Community:Shiren 5 Vita Magic Effects Model

This purpose of this page is to describe how magic effects are bound to items in Shiren 5. Most players won't be interested in this info, but it might be of interest to players interested in hardcore Crafting or possibly to hackers.

I'm using the term "effect" here to avoid confusion with other concepts in Shiren 5, such as abilities (aka Night Abilities). In fact, the game does use the word "effect" in one place, but in reality, "effects" are much more widespread, and are in fact a fundamental underpinning of Shiren gameplay mechanics.

Many items in Shiren 5 have unique-ish magical effects. Some examples:

• A Burning Blade (sword) can shoot fireballs when you swing it and when you are at full HP.
• An Anti-Parry Bracelet can prevent your items from being knocked away by Swordsman family monsters and Field Knave family monsters.
• A Pinning Staff moves you adjacent to whatever the magic bullet hits.

When you first start playing Shiren 5, it seems like there is a simple mapping where each item can have at most one unique and hard-coded magical effect, end of story. In fact, the model is more complex than that, and supports mapping items to multiple magical effects across multiple layers.

Layer	Name	Quantity	Category Applicability	Binding Applicability	When Added
1	Innate Effect aka Default Effect	1	All	Type	Built-in by the game. One innate effect is bound to each stock type, which is irrevocable and immutable and appears on all instances of the type.
2	Secret Pot Effects	0-3	Swords, Shields, Bracelets, Grasses, Scrolls, Staves, Talismans	Type	Bound to a new type when first created by the player via a Secret Pot, then these effects appear irrevocably and immutably on all instances of the new type. See Creating Better Items.
3	Rune Effects	0-∞	Swords, Shields	Instance	The player can add these to specific instances of a type (stock or new) later via certain pots and monsters. See Improving Existing Items.

More detail about the model:

