Items can have a variety of different effects applied to them. The following is a list of all possible effects and their, erm, effects.
Note that although we often refer to variables as "percentages" or "Y/X/Z%" which implied 0% is the minimum, 50% is medium, and 100 is the maximum, variables that are not the odds of an effect triggering are NOT meant to be read as percentages. As such some effects are allowable far beyond measures 100, while other more powerful effects are considered game breaking and restricted to 20 or lower. For instance BURNING:10:510 (10% chance of triggering an effect dealing 510, obviously not a percent, damage per turn) isn't insane for a 1000 power weapon while AFFINITY:[any aspect]:15 is plenty for any weapon, even the 9999+9999 ones.
Status-Inflicting Strife Effects
All of these effects work in strife against one or more enemies. Note that status conditions associated with a particular aspect will be resisted by enemies that resist said aspect.
Timestop
Format is TIMESTOP:X. The weapon has an X% chance of attempting to stop an enemy in time. A timestopped enemy will be unable to move for two turns (including the turn it was inflicted). Associated with the Time aspect.
Watery Gel
Format is WATERYGEL:X. The weapon has an X% chance of attempting to water down enemy Health Gel. An enemy with Waterygel will take 10% increased damage per hit. Associated with the Life aspect.
Poison
Format is POISON:X:Y. The weapon has an X% chance of attempting to inflict poison on an enemy. The poison will take away Y% of the enemy's health each turn. Associated with the Doom aspect.
Shrunk
Format is SHRUNK:X. The weapon has an X% chance of attempting to shrink an enemy. A shrunken enemy will deal 33% less damage to the player per round. Associated with the Space aspect.
Misfortune
Format is MISFORTUNE:X. The weapon has an X% chance of attempting to inflict misfortune on enemies. An unfortunate enemy has a chance per round to succumb to some form of accident, ranging from taking damage to losing power to turning into a pinata. Associated with the Light aspect.
The effect to be applied is determined each turn by rolling a number between 1 and 100 and subtracting 10% of the player's luck stat. The result is then used to pick an effect from the list below:
- 51+ - No effect this time.
- 26-50 - The enemy trips and falls. They take 1% damage and lose a static 2200 power.
- 11-25 - The enemy is hit by a meteor. They take a static 30000 damage, which would be 100% of a tier 3 Acheron’s health for example.
- 3-10 - There is an earthquake and the enemy takes damage equal to the player’s Echeladder times 100.
- 2 - The enemy is struck by lightning, inflicting damage equal to the player’s Echeladder times 250.
- 1 - The enemy is turned into a pinata, setting their health to 1 and their power to 0. Only a NATURAL 1 can cause this effect (the roll before luck modifications). Any modified roll less than 2 will result in the lightning strike.
Bleeding
Format is BLEEDING:X:Y. The weapon has an X% chance to inflict bleeding on an enemy for Y rounds. An enemy that is bleeding will lose 1% of their health and power every turn. Associated with the Blood aspect.
Hopeless
Format is HOPELESS:X. The weapon has an X% chance of causing an enemy to lose hope. A hopeless enemy has a 50% chance to not attack. The status has a chance of lifting (equal to the percentage dealt to the player times 2, up to 66%) when the enemy inflicts damage successfully. Associated with the Hope aspect.
Disoriented
Format is DISORIENTED:X:Y. The weapon has an X% chance to disorient an enemy for Y rounds. A disoriented enemy will be unable to fight with its allies effectively, nullifying the boost it would normally get from being in a group with other enemies as well as its effect on the boost of other enemies. Associated with the Mind aspect.
Distracted
Format is DISTRACTED:X. The weapon has an X% chance to distract an enemy for one round, doubling the damage it takes. Associated with the Mind aspect.
Enraged
Format is ENRAGED:X. The weapon has an X% chance of making the target angry. While enraged, an enemy defends poorly and damage dealt to it is increased by 10% of its current power level. Associated with the Rage aspect. Cancelled out by Mellow.
