Frequently Asked Questions

Spoilers: This page contains spoilers. If you would like to play the game without spoilers then do not read this page.

If you're absolutely new to the game we suggest looking at this faq first:

https://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/faq

The temple is locked inside a translucent rock wall. How do I get inside?

A: Search around the walls, there will be a secret door somewhere.

What the hell is a jelly doing on D:1?

A: It's eating items in a small, inaccessible room in order to annoy you.

How do I throw [whatever]?

A: To throw any item in your inventory, (F)ire, then press (*) to show all items. This is handy for troglodytes, people who can ignite poison, throwing annoying stuff into lava, and maybe something clever nobody's thought of yet.

There's this awesome looking sword that's surrounded by crystal/stone walls, how do I get it?

A: The sword in stone vault has the weapon resting on a teleport trap, so to get it you'll need LRD or Shatter and -TELE or Apportation. Lugonu followers can use corrupt to clear the walls and the trap.

Does a portal to a bazaar always disappear eventually?

A: Some bazaars won't disappear until entered (these don't feature the "coins being counted" or bell tolling messages).

Treasure trove wants a +6 [weapon]. I have a +6/+5 [weapon]. If I end up with +7/+6 would the Trove accept it?

A: Yes. When the troves ask for +n/+m enchantment, n and m are the minimum it will take. Also, it will accept any brand.

How do I reach this location that's completely surrounded by trees?

A: Burn your way in. Fireball, bolt of fire, disintegration, lightning bolt... all available in wand form.

Will leaving and then re-entering the Abyss reset the level? Most importantly, will new items be generated there?

A: Yes, the abyss is infinite. Teleporting sometimes resets the abyss too. There are infinite items and xp to be had there, if you can deal with the boredom and lack of rest between fights. If you are looking for the rune note that it is more likely to be generated if you have been in the abyss for a long time. Exiting it is not advised in this case.

Is there a list of how many turns certain actions take?

A: Put these two lines in your config file:

show_game_turns = true
show_gold_turns = true

There's this text "(Hit _)" that sometimes appear at the top right of the screen, what does it mean? I'm playing online at CDO (0.8)

A: It means you have a message waiting. Press _ to read it.

How do you get a character dump/CIP for an online character?

A: Use the # key to dump the character file. The filename will be <character_name>.txt in the morgue directory.

When I first started it asked me my name and I put it in. Now every time I run it, it uses that name and the save game is of course the same. How do I change that so it asks me every time so I can run a different game and have multiple saves?

Open init.txt and set remember_name = false and it will never remember old names for you. Alternatively, hit Backspace on the main menu: it'll clear out the name, allowing you to enter a new one.

What do the different text colors on items mean?

A: See item.

Can a wand be recharged or should I just throw them away?

A: Yes, with a scroll of recharging. If you use an unknown scroll and it prompts you to select an item, the scroll is either identify (most common), recharging, or enchant armour. They're best saved for rods or wands of healing, haste, or teleportation though.

Do magic staves get affected by corrosion?

A: No.

I know enhancer staves (fire, cold, air, earth, death) get a bonus to melee damage, but what about other staves?

A: Staves of conjuration, energy, channeling, etc. have no special effects in melee.

Are we able to use enchant weapon scrolls on staves?

A: You can't use enchant scrolls on magical staves. Only on quarterstaves and lajatangs. Enhancer staves are always treated as 0/0. The staves that don't do extra damage have other nice effects, but for your caster to kill stuff in melee you need one of the damaging ones (elemental, death, poison to some extent).

Does the Robe of the Archmagi still take away 75% of XP?

A: No, this was changed in 0.8

How much experience does a wand of draining drain when a wand of draining drains experience?

A: Between 5% and 15% of the amount of XP needed to reach next level.

When I put on my Gold Dragon Armour, it says my low strength will hinder my use of the armour. But how much strength is enough?

A: You need 3 times the evasion penalty. So 27 for GDA.

Does vorpalize weapon scroll make distortion brand permanent?

