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As complex and deep a game asCaves Of Qudmay be, character creation is actually fairly quick and painless. Make a few selections, assign your stat points, and you’re good to go. The challenge lies in knowing what all those choices mean and how they’ll affect your run.
Like most RPGs, Caves Of Qud is the kind of game where the right character build can make all the difference to your survival. Considering how lethal the game is in general, it pays to make choices that fit your playstyle and come together to form a competent character.
Should You Play A Mutated Human Or A True Kin?
Your first choice when creating a new character iswhether you want to play a Mutated Human or a True Kin.This decision affects everything else that follows, from your initial abilities to how you’ll level up and become more powerful.
Of the two,Mutated Humans are a better choice for new playersas they tend to have an easier time staying alive early in the game.
Calling And Caste
Once you’ve selected your Genotype, you’ll be given a selection of classes to pick from. Mutants get Callings, and True Kin get Castes, but they function the same way. Each gives you aslight modification to your starting stats, as well as a few basic skills and usually some faction reputation modifiers.
Starts with a random assortment of junk.
Dodge-based melee fighter.
Use Scavenger to find usable parts for Tinkering when moving over trash.
Calloused
+100 reputation with bears (yes, the animal).
Willpower improves mental fortitude; put points into Toughness to increase physical defense as well.
Increasing Ego allows Berate to be effective at debuffing enemies and using Mental Mutations.
+200 reputation with Mysterious Strangers.
Excellent ranged fighter.
Akimbo allows firing two pistols at once; keep an eye on your ammo reserves.
Have a melee weapon or an escape option for when enemies get close.
Armor-piercing melee fighter.
Butchery allows you to get meat from animal corpses.
Take the Carnivorous mutation for some free points, since you shouldn’t have any trouble getting meat to eat.
Good at resisting and recovering from status effects.
Requires less food and can meditate to heal faster.
Resistant to temperature effects (both hot and cold).
2 random Wilderness Lores
Starts with a random assortment of scrap.
Good at fixing broken technology.
Makes heavy use of grenades, including turning them into mines or time bombs.
Starts with an assortment of trade goods to sell.
High Ego gets better deals when trading.
Use Mental Mutations like Beguiling to get NPCs to like you more and recruit followers.
Short Blades use Agility, so focus on that and use Dodge to stay alive in combat.
Put points into Strength and Agility to augment combat skills.
Can use Menacing Stare and Intimidate to frighten enemies away.
Resistant to both poison and terror.
Wilderness Lore: Jungle
+2 to resist bleeding.
More likely to make multiple attacks with a weapon in each hand.
Focus on Short Blades and Pistols.
Tinker 1 & 2
+15 to resist cold.
Turret-based ranged fighter that can turn any held firearm into a turret.
Requires a lot of scavenging for parts and constant tinkering.
Proselytize
Focused entirely on recruiting NPC followers and inspiring them to fight for you.
Dedicated combat cyborg.
Long Blades use a combination of Strength and Agility, so put points into both.
Combined melee and ranged fighter.
Focus on Dodge for defense.
Hobble and Tactics make it easier to escape from a dangerous situation.
Child of the Hearth
+15 to resist heat.
Hard-hitting melee fighter.
Put points into Toughness and look for opportunities to increase your Armor Value.
Uses dazes and pushes to control the flow of battle.
Child of the Wheel
Iron Mind
Wield an axe in one hand and a short blade in the other to penetrate enemy armor and inflict bleeding in a single attack.
Child of the Deep
Hard-hitting, highly-survivable melee character.
Tank means you don’t have to be slow if you want to build for speed as well.
High resistance to mental effects.
Put points into Ego and learn Proselytize to gain NPC followers.
Assigning Attribute Points
Your character has six Attributes in Caves Of Qud;Strength, Agility, Toughness, Intelligence, Willpower, and Ego. Each starts at 10, and you can put extra points into them to determine your character’s initial abilities.
Mutants get44 stat pointsto distribute, while True Kin get38. However, True Kin get larger bonuses from their Caste than Mutants do from their Calling.
You can assign your Attribute points however you like.However,raising a stat above 18 costs two points rather than just one.
What Does Each Attribute Do?
Knowing which stats to prioritize for your character is critical to success in Caves Of Qud. Not only do they impact how your character interacts with the world, butmost skills have a minimum stat requirement to unlock.
Increases weapon accuracy (both melee and ranged).
Increases poison and disease resistance.
Endurance
Intelligence
Increases the number of skill points earned each time you level up.
Persuasion
What Is Attribute Rank?
Your Attribute Rank is a smaller number below the main stat, often used as a modifier to die rolls in game. If you’ve playedD&D,Pathfinder,orBaldur’s Gate, it works in much the same way as Ability Score Modifiers.
Each Attribute’s Rank is equal tohalf the base score (rounded down), minus eight.This means that a score of 16 will give you a rank of zero, and hence no bonus or penalty, and every two points up or down from there will increase or decrease the rank by one, respectively.
you may usually get away with having one or two stats with a rank of -1 at the start, giving you more points to put into the Attributes that really matter. Be sure to plan ahead and make sure you aren’t locking yourself out of a critical skill, though! You don’t want to be a Carnivore without the required Intelligence 15 for Butchery, for example.
Mutations And Cybernetics
The last step is to choose your character’s Mutations (if they’re a Mutated Human) or select a Cybernetic (if they’re a True Kin).
Mutations
Mutations allow ahuge degree of customizationfor your character. you may mix and match Physical and Mental Mutations, or you can choose theChimeraorEsperMutations, respectively, to focus solely on one or the other.
You get12 points to spend on Mutations.The more powerful a Mutation is, the more points it costs. You can also chooseDrawback Mutations, which impose disadvantages,to earn more points to spend on beneficial ones.
When in doubt,take Night Vision.It’s only one point and it lets you see in the dark without a torch!
Cybernetics
True Kin characters get tochoose a single Cyberneticfrom the list presented at character creation. There are more to find throughout the game, but you’ll have to explore ruins and other locations to find and install them.
Cybernetics work like equipment, albeit a very rare and specialized kind; you can see your installed Cybernetics in your inventory bypressing Ctrl+Tab, and pressing it again to switch back to normal gear.
Once you’ve made all your selections, enter a name, give your finished charater a once-over, and pick which biome you’d like to start in - the Caves Of Qud await.
