Your inventory and managing them are very important in order to progress in the game. You can find tips on ingredients and ingredient combinations, supplies and more in this guide.
This guide was created by Ahab.
Provisions
This tutorial is made for Stygian difficulty, so in case you are playing on an easier difficulty, be sure to bring less torches than mentioned here .
Inventory management is essential to make any progress in this game. Keeping a balance between heirlooms, gold and supplies is almost impossible, so you do the best you can. I’m afraid that’s the part that you should figure out for yourself.
However, you will find many, many tips and tutorials on how to gear up for quests, I can show you how I do things, but in the end, you may find some other combination that’s better for you. That’s the beauty of this game. The last part of this guide will feature pictures of complete supply combinations for all types of dungeons.
Food
Yum, yum!
Food is where it all begins. Your heroes need to eat in dungeons, and they get an uncomfortable ammount of stress if they don’t. That’s why food is even more important than torches. In most cases, your heroes will eat 4 food per hunger check, that’s why you should buy food 4 units at a time.
You also need food for camping. Always use ‘feast’ – the option which spends double portions! Don’t cheap out on food. The stress and HP heal can be a lifesaver for tough expeditions!
Circled in the dark, the battle may yet be won.
There are some cases in which your heroes will use more or less than 4 units of food:
1) The quirks ”stress eater” and ”stress faster” make a hero eat more or less when their stress hits 50, making the party eat 5 or 3 food instead of 4.
2) BLOODTHIRST RING. This bad boy gives your hero the stat ”-100% food consumed”. In other words, that hero doesn’t eat… And yes, if 4 heroes have it, you don’t even need food.
3) Tapeworm. This disease makes your hero eat +100% food, or just double portions. It’s really useful to remove this disease as soon as possible.
In any of these cases, just do the math for food per hunger check. It’s very important to know how much food you need per party if you’re going to use my ”food formula”, and here it goes:
- Short expeditions always require 8 food (2x hunger check)
- Medium expeditions require 12 + 8 food (1x feast, 3x hunger check)
- Long expeditions require 12 + 12 + 4 food (2x feast, 3x hunger check)
If your heroes consume more or less food, just adapt the formula.
IMPORTANT: Sometimes long expeditions require more than 3 hunger checks. If they turn out to be loooong looong hallways, you may want to adapt the ammount of food you use for camping, and it’s okay.
Torches
Torches are essential if you want to complete any dungeon. Some people do dungeons without any torches, using trinkets good for low light conditions – high risk, high reward. For the purpose of this section, we will presume you want to be in well lit conditions.
A torch gives you +25 points of light. The harder the difficulty, the more torches you need. Keeping the light meter above 75 is a healthy way to play this game. Don’t light the next torch if your light is over 75 though, that way your torch is not fully used – e.g. 79 + 25 = 100, so you waste 4 ”torch points”. Not much, but if it’s done 16 times, it’s a few wasted torches.
Camping sets light level to 100! You can use this by planning ahead for a place to camp and letting the light level drop a bit before you camp. That way you save some torches.
Keep in mind that while expeditions in Ruins and Cove are ‘normal’, the maps in Warrens are usually a lot shorter and grid-like, while Weald maps are mostly looong hallways – don’t carry the same number of torches to all locations!
Now, my ”torch formula”:
| Dimensions | Ruins | Cove | Warrens | Weald |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short | 8 | 8 | 6 | 8 + 2 |
| Medium | 8 + 6 | 8 + 6 | 8 + 4 | 8 + 8 + 2 |
| Long | 8 + 8 + 2 | 8 + 8 + 2 | 8 + 8 | 8 + 8 + 6 |
Shovel
Gravedigging is not the healthiest of professions…
The most important supply item after food and torches. Shovels are used to clear randomly placed rubble and obstacles in hallways. If you don’t have a shovel in those places, your heroes will lose some HP and get some stress and lose a lot of torchlight. It’s like a failed hunger check. If you don’t have a shovel, try to find a different path, otherwise grit your teeth and suffer the penalties. It’s not going to be a gamechanger… probably >:)
Trust me, it’s better to have one extra shovel than getting stress, losing torchlight and hp.
I figured out how to do tables so I’m spamming them now hehe.
”Shovel formula”
| Duration | Amount |
|---|---|
| Short | 2 |
| Medium | 3 |
| Long | 3 (4 in ruins) |
Shovels can also be used for some curio interaction, mostly as an alternative to skeleton keys.
Skeleton Key
Hello, I like money.
Skeleton keys are used for opening chests, locked cabinets and other curios that give you loot (unless Reynauld gets some funny ideas…). They are awesome, but they use up a spot in your backpack. The spot will be more and more important as you progress through the dungeon.
There’s not much more to say, time for the ”key formula”:
| Duration | Amount |
|---|---|
| Short | 1 |
| Medium | 2 |
| Long | 3 |
IMPORTANT: A great combo I found out while playing is this – Keys and shovels work together. If you run out of keys, a shovel can do the trick (sacrificing an unsignificant part of loot from the curio)
- 1 key – 2 shovels
- 2 keys – 3 shovels
- 3 keys – 4 shovels
You see a pattern here, don’t you? 🙂
Medicinal Herbs
This is a great supply item! Herbs remove a hero’s debuffs. Especially useful if you get one of those ”+15% stress until camp” debuffs!
Herbs are also used for a lot of curio interactions. They are a welcome addition to any dungeon, but the best use for them is interacting with ”eerie corals” (shown below) in Cove maps. Eerie corals used with herbs remove a negative quirk from the hero interacting… Awesome, right?
Food from ”beast carcass” in Weald, loot from ”iron maiden” in Ruins (Iron Maiden wants you for dead! /m/ ), DMG buffs from barrels in Warrens, negative quirk healing in Cove… Bring herbs wherever you go.
”herb formula”:
| Location | Short | Medium | Long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruins | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Cove | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Weald | none | 1 | 1 |
| Warrens | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Holy Water
- Now we’re getting to more situational supplies.
- Holy water gives you a 3-round buff for 33% bleed, blight and debuff resistances. It’s not a very useful buff, but it’s great for curio interactions. Holy water should be used on all spiritual-looking things – altars, urns, effigies…
- You don’t really need a lot of holy waters outside of the Ruins. Other locations have really few places where you would need holy water. If you go to Warrens, Weald or Cove, you will most likely end up throwing away the holy waters…. Table time!
”holy water formula”:
| Location | Short | Medium | Long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruins | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Cove | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Weald | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Warrens | none | none | none |
Antivenom
Antivenom cures blight. That’s… about everything I can say haha.
I don’t think antivenom is needed for healing, just have your healer deal with the damage. The exception would be champion (lvl 5) weald dungeons, where enemies can stack massive blight damage over time and it would be really useful then, if you don’t have a Plague Doctor in your party.
Bring 4 antivenoms to champion weald dungeons if you wish to use them for healing!
table time!
| Location | Short | Medium | Long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruins | none | none | none |
| Cove | none | none | 1 |
| Weald | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Warrens | none | none | none |
Bandage
Bandages are very similar to antivenom. They can be used to cure bleeding, and that’s their main purpose. They are useful for some curios in Weald and the rack of blades in Warrens, otherwise not needed.
Again, if you visit lvl 5 Cove dungeons, you should bring some bandages to heal, if you don’t have a Plague Doctor. The big boi crabs deal too much bleed damage, so better safe than sorry, right?
4 bandages to lvl 5 Cove dungeons if you wish to use them for healing!
| Location | Short | Medium | Long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruins | none | none | none |
| Cove | none | none | none |
| Weald | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Warrens | none | 1 | 1 |
Laudanum
Laudanum cures ‘horror’, which gives stress over time, like blight or bleed. Most players never carry any laudanum, because it’s really the most situational provision in this game. Most enemies deal stress, rather than horror, and summed up, you get like 15 stress total.
My advice: Carry laudanum if you’re using heroes who have over 50-ish stress before they enter a dungeon. It’s not a good idea to use stressed out heroes for dungeons, but sometimes you just don’t have a choice.
Notes
Before going to the Cheat sheet, I’ll just write some thoughts regarding DLC, gameplay, meaning of life etc.
Shieldbreaker gets massive horror when she encounters snakes from nightmares. Unfortunately, laudanum will not cure her horror.
If you have Crimson Court, buy all bandages. Those vampire bastards give you too much bleed damage and you’ll find bandages veeery useful there.
I haven’t covered DLC provisions yet, but I may write about them soon.
If you have played this game for a few hours, you noticed the hero Antiquarian. She is not a fighter, she is a scavenger. If you have one in your party, you will get more loot and heirlooms. My advice for so called ”antiquarian runs” is to use one Antiquarian in a party for short dungeons, bringing a bit more holy waters, antivenoms, bandages and keys than usual. That way you could get around 20.000 coins for one short dungeon. Not bad, eh? For longer expeditions you are better off with any other hero, healer or fighter. (Although I finished the 3rd Darkest Dungeon using an Antiquarian who buffed dodge for the party and had like 90 dodge herself hehe).
My experiences in dungeons led me to these supply combinations. There are no perfect combinations. You may play one dungeon, using my methods, which goes really smoothly, the next one will go terribly. Maybe the formulas work out great all together. Maybe you won’t like any of them. In time you will know the tragic extent of my failings you will find the combinations which work best for you. Be curious, explore different combinations! Tinker with the mechanics as much as you can!
You can’t avoid failing some dungeons or losing heroes. You just can’t. It’s better to retreat than lose the whole party. The sin is not in being outmatched, but in failing to recognize it.