• There are pools of magic effects, each of which is unique to, and bound to, a specific category of items.
  • E.g., there is a pool of effects that can only be bound to grasses.
  • I refer to these as "effect pools" throughout the crafting wiki pages.
• Some item categories can draw from multiple effect pools, but each effect pool is related to only one category of item.
  • Scrolls have access to at least two effect pools and possibly more. One pool is for effects which are un-targeted (e.g. that affect the world at large in some way), while another pool is for effects that have an item as a target. There may also be a pool for effects that trigger when the scroll is dropped, and possibly another for scrolls that have special effects related to shopkeepers. (This needs more research to pin down more precisely.)
  • Pots may also have multiple effect pools (e.g. "insert" effects vs. "open" effects), but the point is moot because there is no way to change how magic effects are bound to pots.
  • There don't appear to be multiple effect pools for any other categories of items.
  • A single effect pool cannot be shared by multiple different categories of items.
• Each specific item can only draw effects from a single pool.
  • E.g., a scroll that targets items can only gain other scroll effects that target items.
• Every stock item is bound to a single effect by default, which is always from a pool related to that category of item.
  • E.g. one effect in the talisman pool is to give monsters the Afraid status in a 3x3 area if the talisman hits, which is bound by default to the Fear Talisman.
  • I refer to this as the "default effect" or "innate effect" throughout the crafting wiki pages.
• It is not possible for an item to be bound to no effects, though many effects are virtually no-ops.
  • Even "Weeds" is bound to the effect "no particular effect".
  • Even swords and shields that seem to have no particular effects are bound to effects with titles such as "Shugouseki's effect".
    • This is the one place that the word "effect" appears in the Shiren UI -- when looking at the description of new item swords and shields crafted in secret pots.
    • It's possible and even likely that resonances are implemented via these innate effects under the hood.
• It is not possible for an item to lose its default effect.
  • E.g., the Heavy Shield and any items derived from the Heavy Shield will always double your rate of food consumption when equipped.
  • Note that this means it's not possible for an item-targeting scroll to ever have an un-targeted scroll effect or vice versa.
• Very similar magical effects can exist in different pools.
  • E.g., the Fear Scroll and Fear Talisman can both give the Afraid status to monsters.
  • These are still different effects in different effect pools.
• An item can be bound to effects in 3 different ways / in 3 different layers, but all effects must draw from the same effect pool.
  • Every item always has 1 default effect, built-in by the game, which is immutable and irrevocable.
  • Swords, Shields, Bracelets, Grasses, Scrolls, Staves, and Talismans can gain 0-3 additional effects drawn from the same pool, which can be added via Secret Pots. See Creating Better Items.
  • Swords and Shields can also gain 0-∞ more effects drawn from the same pool which manifest as runes, and which can be added via certain pots and monsters. Rune Effects are easier to craft than Secret Pot Effects. See Improving Existing Items.
  • Note that these layers also correspond to the life-cycle of the item. Layer 1 is the earliest as these effects existed when you bought the game and can never be altered, layer 2 you create in the secret pot lab but is fixed when you create the new item, layer 3 can be added later at any point after the item is created to any copy of the new item.
• More info about Secret Pot Effects and New Items:
  • A "new item" is an item that has had secret pot effects added to it via a secret pot.
  • Secret pot effects can appear on new items in any order. (There's a slim chance the any-order rule is not true for swords and shields, but I'd need more research to confirm.)
  • It is possible for the same effect to appear multiple times on a single new item.
  • The set of secret pot effects and their order is fixed when the new item is created and is immutable after that point.
  • The base item + the specific ordered sequence of effects added to it defines the identity of a new item.
    • For instance, base item A + effect B + effect C is a different new item than base item A + effect C + effect B.
• More info about Rune Effects:
  • Only swords and shields can have rune effects aka runes.
  • Runes can be added later over time, to stock swords and shields, as well as to new item swords and shields.
  • Runes have an inherent order that cannot be changed. Regardless of the order in which you add runes, they will always appear in a specific, fixed order on the item.
  • Runes cannot appear more than once on an item. The item either has the rune, in its sorted order, or it does not have the rune.
  • Unlike secret pot effects, runes can be moved from item to item. (Exception: once a rune is added to a new item, it can never be moved to a different item.)
  • Unlike secret pot effects, the item is not defined by its runes.
    • E.g. a Fever Pot will treat item A as identical to item A with rune B on it. (Needs confirmation! Do not rely on this for super rare and valuable items w/o confirming it first!)
