Mountain Dwarf

Obsolete: This article refers to an aspect of the game which has been removed. It is retained for historical reference only.

Mountain Dwarves are a player species that was removed in version 0.10. This change was met with protest from quite a few Crawl players.

Mountain Dwarves come from the larger, more civilized communities of the mountains, and are renowned for the quality of their craftsmanship. By Human standards, they are very tough and highly skilled at axe/mace fighting, but poor spellcasters.

Mountain Dwarves make worthy adventurers. Dodging and Stealth are not their style, but with their superior aptitudes with Fighting, Armour, Shields, Axes, and Maces & Flails, they can both dish it out and take it in melee. They advance in level relatively quickly, handle evokable items and traps more easily than most species, and can choose their god with relative freedom. They also receive bonuses with using dwarven equipment, even on top of the bonus that equipment provides to all users from its superior construction. They can be skilled with Fire Magic or Earth Magic, but magic is a harder path for them, due to their poor aptitude for Spellcasting (and other magical skills in general). Ranged weapons are also difficult for them to learn, with the exception of crossbows.

Innate Abilities

• Bonus when using dwarven equipment. Dwarven armour grants a bonus to their Armour skill while worn (even moreso than with other species) and impedes their spellcasting less. They do slightly more damage with dwarven weapons.

Preferred backgrounds

Mountain Dwarves are best suited as Fighters, Gladiators, Berserkers, Paladins, Priests, Healers, Chaos Knights, Reavers, Conjurers, Fire Elementalists, Earth Elementalists and Hunters.

Level bonuses

• +1 strength every 4th level.
• You gain the base max HP every level, plus 1 on every even level.
• You gain 1 max MP on every level except on every 3rd level.
• +2 magic resistance per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Mountain Dwarves begin with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with these exceptions.

• Mountain Dwarves start with crossbows (and bolts) instead of bows (and arrows).
• Mountain Dwarves start with Crossbows skill instead of Bows.
• All weapons and armor are of "dwarven" quality, when such variants exist.

Difficulty of Play

Mountain Dwarves are an easy race to play thanks to their melee combat style that removes the complexities of spellcasting. They deal great damage with their high STR and aptitudes for combat-related skills, and have high durability with their high HP and affinity for Armor. They also receive bonuses for using dwarven gear.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	+2	Armour	+3	Spellcasting	-3
Short Blades	+1	Dodging	-1	Conjurations	-1
Long Blades	0	Stealth	-3	Hexes	-2
Axes	+2	Stabbing	-2	Charms	-2
Maces & Flails	+2	Shields	+2	Summonings	-2
Polearms	-1	Traps & Doors	+1	Necromancy	-3
Staves	-1			Translocations	-2
Unarmed Combat	0			Transmutation	-1
		Fire Magic	+2
Throwing	-1	Ice Magic	-2	Invocations	0
Slings	-1	Air Magic	-2	Evocations	+1
Bows	-2	Earth Magic	+2
Crossbows	+1	Poison Magic	-2	Experience	130

Strategy

Mountain Dwarves are recommended for players who want something tougher than a Human, but don't want the slower leveling and other penalties that most monstrous species come with.

The dwarven equipment bonus is nice, but bear in mind that Dwarves do not appear as common monsters in this game, so easy access to enchanted/ego dwarven gear (via looting it off their corpses) won't be an option as it is with Hill Orcs and the various species of Elves.

Nemelex Xobeh is a good god for them, since they have a good Evocations aptitude to make most of the decks, and the magical tricks of items are very useful to make up for the lack of magic.