A: Vorpal only makes vorpal, flame, frost, electrocution, poison, and draining permanent. Pain, Distortion, and Holy Wrath are unique to Kikubaaqudgha, Lugonu, and the Shining One, and trying to vorpalize those brands will backfire (often quite painfully).

What's with all these scrolls that crumble to dust and don't do anything?

A: They're scrolls that can't do anything, because the conditions are wrong. For instance, reading remove curse when nothing you're wearing is cursed, or reading amnesia when you don't have any spells.

How useful is an anti-magic brand?

A: It is a weapon brand of choice for berserkers and heavy armor users against spellcasters, but the effect is dependent on the amount of damage you inflict, so you'd probably prefer to have it on a heavier weapon that can deal more damage. It's also entirely useless against non-casters, so you may prefer a more generally applicable brand anyway.

Amulets of warding do not appear to protect against ranged or magic attacks from summoned creatures. Is this an oversight or is it intentional?

A: Intentional. It's meant to give you an edge so you don't simply get swarmed before you can react, not shut down the entire post-endgame. It works great against all summoned level 2 through 5 demons except hellions, tormentors, neqoxecs, smoke demons, ynoxinuls, and white imps, plus executioners. It works against all spammals, which are the most commonly encountered summoned monsters. Warding may not be as good as faith, gourmand, or rMut for most characters, but that's a consequence of the fact that these three amulets are ridiculously good, not a specific problem with warding.

Can someone explain how the speed brand diminishes my attacks? I had the impression it just reduces the time taken per attack.

A: It now also reduces damage by 10%. This happens last (even after other brands get added).

I have two rings of regeneration, is there any benefit to wearing both?

A: Yes, they stack.

Do any bags/containers exist in game?

A: No, create a stash for your items.

Do the effects of "ring of [element]" and "staff of [element]" stack? So can I wear both at the same time to increase the damage of my [elemental] spells even further?

A: Yes, enhancers stack up to three levels max.

Does it make any difference whether a brand is on the launcher or ammo?

A: Ammo's brand overrides launcher's brand.

Does sickness prevent a potion of heal wounds from functioning?

A: No, sickness only prevents "natural" regeneration.

Does the "of electrocution" brand make noise? Will it hinder my stealth/stabbing successes if I wield it?

A: It doesn't hinder your stealth and stabbing, but when you hit a monster and get the shock effect, it makes a lot of noise which can wake the nearby monsters. So you won't be able to sneak upon and stab them.

Do other brands make noise?

A: No. Only electrocution is noisy.

I have found at least one altar. Can I pray at it to become religious? What is a good choice and why and how? Can I change my mind later?

A: Yes, you can use an altar to become a god's worshiper. See the God page for which god you should choose and why. You can leave a god, but that god will periodically punish you.

When you use Ashenzari's exp transfer ability, does it take into account aptitudes?

A: It does take aptitudes into account. It transfer skill points, not skill levels. A high aptitude means you need less skill points to gain levels. So transferring from a high aptitude skill to a low one means the high one will lose more levels and the low one gain less than if you do it the other way around.

If you see the altar with Trog and the burning spellbook, if you can apport the book before it is burnt, is it a useful book, or does it just explode anyway?

A: It might be, and it won't.

Do Nemelex's 'a' abilities train evocations?

A: Yes.

When it says that Vehumet is aiding my destructive magic, what exactly does that mean?

A: Vehumet's aiding is basically like a ring of wizardry.

How do you deal with orc priests in the early game?

A1: Run or take them out asap, depending on how strong you are. Corridors actually work okay for taking out priests if there are only regular orcs and priests present. The priests will quickly push their way to the front to melee you, past the weaker fodder. Stupid AI is stupid. They might smite you once or twice on the way, so if you are weak running still is your best bet. Note that this will not work if there also is an orc warrior or other strong orcs around.

A2: Find a corridor with a corner, where you can position yourself with minimum visibility. Ideally, the priest won't be able to smite you until it's one or two squares away, and you have a decent chance of fighting back.

