Darkest Pixel Dungeon

Preface for version 0.4.3

Darkest Pixel Dungeon has received recently an update, numbered 0.4.3. The main text of the wiki page has not been updated yet with these changes, but none of them has been drastically game-altering, and the general game mechanics of Darkest PD have remained basically the same. For the time being, readers can consult the following changelog, that has been drawn from the version's release post in reddit and has been enriched by the wiki with info from the game's github. The wiki's infobox has been already updated and now leads to a download link for version 0.4.3.

Hi fellows, egoal here again. The last major update of 0.4, Darkest PD 0.4.3 has been finally released:

a new artifact has been added: Dragon's Squama, which ignites and shocks enemies in an area of effect around the hero
a new weapon enchantment has been added: Storming, that deals increased damage the more hits the weapon deals to the same target.
a new enemy has been added in early Sewers: Sewer Worm, which is more evasive and with higher armor than other enemies of the early Sewers, but is very vulnerable to magical attacks.
familiar enemies have been also changed in their details:
- DM-300 when not in melee range can now also charge attack and stun the hero (a red square appears on DM-300's tile of destination a little earlier) and always drops a Tome of Retrain, which allows the player to erase one positive perk and choose a new one.
- King of Dwarves now in additon to the Armor Kit also always drops a tome of Update, which allows the player to increase the level of an existing upgradeable perk by +1.
- sometimes Cave Spinners can now drop also a Spider Gland (it is basically a thrown weapon that deals no direct damage, but roots and releases toxic gas in its area of effect)
- sometimes Piranhas can now drop also a Fish Bone (one fish bone combined with one raw meat in an alchemy pot produces Kebab, which reduces half hunger like a chargrilled meat, but also heals +5 pressure).
also, some enemies now have a chance to deal critical damage (WIP).
a new head item has been added: Guard Helmet, which increases a bit the hero's elemental resistances
new available language: Traditional Chinese
2 new NPCs have been added: the Undead Shopkeeper that spawns rarely and randomly in all dungeon chapters and sells two rare items (artifacts, rings etc.), and Kostis the Seeker on depth 0 that directs players to the wiki for more information about the game.
a few new perks have been added (WIP). The Brew Enhanced Potions perk has now pseudo random use, and is no longer upgradable.
a new potion-like item has been added: Reagent of Healing (heals from little to very much depending on the hero's current HP, the most benefit is with the hero in very low health). It is randomly sold by Plague Doctors and is also a reward of the Elder Alchemist if the hero brings back to him a dew vial with a lot of dewdrops.
4 new weapons have been added: Dried Leg (tier 2, slow, stuns, can't surprise attack), Invisible Blade (tier 3, accurate, deals pure damage, Pitchfork (tier 4, slow, reach 2, causes bleeding), Red Handle Dagger (tier 1, cripples)
some badges have been overhauled (WIP).
the Gifted challenge has been buffed (WIP).
different types of damage are displayed differently above the hero and enemies (WIP).
the subclass Berserker now recovers faster, and the he gets stronger each time when he survives from death.
the max value of Hunger has gone up to 500 from 450.

Overview

Darkest Pixel Dungeon is a Pixel Dungeon mod created by Egoal and first released on December 5th, 2017.

The mod's name is a tribute to the roguelike videogame Darkest Dungeon, as the developer of the mod, egoal, has been inspired by it and has borrowed some of its game elements, among which the most notable is the pressure mechanic.

Apart from the Darkest Dungeon influence, the game is based on Shattered Pixel Dungeon of version 0.4.2b, so almost the last 2D version. For an overview of additions and changes in Shattered PD up to this version you can visit this link, but as you will see in the main text many subsection links lead to Original PD's pages because the source material of older Shattered PD still contained many identical features with Original PD.

There are a lot of new features and items added to Darkest Pixel Dungeon, but the most important additions are:

a big group of new NPCs, with some of them being essential or crucial to the hero's progress,
a big group of new Artifacts,
a new class, the Sorceress, with her two subclasses, the Stargazer and Witch,
the 50 hero "perks", which grant a permanent special skill or ability and some of them get assigned by the player in each run,
the "pressure/stress" stat, which affects the hero's survivability as much as the hero's health.

It should also be noted that Darkest PD is among the few mods with Chinese origin that are fully available in English (the other four are Easier Sprouted PD, Easier Vanilla PD, Fushigi No PD, and SPecial Surprise PD). Each one of these mods makes very different and considerably original choices regarding the modifications applied to their source material, but Darkest PD, Fushigi No PD and SPecial Surprise PD share some common NPCs, who are unique to these mods and who all refer to actual members of the PD Chinese community.

Alchemy

The new alchemy of Shattered PD is not implemented at all so there are no exotic potions and exotic scrolls, no spells, no brews and elixirs, no runestones crafted by scrolls, no alchemical energy is needed etc. The three familiar features only existing are the old alchemy of seed combinations from Original PD, with the addition of the Blandfruit recipes from early Shattered PD and also the option to cook stewed meat in an alchemy pot (note that raw meats can't be cooked in bulk, but only one at a time). Nevertheless, there are some new additions and changes: A) The new class Sorceress can exclusively use her extraction flask to brew potions with two seeds anywhere in the dungeon ("Refine" option), but not to cook Blandfruits or stew meat, and her subclass Witch in addition can enhance already existing potions and strengthen their effects ("Strengthen" option, only available in the flask after the choice of this subclass). B) The new potion of Physique is added, which increases the hero's max HP. C) Because of this addition and of the strengthened potion variants most Blandfruit effects are somewhat different than in current Shattered PD. Mightyfruit has the effect of the new potion of Physique, and all cooked Blandfruits that their corresponding potion can be enhanced will grant the strengthened effect to the hero, so Starfruit gives a lot of XP, Sunfruit a lot of HP etc. (for more details about all these see Potions section below, and for any strengthened potion effect read also "associated blandfruit effect").

A new feature of Darkest PD not related with potions is that the hero will find in every alchemy room an Enchantment Table, which he/she can use to transfer enchantments (but not upgrades) from an identified enchanted item to another identified item of the same type (that is from weapon to weapon or from armor to armor). If the second item is already enchanted, the enchantment it already has will be replaced. Keep in mind that the first enchanted item is destroyed in the process and does not just lose its enchantment. Note that the positive bug of previous versions of Darkest PD has been fixed and the table does not accept cursed identified items and lift curses from them anymore, so it currently has the same limitations in accepting items with the Troll Blacksmith when he transfers upgrades.

Armors

Darkest PD's armors are the same with the Armors of Original PD. The Epic Armors are also the same, with only the addition of the "Queen Crimson" epic armor for the new Sorceress class, which has the "Tides of Scarlet" special skill and applies the Poison and Terror debuffs to enemies. They all still spend HP to apply their effect. A specific difference in the familiar epic armors of Darkest PD is that the epic armor of Mage can get reinforced with the Great Blueprint item and gain extra magical defense and a secondary special skill that consumes no HP (see Enemies section: Dwarf King for details). Like in most mods armors are not transmutable.

[DR = Damage Reduction, Scaling = Defense Scaling with each upgrade]

Name	DR	Scaling
Cloth Armor	0 - 2	+1 / +1
Leather armor	0 - 4	+1 / +2
Mail armor	0 - 6	+1 / +3
Scale armor	0 - 8	+1 / +4
Plate armor	0 - 10	+1 / +5

The armor glyphs of Darkest PD are the same with those of earlier Shattered PD (Affection, Anti-magic, Brimstone, Camouflage, Entanglement, Flow, Obfuscation, Potential, Repulsion, Stone, Swiftness, Thorns, Viscosity), but they are applied with arcane styli and scrolls of Enchanting, while the scroll of Magical Infusion does not exist in Darkest PD. The armor curses of Darkest PD are similar with those of older Shattered PD (Anti-entropy, Corrosion, Displacement, Metabolism, Multiplicity, Stench), so the curses of Bulk and Overgrowth do not exist. Note also that in Darkest PD cursed armors can't have negative levels, and as a matter of fact they are even found upgraded sometimes. Only the scroll of Remove Curse or stepping in a Well of Health with the cursed armor equipped/throwing the armor in it will uncurse an armor fully, while applying a scroll of Upgrade will make always the cursed armor unequippable again, but it won't necessarily lift the curse fully, and the armor might still apply its negative curse effect.

Artifacts

Half of the mod's artifacts (12) are similar with those of Shattered PD before its artifact rework; Goo and DM-300 still drop occasionally the Lloyd's Beacon and the Cape of Thorns, and Crazy Thieves and Bandits still drop the Master Thieves' Armband exclusively. Moreover, 13 new artifacts are added, with one of them having 3 variants.

Familiar artifacts from Shattered PD

The artifacts unique to a specific class are mentioned last.

Alchemist's Toolkit: It doesn't spawn currently, although it exists in the game code. Nevertheless, the Extraction Flask of the Sorceress class works very similarly with the Alchemist's Toolkit in current Shattered PD, as it functions also like a portable alchemy pot (that said, they are very different in the details of their use).
Cape of Thorns: Same with its old version in Shattered PD, it drops occasionally from DM-300, gets charged by the hero receiving damage and has a Thorns effect, which is activated automatically when its charges become 100%.
Chalice of Blood (changed): In Darkest PD it is a unique probable drop when the hero chooses to make a Sacrifice to the statue of the Devil. Unlike its Shattered PD version it is auto charged by killing enemies and consumes this energy to heal the hero directly by using its "Drink" option, gains XP also by killing enemies and not by the hero's self-harm and gets upgraded once XP is enough. [The new artifact Heart of Satan is much more similar in its features to current Shattered PD's Chalice.]
Dried Rose (changed): Like in Shattered PD, it spawns a Sad Ghost ally and gets upgraded by finding and adding rose petals to it (10 petals are needed for it to reach max level +10). It has many secondary differences though: the Sad Ghost has a ranged attack, does not equip armors or weapons, also heals the hero's wounds, and even when it is not damaged, it vanishes after a while (the higher its level, the longer it will last).
Ethereal Chains: Almost the same with their current version in Shattered PD, they pull enemies to the hero or the hero to a target location in sight, but they work also for unaccessible areas that are visible after the depth gets mapped and can get the hero through walls (it is actually the same with is its older version in Shattered PD). Adding charges to it eventually levels it up.
Horn of Plenty: Very similar with its current version in Shattered PD, it generates food for the hero and gets upgraded by feeding it with food items. A minor difference of it is that even when it is not upgraded at all, it generates food rather quicker and satisfies more hunger in comparison to the unupgraded Horn of Shattered PD.
Lloyd's Beacon: Same with its old version in Shattered PD, it drops occasionally from Goo and allows the hero: a) to set a location and teleport back there (it does not need charges or to be equipped for that) and b) to teleport enemies to another random place on the depth (it needs to be equipped and have charges for that). It gains levels and max charges each time the hero kills a chapter boss.
Master Thieves' Armband: Same with its older version in Shattered PD, as it still drops occasionally from Crazy Thieves and Bandits. It allows the hero to steal from shops, gets charged by picking up gold and gets upgraded by stealing.
Sandals of Nature: Same with its current version in Shattered PD, it increases the drops of seeds and dewdrops from high grass, gets upgraded by feeding it different seeds, and also has a secondary Herbal Armor function ("Root").
Talisman of Foresight: Same with its current version in Shattered PD, it warns the hero for hidden traps, gets upgraded by the hero noticing hidden doors and traps, and also has a secondary Loot Display function ("Scry").
Timekeeper's Hourglass (changed): Like in Shattered PD, it gets upgraded by adding to it bags of sand sold in shops, but only offers to the hero the power to freeze time around him/her, and has fewer charges (from 2/2 up to 5/5) and levels (max +6). A minor extra difference of it is that the hero will find many bags of sand sold in the next shop after he/she finds the artifact. Note also that attacks will not disrupt the time freeze of the Hourglass, a reason why it has a lower charge number.
Unstable Spellbook: Similar with its version in older Shattered PD, it will cast randomly any of the game's scrolls apart from the scroll of Upgrade, and upgrading it just adds max charges to it and increases its recharging speed, but doesn't give the option of enhanced/exotic scrolls. It gets upgraded by feeding it requested scrolls. Note that the Spellbook of Darkest PD asks to get fed with and casts randomly also the new scrolls of this mod (Curse, Enchanting, Light). High pressure makes the hero also unable to use the Spellbook similarly to the inabilit yof reading scrolls.
Cloak of Shadows: It is unique to the Rogue class and it is very similar with its version in Shattered PD before the Rogue rework. It also offers invisibility on demand but its starting amount of max charges at level 0 are 6/6 instead of 3/3, its max charges at level +10 are 20/20 instead of 10/10 (so in some "level ups", it gains only an additional charge and not an extra level, making the "level ups" 14 in sum, with only 10 of them granting actually an extra level to it) and also its rate of recharging is a little different than in current Shattered PD - in all these it is more or less rather similar with Sprouted PD's Cloak of Shadows, a mod also based on an old version of Shattered PD. It can also get reinforced with the Great Blueprint, which will increase the Rogue's evasion generally while he is wearing the Cloak (see Enemies section: Dwarf King for details).

New artifacts of Darkest PD

Available to all classes

Cloak of Sheep: It allows the hero to blink to any nearby area in sight (works also for unaccessible areas that are visible after the depth gets mapped) and creates a sheep in the tile that the hero blinked from. It gets upgraded by using it.
Cracked Coin: It offers shield or zaps lightnings but both in exchange of gold. The shield absorbs half of damage at the cost of gold, charging the coin. However, when the coin gets 100% charged, the shield has no effect, unless you zap lightnings with it to consume the stored energy. It is upgraded by zapping lightnings.
Eyeball(s) of the Elder: They spawn in two versions, as Left and Right Eyeball, and also have a third variant when joined. Note that instead of not working/having a negative effect the eyeballs are more powerful when cursed (this is one of the cases that the scroll of Curse becomes useful).
- Left: It has the power of destruction. It zaps randomly Death Rays without the hero having an option for when this will happen and is upgraded by getting used (but rather slowly, only if the hero had found it and equipped it at an early depth it can reach level +10, and this will happen by the end of the run). Its zaps don't break invisibility.
- Right: It has the power of void. By default all enemies in its line of sight will get the "Vulnerability" debuff (not the same with the Goo's "Vulnerable" debuff, but with the same icon) and will have lower resistance against magical damage. It also has the active skill "Gaze", which disarms the target enemy for a short time, basically making it unable to attack. The Right Eyeball cannot get upgraded. It also spawns far less often than the Left Eyeball.
- Combined: If the hero gets both of them, they are combined automatically, visually into a pair of eyeballs, but named just Eyeball of the Elder without a "right" or "left" spefication anymore. The pair is completely out of the player's control and performs randomly one of these effects: a) zaps death rays to all enemies in sight, b) weakens all enemies' magical resistance, same as the single right one but with more power, c) disarms all enemies in sight (it sometimes applies the Disarm debuff also to the hero), or d) kills a random enemy instantly.
Gold Plated Statue: It gets upgraded by the hero investing gold to it and it adds bonus gold to every gold pile that the hero picks up and to every sell by using the golden claw, +10% for each level up (so +20% at level 2, +30% at level 3 etc. so +100% at level 10, which means basically double the amount of gold earned generally). The gold needed for the first level up are 100 pieces, but each level up needs more and in higher levels investing will require hundreds of gold pieces (L2 127, L3 161, L4 204, L5 260, L6 330, L7 419, L8 532, L9 676, L10 859), but you should not avoid it, as the bonus gold returned will be thousands of gold pieces and will justify fully the investment.
Ηand of Midas: This is not actually an artifact, although it is named as one in its game description, and is described as a relic in the game code so it cannot be upgraded. It turns items to gold, practically replacing the selling option from shopkeepers and vendors and making this option available everywhere in the dungeon. It is by default a starting item of all heroes as it is always one of the cat's gifts on depth 0.
Hand of the Elder: It allows the hero to Root enemies with the "Finger of Death" option. It is upgraded by equipping rings to it (+1 level per +0 ring and +1 level per upgrade, capped at +10 or at 5 rings added), making the Finger of Death also apply related debuffs on hit (ring debuffs: Aracane > Unbalance, Critical > Weakness, Evasion > Shock, Force> Amok, Furor> Slowness, Haste> Slowness, Health> Vertigo, Might> Weakness, Resistance > Chilled, Sharpshooting> Blindness, Wealth> Charm. Like the eyeballs instead of being useless/applying a negative effect its abilities are more powerful if it remains/gets cursed (this is one of the cases that the scroll of Curse becomes useful). Keep in mind that the Hand consumes the rings (the effect of ring will be displayed in the Hand), and you can't equip them and then change your mind and unequip them. Apart from getting found in the dungeon as loot, it is also dropped rarely by Skeletons and Skeleton Knights.
Handle of Abyss: It is similar but not identical to the Dried Rose artifact. It is first identified as "Broken Abyss Sword" and on its first use it spawns an Abyss Warrior close to the hero, who is hostile and rather strong (have rather high HP, at least a potion of Healing in the inventory and no enemies around the first time you will use it, if you find it on early depths). After the Abyss Warrior gets defeated, he becomes an ally to the hero very similar to the Sad Ghost and can be summoned after some time passes and the handle gets charged. The Abyss Warrior has a melee and not ranged attack like the sad ghost and the handle is upgraded by just getting used/summoning the Abyss Warrior. Like the sad ghost, even if the Abyss Warrior is not heavily damaged, he vanishes after a while (the higher his level, the longer he will last). When cursed the Handle randomly spawns an always hostile Abyss Warrior, but very much nerfed in comparison to its non-cursed version that spawns normally the first time it is used. Note that even uncursed, each time the hero summons the Abyss Warrior, there is a slight increase in the hero's pressure (most of the times +1)
Heart of Satan: It is a sinister in its title version of Shattered PD's Chalice of Blood, but with the same function and very similar features when it gets upgraded. It offers quicker regeneration, gets upgraded by the hero's self-harm, and to get upgraded at least to level +9 and to max +10 level an Ankh needs to get spent, or the hero's HP to exceed their max limit, after drinking a strengthened potion of Healing. If the hero is before Demon Halls and so his/her level is not at its highest, this might also be necessary and in previous level ups of the Heart. To be more specific, the Heart's damage is calculated by 3 X level X level, so it is 0 damage at the first upgrade, 3 damage at the second, 12 at the third etc. but 108 damage from level 6 to 7, 147 damage from level 7 to 8, 192 damage from level 8 to 9, and 243 from level 9 to 10. The hero's max HP at level 10 is 70, at level 20 is 120 and at level 26 which the usual hero's level when reaching Yog is 150. Obviously the armor will absorb some damage and an Earthroot plant will be very helpful as well, but as Ankhs are not plenty in Darkest PD, generally avoid upgrading the Heart from level 8 and on without drinking a strengthened potion of Healing first and planting an Earthroot. Unlike the Chalice of Darkest PD, it is a random drop (mostly from the statue of Devil) and not a unique drop.
Riemannian Manifold Shield: This powerful shield offers to the hero the ability to withstand any damage, periodically providing a buff to resist any damage once (the buff is active until damage is taken). It is upgraded by getting used.

