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The game will tell you the probability of success on almost all actions that involve random chance, and the player can examine any enemy to see what they can do in a fight and take appropriate precautions. In theory, a player who knows the game inside and out should still have no significant advantage over a new player - success should instead rely entirely on tactical skill.
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Being killed without warning is almost unheard of - the game will always warn you if you're about to do something that may have adverse consequences. anti-frustration: Crawl tries to make cheap shots as rare as possible.(There's still a lot of dungeon, so you'll never be lacking in places to get experience - the question is whether you'll survive the attempt.) Skill grinding is also impossible for the same reason, as your skill points come directly from your experience - you can't improve your skills without challenging and defeating monsters. anti-grinding: The only way to gain experience in Crawl is to defeat enemies, and there is only a limited number of enemies per dungeon floor.This is a reversal of the class-based gameplay in most other roguelikes. Race, on the other hand, makes a huge difference in what a player can do: a vampire plays very differently to a minotaur, for example.
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It's possible for a player to change their character's role entirely over the course of a game. emphasis on race over class: character classes in Crawl are little more than a starting package of skills and equipment.emphasis on playstyle: The game tries to accommodate many different styles of play, which is one reason why the game has such a huge roster of races, classes, and gods - and also why this roster changes with each new version, as the dev team tries out new ideas and discards flawed ones.
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