A3: Sometimes you just need to start running earlier - whenever you see 2 or more orcs together, there's a high chance that there will be at least one priest with the group. If you have low HP and a few smites could kill you, you might want to start making your escape before the priests come into LOS.

If a monster triggers a Zot trap when the player is not nearby, does it have any effect on the monster or on anything else?

A: Nothing happens when hostile monsters step on the trap out of LOS (apart from the message). When in LOS, the effect is applied to you with 1/5 chance (or nothing happens).

Is polymorphing Jellies a good idea?

A: Jellies are great candidates for polymorphing. They are low HD and annoying.

Other than waiting is there a way to reduce glow or the effects of glow?

A: Necromutation, worship Zin or Jiyva, reading a scroll of vulnerability, or getting hit with purple draconian/quicksilver dragon breath.

What is Victory Dance and how/why do I do it?

A: Before version 0.9, when you killed monsters, exp went into a pool, which would then be spent as you used various skills. Victory dancing was purposefully performing actions to train specific skills after you kill a monster and have points to spend. It has more or less been eliminated with the new skill system, and was completely squashed even for skills below level 1 in version 0.10.

Is there a cap on skill levels?

A: Every skill can go up to 27.

How much Armor/Shield skill is required to negate casting penalties?

A: The spellcasting penalty is 25 * (AEVP + ASP) - 20. AEVP is Adjusted Evasion Penalty (body armour) and ASP is Adjusted Shield Penalty. You need skill level 9 to nullify the leather armour penalty and 27 for ring mail. Heavier armours always have a penalty. For shields, assuming normal size, you need 5 for buckler, 15 for normal and 25 for large shield.

Does the speed of primary unarmed attacks improve with skill level, like melee weapons? Can you get it down to a min delay?

A: Unarmed combat delay starts at 10 and decreases by 1 every 5 levels of the skill, so at 25 skill your delay is 5. It can't get any lower unless you count Haste and such.

Do certain spells train Spellcasting faster?

A: Higher level spells add more weight, but with the new 0.9 skill system, focusing Spellcasting (and turning off competing skills) is probably more productive.

If you start off as a non spell caster roughly how many scrolls does it take to learn spellcasting?

A: Before the 0.9 revamp, it took (12 to 25) * (10 / int) * (2^(-apt/4)) scrolls, more if you didn't have a full enough xp pool. For the new system, turn off as many competing skills as you can, and try to read the scrolls shortly before you kill things.

Is it possible for a random blink to land you on a known Zot trap? Or any trap if you know it is there?

A: Yes.

What can you do to improve accuracy of spells?

A: Spell accuracy improves with spell power. So pump intelligence, spellcasting skill, all the spell's "school" magic skills, conjurations skill, and wear relevant boosters if they aren't crowded out by something more important. You can also apply a malus to enemy evasion, such as with Corona or the halo granted by TSO worship.

Can I use Blade Hands and Statue Form at the same time? Because that would be awesome.

A: No two forms can be used at the same time, sorry.

Do Claws etc stack with Transmuter forms?

A: Statue and Lich forms don't override physical mutations.

Can Swiftness help Spriggans move any faster?

A: No.

I've only gotten to D:10 and I'm close to 100 deaths any tips are welcome.

A: Keep playing. Every time you get killed by something, or meet a monster you haven't seen before, come over to the Wiki (or Henzell's LearnDB) to look it up.

Is it possible to cook meat or make raw meat last longer?

A: There is nothing of the kind in Crawl, and developers have specifically stated that there will never be anything of the kind.

Is there an action that takes half a turn but does nothing?

A: You can put on or take off a piece of jewellery. It takes exactly half a turn to do. Enable show_game_turns option to see the exact duration of actions.

If a monster is unaware of you because you have a lot of Stealth and you attack it, will you always be revealed by attacking? Can you have a high enough Stealth skill to remain hidden even after attacking?

A: A monster taking damage will always wake up, with the exception of damage taken from Ozocubu's Refrigeration.

Does anyone ever get really frustrated with this game and dying?

A: Sure, death can be frustrating. But this is also why winning is so rewarding. :)