Movement

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Movement is the primary means of getting around the dungeon. Although you may Blink, Teleport, and even create a Passage of Golubria, the majority of your movement will be directional movement between tiles or changing floors with stairs and escape hatches. A character's movement speed determines your ability to escape from danger and the number of enemy actions that will occur while you move.

Controls

If you are playing a version with mouse compatibility, you can click on a tile to send your character there by the fastest means possible, avoiding areas marked for travel exclusion. Pressing o on your keyboard auto-explores the level, stopping when you find a monster, item, or dungeon feature of interest.

You can also move in all 8 directions with the number pad on your keyboard, or with h-j-k-l-b-n-y-u:

7 8 9 <--> y k u

4 * 6 <--> h * l

1 2 3 <--> b j n

You can also move up or down stairs or escape hatches by standing on them and pressing < (upstairs) or > (downstairs). To head up or down a floor by the fastest means possible, press G to bring up the autotravel menu, followed by < or >. You can also auto-travel this way to any branch or distant level of the dungeon you've already discovered.

Speed

The @ command displays your character status.

Description	Delay (aut)	Speed%
Very quick	6 - 7	167% - 140%
Quick	8 - 9	125% - 110%
Average	10	100%
Slow	11 - 12	90%
Very slow	13 +	80% -

Notes on movement speed:

• Regardless of any modifiers, a player's movement delay can never be lower than 6 except while hasted.
• There is no cap for slowest speed (such a blasphemy might anger Cheibriados).
• Aut are not to be confused with decaAut (1 aut = 0.1 decaAut).

Monster Speed

The monster speed stat is different from delay: the higher the speed, the faster a monster moves and acts. A monster's move delay in aut, is equal to 100 / Speed. Speed is equal to 100 / Delay. For example, a "10 speed" monster takes 10 aut, or 1.0 decaAut, to move. Note that monster "speed" applies to ALL actions, not just movement, unless stated otherwise.

If a monster would have a delay equal to a non-integer aut value, it is rounded in a weighted manner. A delay of 6.4 aut has a 40% chance of being 7 aut and a 60% chance of being 6 aut.

Sometimes a monster will have a modifier in addition to their speed (e.g move: 60%). This is a multiplier to delay, so lower percents are faster. An ugly thing (speed 10, move: 90%) takes 0.9 decaAut to move. An ogre (speed 10, atk: 150%) takes 1.5 decaAut to attack. When examining a monster, the game will use similar descriptors as the above table, though the values are different.

Effect in Combat

While every action you take counts as a single game turn, your action speed determines how many enemy actions take place (or how many fractions of an action they accumulate) during that turn. If your movement speed is slower than a dangerous enemy, such as a hydra, you'll find that they'll catch up to you quickly.

E.g. if you take 1.2 decaAut to move, an orc will get 1 "free" action every 5 movements. This is deterministic unless moving away from an enemy, which causes random energy to apply.

Attacks of Opportunity

Main article: Attack of opportunity

Attacks of opportunity serve to punish movement from enemies. Adjacent, capable enemies have a 33% chance to get a free attack when you move.

Calculating Speed

All player species start with movement delay 10, with the following exceptions:

• Nagas start with Slow 2 (delay 14).
• Barachim start with Slow 1 (delay 12).
• Spriggans start with Fast 3 (delay 6).
• Bat Form has Fast 3 (delay 6) and Pig Form has Fast 2 (delay 7).

Naga and Barachim lose their Slow mutations if a form modifies their anatomy. Spriggans keep their Fast 3 mutation regardless of form, although they can be slowed by Statue Form and Fortress Crab Form.

Terrain
Swimming	+ 6
Effects
Swiftness	-25%/+33.3% (if mv. delay > 7) -14.28%/+20% (if mv. delay = 7) -0%/+0% (if mv. delay < 7)
Merfolk Fishtail in Water	= 6
Frozen	+50%
Equipment
Lightning scales	- 10%
Ponderousness ego	+ 1
Religion
Cheibriados	Variable with piety (between +2 and +10)
Special
Haste	All actions are 50% faster
Slow Petrifying Statue Form	All actions are 50% slower
Fortress Crab Form	Movement is 30% slower

Notes on minimum delay and haste:

• Minimum delay is always 6, even after all the modifiers above have been calculated.
• However, Hasted characters have every action occur 50% faster, including movement. This can result in a hasted character with movement delay 6 behaving as if movement delay were 4, even though movement delay itself is technically unchanged.

Notes on swimming:

• The swimming penalty does not affect Merfolk, Octopodes, or Barachim. Instead, Merfolk grow a fishtail and swim faster while the other two retain their normal speed.
• Flying and walking on water negates all effects of water.

Miscellaneous notes:

• Multiplicative effects are applied after adding all the additive effects.

History

• Prior to 0.31, energy randomisation was removed.
• Prior to 0.29, monsters' movements were affected by energy randomisation.
• In 0.15, the encumbered and overloaded status effects (and item weight in general) were removed.
• Prior to 0.14, the Ponderousness ego increased movement delay by 2 aut, and the Swiftness decreased it by 2 auts without any penalty afterwards.
• Prior to 0.13, the running ego reduced movement delay by two auts.