Palentonga

Version 0.27: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The Palentongas are a large, scaled mammalian race, walking on four feet and swinging a powerful tail behind them. Their elephant-back armies terrorize the lands outside the Dungeon. Palentongas are best known for their powerful roll attack, curling up and rolling into a crashing melee attack against nearby foes. They're well suited to melee combat and to casting supportive spells, but they're significantly worse at other forms of combat and advance quite slowly in experience levels. Their body shape reduces the protection given by the body armour they wear.

Innate Abilities

• Rugged Brown Scales 3: Palentongas are covered in rugged brown scales (AC +3, +7% max HP).
• Acute Vision: Palentongas can see invisible.
• Rolling Charge: Palentongas can perform a rolling charge attack; this moves the user up to a target within 4 tiles and attacks, all within the normal amount of time required to move one space or swing the user's equipped weapon (whichever is higher). The movement bypasses traps and other hazardous terrain, but cannot be performed when obstructed by intervening monsters or impassable terrain and cannot target harmless monsters like plants. The attack has a bonus to to-hit, deals extra damage based on how far the user has traveled, and does not require a cooldown, but makes roughly as much noise as a shout. Auxiliary attacks and cleaving apply when making rolling attacks.
• Armoured Tail: Palentongas have armoured tails that they may use to make especially damaging tail-slap auxiliary attacks.
• Palentongas are a hybrid species, with a humanoid torso atop a larger body.
  • Deformed: A Palentonga's hybrid body fits poorly into body armour, granting them only half of the armor's base AC.
  • Palentongas cannot wear boots, but may equip bardings.
  • Palentongas are large enough to attack normally while standing in shallow water (though they still move slowly through it).
  • Palentongas require less skill to use shields effectively than medium-sized races.

Palentongas have a base Strength of 11, Intelligence of 8, and Dexterity of 5 (before background modifiers).

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter
• Zealots: Berserker, Abyssal Knight
• Warrior-mages: Warper
• Mages: Hedge Wizard

Level Bonuses

• +1 to a random stat every 4th level.
• Average HP and MP.
• +3 willpower per level.
• Gain the Reflexive Curl mutation at 7th level; when struck, palentongas gain 7 bonus AC until their next turn.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Palentongas start with all the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Similar to Hill Orcs and Minotaurs, Palentongas are well suited to careers as melee bruisers. They get less AC from their body armour, but their scales and the increased protection and enchantability of bardings helps compensate for that. Rolling Charges can be a powerful opener to combat (especially as their reflexive curl gives them an edge when fighting multiple opponents), but care must be taken to not just charge into the unknown (especially as it creates a loud noise). Still, charging headlong into combat can be useful for certain targets, especially against ranged attackers such as centaurs or creatures that blink often.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	0	Armour	-2	Spellcasting	-1
		Dodging	-2
Maces & Flails	0	Shields	-1	Conjurations	-1
Axes	0	Stealth	-3	Hexes	0
Polearms	-1			Summonings	-2
Staves	0	Invocations	1	Necromancy	0
Unarmed Combat	0	Evocations	-1	Translocations	0
Throwing	-3	Shapeshifting	N/A	Alchemy	N/A
				Fire Magic	-2
Short Blades	0			Ice Magic	-2
Long Blades	0			Air Magic	-2
Ranged Weapons	-2	Experience	-1	Earth Magic	-1

History

• Prior to 0.27, Palentongas had 10% extra HP, in addition to Rugged Brown Scales.
• Palentongas were added in 0.26.