SPecial Surprise Pixel Dungeon/Tips for End-Game & Badges

[This wiki page displays the badges and gives tips about the current version "0.9.4 Testers' Party - The Start".]

General tips - Weapons

SPS-PD is a mod of Sprouted PD and among the most famous (or infamous) characteristics of that mod is its grindiness. A big part of it is related with the tier 6 weapons of Sprouted PD: when the hero reaches the Dolyahaven Mines he/she must farm Norn Stones from Gullins, then create a tier 6 weapon in the Dolyahaven altar, and then transmute as many scrolls of Magical Infusion to scrolls of Upgrade it is possible to upgrade the tier 6 weapon (scrolls of Magical Infusion can't upgrade them), in order to guarantee their survival until the end of the Dolyahaven Mines and especially in the end boss fights.

All these are absolutely unnecessary in SPS-PD, as there are no enemies in the game with high resistance to lower than tier 6 weapons, and both final boss battles can be completed with a highly upgraded tier 1 - tier 5 melee weapon, missile weapon or gun without any problem (but under specific circumstances for the tier 1 - tier 3 weapons, for details read below). Having a tier 6 weapon for end-game will just dictate a different, defensive build, with all or almost all of the scrolls of Upgrade applied the weapon and the scrolls of Magical Infusion to the armor, unless the player has the patience to visit many times the Wisdom Trial depth, in order to transmute one by one the scrolls of Magical Infusion to scrolls of Upgrade in the well of Transmutation that spawns once in each depth generation, as scrolls of Magical Infusion can''t be transmuted by any other means on SPS-PD. Saying that the game can be completed under specific circumstances even with a tier 1 weapon might seem strange to players coming from Sprouted PD, but they should have in mind that in SPS-PD the damage scaling of weapons with upgrades is weapon-specific and not tier-specific.

Damage Scaling per Level

Here are the data for all upgradeable weapons (melee, missile, ranged) with max damage scaling of +5 per upgrade and above to the left, and with max damage scaling of +4 per upgrade and below to the right, which are also given for reasons of completeness. The weapons to the left are all eligible for being main weapons in late- to end-game (with perhaps the exception of weapons with increased attack delay, see following tables), which does not mean that players who enjoy a weapon of the right column should not try to reach end-game with it, they will just have to upgrade it more, unless it has a damage scaling of +1/+1, in which case it should most probably be avoided.

Holiday weapons and weapons with the Fragile attribute in general are almost all excluded from the tables because they are used by players rarely in early game and almost never in end-game, with the only exception being the Toy Gun, which has a decent damage scaling unlike most holiday weapons and does not get self-destroyed like the fragile weapons, so it is included. Also, the weapons that become available only after hero defeats Zot have been omitted as well, as they are currently only parts of game lore, by becoming available only after every significant fight of the game has aready been fought.

Note that this is a table mostly useful for end-game, when the main weapon gets highly upgraded, so its damage scaling with upgrades becomes very important. Obviously in early and mid-game choosing the weapon that gives currently the best outcome in its damage is a more reasonable and direct approach.

Weapon	Dam. scaling	Tier	Weapon	Dam. scaling	Tier
Boomerang*	+2 / +5	1	Fight Gloves	+1 / +1	2
Club	+2 / +5	4	Magic Book	+1 / +1	1
Fusil	+2 / +5	4	Tekkokkagi	+1 / +1	1
Mortar	+2 / +5	5	Flute	+1 / +2	2
Assassin's Blade	+3 / +5	4	Dagger	+2 / +2	1
Centaur Bow*	+3 / +5	-	Wooden Staff	+2 / +2	1
Lance	+3 / +5	5	Triangolo	+2 / +2	1
Spear	+3 / +5	2	Reimus Goei	+1 / +3	3
War Drum	+3 / +5	3	Ring of Force**	+1 / +3	-
Greatsword	+4 / +5	5	Toy Gun	+1 / +3	1
Hand Axe	+4 / +5	2	Gunslinger Pistol	+2 / +3	1
Halberd	+5 / +5	5	Tengu's Katana	+2 / +4	2
Short Sword	+5 / +5	1	Dual Sword	+3 / +3	2
Harp	+3 / +6	5	Mace	+3 / +3	2
Prayer Wheel	+3 / +6	3	Pickaxe*** (Troll's, not Steve's)	+3 / +3	-
War Hammer	+3 / +6	5	Rapier	+3 / +3	3
Battle Axe	+1 / +7	4	Blunderbuss	+2 / +4	3
Stone Cross	+2 / +7	5	Steve's Diamond Pickaxe*	+2 / +4	3
Trumpet	+2 / +7	4	Legend of Hyrule*	+2 / +4	1
Glaive	+1 / +8	4	Pistol	+2 / +4	2
Runic Blade****	+0 / +10	5	Holy Water	+3 / +4	3
			Sling	+3 / +4	0
			Whip	+3 / +4	3
			Wraith Breath	+3 / +4	2

* The Boomerang, Centaur Bow, Legend of Hyrule, Lzayoi's Thousand Knives and Steve's Diamond Pickaxe are unique weapons available only to the Classic Huntress, Taurcen Huntress, Ninja Rogue, Maid Huntress and Builder Follower skins.

** This is the damage scaling of the Ring of Force specifically when the hero is unarmed. With a weapon equipped this rings adds +10% per level to the dealt damage of any weapon that the hero uses, equipped or not equipped, melee or ranged.

*** The pickaxe given by the Troll Blacksmith does not have a proper weapon game description by the game and only shows its strength requirement and current level, but it is upgradeable and also either causes bleeding, poisoning or applies caustic ooze on hit, so it functions as a proper weapon in SPS-PD.