Mellow
Format is MELLOW:X. The weapon has an X% chance of making the target mellow out. While mellowed, an enemy cares less about the battle and damage it deals is reduced by 10% of its current power level. Associated with the Rage aspect. Cancelled out by Enraged.
Glitched
Format is GLITCHED:X. The weapon has an X% chance of glitching an enemy out, occasionally preventing them from attacking. This effect lasts the entire battle. Associated with the Void aspect.
Knockdown
Format is KNOCKDOWN:X. If the damage is large enough compared to the target's maximum health ((damage dealt to the enemy this turn * the weapon’s knockdown effectiveness * the enemy’s breath resistance) is greater than or equal to 1/3 of its maximum health), they will be knocked down for one round and unable to attack. Associated with the Breath aspect.
Burning
Format is BURNING:X:Y. The weapon has an X% chance to set an enemy on fire. The fire deals a static Y damage every round until it is put out. Fire also has a (relatively small) chance to inflict Distracted on an enemy, depending on how much damage it is doing. Associated with the Rage aspect. Cancelled out by Freezing.
Freezing
Format is FREEZING:X. The weapon has an X% chance to freeze an enemy. A frozen enemy will be unable to act until it breaks out of the ice. Damaging an enemy increases its chance of breaking out, and the chance is further tweaked if the enemy has been weakened or empowered: the chance of breaking out each turn is 20% (50% if damage is dealt to the enemy) multiplied by the ratio of the enemy's current power to its base power. Associated with the Void aspect. Cancelled out by Burning.
Lockdown
Format is LOCKDOWN:X:Y. The weapon has an X% chance of attempting to lock down an enemy, which completely nullifies all of its special abilities for Y turns. Applying Lockdown to an enemy that is already locked down will retain only the longest remaining timer. Associated with the Heart aspect.
Charmed
Format is CHARMED:X. The weapon has an X% chance of attempting to charm an enemy, causing them to contribute their power level to your attacks until the effect wears off. The chance of the effect wearing off is (50 + (Heart resistance)/2)%. Associated with the Heart aspect.
Resistance Modifier
Format is RESIST:X:Y:Z. The weapon has a Z% chance to modify the enemy's resistance to the Y aspect, changing it to X%. X can be negative to make the enemy weak to that aspect, and the aspect doesn't necessarily have to be a conventional one. The higher the enemy's current resistance to aspect Y, the harder it will be to inflict this status.
Other Strife Effects
These effects also work in strife and are useful in various other ways, but some are even dentrimental.
Affinity
Format is AFFINITY:X:Y. A weapon with this tag has Y% increased elemental effectiveness of aspect X. If the user's aspect matches the item's affinity, the effectiveness is further increased. Some enemies resist specific aspects. The aspect does not have to be a selectable one; an obscure affinity cannot be resisted by enemies, but it cannot be boosted by players. Affinity can be placed on WEARABLES to produce resistance to aspect-related effects as well.
Life Steal
Format is LIFESTEAL:X:Y. The weapon has an X% chance to heal the user by Y% of the damage dealt to an enemy. The amount healed is reduced if the enemy has Blood resistance, and enemies with greater than 100% Blood resistance will damage the player with this effect instead.
Soul Steal
Format is SOULSTEAL:X:Y. Similar to Life Steal, the weapon has an X% chance to recover the user's Aspect Vial by Y% of the damage dealt to an enemy. The amount restored is reduced if the enemy has Heart resistance, and enemies with greater than 100% Heart resistance will drain the player's aspect with this effect instead.
Randamage
Format is RANDAMAGE:X. The weapon's damage output will vary by +/- X%. Used for luck-based or inconsistent weapons.
Recoil
Format is RECOIL:X:Y. The weapon has an X% chance of inflicting recoil damage to the wielder equal to Y% of the damage dealt. This recoil damage will not kill the player, instead leaving them with 1 health if it would kill them.
Compound Hit
Format is COMPOUNDHIT:X. Damage dealt is first multiplied by X, then by an additional amount that increases with each enemy hit that round. This effect can make a weapon effectively weaker than most others of its power level against small groups, or turn it into a devastating crowd controller. Or both!
