Deep Dwarf
This article is about the player species. For the monster, see Deep Dwarf (monster). For a list of all monstrous deep dwarves, see List of deep dwarves.
| Deep Dwarves are short, hardy people who, unlike their extinct surface relatives, never left the underground homelands. Living there for countless generations made them turn pale and lose all ability to regenerate on their own (nor are they receptive to any effects which merely hasten regeneration), as well as all ability to recover from losses to their primary attributes over time. On the other hand, Deep Dwarves have developed the ability to instantly counteract small doses of damage. Their empathy with the earth makes them sense their surroundings; this ability increases in power as they gain experience levels.
Given their lack of innate healing, few Deep Dwarves venture out for adventures or even combat. Those who do bring a wand of heal wounds, or rely on divine assistance. Naturally, Deep Dwarves are quite adept with all arts of avoiding blows and damage. Offensively, they are skilled users of axes, crossbows, and slings. Deep Dwarves are highly spiritual beings, often portrayed as actual spirits by outsiders; because of this, their skill with invocations is great. They are most at home with the magic of earth and death. Deep Dwarves are gifted forgers. Their armour and weapons are very well-crafted and much more durable than the products of lesser artisans, and particularly dangerous when in the hands of a true Dwarf. In addition, Deep Dwarves can tinker with gadgets so as to recharge them. However, each time they do so, they lose a bit of their magical essence. |
Contents
Innate Abilities
- Slow Healing 3: Deep Dwarves cannot heal lost HP or attributes naturally, nor benefit from any non-divine form of regeneration (including the Regeneration spell).
- Deep Dwarves will not passively regain MP if wearing an amulet of guardian spirit.
- Passive Mapping 1: Deep Dwarves can sense parts of the layout of the dungeon around them.
- Damage Reduction (also known as "damage shaving"): Deep Dwarves suffer less damage from every source. This applies separately to every source of damage, every time it is dealt; thus, for instance, damage shaving generally negates the effects of all but the worst cases of being poisoned.
- Deep Dwarves receive bonuses from dwarven weapons and armor, in addition to the bonuses this equipment already provides from its superior construction. Dwarven armour always has an extra 80% chance to resist having its AC lowered by corrosive attacks, regardless of the species using it. In addition to this, Deep Dwarves enjoy slightly increased AC from dwarven armour. They also do slightly more damage when using dwarven weapons.
Device Recharging: Deep Dwarves can recharge wands and rods at the cost of 1 permanent MP.
| At the permanent loss of one magic point recharge a wand or rod. |
Preferred Backgrounds
- Warriors: Fighter, Gladiator, Hunter
- Zealots: Berserker, Healer
- Warrior-mages: Warper
- Mages: Necromancer, Earth Elementalist
- Adventurers: Artificer
Level Bonuses
- +1 strength or intelligence (equal chance) every 4th level.
- 20% more HP than average.
- Average MP.
- +6 magic resistance per level.
- At level 14, gain Life Protection 1.
- At levels 9 and 18, your Passive Mapping is upgraded to ranks 2 and 3, respectively.
Damage Reduction
The formula for Deep Dwarves' damage reduction is 1d(2 + (1d(1 + experience level / 3) - 1)). This is applied against all damage they receive, even against attacks that are normally irresistible like smiting or hellfire. The table below only lists selected levels; unlisted levels also see small increments in damage reduction. It is not applied to damage from spell activation sources, such as Makhleb's abilities.
| Level | Damage reduced |
|---|---|
| 1 & 2 | 1-2 (avg. 1.5) |
| 5 | 1-3 (avg. 1.75) |
| 8 | 1-4 (avg. 2) |
| 11 | 1-5 (avg. 2.25) |
| 14 | 1-6 (avg. 2.5) |
| 17 | 1-7 (avg. 2.75) |
| 20 | 1-8 (avg. 3) |
| 23 | 1-9 (avg. 3.25) |
| 26 | 1-10 (avg. 3.5) |
Starting Skills and Equipment
Deep Dwarves start with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with these exceptions:
- A wand of heal wounds with 5 charges.
- All weapons and armor are of dwarven quality, where such variants exist.
Difficulty of Play
| Simple • Intermediate • Advanced |
Deep Dwarves are an easy species to play, so long as you work around their lack of natural recovery from HP loss and stat drain. They start the game with a wand of heal wounds, one of the most powerful items in the game, and also have the ability to recharge it or any other wand or rod at the cost of 1 permanent point of their maximum magic. Deep Dwarves also have powerful damage shaving that scales up with their character level. However, one should take into account Deep Dwarves' lack of natural regeneration when choosing his or her god and background. Some strategies for how to offset this disadvantage can be found below.
Skill aptitudes
The higher the value, the better the aptitude.
| Skill | Aptitude | Skill | Aptitude | Skill | Aptitude |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attack | Miscellaneous | Magic | |||
| Fighting | -1 | Armour | 1 | Spellcasting | -2 |
| Dodging | 1 | ||||
| Maces & Flails | 0 | Shields | 1 | Conjurations | -1 |
| Axes | 1 | Stealth | 3 | Hexes | -2 |
| Polearms | -1 | Summonings | -1 | ||
| Staves | -1 | Invocations | 3 | Necromancy | 1 |
| Unarmed Combat | -1 | Evocations | 3 | Translocations | 1 |
| Throwing | -1 | Shapeshifting | N/A | Alchemy | N/A |
| Fire Magic | -1 | ||||
| Short Blades | -1 | Ice Magic | -1 | ||
| Long Blades | 0 | Air Magic | -3 | ||
| Ranged Weapons | N/A | Experience | -1 | Earth Magic | 3 |
Strategy
Initially, you start with a wand of healing, and the ability to recharge at the cost of one max MP. Use it. You're not going to regain that lost health naturally, so whenever your HP is at least 20 points or so below maximum, heal. Don't be afraid to use the recharging ability - it is better to end with 45 max MP instead of 50 than it is to die. Once you've identified potions of heal wounds, you should use them before the wand, as they can break, and using them means you won't have to sacrifice as many MP to charge your wand. Save potions of curing for situations where you have a negative status effect, such as rot or confusion - using them to simply heal HP is wasteful. Use the wand instead, charging it if necessary.
