A weapon or a suit of armour can be pushed from its plain self all the way to +10, one roll of the dice at a time. The higher you go, the more there is to lose.
Where the dice come from
Charge Dice are the only way to upgrade, and no shop sells them. They come from portal events, where every clear pays one to everybody who took part (see portals and player events), and from the deeper dungeons: the Sunken Warren and the Ancient Crypt can both drop them.
Rolling one
Click a Charge Dice in your bag, or choose Upgrade on a weapon or suit of armour, and the upgrade window opens with everything you are carrying and wearing that can take it. Pick the item, and roll.
- A Charge Dice 4 takes an item to +4, a 5 to +5, and so on up to +10.
- The odds are on the dice. Every Charge Dice prints its own chance of success on its card before you use it, so you always know what you are risking. The bigger the dice, the longer the odds.
- A success adds the level. Every level adds a tenth of the item's own figures and a point on top: damage and accuracy on a weapon, armour and evasion on a suit.
- A failure uses up the dice. From a Charge Dice 5 upward, a failure can also break the item, and the higher the dice the likelier that is.
- A Charge Dice 4 never breaks anything, and neither does a success, ever.
- A broken item is gone, even if you were wearing it at the time.
Weapons and body armour can be upgraded. Shields, hats, boots and jewellery cannot, for now.
When a weapon starts to glow
From +4, the weapon in your hand begins to glow: faint at first, and brighter with every level up to +10. It breathes slowly, leaves a trail when you swing, and throws off little motes as you move. Everybody who sees you can see it. Armour does not glow.
The seven elements
Elemental dice do something different. Instead of a plus, they give a weapon an element, each with its own ladder from +1 to +10: Fire, Water, Earth, Thunder, Air, Light or Dark.
- Every level turns a bigger share of every blow into that element. It rides on every ordinary swing, but not on spells.
- The elements beat each other in a wheel: thunder beats water, water beats fire, fire beats earth, and so on round. Weapon elements has the whole wheel and every match-up.
- The first three levels never break anything, and are much easier to land than the plain dice.
- The name keeps its plus. A "Dagger +4" with an element shows it as its own line on the card: "Fire +5".
And your weapon shows it, each element in its own way:
- Fire gutters orange, with flames licking up the blade.
- Water takes a cool blue sheen, with drops running off it.
- Earth wears a thick outline, and grit falls from it.
- Thunder crackles with a hard yellow edge, throwing sparks.
- Air is barely there, with a small whirlwind turning around it.
- Light is the brightest and widest of the seven, with motes rising off it.
- Dark smoulders, with smoke rising off the blade.
Tiers
Every piece of equipment also has a tier, from T5, the ordinary one, up to T1, the best. A better tier makes every figure on the item bigger, and a plus is worth just as much at every tier, so a T1 at +10 is the one to dream about.
- An item's tier is decided when it is made and never changes.
- The shops sell the ordinary tier. Better turns up as loot: the Sunken Warren can drop a Defender and the Ancient Crypt a Sand Sword anywhere from T4 to T1, and even a crow now and then drops a bow better than it has any right to.
- It shows on the name, as in "Dagger +3 T2", and as a small label on the item in your bag. Other players see your weapon glow, but not its tier.
Upgraded and tiered items keep their plus and their tier through a trade, the post and the bank. Two items with a different plus or tier never stack together. The whole of it is in equipment tiers.
Next: equipment tiers.