Background and race combinations for beginners

This article contains advice from other players, which may be subjective, outdated, inaccurate or ill-advised. Take advice as you see fit, and read at your own risk!

Version 0.26: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Crawl allows you to play using widely different play styles, depending on your character and god choice. The wide variety of choices offered might intimidate or even overwhelm new players. These are a selection of strong combos from the main character archetypes in the game. Please keep in mind that any accompanying strategy guides are severely outdated.

• Hill Orc Berserker/Fighter (strategy guide): Pure melee builds. Find a big weapon and the heaviest armour, worship Trog or Okawaru and beat things to death.
  • Minotaur, Gargoyle, and Troll are similarlly strong options. Troll has a particularlly strong early game; making it easy to get the gist of the basic game systems.

• Troll Hunter: Strong ranged character; able to hurl fearsome large rocks from a distance, and using deadly claws up close. Okawaru gives you more ammo to throw and a strong buff to unarmed combat.

• Gnoll (Any Class): Gnolls are the ultimate hybrids, able to use just about anything in the dungeon, abiet without the same proficency. Fighter and Gladiator are good melee starts, while Hedge Wizard or Ice Elementalist are good casting starts. But you can really try anything - Wanderer to embrace something new each time.

• Gargoyle Earth Elementalist (strategy guide): A durable caster with powerful destructive spells. Worships Vehumet. A good choice for a first attempt as a caster.

• Spriggan Enchanter (strategy guide): The classic stealth and stab build. Spriggans are a great stealth class for new players since their high speed lets them flee when stealth fails. Ensorcelled Hibernation makes stabbing things really easy.

These are just few examples, there are lots of other combinations that are reasonably easy to play. Feel free to experiment.