Later on, you will need a source of renewable healing, in addition to the usual means of non-renewable (consumable) healing. Consumable healing will quickly be exhausted if you don't find another way to heal. There are only a few ways to go about this:
Healing Through Necromancy
Deep Dwarves cannot use the Regeneration spell, but they can use Vampiric Draining. This spell requires a living target in melee range to be effective; luckily, the game provides plenty of these. It is only found in the Book of Necromancy or in randart spellbooks. Vampiric Draining can be obtained in three ways:
- By starting as a Necromancer
- By finding it randomly
- While Kikubaaqudgha worshipers normally only have a 50% shot at getting Vampiric Draining, the fact that they can't cast Regeneration means that Deep Dwarves will always receive it at * piety.
Gifted necromancers can also use Borgnjor's Revivification to heal, but this is as much of an emergency spell for Deep Dwarves as it is for any other character, given its cost in max HP.
Passive Divine Healing
Two gods passively give HP for kills:
- Makhleb gives HP for killing most enemies. He is by far the more common choice, since his healing is useful everywhere, and his other abilities are useful to just about any character build.
- The Shining One gives HP on killing "evil" enemies (namely demons, undead, and many spellcasters). This alone is not sufficient in most areas of the game, however; only in certain optional areas of the game is this likely to be a reliable, consistent source of healing. Also note that worshiping The Shining One will preclude necromantic means of healing.
Active Divine Healing
Three gods have Invocations which can heal Deep Dwarves. All of these abilities cost piety, although to varying degrees.
- Elyvilon gives two healing abilities, Lesser and Greater Self-Healing. Both cost piety, but they are gained fairly early on (at * and *** piety, respectively), so most players will be unlikely to lose them. It is fairly easy to gain piety by using Ely's Lesser Healing ability to pacify monsters, and, up to a certain level of piety, sacrificing weapons. Training Invocations skill will increase the effectiveness of the pacification abilities as well as Lesser and Greater Self-Healing.
- Trog gives a regeneration ability at ** piety, Trog's Hand. Unlike all other forms of regeneration, this works on Deep Dwarves. The ability does not require Invocations to be effective - rather, it becomes more effective with increasing piety. Moreover, because worshipers of Trog are punished for training or casting spells anyway, one can lean on the Deep Dwarves' recharge ability more liberally, as the loss of max magic points is of no concern. Training Evocations under Trog for (among other things) greater max MP, and using a combination of the wand of heal wounds as well as Trog's Hand, can be an effective means of negating Deep Dwarves' liabilities. Note that Trog will also not allow any forms of healing that involve spellcasting, and that too much use of Trog's Hand may diminish how often one can use the powerful Brothers in Arms ability.
- Yredelemnul gives worshipers the ability to drain ambient lifeforce at **** piety. This ability is quite expensive, requires considerable Invocations investment (the max it can heal you is Invocation*2), and only works on living monsters. Taking Yred for the sole purpose of this ability is inadvisable.
Vampiric Weapons
Vampiric weapons will heal Deep Dwarves when they hit a living target. Unfortunately, they are quite rare, and there is no way to guarantee that they will be on a useful weapon. An early vampiric weapon may give a Deep Dwarf more flexibility in god choice, however.
Non-Renewable Healing
Deep Dwarves can also heal themselves through the following consumable means:
- Quaffing a potion of curing or potion of heal wounds
- Zapping a wand of heal wounds
- The Elixir card, found in the Decks of War, Defense, and Changes. Unfortunately, none of these are gifted by Nemelex Xobeh. At low power, this card may only induce the Regeneration spell, which is a waste on Deep Dwarves.
- The Potion card, found in Decks of Wonders. At low power, this has a 54% chance of some form of HP healing (27% each of duplicating Potion of Heal Wounds or Potion of Curing). At higher power this chance drops off, as other non-healing effects also show up and dilute your odds. It hits a 21.6% chance of healing (10.8% of each potion type) at maximum power.
- The Alchemist card (Deck of Wonders) is the only card guaranteed at all power levels to give a healing effect that works on Deep Dwarves. In this case, the healing costs you gold coins, however.
- Xom will occasionally heal worshipers.
- Drinking from a sparkling fountain gives a random potion effect, possibly including healing. This is generally a Bad Idea, given that other effects include rotting and mutations.
So What Does All This Mean?
All of this essentially means that Deep Dwarves who wish to maximize their chances for success are fairly limited in their choice of god. Necromancers have the most flexibility; since they start with Vampiric Draining, they can do reasonably well with any "non-good" god they desire, although it may still be advisable to pick one who gives renewable healing. All others, with the exception of those who get lucky and find a Book of Necromancy early on, are strongly incentivized to choose between Makhleb, Elyvilon, Trog, and Kikubaaqudgha. Yredelemnul is a very iffy option, while The Shining One is only effective for the purposes of Deep Dwarf healing in specific, optional areas of the game.