Unique to a class

Astrolabe: It is unique to the the Stargazer subclass of the Sorceress and never spawns as random loot in the Dungeon, but is only generated if the Sorceress chooses the specific subclass. It randomly offers various buffs and special actions to her upon activation. Each time the Stargazer triggers the astrolabe and "Invokes", if this is positive, a skill is generated and cached in the astrolabe (for details about its use, see Classes section below). It does not get upgraded.
Urn of Shadow: It is unique to the Warlock subclass of the Mage, and never spawns as random loot in the Dungeon, but is only generated if the Mage chooses the specific subclass. When equipped, the Urn of Shadow automatically siphons the souls of the nearby dead, and the warlock then can use the charges to cast evil magic (for details about its use, see Classes section below). Using the Urn of Shadow is the only way that Warlocks can apply the subclass special skills in Darkest PD. It is upgraded only by Sacrificing to the statue of the Devil, which makes its skills more powerful: increase its damage, decrease its soul costs, etc.

The artifacts that not only function but are in fact stronger when cursed (Elder's Eyeballs and Hand), in their cursed version they increase pressure the first time they get equipped and either cursed or uncursed each time they get upgraded. Using them generally does not increase pressure. In contrast, summonning the Abyss Warrior with the Handle of Abyss in its uncursed version always increases pressure but only in a small amount, usually by +1.

Badges

Darkest PD's badges are mostly the same with those in current Shattered PD with a few differences:

"15 monsters killed at nighttime" badge is retained
"10/100/500/2000 games played" badge is retained
"Death by glyph" badge is retained
In all the class-related and subclass-related badges the Sorceress, Stargazer and Witch are added (new badges).
All the challenge-related badges have ben removed from version 0.4.2 and on.
None of Shattered PD's badges mentioned in its page above as new has been added.

Bombs (not existing)

The bomb item is removed in any form from Darkest PD. The only way for the hero to get a bomb-like item is by getting access to a strengthened potion of Liquid Flame:

If she is a Witch, to strengthen a potion of Liquid Flame.
If he/she belongs to any class and has the Brew Enhanced Potions perk, to produce a strengthened potion of Liquid Flame randomly.
If he/she belongs to any class, to find very rarely and buy a strengthened potion of Liquid Flame from a shop (it appears with a + symbol at its top left).

Challenges

Read "Monument of Dungeon" bullet in the NPCs section.

Classes - new Hero features

All characters (hero, NPCs, enemies) have now a detailed information panel, which displays the various elemental resistances and the magic resistance of each character (this information can be very useful when the hero encounters strong enemies or bosses and wants to use various types of attacks). When the value displayed for the resistance is negative, that means that it is actually vulnerability to the specific type of attack. The hero has that as part of the hero's window with the name "Details", and in the case of enemies and NPCs this is immersed in their game description window. The Details subtab of the hero also displays critical chance, dodge chance and regeneration rate.

Each class has most of these stats with different values and for details about them you should read the table at the end of this subsection, but as the Details window shows more than half of them only with images, here is just their order of display in the Details window to prevent players from getting confused:

Elemental resistance:

Fire	Poison	Ice
Light(ning)	Shadow	Holy

Magical resistance:

Critical chance:

Dodge chance:

Regeneration rate:

Also, all heroes now have an evasion probability attribute, which is checked before the regular dice rolls. This means that there is an absolute chance to dodge regardless of enemy's accuracy skill, which is checked in the later dice rolling part.

Another important change of Darkest PD is that the relation between equipment strength requirements and equipment levels has been readjusted. Now the strength requirement decreases by -1 at level +1, +3, +5, +7 etc. of items.

Also, heroes can now command Allies to follow them (this feature is not fully implemented yet).

The hero classes are mostly the familiar ones from version 0.4.2 of Shattered PD, so the Warrior, Mage and Rogue are available from the first game, the Huntress class gets unlocked after Tengu is defeated, has a boomerang as a starting item and no spirit bow or studded gloves items exist in general. Also, from version 0.4.1 of Darkest PD and on heroes now obtain the subclass Mastery automatically by reaching level 12, and the Tome of Mastery is removed in general from the game (Tengu now drops a Tome of Perk, which just gives an extra perk). Note that the hero can pick a subclass later than level 12, as the option remains available in the hero's window, if the player chooses to "Decide later".

Some additional changes were also made to the classes and subclasses, apart from the differences kept from the old version of Shattered PD:

All classes: Apart from the +5 in max HP, +0.75 in Evasion and +1 in Accuracy, Regeneration rate and Critical chance increase also on each level up (for details read the table at the end of this section, as there are variations between classes). All hero classes have as starting items a cloth armor, one torch, one food ration and the seed pouch, and after opening the Cat's Gift they get an additional food ration and one random scroll (any scroll with the exception of the scrolll of Upgrade). Each class has also an item pre-identified and a few perks already granted by default (see bullets below).
Huntress: She starts also with 20 HP like all the other classes apart from the Warrior and has +1 range of vision at night, in addition to her familiar sensing of enemies (Night Vision and Telepathy perks by default). Apart from the starting items common to all classes and unlike current Shattered PD, she starts with the familiar unique Boomerang of Original PD and also with a Knuckleduster, while the crossbow and spirit bow items don't exist at all in Darkest PD, while a Studded Gloves-like item, the Battle Gloves, is available as random loot to all classes. Moreover she doesn't create furrowed grass by trampling high grass like in current Shattered PD. Her Boomerang can also get reinforced by the Great Blueprint (see Enemies section: Dwarf King for details). She has the potion of Mind Vision pre-identified.
- Snipers don't get the Sniper's Mark buff, but apply the Viewmark debuff after a successful ranged hit to enemies, which increases accuracy of ranged hits to the specific target (not to be confused with the "Viewmark" debuff that is automatically applied to the hero in Yog-Dzewa's depth and makes him/her visible to all enemies) As all thrown weapons of tier 2 and higher deal considerable damage when thrown by a Sniper, especially with the Ranger's Headband equipped, and they are generated in good numbers in-game, there is not much point in highly upgrading the Boomerang for this purpose (one or two scrolls of Upgrade applied to the Boomerang in early depths can help all huntresses survive though, and the boomerang will also be rather helpful during end-game, but these scrolls in Darkest PD are not plenty, so choose wisely). Also, players who haven't found as loot tier 2 and higher thrown weapons in Prison, should better choose the Warden subclass, unless they have already chosen/choose then to put some upgrades to the Boomerang or hope for good quality drops from Ballistas later.
- Wardens are the same with Original PD: they get generally Barkskin by trampling high grass, get also more dewdrops and seeds by trampling it, more HP from dew, and stepping on any plant also drops for them a random seed. There are no plant-specific effects for wardens in Darkest PD.
Mage: Apart from the starting items common to all classes, he has his unique Mage's Staff and a level 0 wand of Magic Missile (already imbued in the mage's staff for every next run, after he first imbues the wand to the staff), the scroll of Upgrade pre-identified and the Good Appetite and Wand Perception 1 perks (recharging by eating and instant identification of max but not of available charges). His Epic Armor can also get reinforced by the Great Blueprint (see Enemies section: Dwarf King for details).
- Battlemages in their skills are very similar to current Shattered PD but after a recent update in Darkest PD which decreased the available scrolls of Upgrade to only 2 per chapter, they can be easily played in the familiar manner from Shattered PD (Mage's staff much upgraded and used as the main weapon) only if the player was lucky enough to get offered and chose at least 2 or 3 of the Arcane Crits, Quick Zap, Wand Arcane, Wand Charger and Wand Piercing perks, which increase the critical hit damage, attack speed, regular damage, recharging of wands, and reduce the target's magical resistance. The reason that at least some of these perks are needed is that the 10 available scrolls of Upgrade must be divided between the main weapon and the armor in Darkest PD, and 5 scrolls of Upgrade are not enough to make a Mage's Staff imbued with a wand deal very high damage without at least 2 or 3 of these perks, even when it is imbued with a wand of Disintegration, Fireblast, Lightning or Prismatic Light. That said, a "traditional" Battlemage build is still feasible, even without the majority of these perks (the player must be very unlucky to not get offered at least one of them), it will just need skill and will be more difficult by default, in comparison to playing the battlemage as a weapon-based class. Note also that the batllemage's melee hit effects are those of older Shattered PD, and so some are a bit different from current Shattered PD, while some wands of old Shattered PD with their old melee hit effects still exist, and some of its new wands don't exist in contrast (see also Wands section for details about these).
- Warlocks don't soul mark enemies by wand zaps anymore, but get that ability along with 3 other abilities only after equipping and using the Urn of Shadow artifact, which is unique to their class and is dropped always after the mage's choice to become a warlock. The warlock collects souls in it, and uses its charges to "Cast" either: a) Soul Siphon to enemies (weakens them and also heals the warlock if the enemy had also Dementage applied, 2 charges), b) Soul Burn to enemies (DoT debuff, 3 charges), c) Soul Mark to enemies (familiar effect, 5 charges), or d) Dementage to enemies (permanent corruption effect, 10 charges, which are the max charges of the Urn, better use it on strong enemies which will survive longer). The subclass has no special skill without the artifact equipped, and soul collecting is not necessarily related wth wand zaps but only with enemy kills. Note that soul marking enemies works differently in comparison to most mods, and the warlock gets healed with every successful melee hit and not only upon the enemy's death, so it is better to soul mark enemies with a lot of HP (especially chapter bosses) as there will be much more HP gained. In contrast the hero's hunger is just a bit satisfied and only upon the enemy's death. As in most mods, soul marked enemies that don't give XP anymore don't offer any HP or satiety to the warlock. If the Statue of Devil spawns in a run, the Warlock can upgrade his Urn by sacrificing to the statue, which will make its skills more powerful: increase its damage, decrease its soul costs, etc.
Rogue: He starts with extra critical chance (+6%) because of his Extra Critical Probability default perk and also increases it more with level ups (+1%). He also has by default the Keen Perception (increased awareness, so better perception of hidden dungeon features), and the Dieting perks (less starvation damage) and scrolls of Magic Mapping pre-identified (like Original PD he also primarily identifies any ring upon equipping it). Note that his subclass' features are those of old Shattered PD, so the Freerunner gets generally increased movement speed and the Assassin generally increased surprise attack damage, like in Original PD and without any of the special moves or momentum added later in Shattered PD. Apart for the starting items common to all classes, he starts with a dagger, 8 darts and his unique Cloak of Shadows. Note that his Cloak of Shadows resembles the old version of the Cloak in Shattered PD and so it is somewhat similar with Sprouted PD's Cloak of Shadows, and can also get reinforced by the Great Blueprint (see Enemies section: Dwarf King below and Familiar Artifacts section above for details).
Warrior: He starts with 25 HP and gains +6 HP on each level up. Apart from the starting items common to all classes, he gets his unique worn shortsword and broken seal, 3 darts and a bottle of Grog. Most of the basic changes made in Original PD by Shattered PD are implemented, so the Berserker's bonus damage scales with loss of HP and he endures death for a short time at the cost of exhaustion, and Gladiator gets no bonus damage from combos but these unlock special finisher moves. In addition to having a bottle of Grog as a starting item, he does not get the Drunk debuff or damage after drinking, and also his pressure/stress is decreased more. This is displayed as the Drunkard perk, and he also has the Good Appetite and Ravenous Appetite perks by default (gets healed by eating but also get hungry quicker) and potions of Strength pre-identified (they used to be potions of Healing until version 0.4.2 but not anymore). His Broken Seal can also get reinforced by the Great Blueprint (see Enemies section: Dwarf King for details).

There is also the Sorceress class added, which gets unlocked after DM-300 is defeated (like the Huntress does in Original PD and most mods). She is a totally new class, and she has very few equivalents in other PD mods, with none of them being very similar. As you will read in her description below, she is more an Alchemist in particular than generally a Sorceress.

Her starting items are an Unstable Sorceress' Staff (dam. 2-7, 9 Str. req., unique to the class), 6 plain darts, an identified potion of Toxic Gas, a food ration, a torch and an Extraction Flask, which is unique to her class. The Extraction Flask is practically a portable alchemy pot (see fourth bullet) and it somewhat resembles the current Alchemist's Toolkit of Shattered PD but without the need to get charged or upgraded. See fourth bullet for more about the process. It can also get reinforced by the Great Blueprint (see Enemies section: Dwarf King for details).
She gets by default a discount when she shops (displayed also as the Discount perk, which she has from the start) and gets more HP from Dew.
She has worse evasion than the other classes (-20%) but a better regeneration rate increase (+0.03 with each level up) and a higher resistance to all elements, especially to toxins (poison, toxic gas etc.).
With 4 dew drops in her dew vial she can use two seeds to create their corresponding potion (but not cook blandfruits) with her flask using its "Refine" option and if she has higher strength than the weapon she equips, she might also enchant that weapon with this process. Refining might "fail" though and brew a potion of Toxic Gas instead of the associated potion.
Darkness and fear affect her more, but she is more resistant to mental damage (displayed as the Optimistic perk, which she has by default), so her pressure/stress increases more slowly.
Her subclasses are the Stargazer and Witch. The Witch is actually an advanced alchemist, as she can use her extraction flask to reinforce existing potions with a seed ("Strengthen" added option in her flask, see Potions section for the strengthened variants). Unlike brewing potions with the extraction flask, strengthening potions doesn't consume dew and just needs a random seed and also never fails. The Stargazer has even more tolerance to pressure (adds to the Optimistic perk automatically +1 level upon choosing her subclass) and gets the unique to the subclass Astrolabe, an artifact that when equipped provides randomly various buffs but also some debuffs to her. Each time the Stargazer triggers the astrolabe and "Invokes", if this is positive, a skill is generated and cached in the astrolabe. The cached skills (2 at most) can then be used at any time. In contrast a negative invocation applies directly a negative effect to her. If 2 skills are already cached and the Stargazer invokes again, an old skill will be replaced with a new one if the invocation is positive. Current invocations are (the positive displayed first, and the negative last):
- Faith: It is the reward of loyalty, it reduces a little pressure and reduces the next charge delay.
- Foresight: You have already foreseen your opponent's moves and death and you are bound to dodge the next attack.
- Guide: One of the feats of the grand magus Rubick. This skill lifts the enemy into the air for a short time and then slams it on the ground. You hit the target back and deal some damage.
- Life-link: Temporarily manipulates destiny. All the received damage is transferred to the enemy.
- Luck: Destiny decides. It restores some health and grants immunity to the next negative effect of the astrolabe.
- Pardon: Crime and punishment. It restores some health for your enemy but also applies the Vulnerability debuff (increased damage).
- Purgation: Cleanses all debuffs on the target. It also deals pure damage based on the losing health of your enemy.
- Overload: Overload yourself to cast powerful spells. You deal more magical damage at the cost of a little health.
- Prophecy: You can perceive nearby energy flows and lead them to converge. You daze nearby enemies.
- Sun strike: One of the great feats of Carl the Invoker. You summon catastrophic heat from heaven to deal a lot of damage to enemies in a certain area. Casting takes 3 turns of chanting and triggers in a delay of 2 turns.
- Confine: negative, increases the cooldown before the next invocation.
- Divine Wrath: negative, you take physical damage.
- Feedback: negative, you take mental damage.
- Vanity: negative, the Vertigo and Weakness debuffs are applied.

