Part 5: Other Items
SCROLLSToxic CloudToxic cloud is the game's least useful scroll - it does what you'd imagine and fills the room with toxic gas. Use this if you're poison immune already and are OK with fighting with low visibility, otherwise don't. It can apparently be useful alongside the rogue sword, as your hiding period gives more time for the poison to affect all the enemies.
Random TeleportRandom teleport is a get-out-of-jail (or maybe into it) free scroll that just teleports you to another room on the level. This is sometimes useful as a last-ditch resort if you're surrounded and in a particularly bad room, but isn't often super useful other than that.
GambleGamble changes your enemies into different enemies. This can be an improvement, or not, depending on what they turn into. I think the best uses of gamble tend to be on higher levels, when a room of goblins or literally any other enemy type feels a much nicer idea all of a sudden. At lower levels, they're useful for:
- Shop robberies. There are a couple of possible bad results here, like a Vampiress, but even a vampiress is rather easier to tackle than a bushido
- Dual bosses like the Violet Knights - the gambled-up bosses may well start fighting each other, which is helpful.
- The lower catacombs, where basically anything that won't fire lots of curses at you is good and there's usually plenty of scenery to hide behind from the ensuing mass melee.
Lazy EnemiesThis slows all your enemies down pretty considerably. Use this in boss battles or against bushidos mostly: it's most important when you've got really fast enemies that you need to slow down.
Quick BattleThis speeds everyone in the room up, permanently - including you but also including all your enemies. Use this when you've only got one enemy left in a room: you get to keep the boost, and you're in minimal danger from your one newly sped-up foe.
SunsetSunset makes the whole level slightly darker, whilst giving you a stat boost on the whole level. It's a pretty nice scroll: letting one off on a level gives you a healthy boost without really giving any visibility issues (though it depends a bit how bright your screen is).
ConfusionConfusion makes all enemies in the room fight one another indiscriminately. They can and will still fight you as well, so you're in a bit more danger than if you'd used "peace", but this is a pretty useful scroll all the same. This won't affect enemies spawned after it's used, so in boss battles it's only worth using after some minions have been spawned (it could be quite useful against Felgin in particular).
PeacePeace stops all enemies except bosses from attacking you - it's useless in boss battles, as newly spawned enemies don't get the effect, so as soon as the previous boss-guards die new ones will spawn. The exception to this is the Catacombs boss fight, where the undead are resurrected rather than spawned, and retain the peace effect after resurrection. This scroll is most useful for robbing shops, though can also be a "get out of jail free" for difficult fights or used for clearing hard rooms in the lower catacombs. Once you use the peace scroll, the battle will end and the battle-ending reward will drop: if you want the coins etc from any remaining enemies you have to kill them as normal (and they won't fight back - they will just keep following you around whenever you're in the room). Note that if you use "gamble" on peaced-up enemies, the new replacements will NOT retain the peace effect.
Barrel RollBarrel roll turns all your enemies in the room into barrels: it has very similar uses to the peace scroll. If used on a boss, it turns them into a bomb barrel which bulges for a second before spewing bombs across the whole room - there are some gaps in the bombs that you can duck into, but you need to be quick & ready for it. I've put this above "Peace" as it can clear boss battles, but it's worth remembering the risk to that.
ReplicationThis is the best scroll in the game. It does what it says on the tin and duplicates whatever item it gets used on. This is ideally used for increasing/improving stat boosts. Items I often use it on include:
- For all: Wheel, Quick Battle Scroll, Rabbit Amulet
- For melee: Blacksmith's Runestone, Barbarian's Friend potion
- For archer: Ranger Runestone, Crossbow, Fletcher's Emblem, Full Metal Jacket
- For magic: Warlock Runestone, Magic Pearl
RUNESTONESBlacksmith's RunestoneThis gives +3 base damage to a melee weapon. It's possibly the single most important item in the game for melee characters, and the more of them you can get and stack onto your chosen weapon, absolutely the better.
Blood RunestoneThis gives +20 max health. It's a very useful runestone indeed - it's not generally necessary in SoaW to have much more than 100 health, but it's nice to have, and more importantly you can often exchange those HP for bonus speed or melee/magic skill via potions.
