Auxiliary attack
Auxiliary attacks are additional attacks that you occasionally perform during melee combat. These randomly trigger along with your standard melee attacks, inflicting moderate additional damage and occasionally causing other effects as well. Apart from off-hand punches, these attack do not receive any benefit from your Unarmed Combat skill. Damage is instead based upon such factors as the particular limb involved, your innate and acquired mutations, and certain equipment. Because characters with access to many auxiliary attacks can activate multiple ones per turn, effects that provide flat bonuses to damage such as Might and slaying are very effective.
Auxiliary Attack Base Damage
| Condition | Damage | Special |
|---|---|---|
| Offhand Punch | 5 + UC/3 | Wielding a shield prevents this, improves with Unarmed Combat skill |
| Offhand Punch w/ Claws | +1d3 × (Claws ranks) | Negated by Blade Hands or by wearing gloves, adds bleeding |
| Offhand Punch w/ Blade Hands | +6 | Negates claws |
| Headbutt | 5 | Can benefit from either Beak or Horns/Helmet. If both apply, one is selected at random. Can stun opponents, delaying them for up to 7 auts. Minotaurs occasionally counter enemy attacks that miss with this. |
| Headbutt w/ Beak | +1 | - |
| Headbutt w/ Horns | +3 × (Horns ranks) | - |
| Headbutt w/ Helmet | +2 (or +5 if Horned or Spiked) | - |
| Kick | 5 | - |
| Kick w/ Hooves | +(5/3) × (Hooves ranks) | Wearing boots negates this, partially ignores AC |
| Kick w/ Talons | +(Talons ranks) | Wearing boots negates this |
| Tail Slap | 6 | Constriction (naga only) |
| Tail Slap w/ Stinger | +1/3/5 (determined by Stinger ranks) | Venom |
| Bite | 2 × (Fangs ranks) +1 for every 5 STR beyond 10 | - |
| Bite w/ Acidic Bite | +2d4 | Corrosion |
| Pseudopods | 4 × (Pseudopods rank) | - |
| Tentacles | 4 × (Pseudopods rank) + (Tentacle Spike rank) | Constriction |
History
In earlier versions of Crawl, all auxiliary attacks were more effective if you had a high Unarmed Combat skill, making it a valuable skill for any character designed for melee combat.
