Warper

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

Warpers specialise in translocation magic, and are experts in travelling long distances and positioning themselves precisely and use this to their advantage in melee or missile combat. They start with a scroll of blinking, the Book of Spatial Translocations, some dispersal tomahawks, a simple weapon of their choice, and leather armour.

Warpers specialize in Translocations. While their school of magic lacks destructive power, they enter the Dungeon with a bit more combat training than most mages.

Preferred Races

Draconian, Halfling, Palentonga, Spriggan, Deep Dwarf and Felid are the recommended races if you pick a Warper Background.

Starting Equipment

Some species may receive different items based on their unique restrictions.

• +0 weapon of choice (hand axe, spear, short sword, falchion or mace, or unarmed)
• 5 tomahawks of dispersal
• +0 leather armour
• Book of Spatial Translocations
• Scroll of blinking

Warpers do not start with a spell memorised.

Starting Skills and Stats

These are adjusted by your species' aptitudes.

• Fighting: 2
• Chosen Weapon's Skill: 2
• Throwing: 1
• Armour: 1
• Dodging: 2
• Spellcasting: 2
• Translocations: 3

Choosing Warper adds 3 to your starting Strength, 5 to your starting Intelligence and 4 to your starting Dexterity.

Strategy

While Warpers lack the focus of other classes like Fighters or Conjurers, starting with a book of Translocations magic is extremely helpful in the long run, especially since finding Translocations spellbooks on your own can take quite a while. Though it is odd that you start off without being able to use a single spell, your starting spellbook is a good one: Blink remain useful for the entire game, Teleport Other can help you avoid or delay dangerous fights, Gell's Gravitas and Lesser Beckoning allow you to control the position of enemies, and Passage of Golubria functions as a poor man's scroll of blinking, even through stasis.

At first, focus more on being able to kill foes reliably, as spell power isn't as important for your starting spells as it is for others. Dangerous early monsters like ogres can be softened up from a distance with your tomahawks or any heavier Throwing weapons you've found; if they get too close, you can Blink away or use your weapons of dispersal. If you find a good ranged weapon early on, you could switch to that instead of Throwing. Once you've found some decent equipment, then you can focus on higher-level spells or branch out into other kinds of magic.

Starting as a Warper is a good choice for players who wish to worship Cheibriados later, since you'll likely have an alternate means of running away online by the time Cheibriados starts slowing you down. Being a Warper also works well for characters who wanted to use medium or heavy armor, since most of their spells are simple enough that even big dumb bruisers can cast them well if they work at it.

History

• Prior to 0.19, the book of Spatial Translocations had Apportation, a level 1 spell that warpers would start with memorised.
• Prior to 0.15, warpers started with a stack of darts, a stack of darts of dispersal, and 50 gold.