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This is a page about a playable character race. For other uses, see Dwarf .]].


Dwarves are a playable race in ADOM.

Manual Info

Dwarves are a small, hardy and taciturn race. They barely grow to be four and a half feet. Their body is stocky and their endurance is legendary. Dwarves are especially proud of their long beards and their great craftsmanship with metals. The dwarven race has spawned the greatest of all smiths. Their skill in forging weapons and armor is unsurpassed, as is their greed for gold. They are able warriors, brave to a fault, have an excellent sight in the underground and are experts at detecting secret doors and traps.

Gameplay Effects

Skills

Dwarves train in Climbing, Detect traps, Metallurgy, Mining and Smithing.

Of these skills, Detect Traps is of most use to PCs whose class does not offer it — as traps that are detected are much easier to avoid. Mining is also useful for harvesting gems, and reducing risk of pickaxes breaking for such PCs that depend on them for digging. Whilst Dwarves are the only race to practise Smithing, it can be learned by all PCs within the game anyway; many players might not even bother with it due to how difficult the skill is to use.

Attributes

Dwarves are usually strong and very tough. Their other stats are not tilted heavily in either direction; typically their Learning and Willpower is slightly above average, but their Dexterity is slightly below average. While they aren't excellent at archery or learning spells, they aren't bad either.

Starting Equipment

Dwarves tend to be well equipped, with many classes starting with a full set of metal and/or leather armor. Dwarven Paladins are notable for being very heavily armored, with a minimum starting PV of 10 or 11 and a maximum starting PV of 26 (depending on the luck of the dice). They favor axes as their starting weapon, and archers start with an impressive heavy crossbow as their missile weapon of choice.

Lifespan

Dwarves start out at 55-70 (50 + 5d4) years old and die at 410-500 (400 + 10d10) years old. Thus, their long lifespans mean that they have huge deal of protection against unnatural aging.

Power Point and Hit Point Regeneration Rate

Dwarves have slightly higher than average HP regeneration rates, but very slow PP regeneration. This poses considerable concern for Dwarves using spells, or particularly mindcraft since at least magic can be cast from HP (which dwarves tend to have quite a lot of) in emergencies.

Relations with Other Races

Dwarves' law-abiding but haughty nature attracts a small number of friends — and a lot of enemies — in Ancardia. Their friends are fellow Dwarves, Gnomes and Hurthlings — with which races they do great trading deals with. Their nemesis is the Orcish race — Dwarves and Orcs both do very harsh trading deals with each other. High Elven and Grey Elven shopkeepers are prejudiced against Dwarves, whilst Dwarves themselves are extremely prejudiced against Dark Elves.

Alignment

Dwarves start off Lawful, though Class can affect this.

Eating habits

Dwarves are the fussiest eaters in ADOM. Like most other races, they vomit after eating rats, fat worms and cooked roaches, and refuse to eat doppelgangers unless starving. Being a racial enemy, they may not eat orcs of any kind unless starving (the message "No self-respecting dwarf would do that!" is usually generated when trying to eat an orc). They also refuse to eat fellow dwarves unless they are starving.

Other gameplay effects

  • Mithril skin: Only Dwarves can get the talent 'Mithril Skin', which permanently adds 3 to their PV score. This is the only talent in the game with a racial requirement.
  • Dungeon sight: Dwarves tend to find secret doors and tunnels quicker than other races.
  • Racial crowning gift: Dwarves may be crowned with Hammerhead instead of the usual crowning gifts for their class.
  • Extra piety from sacrificing gold: Dwarven gods especially prize gold. This, combined with a guaranteed dwarf shopkeeper, means that Dwarves may accumulate piety much faster than other races through selling items and sacrificing gold.
  • A few other small gameplay effects also apply for Dwarves, such as being able to read the runes on Griff Bloodax's grave. It is rumored that Dwarves also have a better chance than other races of obtaining the artifact Rolf's Saviour.

Suggested Classes

Dwarves are typically strong and tough and thus are suited to fighting classes such as Fighters, Paladins, Monks and Barbarians. They are a very popular choice for Weaponsmiths, due to their natural smithing talents. While they do not possess great magical talents, their mental and magical stats are much better than those of Orcs and Trolls, which, balanced with their good physical stats, makes Dwarven mages potent at balancing both average magical abilities with (at least) average chances of survival.

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