Aptitude

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Aptitudes are a measure of how fast you can advance in a skill - the higher the aptitude, the faster you'll learn the skill. Aptitudes are determined by your species, where each species has a separate aptitude rating for each skill. Therefore, some species will prefer certain skills over others. For example, Deep Elves have an easier time learning magic, and Hill Orcs have an easier time learning melee combat. Taking advantage of your species' aptitudes good aptitudes is key to winning the game.

You can view your species' aptitudes at any time by opening skill menu (m). You can also press ? % in-game to see the big table of races and aptitudes, or you can check each each species' individual pages on the wiki.

Useful Info

Aptitudes are rated from -5 to +11, with 0 being the baseline. A higher aptitude means it takes less XP to gain each level of a skill, meaning the skill is faster to learn.

Aptitudes are determined almost entirely by your species. A manual will increase your aptitudes by +4 until it runs out. You can willingly lower your aptitudes as part of a Ru sacrifice. There are no other ways to change aptitudes during a game.

The relative amount of XP required for a given aptitude is tabulated below:

Aptitude	Skill Cost	Description
-5	(238)	abysmal aptitude
-4	(200)	very poor aptitude
-3	(168)	poor aptitude
-2	(141)	bad aptitude
-1	(119)	slightly disfavoured aptitude
0	(100)	standard aptitude
+1	(84)	slightly favoured aptitude
+2	(71)	strong aptitude
+3	(59)	very strong aptitude
+4	(50)	outstanding aptitude
+5	(42)	exceptional aptitude

If an aptitude is listed as "NA", it means the species is completely unable to learn that skill. For example, Felids can't wear armour, so they can't gain any levels of the Armour skill.

Formula

If you have an aptitude of n, you'll need 2^(-n/4) as much XP to gain a level of that skill, compared to a species with aptitude 0. Example: a Vampire has a +4 aptitude in Hexes, while a Human has an aptitude of 0. If a Human would require 100 XP to advance a level, it would take the Vampire 100 * 2^(-4/4), or 50 XP, to advance that same level.

Notably, this means that every interval of +4 aptitude means twice/half as much XP is required per level. So a +8 aptitude requires half as much XP as a +4 aptitude, a +1 aptitude requires half as much XP as a -3 aptitude, and so on.

Also, note that half the XP cost =/= twice the amount of levels, since XP cost rises for each level you have of a skill. So if a Human had 10 levels of Hexes, a Vampire wouldn't have 20 levels of Hexes (the Vampire would have ~14 Hexes).

Trivia

The table below shows the average aptitudes of all currently playable species. Due to their skill training restrictions, Gnolls' aptitudes and Djinn's magic aptitudes are not included. Of the Draconian variants, only base Draconian is included.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	0.154	Armour	-0.652	Spellcasting	-0.840
		Dodging	-0.192
Maces & Flails	-0.640	Shields	-0.440	Conjurations	-0.760
Axes	-0.640	Stealth	1.269	Hexes	-0.160
Polearms	-0.680			Summonings	-0.440
Staves	-0.560	Invocations	0.480	Necromancy	-0.360
Unarmed Combat	-0.192	Evocations	0.038	Translocations	-0.360
Throwing	-0.680	Shapeshifting	-1.083	Alchemy	-0.160
				Fire Magic	-0.720
Short Blades	-0.200			Ice Magic	-0.520
Long Blades	-0.440			Air Magic	-0.880
Ranged Weapons	-0.760	Experience	-0.385	Earth Magic	-0.400

History

• Prior to 0.7.0, aptitudes were expressed in numbers smaller or larger than 100 (average), as in the Skill Cost table above.