Underkeep Best Party: 7 Classes, 6 Races and What to Pick

Image: Rake in Grass, Steam store screenshot

The party we'd start with, and what each class spends

A hero in Underkeep is a class plus a race, and the party stands two in front and two behind. The tutorial text sets the rules: back-row heroes "cannot attack with melee weapons unless their weapon has reach," most enemies "can only attack champions in the front row," and swapping places costs an action. Each hero gets one skill point per level, up to five per skill, per Rake in Grass's 2025 class post.

Five of the seven classes draw on stamina or mana, which come back only by resting or by potion: the Wizard's Storm Chain costs 14 mana a cast (screenshot below), and RonEmpire read out "Aim shot cost six stamina" for a Ranger. Zeal comes back by hitting things. For the Blood Mage, VoidEngineer's Steam guide says "Each spell costs 1 bone + some HP," more without bones.

Image: Rake in Grass, Steam store screenshot

Stoneborn Warrior. Stoneborn wear no body armor, so every chest piece goes to the Paladin. In Dr. Incompetent's pre-launch session, when an enemy "cleaved the entire front row," the verdict on his Stoneborn Warrior was that it "didn't kill the rock guy, so that's ideal."

Dwarf Paladin. In The Indie Game Alchemist's run, a dying monk in the opening forest rises as a Boneblade, and the Steam guide lists Boneblades as Undead with the advice "Bring the Paladin." Stun Undead is a starting skill; RonEmpire found it "already built in." Lay on Hands heals 3 HP per Zeal spent, so build Zeal before you heal. A launch-day review after 0.2 hours reads in full: "Dying to the first skeleton my party runs into on easy mode was definitely the reason I bought this game......lol"

Slugman Blood Mage. Slugmen take "double damage from fire and salt," per Dr. Incompetent's screen, which matters less in the back row. The guide says to take Leechcraft at level 5, which heals from blood damage "to offset the HP cost."

Voidcaller. Void Mend clears Bleed at skill level 2, then Burn, Poison and Stun at levels 3, 4 and 5. It runs on mana, and a launch-day video shows why that matters. Wanderbots played on normal with nearly this party: a Dwarf Paladin, a Raven Thief, an Elk Voidcaller and a Slugman Blood Mage. At 8:34 he held off camping: "I don't want to rest until I have a more reliable source of food." When he rested just before the rat den, at 10:19: "Party is fully healed. So, it looks like everybody just needs one piece of food." At 14:01 he named the pool his party couldn't refill: "Unfortunately, I don't think she has a easy way of getting mana back." The Voidcaller is the only mana user in that lineup, which, we think, makes it the hero who sets the rest schedule, and going by his read, each rest costs a piece of food per hero.

Why food decides the first hours

The tutorial is blunt: food is a shared supply "consumed automatically during rest," and "resting restores health, stamina, and mana to all champions." You can't rest with enemies nearby. With no food left, potions are the only refill, which is where a player called Node ended up on November 6: "No way to regen outside of potions? How do i keep going when I can't rest?"

That thread had two fixes. Rune pointed to the first town, where "You can buy supplies (and rest to 100% for 10 gold)". Another player, 26th_Jay, said a hidden spider cave north in the forest holds a Mushroom Stew recipe, which lets you cook food with a Pestle and Mortar; we haven't seen a second source for the cave.

The party fix came from a second thread. A player on the hardest difficulty, running a Dwarf Warrior, Raven Thief, Slugman Wizard and Elk Ranger, said food management was "becoming a bit tedious." Uncle Al replied:

"There are a couple of classes that change the food economy, paladin and blood mage, because they aren't tied to mana or stamina. Paladin generates health just by attacking ... That means far less resting than a 'normal' party."

Uncle Al added that with gear that boosts healing received, the Blood Mage "starts regenerating more health from casting than spells cost them, even with no bones."

Our take: Uncle Al is one player and nobody has counted rests, but the cost column backs him. Every hero in that hard-mode lineup spends stamina or mana; swap two for a Paladin and a Blood Mage and half the party stops draining them. Readers who came up on NetHack know the hunger clock; here four heroes share one.

What Steam's achievement data says about this party

Checked: November 6, 2026, 19:03 UTC, from Steam's global achievement stats. Underkeep has 32 achievements; each figure is the share of owners who have it.

12.1% of owners had drunk 30 healing potions, against 0.7% for mana and 0.2% for stamina. Our read, from one snapshot a day after launch, is that health is the pool players most often top up by potion, though mana and stamina potions may simply be scarcer this early in the game. That cuts both ways for our pick: Lay on Hands and Void Mend are two heals that cost no potions, while the Blood Mage spends health on every spell, which is why Leechcraft at level 5 matters.

