The golden rule
“An explorer gains all the abilities from their consumable and equipped items.”
An explorer gains access to all abilities from both equipped and consumable items. Think of it this way: when you equip an item, you’re adding its abilities to your available actions — or to your triggers, in the case of passive abilities.
Let’s take Cicatrizer as the main item and the Blood-Boost gun as an upgrade, augmented by an Adjustable scope. In this case, you choose whether to attack with the Blood-Boost gun or with Cicatrizer.
Augments affect only their own item
This game is all about existential dread and complexity, so naturally we need to dive deeper. The key to avoiding confusion lies in the golden rule above — and in paying close attention to the text on the cards.
Notice how the Adjustable scope reads:
“Increase this weapon’s attack rolls…”
This means that if you attack with Cicatrizer, you won’t benefit from the Adjustable scope’s bonus. The passive abilities of augments are written precisely to clarify that they only affect the item they are attached to.
Passive abilities and triggers
Now let’s look at passive abilities, since both weapons in our example have triggers like:
“When you hit…”
and
“When you kill…”
These are not restricted to triggering only with their specific weapon. For instance, Cicatrizer’s passive ability will activate even if you kill a monster using the Blood-Boost gun! An explorer who grasps the power of these conditional effects will find great strategic potential.
If we swap out Cicatrizer for Reconnoisseur, though, we see the difference:
“When you kill with this weapon…”
This is more limiting, as it requires kills specifically from that weapon.
Tips & tactics
- Cicatrizer’s passive ability triggers after every killed unit — as long as you were the one to activate the traps or hit the barrels.
- You can intentionally target yourself (or an ally) with the Blood-Boost gun before attacking a barrel or activating a trap. Since damage from barrels and traps is considered yours when you trigger them, this can set up combos.
- Use your essence to increase the attack rolls of traps or barrels that you activate.
- If you’re standing adjacent to another explorer — or near the trap lever or barrel they’re triggering — you can use your essence to increase the attack rolls of the activated traps or barrels.
FAQ
Consider the nested conditional “If you kill” within the active ability of Savage blade.
That second attack effect is tied specifically to that weapon’s first attack. Nested conditionals like this don’t apply to other items — or even to other abilities on the same item.