Frequently Asked Questions

This article lists unofficial frequently asked questions for DCSS from 0.13. It is extremely outdated. There may be some advice on this page that is completely irrelevant to the latest version of Crawl, although this page is currently retained as some parts of it and some of its ideas remain useful in 0.22. For more detailed and accurate information about a given monster, spell or item, please look the article for that item up on this Wiki rather than relying on this page.

Crawl has its own official frequently asked questions, which can be found in-game through the command ?Q or on the official website here. We strongly recommend you first read this FAQ as a new player, as it is likely to be much more accurate and informative than the FAQ given on this page.

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

I've only gotten to D:10 and I'm close to 100 deaths any tips are welcome.

A: Keep playing. Every time you get killed by something, or meet a monster you haven't seen before, come over to the Wiki (or Henzell's LearnDB) to look it up.

What the hell is a jelly doing on D:1?

A: It's eating items in a small, inaccessible room in order to annoy you.

How do I throw [whatever]?

A: To throw any item in your inventory, (F)ire, then press (*) to show all items. This is handy for Troglodytes, people who can use Ignite Poison or Corpse Rot, throwing annoying stuff into lava, and maybe something clever nobody's thought of yet.

There's this awesome looking sword that's surrounded by crystal/stone walls, how do I get it?

A: The sword in stone vault has the weapon resting on a teleport trap, so to get it you'll need LRD or Shatter to break through the wall, then stasis, teleport control, or Apportation to reach the sword. Lugonu followers can corrupt the level to clear the walls and the trap.

How do I reach this location that's completely surrounded by trees?

A: Burn your way in. Fireball, bolt of fire, disintegration, lightning bolt... all available in wand form.

There's this text "(Hit _)" that sometimes appear at the top right of the screen, what does it mean? I'm playing online at CDO

A: It means you have a message waiting. Press _ to read it.

How do you get a character dump/CIP for an online character?

A: Use the # key to dump the character file. The filename will be <character_name>.txt in the morgue directory.

When I first started it asked me my name and I put it in. Now every time I run it, it uses that name and the save game is of course the same. How do I change that so it asks me every time so I can run a different game and have multiple saves?

Hit Backspace on the main menu: it'll clear out the name, allowing you to enter a new one. Alternatively, open init.txt and set remember_name = false and it will never remember old names for you.

What do the different text colors on items mean?

A: See item.

Do magic staves get affected by corrosion?

A: No.

Are we able to use enchant weapon scrolls on staves?

A: You can't use enchant scrolls on magical staves. Only on quarterstaves and lajatangs. Enhancer staves are always treated as 0/0. The staves that don't do extra damage have other nice effects, but for your caster to kill stuff in melee you need one of the damaging ones (elemental, death, poison to some extent).

Do any bags or containers exist in game?

A: No, create a stash for your items.

Do the effects of "ring of [element]" and "staff of [element]" stack? So can I wear both at the same time to increase the damage of my [elemental] spells even further?

A: Yes, enhancers stack up to three levels max.

Does it make any difference whether a brand is on the launcher or ammo?

A: Ammo's brand overrides launcher's brand.

If you see the altar with Trog and the burning spellbook, if you can apport the book before it is burnt, is it a useful book, or does it just explode anyway?

A: It only contains one spell: Apportation.

How do you deal with orc priests in the early game?

A1: Run or take them out asap, depending on how strong you are. Corridors actually work okay for taking out priests if there are only regular orcs and priests present. The priests will quickly push their way to the front to melee you, past the weaker fodder. Stupid AI is stupid. They might smite you once or twice on the way, so if you are weak running still is your best bet. Note that this will not work if there also is an orc warrior or other strong orcs around.

A2: Find a corridor with a corner, where you can position yourself with minimum visibility. Ideally, the priest won't be able to smite you until it's one or two squares away, and you have a decent chance of fighting back.

A3: Sometimes you just need to start running earlier - whenever you see 2 or more orcs together, there's a high chance that there will be at least one priest with the group. If you have low HP and a few smites could kill you, you might want to start making your escape before the priests come into LOS.

If a monster triggers a Zot trap when the player is not nearby, does it have any effect on the monster or on anything else?

A: Nothing happens when hostile monsters step on the trap out of LOS (apart from the message). When in LOS, the effect is applied to you with 1/5 chance (or nothing happens).

Is polymorphing Jellies a good idea?

A: Jellies are great candidates for polymorphing. They are low HD and annoying.

Other than waiting is there a way to reduce glow or the effects of glow?

A: Resist mutation, Necromutation, worship Zin, quaffing a potion of cancellation, or getting hit with purple draconian/quicksilver dragon breath.

Is there a cap on skill levels?

A: Every skill can go up to 27.

How much Armor/Shield skill or Strength is required to negate casting penalties?

A: The spellcasting penalty is 25 * (AEVP + ASP) - 20. AEVP is Adjusted Evasion Penalty (body armour) and ASP is Adjusted Shield Penalty. The armour skill you need to nullify the penalty depends on your strength and the encumbrance rating of your body armour. The formula is: Armour skill = 45 - 0.8*5*(STR+3)*45/(2*Encumbrance rating²). For leather armours, 5 str will be enough even if you don't have any armour skill. For fire dragon armours, 27 skill levels won't completely remove the penalty unless you have more than 22 str. For shields, assuming normal size and robe/Steam Dragon Armour, you need 1 for buckler, 11 for normal and 21 for large shield.

Is it possible for a random blink to land you on a known trap or cloud?

A: Yes.

What can you do to improve accuracy of spells?

A: Spell accuracy improves with spell power. So pump intelligence, spellcasting skill, all the spell's "school" magic skills, and wear relevant boosters if they aren't crowded out by something more important. You can also apply a malus to enemy evasion, such as with Corona or the halo granted by TSO worship.

Can I use Blade Hands and Statue Form at the same time? Because that would be awesome.

A: No two forms can be used at the same time, sorry.

Do Claws etc stack with Transmuter forms?

A: Statue and Lich forms don't override physical mutations.

Is it possible to cook meat or make raw meat last longer?

A: There is nothing of the kind in Crawl, and developers have specifically stated that there will never be anything of the kind.

If a monster is unaware of you because you have a lot of Stealth and you attack it, will you always be revealed by attacking? Can you have a high enough Stealth skill to remain hidden even after attacking?

A: A monster taking damage will always wake up.

Does anyone ever get really frustrated with this game and dying?

A: Sure, death can be frustrating. But this is also why winning is so rewarding. :)