Minotaur

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Minotaur (monster).

The Minotaurs are a species of hybrids, posessing human bodies with bovine heads. They delve into the Dungeon because of their instinctive love of twisting passageways. Minotaurs are extremely good at all forms of physical combat, but are awful at using any type of magic. They can wear all armour except for some headgear. When in close combat, Minotaurs are able to reflexively headbutt those who dare attack them.

Innate Abilities

• Horns 2: Minotaurs get a secondary melee attack from their horns, but cannot wear helmets.
• Minotaurs instinctively counterattack foes in melee with a headbutt with an XL + 22.5% chance. This equates to roughly 25% at XL2 and 50% at XL27.

Minotaurs have a base Strength of 12, Intelligence of 5 and Dexterity of 5 (before Background modifiers). They have -1 to their base magic points.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter, Gladiator, Monk, Hunter
• Zealots: Abyssal Knight, Berserker

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength or dexterity (equal chance) every 4th level.
• 10% more HP than average.
• +3 willpower per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Minotaurs start with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with these exceptions:

• Any helmet is replaced with a hat.

Difficulty of Play

Minotaurs are incredible at physical (melee & ranged) combat. They have a wide assortment of strengths: their actual strength, skill aptitudes, their HP, and automatic Horn attacks. Combined, they make the Minotaur easily one of the strongest and most durable species in the game, without the armour restrictions or skill deficiencies of a Troll or Ogre.

The Minotaur playstyle fits right at home with Trog or Okawaru as their god, very simple but extremely strong god choices. However, they are by no means limited to just those two. Picking any of their recommended backgrounds will make use of all of the Minotaur's strengths.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	2	Armour	2	Spellcasting	-4
		Dodging	1
Maces & Flails	2	Shields	2	Conjurations	-3
Axes	2	Stealth	-1	Hexes	-4
Polearms	2			Summonings	-3
Staves	2	Invocations	0	Necromancy	-3
Unarmed Combat	1	Evocations	-1	Translocations	-3
Throwing	0	Shapeshifting	-3	Alchemy	-3
				Fire Magic	-3
Short Blades	1			Ice Magic	-3
Long Blades	2			Air Magic	-3
Ranged Weapons	1	Experience	-1	Earth Magic	-2

History

• Prior to 0.28, retaliation headbutt attacks occurred when passing 5 * STR + 7 * DEX > 1d(600) (as opposed to the current, XL-based check).
• Prior to 0.17, headbutt auxiliary attacks would apply a small stun.
• Prior to 0.10, Minotaurs had slightly different aptitudes.