The Six
You have six numbers. They run from 0 to 10, and a delver is worth about eighteen points across all six.
Nothing else about you is written down. There is no class, no level, no experience, no skill list. What you are is what these six say plus what you are carrying.
The six
| Stat | What it does |
|---|---|
| MIGHT | Hitting things, and how hard. Forcing what will not open. |
| AGILITY | Going first. Not being hit. |
| VIGOR | How much you can take before you stop. |
| WITS | Seeing the trap before it fires. |
| LUCK | What the dark gives you, and how badly it goes wrong. |
| RESOLVE | Whether you keep your head when the water offers you something. |
What they add up to
Three numbers matter in play, and you never write them down yourself. They follow from the six and from your gear, and they change the moment you put something on.
- Maximum HP is
6 + (VIGOR × 2). At VIGOR 3 that is twelve; at VIGOR 1 it is eight. - Defense is
10 + AGILITY +whatever your armour adds. A monster must roll that number or higher to touch you. - Damage is
MIGHT +whatever your weapon adds. It is flat. You do not roll it.
A delver with MIGHT 4 holding @Missing file does 6 damage a hit, every hit, forever. There is no critical damage roll to hope for and no bad damage roll to suffer. The only question in a fight is whether you connect.
Raising them
You do not, through play. There is no experience in the Vaults and no levelling. A stat moves for exactly two reasons:
- Gear. A trinket or relic that grants a stat raises it while worn, and drops it when removed.
- The water. A fountain that goes badly takes a point off one stat, permanently, for the rest of that run.
So your character does not grow over a run. Your character gets equipped, and occasionally gets diminished. What improves across runs is you.
Which ones matter
The honest ranking, whether you are choosing a delver or reading a roll you just made:
VIGOR is the one that keeps you alive. Every two points is four more hit points, and hit points are the only resource in the game that does not come back on its own. VIGOR 5 is sixteen; VIGOR 1 is eight. That is the difference between surviving three hits from a Sentinel and surviving one. If you rolled your own delver, this is the number to look at first and the one that decides how long the run is.
AGILITY is the one that stops the damage happening. Defense scales with it point for point, and it decides who swings first. Going first against something with 4 hit points often means never being hit at all.
MIGHT ends fights faster, which is the same as taking less damage, one step removed.
WITS, LUCK and RESOLVE each answer one specific room. WITS is the trap. RESOLVE is the water. LUCK is what the dark hands you. They are not dead weight; they are narrow, and a delver who is weak in one of them should simply avoid that room. A delver with RESOLVE 1 should walk past the water. A delver with WITS 2 should expect to find traps with their feet.