Human

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

Humans tend to be hardworking and industrious, and learn new things quickly. The Human species is the most versatile of all the species available to players. Humans advance quickly in levels and have equal abilities in most skills.

Innate Abilities

Humans have no innate abilities or drawbacks. If they want special powers, they must turn to mutations, magic, or the gods.

Humans have a base Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity of 8 (before Background modifiers).

Preferred Backgrounds

• Zealots: Berserker
• Mages: Conjurer, Necromancer, Fire Elementalist, Ice Elementalist

Level Bonuses

• +1 to a random stat every 4th level.
• Average hit points.
• Average magic points.
• +3 magic resistance per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Humans receive the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Humans are not a difficult species thanks to their fast experience gain and their balanced, but overall good, aptitudes and stats. However, for better or for worse, Humans lack the specialization of other species, which means that another species can often outperform them in a given background, even if that species is much worse than a Human outside of its niche. (For example, Minotaurs are tougher and more skilled than Humans in melee combat, even though they perform much worse than Humans at spellcasting.)

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

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

Strategy

'Item-centric' versus 'aptitude-centric' strategy

The opposite of a deep elf coming across a suit of crystal plate armor, or a minotaur chancing upon a necronomicon, being almost entirely 'average' in skill aptitudes ensures that virtually no item will be practically unusable to a human character due to comically bad aptitudes. This versatility allows for a more 'item-based' play style, which, in a game like Dungeon Crawl - where you're almost guaranteed to chance across at least a few incredibly powerful items, but not necessarily ones that match your character's best skills - can provide for a huge asset.

One way to capitalize on this, is to keep your human character from becoming too focused on any one particular strategy (at least early on). Remain ready to make some quick, mid-course changes depending almost entirely upon what you find. By maintaining a particularly adaptable play style, you can make your aptitude 'averageness' into an overall strength, rather than a weakness to be overcome.

Jack-of-all-trades

In a similar vein to the above, humans are well-suited to a generalist, rather than specialist, play style. Given that human beings lack any and all innate special abilities, (with all such powers needing to be acquired through diligent adventuring), it may be advantageous to play to this more 'jack-of-all-trades' style, rather than one of preplanned specialization. As just one simple example, with equal ability to perform melee, ranged, and spells, humans are well-suited to dabble in all three. Staying well-rounded in such ways might not only help round out weaknesses, but also provide you an answer for virtually any monster situation you come across. Don't worry - you'll still be in a fine position to make those significant skill investments in any particular areas or skills dependent upon what external motivation you eventually find.

Extra bonus for discretion

Exercising discretion in dungeon crawl (i.e. not immediately attacking everything you first encounter) is one of the most fundamental axioms in character survival. Yet, this arguably provides even more advantage for a human character, as they are among the very fastest of species in gaining experience levels. This means that (all things being equal) in the same period of time, human characters will come back to a previously avoided situation with more hit points, magic points, even magic resistance, which is particularly important for dealing with some banishing unique monsters. So when you encounter something particularly dangerous, strongly consider walking the other way for a while. You might well come back a level or two higher than you first expected!