Ranger RunestoneThis gives boosted base damage to a bow. It's probably the single most important item in the game for archers, and the more of them you can get and stack onto your chosen bow, absolutely the better.
Carpenter's RunestoneThis gives boosted range to a bow. It holds the dubious title of being the game's least useful runestone, since it's quite rare to have range problems as an archer and there are currently no effects that decrease archery range. By all means add these to your bows, but there's no need to go out of your way to find more of them.
Warlock RunestoneThis gives boosted base damage to a magic staff (including the melee-linked earthquake staff). It's a really useful piece of kit for a magic user - as soon as you find a high-damage staff you're happy with, just keep stacking these on whenever you can.
Sorceror's RunestoneThis gives boosted range to a staff. This is significantly more useful than the carpenter's runestone, its equivalent, as it can counteract the effects of heavy magic potions.
AMULETS & UPGRADES"Upgrades" are a category of items that you can't pick up - if you go up to them and hit the W to pick them up they automatically disappear and take their effect. This means you need to be careful around them, especially if you don't want to pick one up yet (because you want to replicate it with a scroll, for example). Their effects are basically always positive.
STAT & DAMAGE UPGRADESWarrior's EmblemBoosts your melee skill by +40%.
Bear in a BarrelGives you full rage whenever you or someone else breaks a barrel. Pretty useful in larger battles, especially for melee characters. Combos well with the bear pet, which keeps refilling your rage for you, or with the evergreen oak branch which creates barrels for you to smash.
Dwarven SpinnerTriples melee damage for axes and hammers, and makes thrown weapons throw three instead of one. A really powerful item that makes axes/hammers a much better late-game option if you find one - their low hit speed can now be counterbalanced by the much higher damage dealt.
Carpenter's EmblemDuplicates thrown weapons so they throw behind you as well as in front. Very neat when combined with the ringleader's hammer. Works very well indeed alongside the Dwarven Spinner!
Battle HornIncreases projectile speed. Usefully counteracts Full Metal Jacket, and also works on throwing weapons and magic orbs. Duplicates increase the effect which can lead to super-fast projectiles.
CrossbowBoosts your archery skill by +30%.
Fletcher's EmblemBoosts your archery skill.
Ranger's QuiverBoosts the speed of your shooting animation. This is extremely useful, especially for shop robberies where getting the snailbite arrows fired faster can be life or death.
Full Metal JacketBoosts your archery skill but makes your arrows fly slower so enemies can dodge them easier. Usually worth getting nonetheless!
Rainbow HornGives you a damage boost when at very low health. I tend to want to never be at low enough health for this to kick in, so I wouldn't say this was a useful item most of the time, but it can probably be helpful occasionally in a tight spot. I don't think the effect stacks at all in any case, so just grab this if you see it.
Dark OrbGives you a +40% chance of your orbs being "dark orbs" which appear black and stun enemies momentarily, slowing them down and making it much easier for you to pick them off before melee enemies get to you (especially if they're not shielded). It's quite a neat effect, but doesn't help much against shielded enemies and most bosses so it's not super vital.
Magic PearlGives you +1 magic projectile/orb. An extremely useful one for wizards as it can effectively double your attack output without the sacrifice of magic skill you get from using magic split potions. Highly recommended to use replicator scrolls on these if your main weapon is an orb-based magic staff.
Magic BubblegumDoubles magic projectile range and makes your projectiles bounce. This is pretty useful - bounce is especially good for fighting shielded enemies as it can let you hit them from behind. I wouldn't generally replicate these unless I'd tanked up with a LOT of heavy magic potions, as there's not that much point giving your orbs a range considerably longer than the screen most of the time.
Fission OrbsMakes your magic orbs explode into smaller orbs on impact. Very worthwhile, especially when fighting massed and shielded enemies. Effect doesn't stack at all so far as I know, but if you're fighting with an orb-based staff this is a nice thing to pick up.
MOVEMENT & PROTECTIONThese items are all one-use buffs that protect from specific attacks, add damage reductions, or have movement related functions.
Wooden ShieldLike drinking two Toughness potions at once - gives you +10 50% damage-reduced hits. Duplicates stack.
