Armataur

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The Armataurs are a large, scaled mammalian species, walking on four feet and swinging a powerful tail behind them. Their elephant-back armies terrorize the lands outside the Dungeon. Armataurs instinctively roll when moving toward foes, getting a free move and regenerating magic. They have great aptitudes with armour and shields, though their body shape reduces the protection offered by body armour early on. At higher levels they also regenerate both health and magic when rolling, making them truly resilient.

Innate Abilities

• Armataurs are a hybrid species, with a humanoid torso atop a larger body.
  • Deformed: Armataurs get only half of the armour's base AC.
  • Armataurs get an EV and Dodging penalty, due to their size.
  • Armataurs cannot wear boots, but may equip bardings.
  • Armataurs are large enough to attack and move normally while standing in shallow water.
• Tough Skin 3: Armataurs are covered in tough skin (AC +3).
• Rollpage 1: Armataurs have innate rampaging - when moving in a straight line towards an enemy, they get a free move.
  • Also, after rampaging, Aramtaurs recover MP more quickly. See below for details.
• Armoured Tail: Armataurs have armoured tails that they may use to make especially damaging tail-slap auxiliary attacks.

Armataurs have a base Strength of 13, Intelligence of 8, and Dexterity of 5 (before background modifiers).

Heal on Rampage

When making a rampage move, a "heal duration" is set to 3-6 turns. This duration does not "stack"; if you rampage multiple times, the heal duration is reset back to 3-6 turns (if it would be higher than the current duration).

While this heal duration lasts, your MP regeneration is increased by (turns_remaining + 1) * 0.33 MP/turn.

Once you reach XL 7, you'll also recover HP faster. Your HP regeneration equals (turns_remaining + 1) * 0.65 HP/turn.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter
• Zealots: Berserker
• Warrior-Mages: Warper
• Mages: Hedge Wizard

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength, intelligence, or dexterity (equal chance) every 4th level.
• 10% more HP than average.
• +3 willpower per level.
• At XL 7, rampaging will recover your HP in addition to MP (Rollpage 2).

Starting Skills and Equipment

Armataurs start with the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Armataurs are a somewhat easy species to play. They have low EV and slightly below average aptitudes, but have high HP and a neat rampaging bonus. In general, Armataurs are well suited for both melee and magic play.

Armataurs may have reduced AC from Deformed, but their natural skin, bardings, and aforementioned HP help make up for that. If you are wearing scale mail or lower, Armataur's Tough Skin bonus cancels out the negatives from Deformed. Even with plate armour, the net AC loss is quite small (only -2 AC total).

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	-1	Armour	3	Spellcasting	-2
		Dodging	-3
Maces & Flails	-1	Shields	1	Conjurations	-1
Axes	-2	Stealth	2	Hexes	-1
Polearms	-2			Summonings	-2
Staves	-1	Invocations	0	Necromancy	-2
Unarmed Combat	-1	Evocations	0	Forgecraft	-2
Throwing	-1	Shapeshifting	-2	Translocations	0
				Alchemy	-1
Short Blades	-1			Fire Magic	-1
Long Blades	-1			Ice Magic	-1
Ranged Weapons	-3			Air Magic	-1
		Experience	-1	Earth Magic	-1

Strategy

Watch out for rampaging - if you aren't paying attention, you may move further than intended. For example, you might zip past the stairs if a monster is in front of it. If you want to get to a specific tile, you might be able to zigzag diagonally to get there.

History

• In 0.31, Armataurs were reworked. Prior to this version:
  • Armataurs had Long Tongue (doubled potion effects) and Awkward Tongue (scrolls took 50% longer to read). Note that doubled potion effects had a few special cases cases: for example, the potion of might only doubled the duration, not doubled the damage from might. Also, the potion's duration was still capped at 80 turns, so it was often less than "double" duration in practice. See this revision for details.
  • Armataurs did not recover HP or MP when rampaging.
  • Armataurs had Rugged Brown Scales 3 (+3 AC, +7% HP) instead of Tough Skin 3.
• Armataurs were introduced in 0.30, replacing the Palentonga species.