Wanderer

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Wanderers are "jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none". They start the game with a random assortment of skills, items, and maybe spells.

The Wanderer is an adventurer who has tried multiple professions without devoting to any particular discipline. The items in a wanderer's starting inventory heavily correlate with their starting skills.

Preferred Species

If you feel you must play a Wanderer, the game recommends you play as a Human, Hill Orc, Gnoll, Spriggan, Merfolk, Draconian or Demonspawn.

Starting Equipment

Wanderers start with 1 "good" item set, 2 "decent" item sets, and 1 consumable (50% for a "good consumable"; 50% for a "decent consumable").

Each item set is named after, and represents, a given skill. They are chosen randomly, based off your species' aptitudes. The higher the skill aptitude, the more likely you are to get a set of that skill. The possible item sets are tabulated below:

Possible equipment types

Item set	Decent	Good
Weapons	Short sword, falchion, mace, hand axe, spear, quarterstaff, sling	Rapier, long sword, flail, war axe, trident, shortbow +2 'decent' weapon
Fighting	Random extra weapon	Good weapon, chosen on skill aptitudes
Unarmed Combat	1 decent consumable	2 good consumables
Throwing	Boomerangs, poisoned darts	Curare darts
Armour (Dodging)	Random aux slot	+2 leather armour, leather + throwing nets, leather + 2 aux slots
Armour (Stealth)	Random aux slot	+2 dagger + good consumable, +0 dagger with 1-2 darts (atropa or datura)
Armour (Heavy)	Ring mail, scale mail If large/tiny: random aux slot	+2 scale mail, chain mail If large/tiny: acid dragon scales
Shields	Buckler If large: kite shield	Buckler of protection, +2 buckler
Spells, Spellcasting	2 spells (max. level 3)	3 spells of a school (max. level 4), 4 random spells (max. level 3)
Evocations	Wand of flame, wand of polymorph, piece from Xom's chessboard	Any other misc evocable, any wand except digging

Decent sets are not picked purely off aptitudes. You will always receive 1 decent set of an "offense" skill (Fighting, Unarmed Combat, any weapon or magic school), and 1 decent set of a "defense" skill (Fighting, Armour, Dodging, Shields, Stealth, Throwing, Evocations).

Then, the following adjustments are made:

• If no weapon is given, start with a club or dagger.
• If no body armour is given, start with a robe or leather armour.
• If you repeat a skill, or get a conflicting skill (can't get 2 weapon skills; can't get 2 of Armour/Dodging/Stealth), get a decent consumable. For the purposes of conflicts, the 'good' item set always takes priority.

Getting an item set of a skill does not guarantee you have any training in said skill.

Consumables

As mentioned above, Wanderers start with at least 1 consumable (and possibly more, depending on your item sets).

Type	Possible consumables
Decent	Scroll of teleportation, scroll of fog, scroll of vulnerability, scroll of silence, potion of curing, potion of lignification, potion of attraction, potion of mutation
Good	Scroll of fear, scroll of butterflies or scroll of summoning, scroll of blinking, potion of heal wounds, potion of haste, potion of berserk rage, potion of might, potion of brilliance, potion of invisibility

Consumables are guaranteed to be usable, e.g. Mummies won't get potions. However, these are not guaranteed to be useful, so a character with no spells can get a potion of brilliance.

Starting Stats

Wanderers receive 12 stat points distributed at random when they start the game. These stats tend to correlate with your skills and gear. But it is possible for a Wanderer to start with little more than a robe and a few spells in their spell library, yet still have an Intelligence of 10. This does not affect racial modifiers, of course; a DEWn still has a higher intelligence than a TrWn on average.

Starting Skills

You may receive 1-5 levels in the Weapon skill of your default weapon (but not always), Fighting, Armour, Unarmed Combat, Dodging, Stealth, Evocations, Spellcasting, and various schools of magic, not necessarily relevant to any starting spell you may have.

Strategy

Wanderer is a random start, but some general tips apply to almost anyone. You should focus on finding one thing - whether from your start or from the floor - that can reliably kill monsters. Try to figure out how useful an item is for the short- and medium- term. A +2 dagger may be pretty decent for D:1, but probably isn't worth training.

There is the possibility for some awful Wn starts, such as: a +0 club, +2 leather armour, the spells Apportation + Gell's Gravitas, and 2 potions of attraction. Thus, this is not the best background for winstreaks. However, this kind of start is unlikely.

History

• In 0.29, Wanderers gained an extra consumable (potion or scroll); most other backgrounds were buffed.
• In 0.28, Wanderer's gear pool was updated. Skill, gear, and attributes were made generally smarter and closer towards a character's aptitude.
• Prior to 0.21, wanderers could start with a wand of confusion instead of a wand of paralysis.
• In 0.16, wanderers start with a randart spellbook instead of starting with a level one spell memorized. They also have a chance to spawn with a box of beasts or an elemental evoker instead of a wand. The starting equipment your character receives is also recorded in the game log.
• Prior to 0.14, wanderers began with scrolls of teleportation recognised.

References

Also see: ng-wanderer.cc:1 (0.30.1)