Ratskin cloak

Version 0.25: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A cloak stitched from the hides of hundreds of hell rats, by an enchantress with a magic loom and too much time on her hands. It provides excellent protection from rats of all kinds. It can be evoked to summon rats from the Dungeon to accompany the wearer, for a time.

the +2 ratskin cloak

+2 cloak

Can be evoked to summon rats
-1 STR
-1 INT
+1 DEX
rPois
rN+

Evoking the cloak costs 3 MP and 300 hunger and summons one or two rats, randomly chosen between river rats and hell rats. There is no limit to how many rats you can summon at one time.

Desirability

The ratskin cloak is a cloak of middling usefulness. The minor penalties to strength and intelligence can usually be ignored, but so can the rank of negative energy resistance. It has a decent enchantment, at least, and the poison resistance can be quite handy.

The cloak's main draw is the ability to quickly and easily create allies. Hell rats can be surprisingly deadly, and even river rats can be useful for swarming opponents or covering your escape. Making reliable use of the cloak does require a moderate investment in Evocations, however.

The ratskin cloak is far less useful if you follow one of the good gods, as the hell rats it summons will attack you on sight.

History

• In 0.26, the ratskin cloak will instead summon rats when its wearer is injured.
• The ability to summon rats was added in 0.20.
• Prior to 0.19, this cloak had a +1 enchantment.