A Guide to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

by Ultraviolent4

Welcome: You can still turn back now

So, you've stumbled across Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. I hope you're ready to die a lot.

While Crawl might look a little daunting from the outside, there's a very rich and rewarding game to be found if you're willing to give it a chance. Even after thousands of playthroughs (albeit many lasting mere seconds), I still find myself in novel situations all the time.

Make no mistake, Crawl is a difficult game. At least some of that difficultly, though, comes from the vast number of things one needs to learn when new. My goal is to assist you by collating all that crucial information in a single place. That way, once you've read this guide, you can sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge that your latest character died entirely to RNG rather than any oversight of yours (Disclaimer: or mine).

DCSS Basics

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a roguelike with direct roots in the 1997 game Linley's Dungeon Crawl. If you've never heard the term roguelike before (Warning: last chance to turn back), you'd usually expect a punishing, turn-based game that features procedurally-generated content and permadeath.

The Aim

Your character journeys into the Dungeon to recover the legendary Orb of Zot. We don't know why the Orb is important but you really want it for some reason.

One can't just charge to the bottom of the Dungeon and grab the Orb, however. Before your character can enter the Realm of Zot, you must collect at least 3 Runes. There are 17 Runes of Zot in total but each game has 15 available and only 3 are required to win.

Your character starts off as a weakling level 1 character and gains experience from killing monsters up to a maximum level of 27. Along the way you will explore many branches and realms with diverse enemy types and themes. You can gain the favour of a god (or gods), wield large weapons, find powerful artifacts, become a master of stealth and cast devastating destructive spells. Maybe you could even do all those things in a single playthrough!

When you have at least 3 runes and feel strong enough, head to the bottom of the Dungeon and enter the Realm of Zot. If you manage to get your hands/paws/tentacles on the Orb, all that remains is the simple task of ascending back through the Dungeon. Make it to the outside with the Orb and you win.

Playing the Game

You can play crawl in console mode or tiles mode and offline or online. You can also choose between stable release versions and trunk (development) versions.

Console Mode

Console mode gives you the classic ASCII roguelike experience. This mode is incomprehensible to me but I'm told it's like the Matrix. Eventually, all you'll see is Fire Giant, Frost Giant, Hill Giant .

With ASCII it can be difficult to determine what weapons (if any) the enemies you face are wielding and which status effects (if any) are affecting them. Close attention to the message log and examination of monsters will tell you but it's not possible to see at a glance.

You'll also want to keep an eye on the monster list on the right of screen to tell how injured monsters are. The HP bar between the glyph and monster name changes colour: green for full HP, yellow for medium HP and red for low HP.

Console mode has no mouse support at all.

Tiles Mode

Tiles in DCSS are quite attractive. And, if you're like me, you need pretty pictures to work out what's going on.

Enemies are displayed with any weapons they are wielding. If they swap to a new weapon, the tile will update. In the screenshot above, the kobold has a club in hand. Note, however, that the tiles don't show what armour (if any) monsters are wearing.

The player character tile changes for both weapon and armour.

Monster tiles also have visual indicators for many statuses (but not all) such as when they are paralysed, confused, corroded, hasted, mighted and so on.

In tiles mode, your HP bar and that of any monsters you've injured will be shown below the relevant tile. The colours change like with console but the bar also diminishes which makes it easier to tell how much relative HP is left.

Tiles mode lets you use your mouse but more so in offline tiles than online tiles.

Offline

You can find the latest stable release in the Downloads section of the Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup Homepage.

Past releases are here.

The development builds of Crawl are referred to as Trunk.

Online

You can find the closest online server to you here.

A more thorough description of the servers can be found at the Online Howto page. For the record, everyone knows the Australian server (CPO) is the best.

The default game mode when playing online is tiles (often called "WebTiles"). Some servers allow console play through SSH or Telnet but this requires software and a key. A guide for SSH/Telnet is also on the Howto.

Each server is separate and stand-alone. If you want to play on multiple servers, you have to register your name on each one. Games can't be shared or transferred between servers.

Differences between Offline and Online

In terms of Tiles gameplay, the main differences between Offline and Online are player ghosts, visual inventories/monster lists and mouse support.

When most characters die, they leave a ghost for a future adventurer to encounter. If you're crawling locally, ghosts will be relatively uncommon and will always be your own characters. When you play online, and particularly if you play at a busy time on a popular server, you're likely to come across a range of ghosts from other people. Ignoring the opportunity to see hilarious (and/or offensive) names (shoutout to Robert Barachian), ghosts offer excitement, danger and valuable XP if you can manage to best them in combat.

Both Offline and Online Tiles have a minimap on the right of the screen. However, there is a stark difference below the map. Offline shows a visual inventory of items (which can be changed to spells and abilities, among other things). At a glance you're able to see what auxiliary armour you're wearing and what consumables you have available.

Rather than a visual inventory, Webtiles has a list of all monsters, summons and followers the player can see. Each is named and enemies are given a visual estimation of their threat to your character: notably, yellow is dangerous and red is very dangerous.

Uniques have their names displayed above their tiles in the Offline client.

If you wanted to, you could play most of an Offline playthrough with a mouse. You can click places to move, click enemies to attack them, click items in the visual inventory to use them and so on. Webtiles has some mouse support but you will need to use your keyboard more often to get to various menus and the inventory.

There are some other non-gameplay differences, the most obvious being that quality of anything on the internet: you pay in lag and potential outages for the ability to access your game from anywhere with a net connection.

Every player who plays on any online server is given a player page (here's mine) which tracks the games you play. In addition, the morgue files for each of your characters is kept online. This is useful because there are bots which allow you to make all sorts of queries about your playthroughs. The documentation for Sequell commands can be found here.

With a bit of practice the bots allow you to pull up any particular game. "Oh yea, I remember that time I one-shot killed myself with my own Firestorm..."

Just kidding, that would never happen.

Offline or Online?

Your experience might be different to mine but this is how the two stack up for me.

I quite enjoy seeing the ghosts of other players who died in the Dungeon. Plus, if you're the one who died, there's always the possibility that the heartbreak you felt in losing your best character yet will be soothed somewhat when that ghost kills the next poor sod to come along. You can even track your ghost kills.

I love that I'm able to look over the games I've played in the past. To that end, I wish I'd spent all of my Crawl career online because my early offline runs and very first wins are lost to the ravages of time. I can't even say with 100% confidence which version of the game I first started learning with.

Giving up the visual inventory and mouse and having to learn all the keyboard commands did seem daunting at first. It wasn't very difficult and didn't take long, though. Once I was comfortable with the keyboard, the game became much easier and smoother to play. You go from being a MOBA player who manually clicks on all their abilities to one who learns where the QWER keys are :D

One very effective teaching tool I've seen for newer players is when someone more experienced spectates their game. This is only really possible online. You can even just ask a vet to come and have a look when you're in a sticky situation.

With each new version release (roughly every 6 months) an online tournament is held for two weeks. Even if you're not trying to win the whole thing, these tournaments are a lot of fun because there are challenge combinations to play and special banners to collect. You don't even have to sign up to participate: all that's required is to play your games online during the tournament period.

Occasionally, there are other fun tournaments such as the Crawl Sudden Death Challenges Tournament. Of course, if you're intending to be at your peak performance during a competition, you want to be comfortable with online play.

All things considered, if you're capable of doing it, I'd recommend you play online.

Which Version

Most online games are played in the development branch. Trunk lets you deal with changes gradually over the version cycle (which is important for tournament practice!) and gives you an insight into the devs' minds as they introduce new species or gods.

You can view all the Trunk updates at the commits page of the DCSS GitHub. When it's up to date, the change log is very handy. The devs also periodically write up an update post but these have become less frequent in recent times.

The downside of playing Trunk is that you might occasionally meet bugs and things that are imbalanced. This can especially be true if a new monster is added and hasn't been fine-tuned yet. That alone might dissuade you from Trunk if you're trying to beat the record for the longest streak of games won in a row without dying - 43 by elliptic at the time of writing. For mere mortals the rare death to a new, overpowered feature isn't a big deal.

If you're playing offline you probably just want to pick a stable release as it can be a major hassle to continually update your game manually.

Unless you have a specific reason for playing an older stable version (e.g. a removed species, background or Maces and Flails aptitude) you should just pick the latest release. Crawl often has quality of life changes which will make your playing experience better.

Making Online Look Like Offline

It can't be done. They are different clients.

Yes, I know you want to see your inventory on screen. I get it; I was there once, too.

I promise you, it's not a big deal. Your inventory is always one key away (press i). The monster list is extremely useful as it makes it harder to not notice enemies and gives you a good idea of how dangerous they are. Further, as you play more, it will become second nature to hold your inventory in your head without having to look at it at all times.

Options/Settings

If you're playing offline your settings file is in the Crawl version folder then settings\init.txt.

To change your settings online, some servers have an "edit rc" hperlink next to each version. On others, you need to first click the version you want then "edit the settings file". Your settings file, often referred to as an "rc file", is distinct for each version.

Some servers exhibit buggy behaviour when you try to change your rc for the first time. This is because you're trying to edit a file which doesn't yet exist. If the edit window won't let you type or drop in a text file, click save then reopen the edit window.

Two settings I would strongly recommend you consider are:

default_manual_training = true

show_more = false

The first changes the default skill training mode from automatic to manual. The second outputs the entire message log from each turn at once. This stops you from having to press Enter 3-4 times per turn to scroll through all the messages when there's a lot going on.

There are many different things you can do to your game with the settings file. You can even write Lua scripts if you have a mind to.

There's a smorgasbord of options in DCSS: for a full list with descriptions, refer to the Options Guide.

The rc file of every online player is publicly available. You can plagiarise any one that takes your fancy. Mine is here. Some of my settings file is out of date and bits don't work properly but there you have it. You can delete everything after "# HDA Colour Stuff" if you don't care about messing with the game's colours.

For a high-tech rc file, check out gammafunk's.