Miner's Shield10 damage-reduced hits (duplicates stack) and the permanent one-time effect that you drop bombs when hit (one initially, can be increased with the double bomb item and bomberman potions). I usually avoid using this shield, as I find I run into the bombs too much - bear this in mind when you consider whether to take it. It can very much change your playstyle as you will need to account for the fact that dangerous explosions will happen around you a lot more. This can also be a serious problem in some missions, where the bombs have a high chance of killing quest NPCs or, for example, the Good Princess in the castle.
Elven Shield+20 immunities to ranged attacks, duplicates stack. This is a really nice item, and can give you a lot of help with dealing with castle guards, thieves, and archers. It also protects you a bit from things like rolling balls, but bear in mind that they run the immunity down VERY fast if they run into you.
PillowMakes you invulnerable during special animations - spellcasting, rage attacks, etc. This can make getting past some traps easier, and makes breaking out of a pile-up of enemies with a rage attack a much easier job. There's no reason not to get this if you see one, it's useful for all character classes. Duplicates have no further effect.
Steel BootsThese give -1 speed, but immunity to floor traps. Really only an item for around the dungeon level, where it's usually found (I've seen it once as a boss drop in the castle level too). Very worth having if you've got enough speed to cope with the loss, as it make robbing the dungeon shops extremely easy. Avoid these if you're on 6 speed or lower.
Green SlimeballSometimes found in rocks in the dungeon level. The slime of the Slime King has the same effect. Slows you down by 1pt of speed, but makes you immune to slipping on ice. Very worth having if you've got enough speed to cope with the loss. Avoid these if you're on 6 speed or lower. You could also avoid them if you have a mount, but mounts can die so if you've got the speed, get this anyway.
WheelGives you +1 speed, cumulative. In a game this based on speed, a speed boost is a pretty good thing to have: this is one of the items I'm more likely to use the replicator scrolls on, if I find them.
AMULETSReally subsection of the previous category, the amulets mostly grant some form of protection.
Mammoth AmuletA blue amulet. Makes you immune to freezing effects. No further effect for multiple amulets. The Mammoth Amulet is probably the most important of the elemental protections, as without it you're often at high risk of being caught out by the ice mages on the ice-mountain level.
Dragon AmuletA red amulet. Makes you immune to fire effects. No further effect for multiple amulets.
Poison AmuletA green amulet. Makes you immune to poison. No further effect for multiple amulets.
Rabbit AmuletA yellow amulet. Gives you immunity to slowdown effects, like the slime king's slime trails, the heavy boots, or the pogonip fogs. Duplicates have no effect.
Medusa AmuletA purple amulet. Makes you immune to petrification. No further effect for multiple amulets. This is extremely useful on the final (desert) level, which includes the stoneheart assassins and medusa boss that have one-hit-kills petrification attacks.
Bare Bones AmuletA bone amulet. Reduces your health to 1 and your max health to 20, and reduces all item mana costs to 1. This is obviously a MASSIVE playstyle change, best undertaken only if you a) have a bunch of blood runestones or b) you really like running around with no health. It does allow you to easily use mana powers on every room after you use it, so if you like playing a low health, high damage character like a pyromancer then this is a must-have. Combines well with apprentizer potions, or with a magic chest + money is power potions, to allow you to buff stats very easily. Of course, also good along with a mana canteen. Effect doesn't stack as far as I know.
ELEMENTAL UPGRADESRitual IcicleGives you a longer freeze time in exchange for -20 health. I would almost never do this exchange unless you're very specifically creating an ice-based strategy in your game and already have the weaponry to do so: losing that much health generally just isn't worth it.
Ice BombGives all your bombs a freezing effect - basically, this makes them far more useful against bosses, as if you hit them with one they'll then be frozen still to be hit with a couple more.
KindlingBoosts your fire damage.
Rotten CheeseGives you +5 poison damage.
Rotten Cheese WheelPoisons enemies when they hit you (I think only in melee, though I'm not sure). This is a "you may as well grab it if you get it" special item like the rainbow horn, kind of fine with no downsides but not terribly useful - given that most enemies in Son of a Witch tend to be not too tough but hit very hard, poisoning them back isn't really much consolation for taking a big hit of damage. You may occasionally want to get a boss to hit you once in order to poison them, but for the most part I tend to try and ensure I have a poisoned weapon if I want to use poison in boss fights.