You can see also the section "Head Gear, Perks, and Weapons more suitable for specific classes / subclasses" later at the end of the page for good synergies between items, perks and classes/subclasses.

Classes and resistances, critical & dodge chance, regeneration rate at level 1

with no bonus from equipment or from the Confident buff

	Huntress	Mage	Rogue	Sorceress	Warrior
Fire resist.	-20%	+10%	0%	+10%	+10%
Poison resist.	+20%	-20%	+20%	+50%	0%
Ice resist.	-10%	+0%	-20%	+10%	0%
Light(ning) resist.	0%	-10%	0%	+10%	-10%
Shadow resist.	0%	+10%	-10%	+10%	-20%
Holy resist.	0%	+0%	0%	+10%	0%
Magical resist.	+15%	+15%	+15%	+20%	+15%
Critical chance*	0%	0%	6%	0%	0%
Dodge chance	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Regeneration rate**	0.10	0.10	0.10	0.10	0.10

* +0.4% per level up for most classes, +1% for the Rogue

** +0.025 per level up for most classes, +0.03 for the Sorceress. Note also that regeneration is stopped when the hero is starving and its rate is decreased by 50% when the hero is hungry (so a regeneration rate of 0.2 will become 0.1).

Most heroes will not be lucky enough to find and equip an item that improves any of these stats already from level 1, but all start with the Confident buff, which increases accuracy by +0.15, damage by +10% and critical chance by +7% (in contrast the also pressure-related Nervous debuff decreases accuracy to 0.8 and evasion to 0.8, while the ready to Collapse state makes accuracy 0.2 and evasion 0). The table does not add the bonus critical chance from the Confident buff as it is not permanent.

Note also that for both critical chance and dodge chance the table shows bonuses. For critical chance this is equal to the actual chance, because all classes apart from the Rogue with his starting perk have 0% after the Confident buff fades away, but evasion works differently as all classes start with default Evasion 5, so with some chance to dodge, which increases by +0.75 per level up for all classes. The information panel of the Details subtab does not show the default evasion for all heroes but only the bonuses added by equipment or perks. There is also no display of the hero's Accuracy generally in-game, which is 10 for all classes and increases by +1 with each level up also for all classes.

As a side note, in the game's github there is also a similar but even more detailed table with the stats of all the game's enemies. Unlike other github pages this table is very reader-friendly, so you might want to have a look at it.

Cursed items and Uncursing them

The behavior of cursed items in Darkest PD is somewhat different than in both Original PD and current Shattered PD, and there are also two more available ways of uncursing, so players should take into cosideration the details mentioned below. The general picture is more similar to current Shattered PD than to Original PD though.

Armors, artifacts, head gear, rings, wands and weapons can be found cursed, or can become cursed by stepping on a cursing trap, using a cursed wand, or by a scroll of Curse.
Artifacts, head gear, rings and wands have only 1 "combined curse form", meaning that they are either cursed (non-unequippable and probably with a negative effect) or uncursed. Armors and weapons can have 2 "curse forms", that are usually combined but are also encountered separately: the "non-unequippable curse" and the "curse with specific effect". Also cursed rings can have negative levels, down to -3, but all al the other item types can't. In contrast, cursed armors and weapons can have positive levels / get found upgraded. Lastly specifically three artifacts, the Left and Right Eyeball of the Elder (separate or in their joined version) and the Hand of the Elder are more powerful when cursed and you might decide not to uncurse them or even use a scroll of Curse to them (they have no specific negative effect, apart from adding some pressure when upgraded, but they are non-unequippable). These details are important, because different items used for uncursing will have different results to them.
Artifacts and Head gear can be uncursed only by a scroll of Remove Curse, or stepping into a Well of Health with them equipped/throwing them into the well (scrolls of Enchanting can't be generally used for them). As mentioned before, both item types can't have two separate curse forms or negative levels.
Negative levels of a ring can be only reversed to positive by a scroll of Remove Curse, or stepping in a Well of Health with the ring equipped/throwing it into the well (in this case the reversal is full, as the uncursed ring's negative levels will become positive, for example a -2 ring of Might will become +2 and add 2 strength points). The scroll of Upgrade will just reduce the negative levels by +1 and no other item can be used for this purpose (scrolls of Enchanting can't be generally used for them). Cursed rings have a specific curse effect, which is their bonus becoming deficiency, but it is not considered a separate curse form by the game, and so they need only one uncursing. Note that unlike other mods the Ambitious Imp cursed ring reward although it has positive levels can still apply penalties to the hero in some cases and will need to get uncursed in order to become beneficial.
Wands can be uncused by almost all the uncursing options with the same result (scroll of Remove Curse and Upgrade, well of Health), but not by the scroll of Enchanting as it can't be used on them anyway. Cursed wands have specific effects occurring randomly upon zapping, but these are not considered separate curse forms by the game, and so wands also need only one uncursing. As mentioned before, cursed wands can't have negative levels.
Weapons and armors are more complicated, because of their two possible curse forms.
- The scroll of Remove Curse and Well of Health remove curses from weapons and armors fully.
- Scrolls of Enchanting always replace the "curse with specific effect" with an enchantment, but never erase the "non-unequippable curse".
- Scrolls of Upgrade always erase the "non-unequippable curse", but have only a chance to remove the "curse with specific effect".
- The Enchantment Table can't apply an enchantment to them anymore (it used to in previous versions) and gives the same message with the Troll Blacksmith, who refuses to work with cursed items.
- For cursed weapons and armors that you are sure that you want to upgrade them, when you have no scroll of Remove Curse, but have a scroll of Echanting and Upgrade, you can use a combination of these scrolls, as they will lead to the same end result with a scroll of Remove Curse. In high levels apply the scroll(s) of Upgrade first as there will be a chance for the enchantment to get erased by an upgrade.

Most items that trigger a specific negative effect randomly (armors, artifacts, weapons) increase the hero's pressure each time they do that, but cursed items don't increase it by just being unequippable or applying a debuff permanently (head gear, rings). Also cursed wand effects don't increase pressure.
Note that arcane styli can't replace the curse of an armor with an enchantment, unlike the scrolls of Enchanting.

Damage types

Copied from the in-game guide: "The damage resistance and damage resolving in DPD is slightly different. Knowing some of the mechanisms will be of great advantage for your adventure. Damage is divided into three types: normal, magic, and spirit. Normal attacks are the most common type of attack; magic attacks can penetrate the shield directly and are extremely difficult to dodge; mental attacks also ignore the shield and usually increase your pressure. Some damage has elements: fire, poison, ice, lightning, shadow, and light [Note: In the hero's tab, the subtab "Details" shows all current degrees of the hero's resistances.]. For adventurers, weapon enchantment is the most common way to give elemental damage. Different creatures have different elemental resistances. Note that elemental resistance and magical resistance are separately resolved. Finally, damage can be attributed to: precise, critical, etc.Combat mechanism: dodge determination -> armor defense -> attacker correction -> defender correction -> resistance resolving -> type determination -> final settlement."

It is not mentioned in the guide that magical damage ignores physical defense / normal armor, but most classes start with 15% magical resistance and the Sorceress with 20%.

Day and Night - Hero's vision

The change from day to night and back and the changes in the hero's vision are not determined like in Original PD and most mods by the device's clock, but by an in-game clock, which counts time much quicker, as each hero's turn makes one game clock minute pass, so the hero "spends" many days and nights in the dungeon.

With the timer a single day is split into three phases: Day, Night, Midnight. This affects some aspects of the dungeon:

Character and Enemy Traits: Huntress gets +1 bonus view distance at Night or Midnight, bats deal more damage at Night or Midnight.
Character Vision: The timer affects the characters' vision, as it is wider during the Day (6 tiles), narrow during the Night (3 tiles), and even narrower at Midnight (2 tiles). Note that some enemies are not affected by this (Tengu, Bat, etc).

Enemy Generation: the Glow Worm (see enemies) only spawns at Night or Midnight.

Note that sometimes rooms have lamps on their walls, and in this case the whole room is visible, regardless of the time of day or night and the hero's available range of vision. The same applies when the hero lights a torch, which increases his/her range of vision drastically, similarly to having the Sharp Vision buff (appr. 8 tiles) and also increases much his/her detection ability.

Depth generation

The Map Generation Algorithm has been slightly tweaked from version 0.4.2 and on. The room layout in Darkest PD was always very compact: rooms are just adjacent, with no lane or tunel connecting them like in most Shattered PD mods. However, now there are chances that the rooms can be "loose" (actually, there are still no tunels in Darkest PD, but rooms that are very "thin" are in the same concept), then the depths can be bigger than in Shattered PD and very often square-ish. Try not to lose time on these depths, as the generation of food rations is still 1 per depth in them, but exploring them will take more by default.

Dew Vial - Revival

This is a secondary but also important change of Darkest PD. The Dew vial's capacity is increased to 30 drops, and apart from the familiar options to "Sip" (minor healing which consumes up to 5 drops), to "Drink" (as much healing is needed but also as much the amount of dew drops allows) and to "Bless" the Ankh with 20 drops (allows to keep all the items in the inventory, in addition to the equipped ones), it also gives the "Wash" option, which extinguishes fire and washes off caustic ooze with 5 drops. The "Wash" option becomes available in the vial after 5 dewdrops are gathered and the "Bless" option gets displayed in the Ankh and not the vial after 20 dewdrops are gathered in it.

A note should be also written about the Ankhs in Darkest PD: unlike many mods, they are neither commonly sold in the dungeon shops nor found in skeletal remains, and only 1 is guaranteed to spawn per run, in the shop of the first prison depth. So after you reach that depth, definitely buy and bless that Ankh, as it might be the only one you find in that run. Keep in mind also that Ankhs do not revive the hero in full health, but with 25% of his/her max HP, similarly to current Shattered PD.

Also, filling an empty dew vial in a well of health always inscribes a rune to it, and sacrificial chambers, that exist in Darkest PD but with a different behavior, also drop a random rune and gold and never a scroll of Wipe Out. The dew vial afterwards gains a specific glow, unique to each rune, and gives the "Apply the Rune" option. The effect starts after applying the rune, it is temporary and the rune gets spent in this way. Unfortunately, before applying the rune, drinking and washing from the dew vial becomes impossible, but Ankhs can still be blessed from it. Most names of the different runes are self-explanatory, and also have in-game descriptions: Bright (increased vision), Critical, Haste, Mending, Regeneration, Wealth. There is also the Blood rune, which needs some more explanation:

If the hero chooses to Blaspheme against the statue of Goddess, it drops the Unholy Blood item. This can be used either to "Smear" the Demonic Skull (see Equipment slots and Head gear section) or to "Inject" the dew vial. This will give the Dew Vial the rune of Blood, which is gained exclusively by injecting it with Unholy Blood and cannot be obtained otherwise: applying the rune grants the "Bloodsuck" buff and while it is active killing each enemy increases max HP by +4, and the rune also grants the temporary "Stamina Overload" buff, which is +50 HP that slowly decrease, until the hero's HP return to normal. This rune can be used with the most advantage when the hero is surrounded by many enemies, so it is a good combination with a scroll of Rage when first entering a depth, or in the Dwarf King fight, in which Undead Dwarf minions spawn constantly.

Another minor difference of sacrificial fires in Darkest PD is that they apply their Marked for Sacrifice buff for many turns and the hero can wander around the depth sacrificing enemies, but when the sacrifices become enough, the rune will be generated in the fire tile. So after you kill some enemies with this buff active, always return to the sacrificial fire chamber, to see if there is a rune to collect in the vial.

Enemies: regular and bosses

The familiar enemies of Darkest PD are mostly the same with those in Shattered PD in their type of attack and in the chapter that they occur. Nevertheless, 7 new enemies are addded (+1 rare variant) and there are also some changes in the familiar regular or special enemies and in the chapter bosses:

New

Ashes Skull: It appears only in the Caves. This is a very weak enemy with only 20 HP. When it notices the hero, it will jump next to him/her in one turn (deals magical damage and also pressure damage if the hero is surprised). Upon its death it always causes pressure damage. In previous versions it used to have night vision capability but it does not have that anymore.
Ballista: It appears in the Caves and Metropolis, has a ranged attack that needs one turn to get charged and has a chance to knock back the hero (possibly stunning him/her if he/she hits on a wall). Its range of vision is much better than the hero's so if you are in a chapter that spawns ballistas and you get surprised while not seing any enemy, the enemy has a very high chance to be a balllista (as surprise attacks increase always pressure and the ballista might be far away, it is advised to light a torch to at least avoid the pressure damage from the surprise attacks). It often drops thrown weapons of higher tier upon death and rarely a ceremonial dagger.
- In version 0.4.2 a rare variant of the Ballista, the Quick Firing Gun has been added with very similar but stronger attack and abilites and with the same sprite shape - the Firing Gun just has a greenish hue instead of the red and black of ballistas.
Devil Ghost: It appears only when the hero Defiles the statue of Devil, sometimes in a group of 2, with the first ghost always dropping a Demonic Skull and the second ghost gold.
Glow Worm: It appears in all game chapters at night and midnight apart from the Demon Halls, and it is much more dangerous after it dies, as it applies always the Poison debuff to the hero and also releases a non-persistent cloud of Toxic Gas. It also grants the Illuminated buff upon death.
Madman: He appears in all game chapters and has a ranged and melee mental attack that both cause always pressure damage (unlike all the other enemies that their attacks might cause pressure, the attacks from Madmen always do). He has a limited chance to drop the Humanity consumable item, which relieves considerably the hero's pressure, without applying any debuffs to the hero like the Brown Ale or Grog and also heals a bit.
Skeleton Knight: He appears in late Prison and the Caves, has a strong melee attack and can also counter attack (get minimal damage and attack back instead) and create combos. He rarely drops Brown Ale or Grog and very rarely the Hand of the Elder artifact (also the familiar Skeletons have this small chance).
Wand Guard: It appears in special rooms in all game chapters and there is always only one per room. It is similar in concept to the Animated Statues, as it zaps bolts of a specific offensive wand type and drops the relevant wand upon defeat (like the weapons of Animated Statues, this wand is never cursed). It is also immune to all types of magical damage. Depending on their equipped wand, Wand Guards can be from almost harmless to lethal, so always check their equipped wand before entering deeper in their room (as a rule of thumb, in early levels, if it is a wand of lightning and you have to pass from water tiles, leave visiting the room for some time later after the hero gets stronger). In some cases, after the hero leaves the depth and then revisits it, the Wand Guard will be equipping a different wand, but the wand never changes during the stay of the hero on the depth.

