Stats

Your six main stats in the original game are health, stamina, attack, defense, power, and experience. The sequel adds two new stats: agility and magic points.

## Health

Your health, shown as "Hp" on the top bar, is what keeps you alive. When monsters hit you, you lose some health. Traps can also damage you, and being poisoned will drain about 3% of your maximum health each turn. The main way to recover health is that you normally recover somewhat less than 1% of your maximum health each turn, but there are also several ways to recover it much faster, such as eating a Recover Fruit, hitting a monster with a sword that has an Attack Recovery mark on it, or your friends using certain monster skills on you.

By default, you start with a maximum of 20 health, but this goes up every time you gain an experience level. Additionally, eating a Life Fruit increases your maximum health by 5 for the rest of the dungeon run. Eating a Magic Bread has several possible beneficial effects, one of which is to increase your maximum health by 3. Eating certain items at Coco's cafe will increase your max health for a while in your next dungeon run. Your maximum health resets back to 20 with every new dungeon run. If you get very high level in long runs in the Mysterious Adventure dungeon, your health can eventually reach several hundred.

## Stamina

Your stamina slowly drops as you move around. The exact rate at which it drops depends mainly on the type of floor that you're on. At the start of the Beginner Dungeon, you'll lose one stamina per 18 turns, which is pretty typical. Certain map types in the Demon Kingdom and Mysterious Adventure dungeons can use one stamina per 8 turns, which is the only place that feels like your stamina drains markedly faster than normal. In the sequel, you lose one stamina per 16 turns as a default.

When you run out of stamina, your natural health regeneration is disabled, and you lose one health per turn until you die or get some stamina back. You can recover stamina by eating various types of Bread. The effects of running out of stamina will eventually kill you if you completely ignore it, but it's typically no big deal to ignore it until you get the message about having zero stamina, and then eat some bread to recover it.

Your stamina is full at the start of a dungeon run, and in the original game, you'll also be given a Big Bread if you didn't already have any bread in your inventory. Your stamina starts out with a maximum of 100. Each time you eat a Large Bread, it increases your maximum stamina by 10, up to a hard cap of 200. Your maximum stamina resets back to 100 with every new dungeon run.

The other effect of stamina is that having more stamina gives you a longer time to win a power contest. This mechanic is introduced in the Coco boss fight. Later, you'll need to win much harder versions of it to recruit Ogre, Ogre Head, Kijin, Dragon, Blue Dragon, or Dark Dragon to be your friend.

You can also make your stamina drop more slowly by wearing a Stamina Bracelet, or more quickly with a Hungry Bracelet. There is no advantage to the latter; it's really a trap. Both bracelets still exist in the sequel, but are renamed.

## Attack

Attack increases the amount of damage that you deal when you hit monsters with your sword. The main way to increase your attack is by getting a strong sword, and then increasing its enhancement level up to the cap. You can also increase your attack by leveling up, though this resets at the start of every new dungeon run. You can slightly increase your attack for a while in your next dungeon run by eating certain meals from Coco's cafe.

## Defense

Defense decreases the amount of damage that you take when monsters hit you. The main way to increase your defense is by getting a strong shield, and then increasing its enhancement level up to the cap. You can also increase your defense by leveling up, though this resets at the start of every new dungeon run. Higher experience levels tend to grant you far less defense than attack.

## Power

Your power only infrequently matters, and also only infrequently changes. Higher power increases the distance that you can throw items, increases the damage that you can deal by firing Arrows and the damage you do with your sword attack (although very little that you need above +75 pow to notice it) and increases the damage that enemies (or your friends) do with their skills like Undine's Splash. It is also important to recruiting particular monsters to be your friend.

By default, you start a dungeon run with 3 power, as well as a maximum of 3. You can increase your maximum power by 1 by eating a Power Fruit. This resets at the end of a dungeon run.

Your current power will be lowered by 1 if you are stung by Bee's Poison Needle or hit by a Poison Arrow. The latter mainly happens if you step on a Pow Down Arrow Trap or are shot by a High Elf, who occasionally uses that type of arrows. If your current power is already 0, then it will decrease your maximum power by 1 instead. Your current power can be restored to your maximum by eating an Antidote Fruit.

You can also temporarily increase your power by equipping particular items. Most notably, a Power Bracelet will increase it by 3. Furthermore, you can increase your power by 1 by equipping a sword or shield with a Rise in Pow mark.

## Experience

Each monster that you kill will gain you some experience points. In the original game, if you are at level n, it typically takes approximately 2n^3 experience to reach level n+1. That is a very rough approximation, but the true value never differs from it by more than 50% after the first few levels, and is usually within 15% of that formula once you get beyond level 20.

When you gain a level, it increases your maximum health, and sometimes increases your maximum attack or defense. The precise effects of gaining a level are partially random, so your maximum stats at a given level can vary from one dungeon run to the next. There are diminishing returns to gaining levels, however, so while your first few level increases will make you much stronger, once you're around level 100, adding another level typically just gives you another 1 or 2 max health and that's it.

Your experience starts over at the start of every new dungeon run, so you'll be level 1 all over again. In the original game, you can start at level 6 instead by eating a Kiten Tate Soup from Coco's cafe, but this is usually a waste, as you'd reach level 6 very quickly without it. The one exception is the Labyrinth of Crystals dungeon, where you do not gain experience at all, so being level 6 for the entire dungeon run makes you much stronger than you would otherwise be.

## Agility

Agility increases your chance of hitting a target. It also increases your chance of dodging an enemy attack. Unlike some other stats, it isn't easy to dramatically affect your agility stat. It does increase as you level, however. Agility is only present in the sequel and not in the original game.

## Magic Points

In the original game, sword and shield skills would take some number of turns to charge. Once fully charged, a shield skill would automatically trigger if certain conditions were met, while a sword skill could be manually triggered. In the sequel, there is no charge time, but both sword and shield skills are used manually. They require magic points for each use, so you don't really get unlimited skill spam. You can also use magic points to summon a friend from home.

You have a fixed cap of 50 magic points, and this does not change as you level up. You can increase your maximum magic points by 10 for the remainder of the dungeon run by eating a Magic Up Fruit. Your MP will refill automatically as turns pass. Alternatively, you can refill them immediately with a Magic Fruit.