User:Hordes/Meteoran

Trunk-only: This article pertains to a feature of Crawl which is being tested. It will likely change before the next release, and may even be removed entirely.

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Meteorae are the people of the heavens, fallen to earth. They possess exceptional skills, an uncanny sense for the space around them, and the ability to recover health and magic as they explore the dungeon. However, as creatures clearly not native to the world, they are easy prey for the dark forces that hunt adventurers - they have one-tenth as much time as normal before Zot finds them. (See the section on 'Zot' for more.)

Innate Abilities

• Short Lifespan: Meteorae are astral creatures, and thus easily found by Zot. Their Zot clock runs 10 times faster (+600 decaAut per floor, for 2,700 decaAut maximum), and they only recieve 200 turns if Zot finds them.
• Passive Mapping 1: Meteorae can sense parts of the layout of the dungeon around them.
• Explore Regen: Meteorae regenerate HP and MP as they explore. For every new tile uncovered, you regenerate 1/210 of your max HP and 1/135 of your max MP. Unaffected by Passive Mapping or magic mapping.
• Glowing: Meteorae glow, as if they were inflicted with Corona. They are unable to go invisible, their stealth is reduced, and monsters are more likely to hit them.
• Damage Reduction: Meteorae suffer less damage from every source. See below for more details.

Mayflytaurs have a base Strength of 9, Intelligence of 9, and Dexterity of 9 (before background modifiers).

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter
• Zealots: Cinder Acolyte
• Adventurers: Wanderer
• Warrior-Mages: Transmuter
• Mages: Hedge Wizard, Earth Elementalist

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength, intelligence, or dexterity (equal chance) every 3rd level.
• 20% more HP than average.
• 10% more MP than average.
• +5 willpower per level.
• At level 6, gain Mana Regeneration 1.
• At levels 9 and 18, your Passive Mapping is upgraded to ranks 2 and 3, respectively.
• At level 15, gain Regeneration 1.

Damage Reduction

The formula for Meteorae's damage reduction is 1d(1 + 1d(1 + floor(XL / 3))). This is applied against all damage they receive, even against attacks that are normally irresistible like smiting or damnation. It is not applied to damage from spell or ability activation sources, such as Makhleb's abilities. The reduction is improved every three experience levels as per table below.

Level	Maximum	Average
1	2	1.5
3	3	1.75
6	4	2
9	5	2.25
12	6	2.5
15	7	2.75
18	8	3
21	9	3.25
24	10	3.5
27	11	3.75

Minimum reduction is always 1 point of damage.

Poison is treated slightly differently; the effective duration of poison is lowered so that up to 25 points of poison damage are shaved at once .

Starting Skills and Equipment

Meteorae start with the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Thanks to their extremely restrictive turn conducts, playing Meteorae like any other character - at least in any form of casual sense - is outright impossible. They often have to use meta turncount strategies just to live, such as skipping floors and rushing the Lair branches quickly. See the Strategy section for more details. These tactics often make Meteorae underleveled, even with their absurd aptitudes, let alone undergeared.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

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

Strategy

• Meteorae should heavily consider ranged weapons, or at least, Throwing. Ranged combat means that you don't need to regenerate, don't need to tank hits (as much), and don't need to use MP, enabling you to better tackle enemies above your weight level.
• Okawaru synergizes well with the Meteoran playstyle. Meteorae are often underleveled, even with their +2 XP aptitude, meaning that their battles are considered 'tougher' and reward more piety. This can be used to get consistent and strong buffs that make up for being underleveled. Oka will also gift a healthy amount of gear, both ranged and not.
• Visiting shops is often a struggle. Be prepared to simply never visit a shop again - this applies especially to the Orcish Mines, so come only when you're prepared. Gozag might ease the pain a little, but using Call Merchant will introduce even more shops to consider.

Shaving Turns

Meteorae play like no other species, at least in any form casual manner. Here are some pointers to playing a turn-count species effectively:

• Routing: If possible, try to do branches in sequential order. This means going to Lair as soon as you find it, then the 3 branches in it almost immediately after. With the caveat that, yes, you need to be prepared first. If not, make sure to save a healthy amount of turns (both in the Dungeon and Lair) for backtracking.
  • It's best to know the tools you'll need for each floor. Whenever it'd be a reliably castable spell, a decent amount of relevant consumables (like lignification for Lair), and/or a certain level of weapon training, these set goals can help make things reliable.
• Remember that full clearing every floor is nigh impossible for a Meteoran. Be ready to skip floors on a dime, and bank a healthy amonut of turns for dangerous situations.
  • This does not mean that you can't autoexplore! Though take a close look and note when you'd be going far just to uncover a few extra tiles, and be prepared to descend very early. Autoexplore is still inefficent with turns, so the more optimal way is to not (unless you're overprepared).
  • Try to take every unknown staircase you find. This includes downstairs and upstairs, even if you'd feel unprepared. This action exposes the greatest amount of tiles. If you aren't ready, you can go back up - though you might see a useful item here or there.
  • Unlike a 'proper' turn-count run, there's no need to completely skip branches. For example
• It is extremely difficult to pinpoint when you're ready to take on the next challenge, and a suprising unique or monster might change your plans, anyway. Mummies and self-restricting Gnolls (using only 1 type of offense) can already survive with severe deficiencies, so you could (maybe!) compare their skill levels to yours. Your extra HP and MP should make up for being somewhat underleveled. This, of course, ignores god choice.
• Abuse the exploration regeneration to the fullest. Regular species can already get away with exploring-instead-of-resting, and they don't have a gimmick to encourage it. Whenever you need to heal, explore, whenever that'd be in a upper floor or not.

History

• Meteorae are planned to be added in 0.29.
• A joke species with the same concept, the Mayflytaur, was implemented during April Fools of 0.29-trunk.