Changed

Animated Statue/Guardian: They are the same with those in Shatttered PD (greyish animated statue in a special room weilding an enchanted and probably upgraded weapon, purple guardian only spawning after a gurdian trap is activated and weilding a regular unupgraded weapon), unless the greyish animated statue spawns in an always hidden corridor guarding a chest. In this case it is also named Animated Statue and is white but it wields a regular unupgraded weapon and upon its death it also releases a very persistent cloud of Toxic Gas or sets the hero on fire. Keep in mind that in early levels Animated Statues wielding a high tier enchanted weapon can even two-shot a hero in full health, so always check their equipped weapon and without harmful seeds or potions available it is better to leave fighting the strong ones for later.
Crazy Thief: not an actual change, but a similarity with older Shattered PD, as and the Crazy Bandit still drop rarely the Master Thieves' Armband like they used to do.
Dwarf Warlock: His shadow ranged attack (but not his melee attack) can cause pressure damage. In all the rest he is the same with Original PD and Shattered PD until recently.
Gnoll Shaman: Similar to that of Original PD and Shattered PD until recently, it now also has the ability of an Enraged buff like Gnoll Brutes, and if there are enemies around it applies it to them, but if it is alone, it applies the buff to itself. Its lightning ranged attack (but not its melee attack) can cause pressure damage.
Mimic: It is the same with that in Original PD, it just appears rather rarely in most places of the dungeon. Mimics are encountered in contrast very often inside Questioner rooms. Because its first attack is almost always a surprise attack, unless it is awoken by a scroll of Rage or an alarm trap, its first attack always causes pressure damage.
Rot Lasher: In Shattered PD it spawns only as a minion of the Rot Heart in the Old Wandmaker's rotberry quest, but in Darkest PD it appears in all overgrown depths and also in the Rotberry quest. In the rest it is the same in its behavior with the Rot Lasher of Shattered PD, as it is stationary, regenerates its health and cripples the hero, and drops always a seed.
Swarm of Flies: Their attacks can also cause pressure damage very often. In all the rest they are the same with Shattered PD, with a minor difference that their potion of Healing drops get auto-identified the first time (it was the obvious identification anyway, but Darkest PD does it for the player).
Vampire Bat: Its attack can also cause pressure damage and also appears in late Prison. In all the rest it is the same with Shattered PD.
Wraith: It is similar with that in Shattered PD, with two differences: a) tombstones have only a chance to spawn wraiths and b) wraiths are still evasive, but not extremely evasive, and can be destroyed without the need of a surprise attack or an offensive wand after some failed attempts. Nevertheless, attacking them with a slow or inaccurate weapon or remaining surrounded by them are still bad ideas. Their spawning and first attack immediately afterwards often causes pressure damage.
DM-300: In most of its basic features it retains its form from Original PD (no invulnerability phase with pylons getting activated like in current Shattered PD etc.). It now has a chance to knock back the hero, (stunning him/her if he/she hits on a wall). In lower health it gets the "Overload" buff, with higher attack speed but lower defense (stepping on an eartroot plant can be useful from before but especially during this phase of the fight, and like in Original PD drinking a potion of Purification). It still drops occasionally the Cape of Thorns artifacts.
Dwarf King: He was similar to that in Shattered PD until recently, but now he is more similar to that of Original PD but still rather changed. His depth is slightly bigger than that of Original PD and contains two small hidden rooms, with the left being in some cases very important (in contrast visiting the room at the right is useless). He now also accumulates anger after being hurt and either creates a Life-Link with his servants (transfers damage to them) or resurrects them. Another difference is that in the Dwarf King depth Undead Dwarves now start spawning from inside the statues even before the King appears (only Undead Dwarves are spawned by him, unlike current Shattered PD). Apart from dropping the Armor Kit, he always drops also the Crown of Dwarf.
- The Crown of Dwarf has no positive effect on the hero if he/she wears it, but he/she can either sell it for 500 gold or he/she can put it on the Statue of the Dwarf King that is inside the left room hidden behind the bookcases near the depth's exit, in order to get the Great Blueprint. Note that if the hero hasn't met and killed Yvette previously or hasn't found her remains, he/she won't have access to this room, as the iron key that opens its door is a unique drop from Yvette, unless the hero has the Ethereal Chains or the Cloak of Sheep artifacts, uses a scroll of Magic Mapping to make the interior of the room visible, and pulls him/herself into it with the chailns or blinks there with the cloak. The Great Blueprint is an item used to enhance: a) the Boomerang of the huntress, making it capable of bouncing once to hit nearby targets, b) the Broken Seal of the warrior, making it offer more shielding (have in mind that after the armor kit is applied to the armor of choice, the seal gets fused with the armor and the blueprint can't enhance it anymore, so first use the blueprint and then the kit), c) the Cloak of Shadows of the rogue, granting more evasion to the rogue while he is wearing the cloak, d) the Epic Amor of the mage, by giving it extra magic resistance and the Skim secondary ability, flying and blinking to a tile in sight without consuming HP, and e) the Extraction Flask of the sorceress, making it able to purify the dirty water collected from the dungeon floor and to turn it into 4 clean dews, for them to be added into the dew vial, (the flask's other functions cannot be used while the flask is purifying the water).
Goo: Similar to that of Shattered PD, but in a much bigger and differently shaped depth, while it now also applies the Vulnerable debuff to the hero (increased damage, stepping on an earthroot plant can be very useful while this debuff is active). It still drops occasionally the Lloyd's Beacon. Its depth is also very often overgrown. The Rat King's chests in its depth always contain gold and never other items.
Tengu: The layout of his depth is an original feature of Darkest PD, as he spawns in a big square depth, at first in the center, surrounded by gripping traps (the hero must first pass through a long corridor and find an iron key inside one of its small rooms, to open the door to this big area of the depth). He still has a ranged attack, but also decreases the hero's vision with the Moonnight debuff, occasionally also Blinds him/her for a short while, and after he receives some damage he teleports to a random corner of the depth. He also applies upon entering his room and for the whole duration of the fight the Ignorant debuff to the hero which is supposed to hide from him/her the enemy's values related with combat, meaning that Tengu's game window should display no resistance info and his current HP should not be visible. This debuff has no actual effect currently, and all Tengu's stats are displayed, but in case the debuff starts being effective in a following update his stats are: HP: 150, Fire, Light(ning), Shadow, Holy 0%, Ice -0.25%, Poison +20%, Magical +0.25% His range of vision is much better than the hero's and he deals a lot of pressure damage with ranged surprise attacks from afar, so when he is out of sight it is better to light a torch, even when the hero has a good armor equipped, in order to avoid pressure damage. Below half of his max HP he also creates phantoms of himself that surround the hero, but only one of them is real and receives damage. Upon defeat he does not drop the Tome of Mastery anymore but the Tome of Perk, which grants a perk as if the hero has just levelled up, and also always drops the Moonstone item, which grants the Moonnight debuff once and gets spent in this way. Moonnight turns the time of the dungeon to nighttime, which affects both the hero's and enemies' range of vision, but it can be used to the hero's advantage by using a potion of Mind Vision and ranged attacks. There is no Tome of Mastery anymore in general in Darkest PD and all heroes get to choose automatically their subclass by reaching level 12 (they can also "Decide later" and the option remains in the hero's tab).
Yog-Dzewa: There is only one minor addition, that immediately after the square walls collapse, the hero gets the "Viewmark" debuff, which makes him/her visible to all enemies of the depth and which the hero retains until Yog is killed (not to be confused with the debuff with the same name that snipers apply).

As mentioned before, generally all characters (hero, NPCs, enemies) have now a detailed information panel, which displays the various elemental resistances and the magic resistance of each character (this information can be very useful when the hero encounters strong enemies or bosses and wants to use various types of attacks). When the value displayed for the resistance is negative, that means that it is actually vulnerability to the specific type of attack.

Apart from the enemies that their attacks can cause pressure damage by default, all surpise attacks from all enemies cause always pressure damage. Enemies with a ranged attack that are out of the hero's line of sight will perform successive surprise attacks and will increase pressure much, so in the cases that you receive pressure damage successively, it is better to light a torch in order to find from where the attacks are coming from and more importantly to at least avoid pressure damage.

In the game's github there is a detailed table with the stats of all the game's enemies. Unlike other github pages this table is very reader-friendly, so you might want to have a look at it.

Equipment slots and Head gear

One basic change in the hero's inventory in Darkest PD is that the slots available for equipping artifacts or rings are 3 and not 2. There is also an extra Head slot added which is filled with head gear (so the equipment slots are 2 more than in Shattered PD and 6 in total: 1 weapon, 1 armor, 1 head, 3 artifacts/rings). Most of the following items are sold in shops or are rarely found in the dungeon, but three of them are unique or almost unique drops (these are mentioned last in the table). All head gear is unupgradeable. Some types of head gear have the opposite effect if cursed, but some other are just non-unequippable and useless while cursed.

Name	Effect
Apprentice Hood	Increases damage of wands
Barbarian Helmet	In low HP it increases the hero's damage
Crusader Helmet	Increased chance to block ranged attack, decreases view range by 1
Emerald Circlet	Slightly decreases the rate pressure/stress build.
Mask of Clown	Chance to add the "Pure" attribute to damage, which ignores any resistance.
Mask of Horror	Increases accuracy
Mask of Rider (v. 0.4.2)	+1 range of vision
Regeneration Headdress	Increases regeneration
Small Pail	Increase physical defence by 0-3.
Turtle Scarf	Increases magical resistance
Wizard Hat	Increases recharging of wands
Crown of Dwarf	Drops always drom the Dwarf King, has no effect on the hero, but it is sold for 500 gold and can also be used to exchange it with the Great Blueprint in the hidden room of depth 20 after the Statue wears it.
Mask of Madness*	Crafted by combining the unique drops Demonic Skull and Unholy Blood. Increases the hero's damage and stress/pressure. See also below.
Ranger's Headband**	Drops always from killed Yvette and probably by saved Yvette, gets sold very rarely in shops or is found as loot. It increases the hero's ranged damage. See also below.

* The Mask of Madness is the most difficult item of these to obtain, as the hero creates it with the combination of two items that are both unique drops by statues that the hero encounters rarely: Unholy Blood obtained after blaspheming against the statue of Goddess, and the Demonic Skull obtained after defiling the statue of Devil and defeating the Devil Ghosts that spawn immediately afterwards. With both of the items in the inventory, he/she can Smear the blood to the skull and create the mask. The Mask increases considerably the damage that the hero deals and this scales with the level of the mask, which gets upgraded by killing enemies, but it also increases pressure that the hero takes a lot. In addition, it can't get unequipped by any means once equipped. So, especially with few grog and humanity items in the inventory, without good armor or very early in the game, it is not a very wise choice to equip it.

** The Ranger's Headband is always a drop from the dead NPC Yvette, if the player decides to kill her instead of helping her, while saved Yvette has also a chance to drop it, instead of a ring or artifact. Nevertheless, 100% chance of getting the headband can be only achieved by killing Yvette and this is obviously unethical, while all classes and subclasses apart from the Sniper will do just fine without the Ranger's Headband (Yvette after being saved also has a chance to drop the headband and will drop an artifact or ring otherwise, and if she is also fed by the hero, she will teach to him/her in addition the "Intended Transportation" perk, so saving her has also its benefits apart from its ethical merit). Nevertheless, players who do a Sniper run might decide differently. The headband also spawns as probable loot in Yvette's skeletal remains, if the hero had killed her in a previous run (not necessarily in the immediately previous run), and it is very rarely sold in the the dungeon shops or found as separate loot.

Food

The food items of Darkest PD are mostly the same with those of Original PD (mystery meat, chargrilled meat, overpriced food ration sold in shops, food ration and pasty found as loot) and stewed meat is also added from current Shattered PD (cooked also in alchemy pots), but not the meat pie. Nevertheless three new consumable items are added that are basically used to relieve pressure/stress and don't actually satisfy hunger at all: Brown Ale, Grog and Humanity (see Pressure section for details about them).

Interface

The Catalogs and Hero's Journal panels have now a slider bar. Note that the Hero's Journal is now displayed after selecting the button next to the menu button at the top right of the screen and also shows vendors.
There are no Challenges option in the main game screen anymore and this option is available only in-game by interacting with the Monument of Dungeon on depth 0.
The Character dialogue window interface has been changed in relation to previous versions of Darkest PD.
The heroes now randomly say things to themselves, which are comments on things happenning in-game (for example "My weapon is bad" after a failed attack, "What about food?" when the hero is starving, or "What?!" after getting hit by surprise).
The Rankings screen can now hold 30 rankings at most.

NPCs

Depth 0

Unlike most other mods in Darkest PD the hero spawns on depth 0 and not on depth 1, which contains some new friendly NPC characters. Some of them are only interesting for the novelty factor, but two of them are very important for the hero's progress in the dungeon and one for the difficulty of the run (these three are mentioned first in the bullet list).

Egoal the Cat: [Egoal is the nickname that the mod's developer uses generally for his online interactions.] It is the first NPC that the hero encounters and asks him/her if Egoal is a good guy. Whatever is the player's answer ("Without a doubt!" or "I don't think so.") the cat wil give to the hero a box, a "Cat's gift" which always contains a skeleton key for the depth's exit, a food ration and a random scroll, the cat will just be expectedly happier with the "Without a doubt" answer. After this first interaction Egoal the Cat starts teleporting around the depth, but does not offer anything else to the hero in their next interactions, and just says that it is happy to see the hero again, does not know why it is teleporting around and that E**** will help hm/her. As a side note, a cat with the same name appears in Special Surprise PD's Dolya Town area and asks similar questions, which serves basically as a courteous shoutout to egoal's mod by a fellow Chinese developer.
Elder Alchemist: He has a sore throat and needs some dew in order to make a medicine, so he gives the Dew Vial to the hero. By talking with the Elder Alchemist the hero can get the dew vial in advance on depth 0, but he/she will still find a dew vial on depth 1, if you forget to interact with him. The hero can trample the tiles of high grass of the depth and ignore the Alchemist's request in order to save the dew for later, or he/she can return to the Alchemist and give him the dew drops (keep in mind that as of version 0.4.2 hunger starts accumulating from depth 0, so trampling all high grass on the depth is probably not the best idea). In this case the Alchemist will give to the hero test papers (they are used in determining generally if an unidentified potion is harmful or not, note that the potion of Frost is not cosidered harmful by the papers) and gold, both amounts depending on the dew drops given: one test paper for every 5 drops (he does not give more than 2 test papers though) and gold pieces calculated by the formula: (5, 15) * amount of drops + 20, so for 1 drop from 25 to 35 gold pieces, for 10 drops from 70 to 170 gold pieces etc. The dilemma for the player is basically: "Some dew or some gold already from depth 0?".

Monument of Dungeon: It has been added on depth 0 from version 0.4.2 and on. Challenges are overhauled in current Darkest PD, and now a challenge is enabled only by interacting with the Monument at the beginning of the run (0.4.2 addition). Now only one challenge can be chosen per run and also doing a challenge run awards no ralated badges anymore. Available CHALLENGES:
- Lasting Quiet: Stress doesn't grow naturally. It is not actually a challenge, as it makes the game easier, and so it is more suitable for beginners.
- Talented: You now gain a perk every 3 levels. Scrolls of Upgrade cannot be used.
- Immortality: Restore HP by killing, increase max HP by +1 for every 5 kills. Regeneration and max HP increasing on level up are both removed.
- Evil Greed: The golden claw can now target characters, which is the only way for you to get gold.
- Master of Casting: Coins can be used to upgrade items. You get all containers, but there are no merchants in the dungeon.
- Faith is My Armor: Gain a blessed Ankh on level up, but max HP increasing on level up is removed.
- In case it is not totally clear, almost no familiar challenge from Shattered PD remains in 0.4.2, with the only exception of Faith is my Armor which is also heavily changed, and challenges can't be chosen/unchosen during an active run from depth 1 and on. There is no challenge selection option in the game's main screen and also the Monument of Dungeon offers no options anymore after the player confirms that a challenge is chosen (so there is no way back after confirming a challenge in an active run).