**** Due to its inconsistent damage, as its minimum damage will always be 0, no mattter how much it is upgraded, the Runic Blade is a somewhat risky choice for end-game.

Honorable placements

Weapon	Dam. Scaling	Tier
All tier 6 weapons	+1 / +3	6
Error Weapon	+0 / +0	0
Knuckleduster	+2 / +2	1
Lzayoi's Thousand Knives*	+1 / +2	-
Nunchakus	+2 / +4	3
Overload Handcannon	+1 / +4	4
Scimitar	+3 / +4	3
Spork	+2 / +3	3

The weapons of the second table have all special characteristics that justify to get them positioned to the left:

• All tier 6 weapons have special abilities which can make them appealing to some players.
• The Error Weapon doesn't deal any direct melee damage even after getting upgraded, but applies randomly one of most of the game's debuffs consistently with each hit, and also has the Grim attibute, although it is not stated explicitly, meaning that after some no damage hits it insta-kills all regular enemies, and deals very heavy damage to all bosses, while also debuffing them. It is not suitable due to its 0 damage for the final boss fights, but it is a solid choice against all chapter bosses with few or no minions.
• The Knuckleduster when highly upgraded ends up with an attack delay of 0.4, which makes it an excellent end-game weapon for the Gladiator subclass and good for any other class. The Nunchakus when highly upgraded also gets an attack delay of 0.75, and the Scimitar of 0.8 which in combination with their much better damage scaling make them also rather suitable for a Gladiator and good for all classes.
• The Lzayoi's Thousand Knives seem to have a low damage scaling, +1/+2, but their attack delay is 0.25, so their actual damage per turn is quadruple and their actual scaling +4/+8. It is the unique weapon of the Maid Huntress skin, and absolutely suitable for end-game.
• The Overload Handcannon when fueled with dew attacks endlessly in the same attack turn, until the enemy gets killed or it runs out of dew, so under certain circumstances it can be very efficient.
• The Spork has a default attack delay of 0.8, but its most important advantage is its default healing attribute named Binge which gets constantly activated, making it a very good choice for all classes.

Accuracy, Attack Delay, Range & their scaling per Level

Taking into account only the weapons' max damage scaling is rather simplistic, as weapons' accuracy, attack delay, range and their other attributes also play an important role. Especially a class like the Gladiator should prefer weapons with more accuracy and less delay, as they help him retain and stack his combo attacks, but all other classes are also benefitted by these characteristics. In addition, weapons with attack delay higher or lower than 1 deal on average actually less or more damage than that of their game description. To take two extremes:

• A Halberd, which has an attack delay of 2 at level 0, will attack once and then will miss the next attack turn, so its average damage after a full round of turns is completed (1 performed and 1 missed) at level 0 will be half than that described by the game, [5-49] / 2 => 2.5-24.5
• In contrast, the Llzaoyi's Thousand Knives, which have an attack delay of 0.25 and are described as dealing 3-6 damage at level +1 (they spawn already upgraded), they will actually deal four times that damage, as they perform 4 attacks per turn, [3-6] * 4 => 12-24

To a lesser degree a similar effect is also in work with weapons of increased and decreased accuracy, as the actual average damage of the first category will be much closer to the damage displayed by their game description, because their hits will mostly find their targets, while the actual damage of the second category will be much farther, because their hits will often miss. Here are the data for all weapons that their Accuracy, Attack Delay or Range has either a default value other than 1 (for a few of them it means that it is worse than 1) or it becomes better than 1 with upgrades. These stats of Holiday weapons are all by default 1 and don't change with upgrades, with only two exceptions of the Firecracker and the Sing, Jump, Rap, Play Basketball and Music weapons which have an unchanged range of 2.

Accuracy

Weapon	Default	Scaling with upgrades	Cap
Overload Handcannon	0.7	0	-
Wraith Breath	0.75	0	-
Holy Water*	0.8	+0.05	1.2
Shadow Flail	0.8	0	-
Mace*	0.8	+0.05	1.2
Prayer Wheel*	0.8	+0.05	1.2
Stone Cross*	0.8	+0.05	1.2
Wooden Staff*	0.8	+0.05	1.2
Flute	1	+0.05	1.1
Battle Axe	1	+0.05	1.2
Dual Sword	1	+0.05	1.2
Whip	1	+0.05	1.3
Club	1	+0.05	1.5
Hand Axe	1	+0.1	1.5
Scimitar	1	+0.025	1.5
Fight Gloves	1	+0.05	2
War Hammer	1	+0.1	2
Dagger	1	+0.2	4
Mince Great Axe	1.2	0	-
Tengu's Katana	1.2	0	-

* Note the peculiarity of all religion-themed weapon that start with lower accuracy by default, 0.8, but end up with increased accuracy, 1.2, after they get upgraded (this stat starts getting improved first in them and reaches its cap at level +8).

Attack Delay

Weapon	Default	Scaling with upgrades	Cap
Overload Handcannon -dew	2	0	-
Halberd	2	-0.05	1.5
Glaive	1.75	-0.05	1.4
Spear	1.5	-0.05	1.2
Shadow Flail	1.2	0	-
Flute	1	-0.05	0.9
Battle Axe	1	-0.05	0.9
Dual Sword	1	-0.05	0.8
Holy Water	1	-0.05	0.8
Mace	1	-0.05	0.8
Prayer Wheel	1	-0.05	0.8
Scimitar	1	-0.05	0.8
Stone Cross	1	-0.05	0.8
Wooden Staff	1	-0.05	0.8
Nunchakus	1	-0.05	0.75
Knuckleduster	1	-0.05	0.4
Spork	0.8	0	-
Tengu's Katana	0.8	0	-
Lzayoi's Thousand Knives	0.25	0	-
Overload Handcannon +dew	0	0	-

Delay of 2 means that the hero will skip an attack every second attack turn, a delay of 1.5 every third attack turn, and in contrast a delay of 0.5 means two attacks per attack turn, and a delay of 0.25 four per attack turn.

