Cards: Gear, Items, and Allies
As you adventure in Brockton, you will accumulate equipment and companions. Below, you can find a breakdown of the information you'll find on the various types of cards you equip to your Character Sheet.
Armor
Each Player Character can equip one Armor card in the Armor slot on their Character Sheet. Your Armor card contains information about your defenses in combat, as well as an option for boosting your defenses with a blue Tactics cube.
1) Armor Name and Type: The name of the Armor and the Light, Medium, or Heavy Armor keyword. Light Armors tend to improve your odds of avoiding being hit, while Heavy Armors tend to mitigate damage. Medium Armors do a little bit of both.
2) Scrap Value: The cost to purchase a piece of Armor from the Market at the Farm. Also used to calculate the salvage value.
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3) Defenses: Every armor card has an indicator for Physical Defense (defic), Essential Defense (edefic), and Damage Resistance (dric).
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Physical Defense is the number an attacker must exceed on a Physical Attack roll to land a hit. It is typically based on your Tactics Attribute, with better Attribute scaling for lighter Armors.
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Essential Defense is the number an attacker must exceed on an Essential Attack roll to land a hit. It is typically based on your Intuition Attribute.
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Damage Resistance is a flat value that is deducted from the total when damage against you is resolved.
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4) Armor Feature: Most Armor cards have a passive feature that is always in effect, listed here.
5) Active Effect: You can spend 1 Tactics cube (cubeblueic) to activate an extra defensive effect on your Armor until the start of your next turn. On Light Armors, this typically allows you multiple Dodge (dodgeic) reactions. On Heavy Armors, it usually increases your Damage Resistance. Medium Armors may do either or both.
Weapons
Weapons are your primary offensive cards in Empty Earth. You can trigger and modify Weapon attacks with Abilities and Counters, discussed in detail in later sections. Below is a breakdown of the commonalities and differences between Melee and Ranged weapons.
1) Weapon name and Keywords: The name of the weapon and keywords that other gear or Abilities may reference. Heavy weapons tend to roll fewer dice with higher hit chances, while Light weapons have the potential to roll more dice, with lower hit chances.
2) Hands: Indicates how many hands a weapon takes. You can have two hands' worth of equipment in your Weapon slots. This can be one two-handed Weapon, any one-handed Weapon and a Shield, or two Light one-handed Weapons.
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3) Attack Name and Dice: The name of the attack and the dice you roll when you make an attack with a weapon. The number rolled must exceed your target's Defense value to hit. If the Attack dice include a modifier (e.g., "2D6+1"), that modifier is added to or subtracted from the results of all dice in the weapon's Attack roll.
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4) Range Indicator and Weapon Damage: An indicator of whether the attack is Melee (meleeic) or Ranged (rangenic: #). Melee attacks can only strike adjacent targets (targets that are in the same Zone as you on a map). Ranged attacks require Line of Sight, but can cross a number of lines between Zones, indicated by a number after the rangenic icon. Ranged attacks made while there is a hostile figure in your Zone suffer a penalty, discussed in Combat.
Weapon damage, listed below the Range, indicates how much damage your weapon does per successful die.
5) Weapon Feature: An additional effect that takes place under certain conditions. When a feature contains text like "For every 2 cuberedic you spend..." it refers to cuberedic spent on Force cube effects, discussed in (8). You do not have to spend additional cubes to activate Weapon Features.
For instance, if you spent 4 cuberedic to add +4 damage to the Sledgehammer's attack (above), you would activate the Heavy Blows feature twice, adding an additional 6 damage, for damage of 3 (Weapon damage), plus 4 (cuberedic effects), plus 6 (Heavy Blows)--a total of 13 damage.
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6) Secondary Attack: Some Weapons include a Secondary Attack. This may be a defensive maneuver, a trick to inflict a Condition on an Enemy, or, in the case of most Ranged weapons, a simple Melee attack. Secondary attacks can be activated instead of a Weapon's primary Attack any time you make a Weapon Attack.
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7) Ammunition Track (Ranged Only): When you equip a Ranged Weapon, you place an Ammunition cube on the rightmost ammoic space of its Ammunition Track. Each time you attack with the Weapon, you move the cube one space to the left. When the Ammunition cube is on the leftmost (red) space in the Ammunition track, you can no longer make the Weapon's Ranged Attack.
At any time during your turn other than the middle of a Combo (discussed in Cards: Abilities), you may freely spend 1 cuberedic to Reload a Ranged Weapon and move its Ammunition cube to the rightmost space of the Ammunition track. You may also encounter Abilities that include "Reload" text, which allows you to do the same thing without spending cuberedic.
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8) Force Cube (cuberedic) Effects: Most Melee weapons and a few Ranged Weapons include effects that scale with the Force you apply to them, represented by cuberedic expenditure. Prior to rolling a Weapon Attack, you may commit a certain number of cuberedic to activate these effects. If a Force Cube effect includes a Repeat icon (refreshic), you can spend as many cuberedic as you like on it to repeat its effect. If it contains the same icon with a number in the middle (e.g., repeat2ic), you may spend once, then repeat the expenditure a number of times equal to the number in the middle of the Repeat icon. If there is no icon next to the cuberedic Effect, you may only activate it once.