INVENTORY UPGRADESCarrielGives +1 inventory space.
RucksackGives +2 inventory spaces.
RINGSRings generally give you extra "sight" abilities of some sort.
Alchemist's RingLets you ID any potion just by walking up to it. Very useful if you get it on lvl 1 or 2: after that you should have almost all potions IDed anyway so it becomes considerably less good.
Dwarf RingThe best of the rings in my view (though scout is good as well), the Dwarf Ring lets you see items inside rocks, which in turn allows you to use bombs much more effectively, find runestones and good potions and build your character's abilities up that much faster.
Rogue's RingLets you see inside locked/shut chests. Given it's very rare that I fail to open all the chests I find anyway, this is probably the ring I find least useful, but it has its moments.
Scout RingShows you enemies before you walk through a door to face them. This is a REALLY useful ring strategically, allowing you to go for easier rooms if you need to search for emergency healing or gain mana, and also letting you know what boss you'll be facing which can be really useful for preparation purposes.
BOOKSBooks are an especially powerful set of upgrade items. They are only available as starting bonuses or from altars.
Book of DeathPoisons all enemies in every room you go into.
Book of FireBurns all enemies in every room you go into.
Book of IceFreezes all enemies in every room you go into.
Book of Chores-1 speed to every enemy in the room. Only usually found at the end of the catacombs after you've completed the Eye of Ramana quest, or as a game start item before you defeat the executioner. Not sure if this effect stacks.
Book of LifeGives you +100 health. This is the only one of the books that it would be worth replicating; the effects of the others won't stack.
OTHERDouble BombThis works exactly like the bomberman potion, giving +1 to the number of bombs you release when you use a bomb.
Goldsmith's MagnetMakes all the coins in the room fly towards you. I guess vaguely useful for getting occasional coins from hard to reach places, especially if you created them with the portable foundry, but this isn't exactly going to make you a millionaire anytime fast.
Chain ReactorThis is an exceptionally dangerous item albeit an extremely fun idea; it's one I tend not to use, causing enemies to release two bombs when they die. On the plus side, it can be fun to watch big crowds of enemies slaughtering themselves with a chain reaction of bombs. On the minus side, there are bombs everywhere, you have to avoid the damn things too, and it makes NPC quests pretty difficult. I think to make the most of this one would want some duplicated elven shields and a powerful bow, allowing you to start the chain reaction at a safe distance and keep the enemies in line with the bombs. This seems more effort than it's worth though, generally. Duplications of this have no further effect.
Blood MixerMakes all potions of any kind heal +10hp for you. Not sure/clear if this effect stacks.
Mana CanteenMeans that instead of losing all your mana when you cast a spell, you only lose the spell's cost. This is one of the most useful items in the game, and can be really game-changing in terms of the strategies it allows you to use, letting you store up mana and cast multiple spells in a boss battle, or keep casting whilst ensuring you have a reserve left for emergency healing, and so on.
MAGIC ITEMSThese items have an ability, mostly using mana, but aren't actual weapons.
Voodoo DollVoodoo dolls use 1 mana to lock onto another creature/unit, and attacks on the doll then apply to that unit as well. They're mostly used by goblin shamans, and if locked onto the player can be extremely dangerous - keeping spare inventory slots to pick dolls up is pretty important in the forest level. If you want to take one with you and use it, they're extremely versatile for deflecting boss attacks back onto themselves, killing enemies from positions of cover, etc. That said, I personally usually prefer to do other things with my mana.
Bottomless Bag of BombsBombs are fun, and pretty useful (see below). That said, there are often other bombs around, and so I tend not to use it very much or very often unless I happen to find it at a time when I otherwise need bombs and there's a shortage. This item combines well with the Dwarf Ring - if you get the ring, then the Bag becomes a much more useful item to keep using as you can better target your bombs to improve your character much faster. If you're well practiced at using bombs in combat this may also be more useful to help kill bosses, especially in combination with the ice bomb item - not my gameplay style but it's definitely a valid strategy.