The Overload Handcannon is mentioned twice because it has a delay of 2 when not fueled with dew, and attacks endlessly when fueled with dew, until the enemy dies or it runs out of dew.

Range

Weapon	Default	Scaling with upgrades	Cap
Legend of Hyrule - not full HP*	1	0	-
Dual Sword	1	+1	2
Fight Gloves	1	+1	2
Knuckleduster	1	+1	2
Mace	1	+1	2
Glaive	2	0	-
Halberd	2	0	-
Harp	2	0	-
Rapier	2	0	-
Reimus Goei	2	0	-
Shadow Flail	2	0	-
Trumpet	2	0	-
War Drum	2	0	-
Water Trident	2	0	-
Flute	2	+1	3
Spear	2	+1	3
Whip	2	+1	3
Triangolo	1	+1	4
Horror Rock Chakram	4	0	-
Legend of Hyrule - full HP*	4	0	-
Wraith Breath	4	0	-
Overload Handcannon	7	0	-

Obviously all ranged weapons have the hero's field of view as range.

*The Legend of Hyrule is mentioned twice because it has a range of 1 when the Rogue Ninja does not have full HP, and a range of 4 when he has full HP.

Strength requirements

SPS-PD is similar with Original PD and most of its mods as a weapon's assignment to a tier in most of the cases makes its Strength requirement predictable (tier 1 - Str. req. 10, tier 2 - Str. req. 12 etc.) but there are three exceptions: a) the new addition tier 0 generates either a Strength requirement of 8 (Empty Bottle, Example Wooden Hammmer) or of 0 (Error Weapon), b) there are three weapons of various tiers that lower their Strength requirement with upgrades (Magic Book, Hand Axe, Runic Blade), and c) there is also an easter egg weapon named Shadow Eater, that is assigned to tier 4, but has an intermediate Strength requirement of 15.

Note that the weapons that lower their Strength requirement with upgrades due to a minor bug have their game description window not taking that into account and always mentioning the excess strength based on the original strength requirement. This can be from a little to rather misleading, as for example a hero with 18 Strength and a Magic Book capped with dew at +10 - so with a Str. req. of 1 from an original 10, will be getting a +17 damage bonus instead of the +8 mentioned in the game description.

Have also in mind that the Rogue class in general and the Artisan subclass of the Follower have -2 Strength reduced from a weapon when they equip them (the Artisan also from armors).

Thrown weapons have been included in the table below but none of them is assgned to a tier (also the Huntress-unique ranged weapons are not assigned to a tier).

	Strength Requirement	Tier
0	Error Weapon	0
0	Empty Bomb, Error Ammo	None
8	Empty Bottle, Example Wooden Hammer Sling	0
10	Boomerang, Centaur Bow, Lzayoi's Thousand Knives EMP Bola, Escape Knife, Red Packet, Incendiary dart, Lucky throwing knife, Poison dart, Rice ball, Skull, Smoke, Shatttered Ammo, Wave	None
10	Dagger, Knuckleduster, Short Sword, Triangolo, Wooden Staff Legend of Hyrule, Special Knuckles, Tekkokagi Gunslinger's Pistol, Toy Gun All Holiday weapons	1
10 decr.	Magic Book (caps at 1)	1
12	Dual Sword, Fight Gloves, Flute, Mace, Spear Tengu's Katana, Wraith Breath Pistol	2
12 decr.	Hand Axe (caps at 10)	2
13	Huge Shuriken	None
14	Holy Water, Nunchakus, Rapier, Scimitar, War Drum, Whip Diamond Pickaxe, Goblin Shield, Pickaxe, Reimus Goei, Spork Blunderbuss	3
15	Shadow Eater	4
16	Assassin's Blade, Battle Axe, Club, Glaive, Prayer Wheel, Trumpet Overload Handcannon Fusil	4
16	Tomahawk	None
18	Harp, Greatsword, Halberd, Lance, Stone Cross, War Hammer Mortar	5
18 decr.	Runic Blade (caps at 1)	5
20	Extract Long Sword, Rock Chakram, Mince Great Axe, Shadow Flail, Water Trident	6

Average damage, Damage scaling & Delay combined

The last two tables of this subsection are added for players who are not fond of calculations and provides the damage stats for all weapons of the previous tables at level 0, 5, and 10, again sorted from lowest to highest (the determining stat is first damage scaling and second damage at level 10). The first table includes the stats of melee weapons and the second of missile weapons and guns.

The bonus damage from excess strength was not taken into account as it is strength-specific, but have in mind that this anyway has an effect only in melee weapons, while the damage of missile weapons and guns is not afffected at all by excess strength.

For weapons with increased or reduced attack delay, the damage displayed is the average damage of a full round of turns, counting also the additional or missed turns. When the attack delay stat is improved with upgrades it is also taken in consideration in the displayed stats. Weapons with attack delay lower than 1 have their name displayed in italics and weapons with increased accuracy are underlined. When a weapon's damage stats are obviously suitable for end-game, or it is preferred by players anyway, its name is also displayed in bold, which does not mean that the rest of the weapons which are not in bold are unsuitable. As in the first table, the damage displayed for the Ring of Force is for when the hero is unarmed.

