There are thousands of items in each realm. Some are for sale by shopkeepers and player craftsmen. Others are unique and may only be obtained by completing quests or killing certain monsters. There are many different weapons and pieces of armor, as well as items used for various purposes. Some items may also have spells and modifications that can affect your character when equipped or used. Depending on your class, you may or may not be able to use certain items. Part of your character's development will be collecting and using these items.

Starting Equipment

Everyone begins the game with a single basic training weapon and possibly a shield at his or her disposal. The weapon you start out with will depend on your character's class. If you should lose your training weapon, simply return to your trainer. He will be happy to give you another. All classes come equipped with a 5-pocket backpack, and each pocket is capable of holding 8 items (or stacks of identical items). In the Inventory Panel, you can select which pocket to look in by clicking on the sack icon to the right of the inventory list. The active pocket becomes highlighted. Your character's money is displayed at the bottom of the inventory window. The denominations are copper, silver, gold, platinum and mithril.

Money Denominations

100 copper = 1 silver
100 silver = 1 copper
1000 gold = 1 platinum
1000 platinum = 1 mithril


Weapons

Your character can carry weapons and shields in different hands, depending on it's class and level. To see your character's equipped weapon(s), open the Inventory Panel and look at the slots corresponding to right hand, left hand, two handed and ranged. Initially, your character will carry a weapon in the right hand slot. Each slot represents where your character will stow a weapon when you are not in combat. To equip a weapon from inventory, select it and drag it over the appropriate slot. Or, you can drag it over the paper doll image of your character and it will automatically drop into the default slot for the type of item it is. If an item is already in that slot, it will exchange the positions with the new item and return to the inventory.

Armor

There are six armor slots, covering the body, arms, head, hands, legs and feet. When you obtain a piece of armor, you can place it in the appropriate slot, or drop it on the paper doll. If a piece of armor is already in that slot, it will exchange positions with the new piece in the inventory.

Armor Factor and Absorb

Pieces of armor have two unique statistics: Armor Factor and Absorption. Armor Factor describes it's basic effectiveness: it's ability to protect you from being hit. The higher the Armor Factor, the more protection it provides. Each piece of armor your wear adds to your overall Armor Factor, which you can see displayed on the Player Sheet.

Armor absorption describes the amount of damage a piece of armor will absorb. So, a piece of armor with an absorption of 19 would absorb 19% of a blow. Each type of armor has an absolute absorption – cloth is 0%, leather is 10%, studded (reinforced) is 19%, chain (scale) is 27%, and plate is 34%. Armor Factors on the different types of armor vary depending on the armor's material, quality and condition.

In addition to the Absorption and Armor Factor, each type of armor has a vulnerability and resistance to a certain damage type.

Albion Leather – Vulnerable to crush, resistant to thrust
Midgard Leather – Vulnerable to slash, resistant to crush
Hibernian Leather – Vulnerable to crush, resistant to slash


Albion Studded – Vulnerable to thrust, resistant to crush
Midgard Studded – Vulnerable to slash, resistant to thrust
Hibernian Studded – Vulnerable to crush, resistant to slash


Albion Chain – Vulnerable to thrust, resistant to crush
Midgard Chain – Vulnerable to thrust, resistant to slash
Hibernian Chain – Vulnerable to slash, resistant to crush


Albion Plate – Vulnerable to crush, resistant to thrust

Peripheral Equipment

Your character also has the option of wearing other types of items, including a cloak, a neck piece, jewelry, a waist piece, one or two rings, and one or two wrist pieces. Only the cloak is visible to other players, but all of the items can have special properties when worn.

Item Deterioration

In the Dark Age of Camelot weapons, armor and peripheral items all deteriorate as they are used. The less skilled a character is at using a particular type of weapon or armor, the faster it will deteriorate. Because of this, there are several different grades of equipment, and the higher grades become available to you as your character advances. Each grade represents the general durability of the item and it's effectiveness. The more durable the item, the more times it can be repaired. Over time, however, items will become too worn down to repair. When your item reaches 0% durability, it cannot be repaired. If it reaches 70% condition, it will lose many of it's bonuses, and all of it's ability to deal out or absorb damage.

The different grades of items, from lowest to highest, are common monster loot, store bought items, randomly generated items, player crafted items, rare item loot, quest items, and artifacts.

When you examine an item (by right-clicking on it), you will see its condition (how well repaired it is currently), its durability (how many times it can be repaired before becoming useless), and it's quality (how good an item it is). You will also see what bonus, if any, the item has. Bonuses on peripheral items grant no benefit.

Repairing an item will use one durability for each point of condition lost, plus one for the repair itself. Many items (especially higher end items) have durability above 100, so you may be able to repair it several times before it shows visible durability loss. The quality of an item never changes.

Object Information

Right-clicking on any item (whether in your inventory, a trade window, a store, etc.) shows you information about the item. The speed and damage for weapons, the absorption and armor factor of armor. The name of the item is color-coded, based on your level relative to the level of the object:

Gray – Too weak for you to be using, will decay very slowly
Green – Well below your level, will decay slowly
Blue – Below your level, but close; will decay slowly
Yellow – Optimal; at some levels it you may cap just below it's maximum
Orange – Above your skill level, and will decay faster
Red – Far above your skill level, will decay faster
Purple – Well beyond your skill level, the item will decay very rapidly


Armor and Weapon Dyeing and Enameling

Armors and cloaks have a base tint, but you can re-dye any armor piece and most cloaks by purchasing the appropriate dye or enamel from merchants found throughout the realms. Dye merchants sell dye (for cloth and cloaks), leather dye (for leather), and enamel (for studded, chain and plate) and each piece of your armor may be tinted individually. In addition to the store-bought dyes, there are unique dyes that can be crafted by an Alchemist, and applied to any armor and most cloaks.

Weapons dyes can be obtained by either looting them from certain high-level encounter mobs, or by crafting them from a skilled Alchemist. Dropped dyes can be applied to certain high level weapons, and player-crafted dyes can be applied to player-crafted weapons.

To dye an item, un-equip by placing it in a normal inventory slot, and drop the dye pot onto the item, then re-equip it. Voila! That piece is now tinted. Please note that you can re-dye an item as many times as you want. You can remove the tint from the item by purchasing the appropriate tint remover, available from a dye merchant or an Alchemist.

Loot!

During your sessions within Dark Age of Camelot, you will encounter both friendly and nasty creatures and monsters. When you kill one one of these monsters, it may drop one or more items on the ground. Monsters that appear as gray to you will give you no experience and will drop no loot. To target a dropped item, use either your “target object‿ key, or “nearest loot‿ key. The nearest loot key will only target items you have looting rights to. Once you have an item selected, you can pick it up with your “get‿ key. To check your key bindings for these keys, type /keyboard. You can use common weapons that may drop off monsters (who generally don't take good care of their equipment), but they will generally be inferior to player-crafted items, though they may be better then store-bought items. Some of the rarer monster loot can be outstanding to use, especially those found on high-level monsters. In addition to items, many monsters will drop coin bags, or even chests. You can pick these up the same way you pick up items.

Encumbrance

Your character's ability to carry items is limited by both your available inventory space, and your strength. Each item has a specific weight, which you can see when you examine the item (by right-clicking on it). Your character can carry weight equivalent to it's strength, rounded down to the nearest even number.Your character will start to move slower when it's encumbrance limit is reached, and will eventually be unable to move when you exceed your encumbrance by around 50%.