  • Rune effects display a short name (e.g. "Focusing") in the UI along with a one-line text description, whereas secret pot effects just display the one-line text description.
  • Some runes can manifest into existence on swords and shields as they level up.
• The order of effects matters because effects appear to be triggered in sequence.
  • E.g. a new item scroll that does Gathering + Vacuum Slash + Vacuum Slash + Slumber might be fatal to monsters, whereas a new item scroll that does Vacuum Slash + Vacuum Slash + Slumber + Gathering might be fatal to you.
  • The working theory is that effects are triggered in layer order then in sequence. So, innate effect first, then secret pot effects in order, then rune effects in order.
    • This is definitely true for Grasses, Scrolls, Staves, and Talismans.
    • The model for Swords, Shields, and Bracelets may be slightly more complex, but I haven't yet come across an example that definitely breaks this model. (E.g., having both Flame Shot and Blue Flame runes on your sword doesn't send two fireballs, but maybe that's because those effects are actually implemented as "add damage to the fireball and set is color to X", and only when all effects are done executing is the fireball actually generated if the cumulative fireball damage for that attack is greater than 0.)
    • [TODO: Re-confirm whether or not secret pot effects on swords and shields can ever appear in a different order than "rune order". If not, then maybe it's the case that, for swords and shields only, secret pot effects must appear in a certain sequence which is the same as rune sequence.]
• Within an effect pool, some effects can have restrictions on how they can be applied / to what layers they can be applied.
  • For all effect pools related to Grasses, Scrolls, Staves, and Talismans:
    • Every effect in the pool appears as an innate effect on exactly one stock item.
    • Every effect in the pool can also appear as a secret pot effect.
    • There are no runes for these item categories.
    • E.g. "Increases max fullness" is the innate effect of the Stomach Expander grass, but it can also appear as a secret pot effect on other grasses.
    • An effect can appear more than once on a given new item (or at least this is true for some effects).
    • IIRC, the secret pot effects can appear in any order. (All item's innate effects are always first in the list.)
  • For the Bracelets effect pool:
    • Bracelets also have no runes.
    • Most effects are normal in that they are both an innate effect for one stock item and they can appear as secret pot effects on other items.
    • But a few innate effects can apparently never appear as secret pot effects.
      • E.g. no one has ever reported seeing the innate effect of the Floating Bracelet appear as an added secret pot effect to a different base bracelet.
      • If you ever see this, please take a screenshot and post it!
      • You can of course craft a new item bracelet with Floating Bracelet's innate effect, you just have to use the Floating Bracelet as the base item.
      • So, when crafting new item bracelets, choose your base item wisely if you want some of these innate-effect-only effects!
    • And a few effects are not bound to any existing bracelets and thus do not appear as innate effects, yet can be added as secret pot effects.
      • E.g. it is possible to add the effect "You can withstand a fatal strike" to a bracelet, which does not appear on any stock bracelets.
      • The only way to exercise these effects or even find out they exist (within your game) is to craft your own items via secret pots and have them added randomly.
    • I have never yet seen a duplicate effect on a bracelet.
    • I haven't noticed if these effects must appear in a specific order, but I don't think so.
  • For the Swords and Shields effect pools:
    • Some effects can only ever be innate effects.
      • E.g. the "Rising Sun's effect" (the innate effect of the Rising Sun sword) can never be added to any item.
      • E.g. the "Nap Rattle's effect" (the innate effect of the Nap Rattle sword) can never be added to any item. (What about runes?! More below.)
    • The rest of the effects can appear as either secret pot effects or as runes, but never as innate effects.
      • E.g. the rune effect named "Tri-direction" is "Attacks in 3 directions".
      • "Attacks in 3 directions" can also appear as a secret pot effect, just without the name "Tri-direction". (It is the same effect, just the name isn't displayed.)
      • This is functionally equivalent to the innate effect "Breeze Blade's effect", but it is not identical -- more below.
    • I have never yet seen a duplicate effect on a sword or shield.
    • I haven't noticed if secret pot effects must appear in a specific order, but rune effects definitely must appear in a specific order.
• For swords and shields, an innate effect can have a relationship with at most one non-innate effect.
  • The most obvious manifestation of this relationship is that an innate effect can be turned into it's related non-innate effect as a rune.
    • E.g., you can synthesize a Gold Shield onto a Targite, thus creating the "Rustproof" rune on the Targite.
    • Gold Shield has the innate effect "Gold Shield's effect", which is related to the non-innate effect called "Rustproof" with the description "Upgrade value will never decrease".
  • But for swords and shields, the same effect can never appear twice, nor can two related effects appear on the same item.
    • If a related effect exists at a lower layer, it can't appear or be added at a higher layer.