Melee weapons

Weapon	Dam. scaling	L. 0	L. 5	L. 10
Error Weapon	+0 / +0	0	0	0
Magic Book	+1 / +1	1-6	6-11	11-16
Tekkokkagi	+1 / +1	1-10	6-15	11-20
Fight Gloves	+1 / +1	2-12	7-17	12-22
Flute	+1 / +2	2-9	8-22	13-32
Dagger	+2 / +2	2-7	12-17	22-27
Wooden Staff	+2 / +2	1-10	11-20	25-36
Triangolo	+2 / +2	1-10	11-20	21-30
Knuckleduster	+2 / +2	1-10	15-27	42-60
Ring of Force	+1 / +3	1-12	8-27	13-42
Reimus Goei	+1 / +3	4-15	9-30	14-45
Rock Chackram	+1 / +3	6-25	11-40	16-55
Mince Great Axe Water Trident	+1 / +3	6-33	11-48	16-63
Extract Long Sword	+1 / +3	6-40	11-55	16-70
Shadow Flail	+1 / +3	5-41.5	9-54	13-67
Overload Handcannon -dew* Overload Handcannon +dew	+1 / +4	2-14 4-28 endl.	5-24 9-48 endl.	7-34 14-68 endl.
Spork	+2 / +3	3.75-15	16-34	29-53
Tengu's Katana	+2 / +4	2.5-10	12.5-25	25-50
Dual Sword	+3 / +3	2-12	17-27	40-53
Mace	+3 / +3	2-15	17-30	38-54
Rapier	+3 / +3	3-14	18-29	33-44
Pickaxe	+3 / +3	10-22	25-37	40-52
Legend of Hyrule	+2 / +4	1-10	11-30	21-50
Nunchakus	+2 / +4	3-16	17-48	31-75
Wraith Breath	+3 / +4	2-10	17-30	32-50
Whip	+3 / +4	3-13	18-33	33-53
Scimitar	+3 / +4	3-16	23-45	41-70
Holy Water	+3 / +4	3-20	18-40	40-72
Club	+2 / +5	4-22	14-47	24-72
Spear	+3 / +5	1.5-9	14-31	27--53
War Drum	+3 / +5	3-13	18-38	33-63
Assassin's Blade	+3 / +5	4-22	19-47	34-72
Lance	+3 / +5	5-30	20-55	35-80
Hand Axe	+4 / +5	2-12	22-37	42-62
Greatsword	+4 / +5	5-30	25-55	45-80
Short Sword	+5 / +5	1-10	26-35	51-60
Halberd	+5 / +5	2.5-24.5	22-54	41-74
Harp	+3 / +6	5-24	20-54	35-84
Prayer Wheel	+3 / +6	4-27	19-57	41-104
War Hammer	+3 / +6	5-30	20-60	35-90
Battle Axe	+1 / +7	4-22	9-57	16-102
Trumpet	+2 / +7	4-18	14-53	24-88
Stone Cross	+2 / +7	5-37	15-72	30-128
Glaive	+1 / +8	2.9-16	7-47	11-82
Runic Blade	+0 / +10	0-35	0-85	0-135

Ranged weapons

Weapon	Dam. scaling	L. 0	L. 5	L. 10
Toy Gun	+1 / +3	1-10	6-25	11-40
Gunslinger Pistol	+2 / +4	5-8	15-28	25-48
Pistol	+2 / +4	6-10	16-30	26-50
Blunderbuss	+2 / +4	7-14	17-34	27-54
Sling	+3 / +4	3-7	18-27	33-47
Boomerang	+2 / +5	3-6	13-31	23-56
Fusil	+2 / +5	7-20	17-45	27-70
Mortar	+2 / +5	9-28	19-53	29-78
Centaur Bow	+3 / +5	4-8	19-33	34-58
Llzaoyi's Thousand Knives	+1 / +2 [+4 / +8]	3-6 [12-24*]	7-14 [28-56*]	14-28 [56-112*]

Note that two important advantages of the Boomerang, Centaur Bow and Llzaoyi's Thousand Knives in comparison to guns is that all three are already reinforced and get upgraded by both scrolls of Magical Infusion and Upgrade, unlike guns.

* The numbers displayed for the damage of Thousand Knives in the line line are per hit, but as the knives have an attack delay of 0.25, their damage is multiplied by *4 and then is displayed in the second line as damage dealt per attack turn, like with all the other weapons, and so should also their damage scaling per level get calculated. The damage displayed for them in the level 0 column is actually for level +1, as they spawn already upgraded to +1.

Weapons for End-Game

The first boss battle that needs a highly upgraded weapon is against the Shadow Yogs, which is not as difficult as the next two final battles, against Mirror Otiluke and Zot, but is still rather difficult. All these three battles are absolutely not manageable with just a +10 weapon. Any melee weapon of the previous tables in bold when highly upgraded will be just fine in these battles, (again, players who like a weapon which is not in bold should definitely give it a try, unless it has a damage scaling of +1/+1, they should just upgrade it more and their hero might have a harder time in end-game).

Tier 6 melee weapons can't get upgraded with scrolls of Magical Infusion, so the player who wants to use a tier 6 weapon but also doesn't want to bother with transmuting scrolls of Magical Infusion Sprouted-style, should go for a defense-oriented build, with all the scrolls of Upgrade applied to the weapon, and all the scrolls of Magical Infusion to the armor. Tier 6 weapons are all sort of fine, just less efficient damage-wise than other melee weapons, as their damage upgrade scaling is much worse than those of all the weapons of the first table to the left, unlike Sprouted PD they don't deal extra damage against the end-game enemies, and also the special abilities of most of them (Flood, Heal, Shadow, Shield) aren't related to dealing any damage. Nevertheless, if a player likes them and spends some time in upgrading them, more than he/she would do with a weapon of the first table to the left, they can all be suitable for end-game.

