An experiment at making an interesting mechanic for upgrading items.

Feature complete and playable, though the UI is a bit clunky and the balance is... as good as I could make it in last couple of hours.

How to play

1. Give equipment to your heroes so they can defeat stronger enemies.
2. Carve runes on the equipment to form the rune words, giving items new bonuses.
3. Each carved rune skips one day, giving each hero a chance to get an item drop from their respective enemy.
4. The only way to earn money is to sell items. Item price does not depend on runes, only on level.

The combat process is off-screen and completely deterministic (for example, "crit chance" gives a crit once in a certain number of turns, not randomly). On the Hero details page you can see how they would fight with the enemies of the maximum level they can handle and the enemy one level above (i.e., the weakest enemy that would defeat this hero).

Stats effect

Str, int, dex - do not have immediate effect but are required to equip items. When any of the stats are insufficient, item stats are scaled down proportionally.

Main stats.

Bonuses from any items are added to it

hp - hp stamina, mana - used for each attack by weapons. Attack impossible when run out manaShield - this amount of enemy damage can be absorbed in combat. armor - substracted from each enemy attack. Does not protect the manaShield evade - each evade/100 turns, hero evades all enemy damage completely regen - this much hps are recovered each turn

Weapon stats

Only the respective weapon bonus is affecting it, so body slot attack-related bonuses are wasted. Hero can use two weapons, but only Rogue can do it to full effect.

damage - damage, in hp staminaUse, manaUse - stamina and mana used per strike critChance - each (10 + critChance)/100 turns, hero deals a crit strike critMult - crit strike's damage is multiplied by (critMult+50)/100, compared to normal strike speed - each speed/100 turns, this weapons strikes one more time bleed - if weapons deal non-zero damage, enemy starts losing this much hp per turn. Stackable. firstStrike - multiplier for the first turn strike

Enemy

Enemies are all the same, and their power scales linearly with their level.

Each enemy level gives the enemy 3 hp, 1 damage, 0.5 armor, and -1 to the hero's critChance, speed, and evade.

Heroes

Each hero gets, per level:

Knight - 2 str, 1.2 int, 1.2 dex, 6 hp, 7.5 stamina, 5 mana Wizard - 1.2 str, 2 int, 1.2 dex, 5 hp, 5 stamina, 10 mana Rogue - 1.2 str, 1.2 int, 2 dex, 5 hp, 5 stamina, 5 mana

Knight and Wizard have a 30% penalty to damage in the off-hand (i.e., second) slot; Rogue has none.