Dark Rawberry: Unless the hero has meat in his/her bag, each time the hero tries to interact with it, it will teleport away. This means that it will never talk to him/her in the beginning and if only he/she returns to depth 0 after getting the Amulet, he/she will have a chance to talk to it and receive its congratulations (no effect to the hero's progress).
Frost Battlemage: He gives some good advice about life in general to the hero when he introduces himself and also tells him/her about managing hunger and the different types of rooms in the dungeon when asked for advice (no effect to the hero's progress). After the hero obtains the Amulet of Yendor, if he/she returns to depth 0, the Battlemage gives no advice to the hero at all, as the hero does not need it anymore and just congratulates him/her.
Jessica: In the beginning, she says she is very worried about her friend Cally and asks the hero to look for him in the dungeon. After the hero obtains the Amulet of Yendor, if he/she returns to depth 0 and has found Cally's Diary, which records his last days, Jessica becomes very sad for his loss and blames herself for not doing more to prevent Cally from going to the dungeon. In the case that the hero still carries the diary with him/her, Jessica takes it. Note that Cally's Diary only spawns if the hero has talked to her before entering the dungeon. Interacting with this NPC adds an interesting storyline element but has no effect to the hero's progress.
Minstrel Teller: He is blue, misses the canned beef of his hometown and also the hero can order a song from him (no effect to the hero's progress). Players will find him having disappeared after the hero obtains the Amulet of Yendor and returns on depth 0.
Mystery Scholar: He says nothing (no effect to the hero's progress).
Passerby: He has been added on depth 0 from version 0.4.2 and on but just adds to the storyline and has no effect to the hero's progress. He talks with most hero classes about the magic of friendship and wants them to become friends but asks Mages about their past in the mage college and why they left, because he is now the new intern there and is curious. Eventually in the first case he assures heroes that he will be a powerful magician one day and will protect them, and he apologizes to mages if they felt uncomfortable because of his curiosity. When the hero returns with the Amulet on depth 0 he has no different reaction.
Sodan: An extremely pessimist knight, who has given up all hope in life in general and specifically in the possibility of finding the Amulet of Yendor (no effect to the hero's progress). After the hero obtains the Amulet, Sodan becomes dumbfounded.
Yvette: She only appears in the end, if she has spawned in the caves and the hero has saved her. She tells the hero that she is now fine because the Elder Alchemist has cured her, and not to worry about her anymore.

After the hero first descends from depth 0, he/she can't return back to it, until he/she obtains the Amulet of Yendor, and if he/she tries to ascend from the ladder on depth 1, the familiar "One does not simply leave Pixel Dungeon." message appears.

Rest of the dungeon

From the familiar NPCs of Shattered PD, the Sad Ghost, the Rat King, the Old Wandmaker, the Troll Blacksmith (but the NPC Yvette might spawn instead of him, only one of them spanws in the caves in each run) and the Ambitious Imp remain in Darkest PD with the same or very similar behavior and quest rewards and in the same locations. Shopkeepers also spawn on each first depth after a chapter boss fight. Shopkeepers and Vendors now generally don't buy items, but the hero can use anytime the Hand of Midas artifact for this purpose instead. There are some more NPCs added though, part of them being vendors that spawn randomly in the dungeon before the Demon Halls, and part of them being similar to the NPCs of depth 0. A list of the NPCs with changed features and of the new NPCs follows.

Abyss Hero: He starts as a hostile NPC and becomes an ally similar to the Dried Rose Ghost for the rest of the game. He spawns from the arftifact Abyss Handler and never appears randomly (see New Artifacts section above for details).
Ambitious Imp/Sad Ghost: They are almost the same with the familiar NPCs from Shattered PD with the two minor differences that the Sad Ghost's reward is almost always upgraded and most often a tier 1 or 2 weapon and a tier 2 armor, and the Ambitious Imp's ring reward is still cursed but can be highly upgraded, up to level +5.
The Arch Demon NPCs have been added from version 0.4.2 and on and appear from mid caves until early demon halls, but always stand on a tile with chasm tiles around it, so to interact each time with the demon a potion of Levitation is necessary. They don't spawn in a fixed rate and sometimes only 1 will spawn in a whole run and sometimes 2 or even 3, but they are never common. The Arch Demon offers two options to modify the hero's perks, but with heavy costs each. A) In the case that hero chooses to "get rid of a perk", after the player deletes an already obtained perk the demon offers a new perk in exchange (note that you can also just abort, so refuse to sacrifice and end this process, in the rare case that you want only to get rid of a perk):
- for 10% of max HP (there is an about 50% chance for the hero to gain an random perk, however if this fails you'll get nothing but the demon's taunt for being greedy and your hero will have just lost max HP)
- for 20% of max HP (the demon gives a random perk)
- for 30% of max HP (only in this case the perk selection window appears and the player can choose a perk)

B) In the case that the hero chooses to "improve existing capabilities" the perk selection screen appears with the perks of the hero that can be levelled up further and the player can choose one of them. Afterwards the Demon asks what will the hero sacrifice for the improved perk he/she got (if the player exits this dialogue window by using the menu button the whole process is aborted, so in this case a sacrifice has to be made to get any result):
- constitution: it may decrease some of your 1) regeneration speed, 2) resistances ("decrease" meaning that they might reach even negative values) or 3) max HP (15% ~ 25%)
- a random perk (the perk removed might be a very useful perk, so this option can end up better than the first option or equally bad)

C) All the sacrifices demanded by the Arch Demons are more or less heavy (with the only exception of the first one, which has a high chance to fail though), so choose wisely and have in mind that accepting their offer is not in any way necessary to complete the game fully.

Questioner: Rarely on random depths of the dungeon the player might notice a wall with a head as one of its tiles, and if he/she examines the tile, he/she will read the description "It looks like a wall with a face. No one knows whether it is a living thing or not." The hero can interact with the head, and it will ask a question that seems like a riddle, but whatever of the two possible answers the hero will give, the head will vanish, the hero will gain access to a room with good loot, but will also have his pressure/stress increased randomly from +2 to +6 (none of these is affected by the hero's answer, different answers will just spawn different items randomly). Alternatively, the player can choose the third option, and have the hero destroy the head. In this case, there will be no added pressure/stress, the head will also vanish, but in addition a rockfall trap will get activated, damaging and stunning the hero and alarming all nearby enemies (this choice will also spawn different items). When the hero has very low pressure/stress it is probably better to answer the question, but with high pressure/stress it is more reasonable to clear all neighbouring rooms from enemies, be sure that his/her HP is not too low and then destroy the head. The chests inside the Questioner's room have an increased chance to be mimics, especially if the hero has destroyed the Questioner (so in one way or the other, getting into the questioner's room will almost always increase pressure, because mimics always cause mental damage).
Ren B2: He is located near the exit of depth 15 and gives only incoherent answers to the hero's questions.
Troll Blacksmith (probable): Either he or Yvette will spawn in the caves. He appears in his familar room almost always in early caves (rarely later in caves) and also in all the rest his behavior is the same with that of Original PD's Blacksmith (he asks either for bat blood on the pickaxe or for 12 dark gold pieces). Keep in mind that: a) he forges only same and not similar items (for example not an assassin's blade and a flail, which are both tier 4 weapons, but only two flails or two blades) and b) that he can forge two items of 0 level to an item of +1 level.
Vendors: They spawn randomly from depth 1 to depth 19, and their merchandise is more specific and less in amount than that of the regular shopkeepers, from 5 to 9 items. Alchemists and Plague Doctors sell potions, seeds and test papers and Arcanists sell mostly scrolls, but also less often wands and arcane styli. Arcanists can also uncurse a hero's item for a price much higher than that of the scroll of Remove Curse when it is sold in that chapter. There is also a fun option with all vendors to switch places with them. These specific NPCs vanish just like the shopkeepers, when they are threatened or receive any type of damage.
Yvette (probable): She is always inside a barricaded rectangular room, usually in late caves, but she might spawn earlier more rarely. She is exhausted and asks from the hero a scroll of Teleportation and food. The hero has two choices:
- "Don't worry, just leave it to me.", which opens the inventory, in order to offer her one of the things she asks - with food offered she does nothing at first, but with a scroll of Teleportation she drops the Ranger's Headband (+ ranged damage) or an artifact or a ring and a common potion or scroll, and if the hero has offered her food previously, she also teaches the "Intended Transportation" perk to him/her, which is the only way to obtain that perk (if Yvette is still hungry, she will be too weak to teach the perk, but will do all the rest), thanks him/her and vanishes. Note a) that any food item is fine for Yvette (even raw blandfruit and raw mystery meat), and she will teleport to safety very soon anyway, so it is better to give her a food item with low value in comparison like an overpriced food ration or raw meat, and b) that Yvette teaches this perk only if the scroll of Teleportation is already identified, and if you give her a still undifentified scroll of Teleportation, she accepts it, but she just teaches the identification of the scroll and not the perk. This act of kindness also relieves 5 pressure.
- "Perhaps I should take advantage of her.", which leads to the hero killing her, adds 5 pressure, but Yvette also always drops the Ranger's Headband, her longbow (not equippable generally, not even by snipers), her posthumous papers (her diary) and an iron key that opens the door to the left hidden room of depth 20.
- What is the ethical thing to do is obvious, but it should be noted that the Great Blueprint from depth 20 is an item very useful for for all classes, while the 100% chance for the heandband to drop is only achieved by killing Yvette, and this item is very useful to Snipers. More rarely, Yvette does not spawn alive, if a hero had killed her in a previous run, but only her remains, a pile that contains more often some and rarely even all the aforementioned items, but always the key for depth 20.

Note about diary items: The "Diary of Warden Smith" is also always found in a small room on Tengu's depth, but Warden Smith doesn't exist as an NPC in the game, nor any existing NPC mentions him. It serves as a rather obscure reference to a "Warden Smith" signature on a letter that used to get found in Tengu's depth in an older version of Shattered PD. The letter was later removed, but Darkest PD still incorporates Warden Smith in its lore. After the hero has obtained the Amulet of Yendor and it is possible for him/her to revisit depth 0, no NPC differentiates his/her behavior when the hero interacts with them and either the Diary of Warden Smith or Yvette's Posthumous Papers are inside the inventory. The only diary that has an effect on an NPC's reaction (but still with no effect on the rub) is Cally's Diary on Jessica, who will get deeply sad for Cally's loss even when the hero hero does not carry the item anymore, but has read it previously, so he/she can inform Jessica about what happened to Cally.

Perks

Main article: Darkest PD – Perks

Perks are effects that passively and permanently affect stats and their high degree of implementation is a unique feature of Darkest PD. Heroes can obtain them in several ways:

Classes start with some of them, different in each case;
One can be learned when advancing to 2nd experience level (and every 4th level onwards), which lets the player choose between several perks;
In more unique ways throughout the journey through the dungeon.

For details about all the available perks of Darkest PD and their effects you can visit the page link just above.

Potions

The potions of Original PD are kept (Experience, Frost, Invisibility, Healing - but much changed, see below, Levitation, Might, Mind Vision, Paralytic Gas, Purification, Strength, Toxic Gas), but the potion of Physique is added, which adds permanently from +5 to +12 to the hero's max HP and it also heals slightly the hero by the amount of max HP it adds. Like they do in Shattered PD, after potions get identified, they display a distinguishing symbol at their bottom right.

Shattered PD's exotic alchemy has not been implemented, so there are no exotic potions, brews etc. and the potion of Strength still gets transmuted to the potion of Might (with an upgraded ring of Wealth this may also spawn as loot in the dungeon in the place of a potion of Strength). Also, most potions can have their effects strengthened when they are reinforced by the Witch (this process does not consume dew like when brewing potions with the extraction flask and just needs one random seed as ingredient, it also does not have a chance to fail):

Experience: strengthened version provides extra XP.
Frost: strengthened version instanttly freezes the targets.
Healing: The regular version is also changed and is mentioned first. It grants a regeneration effect instead of instant healing and also cures the Bleeding debuff, while the strengthened version offers instant healing, lets HP exceed the upper limit and cures almost all debuffs (it is very similar to the potion of Life in Sprouted PD). To give a few more details: the non-strengthened version recovers about (max HP/3+40) in total, which means that if your max HP > 60 , then a single potion may not recover you to full, while the strengthened potion adds your max HP to your current HP, so the HP gained will always exceed the HP bar's upper limit for a small or big amount and with full HP, it will double the HP points. So, after drinking a strengthened potion of Healing, in higher hero's levels it can be safe to upgrade the Heart of Satan to +10 even if you dont have a Ankh. An extra secondary change in this potion is that when it is dropped by swarms of flies it gets auto-identified. It used to be the already identified item for the Warrior class but is not anymore, and the potion of Strength has become that instead.
Liquid Flame: strengthened version causes explosion (as there are no bombs in Darkest PD, this is the only way to get a bomb-like item).
Mind Vision: strengthened version provides the Sharp Vision buff, which expands the hero's vision, maximizing view distance (8 tiles usually). It is the already identified item for the Huntress class.
Physique: strengthened version increases max HP more.
Purification: double duration when strengthened.
Toxic Gas: strengthened version no longer creates gas, but directly poisons targets. It is the already identified item for the Sorceress class.
Potions of Invisibility, Levitation, Might, Paralytic Gas and Strength can't get reinforced - strengthened.

All strengthened potions display a + symbol at their top left, even when the type of potion is not yet identified and does not display a distinguishing symbol at the bottom right. They are never found as loot in the dungeon, but they are rarely sold in shops, displaying also a + symbol and at a higher price than their regular counterparts.

Also, from version 0.4.2 and on when brewing potions with all three of the same seed, the related potion must be generated & identified. For the Sorceress' extraction flask, even with two same seeds, if the associated potion is brewed, it would also be identified. Neverteless for the sorcerees this process might still "fail" and brew a potion of toxic gas instead.

Pressure/Stress

Along with the added NPCs and the hero perks it is the most important innovation of Darkest PD in the PD context, but as a mechanic it is borrowed from Darkest Dungeon. The game uses both words for this hero's stat, but it is basically referring to what people call in everyday english stress or anxiety. Let's start with the information displayed in the in-game guide: "Expeditions will affect your psychology, and stress will slowly accumulate in your adventures. Compared to hunger, stress has more frequent influences on your adventure. Don't worry, this effect is not always negative. Your psychology will affect your behavior. Conversely, your behavior will also affect your psychology. A precise attack, a hard victory, etc. will make you more confident and relieve your stress. Things like being attacked by surprise will have the opposite effect. Gradually accumulated stress will eventually affect your health. Please note that unlike hunger, the loss of health will increase rapidly. Once you start losing your health because of excessive stress, be sure to find an immediate way to get rid of it."

Below the hero's HP bar, there is also a thinner purple bar, which shows the current pressure/stress, which is also displayed numerically in the hero's tab. All heroes in the beginning of their adventure start with the "Confident" buff, which basically shows that the "Pressure counter" in the hero "Stats" tab is 0/100 and the hero has increased accuracy (1.15) as well as damage (1.1) and +7% critical chance. The hero will retain this buff until the Pressure counter hits 30/100. Afterwards his/her state will become "Normal" which is named as such in the game code, but it has no in-game display. Being in normal state keeps the hero's stats normal, as expected. From 70/100 Pressure and on, the hero becomes "Nervous" which is displayed by a debuff icon and also affects the hero's accuracy (0.8) and evasion (0.8) and makes him/her unable to read scrolls and drink unidentified potions. This is also a warning signal to the player, to do something for the hero's pressure/stress soon. At 100/100 Pressure the hero becomes ready to Collapse, which is also displayed by a debuff icon, and also affects the hero's stats drastically, as accuracy becomes 0.2 and evasion 0. The hero at that point also starts to get damage from Pressure, and this pure damage ignores armor and increases exponentially (practically the hero dies after a short while, if this state is not cured).

Fortunately there are some ways to avoid pressure and some other ways to relieve accumulated pressure, which are described with some details in the section below, but the pressure-relieving items should be mentioned beforehand:

Brown Ale / Grog: they are common, as they are found as loot in the dungeon and sold in its shops (they are also dropped rarely by Skeleton Knights), and they have the weakest effect in comparison to Humanity (Pressure relief: 10~22.5 for Brown Ale, 15~30 for Grog) and also damage the hero by 25% of his/her max HP and apply the Drunk debuff, that is similar to Vertigo but also prevents the hero from reading scrolls. The Warrior class has no negative side effects and recovers more pressure from drinking Brown Ale or Grog and also all hero classes can have this ability if the player was offered and chose the Drunkard perk.
Humanity: it is only droped randomly by Madmen and as a consequence it is much rarer, has the strongest positive effect among the two (Pressure relief: 50%) and applies no debuffs, while in contrast to Brown Ale or Grog it also heals the hero up to 25% of his/her max HP.
The pressure relief item Ceremonial Dagger has been added from version 0.4.1 and on, which the hero can use to prick himself/herself in order to release pressure in exchange for some bleeding damage. The pressure relief this item grants is high, but its damage from bleeding increases with each use, so it can even spend all the hero's HP after some uses, if its bleeding is not cured or its damage healed. Note that although it looks like a weapon this is its sole use. When used in moderation and not very often, so the hero has gained some max HP with level ups, you can use it about 6 or 7 times before the prick damage gets too high and takes the hero's life at full health, and in any case be sure to cure the bleeding in the last few uses.
- To be more specific and to give some examples, the dagger's direct damage is calculated by hero's max HP / 10 + hero's max HP / 10 * ceremonial daggers already used, while the dagger's bleeding damage by hero's max HP / 20 * ceremonial daggers already used, so with a hero at level 16 and with 100 max HP, its first use will deal 20 direct + no bleeding damage, its second use 20 direct + 5 bleeding damage, its third 40 direct + 10 bleeding damage etc. and its fifth use will either need an Ankh or having decent armor, drinking a healing potion and stepping on a dreamfoil plant, as it will be 100 direct + 25 bleeding damage. Heroes most often will be reaching 26 level by the time they encounter Yog-Dzewa, which will give 150 max HP to all non-warrior classes without any potions of Physique drunk, and using a sixth dagger in this case will deal 150 direct damage and 38 bleeding damage, and a seventh dager 180 direct damage and 45 bleeding damage. Armor always absorbs some damage, a dreamfoil plant stops bleeding, and the hero can drink a healing potion, but still Ankhs are not plenty in Darkest PD, so better use the dagger in moderation. Like with the Heart of Satan, when using the ceremonial dagger has the danger to be fatal, there is a game window that warns the player.

