Background and race combinations for beginners

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This article contains advice from other players, which may be subjective, outdated, inaccurate or ill-advised.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!

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 Please keep in mind that most accompanying strategy guides are severely outdated.

Melee Brute

• Minotaur Fighter (Fighter guide): Pure melee build. Find a big weapon and the heaviest armour, worship Okawaru or Trog and beat things to death.
  • Berserker ((strategy guide) is another melee build, worshipping Trog for the start.
  • Hill Orc, Gargoyle, and Troll are similarly strong melee species.

• Troll Gladiator: Strong melee + ranged character; able to hurl a fearsome large rock from a distance (gaining more rocks later), and using deadly claws up close. Okawaru gives you more ammo to throw and a strong buff to unarmed combat.

Hybrid

• Gnoll (Any Class): Gnolls are the ultimate hybrids, able to use just about anything in the dungeon, albeit without a great proficiency. Fighter and Gladiator are good melee starts, while Conjurer or Ice Elementalist are good casting starts. But you can really try anything - even Wanderer, to embrace something new each time. Notably, Gnolls begin with high skill levels (+6 and +8 aptitudes).

Caster

• Djinni Fire Elementalist: Removes much magical complexity; instead of several magic schools, you only need to train one skill, and you don't need to choose spells at all. Scorch carries its weight all the way to the Lair, at which point new random spells will be naturally granted. Worships Ashenzari for additional bonuses. A good choice for a first attempt as a caster.

• Gargoyle Earth Elementalist (strategy guide): A durable, more standard caster with powerful destructive spells. Typically worships Vehumet.

Stabber

• 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.