Item Cards: MD2

At the start of a quest, each hero chooses 1 starting weapon, 1 starting armor, and 1 starting potion. Equipment comes in 3 rarities in normal mode and 4 in Campaign mode. The rarities are Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Starting items are treated as having a Common rarity for the purpose of forging items. Additionally, Mobs spawn with a Mob Item Card, matching the mob's level (1-2, 3-4, or 5 in normal mode, or 6-7, 8-9, or 10 in Campaign mode).

## **The New Loot System**

There is a lot to talk about the new system but let’s start from the beginning: the Treasure Bag. One of the coolest things about finding loot and item drops in many games we play is the chance of finding items of rarity. In the original Massive Darkness there was a chance to find slightly better items but those were always from the deck of the corresponding Dungeon Level, allowing little choice and strategy from the players. We decided to give this a bit of a twist and drive the game into a direction where players are deliberately looking for rarity rather than only getting an automatic response based purely on game mechanic.

And that’s where the Treasure Bag comes in. In Massive Darkness: Hellscape every time players come across a Treasure icon, they draw Treasure tokens from the Treasure Bag and the drawn tokens determine from which deck the player draws Treasure Cards. You'll find the Treasure icon as a token inside chambers, which means that when you populate the chamber according to the setup of the quest, you draw the Treasure token(s) and place them on the indicated Zone, where they stay until a Hero picks them up and then collects the Treasure Card.

You'll also find Treasure icons when spawning a Mob or Roaming Monster: the Treasure icon on the upper left of the Mob or Roaming Monster card shows how many Treasure tokens are to be randomly drawn from the bag and placed on the Monster cards.

As soon as a Hero defeats the Monster (in case of a Mob, when they defeat the Leader, which is the very last figure to die) they get all Treasure cards matching the tokens. In both cases only then the token(s) goes back to the bag.

With this approach, we're adding a new layer of excitement by making killing monsters not only more fun and rewarding but also creating a moment of suspense for the party when finding loot, while still using the knowledge of available loot to drive their actions. There are 3 rarity levels in Hellscape and they are: Common, Rare, and Epic. The higher the rarity, the better the Item, but of course there is a balance concern here. In order for players not to have overwhelmingly powerful Items from the Epic deck at the start of the game, the bag usually starts with 15 Common Tokens, 5 Rare Tokens and no Epic tokens, which means there is a small chance of finding Rare items at the start of the game while Epic items are only available later on (note: some Quests may change the initial odds).

As soon as a Hero reaches Level 2 they add 1 Rare Treasure token to the Treasure Bag. After that, when they reach level 3, they add the first Epic token to the bag, so players can only start finding Epic items by reaching this level. As Heroes Level Up, the chances of finding better items increase, since every Hero adds a Token to the bag as they each new Levels. At Levels 4 and 5 every Hero also adds another Epic Token.

## **The Treasure Tokens**

One thing we realized during the design by observing people playing the original Massive Darkness after its release was that a lot of items were collected but many were not being used and concluded that one of the reasons for that was that players often found items for slots that were already occupied. To solve that and also to make equipping items be a deeper experience while increasing the possibilities of creating interesting combos we decided to create new slots for equipping gear in Massive Darkness: Hellscape. To achieve this, we changed the Hero Dashboard by adding equipment slots:

Besides the usual 2 slots for hands and the body slot for armor, Heroes have a slot for Legs, Head, and Miscellaneous; which means players will be finding not just pieces of armor and weapons but also helms, boots, rings, amulets, gloves, etc.

To ensure balance in the game and to make sure players won't be finding the same type of items over and over again and falling in the same problem of having lots of unused items in the backpack we're carefully working with the percentages of each deck:

- The Monster Item deck, which contains the items that Mobs carry in entirely composed of Weapons - and that’s the main source from where players will be finding Weapons.

- Another new thing players will find are Potions, which are consumable single-use Items that are not just mana or health-related, but may also improve a Hero's Attack, Defense, and Movement among other things. We opted to focus Potions on the Common Treasure deck, so we have the Common Treasure deck composed as 30% consumables, 40% helms and body armor, 20% weapons, and 10% leg armor and Misc.

- The Rare Treasure Deck and the Epic Treasure decks don’t have any consumables, which opens room for the other type of items. The Rare deck is made 40% body armor and helms, 30% weapons, and 30% leg armor and Misc.

- Finally the Epic deck's breakdown is 40% weapons, 30% body armor and helm, and 30% leg armor and Misc. It's also important to mention that the weapons for the Shadowbane Set are found on this deck.

## **The Item Cards**

These are all the known Item cards for Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape, revealed from the Kickstarter project (including all updates) and from the playable demo for Tabletop Simulator.

*Note: If you are on PC, expand the page to better view the list.*

## Item Cards Trivia

* The ability of the *Scroll of Enhancement* item has a misspelled word "equiped".
* The ability of the *Hunter's Crossbow* item has duplicate text of "to any result".
* There are 2 different items named *Longbow* and *Long Bow*.
* There are 3 different items named *Crossbow*.
* There are in total 112 fully revealed (excluding their spawns) item cards (96 in the core game).
	+ 42 Common (38 in core), 44 Rare (38 in core), 23 Epic (19 in core), 3 Legendary (0 in core).
	+ 34 Two-Handed (28 in core), 37 Hand (29 in core), 13 Consumable, 7 Head, 8 Chest (7 in core), 5 Legs (4 in core), 8 Misc (7 in core).
* There are no revealed Epic Chest items or Epic Legs items.
* *Dragon Armor* is the only revealed non-Set item that adds at least 3 defensive dice and has the best defensive capabilities that can block up to 15 Hits and Retaliations on its own.
* *Javelin* is the only revealed item that lets you perform 2 attacks per Action.
* *Devil's Horn* is the only revealed item that has "∞" in its text.
* *Leather Skirt* is the only revealed item that can cancel a Mob's effect.
* *Experience Charm* is the only revealed item that gives XP.
* *Wand of the Dead* is the only revealed item that gives a Free Action.
* *Snake Ring* is the only revealed item that can force an Enemy to attack.

