Gear and Artifacts

Slots | Tiers | Abilities | Getting gear | Bags | Wear and loss | Artifacts | Legends (who holds what)

Slots

You wear one item in each of five slots and carry more in your bag: 6 to start, up to 50 with the best bag. In the browser client, click an item in your bag to wear it and click a worn item (on your adventurer or in the list) to take it off. You can't change gear in the middle of a fight. In any client, Info › Gear does the same and also throws items away, and /gear in chat lists them. Taking armor off lowers your current energy by its bonus, and putting it on raises it again, so swapping gear never heals you. Your equipped items add together into the numbers the game has always used: energy (once the shield), damage (once the sword) and quicksilver (speed).

Each item's bonus is set by the circle (C) it comes from and its tier's quality (q), measured from the real monsters there, so gear keeps pace as you move out. Energy follows how hard monsters hit at that circle (H, below): a Fine armor and helm together soak up about seven average hits wherever they were found. Weapon damage follows how much energy monsters have there (M), so a weapon from a circle kills its monsters in about as many blows as earlier weapons did nearer in.

Damage is added to every blow: a blow hits for your strength, raised a little by your weapon (strength × (1 + √damage × 4%)), plus the weapon's damage. The Strength bar on the game screen shows this total, so it always matches what you hit for.

Each item rolls within ±15% of these values. H, the average monster hit, and M, the average monster's energy, by circle (in between they scale smoothly; neither drops for a circle with weaker monsters, such as the Dead Marshes, and far out they grow with the circle):

For example, Fine armor gives about 387 energy from circle 10, 8,557 from circle 30 and 31,900 from circle 100; a Fine weapon adds about 107 damage a blow from circle 10, 535 from circle 15 and 4,011 from circle 30.

Gear made before weapons and armor followed the real monsters was reforged once, when its owner next played: each item keeps its own roll and gets the new value for its circle and tier, and nothing got worse.

Tiers

The farther out you are, the better the odds: every 16 circles shifts about 10% of finds up a tier, to a maximum of 25% by circle 40.

Abilities

Combat abilities work against monsters, not other players. Insight and Arcana raise your brains and magic level everywhere. The same ability on several items adds up. "Strength" is 1 for Fine, 1.5 for Masterwork, 2 for Enchanted and 3 for an artifact.

Helms and trinkets roll a magic ability half the time; every other ability can appear on any slot. Brains and magic level from gear count only while the item is worn: your own stats are never changed, so nothing is lost or doubled when you take it off. Focus applies to spells you cast (including teleport and cloak), not to mana that monsters drain.

Getting gear

When you find an item you see it beside what you are wearing and can Equip it, Stow it in your bag, or Leave it (or Swap it for what you're wearing when your bag is full). The guru's blessing and the smith now enchant the armor, weapon or boots you are wearing.

Bags

Everyone starts with a Belt Pouch. Every trading post has a Bags counter where you can buy the next bag up. Upgrades go one step at a time, and your items move into the new bag. A bag is lost if your character dies.

A bigger bag also carries more gold. Gold (and gems, which count half) only slows you down once you carry more than your limit: 1,000 gold plus your level times your class's gold tote (Magic-User 150, Fighter 225, Elf 125, Dwarf 200, Halfling 175, Experimento 175), multiplied by your bag's gold factor below. A level 10 Fighter with a Belt Pouch can carry 3,250 gold freely; with a Bag of the Endless Road, 39,000.

In the browser client, the Gear panel shows your adventurer wearing their gear, and a square for every slot in your bag.

Wear and loss

Artifacts never wear down.

Artifacts

Only one of each artifact exists, and each has two powers no other gear can have. Artifacts are rare: they come only from great deeds, and the whole realm hears which deed earned one. The Legends page shows who holds each one right now. An artifact can only be found once you reach the circle listed.

An artifact grows with you. Its bonus is rolled at quality 2.6, which no other tier reaches, and always matches your level, as if it were made at the circle that suits it (1 + level ÷ 4), keeping its own roll. Where it was found doesn't matter, so carrying one in from far out gives no head start, and one found early never falls behind.

An artifact goes back into the realm, for someone else to find, when: