Dexterity
Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.
Dexterity (or DEX) is one of a character's three main attributes, along with strength and intelligence. It is important if you want to have high evasion.
Dexterity affects the following:
- Increases damage of certain weapons (Short Blades, Long Blades, Ranged Weapons). Every point gives +2.5% damage, where 100% damage = 10 DEX.
- Increases the effect of Dodging skill on evasion.
- Increases the chances to stab monsters.
- Slightly increases your SH bonus with bucklers, kite shields, and tower shields.
- Slightly increases stealth (3 per point - for comparison, boots of stealth give 50).
- Very slightly increases accuracy in combat.
Dexterity is a generally useful defensive stat, though strength is often more impactful for heavy armour characters, and intelligence for dedicated spellcasters.
If your dexterity is ever reduced to 0 or lower, you will suffer stat zero.
History
- In 0.29, both blades and ranged weapons gained DEX scaling.
- Prior to 0.28, dexterity increased the chance of doing auxiliary attacks, and DEX was not the sole stat to increase SH with shields.
- Prior to 0.27, dodging had a stepdown. Dexterity values above 24 were less effective at raising EV. In addition, EV had another stepdown, which made getting EV values above 30 harder. See Dodging and Evasion for more detials.
- Prior to 0.18, each weapon type had a strength weight that determined how much dexterity contributed to damage and accuracy. Now dexterity increases accuracy equally for all weapons, and does not affect damage.
- Prior to 0.17, Dexterity affected the chance of doors creaking.