    • So a Gold Shield (which has the "Gold Shield's effect" as its innate effect) can never have "Upgrade value will never decrease" as a secret pot effect, nor can it ever acquire the "Rustproof" rune. The innate effect and the non-innate effect are related so can't both appear on the same item.
    • In addition, any new item shield you craft that has "Upgrade value will never decrease" as a secret pot effect can also never acquire the "Rustproof" rune. These are in fact identical, a single effect, which already appears at a lower layer.
    • Someday, try equipping a Gold Shield and a sword other than the Dull Gold Edge that has the "Rustproof" rune on it, and let slime monsters try to rust your equipment. You'll notice that you get different log messages for the innate "Gold Shield's effect" than for the "Rustproof" rune.
    • Everything in this section could handle being re-tested and re-confirmed. I have sometimes seen new items that have 0 visible secret pot effects. It's possible the secret pot happened to add a SPE to the item that is related to the item's innate effect, and the game counts this as a new item, but suppresses the SPE from appearing in the UI or triggering it's effect. But more research is needed here, because I've also created a new item based on a Shugouseki (shield) that lists only "Shugouseki's effect". The game treated it as a new item, and yet, to the best of my knowledge, there is no RE/SPE related to the innate effect "Shugouseki's effect", so the latter couldn't be suppressing anything. Still, I've never yet seen a new item where a SPE is related to the innate effect, as the game seems to block this somehow.
  • Though it might seem like these innate effects are identical to their related secret pot / rune effects, they are not.
    • A rune effect can be removed by the Hermit's Hermitage blacksmith, but an innate effect can never be altered or removed.
    • An innate effect can scale up based on the item's level, but this is not true for secret pot effects / rune effects.
      • E.g. a level 1 Blast Shield ("Blast Shield") blocks 50% of explosion damage, but a level 8 Blast Shield ("Bomb Shelter") blocks significantly more than 50% of explosion damage. [TODO: Re-confirm the specific percentages of blocked damage.]
      • Rune effects appear to be functionally equivalent to their related innate effect at level 1.
      • Note that this means you can only have a single level 8 effect on a given item. Choose your base item wisely!
      • Under the hood, this may be implemented as a single innate effect that takes the item's level as a parameter, or a sequence of related innate effects one for each level of the item. The point is moot because it doesn't affect gameplay either way. The change in resonance as a Pathetic pair reaches level 8 is an interesting data point, but could be implemented either way.
• There are other weird exceptions here and there.
  • If you try to add both the Diurnal and Nocturnal runes onto a Targite shield (for example) using a Synthesis Pot, it will fail. The Targite will have whichever rune was added first and the rune you tried to add second will be lost. (Are these two non-innate effects also linked to one another and thus blocked from both appearing?) But, users have reported being able to add both the Nocturnal and Diurnal magical effects onto a single shield using Secret Pots instead. (Did the devs link "Day Shield's effect" to the Diurnal rune, and "Midnight Shield's effect" to the Nocturnal rune, *and* did they also link the Diurnal rune to the Nocturnal rune, but did they forget to also link the "Day Shield's effect" to the Nocturnal rune and the "Midnight Shield's effect" to the Diurnal rune? If my model above is correct, and if they only created 3 links between effect pairs instead of 5, it might be possible to have (e.g.) "Day Shield's effect" and Nocturnal (either as a rune or as a secret pot effect) on the same shield. TODO: do more research on this. Also, if anyone has a screenshot of these two effects on the same item, please share it!)
  • Certain cool runes can manifest on Fox equipment as it levels up. These runes can never be synthesized or mixed onto other equipment as runes, as Fox equipment is disallowed from being inserted into pots or secret pots or thrown at Mixer monsters. But, some of these cool runes can appear as secret pot effects. But, it may be the case that only some of the cool Fox runes can appear as secret pot effects while others are blocked from appearing as secret pot effects. Either that or just no one has yet reported seeing certain Fox runes as secret pot effects yet.
  • The Blazing Shield appears to be the only item in the game that has an innate effect that actually does something (as opposed to being a no-op) but which cannot be synthesized into a rune. The innate effect "Blazing Shield's effect" adds a new menu item that lets you burn other items and light up the night. Great! And there's no non-innate effect like "Igniting" that does the same thing as a rune or secret pot effect, and thus "Blazing Shield's effect" is not linked to any non-innate effect. Uh, OK. But why this exception?
  • The resonance of the Pathetic Pair appears to be the only one that changes as it levels up. Apparently, for levels 1-7, this pair of items will resonate to let you equip 2 bracelets, but when the items reach level 8, the resonance changes to do something else. Again, why this exception? (Needs more testing.)
  • The one consistent thing about Shiren 5 is that there are loads of inconsistencies!