2.3. Inventory Box

"No adventurer worth their salt would ever leave home without an enchanted pack of some kind. Our packs boast more storage and quicker retrieval than any of our competitors."

- Betty Guilding

Magically enchanted backpacks are ubiquitous in the world of Kleptonomica. Packs often contains magic lashes for quick weapon storage and retrieval. Enchanted pouches can also help to store and retrieve items in the heat of the moment. The packs also allow for miraculous amounts of storage, making encumbrance a thing of the past.

When you come to possess new Items, you add them to the Inventory Box, along with any useful notes about them, like value, uses remaining, and what effects the item has.

Managing items could get tedious if you were to loot every room. To help with this, your character also has a more abstract store of loot. This is represented in two parts: Wealth Skills and Good. Both the Wealth Skills and the Goods are divided across four Wealth Categories that allow you to improvise and actualize items long after you have looted a room. Your Wealth Skill and Goods can also be found in the Inventory Box.

Wealth

Your Wealth is an abstract representation of both your Wealth Skills, in each a Wealth Category, and your current Goods in each Wealth Category. Below is an example view of the Wealth table from #Alice's Character Sheet:

!Alice - WealthGrid.png

Wealth Categories

There are four Wealth Categories that each represent different areas of the economy. Each Player Character will have their own balance of these categories that will change what Items they can find in the world and barter for in cities.

General Wealth

Widely available items.
Food, first aid, many raw materials, common tools, household objects, standard weapons and armor, etc.

Grey Wealth

Illicit and specialty goods.
Tool kits and traps.
Poisons, lockpicks, climbing gear, forgery kits, ball-bearings, caltrops, bear traps, etc.

Obscure Wealth

Magical ingredients and gear that are rare and difficult to handle and work with.
Magic scrolls, mana potions, eyes of newt, phoenix feathers, crystal balls, pendulums, dousing rods, hag stones, etc.

Fine Wealth

Highly valuable materials and powerful magic items.
Diamonds, pearls, gold nuggets, enchanted weapons, cloaks of night, etc.

Wealth Skills

Your four Wealth Skills are Modifiers representing how skilled you are in noticing, appraising, recovering, and trading Items in a given Wealth Category.

All Wealth Skills start at 1. Your Wealth Skills are improved as you Level Up and gain Perks. Each improvement makes it easier to get better Items. Your Fine Wealth Skill may also increase upon gaining important social connections or reaching a level of particular influence in the community.

GM Note: Fine Wealth Skill Improvements

Over the course of the game, you should give out two Fine Wealth Skill Improvements. You should try to grant these Fine Wealth Skill Improvements as a result of players gaining new important connections and becoming more influential in the community.

If players were to ever destroy those connections or tarnish their reputation, it may make sense to remove the Wealth Skill Improvement as a way to reflect that change.

Goods

The bubbles below each Wealth Skill are used to document your current Goods of that given type. These Goods abstractly represent the overall loot you have gathered on your journey. You have four Goods values: one for each Wealth Category.

You will most often gain Goods from the Investigate Ability and the GM as a reward for exploring and succeeding in combat.

All Goods start at 0 and have a max of 10. Once you have hit the maximum, your magic pack will be unable to carry any more. At that point you will want to use it or trade it for a different type.

Using Wealth

The most common way you will use your Wealth Skills and Goods are when using the Inventory Search Ability.

To use the Inventory Search Ability, you will first choose an Item from the Item List that you hope to gain explicitly in your inventory. The Item you chose will list a Wealth Category associated with it. You will need to spend 1 Good of that Wealth Category, then roll your Wealth Skill for that same Wealth Category to determine your Item Search Score. The Score you get will determine if you gain the Item as well as what quality the Item is when you do gain it.

If ever an Item lists more than one Wealth Category, you can choose which Wealth Category to pull from, but the Wealth Skill that you roll must match the Good spent.

Improvised Items

At times, you will want to search for generic items that are not found in the Item List, like a bar of soap or a candlestick. For these items, the GM will determine how common the item is and what Wealth Category the item may fit into. You will then roll the Inventory Search Ability as normal using the Wealth Category chosen. If you Fail to get a Score that matches the rarity of the item, you may not get the item or get a flawed version of the item, like a fraying rope or a nearly-spent candle. To help with identifying the Wealth Category and Score needed for improvised items, the Inventory Search Ability lists some examples for the different Wealth Categories and Score Ranges.

Below is the Inventory Search Ability as found in the Basic Ability List appendix:

Item Search

[Time:: Action] [Target:: Your own pack]
[Requirements:: 1 Good, access to your pack]
[Test:: The Wealth Skill of the Item being searched for]
[Effect:: Gain Item]

Choose an item you want from the Item List in the appendix. Spend 1 Good from the item's Wealth Category, then roll a Test using that Wealth Category's Wealth Skill as a Modifier.

