Centaur

Version 0.12: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Centaur (monster).

The Centaurs are another species of hybrid creatures: horses with Human torsos. They usually live in forests, surviving by hunting. Centaurs can move very quickly on their four legs, and are excellent with bows and other missile weapons; they are also reasonable at fighting in general while being slow learners at specific weapon skills. They advance quite slowly in experience levels and are rather sub-average at using magic. Due to their large bulk, they need a little extra food to survive. Like Nagas, they receive inferior protection from the armour they wear.

Innate Abilities

• Tough Skin 3: Centaurs have extremely tough skin (AC +3).
• Fast 2: Centaurs cover ground very quickly during movement.
• Deformed: A Centaur's equine body fits poorly into armour.
• Hooves 3: Centaurs have hooves in place of feet. They cannot wear boots, but gain an auxiliary melee attack.
• Centaurs may equip centaur barding.
• Fast Metabolism 1: Centaurs have a fast metabolism.
• Herbivorous 1: Centaurs gain slightly less nutrition from meat, and slightly more from plant-based food.
• Centaurs are large enough to attack normally while standing in shallow water (though they cannot move through it normally).
• Centaurs require less skill to use Shields effectively than other medium-sized races.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter, Gladiator, Monk, Hunter
• Zealots: Berserker, Abyssal Knight, Death Knight, Healer
• Warrior-mages: Transmuter, Arcane Marksman

Level Bonuses

• Centaurs gain a Strength or Dexterity (equal chance) increase every 4 levels starting at level 4.
• Centaurs have 10% more HP than average.
• Centaurs have 10% less MP than average.
• Centaurs gain 3 magic resistance per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Centaurs start with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with the following exceptions.

• Centaurs start with an extra bread ration.

Difficulty of Play

Centaurs are a moderately difficult species to play outside of their strong suit. They have poor base stats, sub-par melee and magical aptitudes, awful defensive aptitudes, and some of the worst Stealth modifiers in the game. On top of that, their fast metabolism causes them to hunger quickly and they receive less nutrition than average from chunks. On the other hand, they have excellent movement speed, wonderful aptitudes for bows and throwing weapons, and better than average HP. A centaur who finds an early bow and a reliable source of arrows (Trog or Okawaru are useful here) can kite his way through most of the early and mid-game in relative safety. They also have enough melee prowess (tolerable weapon skills, hooves) and defensive bonuses (a natural +3 AC, centaur barding in place of boots, the ability to wield large shields comfortably) that they can become powerful melee brutes in the late game for players patient enough to train the lousy defensive skills to a reasonable level.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	0	Armour	-3	Spellcasting	-3
Short Blades	-1	Dodging	-3	Conjurations	-1
Long Blades	-1	Stealth	-3	Hexes	-1
Axes	-1	Stabbing	-3	Charms	-1
Maces & Flails	-1	Shields	-3	Summonings	-1
Polearms	-1	Traps	-2	Necromancy	-1
Staves	-1			Translocations	-1
Unarmed Combat	0			Transmutation	-1
		Fire Magic	-1
Throwing	3	Ice Magic	-1	Invocations	1
Slings	1	Air Magic	-1	Evocations	0
Bows	3	Earth Magic	-1
Crossbows	1	Poison Magic	-2	Experience	-1

Strategy

• Agentchuck's Centaur Hunter guide
• MoogleDan's Centaur guide

Trivia

Centaurs are originally creatures from Greek mythology.