Follow TV Tropes

Following

Random Drop Booster

Go To

Certain things in games will cause Random Drops and Rare Random Drops from enemies, crates, and other things to either increase in frequency and/or increase in quality.

Say the player party in a fantasy roleplaying game is wandering around the Peninsula of Power Leveling because one of the Random Encounters is a Black Knight that has a 2% chance of dropping a Disc-One Nuke weapon. One of the characters can equip an item, say the "Ring of Treasure", that increases the drop rate to 10%.

There are many ways to boost these drops. In addition to boosting equipment, characters could cast spells that temporarily increase drop rates (with the effect ending after a certain time time, a set number of battles, or as long as the characters remain in an area), or some characters could have an innate ability that boosts drops. Heck even New Game Plus can count as a booster, as some games will have drops that will not happen in a straight new game.

This can not only help in getting certain weapons (including the Infinity +1 Sword), but also aids in getting material components for Item Crafting. Some items may even have a zero drop rate without these boosters.

If the Luck Stat in a game affects item drops, then anything that boosts luck will count as this trope as well.

A Sub-Trope of Item-Drop Mechanic, Gameplay Randomization, and Meta Power-Up.

A Sister Trope to Experience Booster (which is this trope for Experience Points), Money Multiplier (which is this trope for money).

See also Encounter Bait (which increases battles, even if the drop rate is the same).

Not to be confused with Luck Manipulation Mechanic (which is about getting extra chances more than changing probabilities).


