You are a Vault Hunter on Vespera, a dead colony under cracked terraform rings. A Claptrap named D0T filed your paperwork, handed you a busted shield, and pointed you at the Vault of Vhaax. You shoot, loot, talk trash, and get back up when it goes wrong.
You start at Rustlight Docks with the rest of Echo Six. You end at the Maw. Everything between is jobs, bosses, and increasingly stupid explosions.
What a session feels like
You get a job. You get there loud. You kill whatever is guarding the loot. You turn it in and get stronger.
Most sessions run like this:
- Someone offers work — a marshal, a sergeant, a desperate cook, D0T screaming over ECHO.
- You talk, sneak, bribe, or slide straight into gunfire. All of it earns the same reward if it solves the problem.
- You crack shields, kill the big thing, and grab what falls out.
- You turn in the job, spend XP, and walk away with a rarer gun and a worse problem.
You do not wait for permission. If the door is locked, kick it, hack it, or blow it off and apologize to whoever is behind it.
Pick your hunter
You play one of four Vault Hunters. Pick the fantasy that makes you grin:
| Hunter | Class | What you do |
|---|
| Sgt. Bram Kade | Bulwark | Drop a shield wall, hold the line, let your loader-bot Rook taunt everything |
| Wren 'Six' Calloway | Gunslinger | Slide, crit, vanish behind a holo-duelist, win every duel |
| Doc Ilsa March | Ravager | Rage, slam, bleed elements everywhere, refuse to stay down |
| Yu'Sani | Siren | Forge barriers from thin air, drop black holes, see the living battlefield |
Everyone starts at level 1 with a busted Echo Six shield and whatever gun D0T shoves into your hands. You get dangerous fast. Level 2 unlocks your Action Skill — usable once per fight — and every level after buys another skill point across your three trees.
The only roll you need
Everything uncertain is one roll: d20 plus a stat mod against a target number.
- Routine but tense action: roll d20 + stat mod against a difficulty — Easy 10, Moderate 15, Hard 20, Very Hard 25, Heroic 30.
- Shooting someone: roll d20 + DEX mod for guns, STR mod for melee, plus half your level rounded down, against their Defense. Your own base Defense is 12 + your DEX mod.
- Both sides wrestling over the same thing: both roll, higher total wins.
Stat mods are simple: 16 gives +3, 10 gives +0, 8 gives -1.
A natural 20 is a crit — double damage, trigger your gun's nasty effect, and describe it like you mean it. A natural 1 is an automatic miss plus a complication: jam, fumble, vendor spam on your ECHO, D0T roasting you over open comms. It is never just a miss.
Your turn in a fight
On your turn you get three things: Move, Action, and Free Trash-Talk.
Move to cover, slide between crates, shove a Jackal off a ledge. Sliding gives you +2 Defense against ranged attacks until your next turn.
Use your Action to shoot, smack, throw a grenade, pop your Action Skill, revive a buddy, or do something reckless with an ECHO terminal. Cover matters: half cover adds +2 Defense, full cover adds +5.
Trash-talk is always free. Good trash-talk has been known to earn XP.
Big fights escalate. Chaff dies in two good hits. Badasses need element matches and crits. Bosses have phases — when the boss changes phase, your Action Skill comes back and shields refill on both sides. That is the loop. Spend everything, then spend it again louder.
Two bars: blue, then red
Everyone on Vespera has two health bars, including you. Learn the order.
Shield first. The blue bar takes all damage until it breaks. Your capacity comes from your equipped shield — starters hold around 900 to 1,100, boss loot climbs into the thousands. If you go a full round without getting shot, it starts recharging. Hide, slide, kill whoever is looking at you.
Health second. Only after the shield pops does damage reach flesh (red) or armor (yellow). Your max health is your Constitution score times 50, plus 100 per level. A tough hunter starts near 900. A fast one starts near 600 and kills things before they can aim.
Shields come in flavors — turtles that trade health for bulk, amps that boost your next shot while full, novas that explode when they break, boosters that drop pickups for the team. Read your card. When an enemy shield glows, whines, or changes color, that is your cue to swap tactics before it pops.
Match the element
Elements are how you stop chewing and start melting. After mods and crits, a matched element multiplies total damage by 1.5.
| Target | Use | Avoid overthinking |
|---|
| Shield (blue) | Shock | Everything else is slower |
| Flesh (red) | Incendiary | Cryo also sets up frozen auto-crits |
| Armor (yellow) | Corrosive | Radiation still chains to their friends |
| Anything, honestly | Kinetic | No bonus, no penalty, Jakobs honesty |
Cryo slows and then freezes — frozen targets eat auto-crits. Radiation burns over time and spreads. When in doubt, bring one Shock gun for shields and one Incendiary or Corrosive gun for what lives underneath.
Manufacturers have personalities. Jakobs hits huge and crits harder. Maliwan always fires elemental. Torgue explodes and does not apologize. Dahl bursts or goes full-auto. Hyperion tightens the longer you hold the trigger. Vladof hoses.
Going down is part of the build
You do not die. You get humiliated, then revenge.
When your health hits zero, you go down fighting — crawl, pull a pistol, and you have 3 rounds to score a kill. A kill pops you back up at 30 percent health screaming. A teammate can also revive you with a touch and an Action, ideally under fire if they want style points.
Fail and you flash back at the last New-U station: missing cash, armor scorched, D0T laughing. Mark whoever dropped you. You get double satisfaction settling it.
Loot, XP, and the DING
XP lands immediately, mid-session, with fanfare. Kills, objectives, discoveries, boss drops, and genuinely good roleplay all pay. Low levels fly — expect to level every few big beats. When you level, announce it loud, pick your next skill, and check what the new level unlocks in the world: tougher zones, better vendor rolls, Epic loot eligibility on bosses.
Loot follows colors: grey Common, green Uncommon, blue Rare, purple Epic, orange Legendary. Vendors sell up to Rare. Epic and above come from bosses, Vault chests, and D0T's back room at prices that should be illegal. Bosses roll triple on drops. Every Legendary has red text, and the red text is the mechanic — read it before you fire it.
Bring one hunter, one loud idea, and two guns that cover different elements. Vespera handles the rest.