Choosing a Character

Each character has a species and background. In some ways, character selection works like a difficulty system: some characters are objectively stronger than others. There's a fair bit to wrap your head around and some backgrounds that are good for one species aren't for another.

The game will try to help you when you're choosing a character. If you pick a species first, the game will suggest some backgrounds to go with it and vice versa. The game's suggestions are decent when you're starting out but you don't have to trust them completely.

Some combinations will give you further options such as a starting weapon type. To assist your decision, you can view the aptitudes table at any time by pressing %.

A background in DCSS is more like a starting toolkit than a predetermined path or destiny.

A background in DCSS is more like a starting toolkit than a predetermined path or destiny.

A background in DCSS is more like a starting toolkit than a predetermined path or destiny.

This might look like an accident but I can't stress the point enough.

A background in DCSS is more like a starting toolkit than a predetermined path or destiny.

Nothing explicitly prevents an Air Elementalist from picking up a sweet, artifact axe, putting on armour and engaging in some axe-to-face combat. Still, as much as it pains me to do this because I know some of you will get caught up in the categories, it's somewhat useful to think in terms of 5 generic approaches to the game:

Melee

Ranged

Mage/Caster

Stabber

Hybrid/Warrior-Mage

I advise you to start with a melee character because they primarily care about one thing: their health. There's a huge amount of information to learn when you're new and that's true even if you completely ignore the magic side of the game. You can save yourself the trouble of also having to worry about managing magic points, spell hunger, ammunition, which spells to use in which situations, monster stealth checks and on and on and on...

Since heavier armour impedes both stealth and spellcasting, melee bruisers (along with ranged characters) tend to be the most durable. This is important for a new player because the punishment for your inevitable mistakes is less likely to be death. And trust me, you will be making mistakes. Even the most wizened Crawl veterans make mistakes.

I'd like to take this opportunity to establish a new rule starting from now: whenever I see a /r/DCSS Reddit thread from a new player who disparages themselves for learning with a Minotaur Berserker I'm going to downvote it.

You might think I'm joking but I'm not.

I will downvote you.

Beginner Melee Brutes

Any of the following species work well as a Berserker or Fighter. Berserkers start off worshiping Trog, the god of anger and violence, and can go berserk at will. Fighters have better starting equipment and a shield but won't have any divine assistance until they find an altar to pray at.

Minotaur

Minotaurs excel with all weapon types as well as Fighting, Dodging, Armour and Shields. They have +10% HP and a reflexive headbutt attack from their horns. Minotaur is often considered the best species for brand new players.

Hill Orc

Hill Orc melee characters are similar to Minotaurs but they have no horns and are better axe users. With one of the highest Invocations aptitudes in the game, Hill Orcs are very powerful with gods that make use of that skill. They can worship Beogh, a god only available to Hill Orcs.

Gargoyle

Gargoyles come with a stack of resistances and complete poison immunity. Their -20% HP is offset by an innate AC bonus which increases as they level up. Gargoyles eventually gain the ability to fly.

Troll

Trolls have +30% HP and rapid health regeneration. Their innate level 3 claws allow for gruesome amounts of damage with Unarmed Combat. Due to their size, Trolls are too big for most armours but they can throw large rocks.

Beginner Ranged Characters

Ranged weapons don't lose effectiveness as enemies get closer to you. As such, ranged characters can still wear heavy armour and, at least in theory, be as tanky as melee brutes. The added difficulty comes from having to deal with ammunition (a bow won't do anything without arrows, for instance) and kiting. Go with Hunter for the most straightforward experience.

Centaur

Centaurs have +10% HP and are excellent with bows. They move quickly which allows you to keep away from enemies while peppering them with arrows.

Halfling

Halflings have a +4 aptitude for the Slings skill which is tied for the highest weapon aptitude in the game. Their small size gives them a natural bonus to evasion at the cost of only -10% HP.

Beginner Mages

Mages are difficult to learn DCSS with because the magic system is an extra layer (or 5) of complexity on top of everything else you're grappling with. It doesn't help that many of the "best" magic species have low HP and relatively poor defensive skill aptitudes. Furthermore, spellcasting success is hampered by heavy armour. Getting the glass cannon picture?

Keep an eye on your MP at all times and try not to let anything into melee range lest your fragility becomes all too apparent. Remember that the idea of a "pure caster" is a player invention: nothing stops you from picking up and using weapons.

Draconian Fire Elementalist

Fire Elementalist is probably the most straightforward of the book starts and the Book of Fire can take you a long way on its own (just ignore Inner Flame). Draconians are not as powerful "blaster casters" as some of the more dedicated conjurer species but they have +10% HP and a +1 aptitude in Fighting.



To add to the survivability, Draconians get bonus AC as they level up in exchange for the inability to wear armour (this is kind of like free AC because you would have used a very light armour anyway). At XL 7 your Draconian will mature and receive a colour. There's a small chance your character will roll white (the cold type) and that will mess with your Fire Elementalist plans but it's still not the end of the world.

Gargoyle Earth Elementalist

Gargoyles are not just melee brutes. A +2 aptitude in Earth Magic makes for a strong Earth Elementalist start and a +1 in Conjurations allows them to branch out into other forms of destructive magic.



The innate Gargoyle resistances (poison immunity in particular) really help to free up an early-game caster to focus on their magic. In addition, Gargoyle bonus AC is ridiculous on a mage. Even in very light armour a lategame Gargoyle will have about as much AC as the typical melee brute of most other species.

Did you notice the pattern there? The secret to learning Mage is free AC!

Beginner Stabbers

Stabbers rely on the fact that attacks with a dagger on an asleep, immobilised, distracted or confused enemy do ridiculous amounts of bonus damage. The idea is to sneak up on monsters and kill them in a single turn by stabbing them. Since it's not possible to sneak up on every monster (some monsters spawn awake and it's inevitable that something will notice you and make a bunch of noise) it's a great idea to use Hexes to set up additional stabs. As stab damage is dependent on the Stealth skill, even the most accomplished hexer will want to train some Stealth. A light armour is recommended because heavy armour impedes your sneaking and hex casting. Stabbers should have a backup plan for when an enemy wakes up and resists all their hex attempts.

Spriggan Enchanter

Spriggans have a +2 aptitude for Hexes and +5(!!!) for Stealth. In addition, they move extremely quickly. This allows a Spriggan to simply run away from almost any situation where a stabbing attempt has gone wrong. Their tiny size gives a large natural bonus to evasion but they need to be careful with -30% HP.

Beginner Hybrids

If I'm being frank, there aren't really any "good" beginner hybrids. The path of a hybrid isn't clear cut and relies heavily on what's found in the dungeon. That's true to an extent for every character but at least other approaches to the game give some guidance: your "blaster caster" probably wants to use some combination of conjurations spells and elemental damage. A hybrid's subset of possible spells is every spell in the game and, until you've got some experience under your belt, it's very difficult to judge which spell schools to move into and when and why. Should you be wearing lighter armour to cast higher level spells and/or making use of a shield? It all depends!

Gnoll (any non-Berserker)

Gnoll is a funky species that always trains every single skill all at once. By XL 27 you will have around 16 skill points in each. If your character is capable of using every item type and spell school you might as well.

Merfolk Skald

Merfolk have the perfect aptitudes for the Skald background. Pick a spear because it has a very strong synergy with the Skald's starting Book of Battle. Merfolk have a +4 Polearms aptitude, +3 in Dodging and +1 in Charms and Fighting.

Draconian Transmuter

Transmuters use magic to change themselves and enhance their unarmed attacks. Transmuter is probably one of the weaker starting backgrounds but it is relatively straightforward and it's certainly an interesting playstyle.



Draconian's all-rounded aptitudes allow them to both cast and fight and their natural tankiness is always handy. Note that some forms will take away your innate bonus AC.

Information on Screen

The top-right of your screen is where you want to look for a bunch of important information about your character. I'll be moving down the left column then the right column as I describe the elements.

Your species (just in case you forget who you are), god and piety level are shown at all times. Piety begins at 0 stars and goes up to a maximum of 6 or ******



If you ever anger your god (not recommended, by the way) and are put under penance, this line will become red.

Current health and magic are straightforward enough. Keep your HP above 0 for long enough and you might just win the game!

AC, EV and SH are your major defensive stats.



AC or Armour Class is your ability to mitigate incoming damage. Works on most sources, including elemental damage.



EV or Evasion is how well your character can dodge attacks, bolts and projectiles.



SH or Shield is how well you block attacks and projectiles. SH will probably be 0 unless you have a shield equipped or an amulet of reflection.

XL stands for Experience Level and Next is the progress you've made towards the next level.

The noise meter gives an indication of noise at your character's location. The bar will turn from white to yellow, red and magenta. Sources of noise include fighting, opening doors, casting spells, monsters yelling and alarm traps.

The top item is the one currently wielded (usually a weapon). The letter on the left, a) in this case, tells you the item slot.

The second item tells you what you have quivered for throwing (or for firing with a ranged weapon). The letter is the item slot.

Time is how long your game has lasted. It's determined by adding up the durations of every action you've performed so far.



1.0 Time consists of 10 AUTs or Arbitrary Units of Time. You will often hear this referred to as a "turn" but it isn't exactly (please don't ask). A "normal-speed" character (or any "10-speed monster") takes 10 AUTs to move.



The number in brackets is how long your last action took to perform. This is important because a slow action (swinging with a large weapon you're unskilled with) will give enemies the chance to attack you multiple times in response. A fast action (taking off a ring) probably won't allow them to respond until you move again.

Keys and Commands

For movement you can use the numpad (if you have one), your arrow keys (so long as you never want to move diagonally) or the vi keys. When I don't have a numpad, I personally use an ungodly hybrid of arrow keys to move in cardinal directions and vi keys for diagonals.

vi keys take some practice. h and l do left and right. j and k do down and up. ybun do the diagonals with their relative positions on a qwerty keyboard indicating which direction they will take you in.