Examples

  • The Battle Cats has an item called "Treasure Radar" which, when used in a stage, will give you a 100% of getting the drop reward the stage has should you beat it. Of course, because of that, it’s also rarer than other battle items and is the only one that doesn’t have a stage that you can farm it consistently in so you will want to use them wisely.
  • Borderlands 2 features the Vault Hunter Relic (a Pre-Order Bonus or Paid DLC) that gives a +5% chance of rare loot drops. Specifically, it makes White-tier loot more likely to become Green-tier loot.
  • Borderlands 3:
    • Subverted with the Loaded Dice artifact; it's suppose to "Substantially increase your Luck'', but community testing and diving into the code revealed that it doesn't actually do anything.
    • Played straight with the Shlooter, an artifact from Vault Card #2 (Welcome to Pandora) that increased your legendary drop chance by 1000% after a kill for twelve seconds. This can be abused on certain bosses (like Graveward) that have death animations or don't die instantly to guarantee a large amount of legendary items.
    • The Butt Stallion Milk you can buy from the Borderlands Science machine for 1500 credits increases the chances for non-dedicated legendary drops.
  • Castlevania
    • The "Rare Ring" appears in several games. It increases the rate of item drops, and usually increases luck a few points. In Symphony it's called the "Ring of Arcana".
    • Castlevania: Symphony of the Night includes a cheat code as an example. Entering a certain name when starting a new game (as long as there is a cleared game on the memory card) will give the player 99 luck, but reduced stats for everything else.
      • Items that specifically increase luck include the aforementioned Ring of Arcana, the Lapis Lazuli which raises luck 20 points, and the Alucart set which seems to be a Joke Item but increases luck by 30 as a Set Bonus. Combining all of these with the 99 Luck cheat gets you Self-Imposed Challenge mode with plenty of added incentive.
    • Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow have the Soul Eater Ring, which causes enemies to drop their souls more often, allowing Soma to gain their powers.
    • The Ebisu Raiment in Castlevania: Harmony of Despair increases the chance of finding rarer items from chests.
  • City of Heroes: Many of the Day Job bonuses can give certain guaranteed item drops.
  • In the Dark Souls games there is the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring which increases item drops (not to be confused with its Silver counterpart, which increases soul drops). There is also the helmet the Symbol of Avarice which increases drop rates and soul drops, but at the cost of gradually consuming HP when when equipped.
    • In the first game the Gold Serpent Ring and the Symbol of Avarice do not stack to each other, but either one will stack with humanity (whether or not the Chosen Undead is in human form), as the first 10 humanity points will also increase the drop rate.
    • Dark Souls 2 does stack the Gold Serpent Ring and Symbol of Avarice.
      • The Gold Serpent Ring also has multiple versions (like many rings in the game), each giving better drop boosts (although the one ring per type limit still applies, even with a different bonus).
      • There are also even more armor pieces that increases drop rates, usually helmets. The explorer class even includes one of those helmets as the starting equipment.
      • Players can further increase the drop rate by using the Rusted Coin item, which temporarily boosts luck.
      • The first two New Game Plusses are boosters, in that certain items and drops will not appear until either the next playthrough, or bonfire ascetics are used in the right places.
    • Dark Souls III allows players to boost their item discovery by investing stats in Luck, and there are a ton of stacking ways to boost it: for example, wielding the Crystal Sage's Rapier and donning the Symbol of Avarice and Gold Serpent Ring will triple the chance that any given item will drop. Of course, dropping a ton of points into Luck is going to take resources from elsewhere in your build, so you may not be able to hit as hard as a more combat-focused player...unless you have a Hollow-infused weapon or Anri's Straight Sword, which scale on Luck, and/or develop an out-of-control addiction to Carthus Rouge, since the bleed build-up you inflict is luck-based.
  • Diablo II: Magic Find gear makes the items that drop more likely to be higher quality. Basically, Magic Find makes more of the items that drop be magical or better (Rare/Set/Unique). If you have 100% MF, if an item dropped normally had a 10% chance to be magical, it will now have a 20% chance. You won't get more items dropping, but the ones that do drop will be better items. More players in a game = more item drops, so you want to try and combine the MF with a big MP game for the best results. Magic Find technically still exists in Diablo III, but it's much less powerful than in II, and few items give it anyway.
  • Torchlight II has a Lucky Die socketable that increases the chances of finding a magic item.
  • Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II have the Lucky Charm Skill Score, which increases the chances of valuable loot in the randomly generated contents of chests and other containers.
  • The Thief class in Dragon Quest IX has a Limit Break called Itemized Kill, which guarantees an item drop from the enemy (even superbosses). It can be combined with the Armamentalist's Voice of Experience (more XP) to give Haulellujah (increased gold, XP and drops).
  • Etrian Odyssey has the Formaldehyde item, which makes the enemy it's used on drop all of its possible drop items, including conditional drops, as long as it's defeated on the turn the item is used.
  • Fallout games have the Scrounger perk, which allows for finding a lot more ammunition than before. A similar perk is Fortune Finder, which increases the chance and amount of caps found.
  • Final Fantasy games have Treasure Hunter (also known as Master Thief, Rare Item, Item Collector, Pickpocket, or Bandit) ability, that typically allows players to increase the chance of gaining rarer items, from battle, either via item drops or stealing, or both. In terms of its functionality, it shares its traits with the Thief Gloves and the Thief's Hat which also increase the rates of stealing.
  • Golden Sun: Killing monsters with the elemental Djinn they're weakest to gives more experience, money, better stat boosts if levelling up, and increases the item drop chance.
  • Granblue Fantasy:
    • An item in the Journey Drop Shop allows players to increase the drop rate of items in battles.
    • The Kaguya, White Rabbit, and Black Rabbit summons also have this as their passive effects.
    • The "Bounty Hunter" debuff on enemies increase the chances of getting additional treasure chests depending on the number of stacks.
  • Kingdom Hearts: The recurring Lucky Strike (Lucky Lucky in Kingdom Hearts II) ability increases the chances of an enemy dropping an item when killed.
  • Kingdom of Loathing has equipment and buffs that increase item drops.
  • There are several in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: the Treasure Medal, which makes gear upgrade items appear more often; the Bug Medal, which is the same as the above, only they are used to increases a potion's potency; and the Cursed Medal, which is a combo of the above, only with the drawback of being unable to open your Adventure Pouchnote  until said medal is dropped off at the Item Check. The Treasure and Bug Medals can be obtained in Beedle's Air Shop, while the Cursed Medal is a milestone reward as part of a long side quest.
