Dexterity
Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.
Dexterity (or DEX) is one of a character's three main attributes, along with strength and intelligence. It is important if you want to have high evasion.
Dexterity affects the following:
- Increases damage of certain weapons (Short Blades, Long Blades, Ranged Weapons). Every point gives +2.5% damage, where 100% damage = 10 DEX.
- Increases the effect of Dodging skill on evasion.
- Increases the chances to stab monsters.
- Slightly increases your SH bonus with bucklers, kite shields, and tower shields.
- Slightly increases stealth (3 per point - for comparison, boots of stealth give 50).
- Very slightly increases accuracy in combat.
Dexterity is a generally useful defensive stat, though strength is often more impactful for heavy armour characters, and intelligence for dedicated spellcasters.
If your dexterity is ever reduced to 0 or lower, you will suffer stat zero.
History
- Prior to 0.29, Short Blades, Long Blades, and ranged weapons scaled with strength instead of dexterity.
- Prior to 0.28, dexterity increased the chance of doing auxiliary attacks, and DEX was not the sole stat to increase SH with shields.
- Prior to 0.27, dexterity had a stepdown; DEX values above 24 were less effective at raising EV. In addition, EV had another stepdown; getting EV values above 30 was more difficult. See Dodging and Evasion for more details.
- Prior to 0.18, each weapon type had a strength weight that determined how much dexterity contributed to damage and accuracy. Now dexterity increases accuracy equally for all weapons, and does not affect damage.
- Prior to 0.17, Dexterity affected the chance of doors creaking.
