I've basically unlocked every character but Wes and Maxwell at this point. I've mostly played with Wickerbottom and Wilson.
And, I know that each character has their own particular intricacies.
But, do any of them excel at anything that is not obvious? In other words, Why should I play with one particular character over another?
For example:
Wickerbottom: Can build everything at the Science Machine level of research at the beginning of the game.
Wilson: Grows a beard, which keeps him warm and can be used to build a meat effigy.
Willow: Has her own lighter.
These are all fairly obvious, but what do the others bring to the party?
Wolfgang is obviously strong, but how does this translate?
Wendy is comfortable in the darkness and doesn't go insane. But what else?
WX78 is upgradable. But what else?
Woodie Comes with his own axe. Turns into a BEAVER. (WTF?!? What do I do with that apart from harvest everything in sight . . .)
To be clear: I'm not asking for an opinion (i.e Who is best?). But, rather I'm asking how do each of their special abilities change the game?
Best Answer
Wilson
He grows a beard completely on his own. The beard provides the much valuable Beard Hair, as well as 10 sanity on shaving and insulation to prevent freezing during Winter.
Specifically, that translates to the beard growing in four stages:
No beard
Short Beard
Long Beard
Magnificent Beard
Willow
She has a pretty strong obsession with fire, which translates to immunity, as well as her lighter. The lighter grants an infinite +0.6/min sanity boost while in use and can be used to set fire to ALL THE THINGS.
She will, however, (at low sanity levels) also randomly set fire to things.
Wolfgang
He gets a strength bonus depending on how well-fed he is. This translates to several appearance and stat changes, depending on his hunger stat - which decreases 1.5x as fast.
Between 0 and 100 hunger
Between 100 and 225 hunger
Between 225 and 300 hunger
He also has a Sanity penalty, however, whereby he loses 10% more Sanity from monsters and in the dark.
Wendy
Wendy carries with her Abigail's Flower, which can be used to summon Wendy's dead twin sister Abigail.
Abigail's Flower is used when killing any environment mob (including Wendy herself) near the flower after placing it on the ground. This summons the Abigail and drains Wendy's Sanity by 50 points.
Abigail has a Health of 600, deals damage depending on the time of day (10 at day, 20 at dusk, 40 at night) and will mercilessly murder anything that attacks or is attacked by Wendy.
WX-78
This funny murderous robot has two special powers. For one, it acts like a Lightning Rod, in that it draws in lightning strikes. When struck, WX-78 loses 33 Sanity, is lit up like a torch, gets healed and sped up, entering SYSTEM OVERLOAD. SYSTEM OVERLOAD lasts about one day and has the side effect of being able to set fire to things by using the glowing metal instead of conventional fire.
The second power is the ability to upgrade the robot. Using Gears, WX-78 refills 60 Health, 50 Sanity, and 75 Hunger.
On top of that, each upgrade adds 20 max Health, ~6.66 (alternating 7/7/6) max Hunger, and ~13.33 (alternating 14/13/13) max Sanity. As WX-78 can only use 15 gears for this effect, his stats increase to the maximum of 400 Health, 200 Hunger, and 300 Sanity.
Wickerbottom
She has a massive distaste for spoiled or raw food. While green-marked food restores the normal values of Health, Sanity and Hunger, any yellow-marked food will only restore 1/3 (instead of the usual 2/3) of its Hunger base value, 1/4 (instead of 1/3) of its Health base value and no sanity. Red-marked food will only restore 1/6 (instead of 1/2) of its Hunger value, no Health and decreases Sanity by 10.
Wickerbottom can also craft Books that grant varying effects and does not require a Science Machine before building prototypes for the crafting recipes that usually need one. This propagates further: Alchemy Engine recipes only need a Science Machine instead.
Birds of the World
Applied Horticulture
Sleepytime Stories
On Tentacles
The End is Nigh
Woodie
Woodie has his precious Axe named Lucy. Lucy deals 13.6 damage, has infinite durability and cuts through wood like a knife through butter.
On top of that, Woodie is cursed. He hides a terrible secret. He will turn into a Werebeaver after a while. This is triggered either upon chopping down too many trees in too short a time, or at Full Moon.
While a Werebeaver, Woodie focuses almost entirely on wood, gaining a "Log Meter" in place of the usual UI. This log meter determines how long he will stay a Werebeaver and reduces at 2 points per 2.5 seconds.
In order to increase the Log Meter, Woodie has to consume wood. All the wood. This increases the Log Meter by a set amount of points per wood item:
On top of that, the Werebeaver deals 51 damage like a Tentacle Spike and absorbs 80% of all inbound damage into his pelt. While Woodie is a Werebeaver, his log meter is his health; being hit will drain his log meter.
Careful, though: The Werebeaver cannot carry anything. He will turn and leave everything on the ground - including the precious Lucy, who will then give a heartwarming welcome once Woodie returns.
Woodie will, once the log meter hits 0, wake up the next day - with 50 of all stats - wherever he collapsed when his log meter expired; this can be lethal if he was in combat when his log meter ran out. His belongings will still be wherever he dropped them when he first changed, which can be problematic in the winter.
Wes
Being the pantomime that he is, Wes carries with him a Pile o' Balloons, which can be used to spawn, well, balloons, at the cost of 5 Sanity per balloon. They act as weak decoys, distracting mobs from the player and will cause 5 damage when popped.
Wes' hunger will drain at 1.25x speed, and he will only deal 0.75x damage.
Maxwell
Why, why, here comes the big guy. Maxwell, being the overlord of the realm, has with him the Codex Umbra, a dark magic book. At the cost of 15 Health and 55 off the maximum Sanity as well as 2 Nightmare Fuel, the Codex Umbra can be used to spawn a Shadow Puppet, a Shadow Creature to do the dirty work for Maxwell.
The Shadow Puppet has a Health of 75, deals 40 damage and will return the 55 max Sanity to Maxwell on its death. It will help Maxwell murder puny enemies and innocent, but totally valuable and destroyable trees and rocks.