Draft:Shiren 5 2020:Pitfall of Life

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Key Parameters
Initial Goal Floor	25F
Final Goal Floor	99F
Day / Night	Day
Bring Items In	No
Take Items Out	Yes
# of Allies	0
# of Rescues	3
Pre-ID'd Items	All
New Items	No
Shops	Normal (all 3 types)
Monster Houses	Normal, including pop-ups
NPCs	Shopkeepers, wandering non-allies
Spawn Rate	Normal
Winds of Kron	Normal (slow) -- 1@1700, 4@2000

Pitfall of Life is a bonus dungeon in Shiren 5 in which you cannot gain experience or level up. It is otherwise notable for being an equipment upgrading paradise and for the valuable reward item you can win. You cannot take items/Gitan or allies in, but you can request rescue up to 3 times, and you get to keep the items you have on hand if you win. The dungeon is daytime only and the goal floor is initially 25 F. After beating the dungeon once, the goal floor becomes 99F and stays there permanently.

Gaining Access

This dungeon is hidden and you must first unlock it.

• Beat the main dungeon (Tower of Fortune)
• Recruit Kojirouta (the rich man's son) from his home in Inori Village (left-most house) and bring him to the top of the Miracle Alcove at the top of the Tower of Fortune
  • Unlike most allies, he tends to wander off and engage awake monsters on his own, and thus dies more easily
  • So you'll likely need to recruit him many times on many runs and level him up a bunch
  • And you'll need to actively try to protect him, sometimes by stepping between him and harm, or swapping places with him to move him away from a monster
  • In particular, don't change floors when he's chasing a monster or he may not follow you to the next floor
  • At the Miracle Alcove, he's pretty cocky when he talks to the god and rolls the Dice of Fate, and gets burned to a crisp (but is not dead permanently)
• Return to the rich man's house in Inori Village and talk to the rich man (Kojirouta's father)
  • He tries to trick you into opening the big red box at the N end of his house
  • This springs a big Pitfall Trap, but you manage not to fall in
  • The rich man explains the dungeon mechanism of not being able to gain experience, and dares you to dive in

After the above, you can access and play the Pitfall of Life whenever you want via the same big red box at the north end of the left-most house in Inori Village.

Unique Features

• You cannot gain experience or level up.
  • Killing monsters does not give you experience
  • Student Shields and Growth Bracelets are not available, while using Cheery Grass and similar items do nothing.
• You cannot take items, Gitan, or allies into the dungeon.
• New items don't appear in this dungeon.
• Items that help improve your build appear often.
  • Fate Scroll, Earth Scroll, and Strength Grass are very common.
  • Blessing Scroll, Extraction Scroll, Gambler's Scroll, Plating Scroll, Upgrade Seed, Blessing Pot, Fever Pot, Synthesis Pot, and Modder's Pot appear more often than in most dungeons.
• All items except for swords and shields are pre-identified. Cursed swords and shields are nonexistent or very rare.
• The dungeon is daytime only.

Final Reward

Every time you beat the dungeon, you get a True Knife, a sword that never misses. This effect can be synthesized onto another sword to make the Accurate rune.

Farming Opportunities

Beating this dungeon is the only way to get a True Knife in single player mode.

This dungeon has a high spawn rate of Fever Pots. But it is not easy to take them out, since neither Escape Scroll and Undo Grass appear in this dungeon. (Blank Scrolls are only available if you get the best fortune from the wandering fortune teller.) Pick-A-Choice shops in Inori Cave are an easier way to get Fever Pots. However, if you do Adventure While Awaiting Rescue in this dungeon, you can easily get plenty of these.

Strategy

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Success in this dungeon depends on how well you can maximize Blessing Scrolls, Extraction Scrolls, and Blessing Pots.