The Item you chose will either specify a Score that you need to roll to get that item or a set of Score Ranges along with perks or flaws that come along with each Score Range.

Bonuses:

Boosting. After you Fail the roll, you can spend 1 additional Good of the same Wealth Category to gain an Advantage on the roll (up to the max of 3 retries) potentially avoiding a Fail.
Multipack. Gain an Advantage if the Item you are searching for has the Consumed Item Tag and you have used that same Item at some point before.
Treasure. Instead of actualizing General Goods, Grey Goods, or Obscure Goods into Items, you can spend from your Fine Goods. Doing so allows you to add your Fine Wealth Skill and the item's normal Wealth Skill to the roll, improving your chances of getting that item. The item you get will look nicer, being made of gold, bejeweled, etc.

Improvised Items

You can improvise items not found in the Item List, but that would be reasonably found in the world. The GM will offer you a Score that you then need to reach for that item. Falling short of the Score for that item will result in not having that item or having a flawed, poor quality version of that item (like a fraying rope or a rusted sword.) Below are example improvised items for each Score Range:

General Wealth
- [..6] F Tier: Raw Materials & simple items: Bell, Candle, Raw Food, Hammer, Knife, Oil, Soap, String(10 ft), Water, Writing Supplies.
- [7..9] C Tier: Common Manufactured Items: Commoner Foods, Compass, Crowbar, Lantern, Pickaxe, Sledge, Rope(50 ft), Tongs.
- [10..] A Tier: Standard Shields, Armor, Weapons, Better Foods.
Grey Wealth
- [7..9] C Tier: Basic Traps & Hobbyist Tools/Kits: Climbing Kit, Lock-picks, Scalpel.
- [10..] A Tier: Advanced Traps & Artisan Tools/Kits: Forger Kit, Jeweler Kit, Leatherwork Kit.
Obscure Wealth
- [7..9] C Tier: Strange Ingredients & Basic Magic Tools: Dowsing Rod, Eye of Newt, Pendulum.
- [10..] A Tier: More Rare Ingredients & Magic Tools: Crystal Ball, Dragon's scale, Void Crystals.
Spend Fine Wealth
- Any of the above: Will be higher quality, made of materials like gold, or come in a greater quantity.

Examples

#Alice needs a Spell Scroll (Better) in order to cast a Spell Ability she does not know:

#Alice looks up the Spell Scroll (Better) item in the Item appendix (or using the helpful cheat-sheet on her Character Sheet.) She finds that the scroll is in the Obscure Wealth Category.
#Alice spends 1 Obscure Good and rolls a d10, adding to it her +1 Obscure Wealth Skill. #Alice gets a Score of 9.
Since #Alice's Score is below the 10 that she needs to get the item, #Alice decides to spend another of her Obscure Goods to roll with Advantage. This time #Alice gets a Score of 12, which is enough to get the item.
#Alice adds the Spell Scroll (Better) to her inventory. #Alice can now use that scroll to cast the Spell Ability she did not know.

#Bob needs a First Aid Kit (Better) to prepare for a battle to come:

#Bob looks up the First Aid Kit in the Item appendix (or using the helpful cheat-sheet on her Character Sheet.) He finds that it is in the "General" Wealth Category.
#Bob spends 1 General Good and rolls a d10, adding to it his +2 General Wealth Skill. #Bob gets a Score of 8.
#Bob does not have any more Goods to spare. #Bob elects to take the weaker First Aid Kit (Common) instead, adding it to his inventory.

Bartering

If ever you find your Goods getting out-of-balance with one another, you can always find a marketplace and perform the Inventory Barter Ability to re-balance your pack or sell old items you don't need anymore:

Item Tradde

[Time:: 10 min] [Target:: A marketplace]
[Requirements:: Goods]

Choose one of the following:

Trade in Bulk.
You may exchange at a rate of 1 General, Grey, or Obscure Good for 1 General, Grey, or Obscure Good.
Trade in Finery.
You may exchange at a rate of 5 General, Grey, and/or Obscure Goods for 1 Fine Good (or vise-versa.)

Items

Most of the items you will need to use throughout the game can be found in the following appendices:

Item List: A list of items that you will use more often. These often help solve problems and survive in encounters. The Item List contains things like First Aid Kits and Spell Scrolls.
Special Items: A list of special and unique items for GMs to hand out. Players cannot generally get these in any way other than finding them during their adventures.

Item Grades

Many Items in the Item List appendix list a set of Scores that will determine what Item Grade you get from the Inventory Search Ability. The Item Grade represents the quality and condition of the item.

Score Ranges and their Item Grades:

[..6] (F)lawed Items
[7..9] (C)ommon Items
[10..] (A)wesome Items
[10!] (S)uperior Items

Note that higher Item Grades are harder to get, but any item that has a Score of an 'A' or higher can be sold back into points when you wish to get rid of it.

