Class selection is the dungeon process that converts a crawler’s previous conduct into a formal combat and progression role. It first becomes available during the transition to the Third Floor, alongside but separately from race selection. A class can impose minimum attributes, grant skills and spells, accelerate particular kinds of training, penalize incompatible tactics, open restricted locations or facilities, and require a later specialization. The available menu is personal: race, attributes, achievements, equipment, affiliations, audience size, and skills acquired on the first two floors can all expand or restrict it. For the paired process that also covers racial changes, see Race and Class Selection.
The Third Floor selection
The system announces midway through the Second Floor that game guides may begin explaining the approaching race-and-class process. The announcement matters because crawlers do not enter a common, standardized profession list. Their actions before reaching the Third Floor have already created prerequisites and exclusions, and a guide can help identify consequences that the brief class descriptions do not make obvious. Mordecai explains that the class’s minimum attributes will be filled automatically from a crawler’s unspent points. Any points left after those requirements are met may be distributed normally, although Donut’s Enhanced Growth benefit prevents her from assigning her own attributes in the usual way.
For Carl and Donut, the initial selection takes place inside Mordecai’s guild room immediately after they descend. The broadcast audience can see them enter and leave but cannot watch the deliberation. The interface displays every available choice in alphabetical order, supplies detailed descriptions, and separately offers three recommendations from the system AI. A choice is not complete until the crawler confirms it. Any physical transformation resulting from race selection is delayed until the entire process is finished, but the class portion immediately establishes the crawler’s new progression path.
The size of the menu demonstrates how individualized the system is. Donut receives only thirty-four class choices. Mordecai attributes the short list to the combination of her chosen cat race, her attributes—especially her low base constitution—her tiara, and the Desperado Club pass shared by her and Carl. The pass removes classes incompatible with the club, including cleric and paladin paths. Carl, after choosing Primal as his race, receives more than 650 class choices, though the same Desperado affiliation also excludes cleric, paladin, and some monk options. His Primal choice is relevant because it unlocks several Earth-based classes while leaving his appearance unchanged.
The system’s recommendations are not neutral beginner archetypes. They recognize thresholds the crawler has already crossed. Achievements, trained skills, and viewing figures unlock rare classes that would otherwise never appear. This lets class selection reward a successful style of play, but it can also lock the crawler more deeply into that style. A powerful selection may demand high attributes in areas the crawler had not planned to develop or impose penalties on other weapons and spells.
Donut’s choice and the Character Actor path
Donut’s three recommended classes are Artist Alley Mogul, NecroBard, and Former Child Actor. Artist Alley Mogul is a defensive merchant class with Dexterity, Dodge, Pathfinder, shop discounts, and increased income from sales. NecroBard combines entertainment with necromancy, offering an entertainment specialty, several spells, broad club access, saferoom lodging, and bonuses to Constitution, Charisma, and Intelligence at the cost of reduced Strength and increased mana costs outside its favored magic. Both demonstrate that a class can change far more than combat damage: navigation, commerce, lodging, and social access are all part of the build.
Former Child Actor is the least conventional recommendation. It is restricted to crawlers who have earned the Cut! achievement and reached at least one trillion views. Donut qualifies because of her performance in deceiving the goblin shamankas and her enormous audience. The class grants immunity to poison and disease, a high starting Cockroach skill that can preserve her through a lethal attack, a major Charisma increase, faster growth in Charisma-based skills, and the Manager benefit. It also supplies the Character Actor skill, which allows her to adopt a new temporary specialty on each later floor. The AI determines which abilities from that specialty she actually receives, so the class exchanges certainty for exceptional flexibility.
Carl and Mordecai favor Artist Alley Mogul as the safer, more predictable selection. Donut instead pretends to accept their advice and confirms Former Child Actor, using Artist Alley Mogul as her Third Floor specialty. The imitation does not provide every advertised merchant benefit: she does not receive its shield, Pathfinder ability, or full buying discount. She does receive a sales bonus, which later helps the party turn looted weapons and other goods into a substantial shared fund. The result illustrates a central limitation of Character Actor. Donut can adapt her role to a floor, but the imitation is incomplete and partly controlled by the AI.
The Manager benefit makes the choice affect another person as well. Mordecai becomes Donut’s manager and thereafter teleports to any saferoom she occupies. He had expected to transfer into a magic guild after the selection; Donut’s class permanently changes that arrangement and binds him more closely to the party. Class selection can therefore establish obligations and access rules that extend beyond the crawler’s statistics.
Character Actor turns class selection into a recurring event for Donut. On entering the Fourth Floor, she has six minutes to choose a new specialty before the system assigns one at random. With the Iron Tangle’s enclosed trains in mind, Mordecai recommends Football Hooligan over Firecracker. Donut receives its Constitution increase and Mascot skill, which benefits Mongo, but misses other listed abilities such as Group Chant and Moving Riot. Her permanent skills remain, while any penalties belonging to an adopted class can apply for that floor. The class grows when she descends, improving the odds and quality of the temporary abilities it supplies.
By the Sixth Floor, that investment has become much more powerful. Donut has previously used Glass Cannon to strengthen several spells and preserve improved versions through practice. She then adopts Legendary Diva, a bard class whose songs cast spells. Mordecai reports that Character Actor has reached level six and now supplies the starting Legendary Diva package along with some upgraded abilities. Donut is also offered the chance to make one of her previous specialties permanent during the Sixth Floor upgrade, but follows Mordecai’s advice and keeps Former Child Actor. Her progression shows that a class selected on the Third Floor can govern how every later floor’s role is chosen.