Some other very important commands:

Tab attacks the nearest enemy or moves towards them if they're out of range.

attacks the nearest enemy or moves towards them if they're out of range. o is for autoexplore.

is for autoexplore. 5 is to rest. This is how you typically regain HP and MP.

is to rest. This is how you typically regain HP and MP. . or s waits a turn.

or waits a turn. z casts your spells.

casts your spells. f fires or throws an item or ranged weapon.

fires or throws an item or ranged weapon. g is to grab or pick up an item you're standing over.

is to grab or pick up an item you're standing over. < and > are used to go up and down stairs, respectively.

x allows you to examine your surroundings. While doing this, v will describe the thing you're highlighting.

X (Shift + x) enters the level exploration view. This is useful if you want to travel to the other side of the floor. Pressing Shift + direction will move your cursor multiple tiles at a time.

Ctrl + x lists all enemies and items visible from your location.

Use Ctrl + s to save and exit your game.

You can bring up the entire list of commands at any time by pressing ??

Menus

There are many different menus in DCSS (but don't worry, there aren't as many as in Dwarf Fortress!). Some correspond to specific game information while others are associated with the inventory and types of items. I'm going to go over the ones which I think are most essential.

Character Overview

The Character Overview is accessed with %.

This screen is a hub for almost everything about your character. The top rows have some information that's missing from the regular game screen, notably: Gold and Spell Levels.

In the list of resistances on the left, protection from fire (rF or rFire), protection from cold (rC or rCold) and protection from negative energy (rN or rNeg) all have 3 levels of resistance. It's possible to be vulnerable to fire and cold damage but you should try to avoid that if you can!

Magic resistance (MR) is shown on a scale of 5 possible "pips". Yes, players really do refer to it as "a pip of magic resistance". People will also understand the plus signs. To describe the resistances we've covered in the picture above you could say: "I have rF++, no rC, rN+ and MR+++"

For the other resistances on the left you either have them or you don't. Those are protection from poison (rPois), protection from electricity (rElec) and protection from corrosion (rCorr).

The middle column displays properties your character may have. Some can be intrinsic to your species such as Trolls having gourmand (the ability to eat raw flesh at all times) or Vampires being able to see invisible monsters. Others such as faith or reflection will need to come from an item. Note that not all of these properties are necessarily desirable. Harm, for instance, let's you dish out additional damage but it comes with the very real downside of you taking extra damage in return.

Note that the stealth bar isn't showing the maximum stealth possible. An extremely stealthy character can continue to gain stealth even when the bar is full.

Dungeon Overview

The Dungeon Overview menu is opened with Ctrl + o.

This menu shows all the branches of the Dungeon you've found (or could have potentially found), where they are and how many floors you've explored of each.

Every altar you've found is displayed here too. This is very handy in the early game because gods aren't guaranteed to be in the Temple. Every god, however, with the exceptions of Beogh, Lugonu and Jiyva, will be found on Dungeon 9 at the latest.

Inventory

Your Inventory is opened with i.

This screen gives you access to every item (up to 52 of them) you're carrying. If you don't want to learn the commands to interact with types of items directly, you can use everything from here with a few more keypresses.

The letters on the left tell you the item slot for each one. Taking the inventory above, if you press H it will show you the +2 hat of magic resistance. Every (sensible) interaction you can have with the hat is displayed at the bottom.

Item-Type Interaction

There are a number of interaction menus which allow you deal directly with a type of item rather than having to go through the inventory every time. I highly encourage you to try to use these menus. While it might seem daunting at first, the menus mostly correspond to a mnemonic so you will learn them quickly as you play.

When faced with a dangerous situation the number of options can be overwhelming if you look at the entire inventory. I find it helps a lot to look through each item menu in turn. "What potions do I have? Would reading a scroll help here? What are my choices for evocables?"

q for quaff. The quaff menu shows potions.

r for read. The read menu has your scrolls and books. Book reading won't be too useful in an emergency, though.

V for eVoke. Wands and miscellaneous evocables. The number in brackets next to each wand is how many charges they have remaining.

w for wield. The wield menu displays all valid weapons. - chooses unarmed.

P for Put on jewellery and R for Remove jewellery.

If you add the "equip_unequip = true" option in your rc file, you'll only really need to remember the P menu because then putting on a piece of jewellery you're already wearing will remove it.

W for Wear armour and T for Take off armour. Don't change your armour when monsters are around because it takes multiple turns to do.

As with jewellery, the "equip_unequip = true" option means attempting to wear armour you're wearing will take it off.

Q for Quiver. This allows you to have projectiles ready to be thrown or fired from a ranged weapon. You can quiver things whenever and as often as you'd like because it doesn't count as an action for your character. The game will remember what you've quivered for each weapon.

You can also use ( and ) to cycle through your available ammunition types.

e for eat. Om nom nom nom.

M for Memorise. This shows you what spells you can learn from your spell library. Next to each spell are the magic schools, the failure rate and the level. The failure rate refers to your cast success after you learn the spell - as long as you're not interrupted, memorisation will always work. Level tells you how many spell levels you need to memorise and how much MP is used for each cast.

If you press ! while looking at this menu you will switch between "Memorise", "Describe", "Hide" and "Show". Ctrl + F lets you search your library by spell name or school.

Hiding a spell takes it off the memorisation screen and show puts it back. If you'd like for new spells to automatically be hidden, you can put the option "auto_hide_spells = true" into your RC file.

A spell description explains how it works and tells you the power, range, hunger and noise for that spell.

Ability Menu

The Ability menu is accessed with a.

At the top you'll find innate abilities whose success depends on your XL and evocable abilities (gained from items) whose success hinges on your Evocations skill. Invocations are abilities granted by your god. Success rate for invocations depend on which god you're worshiping but most will be some combination of Invocations skill and piety.

Spell Overview

The Spell Overview menu is accessed with I.

Pressing I again or ! toggles the view. When you try to cast a spell whose success is shown in yellow or red you're more likely to suffer a harmful miscast effect if it fails.

Religion Overview

The Relgion Overview is shown with ^.

This screen explains the god you're worshiping. Pressing ^ again or ! will cycle between the overview, powers and wrath sections.

Innate Abilities, Weirdness and Mutations

The Innate Abilities, Weirdness and Mutations menu is accessed with A.

Blue lines are innate to your species and are essentially permanent: Minotaurs have horns, Draconians can't wear body armour, Trolls have claws, Gargoyles are poison immune, etc. White lines are ones the game considers "good" mutations while red are "bad". Transient (temporary) mutations are purple. God-given mutations can be a range of colours.

It's possible to build on innate mutations (Minotaurs can go from level 2 horns to level 3) but they can't be removed. Some transmutation forms will temporarily mute some mutations.

Moving, Fighting and Exploring

When no monsters are in sight you want to explore the level around you. That can be done by moving manually or by pressing o to autoexplore. Manual exploration might technically be optimal because you have absolute control over where your character goes but, for the sake of sanity (and because the benefit of manual exploration is relatively minimal), I'd suggest you go with autoexplore.

Autoexplore will stop when you come across a new item or an enemy. If it's an item you want, move over and grab it with g or, if it's an item you don't care for, keep autoexploring. If you found an enemy, it's now time to fight.

Tab is your autoattack button and pressing it will either fire a ranged weapon, melee attack an adjacent enemy or walk you towards the nearest one. Usually it's not too clever to tab towards a monster because you might reveal additional enemies in the unknown. Instead, you could manually walk back a few tiles, use . or s to wait turns as it approaches, cast ranged spells with z or fire/throw projectiles with f.

If there's one particular monster you want to melee (and you don't trust Tab), you can do so by moving into it with the direction keys (or use v to evoke the range on a polearm). When you're choosing targets for spells or ranged combat, you can move the targeter manually with direction keys or cycle through the options with - and =. Remember that you're not stuck in a duel to the death: if a fight looks difficult you can use a consumable (or 2 or 3), wand or ability to help you. Escape should always be on the table as well.

After each fight you want to rest back to full HP and MP with the 5 key. It can be a good idea to back up a little from where a fight took place to rest. This is because new monsters might come to investigate the noise that was made. Don't explore again until you're fully rested.

Your character might become hungry as you go. In the newest versions of DCSS, autoexplore will take you to any edible corpses in sight and butcher them. Rest and autoexplore both automatically eat chunks of flesh if you become hungry. Stand over a corpse and press c for chop if you want to manually butcher it (suppose you're about to rest and you don't want the corpse to rot in the meantime). e manually eats but most species won't consume raw flesh unless they're hungry.

Once a floor is fully explored, it's usually time to move down to the next one. The way to find a downstair is to press X (Shift + x) then > to cycle through the available ones. Enter will take you there. If you're stopped on the way you can press G (Shift + g) for Go then Enter to resume travelling to your most-recently-selected destination. > will take you down the stair when you get there and < will bring you back up. The * symbol above a staircase means its destination is unknown to you. If you do know the stair and want to see where it leads, select it with X then press [ to look up a floor or ] to look down a floor.

To travel to a branch of the Dungeon you can use G. A list of all the places you've found will be displayed. Once you choose a destination, the game will ask which level of the branch you want to go to. 1 will take you just inside the entrance, 0 will walk to the entrance (but not enter) and $ will take you to the deepest floor you've been to in that branch.

You can find items in the Dungeon by pressing Ctrl + f. On the results screen use ! to switch between the "travel" and "view" modes and / to sort alphabetically or by distance. You can make fairly sophisticated searches with a bit of practice. In the picture below I found all the branded axes in the game by searching for "axe && brand".

Some places in the game, notably Abyss and Pandemonium, don't show up in the G list. To find them you need to search for the entrances with "Abyss" or "Pan".

Skills and Training

As you gain experience your character's skills will raise. It's up to you how many skills, which ones and in what proportions to train.

One of the first things you should do when you start a new game is to open the Skills menu with m.

Unless you added the "default_manual_training = true" option to your RC file, skill training starts off in automatic mode. This assigns experience based on what skills you use and, while it kind of works, you can get much better results with even a small amount of input. Press / to enter manual mode and the letter of the skill to turn its training off (- symbol), turn its training on (+) or focus it (*). A focused skill receives double the XP of an unfocused one. ? then the letter of a skill will give an explanation of what it does.

