Centaur (starting race)

The centaur is a playable race that appears in EvilHack. Like monster centaurs, they are strong, fast and proficient in archery.

Centaurs can be neutral or chaotic, and can be played as a Barbarian, Healer, Infidel, Knight, Monk, Priest, Ranger, or Valkyrie.

Racial benefits and restrictions

Centaurs are among the physically stronger player races, and have higher hit point increases per experience level gained in comparison to humans. They start with intrinsic speed, and gain jumping at experience level five and warning at level 10; this type of jumping is similar to the extrinsic from wearing jumping boots, and is distinct from the jumping used by Knights.

While not as strong as giants, centaurs share their increased carrying capacity as a result of their half-equine build - however, this also prevents them from wearing any boots or riding steeds. The intrinsics they gain and the wider variety of armor available in the game can compensate for this, thankfully. Centaurs know the identities of all bow and crossbow weapons and their projectiles automatically, and get a multishot bonus with either type.

Attribute caps

Character Race	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
Centaur	20	20	18	12	14	16

Despite their strength, centaurs are much more lacking in mental stats in comparison to other playable species, due to their wild nature.

Strategy

While specific strategies and play styles will vary by player class, early game centaurs should be played somewhat cautiously until you have armor and weapons sufficient to take on early-to-mid game threats. You can utilize intrinsic speed to execute hit-and-run attacks on stronger monsters as necessary, and consider building up a stockpile of daggers or other ranged weapons for use with intrinsic jumping acquired after experience level five is reached. The high carrying capacity of centaurs help make this approach viable until a suitable bag of holding can be found, particularly if you decide to find or forge a supply of daggers to avoid dealing with breakable darts or arrows. Classes with multishot bonuses should attempt to train the associated weapons and leverage them as much as possible.

Once you acquire intrinsic jumping, you should attempt to local a permanent light source. With a permanent light source, such as an uncursed or blessed magic lamp or gold dragon scales, you will be able to jump throughout any explored locations to avoid dangers, even particularly fast ones. Alternatively, a cursed magic lamp with shadow dragons scales that provide ultravision to see in the dark can be a workable alternative.

Additionally, a good weapon will become necessary around the mid game, as stronger monsters in larger volumes will make it difficult to rely solely on ranged attacks. Quest artifacts for certain classes, such as ranger, may be a particularly good fit with a centaur's speed and jumping ability.

Centaurs, with their low maximum intelligence of 12, are not very good spell casters. However, a highly enchanted helm of brilliance (such as might be dropped by the occasionally spawning player monsters that appear in the mid-to-lower dungeons levels) can substantially mitigate this problem for a centaur with a maximized intelligence stat. If intelligence can sufficiently be raised, having certain spells, such as magic missile, extra healing, sleep, repair armor, and stone to flesh might particularly be worth trying to learn. Upper level spells may be out of reach unless playing a class that has a particular school of magic that can be enhanced.

History

The centaur was first added in version 0.1.2, with additional adjustments to armor choices for both them and "monster" centaurs.

In version 0.4.2, a bug that still displayed the riding skill in the menu of the #enhance extended command for centaurs was removed.

Version 0.6.0 fixes issues with player centaurs and kicking.

Version 0.7.0 includes various fixes related to player centaurs and their player monster equivalents:

• A chokepoint on the goal level of the Ranger quest that would otherwise be impassable for centaur Rangers was removed.
• Centaurian player monster gear is adjusted, and centaurs in general had their monster starting inventory adjusted to avoid generating them with armor they could not use.
• In previous versions, centaur Monks would use the random additional kick against any monster - as they cannot wear boots, this posed a significant and randomized risk of instadeath in various situations, e.g. from kicking a cockatrice. As of this version, the random kick attack will no longer fire against cockatrices and other similar monsters.
• Centaur kick attacks were buffed to be stronger than those of other player races.

Version 0.7.1 added centaur Knights and their player monster equivalents.