It should be also noted that from version 0.4.1 and on pressure fluctuates more in the game: it tends to vary much more, and the hero may get from confident to stressed in a short period of time, and then back to confident by drinking wine or for another reason very quickly. Most new players of Darkest PD find the pressure/stress mechanic the most difficult to handle, so some additional advice follows.

Surviving pressure for longer in Darkest PD

Note that all these tips apply to a regular run. Beginners or players who just don't like the pressure mechanic in Darkest PD can choose the Lasting Qiuet "challenge" from the Monument of Dungeon on depth 0 and not bother with pressure at all.

Pressure increases basically from starvation and from some enemy attacks, those that have a mental effect, and also from surprise attacks by all enemies, so don't let your hero starve and either prefer a defense build to have less damage or a ranged build to avoid some damage (in chapters with enemies having a ranged attack, also light a torch when you receive successive surprise attacks and don't see an enemy nearby). "All upgrades to the main weapon" builds that are familiar from other mods work badly in Darkest PD, and players should divide the 10 available scrolls of Upgrade of each run more or less equally between the weapon and armor. Stepping on hidden traps also increases pressure, but there is no way for damage control over that, and also the activation of a curse's effect increases it, so don't leave cursed items with a specific curse as they are for long, if you have a choice ("generally" cursed items without a specific curse don't increase pressure in contrast, as they activate no effect). Pressure decreases most often by eating any food item, killing enemies and also by gaining levels, but this is often not enough to keep it under control, and the humanity, grog and brown ale items are not plenty, so damage control > pressure control is also necessary.

The problem is that Darkest PD is ungenerous in its armor drops, and upgrading a leather or cloth armor won't offer much to pressure management. Nevertheless, it will be reasonable to put a few upgrades to a mail armor after the prison, if you hadn't found an upgraded one already, and if you find a scale or plate armor after prison don't even think about it and just put all needed upgrades to it, until it is equippable without penalties. It should be noted though that a mail armor upgraded above +3 can be totally fine for completing the game, it will be just worse compared to a scale or plate armor, and the hero wlll also have no problem with the weakening debuff of the Dwarf Warlocks.
Weapons are more tricky, as upgrading a lot a low tier weapon will get you fine until the metropolis (easy kills > less pressure), but you will suffer from there and on. Darkest PD is even more ungenerous in its tier 5 weapons drops, so any tier 3 weapon that deals decent damage and is not slow (mace, sword, scimitar etc.) is fine to get some upgrades and have the hero equip it for end-game, if the hero hasn't found a better weapon, and don't even think about upgrading or not a tier 4 weapon or a ring of Force as soon as you find them. For the DM-300 fight and on you will need an upgraded good weapon, so make your choice before that.
There is only one case that you can "find" rather easily a tier 5-like weapon early on, and that is to join 2 tier 3 swords (not crystal, long etc. specifically two of the plain type). They become a tier 5-like (if upgraded properly, for details see the weapons section) pair of swords, which pair can't get upgraded by itself, but you instead split the pair, upgrade one of the swords, and join them again.
The Humanity and Ceremonial Dagger drops/finds are random but Brown Ale and Grog are sold often in shops, so be sure to check carefully the merchandise, as these items relieve the hero from pressure and are very important for the hero to have. Also check your pressure and right before it gets too high and prevents you from reading scrolls, sleep with a scroll of Lullaby, it decreases pressure much in addition to healing you (remember to not be hungry when you do that, as starving stops its effect). If you have a Humanity item, you can wait a little and let pressure build up some more, as it relieves a lot of it and has no limitations in its use. Eating any other food item also decreases a little pressure, so in the rare case you have a lot of food, you can also try comfort eating when your pressure gets high, even if you are not starving. Be also careful with the Ceremonial Dagger, on the one hand it relieves from a lot of pressure and has no limitations in order to get used, but its bleeding damage increases with each use. Secondary/rarer additional means of relieving pressure is also using scrolls of Upgrade, drinking from a well of Health and praying to the statuee of the Goddess.
Picking the Drunkard, Optimistic and Pressure Relief perks when they are offered can also be of help.
Lastly, in addition to all the rest of ways that pressure gets increased, stressful interactions like answering to the Questioner or opening its room's chests, which are often mimics, and acts of unkindness like blaspheming against the statue of the Goddess or killing Yvette also increase pressure/stress. You should weigh the advantages and disadvantages between the loot gained and the pressure/stress added and have in mind that no loot will be of any use, if the hero collapses from pressure/stress and dies. In contrast, acts of kindness like praying to the Statue of the Goddess or saving Yvette relieve pressure/stress.

Rings

Some of the rings of Shattered PD (Force, Furor, Haste, Might, Sharpshooting, Wealth) are kept the same or mostly the same, but also many changes and additions have been made, especially from version 0.4.2 and on:

The ring of Accuracy has become the new ring of Arcane, which increases wand accuracy and recharging speed, and also critical stike chance for battle wands.
The new ring of Critical grants increased critical chance to the hero (1.15^ boost per level to the hero's current critical chance).
There is no ring of Energy in Darkest PD (neverheless its function is replaced by the Wizard Hat and the ring of Arcane).
The ring of Evasion no longer provides stealth but only evasion (extra dodge probability, besides the defense skill).
The ring of Force considers the hero unarmed, when he/she has the Battle Gloves weapon equipped (it is the only case when melee hits with the ring of Force can have an enchantment effect and the gloves also grant by default quicker attack speed). Note that in this case the most benefit is in upgrading the ring and not the gloves.
The ring of Tenacity has become the new ring of Health, which increases max HP by a certain ratio and also slightly regeneration rate.
The ring of Elements has become the new similar ring of Resistance, which affects the hero's six elemental resistance stats and magical resistance.
An upgraded ring of Wealth apart from increasing the drop rate of regular loot in general also makes potions of Might spawn as loot in the dungeon in the place of potions of Strength and makes non-gold-dropping enemies drop gold in addition to their regular loot. In contrast to current Shattered PD, it does not make chests or enemies drop rare items as loot.
Rings generally is the only type of item on Darkest PD that can have negative levels down to -3 when cursed.

Also, unlike Shattered PD the Ambitious Imp might give as a quest reward a highly upgraded ring, even up to +5 level.

Scrolls

Most of the scrolls of Original PD are kept (Identify, Lullaby, Magic Mapping, Mirror Image, Psionic Blast, Rage - renamed from Challenge like in Shattered PD, Recharging, Remove Curse, Teleportation, Terror, Upgrade - only this is somewhat changed, see below), but also some new scrolls are added (Curse, Enchanting, Light). As mentioned previously Shattered PD's new alchemy has not been implemented, so there are no exotic variants, no spells, no new stones etc. and the scroll of Magical Infusion does not exist generally either as a product of Alchemy or transmutation.

The scroll of Wipe Out is removed, although there are still Sacrificial Chambers in Darkest PD (they drop runes for the Dew Vial instead of a scroll of Wipe Out as a reward, in addition to gold). Like they do in Shattered PD, after scrolls get identified, they display a distinguishing symbol at their bottom right. The new scrolls of Darkest PD are:

Scroll of Curse: It curses an item of the hero's choice. It seems totally useless, but three artifacts in Darkest PD are stronger when cursed (the two Eyeballs and the Hand of the Elder), and the scroll can also make the equipped weapon unknockable by Dwarf Monks. Note that the scroll of Curse does not apply a specific curse to armors or weapons, but a "general" curse, so there will be no other negative effect on the hero (or pressure increase due to a curse effect getting activated), other than the item being non-unequippable.
Scroll of Enchanting: Very similar to the scroll of Enchantment of Original PD, it does not get transmuted to a scroll of Upgrade though, but to any other common scroll (don't transmute it, with the hope of getting a scroll of Upgrade, you won't). Note that like in Original PD, the scroll does not lift fully curses from items and just replaces the curse effect with the enchantment effect, while the item remains non-unequippable (nevertheless, if the cursed armor or weapon has become again unequippable, after the application of a scroll of Upgrade, enchanting will replace the curse with an enchantment and will complete the process). Also, it is a rare scroll with no guaranteed spawns like the scroll of Upgrade.
Scroll of Light: It illuminates the entire room, grants a short Illuminated buff to the hero and shocks and knocks back all characters in sight. Shopkeepers and vendors are also threatened by it and vanish.

Also the scroll of Upgrade can't get transmuted at all (in the case you wanted to enchant a weapon with a scroll of Enchanting, don't have one, and found a well of transmutation, or think that the scroll of Magical Infusion still exists in Darkest PD). In current Darkest PD only 2 scrolls of Upgrade are generated per chapter, so most probably you would not try to transmute this scroll anyway. An extra secondary addition in the scroll is that using it relieves a little pressure.

Scrolls of Magic Mapping and scrolls of Upgrade are still the already identified items for the Rogue and Mage class.

Shops

Shops are very similar with those in Original PD, their layout is just different (their merchandise is displayed only in the shopkeepr's window and not on the dungeon's floor, and is from 16 items in prison to 25 items in the Imp's shop before the hero starts buying items) and most importantly they are not located by default near the depth's entrance - as a matter of fact they very rarely spawn near the depth's entance, with the only exception of the Imp's shop, which is located in a small depth so it is close to both the entrance and exit. Apart from the famiilar items from Original PD, Shattered PD and all the other new items of Darkest PD, it should be noted that they also often sell Brown Ale and Grog, and rarely Ceremonial Daggers (but never Humanity) which are all very important for the management of the hero's pressure/stress, so be sure you have checked all of their merchandise and at least buy these consumable items. The Vendors that might spawn from depth 0 to depth 19 have already been described in the NPCs section.

Statues

This is another secondary but also important new feature of Darkest PD. On random depths of the dungeon the hero will come across three different statues, and will have two different options with each one.

Statue of Devil: the "Sacrifice" option will damage the hero by a random amount of HP (if it has a chance to kill him/her the game will not all the sacrifice though, as of version 0.4.2), but also: a) it might add max HP to him/her, b) it might drop the Chalice of Blood artifact, c) it might add XP and grant a level up or d) it might give a Vampiric enchantment to the hero's equipped weapon. The "Defile" option will generate 1-2 Devil Ghosts, which always drop a Demonic Skull and if they are two the second one drops gold. For the use of Demonic Skull see the Equipment slots and Head gear section above.
Statue of Goddess: the "Pray" option relieves 30% pressure/stress, offers shielding if pressure is not high, and it is also probable to give a Holy enchantment to hero's equipped weapon, which is only obtained this way, while the "Blaspheme" option curses equipped item(s) and drops the Unholy Blood item (just unequip all items before blaspheming, the only other negative consequence is a little pressure added). Note that the Holy Enchantment is very useful from the Metropolis and on, as it deals increased damage to demonic enemies (so even if the weapon enchanted by the goddess was of a low tier, keeping it to transfer its enchantmment to your end-game weapon by using an enchantment table is rather recommended). For the use of Unholy Blood see the Equipment slots and Head gear section and also the Dew Vial section above. Also, reading a scroll of Psionic Blast with the statue of Goddess in line of sight makes praying to it afterwards harmful and there is a rather small chance that praying will have the opposite effect anyway.
Statue of Monster: the "Offer" option needs 100 gold each time, giving the chance that the statue will drop an armor or weapon, which is often cursed if it is not missile (the probability of a drop increases with the total offered gold, which is 500 at most, but it's rare to get nothing until 500). The "Despise" option erases the level map, but does not respawn it, so already explored areas have not anymore already picked up loot but their already discovered hidden traps are shown etc., and also drops an armor or weapon, cursed if it is not missile. Obviously, despising the statue is much more cost-efficient. The equipment dropped is always upgraded and its curse is sometimes the general curse that the scroll of Curse also applies, and so it will have no negative effect on the hero, apart from the item being non-unequippable.

Stones

Only the stone of Augmentation is available in Darkest PD, partly with a similar function that the weighstone has in Original PD, which is to increase the speed of damage of a weapon at the cost of the other stat. Nevertheless it now also affects weapon strength requirements, with lightened weapons requiring -1 strength and heavier +1 strength, and it can also be used to return a weapon to its normal weight. As mentioned before Shattered PD's new alchemy doesn't exist in Darkest PD, so runestones can't be crafted by scrolls in general.

Traps

Most traps in Darkest PD are very similar to those of Shattered PD with a few exceptions:

Rockfall trap (changed): it also attracts nearby enemies apart from stunning the hero (with many enemies around, these function as almost as deadly as grim traps).
Freaking trap (new): added from version 0.4.1 and on, it always deals pressure damage to the hero, even after it has been revealed, but has no other harmful effect. Note that they have in all chapters a very similar sprite to that of the caves Alarm trap of Original PD, round red and striped.
Treasury "trap" (new): added from version 0.4.1, it spawns separate items as loot or treasure chests after getting triggered (chests also have a chance to be mimics) and is most of the times hidden. In regards to pressure it is almost the total opposite of the previous trap and this trap very rarely increases it, even when it is hidden. Note that they also have in all chapters a very similar sprite to that of the city Poison dart trap of Original PD, square and purple.

All hidden traps (with the only exception of the treasury trap) when triggered by the hero cause pressure damage, even when they are not damaging physically like flock traps, but even when revealed they might also cause pressure damage, so always avoid triggering by stepping on them even whey are not physically damaging.

Wands

The wands of Darkest PD are similar to those of version 0.4.2 of Shattered PD, so there are no wands of Living Earth and Warding, and the wand of Venom still exists instead of the wand of Corrosion, but almost all the rest of the wands of Shattered PD with their melee hit effects for Battlemages exist also in Darkest PD. With the only exception of the wand of Magic Missile, they all have 2 available charges at level 0.

Cursed wands have the same effects with current Shattered PD and in the same degree of rarity (Anti-Entropy, Bomb explosion at target tile, Confusion/Paralytic/Toxic gas blob at target tile, Cursing of items, Fake game crash, Great forest fire, Health tranfer to target, Regrowth, Shock damage and Recharging buff, Summoning of enemies, Super mimic, Teleportation in the same depth or at a previous depth, Transformation of target into sheep, Wand transmogrification to another item). Their melee effects for Battlemages are similar to those of Shattered PD. Unlike rings, cursed wands can't have negative levels.