GM Note: Giving out Magic Items

As you occasionally give out items, be sure to include Items of a lower Score. Flawed Grade Items, like the lowest tier of the Wand of Teleportation can add a lot of flavor and to the story and force players to think more before using their Items.

There are also items on the Special Items that are only given out by the GM and cannot be rolled for. These are divided into two levels:

SS - Super Special Items
SSS - Singularly Super Special Items

GM Note: Special Item List

The Special Item List is reserved as rewards that only you can hand out. Below is the recommended schedule for when to hand out these special rewards:

By Level 5: One SS Item per player.
By Level 10: Two SS Items per player.
By Level 15: Three SS Items and one SSS Item per player.

Try to give items that complement each character and accentuate their core goals and playstyles.

Selling Items

Item Grade also comes into play when trying to sell an item using the Inventory Sell Ability:

Item Sell

[Time:: 10 min] [Target:: A marketplace]
[Requirements:: 1 Item]
[Test:: Required Item's Wealth Skill]

Remove the required Item chosen from your inventory, then roll the Wealth Skill associated with that Item:

[..6] No effect. You had to give it up for next to nothing.
[7..9] You gain half of a Good of the same type as the Item.
[8..10] You gain 1 Good of the same type as the Item.
[10!] You gain 2 Goods of the same type as the Item.

Penalties:

Common. Gain 1 Disadvantage if the Item is Common Grade.
Faulty. Gain 2 Disadvantages if the Item is Faulty Grade.

As you can see, the Penalties for the Ability causes you to have to roll with a Disadvantage for each Item Grade that the Item is below Awesome Grade.

Item Example

Below is an example of an Item Block and the details you can expect to find in the Item List:

First Aid Kit

[Type:: General Good]
[Tags:: Consumed, Healing]

A small pack of emergency medical supplies.

Gain the following Ability:

Use First Aid Kit

[Time:: Slow Action] [Target:: Self or Willing Creature in Swinging Distance that is not a construct or undead]
[Requirements:: 1 First Aid Kit]
[Test:: Tinkering Skill]
[Effect:: Healing]

Tinkering Score:

[..6] Restore 1 Recovery to target creature.
[7..] Restore 1 Recovery to target creature and the creature can immediately use a Reaction to use the Recoveries gained to restore 1d10 Health or 1 Vitality.

Item Grades:

[..6] You gain no item.
[7..] C: The target regains an additional Recovery (2 total) and can possibly use both.
[10..] A: The target regains two additional Recoveries (4 total) and can possibly use them all.
[10!] S: The target instead regains all Recoveries and can possibly use them all.

The first lines within the item block is a summary containing the item's Wealth Category, Item Tags, and a summary effect.

Just after the first line, you may find a visual description of the item. This flavor text is a suggestion that helps add consistent, descriptive flair to your game.

After the visual description box is the item's mechanical description. Here you will find a full description of how the item works. This description is often accompanied by an Ability that you can perform with that item.

Item Tags

Items will often list Item Tags at the top of their item block. Item Tags help identify common rules that that item must abide by. Below are some of the most common Item Tags to be aware of:

Jealous. The item can become "jealous" of other items that have this same Item Tag. (More on this below. See Item Jealousy below.)
Consumed. The item can only be used once. These items usually have stronger effects. Don't be afraid to use these items, as the 'Multipack' Bonus on the Inventory Search Ability can give you Advantage when trying to find Consumed items again if you have used them once before.
Wield. Once an item with this Item Tag has been used, you cannot use any other Wield Items for the rest of the Round and will drop the Item if anyone inflicts the Unarmed Condition on you during that time. If you choose to drop the Item as a Free Action, you can use another Wield Item.

Item Jealousy

Some items don't work well together. In the case of magical Items, they often grow attached to their user and can become "Jealous" if you use other Items instead of them.

To represent this relationship, you will start with a number of Friendship Points equal to your Fine Wealth Skill. Whenever you improve your Fine Wealth Skill, you will gain another Friendship Point to use.

Whenever you use an item with the Jealous Tag, you will have to make any Ability Tests with 2 Disadvantages. If you get a Passing Score on any Test with a Jealous Item, you then must place one of your Friendship Points onto that item, unless the item already has 2 Friendship Points. For each Friendship Point on an Item, you can ignore one of the Disadvantages for that Item. As you foster your bond with your items, you will ensure that future Tests with those Items are more likely to succeed. Be careful when using multiple Jealous Items, though. If you have no free Friendship Points, a Passing Score will force you to take a point from one of your other Jealous Items.

Previous Owners

If a Jealous Item had a previous owner, it may come with Friendship Points from that owner. When using such an item, you will have the usual 2 Disadvantages, but getting a Passing Score will instead remove one of the previous owner's Friendship Points instead of assigning one of yours. It won't be until you clear all of the previous owner's Friendship Points that you will be required to assign one of your own Friendship Points.

Next Up: 2.4. Status Box