Races Guide & Party Building Tips

Picking your Underkeep races before you descend is the first real decision the game hands you, and it quietly locks in how your party handles every fight after that. The Underkeep races roster covers six options — Human, Dwarf, Horemount, Raven, Elk, and Yah-Ti — and each one is built with its own strengths and weaknesses rather than as a cosmetic reskin. Read this before you build, because a party that fits together clears the early floors far more smoothly than a party of individually strong heroes who all cover the same job.

What the Underkeep Races Roster Includes

The planned lineup is compact: Human, Dwarf, Horemount, Raven, Elk, and Yah-Ti. Six options to spread across a party, all sharing the same design goal — a distinct set of strengths and weaknesses instead of a flavor label.

No per-race stat block, resistance chart, or racial ability list has been published, so the honest answer to "which race is best" is that it depends on what the in-game character sheet shows you and which job you still need filled. Treat any definitive ranking you encounter with suspicion.

What you can act on right now is the design intent. Because the Underkeep races are built as trade-offs, a race that looks unremarkable in isolation can be the correct pick once it sits next to the right class. That is exactly why order of operations matters: classes first, races second.

Open the character sheet and compare starting values before you commit a name and a portrait. Two heroes of the same class but different races read differently there, and those differences are what you are actually choosing between.

Classes Come First, Races Come Second

Pairing Underkeep races with the four available classes is much easier once the class is locked, because the class carries the entire identity of the build. Every class is built around two specializations that push a hero down a defined path, and each class carries roughly 9–12 skills — more than any single hero can develop. That surplus is intentional: the class tells you the lane, the specialization tells you which side of it you are on.

Roles are deliberately unsurprising. The Voidcaller heals, the Wizard rains down destruction, and the Warrior smashes things very hard. Build around those certainties rather than around speculation about the two announced additions, and do not reserve a party slot for Paladin or Runecrafter — neither is confirmed for release.

A practical sequence for a new party: pick the class you want each hero to play, write down the roles you still lack, then assign races to cover them. Doing it in the other direction — choosing races first and hoping the classes line up — is the fastest way to end up rebuilding at the first difficulty spike.

Building a Party Around Your Underkeep Races Choices

Three workable cores fall out of the confirmed roster. None of them requires a specific race; race selection is the tuning layer on top.

The thing that makes these cores work is the aura and synergy layer. Auras passively affect the whole party, so a hero choice that only benefits itself is worth less than one that lifts everyone standing next to it. Synergy skills that combine or boost each other when used together reward a party built with overlap in mind — two heroes whose abilities feed the same plan beat four heroes each doing something unrelated.

Once your Underkeep races picks are locked in, spend one floor watching how often each hero actually acts. If a hero sits idle because the fight ends before their turn matters, that is a signal to rebalance the party, not to rebuild from scratch.

Skill Points: The Math Behind Every Combo

Underkeep uses a simple progression rule: one skill point per level, with each skill rankable up to five times. Underkeep races do not change that math, so race choice never buys you extra points — it only changes what those points are worth to that specific hero.

With roughly 9–12 skills per class and a five-rank cap, the arithmetic is unforgiving: every five levels buys you exactly one fully developed skill. Plan two to three skills as your core and let the rest stay at rank one or untouched. Passive perks are the exception worth an early point, because they pay out for the whole run instead of one encounter, and auras follow the same logic at party level.

Cooldown-based abilities have been discussed as a later addition. If they land, expect them to compete for the same points — build your core first and leave room.

Common Party-Building Mistakes

• Choosing races before classes. You cannot judge a race until you know which job the hero performs.
• Treating Underkeep races as a tier list. With no published stat blocks, ranking the six options is guesswork dressed up as advice.
• Reserving slots for unconfirmed classes. Thief and Blood Mage are announced, not finished; Paladin and Runecrafter are further out.
• Spreading points evenly. Four ranks across six skills produces a hero who is mediocre at everything.
• Ignoring the party-wide layer. Auras and synergy skills are where a well-matched party separates itself from a pile of good individual builds.

Pre-Descent Checklist

The whole process takes about ten minutes and saves hours of regret. Once the party is moving, use map notes to flag anything you want to revisit with a different build — marking a locked door or a suspicious wall costs nothing and pays off later.

FAQ

Which Underkeep races are confirmed? Human, Dwarf, Horemount, Raven, Elk, and Yah-Ti. Those six make up the planned roster, and each is designed with its own strengths and weaknesses.

Do the Underkeep races change how many skill points I get? No. Progression is one point per level with a five-rank cap per skill, regardless of race. Race shapes which skills are worth investing in, not how many points exist.

Can I plan a party around the Thief or Blood Mage? Not yet. Both are announced as coming additions, and Paladin and Runecrafter are only a someday idea. Build with Warrior, Voidcaller, Archer, and Wizard, then revisit when the others arrive.

Should I pick race or class first when building a hero? Class first. The class defines the role and the specialization path; the race is the tuning choice you make once you know which gap in the party you are filling.