Darkest PD's wands are (the type of damage is always magical):

Similar to current Shattered PD

Wand of Blast Wave: Dam. 1-7, useful mostly for knocking back enemies and possibly stunning them if they knock on a wall, also useful for opening distant doors and triggering traps, +1 / +3 with each upgrade. It is not an elemental wand. Elastic enchantment when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Corruption: It deals no damage but has a chance to corrupt enemies and turn them to pemanent allies for the hero until they die. Enemies with low HP are corrupted much easier. If it does not corrupt the enemy, it will apply a random debuff (Amok / Blindness / Cripple / Paralysis / Slowness etc.). It spends at least one charge, but it spends more charges when trying to corrupt stronger enemies. The power of its effect increases with upgrades but none of its effects deal damage. It is not an elemental wand. It causes Amok on hit when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Disintegration: Dam. 2-8, Range 4, it is similar to that of Shattered PD, as it pierces through enemies and obstacles and deals bonus damage for each enemy or obstacle it penetrates, but its damage also has the "Pure" attribute, which ignores armor. It is also useful in destroying barricades. It is not an elemental wand. Scaling +1 / +4, and also + 2 Range with each upgrade. Projecting enchantment when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Fireblast: Dam. 1-7, it creates a cone of fire initially with 4 tiles length and width at its ends and often applies the burning debuff to enemies (also useful for turning meat into chargrilled meat). The length and width of its cone is based on how many of its charges are used. The wand always uses 30% of its available charges rounded up and at 1/2/3 charges used the cone effect has a max distance of 4/6/8 tiles. Moreover with 2 charges spent it can also apply the Crippled debuff and with 3 charges spent the Paralysis debuff. +1 / +3 with each upgrade. Its element is Fire. Blazing enchantment when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Frost: Dam. 2-8 (to non chilled or frozen targets, but less or no damage at all to chilled and frozen enemies), chills and potentially freezes its targets (more vulnerable to that when standing on water tiles), also useful for turning meat into frozen carpaccio, +1 / +5 with each upgrade, which also increases the chance to apply its debuffs. Its element is Ice. Chilling enchantment when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Lightning: Dam. 5-8 (double damage to enemies on water, chain effect) +1 / +5 with each upgrade. Its element is Light. Shocking enchantment when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Magic Missile: Dam. 2-10, no special effect, +2 / +2.5 with each upgrade. It is not an elemental wand. Recharging buff to the hero on hit when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage. It is also the only wand with 3 available charges at level 0.

Changed or withdrawn from current Shattered PD

Wand of Prismatic Light: Dam. 1-7 with Light element, which harms demonic and undead enemies more, it can also blind its targets, reveals hidden areas and traps in the area that its beam passes from and grants the Illuminated buff to the hero for a short while, +1 / +3 with upgrades. An extra attribute of this wand in comparison to that of Shattered PD is that it applies the Viemark debuff, which increases accuracy of ranged hits to the specific target (this is also the unique attribute of the Sniper subclass, who applies it with every ranged hit). Cripples enemies on hit when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Regrowth: Like in Shattered PD it grows vegetation in a cone-like area, of which the size and the chances of plants spawning (random regular, Dewcatcher, Seedpod, Starflower) increase with upgrades, but it does not get degraded after many uses like in current Shattered PD. It deals no damage with its bolts but roots characters in its area of effect. It is not an elemental wand. Blooming enchantment when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.
Wand of Transfusion: It was removed in version 0.4.1.
Wand of Venom: It is rather similar to the old wand of Shattered PD as it creates a venomous cloud, which lasts more with upgrades, but it also deals direct damage to a specific target with its bolts, like the wand of Poison of Original PD. Dam. 1-6 with Poison element, +1/+2 with upgrades. Venomous enchantment when imbued to the staff and used by a battlemage.

New

Wand of Abel: Dam. 2-8 with Shadow element, it switches the position of caster and target (including characters and items on the floor), dazes the enemy and also deals some damage, +1 / +2.5 with upgrades. Dazzling enchantment when imbued to staff and used by a battlemage.

Stats comparison of wands

[Scaling = Damage Scaling with each upgrade]

[Missile = If its zaps are considered missiles by the game or not (this detail is mportant because the Wand Piercing perk only affects missile zaps)]

Name	Damage	Range	Element	Debuff	Scaling	Missile
Regrowth	-	3 at L0 (scales)**	-	Rooted	-	X
Venom*	1 - 6	default	Poison	Poisoned	+1 / +2	✓
Abel	2 - 8	default	Shadow	Dazed	+1 / +2.5	✓
Magic Missile	2 - 10	default	-	-	+2 / +2.5	✓
Blast Wave	1 - 7	default	-	Stunned (when knocked to surface)	+1 / +3	✓
Fireblast**	1 - 7	4 at L0 (scales)	Fire	Burning from start Crippled at 2 charges Stunned at 3 charges	+1 / +3	X
Prismatic Light	1 - 7	default	Light	Blinded, Viewmark	+1 / +3	X
Disintegration***	2 - 8	4 at L0 (scales)	Pure	-	+1 / +4Range +2	X
Frost****	2 - 8	default	Ice	Chilled > Frozen	+1 / +5	✓
Lightning*****	5 - 8	default	Light(ning)	-	+1 / +5	X

The wands were ordered from first to last based on their damage scaling with upgrades. From version 0.4.1 and on magical damage ignores physical defense, so wands can deal more damage in most circumstances (the stats displayed are up to date with the current v.0.4.2)

* The wand of Venom deals additional damage with the venomous blob it creates.

** The wand of Fireblast deals often additional damage with the Burning debuff it applies to enemies. The length and width of its cone is based on how many of its charges are spent: 1 charge > 4 tiles, 2 charges > 6 tiles, 3 charges > 8 tiles. As 3 charges are the most that this wand can spend, 8 tiles are its max range. Moreover with 2 charges spent it can also apply the Crippled debuff and with 3 charges spent the Paralysis debuff.

A length and width upgrading of similar rationale also applies to the cone of the wand of Regrowth (with the basic difference that this wand spends all of its available charges at once: its cone has a max length of 1.2+0.8*charges, rounded to the nearest whole number, so at level 0 it is 1.2+(0.8*2) = 2.8 => 3 tiles max, at level 1 3.6 => 4 tiles max, at level 2 4.4 => 4 tiles max etc. and in the highly improbable case that a hero will spend all of his/her available scrolls of Upgrade only in this wand, it will create a cone of 10.8 => 11 tiles max length and width.

*** The wand of Disintegration is not elemental but deals Pure damage that ignores armor, and the wand also gets bonus damage with piercing enemies or obstacles.

**** The damage displayed for the wand of Frost is that against non chilled / non frozen targets, which are more vulnerable to its effect (not its damage) when standing on water tiles, but it is less to chilled and none to frozen, so with successive hits to the same target its average damage is actually much lower.

**** The damage of the wand of Lightning gets doubled against targets standing on water tiles and also deals addtional damage to neighboring enemies with its chain effect.

The wand of Regrowth deals no damage. The element stats are important because each enemy in Darkest PD has different degrees of resistance/vulnerability to the game's six elements. Especially when fighting bosses their information panel about their resistances will be very useful in order to decide which wands you will primarily use.

Battlemages and Warlocks

A) Soul marking enemies with wand zaps is not a part of the Warlock class in Darkest PD anymore, and he instead collects enemy souls inside his urn with each kill by default. Because of this change, there is no actual reason for a warlock to highly upgrade a wand, as he would do in Shattered PD for more success in soul marking. A scroll of Upgrade to a wand will do no harm, but the Warlock should better save most of his upgrading scrolls, if not all, for a high tier weapon and armor.

B) The Battlemage class still has its familiar abilities from Shattered PD, but the scrolls of Upgrade are less in Darkest PD (10), while some of them need to get spent also in the armor, to decrease physical and mental damage in late-game and end-game. This makes the familar battlemage build from Shattered PD "most of the upgrades to the imbued to the staff wand" more difficult in Darkest PD, as dividing equally the scrolls of Upgrade between staff and armor will not make the staff's wand very powerful in its damage. If the battlemage was lucky enough to get offered some of the Arcane Crits, Quick Zap, Wand Arcane, Wand Charger, Wand Piercing perks the low damage will be somewhat "corrected", but without any of these a Battlemage with a much upgraded staff will find surviving the metropolis and demon halls rather difficult. That said, the wands that will offer better chances of survival to a Battlemage in late-game when they get much upgraded are:

wand of Disintegration: it has a good damage scaling with upgrades (+1/+4) and can also hit many enemies with one zap increasing also its damage by doing that, but it has the important drawback that Evil Eyes, a very common enemy of demon halls, are very resistant to its damage.
wand of Fireblast: it has a mediocre damage scaling with upgrades (+1/+3) but it can deal crowd damage because of its fire cone and additional damage with its Burning debuff (note that similarly to the previous wand it has the important drawback that Fire Elementals, a common enemy of metropolis, are immune to its damage)
wand of Lightning: it has the better damage scaling with upgrades (+1/+5) among all wands along with the wand of Frost, but unlike the wand of Frost it keeps dealing its expected damage in all the zaps after the first one (its only drawback is that it can't be used at melee range without also harming the hero).
wand of Prismatic Light: it has a mediocre damage scaling with upgrades (+1/+3) but almost all the late-game and end-game enemies are vulnerable to its damage.

All the other wands due to the low amount of available scrolls of Upgrade in combination with their low damage scaling with upgrades (or with other wand-specific weakness like the wand of Frost dealing considerable damage only to non-chilled/frozen targets) will not help a lot the hero's survival in late-game and end-game, even when much upgraded and with assisting perks. Nevertheless, players who like a specific wand among those just mentioned as weak won't lose anything if they try a battlemage run with their preferred wand imbued to the staff and see by themselves how it goes. The only wand that should certainly be avoided to get much upgraded for a Battlemage run is the wand of Regrowth: its zaps deal no damage and the damage dealt by just the melee hits of the mage's staff is very low for late-game and end-game due to the moderate amount of scrolls of Upgrade that are available for upgrading the staff.

Weapons Melee

In general the weapon system of Darkest PD is the same with that of Original and Shattered PD, as there are 5 weapon tiers, with the weapons in the higher tiers being most often of better quality than those of lower tiers. Nevertheless, in comparison to Shattered PD 8 new weapons have been added in all tiers, some familiar weapons are changed, and the whole picture is pretty original in comparison to its parent mod. Darkest PD's melee weapons are:

No tier and Tier 1

[Scaling = Damage Scaling with each upgrade]

Name	STR	Damage	Properties	Scaling
Battle Gloves (new)*	8	1 - 3	Delay starts from 0.85 and decreases even more with level ups.	+1 / +2
Dagger	10	0 - 9	Effective against unaware enemies	+1 / +2
Knuckleduster	10	2 - 6	Delay 0.5 (double attack speed)	+1 / +1
Mage's Staff	10	1 - 8	Unique to the Mage class, imbuable with wands, can't get disenchanted	+1 / +2
Ring of Force*	-	See ->	Until hero's Str. 18 its damage is of a `½(str−8)` tier weapon and its upgrades add damage similarly to that tier. After Str. 18 the tier is instead calculated by ½ + ¼ * Str. In a nutshell its damage will resemble that of a tier 1 weapon if the hero finds the ring on depth 1, of a tier 2-3 weapon in prison etc and of a tier 5 weapon in late-game. For example with Str. 20 and at level +6 its damage will be of a +4 Glaive, 12-72. When equipping specifically the Battle Gloves weapon, the ring considers the hero unarmed (but not when equipping the knuckleduster).	<- See
Sorceress' Staff (new)	9	2 - 7	Unique to the Sorceress class, by default with the Unstable enchantment	+1 / +2
Worn Shortsword	10	1 - 10	Starting weapon of the Warrior class, can't get reforged. Nevertheless, unlike the unique mage's and sorceress' staves and the huntress' boomerang, it can be found as loot in hero's remains or dropped by skeletons and animated statues.	+1 / +2

* Having the Battle Gloves equipped in a build based on an upgraded ring of Force adds two extra elements which are very useful, quicker attacks and the availability of enchantments, while keeping the superior damage output of the ring. It is advised to keep and not sell a pair of gloves, if you find them, until you get sure that your end-game build will not be based on a ring of Force.

Tier 2

Name	STR	Damage	Properties	Scaling
Dirk	12	2 - 12	Effective against unaware enemies	+1 / +3
Hand Axe*	12	2 - 12	Accuracy +22.5%	+1 / +3
Quarterstaff	12	2 - 12	+2 defense (no scaling)	+1 / +3
Shortsword	11	2 - 15	-	+1 / +3
Sickle (new)**	13	2 - 15	Deals 30% splash damage	+1 / +3
Spear	12	2 - 20	Delay 1.5, Reach 2	+1 / +3

Due to its higher accuracy the Hand Axe can be equipped without a problem while still requiring +1 more strength, as the accuracy penalty applied because of the missing strength is "corrected" by its default higher accuracy, it will be just a little slower.

** The Sickle gives also the "Harvest" option in its game window, which takes down nearby surrounding grass tiles. The grass tiles drop nothing if they are already trampled, but this can give more access to throwing weapons, wand bolts etc.

Tier 3

Name	STR	Damage	Properties	Scaling
Crystal Sword (new)	14	3 - 16	Increased chance for critical hits and crit. damage	+1 / +3
Dagger Axe (new)	14	3 - 27	Delay 1.5, Reach 2, chance (0.1-0.35) to knock enemy back, less accuracy (0.4) at melee range	+1 / +5
Mace*	14	3 - 16	+20% accuracy	+1 / +4
Round Shield	14	3 - 12	+5 defense (+2 per level)	+1 / +2
Sai	14	3 -10	Delay 0.5 (double attack speed), Defense +3 (no scaling)	+1 / +2
Scimitar	14	3 - 16	Delay 0.8	+1 / +4
Sword	14	3 - 20	Joining two of them creates a Pair of Swords	+1 / +4
Whip	14	3 - 12	Reach 3	+1 / +3

** Due to its higher accuracy the Mace can be equipped without a problem while still requiring +1 more strength, as the accuracy penalty applied because of the missing strength is "corrected" by its default higher accuracy, it will be just a little slower. This also apllies to delay penalties and the sai and scimitar, as the penalties are "corrected" by these weapons' default higher attack speed, but the reduced accuracy penalty which will remain is a somewhat bigger drawback.

Tier 4

Name	STR	Damage	Properties	Scaling
Assassin's Blade	16	4 - 20	Effective against unaware enemies	+1 / +5
Battle Axe*	16	4 - 20	+17.5% Accuracy	+1 / +5
Flail**	16	4 - 32	Delay 1.25, Can't surprise attack	+2 / +7
Longsword	16	4 - 25	-	+1 / +5
Runic Blade	15	4 - 20	Benefits more from upgrades	+1 / +6
Spike Shield (new)***	17	4 - 15	Delay 1.5, Defense 4 (+2 per level) Thorns effect (Rebound)	+1 / +4

* The higher accuracy of the Battle Axe makes it rather preferrable for end-game in comparison to the other tier 4 weapons (with the exception of Assassins and the Assassin's Blade, Berserkers and the Spike Shield etc., the Flail is also a generally good tier 4 weapon for other reasons), as all enemies in the last two chapters are very evasive. Due to its higher accuracy it can also be equipped without a problem while still requiring +1 more strength, as the accuracy penalty applied because of the missing strength is "corrected" by its default higher accuracy, it will be just a little slower.

** By players of Shattered PD and most of its mods the Flail is considered a rather controversial weapon, because of its lower accuracy and inability to surprise attack. In Darkest PD it is slower but not more inaccurate, but it also can't surprise attack and these ar eboth drawbacks. Nevertheless, because in Darkest PD all enemies after the Sewers are somewhat buffed, especially in Demon Halls, and the scrolls of Upgrade are less, the flail in this mod is a very useful weapon, as its damage scaling with upgrades is the second best after the glaive and it can also be equipped without strength penalties earlier than the glaive (obviously it is useful for all subclasses apart from the Assassin).

*** The Spike Shield's damage seems low in comparison to the other tier 4 weapons, but its Thorns - Rebound effect is activated very often and so in many fights it makes the shield deal actually equal or even more damage in sum than all the other tier 4 weapons (with the exception of the flail), its 1.5 delay is still an issue though. Note also that its additional defense is active only when it rebounds, which happens often but not always, so keep in mind that its guaranteed defense is only 4 and upgrade also an armor in late-game.

Note that neither the tier 4 Crossbow nor the unique Spirit Bow exist in Darkest PD and for increased ranged damage Snipers will have to rely on tier 2 and higher thrown weapons or upgrade their boomerang, like they would do in Original PD.

Tier 5

Name	STR	Damage	Properties	Scaling
Claymore (new)	18	5 - 30	-	+1 / +6
Glaive	18	5 - 40	Delay 1.5, Reach 2	+1 / +8
Great Axe	19	5 - 40	50% splash damage	+1 / +6
Great Shield*	18	5 - 12	Defense 8 (+3 per level)	+1 / +3
Lance (new)**	18	5 - 35	Delay 1.25, Reach 2	+1 / +6
Pair of Swords (new)	16	3 - 35	Read details below***	Read below.
War Hammer****	18	5 - 24	+15% Accuracy	+1 / +6

* You shouldn't transfer your experience from Shattered PD's and other mods' similar items, and use the Spike Shield or the Great Shield for both damage and defense, by putting all or most upgrades to them, as their defense level and scaling is that of a leather (Spike shield) and mail armor (Great shield). In addition the Spike Shield's additional defense is only active when the shield rebounds, which happens often but not always, and otherwise the Spike Shield offers a flat 4 defense. Nevertheless, if you haven't found a scale or plate armor until DM-300, putting many upgrades on a Great Shield will be obviously better than dividing upgrades between the Great Shield and a mail armor, which offers equal defense but obviously not damage. A build based on the Spike Shield can also have more upgrades on the shield and less on the armor.