The stockpile rows are harder to read: 2.8% had held 200 food and 2.6% had held 200 bones. A backpack count shows who saved up, not who ran out, so the food row may point to scarce spare rations without proving it. Bones, the Blood Mage's fuel, seem to pile up about as fast.

Under 2% had a hero at level 10 a day in, so in our view the first ten skill points are most of the build you'll play with for a while. Rake in Grass's FAQ puts a full run at 15 to 20 hours, or 30 with side quests.

Image: Rake in Grass, Steam store screenshot

All 6 Underkeep races and the seat each one suits

The trait text below is what the character creator shows, cross-checked against the Steam guide.

Elk armor only matters when the Elk gets hit, and most enemies only hit the front row. RonEmpire, building an Elk Ranger: "it's kind of useless having uh an elk ranger armor against animals. Like, he's not going to be tanking." Early fights are full of animals ("everything we fought basically is an animal," said Dr. Incompetent), so an Elk up front gets real use from it.

Two other parties, and where they crack

Classic: Warrior and Paladin in front, Wizard and Voidcaller behind

The Steam guide calls this the easiest start, and The Indie Game Alchemist calls two casters behind a solid front row "extremely powerful" early. The cost is two mana users in the back, so carry more food than our pick needs.

Holy Order: Paladin and Thief in front, Voidcaller and Wizard behind

The Steam guide suggests this one too, as "Two healers (Lay on Hands and Void Mend) behind a Paladin who tanks and a Thief who dodges." A launch-day reviewer ran the same four classes, called the party "balanced," and it ended in "a total party kill in two fights." The account of the second fight: "My thief and wizard have no energy or mana, so they do melee attacks. My voidcaller has no mana." After a revive at a shrine, the party came back "at like 5% hp and mana."

The review doesn't say whether food ran short, so we can't tell what caused the wipe. Three of the four heroes spend stamina or mana, the pattern Uncle Al described. The Thief's evasion runs on Dexterity, capped at 60%, and Rubberband, 7.5 hours in, wrote: "my frontline kept getting squashed as I hadn't given my rogue dex enough to dodge."

It's an angry review, and part of the anger is fair. The reviewer wrote "I had no chance to rest and recover," and a day later Node "somehow didn't realize there was a tavern in town," where a full rest costs 10 gold. Two new players stuck on the same question in two days looks to us like a signposting problem on Rake in Grass's side.

Step-by-Step: building the party in the Party Creator

1. Reroll the stats: Rubberband's advice: "don't forget to reroll your stats during creation as there is bit of RNG on them." Roll until the main stat is high, Dexterity above all on a Thief.

2. Check a Raven's mutations: One bad roll, Backseat Parasite, sends 50% of attacks to a random enemy. The Steam guide suggests checking the Character panel and remaking the hero if the roll is bad.

3. Set the rows and give the back row reach: Put both tanks in front before the first door, since swapping costs an action. A dagger in the back row is "out of reach"; Dr. Incompetent found the quarterstaff "long enough to reach, but the dagger does not."

4. Pick a difficulty knowing you can change it: The setup screen says "You may change the difficulty at any time." Drop it for one bad fight rather than restarting.

Underkeep costs $22.95 on Steam for Windows, with a 15% introductory discount to $19.50 that ends November 19; GOG had the same discount when we checked. Eneba did not list the game on November 6, so we have no buy link. At $19.50 it sits just under the cap of our best indie games under $20 list, and our Steam Autumn Sale 2026 wrap-up has the Winter Sale date if you'd rather wait.

How we checked this

Nobody at GameBrief has played Underkeep yet, so nothing here is from our own save. The picks come from in-game text read aloud in four YouTube sessions (505 minutes), checked against VoidEngineer's Steam guide, plus three Steam reviews and two threads from November 5 and 6. The achievement table is our own read of Steam's global stats.

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References

• Underkeep on Steam
• News from Underkeep: Classes, Races & Skills
• Underkeep F.A.Q.
• Underkeep Player's Guide by VoidEngineer
• Steam discussion: "food"
• Steam discussion: "Can you buy food?"
• Underkeep global achievements
• Review by Rubberband
• Negative review, 0.3 hours
• Dr. Incompetent's pre-launch session
• RonEmpire's playthrough
• Wanderbots' first session
• The Indie Game Alchemist's run