Experience is filtered through the aptitudes your character has for each trained skill. An aptitude of 0 is a modifier of 1x. +5 corresponds to a modifier of approximately 2.4x while -5 corresponds to approximately 0.4x. As higher levels require more and more experience to reach, species with a positive aptitude have a much easier time than ones with a negative aptitude. To see your aptitudes for the full list of skills press *.

There are some restrictions on the skills you can train, however. The game won't just allow you to train any skill at any time:

To train a weapon skill you must have a weapon of that type in your inventory.

To train a spell school you must have a spell of that school memorised.

To train the Shields skill you must have a shield in your inventory.

To train Evocations you must have a wand or evocable in your inventory.

To train the Invocations skill you must be worshiping a god with invocable abilities.

You can set skill training targets with =. These are very useful to avoid overtraining as they will automatically stop the skill once the target is reached.

If you're just after a rule of thumb: mostly train offence (weapon, spell school, etc.) until you're comfortable killing things then mostly train defence. Every character wants Fighting skill because it gives extra HP. For a given weapon, the most important skill level to reach is the point at which more training won't make it swing any faster (this is referred to as the point of minimum delay or mindelay).

Examining Monsters and Uniques

Suppose you've just met a new, scary-looking unique. Should you be afraid of it? Generally, yes. But how afraid? And what can it do?

The best way to find out about a monster is to examine it. Begin examining by pressing x then move your cursor to the enemy you want with - and = or the arrow keys. Just hovering over a monster will tell you some information about it: what weapon it's wielding (including brand), what armour it's wearing, any wands carried and other otherwise non-visible buffs such as deflecting missiles. Note that an enemy might still have some dangerous items like potions and these won't be revealed to you.

To see in-depth information about the selected monster, press v. This process of examining is often called "xv" (ex vee) by Crawl players. As in: "Why didn't you xv the Ettin to see how much damage it could do, you dolt?"

In addition to a description, this screen provides an indication of HP, AC and MR and an estimate of difficulty which isn't always reliable. Any interesting properties of the monster will also be listed such as their speed (watch out for fast enemies because you probably can't run from them), elemental resistances and vulnerabilities, and the ability to see invisible.

To me the most important bits of information are usually the potential maximum damage and the spells + abilities section. As far as damage goes, don't be fooled by the "plus its weapon" part because that can be extremely significant. One very common early-game killer is the ogre and if you were to xv it, you would see: "It can hit for up to 17 damage plus its giant spiked club". "Well, that doesn't sound too bad" you might think until you discover a giant spiked club does up to 22 damage. In the hands of an enemy on Dungeon 1, a weapon is effectively double damage. And that's with a plain weapon, let alone one with a dangerous brand like electrocution.

Monsters can have spells or abilities with the major difference between the two being that they interact differently with silence and antimagic. Pressing the corresponding letter will give a description. If a spell is a targeted hex, the chance of it affecting you will be shown in brackets. Adding additional MR will lower the hex chances and vice versa.

Some monsters can have multiple sets of spells which will all be displayed until you see them casting something. The game will narrow down the possibilities for you automatically based on a process of elimination with the information you've gained.

Further Monster/Item/Mechanic Information

It's possible to find some information about most monsters, spells, items and features in the game.

Ingame lookup

To launch the ingame lookup, press ? then /.

This is a very useful way to see what a monster can do even when it's not around for you to examine. Say you're heading into the Orcish Mines, it's not a bad idea to check the odds of an orc sorcerer paralysing you before you meet one face to face.

Wiki

The CrawlWiki can be found here.

Please know that the Wiki is unreliable. It's often out of date, misleading or just plain wrong. Be especially wary when the Wiki moves from stats and equations to giving advice and opinion. The person who wrote that 1337 tip for winning may never have won.

I highly recommend that you don't rely on the CrawlWiki if you have a life-or-death question about the game.

LearnDB

The Learn Database or learndb is a repository of Crawl knowledge, strategy and jokes which is maintained in the ##crawl IRC channel.

While the learndb can also be wrong and out of date, it tends to be more reliable than the CrawlWiki.

You can browse the entirety of the learndb or search the entries.

Monster entries are especially useful because they tell you how much damage spells are capable of. In the Sigmund entry below, Throw Flame can do 3d5 (3 rolls of a 5-sided die) which is up to 15 damage.

Beem

beem is a bot designed and hosted by gammafunk. The bot spectates WebTiles players and allows queries to the learndb and sequell from the comfort of your own game. You can type to it in the chat box found on the bottom-right of the screen. Documentation is available here.

To get beem to spectate your games you need to say !subscribe to it on the server you want. There are 2 easy ways to do this:

Look at the list of games in progress and find someone with exactly 1 spectator. That spectator is very likely to be beem. Spectate that game yourself and type "!subscribe" in their chat. Beem will then show up to any games you start on the server.

Launch a WebTiles game yourself. Open 3-4 new tabs and use those to spectate your game. Beem looks for games it judges to be popular and this will fool it (just kidding, you really are popular...). When beem shows, hit it with the "!subscribe".

To ask about an entry use "??". If there's more than one entry, you can see the second by ending your query with "[2" then "[3" and so on. To get the stats of a monster (such as the spell damage values or exact speed) use "@??". A couple of illustrative examples follow.

Character Stats

If you come from roleplaying games you probably think your character's stats are crucially important. Stats do matter in Crawl but not too much; I find new players tend to worry way more than they should.

Your character's starting stats depend on the species and background. Each species has its own total and distribution. Backgrounds always add 12 stats in a related configuration: Wizards are intelligent but not strong whereas Berserkers are the opposite.

Many things will affect your stats over the course of a game. Artifact items frequently have stat-changing properties. Some gods and mutations will also affect them. In addition, your stats can be temporarily (they come back as you gain experience) lowered by, among other things, some monsters, the deterioration mutation, potions of degeneration and death curses from higher-level mummies.

You character will naturally accrue stats as they gain experience and level up. Every 3 to 5 levels, depending on your species, you will get an extra stat. Sometimes the stat is fixed (Trolls get a point of strength every 3 levels) and other times it's random (Minotaurs get either a point of strength or dexterity every 4 levels). On top of that, every character gets a stat of your choosing upon reaching a level that's a multiple of 3 (3, 6, 9, 12, etc.). This stat choice gives you some direct control over the progression of your character's stats but the ultimate outcome will still relate to the species most of the time: despite your best efforts, a Troll is much more likely to end up with high strength than high intelligence.

Watch out for your stats ever dropping near 0. If one reaches 0 you will immediately become paralysed for 2-4 turns. If you manage to survive that, your character will be left in a state of collapse (strength) or will be brainless (intelligence) or clumsy (dexterity). The effects of each status differ but know that all are unpleasant and slow your actions.

To decide which stats you most care about, it helps to know what each does. I'm going to list what I think are the most important effects.

Strength

Most crucially, strength helps to overcome the spellcasting, dodging and to-hit encumbrance penalties which come with heavier armours.

Note: there's also a stealth penalty from heavy armour but that can't be lowered by strength.

Note: there's also a stealth penalty from heavy armour but that can't be lowered by strength. Adds a small damage increase to all ranged and melee attacks. This can become quite significant with large amounts of strength.

Increases the odds that auxiliary attacks such as fang bites or talon kicks occur.

Boosts damage from constriction.

Dexterity

Most importantly, dexterity increases how much EV you get out of training the Dodging skill.

Adds a small accuracy increase to all ranged and melee attacks.

Slightly boosts your stealth.

Increases the odds that auxiliary attacks such as fang bites or talon kicks occur.

Intelligence

Intelligence increases your chances of successfully casting spells.

Raises the spell power of most spells in the game (some don't use spell power).

Lowers the amount of hunger generated when casting spells.

A section on which stats to raise will follow.

Traps

Traps make the game fun and exciting. During your adventures you may be (un)lucky enough to come across an assortment of various kinds. Some of the more notable fixed traps are teleport traps (which teleport you somewhere randomly on the level), alarm traps (which make noise and mark you if anything steps on it), shaft traps (which can cause you to fall up to 3 floors), dispersal traps which blink you and all the enemies on screen, and Zot traps (which have various effects that include paralysis and banishment to the Abyss).

All fixed traps will be revealed to your character so you should be able to avoid those most of the time. However, the game will also hit you with trap effects which have a chance to occur as you reveal new tiles. Note that the teleport trap effect doesn't teleport you randomly on a level, it specifically brings you near enemies.

Status Effects

A status is a buff or malus that can temporarily affect your character. Most will display a word on at the bottom of the game information section, top-right of screen. Positive statuses tend to be blue while negative ones tend to be red or yellow.

There are over 9000 statuses in Crawl. If you see one you don't know, ask learndb or the ingame lookup (?/) about it.

Poisoned

Poison applies damage to your character over time. The yellow portion of the HP bar indicates the health to which you will ultimately fall. If that's below 0 you are lethally poisoned and you'd better hope there's an ace up your sleeve.

The poison status stacks. If you become further poisoned you will take more damage per turn for longer. The status name changes from yellow to pink and then red to display this.

Dealing with poison

A potion of curing immediately removes all poison.

Poison is most deadly in the early Dungeon and that's when you might not have any potions of curing. A potion of heal wounds could raise your HP enough to take you out of lethal poison range. You might also live if you can increase your HP regeneration by a means such as a potion of ambrosia or the Trog's Hand ability if you're a Berserker.

Confused

Confusion comes with a whole stack of negative effects:

You can't cast spells or use most abilities (some god abilities still work through confusion).

Any attempt to move or attack can instead move in a random direction.

You can't read scrolls.

Half the time you will fall back down when trying to go up stairs.

Any wands you attempt to use will shoot in random directions.

No blocking with shields.

Dealing with confusion

A potion of curing or potion of cancellation immediately removes confusion.

