What You Carry

Four slots. That is the entire equipment system, and it does not expand.

The slots

An item fits its declared slot or it fits nowhere. A sword is not a relic because you have a relic slot free. There is no off-hand, no second ring, no fifth slot, and nothing in the Vaults will give you one.

Putting something into an occupied slot swaps it. The old item goes to your pack.

What equipping does

It changes your numbers immediately and by itself. Wear @Missing file and your defense goes from 13 to 15 the moment it is on. Take it off and it goes back.

Trinkets and relics generally raise one of the six. @Missing file gives a point of WITS, which is one more chance to see a pressure plate before you stand on it. @Missing file gives a point of LUCK. @Missing file gives a point of AGILITY, which is defense and initiative at once and is quietly the best common trinket down here. @Missing file gives two RESOLVE, which is a great deal if you intend to drink from anything.

Weapons and armour are rarer and worth more. @Missing file adds four damage, which is two swings off the longest fight in the game. @Missing file adds three to defense and takes a point of AGILITY back — better armour that makes you slower, and slower means the monster swings first.

The pack

Twelve entries. Stacking things stack; everything else takes a row.

@Missing file restore four hit points and are consumed. They are the only healing in the Vaults that does not come with a price attached, and you start with two.

At twelve entries you are full. Something has to go on the floor before anything else goes in the pack, and you choose which — nothing is discarded quietly on your behalf.

Gold

Every item down here is worth a number, from 15 for a roll of bindings up to 120 for the best weapon on the floor.

That number does exactly one thing: it sets what the goblin charges you and what he pays you. He sells at half again the worth and buys at half of it, so a thing you find and sell and buy back has cost you two thirds of its value for the privilege. Gold does nothing else. There is no shop above ground, nothing to bribe, and no score at the end.

So treasure gold is not points. It is the difference between walking past the blanket and walking away from it carrying something that changes the last fight.

Cursed things

Some items are cursed. Nothing announces this. The description will not lie to you, but it is under no obligation to volunteer, and cursed items are usually the most attractive thing in the room.

@Missing file is the honest example. It adds three damage, which is enormous for a relic slot. It also takes two points of VIGOR, which is four hit points, and once it is on your hand it does not come off for the rest of the run.

That is a real trade and it is sometimes correct. A delver who is going to win the last fight in three swings instead of four might prefer it. A delver at half health has just made a mistake they cannot undo.

@Missing file is the same bargain wearing the other face. It adds four to defense — more than anything else in the Vaults, enough to make an elite miss half the time — and it takes the same two points of VIGOR, and the chain has no clasp. Four fewer hit points that are much harder to lose. Whether that is a good deal depends entirely on how many rooms you have left, and you do not know how many rooms you have left.

Read what a thing costs before you put it on. The Vaults are fair, but they are fair in the way a contract is fair.