A character’s base Physical and Magical Attack and Physical and Magical Defense as well as their base Evasion and Resistance are affected by special items that they carry on their person into combat called equipment. All player characters can wear three types of equipment: weapons, which give bonuses to their base Magical and Physical Attack; armor, which gives bonuses to their base Physical and Magical Defense; and accessories, which give bonuses to their base Evasion and Resistance.
The potency of a piece of equipment is determined by its Quality. There are four levels of Quality a piece of gear can have: Mundane, Rare, Expert, and Unique. The first three levels give flat increases to the bonuses the respective piece of armor or weaponry provides to a character’s statistics. Quality also determines the total Upgrade Value available to each weapon. In addition to a piece of equipment’s basic stats, each one also has a number of attached extra effects known as upgrades, each of which has an associated Upgrade Value, or UV number for short. The total sum of all of the UV numbers of the upgrades to a given weapon or armor set can never be greater than its total Upgrade Value. Mundane equipment has a UV of 1, Rare equipment has a UV of 2, and Expert equipment has a UV of 3. Unique weapons and armor count as having UV numbers of 3 as well, but have additional unique upgrades that distinguish them from all other pieces of equipment.
Mundane equipment is meant to be used by characters of levels 1-4, Rare equipment is meant to be used by characters of levels 4-6, Expert equipment is meant to be used by characters of levels 7-9, and Unique equipment is meant to be acquired by characters of levels 9-10. The exception to this rule is accessories, which do not have UV numbers but instead each possess a single upgrade that either counts as Partial or Total. Accessories with Partial upgrades give bonuses to a character’s Evasion or Resistance, while accessories with Total upgrades do not.
There are three kinds of equipment that characters can wear: weapons, armor, and accessories. The Quality and number of upgrades on a piece of equipment determine the base cost to purchase them from a vendor, with the exception of Unique weapons, which are only available as rewards for adventuring. The formulae for calculating base cost for different pieces of equipment are as follows: