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HERO AND PARTY



Undercroft is reincarnation of classic Role Playing Games. You control a bunch of adventurers in a dangerous fantasy world with many quests draging them through the story. Your way is full of obstacles and struggles that you have to overcome. To do so, you have to train and coordinate unique features of your heroes. Each hero in the party has a set of features as described bellow.


Health and stamina

Health is the most important variable. If it drops to zero, your hero is dead. You can revive him with a priest's or a summoner's reviving spell, or you can buy a yellow revive potion in magic shops or temples.

Stamina is the hero's energy that he/she uses to perform special skills. Warrior characters gets tired by performing special moves and attacks, spellcasters get tired by using magic. With zero stamina a hero can't do any special moves, and must stick with the standard attacks with the currently held weapon.

Low health or stamina can be improved by eating certain kinds of food and drinking potions. You can't camp in Undercroft. Always carry a sufficient stock of potions and food on your travels.

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Basic physical attributes

Strength is a power of your muscles and body. It is especialy important for melee combatants. High strength improves melee attack. It also improves maximum health.

Dexterity combines swiftness, agility and finesse. It is especialy important for archers and users of throwing weapons. High dexterity improves ranged attack. It also improves defence through ability to dodge attacks.

Constitution raises overall body hardness and endurance. It is high for characters with strong will and long experience with destructive forces of nature. Heroes with great constitution have plenty of stamina and high resistances against fire, cold and poison.

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Attack power, defence and resistances

Every character in the game (hero or enemy) has attack power, defence and three elemental resistances: against fire, cold and poison.

Hero's attack power, or the power of the equipped weapon, is combined from three factors:
  • physical attritutes - strength for melee attacks and dexterity for ranged attacks
  • power of the active weapon and other equipment
  • passive skills - for example if you wield a sword and you have sword expert skill, your attack power is improved.
The power of spells is independent from the currently held weapon. It is strictly defined by the level of the respective spell.

Defence (or physical resistance, or armor) is an ability to endure a physical attack. It can be improved by training dexterity (or ability to dodge attack) or equiping a protective item (armor or jewelry).

Elemental resistances can be improved by training constitution or equiping a protective item (armor or jewelry).

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Classes and skills

Every hero must choose a class (occupation, job, carrer if you like). Each occupation gives a hero a different set of abilities and starting attributes. See the chapter about the occupations and skills.

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Experience and level

Important things abour experience and levels:
  • You get experience for damage dealing in combat. The higher damage your hero does, the more experience he/she gets.
  • You also get experience for casting defensive spells, completing quests, and using special items.
  • You can summon creatures to help you in combat. Their experience gain is divided equaly between the party members.
  • When hero's experience is high enough, he/she steps to a higher level. For every level the hero gets 2 free points, which he/she can use to improve physical attributes or skills.
  • A skill's level can't exceed a hero's overall level. Example: level 5 mage can learn level 5 fireball at most.
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Party

Heroes in Undercroft form a party. Together they can combine their powers to overcome their weaknesses and become much more effective in combat. In the beginning of a new game you can create a party of up to 4 people.


You can create a smaller party or even take a single hero. A single hero is gaining much more experience, because he do not share it, but he/she has some serious disadvantages in combat. Also every class without help of the others may be very vulnerable to certain creatures. Beginers should pick party of 4 heroes and take different classes to have the most versatile group.

Also in combat the weakest of the party (the hero with the lowest current health) has significantly lower chance to be hit thanks to protection of the other party members.

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