Drained

Some monster attacks, weapons with the draining brand and negative energy spells can drain you. The status colour changes from yellow to red and then a very deep purple as you become more heavily drained.

When you're drained, your skills are temporarily lowered. If you get badly drained enough, it's possible for all your skills to go back to 0. Good luck fighting anything then. The following picture shows some drained vs undrained skills.

Dealing with draining

Experience is the only way to remove draining. The skill drain will progressively lessen as you kill enemies.

Slowed

All actions take 50% longer when you're slowed. This can be deceptively dangerous.

Dealing with slow

A potion of haste has the opposite effect as it quickens your actions by 50%. Quaffing a haste will make you fast+slow which means, in effect, you move at normal speed. A potion of cancellation immediately removes slow.

Corroded

Corrosion works in stacks of -4. The number in brackets is the total corrosion and that number is a penalty to both AC and slaying (attack damage).

Being heavily corroded can lead to a very quick and brutal death. The slaying penalty makes it so you're unable to kill with weapons and any attacks against you will do much more damage than they usually would.

Dealing with corrosion

Corrosion will eventually wear off over time. If you're getting swarmed, however, you might not have that time. Even teleporting away from the source of the corrosion might not necessarily help because you'll still be corroded afterwards. A potion of cancellation immediately removes corrosion.

Marked

The marked status communicates your presence and location to every awake monster on the current floor. If you're on a relatively unexplored floor, expect enemies to rush you from every direction. For a bit of additional fun, alarm traps make an extremely loud noise when something steps on them for the "wake everything in the area up then show them your location" wombo combo.

Dealing with mark

The best way to survive being marked is to get back upstairs to a fully cleared floor. Teleports won't necessarily solve your problems because monsters are informed of your landing position. A potion of cancellation immediately removes mark.

Paralysed

When paralysed your EV is tanked to almost nothing and you can no longer move.

Dealing with paralysis

You literally can't do anything except hope not to die. Prevention is preferable to cure in this case.

Berserked

Berserk is a single status that buffs your character with haste (+50% movement speed), might (bonus damage to melee attacks) and a 50% increase to current and maximum HP. The downside is that you're only able to move, melee attack, wait/rest, switch weapons, drop/pick up items, eat and butcher corpses. The red screen is a nice touch.

You can only willingly berserk if your hunger level is above Very Hungry. Performing any action that's not attacking makes the berserk duration decrease significantly. Also know that there's a small chance your character will "pass out" as the status ends. This will result in paralysis for a few turns. I've never personally died to this effect so I wouldn't worry about it.

Once a berserk ends you'll be left for a period of time with the statues Slow and -Berserk (you can't berserk again while this is active). Please, as a minimum, rest off the slow before you go autoexploring into the wild. And, for best results, wait out the -Berserk status too.

Dealing with berserk

Since your options are severely limited when berserk, you're basically committed to fighting or running away with your bonus speed. Note that the berserk status will wear off very quickly when you're running rather than attacking. If you're still in a dangerous situation after a berserk ends, you can quaff cancellation to remove the slow or drink a potion of haste to go back to normal speed.

Petrified

Some monsters (basilisks, liches, ancient liches and Jorgrun) can petrify you directly if they have a clear line of fire and manage to bypass your MR. You can also be petrified by standing in the calcifying dust from a catoblepas.

At first you will be "slowing down" or "petrifying". This part lasts for 3-4 turns and you will have your EV halved and your actions slowed. Once petrification kicks in you'll be left unable to move. You'll take half the damage you normally would from most sources (shatter damage is MUCH higher) but you'll have 0 SH and almost 0 EV.

Dealing with petrification

You can think of petrification like paralysis with a wind up time. A potion of cancellation removes the petrifying status. If you don't have any cancellation and you're about to be petrified next to something terrifying like a hydra, you have options available to you:

Read a scroll of fear to make enemies run from you.

Teleport in the hope you land somewhere less threatening.

Read a scroll of summoning so you have some allies to fight on your behalf.

Blink away to put some distance between you and the threatening enemy so it has fewer turns to whale on you.

Other potion buffs

Many of the potions in the game give your character temporary and stackable buffs. These can be useful to live through difficult situations or take down threatening uniques.

Agility: Gives +5 dexterity, extra EV and stealth.

Ambrosia: Greatly increases your HP and MP regeneration at the cost of being confused. You can use a potion of curing to end the effect at any time.

Berserk rage: Makes you berserk.

Brilliance: Grants +5 intelligence, lowers your spell failure rates and increases the power of all spells cast. This potion is a great way to cast a spell that you otherwise wouldn't be able to.

Flight: Let's you fly. Try not to let it run out while you're still over lava or deep water. While you won't instantly die (that used to be the case in the past), you will enter emergency flight mode which drains you extremely rapidly until you can land.

Haste: Speeds all your actions.

Invisibility: Makes your character invisible as long as you're not standing in water (add flight if you're in water and need to be invis). Monsters that aren't able to see invisible will have to guess where you are which will make them miss spells and attacks. You can stab monsters that can't see you.

Lignification: Turns your character into a tree. This comes with +50% HP, resistances to poison, negative energy and torment, 20 + XL/2 AC (a very significant AC boost in the early game) and some bonus unarmed combat damage. The downsides are that all your armours are melded, your EV becomes almost 0 and you're unable to move, blink or teleport.

Might: Adds +5 strength and gives bonus damage to melee attacks.

Resistance: Gives resistance to poison, electricity, fire, cold and corrosion. Note: these are all elemental resistances, no MR is given.

Dealing with buffs

The only thing to deal with is your enemies. Kill them with your new-found powers.

Monster statuses

Enemy statuses are displayed by icons on their tile (don't ask me how you tell in console mode). In the picture below, Rupert, the unique on the left, is both berserk and corroded. If you ever see a status icon you don't recognise, examine the monster with x and that will list them.

It's important to know that player statuses and monster statuses aren't always the same. In particular, mighted monsters get +50% damage. Don't ever ever ever ever ever underestimate a mighted enemy (and remember that berserk enemies are hasted AND mighted!).

General Tactics

I'm going to let you in on a little secret here. Your tactics are the most important factor in whether you succeed in DCSS.

A player who makes enormous blunders in the overall strategy and macro decisions of their run can still win if they have a solid foundation of tactical play. Conversely, a player who uses a spreadsheet to calculate perfectly optimal skill training and stat distributions but has poor tactics when engaging enemies will die over and over again.

What follows are some basic tactics you should employ at all times.

Don't Tab into the Unknown

An extremely good practice while trying to live is to engage as few enemies as possible at once. Ideally, you only fight one enemy at a time so you can begin each encounter at full HP and MP and only receive approximately one hostile action in return for each action you make.

When you find a new enemy your first reaction might be to shout "RAAWWRRR" and Tab towards it. You should resist those urges. As you Tab towards an enemy, the unknown tiles you reveal might contain more enemies. This is very likely to be the case because packs of monsters are super common in Crawl. And as you Tab towards those additional enemies, there might be EVEN MORE enemies behind them. And as you Tab towards those enemies...

What should you do if not Tab? And yes, I realise that's an existential question for some players. Best practice, if you're really patient, is to walk backwards a handful of tiles. Heading back into known territory to fight helps prevent you from meeting new monsters who might come to investigate noise they've heard from shouts, spells or combat. Instead, you could simply wait for the monster to approach by pressing . to wait a turn. A caster or ranged character could shoot at the enemy. Even a melee character with no Throwing skill could still use the opportunity to chuck tomahawks or stones in the hopes of landing some bonus damage. You could fire wands, quaff some potions to buff up, use your god abilities and so on. The non-Tab possibilities are almost endless!

Don't Step into a Melee Enemy

Crawl is a turn-based game. Once you've made a move, enemies respond by making their moves. Suppose there's one tile of space between you and an angry, melee enemy like an ogre who wants to smash you over the head with his club. If you use your turn to step into the ogre, the ogre begins its turn and finds you adjacent. SMASH TIME. If you instead you press . to wait a turn, the ogre will use its turn to close the distance and step into you. On your next turn, you get to hit first.

This one simple trick will save you a lot of damage. Ogres hate it!

Manage Line of Sight Against Ranged Foes

Sight is reciprocal in DCSS: if you can't see an enemy it can't see you. With very few exceptions (deep troll earth mages being a notable one) monsters won't attack or cast spells when you're not in vision. If you're cognisant of this fact, you can use the Dungeon's layout to your advantage.

Imagine an early and very threatening ranged enemy. Are you thinking of an orc priest? Good. Suppose you come across one of those green terrors at the edge of your line of sight. If you use your next turn to walk towards the priest, it can stay put and smite you. In fact, it can do that all 6 turns you spend closing distance. That's up to 6 x 17 (102) non-missing, AC-ignoring smite damage, much more than any early game character can live through. And that's just to get to the orc priest; you still have to fight it!

A much better way to engage is to walk backwards until you find a dungeon feature, usually a corner, that obscures vision and wait there. That way, the priest will be forced to close distance while not having any line of sight. An ideal corner will force a ranged enemy to come into vision only when its adjacent to you but that's not always possible.

In the situation below I've come across a cyclops who is 3 tiles away. As cyclops can throw large rocks, those 3 tiles represent 3 potential rocks to the face.

A step to the left uses the corner to obscure vision and puts an end to the rock confetti. Still, this isn't an ideal spot because monsters with human intelligence and range can seek to maintain their range. In this situation, the cyclops, rather than simply walking up, might walk up-right to get more throws.

As a cyclops is a slow-moving monster, I was able to walk back to a more suitable corner. This forced the cyclops to close to within a single tile which is much preferable to 3.

Even if you have range yourself, you still want to think about your line of sight against ranged enemies. If you start firing/spell slinging from a corner, you then have the option to step around it and block line of sight if things get hairy. Also, unless a monster has the extremely rare "master archer" flag, it won't be able to use ranged attacks when adjacent to you. Instead, it will switch to melee attacks. This is extremely valuable to know against dangerous ranged enemies like centaurs because you'd much rather they try to punch you than pepper you with arrows.

