or wands, most of those are indistinguishable from Monks, so use that instead.)

Level Bonuses

• +1 intelligence or dexterity (equal chance) every 5th level.
• 40% less HP than average.
• 20% more MP than average.
• +6 magic resistance per level.
• Your fur grows thicker at level 6 (+2 AC) and thicker still at level 12 (+3 AC, rC+).
• Every three levels you gain an extra life:
  • When you lose a life, your stats, HP, and MP are completely restored. Any disease, rot, or magic contamination is removed. Your hunger clock is reset. You are randomly teleported away from the location of your death (usually to a safe area) and you retain all of your previous inventory items. You lose an entire experience level, but retain your skills progress.
  • You may have at most two extra lives at a time. If you miss gaining an extra life because you already had two, you will gain that life the next time you gain a level with fewer than 2 lives (but you may gain at most one life per level).
  • You may check how many extra lives you have, and how many times you have died, on the % screen, just below "Spells".
  • You continue gaining extra lives past level 27, at XP totals following the same quadratic progression as levels 14 through 27.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Felids receive the skills and equipment listed for their background, with these exceptions:

• Felids receive no armour or weapons
  • Any background that starts with a weapon skill gives them Unarmed Combat instead
• Any Armour skill is replaced with Dodging
• Meat rations replace bread rations

Difficulty of Play

Although experienced players may find Felids limited due to the absence of some standard character features, the Felid inability to use weapons, armours and wands means the game becomes simpler, reducing the number of options presented to newer players. Felid multiple lives mean that players are encouraged to try new approaches to problems without completely risking their characters. A Felid berserker is probably the simplest combination strong enough to win, although it is extremely challenging to play a berserker with no armour and -40% health.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	0	Armour	N/A	Spellcasting	-1
Short Blades	N/A	Dodging	3	Conjurations	-1
Long Blades	N/A	Stealth	4	Hexes	4
Axes	N/A	Stabbing	3	Charms	2
Maces & Flails	N/A	Shields	N/A	Summonings	0
Polearms	N/A	Traps	2	Necromancy	0
Staves	N/A			Translocations	4
Unarmed Combat	0			Transmutation	1
		Fire Magic	-1
Throwing	N/A	Ice Magic	-2	Invocations	0
Slings	N/A	Air Magic	-1	Evocations	2
Bows	N/A	Earth Magic	-2
Crossbows	N/A	Poison Magic	-1	Experience	-1

Strategy

• A.Siochi's Felid Transmuter guide

Addenda

After a death, should you venture to the location of your demise, you will find a Felid corpse labeled "felid corpse of (player name)." If you were under the effects of Spider Form or the like when you died, your corpse will even reflect it.

This gives Felids the dubious distinction of being the only species in Dungeon Crawl capable of self-cannibalism.