Moving to ranged-damage-oriented builds, which can get chosen by all classes, but they are mostly suitable for the Sniper (Huntress) and Agent (Soldier) subclasses due to their subclass-specific perks and buffs, the addition in SPS-PD of a whole array of tier 0 to tier 5 guns along with a different unique weapon for each huntress skin has changed drastically SPS-PD's gameplay in that aspect. In a nutshell, soldier Agents, huntress Snipers, and the Archer, Maid and Taurcen huntress skins should not bother with melee weapons at all for end-game: Agents should highly upgrade a Fusil or Mortar gun, the Classic skin of the huntress if she becomes a Sniper should choose between highly upgrading the Boomerang or one of the aforementioned guns, and whatever class the Archer, Maid and Taurcen choose, they should highly upgrade their unique weapons, as the Thousand Knives have an impressive delay of 0.25 and a the Centaur Bow applies by default a variety of debuffs in every eighth shot and has a very good damage scaling. The Boomerang, Centaur Bow and Thousand Knives have also the advantage that they can be upgraded by both scrolls of Magical Infusion and Upgrade, while the Boomerang and Thousand Knives can be also enhanced with ammo (the Centaur Bow can't but applies debuffs by default).

As guns can't get upgraded by scrolls of Magical Infusion, and transmutation items can't transmute scrolls, this is the only exception that a player that does an Agent run might want to spend some time in visiting many times the Wisdom Trial depth, in order to transmute many scrolls of Magical Infusion one after the other in the one well of Transmutation that spawns with each depth generation. The player who finds this process boring, can just simply use the Fusil or Mortar in a defense-oriented build.

All the other subclasses will do fine in end-game by highly upgrading any high damage-dealing weapon with the attributes that the player likes, and possibly also one or two available rings that complement the subclass' special characteristics (the Gladiator a ring of Accuracy and/or Furor, the Berserker a ring of Tenacity, the Mage a ring of Energy and/or Magic etc.). As Battlemages can't equip wands, if they want a combat wand-oriented build, they should first pursue getting and highly upgrading a ring of Energy for the quick recharging, and also a ring of Magic to +30 for the very highly increased damage to all wands, and then they can use their remaining scrolls of Upgrade on a wand of Firebolt, which has the highest damage scaling (see this Wands' section for details), or any other combat wand that the player likes.

General tips - Armors

Although all classes can benefit from all types of armor by adapting their gameplay accordingly, light armors are highly advised for the Assassin subclass due to their higher stealth (heavy armors on the other hand might even make a stealth attack miss due to their stealth penalties and should be avoided at all costs by the Assassin), while heavy armors are earlier accessible to the Warrior class in general and to the Artisan subclass of the Follower due to the strength requirements being -2 lower for them when they equip any armor (the Artisan subclass has the same reduction also for eequippable weapons). Players should also have in mind that although in other RPGs and roguelikes Dexterity can affect movement speed and attack speed, in SPS-PD it only affects evasion. Wearing armor with higher strength requirement than the hero's current strength affects negatively movement speed and evasion though, as it does in most other mods, but not other stats like it does in YAPD. On the other hand, wearing light armor doesn't give any bonus to movement speed, nor wearing heavy armor gives any penalty to movement speed (as long as the hero has the strength required to equip it). Also, players who use the class special skills often should prefer armors with high Energy Base, as their value functions as a multiplier for the skill recharging counter. Lastly, have in mind that equipping different types of armor does not change the Dexterity stat counter in the hero's tab, but only practically affects the gameplay because the actual hero's dexterity is changed.

Comparative tables

The first table sorts armors from lowest to highest, based on their defense at level 0, 5, and 10 and also on their defense scaling, the second table sorts them based on their stealth and dexterity bonuses, and the third table based on their strength requirement. The table that follows immediately afterwards sorts the armors based on their Energy Base and will be mostly useful for players like to use special skills often.

	Strength	Level 0	Level 5	Level 10	Scaling	Dexterity	Stealth
Base	6 / 8	0-0	0-0	0-0	+0/+0	1	1
Vest	9	0-2	0-7	0-12	+0/+1	4	12
Rubber	11	0-9	0-14	0-19	+0/+1	3.6	10
Leaf	10	0-0	5-5	10-10	+1/+1	2	5
Error*	0	0-0	0-15	0-30	+0/+3	1	1
Cloth	10	0-4	5-19	10-34	+1/+3	2	6
CD	12	0-15	0-25	0-35	+0/+2	3.2	8
PVC	15	0-22	0-32	0-42	+0/+2	2.8	6
Leather	11	0-12	5-27	10-42	+1/+3	1.8	5
Wooden	11	2-6	12-26	22-46	+2/+4	1	1
Disc	14	0-20	5-35	10-50	+1/+3	1.6	4
Ceramic	13	4-18	14-38	24-58	+2/+4	0.8	0.5
Mail	15	0-28	5-43	10-58	+1/+3	1.4	3
Protective	17	0-30	0-45	0-60	+0/+3	2.4	4
Phantom	19	0-35	0-50	0-65	+0/+3	2	2
Scale	18	0-36	5-51	10-66	+1/+3	1	2
Stone	15	6-26	16-51	26-76	+2/+5	0.6	0
Plate	20	0-44	5-59	10-74	+1/+3	1.2	1
Double	17	8-36	18-61	28-86	+2/+5	0.4	-0.5
Bullet	19	10-46	20-76	30-106	+2/+6	0.2	-1
Machine	21	15-60	30-100	45-140	+3/+8	0	-2

* The damage absorption that the Error Armor offers is none, as even highly upgraded its defense will remain 0, but it has an Energy Base of 10, the highest among all the game armors and almost triple than that of the second highest, which is 4. Nevertheless, its most important advantage is that when the hero is fighting enemies of the boss or miniboss type, the armor has a chance to make him/her deal damage to them from 12.5% to 25% of their max HP, and against common enemies it makes always the hero deal double damage and can also cause to them randomly the +35% Armor Break / 35% Attack Down / Bleeding / Caustic Ooze / Electrostatic Turbulence / Leech Seed / Terror debuffs, while it also has a chance to heal the hero for 10% of their max HP. Although it is not named a such, practically it is an armor inscribed with an Unstable glyph, and due to its vast amount of beneficial effects players who had the very uncommon RNG to get it (it is a very rare drop of the Robot HEART artifact) and also have rings of Evasion and Tenacity, should consider using it as the hero's end-game armor, they should just have to also upgrade the rings to the max, due to the armor offering no defense (on the othe rhand, there is obviously no point in upgrading the armor).