Magic chestThe magic chest converts 3 mana into 100 gold, which is a very good rate (especially if you happen to be using the warbreaker, have used a bare bones amulet or have the lizard pet). It's most useful for archers/melee characters who don't need mana for combat purposes. I often use it on the first three levels to speed up my gold generation, and then ditch it after the dungeon, though it can be useful later too if you've got a gold-heavy strategy (using Money Is Power potions, or the Clockwork Staff).
Magic mapThe magic map reveals the map for 3 mana. How useful this is may be rather playstyle-dependent: I often feel there's better uses for my mana, but it can help make your strategy and planning more efficient on each level if you have the inventory space to carry it. It's most useful for quests where you need to find quick routes through a level, or in the old catacombs if you want to find a path toward the boss fight.
RetortThe retort creates random potions. This varies in usefulness depending on how good the spread of potions are. If you're a melee character and barbarian's friend potions are being produced, you want to keep using the retort at all possible opportunities: ditto if you're magic based and it produces heavy magic, with the caveat that this can leave you with super-low range if you don't have another way to get it up. You can build some very good characters with retort + status effect boosts, but the skeleton wizards can really mess this plan up by using curses that force you to take dragonfire potions - as such, I tend to avoid building a character too heavily around status effects.
Silver CoinLets you teleport to a shop - no mana required. Given by the shopkeeper only when you buy all 4 items in a shop. Useful in NPC-escort quests to skip battles, and as a general get-out-of-jail-free card if a battle's really going wrong for you.
Portable FoundryNo mana cost, converts all items in a room to gold coins (so 5 gold per item, regardless of the item's type or size). This is SUPER useful, especially if you've got a lot of arrows lying around since a 10 wooden arrow stack - often useless if you're a melee or magic character - is suddenly 50 gold in your pocket. I pretty much always get this whenever I can and keep it throughout the game - it basically always pays for itself, whatever level I find it on. The only thing to be careful of is to check you've picked up everything you need - it's easy to convert a useful item to gold, and you have no way to turn it back again. Obviously, works well with any strategies that rely on you having lots of gold.
In general I use the retort more often in daily challenges than regular games, because most of what it produces will be fine and will get me points, but if I'm not playing for points that mana may be better spent via a support staff like the twilight or demonic staffs.
MISC OTHERThese items don't fit into any other categories!
BombBombs are an extremely important part of SoaW. They have three main uses: blowing through doors, blowing up rocks, and in battle. In general, I don't advise using bombs in battle - they can be used against bosses to significantly reduce their health and that's fine and all, but I think they're more effective when used to hunt for runestones and other character-building items. If you have a lot of bombs and the ice bomb effect, though, battle-bombing can be a better strategy and can finish off bosses fairly efficiently.
As far as blowing through doors - I will do this if I'm short on keys and want to get into a treasure room, or for the rock door that appears in the forest sometimes that won't accept keys. Other than that, I wouldn't generally use it mid-game, though you can use bombs to e.g. blow through and allow yourself to use a magic staff boost in multiple rooms by not quite finishing one, blowing through a door and starting on the next.
That leaves the most important function, blowing up rocks to "mine" and find items. If you've got the dwarf ring, this is easy: firstly blow into any rocks that have bombs hidden in themselves (as this is essentially a cost-neutral action on the number of bombs you have) and can gain you whatever items are next to the bombs. Then, go for whatever you most need (runestones and high-value potions generally taking priority, and also blowing into areas with blue chests in). If you don't have the dwarf ring (as is more normal, start by blowing up areas that will get you to chests and barrels, for higher return, and work out areas that will let you maximise the number of rocks blown up (generally you should be aiming for three as a minimum, especially in the forest). The corners of square sections, for example, will sometimes let you blow up five rocks by getting the bomb right in the corner, which maximises your chance of finding something useful.
Gold KeyGold keys are used/needed throughout the game for opening locked chests and doors. They can be found in blue chests, dropped as battle-end rewards, bought in shops and blown out of rocks.
MushroomThese are found solely on floors in the forest, where you pick them. They heal to full health, but also poison you for two battles - as such, they can be useful if you're fighting fast and really lack health otherwise, or if you're poison immune in which case they become an excellent healing choice. In general, unless I have the actual poison immunity amulet from the forest, I don't use these - there are better uses for the inventory space usually - but they can be helpful and I used to use them a lot more.