Mobs
Not everything in the dungeon is here to talk. A mob is a random encounter: it appears on its own, follows you for a while, and then it is your problem.
How they find you
Each time you enter the dungeon there is a chance something has already noticed you, and it is roughly one time in five. The dungeon only makes the attempt once every twelve hours, and it decides whether to bother before it rolls — so logging in repeatedly will not earn you more encounters. A quiet spell just means nothing is stalking you; you are not unlucky. And you are no longer stuck with it either — see Calling one out below.
Calling one out
You do not have to wait to be found. Once every twelve hours you may call something out. The button lives in your HUD’s Nearby Threat panel, and it appears whenever there is nothing in front of you and the dungeon is willing to answer.
What answers is drawn from the lightest weight — a Goblin, a Skeleton, a Sluggalo, a Screamer or a Juicer. Those are the ones you can reasonably expect to put down, so a fight you asked for is a fight you should win. If you would rather meet a Grull or a Wendigo, do not call: the dungeon still sends its own, and it does not ask what you are ready for.
Calling does not consume the automatic attempt — they are counted separately, so a call is not stealing your luck. Nor can it be hurried: the twelve hours is the twelve hours, whether the encounter found you or you asked for it. Nothing is lost by calling, and nothing is lost by not.
Knowing where you stand
While a mob is nearby, your HUD shows a Nearby Threat panel with its name and how long it intends to stay — usually about six hours. Your Activity Feed records its arrival, and records how it ended.
Your three options
While a mob is near, your HUD offers three choices. You get one of them per mob; a new mob is a new decision.
- Engage it — you fight. See below.
- Hold your ground — you stay put and watch it. Nothing happens, and nothing is risked. It leaves when its time runs out.
- Slip away — you withdraw. It loses interest and leaves early. This costs you nothing, but it also earns you nothing: fleeing forfeits the reward, and that is the whole price of fleeing.
How a fight works
A fight is resolved instantly, in up to eight rounds, and you read it afterwards as a round-by-round log. Each round you strike it, and if it is still standing, it strikes you.
Mobs come in three weights. A Goblin is a bad afternoon. A Grull is a real fight. A Wendigo or a Hydra will likely beat you the first time you meet one, and there is no shame in that — the floor is a polite fiction away from being the same fight.
Fights get longer as you get stronger, because the dungeon sizes what it sends against what you have become. What it does not do is stay dangerous in the same way: the deeper you descend, the more of these you will walk away from.
What you can win, and what you can lose
Victory — you put it down. You earn XP and a loot box.
Driven back — it wins the exchange. You are pushed back, the fight ends, and you still earn a share of the XP for having stood there.
What you cannot lose: your XP, your level, your floor, your loot, your class, your race, or your life. None of it. No fight in this dungeon can kill you or take anything from you.
A fight can cost you the win. That is the only thing on the table, and it is deliberate. The dungeon wanted something at stake that was worth caring about, and a crawler’s permanent record was never going to be it.
Potions heal you
Health potions now do something. In a fight, if you are badly hurt, the dungeon drinks one for you automatically — you will not lose a fight because you were not watching the log closely enough. The stronger the potion, the more it returns to you, and an Elixir of Power leaves you hitting harder for the rest of the fight.
You can also drink one deliberately, outside a fight. They do not come back, so spend them where they matter.
Your party fights with you, even when they are not there
If you are in a party, every other member makes you harder to kill — and none of them have to be online. Your party’s strength is drawn from who is in it, not who is logged in at that moment. Fight at three in the morning alone; your party is still standing behind you.
Pack Masters get twice the benefit. It is the entire point of the class.
Your class finally matters
Classes were always an identity. Now they are an edge, and a different one each.
- Battle Cat — strikes harder and lands critical hits far more often.
- Compensated Anarchist — hits like a badly-aimed explosion. The high rolls are spectacular and the low rolls are a genuine problem.
- Former Child Actor — takes noticeably less damage. You have talked your way out of worse rooms than this one.
- Rage Elementalist — every round it goes on, you get angrier and you hit harder. Long fights are yours to win.
- Pack Master — the party bonus is doubled.
You do not need a class to fight, and having one is never a disadvantage.
Something wrong with it?
If a mob or a fight behaves oddly — it never shows up, the timer looks wrong, a fight resolves strangely, or a fight takes anything from you — open your HUD’s Nearby Threat panel and use the “Something wrong with it?” link. It goes straight to System AI with the category and the mob’s name already filled in, so you do not have to explain which one you mean.
If a fight ever costs you XP, a level, a floor, or an item, that is a bug and not a rule. Report it. The dungeon will put it back.