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

Felids are a breed of cats that have been granted sentience. Originally they were witches' familiars that were magically augmented to provide help for their masters' rituals, yet many have abandoned, outlived, or, in at least one case, eviscerated their former masters and gone out into the world. While fully capable of using speech and most forms of magic, Felids are at a serious disadvantage due to their inability to use armour or weapons. Like all cats, Felids are incapable of thriving on vegetable food, and need meat to survive. Their agility and stealth are legendary, as is their ability to get to hard to reach places. They move faster than most races, but don't run as fast as Centaurs or Spriggans. Felids advance in levels very slowly. They are skilled with many forms of magic, though less so with raw elemental magic. Felids gain extra lives as they increase in levels. Upon death, they will be resurrected in a safe place, losing an experience level in the process.

Innate Abilities

Felids have a base Strength of 4, Intelligence of 9 and Dexterity of 11 (before Background modifiers). They have +1 to base magic points.

Preferred Backgrounds

Due to their inability to use most items, Felids are prohibited from becoming Gladiators, Hunters, Assassins, and Arcane Marksmen. (Without weapons or armour, most of those are indistinguishable from Monks, so use that instead.)

Level Bonuses

+1 intelligence or dexterity (equal chance) every 5th level.

40% less HP than average.

+6 magic resistance per level.

Your fur grows thicker at level 6 (+2 AC) and thicker still at level 12 (+3 AC, rC+).

Every three levels you gain an extra life: When you lose a life, your stats, HP, and MP are completely restored. Any disease, rot, or magic contamination is removed. Your hunger clock is reset to just short of Full. You are randomly teleported away from the location of your death (usually to a safe area) and you retain all of your previous inventory items. You lose an entire experience level, but retain your skills progress. You may have at most two extra lives at a time. If you miss gaining an extra life because you already had two, you will gain that life the next time you gain a level with fewer than 2 lives (but you may gain at most one life per level). You may check how many extra lives you have, and how many times you have died, on the % screen, just below "Spells". You continue gaining extra lives past level 27, at XP totals following the same quadratic progression as levels 14 through 27.



Starting Skills and Equipment

Felids receive the skills and equipment listed for their background, with these exceptions:

Felids receive no armour or weapons Any background that starts with a weapon skill gives them Unarmed Combat instead

Any Armour skill is replaced with Dodging

Difficulty of Play

Though the Felid inability to use weapons and armour does mean that the game becomes simpler and more straightforward, which newer players may find attractive, in effect this simplicity is achieved by the removal of many options and useful tools. Felids' greater speed and multiple lives may appear to be strong defensive characteristics; however, in practice their -40% health penalty makes them very prone to death in the first place, and the loss of a character level upon re-spawning means they will have even fewer max hitpoints than before they died.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Addenda

After a death, should you venture to the location of your demise, you will find a felid corpse labeled "felid corpse of (player name)." If you were under the effects of Spider Form or the like when you died, your corpse will even reflect this. This gives felids the dubious distinction of being the only species in Dungeon Crawl capable of self-cannibalism.

Felids will never receive gifts from Okawaru or Trog, since they cannot use anything either god gifts. In a related vein, troves will never ask for a weapon or a piece of armour.

History