** The lance can't be used in surprise attacks, and also the hero's movement speed affects its damage, so it is lower if he/she slowed, and higher if he/she is faster/hastened. Obviously it is combined perfectly with an upgraded ring of Haste.

*** The pair of swords is never found as loot and is only created by joining two tier 3 swords (not crystal, long etc. only two "plain" tier 3 swords). Note that the pair is listed among the tier 5 weapons, because with the proper upgrading it can reach their quality, but this is not always the case. The damage displayed in the table is for both swords at level 0, and will be affected by both levels of the sword, as its max damage is based on the higher level sword and then corrected by level difference. Generally speaking, its damage can be similar to a normal tier 5 weapon (the higher level of both swords) with level difference 1, which is even more powerful with level difference 0: for example a pair of swords with both of them at level +3 will deal 12-56 damage, when a +6 tier 5 claymore deals 11-66 damage, a +6 tier 5 war hammer deals 11-60 damage, and a +6 tier 4 battle axe deals 10-50 damage. Also the pair of swords has higher accuracy if the swords' level difference is below 2. The pair of swords has in the beginning a +16 strength requirement, which gets reduced when both swords have their requirement reduced (15 strength with both at +1, 14 strength with both at +3) and the pair can have two enchantments, one in each sword. The pair can't get upgraded by itself, but the hero must split the swords, get one or both of them upgraded, and then join them again (when joined, it does not show its level). In contrast, the pair can get enchanted when the swords are joined, with the unenchanted sword getting the enchantment, and if they are both already enchanted, with the left sword changing its enchantment. The swords of the pair should get better upgraded equally, as the swords' damage is based on the higher level one, fixed by the level difference between the two components. To be precise, their multiplier is with 0 level difference +75%, with 1 difference +50%, with 2 difference +25% and with 3 difference -20%, so when the level difference equals to 0 or 1, the pair is similar to a tier 5 weapon with the same level as the higher one (and with 0 difference similar to the high damage-dealing tier 5 weapons). Keeping them equal boosts also their accuracy, as the pair will be more accurate with a level difference less than 2.

**** Due to its higher accuracy the War Hammer can be equipped without a problem while still requiring +1 more strength, as the accuracy penalty applied because of the missing strength is "corrected" by its default higher accuracy, it will be just a little slower.

In conclusion all tier 4 and tier 5 weapons can be very suitable for end-game (and also the tier 3 sword in the form of the pair of swords) if they are used correctly, which is the reason that the detailed notes just above have been written. On the other hand due to low amount of scrolls of Upgrade and the need of armors to get also decently upgraded in Darkest PD, weapons lower than tier 4 will probably not deal enough damage to enemies for the hero to survive easily the Metropolis and Demon Halls unless they synergize very well with a specific subclass (Gladiator with battle gloves, Berserker with round shield, Assassin with dirk, Freerunner with whip). That said, because RNG is not always favorable, as a rule of thumb the lower the damage of your weapon and the defense of your armor are, the quicker you should pass through Demon Halls.

Enchantments and Curses

Some weapon enchantments of Darkest PD are the same with those remaining in Shattered PD (Blazing, Chilling, Projecting, Grim, Shocking, Unstable, Vampiric) while some others are the same with those previously removed from Shattered PD (Dazzling, Eldritch Grim, Stunning, Venomous, Vorpal). The Lucky enchantment retains its old function from Shattered PD ("With this enchantment a weapon will either deal its maximum or minimum damage, never an amount in between.") and does not increase the hero's luck at all. Almost all enchantments (with the sole exception of the Holy enchantment) are applied with scrolls of Enchanting or by using Enchantment Tables, as the scroll of Magical Infusion does not exist in Darkest PD. The Vampiric enchantment is normally available from the scroll of Enchanting, but it can also get randomly applied to the hero's equipped weapon after a sacrifice to the statue of the Devil.

There are two new weapon enchantments added:

"Holy weapons can more effectively fight the undead and demons, and at the same time have a certain chance to give a critical hit. Attaching light to the weapon damage." The Holy enchantment can only be gained from the Statue of Goddess, and it is never applied by a scroll of Enchanting. This enchantment is very useful in late-game as most enemies are demonic, so if the goddess has enchanted a low tier weapon, you should better keep it and transfer its enchantment to your end-game weapon by using an enchantment table.
"Suppress weapons can deal extra damage based on the lost health of enemies."

Some of the weapon curses of Darkest PD are similar with those of Shattered PD (Annoying, Displacing, Exhausting, Fragile, Sacrificial, Wayward), but the Friendly and Polarized curse do not exist, while the Arrogant curse is added:

"Arrogant weapon taunts the attack of the weilder, making the weilder feel uneasy if falied to make a perfect attack." > Unsuccessful hits increase the hero's pressure/stress.

The activation of a curse's effect also increases the hero's pressure ("generally" cursed items with no specific effect do not increase pressure though). Note also that in Darkest PD cursed weapons can't have negative levels. A scroll of Upgrade will always weaken a curse, making the item again unequippable, but will not necessarily erase the curse fully, and the "semi-cursed" weapon will still cause its negative effect. Only the scroll of Remove Curse (or stepping in a Well of Health with the cursed weapon equipped) will uncurse the weapon fully.

Weapons Missile and Thrown

The missile and thrown weapons of Darkest PD are similar with those of Shattered PD, but with 4 new weapons added and also with a new penalty applied when they are used at melee range: the hero gets the "Unbalance" debuff, which is inability to dodge attacks for one or more turns. All missiles' strength requirement is 10, with differences in damage depending on the tier and the hero's extra strength. None of these weapons is transmutable, and only the boomerang in enchantable and upgradeable, unlike current Shattered PD. Also in comparison to most other mods and Shattered PD the drop chance of thrown weapons is much improved in Darkest PD. The missile and thrown weapons of Darkest PD are:

Tier - Name	Damage	Properties - Comments
(1) Boomerang*	1 - 5	Unique to the Huntress, Enchantable, Upgradeable, Scaling +1 / +2
(1) Dart	1 - 6	They can't get tipped and the Crossbow weapon doesn't exist in Darkest PD.
(1) Smokesparks (new)	1 - 6	Blinds
(2) CeremonialDagger (new)	4 - 10	applying ceremonial dagger can help calm down and relieve pressure
(2) Curare Dart	2 - 8	Stuns
(2) Incendiary Dart	2 - 8	Ignites
(2) Shuriken	2 - 6	Delay 0.5 (double attack speed)
(2) Swallow-tailed darts (new)	2 - 9	+25% Accuracy
(3) Dart no.7 (new)	2 - 8	causes Bleeding
(3) Flycutter (new)	2 - 10	-
(4) Javelin	3 - 10	Cripples
(5) Tomahawk	3 - 12	causes Bleeding

* In contrast to most other mods, the boomerang in Darkest PD can't fall and always returns to the hands of the Huntress (it can get dropped deliberately though). Also, the Unbalance debuff should not prevent players that do a Sniper run from applying some upgrades to the boomerang, and have it as the main damage-dealing weapon of their Sniper, as the Sniper's Mark makes it very efficient, and especially with the Ranger's Headband equipped and the Great Blueprint applied to the boomerang, it becomes a weapon totally suitable for end-game. The unbalance debuff will just make upgrading a good armor even more important, and as with all other similar builds, putting all or most upgades to the boomerang and not dividing upgrades between the weapon and armor, is not considered a good idea in Darkest PD. Nevertheless, even without any upgrades applied to the boomerang, any thrown weapon from tier 2 and above will deal considerably often damage when thrown by a Sniper.

General weapons comparison

A table with all the upgradeable weapons' basic stats follows, and with their order based on their max damage (which is not their only important stat though).

Name	STR	Damage	Properties	Scaling
Ring of Force	-	See ->	Until hero's Str. 18 its damage is of a `½(str−8)` tier weapon and its upgrades add damage similarly to that tier. After Str. 18 the tier is instead calculated by ½ + ¼ * Str. In a nutshell its damage will resemble that of a tier 1 weapon if the hero finds the ring on depth 1, and of a tier 5 weapon in late-game.	<- See
Battle Gloves	8	1 - 3	Delay 0.85, which decreases with level ups, str. req. also decreases with level ups.	+1 / +2
Boomerang	-	1 - 5	The only upgradeable and ennchantable ranged weapon	+1/ +2
Knuckleduster	10	2 - 6	Delay 0.5	+1 / +1
Sorceress' Staff	9	2 - 7	By default Unstable enchantment	+1 / +2
Mage's Staff	10	1 - 8	-	+1 / +2
Dagger	10	0 - 9	Effective against unaware enemies	+1 / +2
Worn Shortsword	10	1 - 10	-	+1 / +2
Sai	14	3 -10	Delay 0.5, Defense +3 (no scaling)	+1 / +2
Dirk	12	2 - 12	Effective against unaware enemies	+1 / +3
Hand Axe	12	2 - 12	Accuracy +22.5%	+1 / +3
Quarterstaff	12	2 - 12	+2 defense (no scaling)	+1 / +3
Round Shield	14	3 - 12	+5 defense (+2 per level)	+1 / +2
Whip	14	3 - 12	Reach 3	+1 / +3
Great Shield	18	5 - 12	Defense 8 (+3 per level)	+1 / +3
Shortsword	11	2 - 15	-	+1 / +3
Sickle	13	2-15	30% splash damage, harvests	+1 / +3
Spike Shield	17	4 - 15	Delay 1.5, Defense 4 (+2 per level), Thorns effect	+1 / +4
Crystal Sword	14	3 - 16	Increased chance for critical hits and crit. damage	+1 / +3
Mace	14	3 - 16	+20% accuracy	+1 / +4
Scimitar	14	3 - 16	Delay 0.8	+1 / +4
Spear	12	2 - 20	Delay 1.5, Reach 2	+1 / +3
Sword	14	3 - 20	Joining two of them creates a Pair of Swords	+1 / +4
Assassin's Blade	16	4 - 20	Effective against unaware enemies	+1 / +5
Battle Axe	16	4 - 20	+17.5% Accuracy	+1 / +5
Runic Blade	15	4 - 20	Benefits more from upgrades	+1 / +6
War Hammer	18	5 - 24	+15% Accuracy	+1 / +6
Longsword	16	4 - 25	-	+1 / +5
Dagger Axe	14	3 - 27	Delay 1.5, Reach 2, knocks enemy back, less accuracy (0.4) at melee range	+1 / +5
Claymore	18	5 - 30	-	+1 / +6
Flail	16	4 - 32	Delay 1.25, Can't surprise attack	+2 / +7
Pair of Swords	16	3 - 35	Read details above.	Read above
Lance	18	5-35	Delay 1.25, Reach 2, Can't surprise attact, damage affected by hero's movement speed	+1 / +6
Glaive	18	5 - 40	Delay 1.5, Reach 2	+1 / +8
Great Axe	19	5 - 40	50% splash damage	+1 / +6

Head Gear, Perks, Rings and Weapons more suitable for specific classes / subclasses

Head Gear and Perks

Mages: Apprentice Hood (+ wand damage), Wizard Hat (+ recharging speed), Arcane Crits, Quick Zap, Wand Arcane, Wand Charger, Wand Piercing perks (all are especially helpful to Battlemages).
Huntresses: not the Crusader Helmet (decreased view range for the chance to block ranged attacks), Mask of Rider (+1 vision), Exploding Shot, Finishing Shot, Ranged Shot perks.
- Sniper: Ranger's Headband (also what is already mentioned generally for huntresses)
Warriors
- Berserker: Barbarian Helmet (increased damage in low HP)
- Gladiator: Mask of Horror (increased accuracy)

Rings

The rings shared with Shattered PD that are more helpful to specific classes and subclasses are the same with those of Shattered PD (Furor for gladiators, Haste for freerunners, Sharpshooting for huntresses etc.) but there is no ring of Accuracy, Energy and Tenacity in Darkest PD anymore. These have been replaced by the rings of Arcane and Health, but only the first has a similar function with one of the replaced rings. The function of the the ring of Energy is somewhat replaced by the Wizard Hat and the Wand Charger perk, and most importantly the new ring of Arcane increases wand accuracy and recharging speed, and also critical stike chance for battle wands, so the ring of Energy has actually been replaced with a better version of it. There is no item to compensate for the removal of the ring of Tenacity and no new ring equivalent for the ring of Accuracy, so Berserkers will have to rely only on a good armor for sustaining damage, and Gladiators have only the Mask of Horror item as an option for increased accuracy. Note also that the ring of Evasion does not increase stealth anymore in Darkest PD but only evasion, so Rogues have only their cloak to rely on for that.

Weapons

Note that generally tier 5 weapons are a rare drop or find and tier 4 weapons are also uncommon, while an upgraded good weapon is necessary from the DM-300 fight and on. So, if you hadn't found a tier 4 or 5 weapon until DM-300, just put some upgrades to the best weapon that the hero has available. Also, due to some weapons of current Shattered PD missing, some other weapons having been added and also some other changed, the good subclass-melee weapon synergies which are available in Darkest PD are:

Assasin and Assassin's Blade. Honorable mention: Dirk, but the Assassin's Blade is certainly better. Nevertheless, any weapon with a very good damage output per hit that can surprise attack (Claymore, Glaive, Great Axe, Pair of Swords, unarmed with Ring of Force, any other weapon with decent damage balanced to be heavy) can work very well for an Assassin, as surprise attacks are guaranteed to hit and have a damage bonus by themselves, which stacks with the already high damage of the weapon.
Berserker and Spike Shield/Great Shield. Honorable mention: Round Shield, although it shoud be a last resort, if no tier 4 or tier 5 weapon is available for upgrading from DM-300 and on.
Freerunner and Glaive. Honorable mention: Whip, although it shoud be a last resort etc.
Gladiator and Battle Gloves + ring of Force (only Battle Gloves would be rather weak though). Also the Battle Axe, Pair of Swords (when in equal or close level) and War Hammer with their higher accuracy will help him keep his combos stacking. Honorable mentions: Mace (accurate), Knuckleduster, Sai and Scimitar (quick), any other weapon with decent damage balanced to be light, although they shoud be a last resort etc.
Sniper and any tier 2 and above thrown weapon. The starting boomerang of the huntress can be also moderately upgraded to increase its damage.

Note that as it has already been mentioned, the need for pressure management in Darkest PD makes "all upgrades to the weapon" builds not a very good idea for reaching end-game.

Completing the game - Amulet of Yendor

Like in Original PD and most mods the hero's end objective is to defeat Yog and obtain the Amulet of Yendor. If the hero ends the game immediately with the Amulet, the player will just get to the familiar Rankings screen. Nevertheless, if the player has the patience to ascend back to depth 0, it will be interesting to watch the different reactions of some NPCs that the hero had met in the beginning before descending to the dungeon, he/she will meet Yvette if he/she had saved her previously, and will also be able to get the Happy Ending badge, by returning to his/her spawn point at the village, to the tile named "Depth entrance". Players should note that that no ladder is generated in the village's depth entrance, and the hero just has to get there.

Darkest Pixel Dungeon

Preface for version 0.4.3

Overview

Alchemy

Armors

Artifacts

Familiar artifacts from Shattered PD

New artifacts of Darkest PD

Badges

Bombs (not existing)

Challenges

Classes - new Hero features

Cursed items and Uncursing them

Damage types

Day and Night - Hero's vision

Depth generation

Dew Vial - Revival

Enemies: regular and bosses

New

Changed

Equipment slots and Head gear

Food

Interface

NPCs

Depth 0

Rest of the dungeon

Perks

Potions

Pressure/Stress

Surviving pressure for longer in Darkest PD

Rings

Scrolls

Shops

Statues

Stones

Traps

Wands

Similar to current Shattered PD

Changed or withdrawn from current Shattered PD

New

Stats comparison of wands

Battlemages and Warlocks

Weapons Melee

No tier and Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

Tier 5

Enchantments and Curses

Weapons Missile and Thrown

General weapons comparison

Head Gear, Perks, Rings and Weapons more suitable for specific classes / subclasses

Head Gear and Perks

Rings

Weapons

Completing the game - Amulet of Yendor

Fan Feed