	Strength	Level 0	Level 5	Level 10	Scaling	Dexterity	Stealth
Machine	21	15-60	30-100	45-140	+3/+8	0	-2
Bullet	19	10-46	20-76	30-106	+2/+6	0.2	-1
Double	17	8-36	18-61	28-86	+2/+5	0.4	-0.5
Stone	15	6-26	16-51	26-76	+2/+5	0.6	0
Ceramic	13	4-18	14-38	24-58	+2/+4	0.8	0.5
Base	6 / 8	0-0	0-0	0-0	+0/+0	1	1
Error	0	0-0	0-15	0-30	+0/+3	1	1
Wooden	11	2-6	12-26	22-46	+2/+4	1	1
Plate	20	0-44	5-59	10-74	+1/+3	1.2	1
Scale	18	0-36	5-51	10-66	+1/+3	1	2
Phantom	19	0-35	0-50	0-65	+0/+3	2	2
Mail	15	0-28	5-43	10-58	+1/+3	1.4	3
Disc	14	0-20	5-35	10-50	+1/+3	1.6	4
Protective	17	0-30	0-45	0-60	+0/+3	2.4	4
Leather	11	0-12	5-27	10-42	+1/+3	1.8	5
Leaf	10	0-0	5-5	10-10	+1/+1	2	5
Cloth	10	0-4	5-19	10-34	+1/+3	2	6
PVC	15	0-22	0-32	0-42	+0/+2	2.8	6
CD	12	0-15	0-25	0-35	+0/+2	3.2	8
Rubber	11	0-9	0-14	0-19	+0/+1	3.6	10
Vest	9	0-2	0-7	0-12	+0/+1	4	12

Strength req.	tier 0	tier 1	tier 2	tier 3	tier 4	tier 5	tier 6
0	Error
6 / 8	Base
9		Vest
10		Cloth Leaf
11		Wooden	Rubber
12			Leather	CD
13			Ceramic
14				Disc
15				Stone	PVC
16					Mail
17					Double Mail	Protective
18						Scale
19						Bullet	Phantom
20							Plate
21							Machine

Energy Base	tier 0	tier 1	tier 2	tier 3	tier 4	tier 5	tier 6
1		Vest					Machine
2		Wooden	Rubber			Bullet	Phantom
3		Cloth Leaf	Ceramic Leather	CD	Double Mail	Protective Scale	Plate
4	Base			Disc Stone	Mail PVC
10	Error

Gathering resources

Dew

The Dew Drop buff will have a limited duration in regular depths, when the hero had missed some enemies in a hidden room or had just wasted time and so had finished the previous depth without reaching the goal moves. Fortunately, all the challenge depths (Forest, Prison, Caves, City) provide good amounts of Dew and are revisitable. On the other hand, the Plant ability of the Dew Vial, due to costing 15 dew, is efficient in farming dew only with an upgraded ring of Haste and at least +3 Shoes of Nature both equipped, or with +10 Greaves of Nature in a 3X3 room, unlike Sprouted PD, where watering with dew costs only 2 drops.The challenge depths can be also used for gold farming in combination with the Wisdom Trial depth: the hero can first visit the Wisdom Trial, gather some enchanted weapons from the Animated Steels, then visit a challenge depth, upgrade them to the the max dew level, and then sell them for more than 1,000 gold pieces each.

Food

Half of the enemies in the Sewers drop regular or mystery meat, various enemies in the subsequent chapters also drop meat (Cave Spinners, Scorpions etc. just like in Sprouted PD) and Dwarf Monks in the Metropolis drop regular rations of food or pasty, with an upgraded Lucky Badge helping the rate of these drops very much. Additionally, the Caves challenge depth is ideal for grinding meat from the piranhas, especially when a Lucky Badge is equipped (as most pets eat meat, a stock of meat pieces will be also useful in quickly levelling up a pet). Apart from that, the Cooker M.O.S. store sells 4 food items in every hero's visit in Dolya Town in later levels, after he/she has consumed 40 food items and obtained the relevant badge (it is perhaps better for the hero to eat less nutritional food items in early levels, in order to eat more food items in general, in order to obtain sooner the "40 food items eaten" badge). In short the food available in mid-game becomes more than plenty, and is already enough in early game.