Payday
Format is PAYDAY:X. Causes enemies to drop an amount of boondollars equal to X% of its power level on defeat in addition to their normal drops.
Piercing
Format is PIERCING:X. Causes a weapon to always inflict an amount of damage equal to X% of its power level on enemies, even if they would normally block all damage. Allows you to damage and even kill enemies of power levels that you cannot hope to damage with normal weapons. This can be resisted by enemies with Breath resistance, however.
Ammo
Format is AMMO:X:Y:Z. This weapon requires Y amount of X to function. This is a very versatile tag for the following reasons: X can be any quantifiable player field, meaning it could be grist, boondollars, power boosts, Echeladder rung, the maximum health of the enemy in slot 5, you name it. Y can also be negative, meaning the weapon will generate X per trigger (but only when damage is dealt). Z is the frequency; if 0, the ammo is consumed/generated for every enemy targeted, but if 1, it's only triggered once per round. If ammo runs out, all damage dealt will be reduced to 0, but defending will still be at full power.
Smite
Format is SMITE:X. This weapon deals X% extra damage against the undead, give or take depending on the enemy's power. This includes Liches and the Lich Queen, as well as any other skeletal enemies you may encounter.
Glitchy
Format is GLITCHY:X. Every hit, this weapon has an X% chance to harmlessly glitch out. This effect is purely for flavor.
Random effect
Format is RANDEFFECT:X:Y. Every hit, a random effect from a very large pool of effects is chosen that has X% chance to activate and an effectiveness of Y. For most effects, the effectiveness is usually the amount of turns the effect will last (if applicable) but also determines the strength of poison, burning, and so on.
Passive/Non-Strife Effects
Some items have effects that have nothing to do with strife, as they may be passive or involve special properties.
Storage Effect
Format is STORAGE:X. When placed in storage, this item provides certain effects based on X keyword(s). Storage effects will be listed elsewhere eventually.
Shunt Effect
Format is SHUNT:X[:Y]. When a card punched with this item's code is inserted into a Punch Card Shunt, it provides the upgrades listed in X. The optional parameter Y is a description of the changes made to the Alchemiter with this upgrade that is printed in place of the ordinary description for its effect. Note that if Y is present, X can be blank for a simply cosmetic upgrade.
Codeholder
Format is CODEHOLDER. Used for Captcha Cards and Cruxite Dowels, which can hold a code.
Deployable
Format is DEPLOYABLE[:X:Y]. This item can be deployed by a server into their client's storage. This includes the canon alchemy machinery (Cruxtruder, Punch Designix, etc). X/Y are optional parameters that can determine cost from the Deploy menu, or maximum allowed in storage.
Obscured
Format is OBSCURED. This item's code cannot be read by the naked eye, and requires an Intellibeam Laserstation to add the code to the Atheneum or use in alchemy.
Ghost Image Creator
Format is GHOSTER. When in the inventory, the holder will automatically create a ghost image of any item they encounter but cannot captchalogue. This ghost image contains the code of the item, but cannot be physically used or stored.
Luck
Format is LUCK:X. While equipped, the item passively grants X luck. Maximum luck value is 100, minimum is -100.
Grant
Format is GRANT:(status). While equipped, you are treated as having the given status effect(s). Any form of status can be granted in this way, including temporary roletechs and imbuements of other effects.
Description Variables
Format is DESCVAR:X:[Z:]Y. The item's description can contain a placeholder (labeled X) for variable Y (using Z as a sort of area-code extension for non-user variables). In other words, an item with this "effect" will replace a tag in the description with a certain variable. You can use this to print, for example, your username, a timestamp, your session's head admin, the amount of build grist your client has, and many other things.
Flavor Cost
Format is FLAVORCOST:X:Y. When the item is previewed or alchemized, it will display an additional cost of grist X and amount Y. This has no effect on the value of the item and is purely for flavor. As such, Y can be a number, string of text, or even an image, and X does not have to be an existing grist.