Carl’s Compensated Anarchist build
The AI recommends Bomb Squad Tech, Prizefighter, and Compensated Anarchist for Carl. Each grows out of behavior already visible during the first two floors. Bomb Squad Tech requires the Boom! achievement and strongly favors explosives, with improved bomb skills, safer explosive handling, better armor, and limb regeneration. Prizefighter requires trained Pugilism and concentrates on direct unarmed combat. Carl rejects both because neither covers the combination of explosives, traps, close fighting, and navigation he expects to need.
Compensated Anarchist is available only to a crawler who has reached level five in Explosives Handling and accumulated at least 500 billion views before the Third Floor. It is a Monk/Rogue hybrid built around sabotage, trap construction, bombs, unarmed combat, stealth, and public attention. It raises Carl’s Bomb Surgeon, Trap Engineer, Unarmed Combat, Hide in Shadows, Find Trap, Backfire, and Escape Plan skills; gives him Fear; accelerates bomb- and trap-related training; and adds Intelligence and Charisma. In exchange, it reduces damage with bladed weapons and makes damage-dealing spells more expensive. It also provides Desperado Club access, access to the still-mysterious Naughty Boys Employment Agency, and a Silver Earth Box.
The class’s benefits contain hidden practical uses. Backfire lets Carl dismantle a trap and reuse valuable components. Bomb Surgeon allows him to divide or deconstruct explosives more safely and precisely. Escape Plan reveals concealed doors and gives access to hidden dungeon locators placed at major intersections for intelligent wandering monsters. These locators offer general directions toward exits, settlements, bosses, and other important destinations. Carl soon uses one to confirm the route to a skyfowl settlement, and the same skill later reveals concealed system marks and text that other crawlers cannot see.
The selection also exacts an immediate price. Compensated Anarchist requires a base Charisma of twenty-five and Dexterity of ten. Carl has thirty-six points available, but seventeen must go to Charisma even after the class bonus and six more must go to Dexterity. More than half of his pool is therefore committed before he can reinforce Strength, Constitution, or Intelligence. Mordecai warns that the build will require sustained training, rapid leveling, and substantial money. Carl chooses it because its broad toolkit complements a small party better than the more focused alternatives, accepting weaker conventional weapons and a slower start in exchange for long-term versatility.
Earth classes and secondary rewards
Earth classes package familiar Earth occupations and subcultures into dungeon roles, but their rewards are not merely cosmetic. Carl and Donut each receive a Silver Earth Box after selecting one. Their boxes include Earth Hobby Potions mandated under the Indigenous Species Protection Act for crawlers whose classes fall into the system’s domestic category. The potions grant a random level-three skill based on an Earth hobby and cannot be sold or transferred.
The apparent joke rewards later become useful. Carl receives Cesta Punta, knowledge associated with jai alai, which eventually helps him understand and handle a cesta-like object. Donut receives scutelliphily, the collecting of patches and badges; much later, that knowledge lets her recognize construction details in a patch. Katia’s Monster Truck Driver class likewise gives her a Gear Head knowledge base through her hobby potion. Although she had been an art teacher rather than a mechanic, the acquired expertise lets her dismantle engines and plan new vehicles. These cases show how class-linked rewards can seed capabilities whose relevance is deliberately delayed.
Sixth Floor specialization
The Sixth Floor introduces a second formal class-selection stage. Every crawler passes through a large staging arena and an individual booth, even if the crawler’s existing class has no specialization available. The booth allows ten minutes, blocks chat during the decision, and assigns a random option if the crawler fails to choose. The form of the upgrade depends on the original class. Katia keeps the Monster Truck Driver name but chooses a HAZMAT endorsement. Donut receives the permanent-class offer associated with Character Actor. Carl’s Compensated Anarchist requires him to select one of three permanent specialties.
Carl’s options divide the class’s original themes. Revolutionary strengthens melee development, grants additional Strength on each level, raises Unarmed Combat, and helps its user disappear into a crowd after escaping sight. Guerilla adds Dexterity on level-up, improves ranged and trap-related work, grants Camouflage, and opens an advanced trap-making table. Agent Provocateur instead adds Intelligence on level-up, raises Explosives Handling, improves explosive training and the Sapper’s table, and unlocks an Advanced Bomb Maker’s Workshop capable of producing more precisely tuned and specialized explosives.
Mordecai prefers Revolutionary because Carl still serves as the party’s close-range fighter, but Carl selects Agent Provocateur. His Explosives Handling has stalled, the added Intelligence supports a larger spell reserve, and recipes in the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook require the advanced workshop. The choice does not erase Compensated Anarchist’s earlier abilities or penalize its trap and melee branches; it determines which branch receives the largest future investment. The system consequently changes Carl’s displayed class to Agent Provocateur while preserving the foundation established on the Third Floor.
Class progression is not identical for every crawler or limited to these two floors. On entering the Ninth Floor, Elle McGib undergoes another selection with only a few crawlers present. She adds wind to her elemental path and advances from Tundra Princess to Hailstorm Queen, noting that another and probably final elemental addition would become available on the Twelfth Floor. Her upgrade, Katia’s endorsement, Donut’s temporary specialties, and Carl’s mandatory specialization are different expressions of the same rule: the original class establishes a branch, while later thresholds determine whether that branch remains fixed, gains an endorsement, changes its title, or opens another choice.