  • The Logomancer: The Temptes Tuxedo doubles the drop rate of items.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the Game Boy Horror SP guarantees enemies will drop rare items if they could potentially drop it. If you do not have this item, the Super Swing Bros. move will retrieve the rare drop the targeted enemy would drop.
  • In Mega Man Battle Network 3 onward, you can install a certain program for Mega Man that will make every post-random battle drop a Battle Chip instead of money (normally it's either one of the two).
  • In Mega Man Zero games, enemies may or may not either drop a recovery item, an Energy Crystal (basically Energy Economy) or, rarely, an extra life. In every game except the first, you can obtain a Cyber Elf that, when used, can make every enemy drops something.
  • Minecraft has the Looting enchant for weapons, which increases the chance and maximum number of mob drops, and the Fortune enchant for tools which does the same for resource blocks.
  • In Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, issuing a "death threat" to an Uruk captain or Warchief makes them more difficult to kill and grants them extra protection, but increases the quality of the rune that they drop.
  • In Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds, Energy Drinks boost drops of EXP, gold and items by 700%, while Sweet Drinks accomplish the same thing minus the EXP. Aroma of Focus boosts the drop rate of monster Specialties/Soulstones by 700%. There have also been a number of other items offered on a limited time basis through events which increase drop rates by a lesser amount, generally only 200%.
  • Paladog has a type of ring that increases the chances of finding rings when killing enemies.
  • Palworld has certain Pals whose Partner Skills will passively increase both the chances of getting double drops and the chances of finding Rare Random Drops from Pals of a specific element, as long as the Pal is active. For example, Orserk's "Ferocious Thunder Dragon" Partner Skill increases the chances of Water-Element Pals dropping more loot, allowing the player to farm Pal Fluids required for late-game items more easily.
  • Path of Exile has the the Item Quantity mod, which increase the chance of enemies dropping more items. There's also the Item Rarity mod, which only increases the chance of an item dropping with a higher rarity class. Maps can be modified to increase item drops while making them harder, while also increasing monster density to indirectly increase the number of items found per map. Various map enhancers can be used to add specific bonuses to a map.
  • In Persona 5 Royal, if you find enough stamps in Mementos, you can trade them in to Jose to increase the random item drop chance for battles in the area.
  • Phantasy Star Online 2 has them in spades, mainly the Rare Drop Rate tickets (most commonly the +250% variety) and Tri-Boosters that combine this function with an Experience Booster and Money Multiplier at the same time, although other sources such as the Alliance Tree and Freemium subscription benefits also have it. Using rare drop boosters was so common that they were basically mandatory for a chance to get Rare Random Drop items, and almost all drop rates in later Episodes were balanced around the assumption that they were always on. Rare Drop Rate tickets continue to persist into Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, although unlike the previous game they are not freely available to buy and are much weaker, making them borderline Too Awesome to Use.
  • Pokémon
    • Certain Pokemon have an ability called Compound Eyes. It's main effect is to increase the accuracy of moves. However, it also has an effect outside of battle of increasing the chances that a wild Pokémon will be holding an item.
    • Another ability, called Frisk, activates when the opponent is holding an item and reveals what the opposing Pokémon is holding.
  • Ragnarok Online has the Bubble Gum item, which increases item drop rates by 100% (in other words, doubles the drop rate) for 30 minutes. It's not an ordinary item and is usually only available through buying via cash shop. There's also a stronger version called High Efficiency Bubble Gum, which triples the drop rate, and is usually only given out as an event prize.
  • Resident Evil 6: some skills increase the chance of item drops, some for specific ones like a particular type of ammunition.
  • In Rune Factory 4 the Lucky Ring increases your rate of rare drops when you kill monsters.
  • Armor Games' Web Game Sin Mark: having the Lucky Charm trinket equipped increases the chance of slain enemies dropping trinkets.
  • Shantae and the Seven Sirens: The Muckgal Monster Card "Increases the odds of collecting dropped Hearts!"
  • Shadow Hearts games: both the Bandit and Pirate Earrings with a twist: The first increases money won by 20% but decreases item acquisition by the same amount. The later does the opposite. From the New World goes a extra mile and justifies this via Flavor Text: the Bandits only stole money because they didn't want to carry heavy stuff back home and the pirates only wanted items because there's no use for money in the high seas due to lack of shops.
  • Terra Battle: Treasure Hunter increases item drop probability.
  • The World Ends with You allows you to increase your item drop rate by temporarily reducing your experience level or chaining several battles together without healing in-between. Late in the game, you can increase it permanently by eating Absolute Shadow Ramen.
  • Torchlight has the Treasure Hunter skill which increases the chance of finding loot.
  • The Wakfu MMORPG has a character stat called Prospecting, which increases the quality and quantity of the loot your party gains after a battle. Unlike other stats like health and damage, Prospecting cannot be increased by leveling up your character. Instead, you can boost it by equipping the right gear, keeping the ecosystem in balance, or by completing optional challenges during a battle. Players of the Enutrof class, who are depicted in-universe as greedy treasure hunters, gain a natural bonus to their Prospecting stat.
  • Warframe has a Resource Drop Chance Booster, doubling drop chances for components. Recently added was a similar booster for Mods.
  • In Xenoblade Chronicles 1 Riki has innate abilities that will increase enemies dropping better loot: one for medium quality loot, and one for high quality loot. These abilities can be shared among other party members if they have enough affinity points with him.
  • Three item stat modifiers in Wynncraft serve this trope, each in a different way.
    • Loot Bonus increases the chance of finding special items upon killing a mob or opening a loot chest, such as gear and crafting ingredients.
    • Loot Quality increases the chance of finding rarer items and ingredients from mob drops and loot chests.
    • Stealing gives a chance for a mob to cough up an emerald when hit, and can produce up to five emeralds per mob.
  • XCOM 2 has a Guerilla Tactics School where you can use supplies (money) to purchase permanent upgrades to your fighting force. One of them is Vulture, which makes it so that any time enemies drop equipment, they drop an extra piece of gear. The fact that it's a Guerilla Tactics school upgrade, along with the fact that as a resistance movement, XCOM now relies on scavenging and looting supplies, implies that it teaches soldiers how to check hiding places and equipment that the soldiers would otherwise be inclined to overlook when looting their fallen foes.