Gold

From early to middle hero levels, all challenge bosses drop from 2,000 to 4,000 gold, and also a good method for gathering quickly gold is visiting again and again the Sokoban 1 depth, as it is very easy to complete even without a wand of Flock, and the hero will be leaving the depth appr. 1,000 to 2,000 gold richer after each visit. Common enemies in all of the first three chapters also drop gold as loot (but in the Metropolis none, and in the Demon Halls only the Thief Imp, which appears rather randomly). The only time that the hero will need a lot of gold is in late game, when he/she will need 35,000 gold to buy all the Trial books from the Imp at their diiscounted prices (Courage Trial 7,500, Power Trial 12,500, Wisdom Trial 15,000 gold). In this case, apart from the easy to think solution of grinding the Prison and Caves for gold drops, hero with a wand of Flock can also visit and revisit all the Sokoban depths, as all the available Sokoban 2 chests will drop from 12,000 to 14,000 gold, and Sokoban 3 and 4 chests from 6,000 to 8,000 gold, and will keep doing than in every visit afterwards, as unlike Sprouted PD they will continue to spawn their gold loot (and even more, as gold will substitute the rare scrolls in all of the chests). He/she can also gather appr. 12,000 gold from the City challenge depth, if he/she follows the correct method and the 16 Crystal Nuclei inside the City chllenge reward bag, which spawns after 100 Gold thieves get killed, will be sold for an additional 16.000 gold.

If he/she hasn't found a wand of Flock up to that point, so the Sokoban 2, 3, 4 wil be sort of impossible to get completed fully and all their gold loot to become available (still the Jump Shoes and the wall-breaking items of SPS-PD give far more access to loot in comparison to Sprouted PD), the Courage Trial book is the cheapest from all three books that the Imps sells, at 7,500 gold, and its tombstones contain mostly gold as loot, so he/she can also start from the Courage Trial and collect appr. 12,000 to 15,000 gold from there. Lastly, after selling all the enchanted upgraded weapons that the Animated Steels drop in the Wisdom Trial and opening all the gold chests that he/she probably find there, approximately 2,000 to 3,000 gold will be also collected, and this being the only Trial depth that respawns its loot, he/she can repeat the procedure as much as it is needed. A method of using the challenge depths to maximize the selling price of these weapons has already been described in the Dew section. Also, in end-game selling all the upgraded to +10 or more weapons dropped from the Animated Steels can be a good source for buying some extra scrolls of Upgrade from the Dolya Town shop, to upgrade their equipment some more before he/she encounters Zot.

Generally at level 0 a weapon or armor of any tier is sold for 100 gold pieces, +50 gold if it is enchanted, and -50 if it is cursed, and ther prices scale up by +100 with each upgrade, with an enchantment and curse also adding or subtracting 50 gold from it selling price with each upgrade, for example a plain weapon of level +10 will get sold for 100 * 100 = 1,100 gold, a cursed for 550 gold and an enchanted for 1,650 gold. In weapons cursed and enchanted at the same time items unfortunately the enchantment does not balance the price, and the weapon or armor is sold as if it was only cursed. So, to return to the weapon loot from the Energy Core, these weapons specifically will be getting sold at least fot 1,650 gold at level +10, a +11 weapon for 1,800 etc.

Magic Stones (formerly Norn stones)

Their drops from DM-300 and Golems are limited to 6 but are easier to gather in comparison to Sprouted PD, as they are dropped in the regular dungeon, and not in the Dolyahaven Mines, which are removed from the game in general. They can also be bought in the Dolya Town west shop for 1,875 gold each. The shop doesn't have any limit in spawning them, it just doesn't spawn them in every hero's visit. Lastly, an additional ease of SPS-PD is that only two magic stones are now needed for the crafting of the tier 6 weapons.

Scrolls in general

If the hero wants to upgrade the Unstable Spellbook, he/she will need many scrolls to add XP to the artifact. Gnoll Shamans in prison, caves and metropolis, Broken Robots in caves and metropolis, Sufferers and Succubi in demon halls all drop scrolls, especially when an upgraded Lucky Badge is equipped. Also, like in Sprouted PD the hero can leave one Old Production (formerly Robot Printer) intact in the DM-300 battle, and after he/she has beaten DM-300, he/she can equip the Lucky Badge and farm scrolls of Recharging from the Broken Robots that will constantly spawn from the Old Production (nevertheless, the last farming option is much more RNG-dependant, as DM-300 is only one of the three chapter bosses that might spawn on this depth).

Scrolls of Upgrade and Magical Infusion, upgrading with alternative means

Upgrading the Lucky Badge to +15 will help very much with the Wraith drops of these scrolls but will not guarantee them and the Lucky Badge cannot get upgraded above +15. To give some more details, the Lucky Badge adds a +2% bonus per badge's level to the chance of enemies dropping their loot and the Wraiths of SPS-PD have a 6% base chance to drop a scrol of Magical Infusion and a 9% base chance to drop a scroll of Upgrade. An upgraded to the max +15 Lucky Badge will make these chances (15 * 2%) + 6% = 36% and (15 * 2%) + 9% = 39%, which are undeniably much better, but also far from making the scroll drops guaranteed.

As the Courage Trial depth doesn't respawn its tombstones in each new visit by the hero, currently the only location to farm repeatedly scrolls of Upgrade and Magical Infusion in SPS-PD is the tombstone which spawns in the southeast of Dolya Town after the hero kills any of the fourth chapter bosses, and which reappears in each visit, even when the hero had just destroyed it in the previous visit, nevertheless it is very limited due to the 500 turns that need to pass for the Dolya Slate to allow a new visit (food becomes plenty in late levels, so the player can watch the hero rest > eat when starving > repeat > charge the Dolya Slate to 500 > visit Dolya Town > leave Dolya Town > start resting again etc., but this will demand a lot of patience). The hero can also buy these scrolls from the bottom shop in Dolya Town, which restocks in each visit or after a sleep in the hotel room (but on a side note, avoid sleeping there, as it is related with a game-crashing bug), and it almost always spawns a few in every hero's visit, but sells them for 2,500 gold each.