• You can use a Blessing Scroll or Blessing Pot to bless a Fate Scroll, Earth Scroll, or Strength Grass. Effectively, each Blessing Scroll or Blessing Pot spot gives you +1 upgrade point or +1 strength.
  • Blessing a Blessing Scroll lets you conserve space without losing any value.
  • When choosing an item to bless, it is a good to have a balance, although defense is somewhat more important than offense. Each point of Strength is worth more than an upgrade point on the sword, but you will max out Strength (at 50) earlier than you get +99 upgrade points, so there is a tradeoff between early game survivability and late game potential.
• Blessing an Extraction Scroll gives you up to 5 upgrade points (or strength or "blessing units"), assuming you have any pot with 5 items you want to bless.
  • A blessed Extraction Scroll can only be read once, but it blesses everything extracted from the pot.
  • Items to include in a blessed extraction: Fate Scroll, Earth Scroll, Strength Grass, Revival Grass, Extraction Scroll, Blessing Scroll, Monster House Scroll, among others. If a scroll (except Extraction) is already blessed, you can read it then insert it into the pot.
    • The blessed extraction is the reason to keep some of these items around, instead of using them right away.
  • The pot doesn't have to be a Preservation Pot; you can also use a Synthesis, Ordinary, or Modder's Pot.
  • If you have a Blessing Pot, then you can skip blessing the Extraction Scroll, which frees up one blessing.
    • Using an normal Extraction Scroll on a Blessing Pot with 4 spaces has the same efficiency as using a blessed Extraction Scroll on a Preservation Pot with 5 spaces. A Blessing Pot with 5 spaces gives you maximum efficiency, but it is only available with a Pot God Scroll.
  • Watch out for traps and monsters when you extract items. You will also need up to 5 spaces around you for items to land.

Fever Pots also let you double up Fate Scrolls, Earth Scrolls, or Revival Grasses.

Because you don't get experience for killing monsters, don't kill monsters unless you need the experience for your equipment, or you are farming them for items. (TODO: Maybe write more about Zalokleft farm, merge with the Grass Guy farm tips)

Some useful runes include the Day Shield, which can considerably reduce damage from monsters, and because this dungeon is daytime only you should really get one. Also, extra damage runes and the Breeze Blade rune for your weapon can greatly help you.

As for bracelets, try to switch them constantly as you change floors (for example, a Staunch Bracelet on floors where Polygon Spin monsters appear). Having a sword and shield resonance that lets you equip two armbands also helps, you can equip them when the situation calls for it, protecting you from two different status ailments at once.

Test out all your swords and shields as soon as you find them, as it will help you maximize your Synthesis Pots. Cursed equipment is very rare, and you will almost always have a Fate, Earth, Exorcism, or mPlating Scroll to remove the curse. When synthesizing, Make sure you don't exceed the upgrade point or rune limits on your swords and shields. If you have a sword or shield with upgrade points but a bad ability (such as a Glass Dirk +3), it is possible to synthesize the upgrade points onto your main sword or shield if it is already at rune limit.

You can increase your maximum HP by eating a Life Grass or eating a Herb, Otogiriso, or Heal Grass at full health. This should generally be done as soon as you can. Alternatively, you can turn them into runes (both sword and shield) on floors with Mixers. (13-15 F, 31-33 F, 50-51 F)

TODO: write about

• Late game strats:
• On late floors, you can keep Gitan bags from Gitan Mamels and Ultra Gazes as projectiles to take out instantly a monster that is giving you trouble. Bags of 2,000 and 5,000 Gitan can kill anything in one hit, and even more if they are blessed.
• Gaze Shields and Immunity Scrolls don't seem to appear in this dungeon
• 90-99F Mesmerikon, 86-91F Ultra Gazers
  • Mesmerikon + Swordmaster (90-97F) can end the run in a single turn
  • Dodger Pot, Anti-Parry, Confusion Scroll, Reflective Pot
  • Use Extinction Scroll on either Gazer or Mutaikon (latter is preferable)
  • Use Gambler's Scroll to jump (1/7 chance of moving ahead 5 floors), read on exit stairs
  • Zen can be useful against Cranky Tank (98-99F)
• 36-38F Grass Guy farm (no bad grasses similar to Underground Manor; 36 has Polygon Shaka but 37-38F is safe) - useful for 250 HP expert badge, Strength limit of 50 can be reached, Grass Gramps on 61-62F

Expert Badges

1. You conquered a dungeon without equipping any weapons!
2. You beat a dungeon without using a shield or bracelet!
3. You conquered a dungeon without eating any food!
4. You conquered a dungeon without using any talismans!
5. You conquered a dungeon without using any pots!
6. You conquered a dungeon without collapsing even once!
7. You conquered a dungeon without doing any direct attacks!
8. You conquered a dungeon with your max HP at over 250!

Monsters

The types of monsters that can appear in this dungeon have not yet been replicated to this wiki. Here are good external resources:

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1h9IRPQPLg9g7aE48wlyw8IudHIStawK4mR3kuggto/edit?usp=sharing
• https://seesaawiki.jp/w/shiren5/d/%bf%cd%c0%b8%a4%ce%cd%ee%a4%b7%b7%ea (Japanese wiki page for this location)

Open Questions

• Do Growth Bracelets not exist in this dungeon, or do they just not give you experience here?
• Itemize all the possible ways to get experience and test them all in this dungeon.

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