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[Hiant]

I have a bit of a tale to tell, so,

First: I am currently playing the unstable version of Crawl (version: 0.8.0-a0-2564), which introduces a new god and a new race! The new race, known as Felids, are essentially 'awakened' cats, and have terrible strength, and are unable to wear any armor, or wield weapons. The only two things they have going for them are speed (less then that of a Spriggan) and the fact that they accrue lives with levels. When you die as a Felid, and you have a spare life, you respawn in a safe portion of the level at full health, satiated, and with all your items, but no mutations.

Secondly: If you chose to play as a Felid, ignore the recommendation about chaos knights and beserkers. Playing as a Felid with a slow metabolism and gods that rely on corpses is really a bonus that far outweighs the useless weapons skills.

Thirdly: Make it a priority to get two simple things: Learn Confusing Touch, and get yourself a ring of Regeneration. These two things have seen my current Felid Chaos Knight through the swamp and onto D:9.

[Mr.Person]

I was under the impression Felids were stealthy and had claws to do extra melee damage.

[Hiant]

I was under the impression Felids were stealthy and had claws to do extra melee damage.

Yes, but the usefulness of these abilities are highly overrated. Most enemies wont notice you immediately, but it does not help in the slightest with the ork mobs etc.

[Frumple]

That, and claws have really, really, really, crappy synergy with stealth. The biggest damage boost from stealth is via stabbing, and unarmed attacks -- which include swiping critters with claws -- are in the category getting the lowest stab modifier. So high stealth + stuck with unarmed attacks = not exactly a benefit. It's not a penalty (well, the stealth isn't. Not being able to switch to a weapon for certain things most certainly is.) per se, but there's not much gain involved.

And really... Felids don't, actually, have that impressive of a stealth aptitude, unless it's changed from 0.8.0something. It's +2 according to th'game's aptitude doc file. Deep dwarves have that -- deep elves, too. There's five other species that top it: Kobolds, Halflings, Naga, Vampires, and Spriggans. Notice the proverbial 500 lbs gorilla in that list. Hint: It starts with an S. They've got the size thing going for them, which boosts stealth a bit, but... again, Spriggans.

Felids... felids really aren't a very 'good' race.  Their penalties are absolutely atrocious and most of their bonuses don't really synergize all that well. They can manage a few things alright... but so can mummies. Yeah. Yeeaaahh.

[Hiant]

Ah, but Felids do have a couple three two advantages that makes them worth playing.

• The multiple lives. They are actually useful, if you survive long enough to earn a few.
• The slow digestion. This is a critical point, because once you find a ring of regeneration and learn haste and/or berserk, its smooth sailing for a while.

Also, I finally lost my current Felid Chaos Knight of Xom to the Orkish Mines, but I have one thing to say.
Confusing Touch + Trolls = Hilarity
It actually killed three orks before BITING ITSELF TO DEATH. I didn't even have to hit it.

[Strange guy]

# The slow digestion. This is a critical point, because once you find a ring of regeneration and learn haste and/or berserk, its smooth sailing for a while.

Spriggans have slow digestion, and I believe halflings do too while kobolds have meat eating advantages. All of which are as good at stealth, but with the big bonus of using daggers.

Multiple lives does sound interesting though, if a bit gimmicky. Not sure if it makes up for no weapon/armour though.

[cganya]

# The slow digestion. This is a critical point, because once you find a ring of regeneration and learn haste and/or berserk, its smooth sailing for a while.

Spriggans have slow digestion, and I believe halflings do too while kobolds have meat eating advantages. All of which are as good at stealth, but with the big bonus of using daggers.

Multiple lives does sound interesting though, if a bit gimmicky. Not sure if it makes up for no weapon/armour though.

felids actually combine slow metabolism with carnivore so you can eat flesh like crazy then it will last a long time

[Frumple]

THe food thing isn't really impressive, unfortunately. We've already seen that an easy food game does not a competitive species make. We've got mummies to display that quite clearly. That being said, the roof rabbits do have the second easiest food game of all the species, for all the good it does them.

I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but the extra lives thing strikes me as a bit odious as racial abilities go. It's the only one I can think of off the top of my head that rewards careless play. That's something that's terribly out of place in Crawl's design schema -- and beyond that, it's just not terribly interesting. I'unno 'bout you folks, but a heal and a teleport a few times when you play poorly enough to get killed just doesn't do much for me. It's certainly not worth the lack of equipment.

[Leafsnail]

It doesn't reward careless play... it just compensates for a bit of it.

[Mr.Person]

In the future, you'll be able to stab effectively with more than just short blades.

[Dr.Feelgood]

Felids are fun. I did a suicide charge against a tough monster in the early game to weaken it and heal my horribly rotted HP. And I mindlessly clawed my way through the Lair, despite the hydras nearly killing me.

The only times during my playthrough that I played cautiously was when I ran out of spare lives. At the end of the game my cat statue was killing everything in Zot with supreme ease and had no fear of death. It was hilarious.

[Leafsnail]

Hmm... actually, that's an interesting point.  Does dying cure all rotting and mutations?

[betamin]

Holy fucking shit.


I just had my first win! Hahahahaha!


It was an INSANELY lucky game. For starters I was a MDFi, but found a trog altar on D:2 that allowed me to survive thanks to the berserk, then I had a D:10 lair, on L:2 there was the best unrandart armour in the game (the dragon king one) and on L:8 there was the +10 "Maxwell's patent armour" which I didn't really use but I guess it was good for a laugh, I got 2 randart rings, 1 randart helmet, 1 randart amulet (of +MR, which ment being extraordinaly resistant to magic), a +8 ax of holy wrath, a +8 broad ax of electrocution, and I can't even remember what else but most of it I got it on the early game.

 Up to that point I was thinking I had a shot at winning but I couldn't find rElec or rN+++ anywhere. So I thought zot 1-4 should be cool to level my last 2 or 3 levels, which it was but didn't really count on the storm dragons fucking me up with their bouncy rays+elec golems. So the fights were getting really hard (also because of the shadow dragons) and I was eating through my resources when suddenly I step on a zot trap on a narrow corridor. Ok, no harm done, except it was a dead end corridor. So I had to step on it again and Bam! Yellow glow. I was like "durr what this do, w/e I better wait it out" and it gave me the rElec mutation, the slow digestion one and the antenas on the head one! God damn I guess Xom really wanted me to win. Zot:5 was a breeze, I was meleeing 3 Orb guardians at the same time no problem, I saw an ancient lich and just zerked him before blocking his crystal spear with my shield (!). The only problem I had was after grabbing the orb I tried to teleport control but ended up on the other side of the vault completly surrounded by ancient lich with his groupies, I missed a heartbeat and just tried teleporting again which landed me surrounded in the upper part of the vault! Third time was the charm and everything was smooth sailing from there.

So is this the best game ever or what. I think no other game can give me the adrenaline rush I had on some close calls, it was fun as hell. I don't know how to post the dump I did just before going up D:1, does anyone knows?

[G-Flex]

So I had to step on it again and Bam! Yellow glow. I was like "durr what this do, w/e I better wait it out" and it gave me the rElec mutation, the slow digestion one and the antenas on the head one!

I have no words for you right now, sir. Bastard.

[betamin]

I know, it just blew my face since im reading the wiki and said you only have a 20% chance of the mutations being RANDOM, not even good (thats 80% chance of them being bad). I even had a resist mutation necklace but I guess im such a awesome player that I made the right choice through my using of logic and careful statistic calculation