An aternative approach to upgrading which is much more cost-efficient, but unfortunately not so easily available, is the hero to buy a Runic Blade from the Dolya Town shop for 2,500 gold, upgrade it to the max with dew in a challenge depth, and then reforge it to their melee weapon of choice, as it will pass randomly at least 5 upgrades to the target weapon and with a bit of favorable RNG even all of its upgrades, so it functions as buying many scrolls of Upgrade at a very lower price. Sadly, it can only transfer upgrades to melee weapons and to the boomerang and not to the other ranged or the tier 6 weapons, but on a positive note, for melee weapons and the boomerang it works like a scroll of Magical Infusion and continues to transfer upgrades above level +15, even when the weapon is not reinforced. Using Upgrade Items (goos) and the Blacksmith's reforge are also alternative ways of upgrading that cost no gold, but they are well known from Sprouted PD, so details about them are not needed here.

Another alternative to upgrading is farming the Wisdom trial for the Upgrade Eaters. As the Wisdom trial is generated each time you enter and there are several well rooms to search for, this method is very efficient and can let you gain multiple upgrade levels in one run. After you have obtain the Upgrade Eaters, use it on the spare equipment with at least +10 or more levels. Doing this would guarantee the Violet Upgrade Item, which adds +5 levels to the main equipment of your choice. There are 2 ways to get +10 equipment: (1) To upgrade items manually using the "Accurate Upgrade" of the Dew Vial. Note that the +10 cap of Dew upgrade is obtained after reaching floor 24 (floor 21 for mages). (2) To collect weapons dropped by the Animated statues on floor 67 (Power Core), as all weapons dropped are guaranteed to be +10. The Upgrade Item cannot be used to upgrade above +15 if the item is not reinforced.

Loot in general

Item generation with the exception of upgraded enchanted melee weapons has been heavily nerfed in the Wisdom Trial (formerly Book of Heavens) and there is also no way to fall in the Thief King's basement anymore, so the hero will have to be content with what he he/she has managed to find in the main dungeon and in the trial depths. Nevertheless in main dungeon depths an upgraded Lucky Badge has a very positive effect in item generation in general and the spawning of scrolls of Magical Infusion and potions of Might in particular, so the hero should save money for buying the Sweet Home Dolya Slate page as soon as possible, to acquire the Lucky Badge as a consequence and then upgrade it, in order to maximize their luck in depth generation.

Badges

SPS-PD's badges are very similar to those of Sprouted PD but not identical. As in Sprouted PD and Original PD, in many cases a higher rank badge replaces the lower rank badge, or a super badge replaces a group of specific badges, once they all get obtained. Unlike Sprouted PD the appearance of certain NPCs in Dolya Town depends exlusively on obtaining a specific badge in the current run. A full list of SPS-PD's badges follows:

[For economy of space, when badges are replaced by a higher rank badge or are merged into a superbadge, only the higher rank badge's symbol or the superbadge's symbol is displayed before their descriptions. In "Familiar badges" the last two exist only in Sprouted PD and not in Original PD. "New badges" are those that exist neither in Original PD nor in Sprouted PD.]

Familiar badges

Badge	Description
	10 enemies slain > 50 enemies slain > 150 enemies slain > 250 enemies slain.
	100 gold collected > 500 gold collected > 2,500 gold collected > 7,500 gold collected
	Level 10 reached > Level 20 reached > Level 30 reached > Level 40 reached.
	All potions identified
	All scrolls identified
	All rings identified
	All wands identified (All potions, scrolls, rings & wands identified suberbadge does not get generated)
	All bags bought
	Death from fire, Death from poison, Death from toxic gas, Death from hunger, Death from a glyph, Death from falling > Death from fire, poison, toxic gas & hunger
	1st boss slain > 1st boss slain by Warrior, Mage, Performer, Soldier, Rogue & Huntress (changed badge)
	2nd boss slain
	3rd boss slain > 3rd boss slain by Gladiator, Berserker, Warlock, Battlemage, Freerunner, Assassin, Sniper, Warden, Joker & Superstar - not the Soldier subclasses (changed badge)
	4th boss slain.
	13 points of Strength attained > 15 points of Strength attained > 17 points of Strength attained > 19 points of Strength attained
	10 pieces of food eaten > 20 pieces of food eaten > 30 pieces of food eaten > 40 pieces of food eaten.
	Item of level 3 acquired > Item of level 6 acquired > Item of level 9 acquired > Item of level 12 acquired.
	All rare monsters slain
	10-hit combo (changed badge)
	3 potions cooked > 6 potions cooked > 9 potions cooked > 12 potions cooked.
	Level completed without killing any monsters
	Monster killed by a Grim weapon [The Grim enchantment doesn't exist technically in SPS-PD but using the Error Weapon, a weapon with the Deadly attribute or a ranged weapon enhanced with Star Ammo can all award this badge, as they are able to insta-kill enemies.]
	6 piranhas killed
	15 monsters killed at nighttime
	10 games played > 100 games played > 500 games played > 2,000 games played
	Amulet of Yendor obtained > Amulet of Yendor obtained by Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Huntress & Performer (changed badge)
	Happy end
	Challenge won
	Orb of Zot obtained!
	Otiluke rescued!

Note: There is no "Thanks for your support!" badge, as there is no "Donate/Suppport" option available in the game, just the address of UNICEF's website in the About screen, which is an implication by the developer that players who want to donate should do that for UNICEF.

New badges

Badge	Description
[No symbol]	Found the Triforce! (it is obtained by having the Troll Blacksmith forge the three Triforce pieces into one piece).
	Summoned 1 pet! > Summoned 3 pets! > Summoned 5 pets! (it is obtained by actually releasing pets and unlike previous versions of SPS-PD, not by just using Soul of Mobs items by just wasting them).

Note: The acquisition of the "Found the Triforce!" badge is only announced by a game message, and the badge is not listed among the other badges in the "Badges" screen. This makes it essentially a semi-hidden badge.