Non-Video Game Examples:

  • Family of the Shield has Naofumi Iwatani gain 17 different Shields for his Legendary Shield that grant him stacking boosts to his Item Drops:
    • The Lucky Charm Shield and the three Coin Series Shieldsnote  all grants Naofumi four "Small" Item Drop Chances.
    • The Druggist's Mortar Shield, Wood Shield, Leaf Shield, Flower Petal Shield, and Bountiful Shield are useful for any materials that Naofumi himself collects: by increasing the quantity he can harvest by 15%, and the materials' overall quality by a total of 30%.
    • The Carrier Shield has a 10% chance of absorbing Venom and Poison attacks done to him and transform them into Poison and Venom Vials that he can find in his inventory; which also stacks with both the Crystal Ore Shield and Engraving Shield that "Slightly" and "Moderately" increases the quality of things Naofumi crafts respectively, the Beaker Shield that increases the quality of liquid compounds Naofumi makes by 10%, the Poison Newt Shield that causes Poisons made by Naofumi to be 5% better, the Black Scorpion Shield that makes any Poisons he makes last 10% longer, and the Wolfsbane Shield that causes Antidotes and Poisons made by Naofumi to be stronger based on his own Poison Resistance rating: which is currently at +95 by the latest Chapter.
    • The Karma Rabbit Shield offers a slight chance at bonus items on Monsters when looting them after killing a certain number. This however isn't a Passive ability, so Naofumi must have the shield equipped in order to benefit from its' effects.
  • I Woke Up As a Dungeon, Now What?: Defeating a boss monster or gauntlet room will cause all chests on the same floor to produce better loot.
  • Vainqueur The Dragon: As said in the first chapter, the Noble class's Old Money skill does this with a Percent-Based Values effect of doubling, in certain circumstances:
    double the chances of monsters dropping treasure after death.

Top