Stats and survival

Making a character

You have 210 points to share among seven stats, each from 0 to 100. Drag each bar to set it. You begin with full health, full fatigue, 30 gold and nothing else.

The creation screen mislabels two bars. The bar labelled Dexterity sets Agility, and the one labelled Agility sets Dexterity. It's a quirk of the 1997 game, kept as it was. Check the panel once you start.

Stats don't grow as you play. Potions raise them 10 at a time, and food restores Body, but the points you choose now are most of what you'll have. Some values are worth aiming for:

Two examples, as a starting point:

• A fighter: Agility 60, Might 50, Body 50, Dexterity 30, Willpower 20. Hits often and hard, and takes blows well. No Karma, so no magic.
• A spellcaster: Intelligence 60, Karma 40, Agility 50, Might 30, Body 30. Scrolls always work, and Karma lasts a while. Buy an ankh to top it up.

The seven stats

Might

Each blow you land does 1 more damage for every 10 points. Fighting bare-handed, it counts twice. Raise it with a red potion.

Body

Each blow that lands on you does 1 less for every 10 points. Every blow you take also costs you 1 Body, so it wears down in a fight. Restore it with food, or the Scroll of Salvation.

Willpower

When your fatigue runs out, it's your chance of staying on your feet: Willpower + 1 in 150, so 100 Willpower resists two times in three. See Fatigue for why that matters. Raise it with a blue potion.

Agility

The chance to land a blow is about 50%, plus the attacker's Agility, less the defender's. So each point makes you 1% likelier to hit, and 1% harder to hit. Missiles ignore the defender's Agility. Raise it with a yellow potion.

Dexterity

When you hit, Dexterity against a roll of 0 to 89 decides whether you aim for the weakest body part; otherwise the blow lands anywhere. It's also the roll for tools like lockpicks. Raise it with a black potion.

Intelligence

A scroll works if your Intelligence beats a roll of 0 to 59. A failed scroll crumbles and costs 20 Karma. Raise it with a green potion.

Karma

You need 8 to use magic, and every attempt uses 2 to 8. An orange potion gives 40, an ankh 50 (ten times over), and food a little.

Every stat stops at 100. Potions and scrolls work on others too: a poison potion or a Scroll of Feebleness can weaken an enemy.

Health

The figure on your panel has five health pies: head, torso, each arm, and legs, 100 each. A blow lands on one of them.

• Head or torso at 0 and you die. The game is over, so save often (File ▸ Save).
• An arm or leg at 0 is broken. Nothing new can be put on a broken limb.
  • With a broken right arm your blows do no damage at all.
  • With a broken left arm you can't use a two-handed weapon.
  • With broken legs you can't walk, though you can still ride.
• Resting heals 1 point in each part a turn, but never a broken limb. Food, drink, healing salves and the Scroll of Salvation heal every part, broken ones included.

Fatigue

The candle on your panel. It starts full at 100.

• Every swing you make costs 3, hit or miss.
• Every blow you take costs 1, plus 1 for each 17 damage.
• Carrying 100 or more weight costs 1 per 100 with every step on foot.
• Each turn of rest gives back 15.

Don't let it run out. When a cost would take your fatigue below zero you may collapse, with only your Willpower to save you. If you collapse, you wake with 30 fatigue and everything you were carrying is gone. Rest before a fight, and step back to rest during a long one.

It works both ways: an enemy who runs out may be knocked cold, and you take their gold. Monsters with 10 fatigue or less stop to rest instead of attacking.

Rest and sleep

• Rest: press any key that isn't a move. One turn passes.
• Sleep: double-click yourself. You rest for 420 turns, 20 hours, in one go. Anything already after you keeps coming.
• Sleep in a bed (or on straw bedding) and you wake rested and refreshed. Anywhere else, sleep is fitful, and more often than not a thief takes something you carry, and all your gold. Inns sell room keys.

Day and night

• Time only passes when you act: a step, a rest, a blow, using an item. Talking and shopping take no time.
• An hour is 21 turns, and a day and a night are 25 hours each. The sun and moon on your panel show which.
• At night people are asleep and won't talk (so shops are shut), you can see very little, and random encounters are twice as likely. A torch in your left hand lights the way.

Gear and gold

• Your weapon goes in your right hand. Anything else there, a torch or a shield, and you can't attack at all. Keep the left hand for a shield or a torch.
• Armour only guards the body part it's on, and a shield only the arm that holds it. See the item guide for every weapon and piece of armour.
• Gold comes from the monsters you kill and from selling. A shop buys only what it sells, at half its price. You start with 30.

Horses

• Double-click a horse next to you to mount it. Double-click yourself to switch between a walk and a trot, which covers two squares a move. Double-click an empty square next to you to get off.
• Riding costs no fatigue however much you carry, but horses can't go indoors.
• In a fight, each blow that lands on you has a 1 in 20 chance of killing your horse.
• Horses that turn up wild in the countryside are too wild to ride.