Use Dungeon Features to Fight One Enemy at a Time

Even with the best of care you're inevitably going to attract the attention of multiple enemies at once. Which is better? Every time you attack, 3 enemies hit you back or every time you attack, 1 enemy hits you back. I mean better for survival not better in a "more exciting" sense.

Where possible, you should use corridors and choke points to prevent enemies from surrounding you.

The following picture is an example of what you shouldn't do.

It's better to bring the enemies into a corridor so you can fight them one at at time.

It's even possible to create your own corridors in rock walls (but not stone, metal, etc.) with a wand of digging. If you place 2 corridors at right angles you've created what's called a "killhole". This configuration forces one enemy at a time to come into vision on a tile that's adjacent to you (unless they then blink behind you lol).

Stair Dance to Victory

Stairs work in an interesting way. If you go up or down a set of stairs when monsters are around, only those ones adjacent to you will follow. This means stairs can be a useful tool to split packs or escape dangerous enemies.

If you see a threatening unique and it's not adjacent to you, go back upstairs and it can't follow.

When you're "stair dancing" monsters with you, you typically want to go upstairs because then it's a cleared area rather than the unknown. In a pinch, though, rolling the dice on a downstair might be worth it. As an added bonus, fights on a previously-cleared floor will allow you to rest fully without any new monsters coming to investigate the noise.

Summons won't ever use stairs. That goes for yours and a monster's. If some enemy summoners are going off by summoning a million dudes, you can interrupt them by changing floors. Zombies and skeletons can't use stairs either.

In the situation below there were 6 spiders.

Rather than fighting all 6 at once (and however many others who were just out of vision), I went back upstairs. Only 2 spiders were pulled up which is a much more manageable fight.

No amount of enemies is too large for stair dancing (but player discretion is advised).

Gods

Gods are a major part of the DCSS experience. Indeed, god choice is usually considered one of the most defining elements of a run along with species and background.

God Overview

There are more than 20 gods in Crawl but you're only allowed to worship one at a time.

To worship a god you first need to find one of their altars. A large number of these will be present in the Temple which can spawn from D4 to D7. It's not uncommon that the one god you really wanted isn't in the Temple but fear not. With the exceptions of the non-Temple gods Beogh, Lugonu and Jiyva, every god will have an altar generated by level 10 of the Dungeon.

Stand over an altar and press > to pray. You'll be shown an overview of the god and then asked if you want to join.

Each god works in a unique way but most use a system of piety that you can build throughout the game by doing things they appreciate. As your piety rises you'll be given passives and/or abilities (whose power and success chance might depend on the Invocations skill) to assist your character. Some gods give gifts at higher levels of piety. Many enforce a form of conduct and will put you under penance if you do things they don't appreciate.

Don't abandon your god unless you'd like to die.

Gods are (mostly) there to help you. Don't just hoard piety for the sake of it. For the love of god, use your god.

Choosing a God

At first, when you're learning the game, you might want to worship some of the more straightforward gods. I think that's a solid idea as it will help keep the complexity down. I'll introduce some of those shortly.

Several schools of thought exist when it comes to god choice and you'll find much disagreement among experienced players when it comes to the relative strengths of gods. Some players will say you should look for a god that covers the weaknesses of your character and not worship one who makes you all-in on a particular strategy. For instance, this wisdom goes, if you're a stealthy character who stabs enemies, you shouldn't worship Dithmenos (the god of darkness who makes you stealthier). That sort of thinking isn't persuasive to me: if I'm playing a Deep Elf caster, should I choose a god that helps me cover the weakness of being poorly suited to melee combat? Covering a weakness can be a very good reason to pick a god but it shouldn't be a consideration that's restrictive in nature.

Some gods are strong enough to carry you through a 3-rune game irrespective of what your character's approach is. I'd say Yredelemnul, Beogh (look at the picture below then tell me how you could lose with so many orcs and the power of friendship) and Fedhas fall into that category and Hepliaklqana ("Hep" for short) comes close. Otherwise, it makes sense to choose a god that assists your plan in some way.

As you play the game and become more comfortable, I'd recommend you simply experiment with new gods to see how you like them. With experience, you'll come to find there's a lot of value in simply getting a god as soon as possible. Indeed, this is one of the biggest strengths of a Berserker: you begin the game already worshiping Trog and have berserk available from turn 1.

In almost every game you're going to find at least a couple of altars before getting to the Temple. If I were simply trying to win a random character I would ask myself a question every time I found an altar: "Does this god work for this character?" If the answer is yes, I would worship that god even if it's not the strongest possible choice.

Not every god will accept worship from every character. "Good" gods (The Shining One, Zin and Elyvilon) spurn "evil" species (Demonspawn, Ghoul, Mummy and Vampire). No gods allow Demigod worship. Fedhas doesn't accept undead species (Ghoul, Mummy and Vampire) and Yred hates Gargoyles. Only Hill Orcs can worship Beogh (and you usually convert by pressing a then Y when in sight of an orc priest).

Gods for Beginners

In making these suggestions I'm considering both the straightforwardness of playing the god and its overall power level. As there are 2 gods who centre almost entirely around casting spells, I'm going to split the recommended gods into 2 categories: gods for mages and gods for everyone else.

Everyone who's not a mage

Trog

Trog is the god of anger and violence. He appreciates it when you kill things and, since Trog hates nerds, he enjoys it when you burn spellbooks and especially likes it when you kill magic users. Trog rages when you learn spells or train magic skills.



At * of piety Trog gives you the ability to go berserk. This is your ticket through the early and mid game. Seriously, you should berserk hard and often - it doesn't even cost any piety to use!



** gives access to Trog's Hand. It gives extra HP regen and MR++. You should use this whenever you face a dangerous enemy who can hex you.



Brothers in Arms comes at ****. This ability summons a berserk ally and, as mighted monsters do 150% damage, it's extremely powerful. There aren't many situations in a Crawl game that a few Brothers in Arms + Berserk can't handle. Don't stress too much about trying to use this ability even if the failure level is high: the piety cost only applies if the ability succeeds.



Trog gives gifts of ammunition and, at higher piety levels, gifts weapons. He's especially fond of giving weapons with the anti-magic brand. Please, please, please don't use this as a reason to not use Trog's abilities and hoard piety: the weapon gifts are a kind of bonus, not the main reason you pick Trog.



No Invocations skill is required for any of Trog's abilities. The success chance and power rely only on your piety level.



It should go without saying but don't choose Trog if you want to cast spells.



If you're planning on worshiping Trog you should strongly consider starting as a Berserker so you can have him from the start.

Okawaru

Okawaru is the god of battle. He accepts all kills but is impressed when you kill enemies that are dangerous relative to your XL. You'll be put under penance if you attack or harm your allies.



At * of piety Okawaru gives you the Heroism ability which increases all skills by 5 except for magic, Invocations and Evocations. Note that you don't get the extra HP that 5 extra Fighting skill would normally give. Heroism is extremely cheap to use in terms of piety and is the main reason to pick Okawaru. You should use it at the beginning of EVERY non-trivial fight.



***** piety unlocks the ability Finesse which doubles your attack speed for melee and ranged attacks. This ability stacks with Heroism but not with the Haste status. Finesse has a higher piety cost than Heroism so you shouldn't spam it but don't shy away from using it either.



Like Trog, Oka gifts ammunition. At higher piety levels, you can receive weapons or armour. The gifts are weighted towards ones that will be useful to you but Okawaru has a reputation for being a master troll.



Oka's 2 abilities require Invocations training but mostly just to lower the failure rates. More Invocations does increase the durations but I don't think you need to worry about that because you can always reuse them. Train 7 or 8 Invocations skill.

Makhleb

Makhleb is the evil (and edgy?) god of bloodshed and mortification of the flesh. Makh appreciates all kills and has no conduct restrictions.



At * you get the chance to gain HP on killing. How much HP you gain depends on the difficulty of the monster (Hit Dice) and how likely the healing is to occur rises with your piety level. This passive ability is perhaps the most iconic part of playing Makhleb. At high levels of piety, healing will trigger on most kills and this gives you the sustainability to melee fight for indefinite amounts of time.



** brings Minor Destruction which fires a random, low-level destruction at an enemy. This ability is rather lacklustre without any Invocations training but its deployment only costs 1 HP and no piety. You can use Minor Destruction to ping enemies with when you're not tabbing towards them into the unknown.



At *** you get the workhorse ability of Lesser Servant of Makhleb. This costs 4 HP and a small amount of piety and summons a temporary demon ally (smoke demons are the best). Know there's a small chance the demon can spawn hostile (the ability's displayed failure rate) but this drops with Invocations and you should be making summons at the start of a fight, not when you're about to die. Lesser Servant can carry you through all of Lair on its own: 3 demons working together will take down almost anything and if they don't, make more.



**** adds Major Destruction which fires a random but powerful destruction. The cost is 6 HP and a tiny amount of piety.



Finally, ***** piety comes with the ability Greater Servant of Makhleb. This summons a high-level demon (but never a fiend) for 10 HP and a decent chunk of piety. There's always a chance that Greater Servant will fail (even at 27 Invocations skill) and summon a hostile demon instead. For this reason, you should use this ability at the start of a fight (so you can escape if need be) and not in a situation where you're dying. Remember that summons can't use stairs: if you're afraid of a hostile servant, summon when you're on or near a set of stairs. With a bit of care (and some Invocations training) Greater Servant of Makhleb is a very powerful ability. Rolling an Executioner as your summon any time before you've found 2 runes is akin to winning the floor you're on.



All of Makhleb's active abilities use the Invocations skill. Healing-on-kills doesn't but you're a memer if you're using Makhleb just for healing. I like to train around 5 levels early to assist with Lesser Servant but then don't rush to get more until my character feels stable. Ultimately, I usually train 12-14 Invocations to make Greater Servant safer and more reliable.

Yredelemnul

Yredelemnul is the god of the undead. He appreciates it when you or your undead allies kill things. Yred won't allow you to attack with a weapon of holy wrath or knowingly read a scroll of holy wrath. He will straight up excommunicate you if you ever cast Statue Form.



By my estimation, Yred is the most powerful god in the game for a 3-rune victory. He will single-handedly carry you all the way to Zot and the only thing you need to do is train Invocations and figure out a means of finishing off.



At * you get Animate Remains which allows you to stand over a corpse or skeleton and raise it as an undead slave. Undead made by Yred's abilities don't ever time out but, like other undead, they can't leave the floor they were made on. At *** Animate Remains upgrades into Animate Dead which raises every corpse/skeleton on your screen at once. There is no piety cost for this ability so go crazy!



** gives 2 abilities: Recall Undead Slaves and Pain Mirror. Recall brings your undead slaves and any permanent followers to you. Note that while you can pull permanent followers to you from anywhere, only undead slaves from the floor you're on will come. Pain Mirror reflects any damage you take back at its source. I don't really use this ability because the piety cost for the damage you reflect is very high and I'm not a huge fan of an ability that relies on taking damage for its success.



From *** Yred will start to gift you permanent undead followers. As the number of gifts you've received increases, the quality of the followers tends to become higher. For the highest-level gifts (Profane Servitors and Bone Dragons) you can never have more than 3 in total. This permanent undead army is what makes Yred such an effective god: once it gets rolling, your army will kill everything for you while you cheer from the sidelines and twiddle your thumbs.



At **** you get the ability to Drain Life. This deals damage to all living things on your screen and then heals you for half the damage done. Drain Life is the reason I advocate heavy Invocations training for Yred and is a major reason for his strength. A spammable heal wounds effect that also kills everything on the screen? Sign me up!



***** gives Enslave Soul. This is a kind of funny ability: you can use it on a monster of at least "normal intelligence" which has at least 75% of its max HP. If the enemy dies while the ability is still active, it will become a spectral follower which can use all the spells of the original. You can only have one enslaved soul at a time and powerful, spellcasting uniques make good targets. I would consider this ability to be a kind of bonus and not necessary to Yred's core functionality.



Yred's higher-level abilities use the Invocations skill. It's worth training Invocations for Drain Life alone, however. I'd recommend at least 20 points by the end of the game.

Hepliaklqana

Hepliaklqana is the god of ancestry who gives you an ancestor to fight alongside with. Hep appreciates when you explore new areas and has no conduct restrictions.



Upon worshiping Hep you will get a -10% HP mutation (you can't get rid of this, don't try) and discover the memory of your ancestor. Your ancestor is a permanent ally who shares XP with your character, can follow you between floors and will respawn after dying. You can recall your ancestor at any time for 2 MP and you can give it a name which is, honestly, one of the best things about this god. Pro tip: the devs love it when your ancestor names call them out.



At ** you can make the permanent decision to specialise your ancestor. The options are Knight (a tanky melee fighter who ends up with an axe and shield), Battlemage (a kind of blaster-caster who fires conjurations at enemies) and Hexer (uses hexes to confuse and paralyse enemies while fighting with a dagger of draining and, ultimately, an anti-magic quickblade). You can't go too wrong here but my personal favourite is the Hexer. Your ancestor will become stronger and receive upgraded gear and spells as your XL rises.



At *** you get the Transference ability which allows you to swap a unit (including yourself) with your ancestor's position.



With **** you can Idealise your ancestor. This heals it, removes harmful effects and gives a temporary buff to strength, spellcasting and armour. The amount of healing and the duration depend on your Invocations skill.



Lastly, ***** adds a draining component to Transference. Enemies near the target of the ability will be drained for a duration that is longer with Invocations.



It's only Hep's later abilities that really use the Invocations skill so I'm not usually in a hurry to train it. When I finally get around to it, my main consideration is more about lowering the failure rates of the abilities than increasing the durations. 12-14 Invocations skill should be more than enough.

Gozag Ym Sagoz

Gozag is the god of greed. He is one of the few gods that doesn't use a system of piety. Rather, Gozag will provide as much assistance as you can afford with gold.



As a Gozag follower you have access to some passives and some abilities. Enemies you kill no longer drop corpses and will instead turn into piles of gold. As this happens, you will take on a short-lived aura that can momentarily distract enemies. No corpses means no chunks. If you're a Troll (who needs to eat constantly) or someone who wants to cast hungering, high-level spells, Gozag probably isn't for you.



Gozag followers will passively detect gold and shops on the floor around them.



The Potion Petition ability gives you several sets of random potion effects and allows you to pick one. While your first use of the ability is completely free, subsequent uses cost 400 gold. Use this ability any time you find yourself in trouble (and, ideally, beforehand) and it will go a long way towards saving you. You can probably find at least one set with a heal wounds effect in it.



Call Merchant offers 4 potential shops (one of which is always food so don't worry too much about starving to death as Gozag) of which you can choose one to appear where you're standing. There's an ever-increasing minimum gold you must have to use this ability (starting from 800) but most actual stores are cheaper to fund than the requirement. I like to use this ability heading into the mid game (often sometime in Lair) once I've saved enough money to fund a shop and still have enough for some Potion Petitions in the bank. A strong weapon, heavily-enchanted armour or artifact ring can all make a very big difference to your character's strength at this stage in the game. Bribe Branch takes 3,000 gold and puts it into a fund for a particular branch. When enemies in that branch see you, there's a chance they will be "bribed" and become friendly or neutral. If that happens, they will take some money from the fund. You can check how much gold remains by pressing ^ twice and you can extend the bribe for additional injections of 3,000 gold. Bribe Branch is extremely strong when taking on branch endings such as Shoals 4, Vaults 5 and Zot 5. I try to save up enough gold for at least 2 uses of Bribe Branch in Zot 5. Monsters with higher Hit Dice are more likely to be bribed which means your odds of getting allied Orbs of Fire and Ancient Liches are high. Bribe Branch takes 3,000 gold and puts it into a fund for a particular branch. When enemies in that branch see you, there's a chance they will be "bribed" and become friendly or neutral. If that happens, they will take some money from the fund. You can check how much gold remains by pressingtwice and you can extend the bribe for additional injections of 3,000 gold. Bribe Branch is extremely strong when taking on branch endings such as Shoals 4, Vaults 5 and Zot 5. I try to save up enough gold for at least 2 uses of Bribe Branch in Zot 5. Monsters with higher Hit Dice are more likely to be bribed which means your odds of getting allied Orbs of Fire and Ancient Liches are high.

Mages

As far as standard mage gods go, Vehumet and Sif Muna are somewhat interchangeable. The two have ways to give you extra mana and both essentially gift additional spells. I will say that Vehumet characters tend to be more "blaster casters" using conjurations whereas Sif characters (or at least my Sif characters) end up more as well-rounded mages. Which one you should worship probably comes down to personal preference: try them both and see which one you prefer.

Vehumet

Vehumet is the god of destructive magic. He accepts all kills and has no conduct restrictions.



One really nice thing about Vehumet for new players is that all the abilities are passive.



At * of piety you get the chance to gain MP from killing. The amount of MP you gain is relative to the difficulty (Hit Dice) of the monster killed and the chance of triggering depends on piety.



With *** your miscast chance for "destructive" spells is reduced by 33%. The definition of "destructive" is a bit funny but you can be sure anything in the Conjurations spell school is included. With this passive it's possible to have spells online much earlier than you would otherwise.



**** of piety increases the range of your destructive spells by one tile. This doesn't work for spells like Freeze or Sticky Flame that require the enemy to be adjacent to you. This passive might not sound like much but an extra tile of range is a very big deal. This lets you shoot an extra Fireball or Bolt of Fire to kill an enemy before it reaches you.



As you gain piety, Vehumet will offer you destructive spells you haven't seen yet. You can learn these from the memorisation (M) menu. If you don't learn the spell, it will be replaced by the next offer so don't dally. One strategy to deal with this is to train more of the Spellcasting skill than you normally would to earn additional spell levels. You can also use a scroll of amnesia to temporarily forget a different spell which you have the book for and can thus relearn later.



Upon reaching ****** of piety, Vehumet will offer you 3 high-level destructive spells. These spells will remain on offer for as long as you continue worshiping.

Sif Muna

Sif is the god of magical knowledge. She accepts kills for a small amount of piety and appreciates when you train magic skills.



At * of piety you get the ability to turn Divine Energy on and off. Turn it on immediately and never turn it off. Divine Energy allows you to cast a spell when you don't have enough mana for it in exchange for a temporary -Cast status. This status prevents you from casting any further spells for a handful of turns. Divine Energy might appear underwhelming but it allows you to continually spam high-level spells if you're also able to throw some kiting into the mix.



** gives a passive protection against bad miscast effects. The chance to be protected rises along with your piety.



At *** you can use the Channel Magic ability. This rapidly increases your MP regeneration for a temporary period whose duration relies on the Invocations skill.



**** lets you forget spells for a hefty piety costs. This works in the same way as a scroll of amnesia so you should probably use one of those if you have any lying around.



In addition, Sif gifts spellbooks from ***** of piety. These books are often artifact books that are themed but Sif also gives most regular magic books too. The spells in the gifted books are weighted towards spells you haven't already been gifted and, given enough time, Sif will eventually give you every spell in the game. This, combined with the ability to forget spells, allows for some very flexible magic users.



Channel Magic is the only Sif ability that uses the Invocations skill. While I do ultimately train some by the end of the game, I don't rush to get there. In Sif's current form it's very hard to get and keep high levels of piety. One result of this is that you're unlikely to be in a position to spam Channel Magic and you probably don't want to use it too heavily until you've been gifted a spellset you're reasonably happy with.

Should I Switch Gods?

No.

I don't know why but new players seem to love the idea of switching their gods. My best guess is that they want to pick the ABSOLUTE BEST god for what they see as their character's plan. Then, when that plan changes slightly during the game, there's now a new ABSOLUTE BEST god for the updated plan.

