Floor 3: Race and Class Selection

Overview

Floor 3 is the Over City -- an urban environment inside a dormant volcano with a day-night cycle (nights are dangerous). This is where crawlers choose their race and class, the foundational decision that shapes everything going forward.

The System AI recommends a short list of race options, but crawlers may have many more choices based on what happened to them on Floors 1 and 2. Each race comes with stat bonuses, penalties, and sometimes dramatic physical transformations. Class selection happens here too, with options shaped by crawler behavior. The AI assigns classes with the energy of a career counselor who has access to your browser history and no ethics committee.

Approximately 700,000 crawlers remain at the start of Floor 3. By the end, that number drops sharply.

Race and class selection, explained

Race selection happens on Floor 3. Crawlers can stay close to their original species or choose a new race with different stats, abilities, restrictions, and body changes. The right pick can unlock a build that survives deeper floors; the wrong pick can leave a crawler trapped in a body or stat spread that does not match how they fight.

Class selection also happens on Floor 3. Classes define the crawler's main build: combat role, skills, spells, and long-term growth path. The list is not one universal menu for everyone. A crawler's choices depend on prior stats, achievements, injuries, behavior, and dungeon history.

Specialization comes later. Floor 3 is the foundation. Later floors can deepen or redirect that build through specialization, which is why Carl's Floor 3 class matters well beyond this book.

Carl's choices

• Race: Primal -- the human-adjacent base race. Enhanced physical stats without exotic abilities. Carl stays close to human. The AI considers this "on brand."
• Class: Compensated Anarchist -- trapmaking, bomb-making, social-media manipulation. The AI's description of this class is essentially a summary of Carl's personality converted into game mechanics. Later specializes into Agent Provocateur on Floor 6.

Key characters

• Katia Grim joins the party. Doppelganger race -- can reshape her body mass. Former art professor from Reykjavik. Quietly becomes one of the most competent crawlers in the dungeon.
• Mongo hatches from an egg (adopted on Floor 2, hatches here). Velociraptor. Immediately starts eating everything.
• Bautista joins. Former Philippine Army soldier. Berserker class. Katia's partner. Perpetually cheerful despite circumstances.

Key mechanics

• Race selection -- stat adjustments, physical transformation, new abilities. ~80% of crawlers keep their original race.
• Class selection -- skills, spells, stat boosts/penalties, determines your build for the rest of the crawl
• Personalized menus -- available choices are shaped by what the crawler did before selection, not just by a fixed public class list
• The sponsorship system begins -- crawlers gain sponsor slots, adding a corporate layer to survival
• The leaderboard goes live -- top 10 crawlers become public targets with bounties on them
• Day-night cycle -- Floor 3 has actual time-of-day mechanics. Nights spawn tougher mobs.

Community discussion

• r/dungeoncrawlercarl
• DCC Fandom Wiki
• Book 2 Recap | Book 3 Recap
• Take the Class Quiz -- find out what class the AI would assign you