## **Rare Set Equipment**

### **Head Armor**

* Shadowbane Helm
	+ Shadowbane Set
	+ **(Light) Attack (Mana):** Heal the same amount as wounds dealt.
	+ Melee Dice: 1 Yellow

### **Leg Armor**

* Hero's Greaves
	+ Shadowbane Set
	+ **(Light) Defense:** Ignore 1 Attacking Die

## **Epic Set Equipment**

### **Melee Weapons**

* Tinkerer's Golden Hammers
	+ Shadowbane Set
	+ Two-Handed
	+ **Tinkerer only**
	+ **(Light) Attack:** If you kill a Leader or Roaming Monster, draw 1 Epic item
	+ Melee Dice: 3 Yellow, 2 Orange

### **Magic Weapons**

* Bard's Shimmering Harp
	+ Shadowbane Set
	+ Two-Handed
	+ **Bard only**
	+ **(Light) Action:** Deal 5 Wounds to 1 Mob on your Tile and move it up to 2
	+ Magic Dice: 2 Yellow, 2 Orange
* Wizard's Radiant Staff
	+ Shadowbane Set
	+ Two-Handed
	+ **(Light) Attack:** Gain Double the (Mana) from (Yellow Dice)
	+ **Wizard only**
	+ Magic Dice: 3 Yellow, 1 Orange

### **Body Armor**

* Shadowbane Breastplate
	+ Shadowbane Set
	+ The first time a Hero equips this item, gain a new Skill of your level or lower.
	+ Defense Dice: 4 Blue

### **Head Armor**

* Doom Helm
	+ Darkbringer Set
	+ **(Shadow) Attack:** Double the amount of (Hit) from the (Violet Dice)
* Ignition Helm
	+ Hellfire Set
	+ **Attack (Take 1 (Fire Token)):** Target takes 2 (Fire Token)

### **Leg Armor**

* Magma Greaves
	+ Hellfire Set
	+ **Defense (Take 1 (Fire Token)):** +1 (Green Dice)
* Shadow Greaves
	+ Darkbringer Set
	+ **Move:** If you begin this move in a Shadow Zone, gain +2 MP and Ignore Reaction Damage for this Move action

### **Miscellaneous**

Druid's Sparkling Amulet

* Shadowbane Set
* **Druid only**
* Can be equipped in a (Miscellaneous) or (Hand) slot (*even if equipping a (Two-Handed) item)*
* When Transforming, you trigger Transformation effects twice.

## **Legendary Set Equipment**

### **Ranged Weapons**

* Tinkerer's Bomb Launcher
	+ Hellfire Set
	+ Two-Handed
	+ **Tinkerer only**
	+ **Ranged Attack:** Add 1 (Fire Token) and place 1 small Bomb in the defender's Zone
	+ Melee Dice: 2 Yellow, 2 Orange
	+ Ranged Dice: 3 Yellow, 1 Orange, 2 Red
* Tinkerer's Noxious Wristbow
	+ Darkbringer Set
	+ One-Handed
	+ **Tinkerer only**
	+ **(Shadow) Action:** Perform 2 attacks (once per round)
	+ Melee Dice: 1 Yellow, 2 Orange
	+ Ranged Dice: 1 Orange, 2 Red

### **Magic Weapons**

* Bard's Inferno Flute
	+ Hellfire Set
	+ Two-Handed
	+ **Bard only**
	+ **Action:** Immediately resolve all (Fire Token) on all Heroes, but Heal instead of dealing wounds
	+ Magic Dice: 2 Yellow, 2 Orange, 1 Red
* Bard's War Drum
	+ Darkbringer Set
	+ Two-Handed
	+ **Bard only**
	+ **(Shadow) Action:** 1 Hero on your Tile performs 1 attack. They gain 1 (Re-roll) for each different Active Note
	+ Magic Dice: 2 Yellow, 2 Orange, 1 Red
* Wizard's Arcane Bracer
	+ Darkbringer Set
	+ One-Handed
	+ **Wizard only**
	+ **(Shadow)** You may lose (Mana) instead of Health
	+ Magic Dice: 1 Yellow, 1 Orange, 1 Red
* Wizard's Fiery Scroll
	+ Hellfire Set
	+ One-Handed
	+ **Wizard only**
	+ When resolving (Fire Token) on an Enemy in the Dungeon, use (Orange Dice) instead.
	+ **Attack 1 (Mana):** Deal 1 (Fire Token)

### **Body Armor**

* Lava Armor
	+ Hellfire Set
	+ **Action:** Transfer all your (Fire Token) to 1 Enemy in your Zone
	+ Defense Dice: 2 Blue, 4 Green
* Sinister Armor
	+ Darkbringer Set
	+ **(Shadow) Defense:** Ignore up to 2 (Retaliation) and gain that many (Mana)
	+ Defense Dice: 5 Blue, 2 Green

### **Miscellaneous**

Druid's Flame Earrings

* Hellfire Set
* **Druid only**
* Can be equipped in a (Miscellaneous) or (Hand) slot (*even if equipping a (Two-Handed) item)*
* **(Take 1 (Flame Token)):** Increase the current Animal Form track by 2 (*once per round*)

Druid's Runic Ring

* Darkbringer Set
* **Druid only**
* Can be equipped in a (Miscellaneous) or (Hand) slot (*even if equipping a (Two-Handed) item)*
* **(Shadow) Action:** Use the Transformation effect of any other form.