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Some cuberedic Effects cost multiple cuberedic (indicated by multiple cuberedic on the same line of text). You must pay the full cost to activate these Effects
Accessories
Accessories are small trinkets you equip to your Character Sheet to modify the way you interact with the world. They typically provide additional Passive effects that remain in effect as long as you have the Trinket equipped or new Actions that you may spend Action or Resource cubes on.
1) Accessory Name and Keywords: The name of the Accessory and any keywords associated with it.
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2) Scrap Value: The cost to purchase the Accessory from the Market at the Farm. Also used to calculate the salvage value.
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3) Accessory Effects: These effects will be Passive, Active, or both.
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Passive effects are indicated by the keyword Passive prior to the effect text. These effects remain active for as long as you have the Accessory equipped.
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Active effects are indicated by a cost listed prior to the effect (typically an Action cube or cuberedic, cubeblueic, or cubeyellowic). These effects can be activated at any time that you are not resolving another Action on your turn, and can be activated multiple times unless otherwise indicated. For instance, a player with the Broken Heart Patch (right) equipped might choose to spend 3 cubeyellowic to healic[3] (Heal 3).
Items
During your adventures, you will find multiple Items that it may be useful to carry with you to use in times of need. Most Items are Consumable, meaning that they must be discarded after they are used. However, they typically offer useful benefits for little strain on your resources.
1) Item Name and Keywords: The name of the Item and any Keywords associated with it. Most Items include the Consumable Keyword, meaning that they are discarded after use.
2) Scrap Value: The cost to purchase the Item from the Market at the Farm. Also used to calculate the salvage value.
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3) Item Effect: The Cost to activate an Item's effect (typically a black Action cube), followed by the effect itself. Costs separated by a comma (e.g., "cubeblackic, fueltok") are additive, while costs separated by a slash (e.g., "cubeblackic/cubeblueic") may be paid with either resource.
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Some Items can be used to target Enemies individually or target an entire Zone (Area of Effect, or AoE). These Items indicate their targeting effects in the Item Effect area. In the case of Items that target Zones, their AoE will be graphically indicated, as with the Molotov Cocktail to the left.
Allies
The final and most valuable type of card you can equip to your Character Sheet is the Ally card. Allies are companions you meet over the course of your campaign with whom you develop a special connection. They may possess special abilities of their own that will aid you in your adventures. Allies can remain by your side, providing you powerful passive bonuses and Actions, or you may Deploy them to explore or, if need be, fight.
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Deploying an Ally: You can choose to spend 1 cubeblueic to Deploy an Ally any time you are not resolving another Action on your turn. If you do so, you remove the Ally's token from its card on your Character Sheet and place it in your Zone, then flip the Ally card to its front side.
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Any effect (including Enemy behavior) that applies to Characters (charic) and figures applies to Deployed Allies.
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You must spend black Action cubes to Activate a Deployed Ally. You must spend a black Action cube to Activate a Deployed Ally. Doing so allows you to move them up to their Move (moveic) value or make 1 Attack. You may Activate a Deployed Ally multiple times in a turn.
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Deployed Allies may activate Point of Interest and Line of Sight tokens like you. When they do so, any text that refers to "You" refers to the Ally for purposes of positioning and Attributes. If an Ally obtains an Item, it may be placed in your Inventory immediately.
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Deployed Allies rely on your Resources. You may spend Attribute cubes to cause your Ally to perform any of the Actions listed in the Attribute boxes on your Character Sheet (e.g., Aim, Counter, Reroll).
1) Ally Name (Back of Card Only): Your Ally's name and card code.
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2) Token Space (Back of Card Only): When an Ally remains with you, rather than exploring on their own, their token remains on their card on their Character Sheet. You can choose to Deploy an Ally for 1 cubeblueic at any time that you are not resolving another Action on your turn. If you do so, you remove the Ally's token from this space and place it in your Zone, then flip the Ally card to its front side. When an Ally rejoins you, you flip their card back to its back side and place the Ally's token back in this space.
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3) Attributes and Keywords: Like you, all Allies have Force, Tactics, and Intuition values. These values are only used for Skill Checks. When an Ally is with you (when the back side of their card is showing and their token is on it), you may use their Attributes for Skill Checks.
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Your Ally may also have one or more Keywords. Some Ally Keywords have story effects, and some have mechanical effects. During your exploration, you are considered to have an Ally's story Keywords if the back side of their card is showing and their token is on it. See the Glossary for more details on Keywords.
Ally card back
4) Ally's Effect on You (Back of Card Only): When an Ally remains with you, they provide a passive bonus or an additional Action you may take. Some Ally effects may only be used once per turn; these are indicated by "1/Turn" text.
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5) Combat Statistics (Front of Card Only): When an Ally is Deployed (when the front side of their card is showing and their token is off of your Character Sheet), they may engage in Combat. The statistics they use in Combat are listed on the front of their Ally card. See Combat for more details.
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6) Deployed Ally Effect (Front of Card Only): When Deployed, an Ally can call on their own unique abilities to assist them in combat or exploration. The conditions for and effects of these abilities are printed in this box.
Ally card front