In most cases, abandoning your god will result in your character being wrathed for a time that's relative to your XL (lower level = shorter wrath). Wrath is where the former god tries to kill you with the rage of a jilted ex-lover. If you're insane enough, it's possible to be under multiple god wraths at the same time. Each god displays their displeasure in a distinct way but it should suffice to know that the experience is never pleasant. If you do happen to be under penance (why didn't you listen?!), though, you can check the status with Ctrl + o. Any god who's angry with you is displayed in red.

I often hear newer players say they want to swap from Trog because he's no longer giving them anything useful. Firstly, that's almost certainly not true because Trog's Hand and Brothers in Arms remain useful for an entire 3-rune game. Secondly, it's not the right way to think about an arrangement which has become a kind of hostage situation. Even if you think Trog isn't directly contributing to your survival, he's doing so indirectly by promising not to kill you by dropping packs of berserking enemies on your head.

There are some exceptions to the blanket ban on god switching. If you're leaving one of the "good" gods (Zin, Elyvilion or the Shining One), they will only get angry if you later worship an "evil" god (Makhleb, Kikubaaqudgha (say that 3 times fast), Lugonu, Yredelemnul or Beogh). Zin will also wrath you if you leave him to join Jiyva or Xom because they're chaotic. It can be a legitimate tactic to temporarily join a good god from an early altar with the purpose of switching when you later find Temple. Further, the good gods will even transfer half your piety over if you change between them.

If you're doing a 15 rune game, it can make sense to switch to a god that excels in the extended game, usually Makhleb or the Shining One. When that switch happens, however, your character usually has at least 5 runes. That makes them strong enough to deal with god wrath most of the time (and even then, it's still extremely dangerous). If you're just after the minimum 3 runes required to win, there's almost no reason to ever switch your god.

Just don't do it. Please.

General Game Route

No two games are exactly the same but generally you want to follow roughly the same route:

Dungeon levels until 10 or 11

Lair of Beasts

Dungeon level 12

Orcish Mines

Dungeon levels 13-15

First Lair Rune Branch

Second Lair Rune Branch

Vaults levels 1-4

Elven Halls (optional)

Depths

3rd Rune

Zot 1-5

Early Dungeon

The early Dungeon is when your character is the most fragile and has the fewest tools to survive with. It's a matter of priority to identify your consumables and find a god to worship.

At this point you may as well pick up anything marginally useful you come across. Stones can be thrown at enemies to alert them of your presence (without having to walk right up to them) and to get some bonus damage before they get to you. Hunting slings are very common in the early game and are extremely powerful even with 0 training in the Slings skill. Don't bother with clubs: they are more an item to give monsters extra damage than one for players to use.

You should be aware that even regular, plain-looking items can be cursed. There is some danger in wielding, wearing or putting on ANY item that came from the floor without a spare scroll of remove curse to stop it being stuck to you. If you're reliant on your weapon to kill enemies, you probably shouldn't try new weapons unless you're willing to be stuck with it. Under NO circumstances should you ever wield the new hunting sling or blowgun you just found if you don't have any ammunition for it (stones or sling bullets for sling, needles for blowgun). Jewellery is particularly dangerous to put on without remove curse because there are harmful rings and amulets such as a cursed amulet of inaccuracy or a cursed ring of teleportation. You might gamble that the next remove curse scroll is just around the corner but I've had and wittnessed games where the first remove curse scroll wasn't found until the middle of Lair.

If you find multiples of a scroll in the first 3 levels of the Dungeon there's a good chance it's identify or remove curse because they are the most commonly generated. I like to read these multiples of scrolls on the next new floor while still standing on the stairs to find out what they are. In the event that you read a scroll of noise or teleportation, just go back upstairs. If you do find identify, start identifying your unknown potions with the largest stacks first. You really want to know potions of curing and they generate relatively commonly. Poison enemies are much less likely to kill you if you have a potion of curing at hand.

As the Temple will spawn somewhere on D4 to D7, I like to read all my unknown scrolls at the start of D4. If magic mapping is in the mix it could potentially reveal the Temple location. Some players prefer to hold their scrolls until they have at least 2 or they can use a scroll of identify on them. There's no right or wrong answer for this sort of thing but I'd prefer to have the extra information earlier.

You might also come across Portals as you make your way down. The game will announce the presence of these as you enter a level and, as you explore, will give you an indication of how close the entrance is. There's a timer before the entrance closes so don't spend too long resting if you intend to go in. I'd say that portals are generally worth at least looking inside because the early ones like Sewer or Ossuary can provide you with extra consumables. Don't hesitate to leave at the first sign of trouble.

Post-Temple / Pre-Lair

Once you have a god your goal is to start building piety. Staying alive is still the top priority, though, so don't shy away from using your god abilities.

Keep an eye out for a source of rPois because that will make the next few sections of the game much more survivable. Also keep an eye out for auxiliary armours you don't have covered yet (boots, cloaks, etc.)

The Lair of Beasts will spawn between D8 to D11. If you find an early Lair on D8 I wouldn't recommend you go in immediately because you'll be somewhat underleveled for some of the threats there. I usually clear D11 before Lair but, if you've found an earlier one and there's an extremely threatening unique on D10 or D11, there's no shame in leaving the Dungeon for now.

If an invisible enemy starts hitting you multiple times per turn it's almost certainly an unseen horror. They move and attack extremely quickly but their movement is random like a bat's. Most of the time an unseen horror won't follow you between floors but if you're far away from stairs or have low AC, you might want to teleport away.

Lair

Lair is a branch of 6 floors that's mostly filled with bloodthirsty critters. It's basically like being in Australia. Keep an eye out for fast, poisonous enemies (spiny frogs and black mambas) and for hydras.

Hydras spawn with up to 8 heads and each one has its own separate attack for 18 damage! It should go without saying that most characters shouldn't let a hydra have many attacks at them if any. Hydras also have a special mechanic where they heal and grow two heads for each one you chop off with a non-short blade, edged weapon. A weapon of flaming is able to chop off heads for good so, if you've got one in a type you're skilled with, keep it nearby. Otherwise, you can use some combination of wands, spells, god abilities and throwing projectiles to take them down. Note that while hydras move at normal speed on land, they move faster through water.

Lair spawns 2 entrances to rune branches between L2 and L4 and an entrance to the Slime Pits on L5 or L6. Don't go into any of these yet!

Lair 6 will have one large or several smaller ending vaults with a bit of loot. These make the floor significantly more dangerous than any of the proceeding ones so be careful. If the vaults are too challenging, leave. You can always come back later.

Orcish Mines / Finishing Dungeon

The Orcish Mines is a 2-floor branch which spawns between D9 to D12. You might need to clear another floor or so of the Dungeon to find its entrance. The place is mostly filled with orcs but very nasty enemies such as stone giants can spawn. This is a large part of why Lair is recommended before Orc. Be careful around orc sorcerers (who can paralyse) and high priests and remember that enemy summons can't follow you up stairs.

Orc has an abundance of gold and a bunch of shops in which to spend them. Keep an eye out for rPois if you still don't have it: the shops might deliver or an orc might have been wearing a magical armour with the rPois property. The layout of Orc often spawns disconnected sections so make sure you check all the stairs to explore everything.

Orc 2 houses an entrance to the Elven Halls.

After Orc, finish off the rest of the Dungeon's 15 floors. Be wary of the entrance to the Vaults which will spawn on D13 or D14 and which can have nasty monsters, and the entrance to Depths on D15.

Lair Rune Branches

The Lair branches or S branches (because they all start with the letter s) are the first places for you to collect some runes. They come in mutually exclusive pairs:

Swamp OR Shoals - loosely water themed

Snake Pit OR Spider's Nest - loosely poison themed

Lair branches are all 4 floors deep with a rune vault at the bottom. If you didn't already learn during Lair and Orc that the bottom floor of a branch is significantly more dangerous than the proceeding floors, you're going to learn it now.

In terms of difficulty, Snake and Spider are similar but Swamp and Shoals vary quite a bit. For most characters Swamp is the easiest S branch while Shoals is the most difficult. If you rolled Swamp, do it first then Spider/Snake. Otherwise do Spider/Snake first then Shoals.

rPois makes Swamp, Spider and Snake much more survivable. Magic Resistance is extremely useful in Shoals to prevent mesmerisation. If one branch is proving too difficult, you can always go try the other one. Some players prefer to do 3 floors of the first branch then 3 floors of the other, saving the rune floors for last. As long as you end up getting 1 of the runes from these 2 lair branches before Vaults, you can save the rest for later.

Vaults 1-4

Vaults has a runelock so you need to have at least one rune to enter. Note that at this point in the run you're ONLY doing the first 4 floors of Vaults. DO NOT ENTER VAULTS 5. That floor is a rune area and shouldn't be attempted until later.

Elemental damage is much more common in Vaults than it has been in the game so far and you're likely going to see fire and frost giants along with fire and ice dragons. MR is also very important because of paralysis enemies and vault sentinels who can alert monsters on the floor to your position by marking you. Watch out for ironbrand convokers who can call in monsters from other parts of the level and vault wardens who can lock doors and stairs to keep you trapped in place. Teleporting is a solid strategy against both.

An entrance into the Crypt is present on Vaults 1 or 2. I generally don't recommend you go in there during a 3-rune game due to some very scary enemies such as curse skulls, ancient liches and greater mummies.

Elven Halls (Optional)

Elf is a 3-floored, optional branch which doesn't have a rune. I tend to do it on almost every single one of my characters and I do recommend that you at least visit the first 2 levels because there are often shops which generate. If you want do Elf, don't come in unless you have at least MR+++ (to avoid being banished to the Abyss) and ~120 HP (annihilators can do up to 102 damage with a single cast of Crystal Spear).

The end vault on Elf 3 tends to have high-quality loot but it's guarded by many dangerous deep elves. The main thing to know is that each of the high-level elves is like a glass cannon: they are capable of gruesome amounts of damage very quickly but they are fragile. As such, you should avoid engaging mu