The Six Starter Kits

"Every runner draws a kit. The kit is the runner's first decision, retroactively rebranded as their first opportunity."

When a runner arrives at the Bay, they choose from six loadouts — or let the Network choose for them, which it frames as the same thing. The Programming Director maintains that the runner chose their kit. The Bay paperwork records the kit as assigned. The audience is encouraged to enjoy both readings.

Three of the six — Blunt, Trigger, and Blade — are the legible starting points the Network recommends to a new runner. The other three — Cyber, Survival, and Signal — are advanced kits: complete, selectable, and a little more to manage. None of them is locked; the kit is a starting position, not a class.

Every kit ships with the runner's signature weapon, a primary skill the gear scales on, and one or two kit-identity consumables. The kits are mechanically distinct without being unbalanced — the Network has been careful here. A blunt runner and a trigger runner playing the same Floor 1 should find themselves with different problems, not different difficulties.

A note on fire, current, and stealth. There is still no "Electrical kit," no "Thermal kit," and no "Stealth kit." Fire and current are damage channels — flavors of damage any runner can deliver, not loadouts you start in — and stealth is a build path (Stealth Routing) a runner grows into, most naturally from the Blade kit. The floor still burns and shocks; you just won't be issued a torch or a taser as your identity.

The Signal kit is not the exception it looks like. A Signal runner arrives holding a remote and nothing else — no channel, no element, no flavor. What they can do later is tune that remote to a channel, which is a thing they choose on the floor and can un-choose the same afternoon. They are not issued fire. They are issued a device, and fire is one of the settings.

The Blunt Kit

⚒

Identity. The smasher. Two hands, no shield, all impact. The runner who arrives with something heavy and a plan to put it through whatever's in the way.

Signature weapon. Pry Bar — a 2H heavy-blunt weapon. Two techniques: Strike (the daily heavy hit) and Haymaker (a telegraphed wind-up that lands hard and shoves the target back). No offhand, so no shield and no Brace — the kit's only defense is dropping the threat first.

Primary skill. Blunt Force Trauma — scales every melee damage roll the runner makes. Trains by hitting things. Crucially, BFT is also where the lockdown lives: level it and your hits start to stagger — the weapon brings the impact, the skill turns impact into "nobody gets a turn."

Kit identity. The all-in bruiser, opposite the Blade duelist. The blunt runner closes distance and overwhelms — cover means less to them than to a ranged runner; they need to be in the same room as their problem. The trade is range, tempo, and zero shield. Knockback is contested, not free: a defiant target stays put. "The blunt runner brings the floor to them." — The Programming Director, on a recent Floor 1 broadcast.

Best paired with. Mend (you take more hits, take better care of yourself), Improvisational Weaponry (your weapon can become something else).

The 1h baton family (Reinforced Baton, Field Baton) is a found/crafted guardian alternative — a one-handed blunt that frees the offhand for a shield and parry. The kit ships the smasher; the guardian is a build you grow into.

The Trigger Kit

◎

Identity. Distance. Patience. The line of sight.

Signature weapon. Slingshot — improvised, ammo-fed, surprisingly accurate. Three techniques: Quick Shot (the daily attack, costs ammo), Aimed Shot (commit-shot for crit), Plink (a free baseline fired from floor debris — no ammo required, low damage, always available).

Primary skill. Trigger Discipline — scales every ranged damage roll. Trains by hitting things at range.

Kit identity. The trigger runner controls space. They want corridors, sight lines, and time to set up the shot. They don't want to be in the room with the problem. The trade is durability — they fold in melee. Plink ensures they never run completely dry, even when scrap metal is gone.

Best paired with. Stealth Routing (don't be where the problem is), Survival (set up the shot before the problem arrives).

The Survival Kit

⊞

Identity. The hunter. Read the room, rig it, and let the floor do the work. The runner who never picks a fair fight — they pick the ground.

Signature gear. A trap-rigging tool (Loose Tool Roll, worn in the off-hand) plus the kit's two set-pieces: the Cable Snare and the Clatter Lure. The snare goes on a cell the runner expects something to cross; the lure is thrown past it to draw a hostile across the wire. A snared target is rooted — held in place while the floor's hazards come due. Worn in the off-hand, the tool also makes everything the runner throws, every trap they set and every hazard they set off hit harder — more with a better tool, and more as Survival rises — and it makes the rat's trip line harder to shrug off and the heals it fetches stronger. Carried in the bag, it does none of this. A trap kit holds a few charges, more on a better kit, and they work only while it is in your off-hand: a charge throws a Tape Bomb or covers the missing parts for a tripwire, pressure plate or proximity mine, and the Certified Class III kit or better can spend them to patch up a downed rat. A charge also rigs the room: beside a toxic drum it sets the drum to catch fire and burst when a hostile comes next to it, and beside a chemical runoff puddle it puts a current through the puddle for a few seconds; either way the hazard hurts hostiles as well as runners, spares your party (and you, by a puddle you wired, but not by a drum), and its kills are yours. From Survival 1, each fight you win with the kit in your off-hand gives one back, and Sanctuary refills them all. At the bench in Floor 0's puzzle room the Loose Tool Roll and the puzzle's Tension Spring become a Janitech Hazard Kit, the first of Floor 1's kits; the Certified Class III kit is built from Survival 10, and the Custodian's Wet Floor Sign, the best, sets a caution sign that slips hostiles who come near it.

Primary skill. Survival — scales the runner's rigs and, crucially, trains without dealing weapon damage. Setting a snare, drawing a hostile onto it, springing the room, catching an animal, disarming a hazard, or escaping a lethal spot all grant Survival XP. The Survival runner levels by staging the kill — or surviving the floor — not by landing the swing.

Kit identity. The Survival runner is control, not damage. Their lethality lives in the environment — a snare into an ignited gas valve, a lure across a tripwire, a rooted target standing in standing water for someone else to shock. The signature loop is read → rig → lure → spring: position the trap, pull the target onto it, and trigger the hazard. The trade is that none of it is fast or direct — a Survival runner caught in the open with nothing rigged is the most exposed runner on the floor. Played to its identity, it's the kit that turns a pipe gallery into a kill box, and the on-ramp to the floor's deeper environmental play — and, later in the descent, to animal companions.

The other half: catching the wildlife. The same snare that roots a hostile roots a rat. A snared animal is held, not captured — use a Crude Cage on it to crate it into a Caged Specimen you can carry, sell, or bring home to the Sanctuary show cage as a pet. See Survival and Trapping.

The rat is the kit's companion. The Pipe Rat a Survival runner tames on Floor 0 fights beside them on Floor 1, and it levels up on its own as the runner fights near it. While it is out, three techniques send it: Bite runs it at a hostile and bites, harder as the rat levels up; at Survival 5, Trip has it string a trip line that hurts the first hostile to step on it and knocks it down; at Survival 10, Fetch has it carry one of the runner's heals to them or a party member, or a lure to a square. Each one costs the runner's turn and the rat's. A rat that goes down rests in its cage and is back on its feet after a stay at home. Catching it is optional: once you have completed Floor 0's directives, every Survival runner you create afterward that season starts on Floor 1 with a Pipe Rat and the Hazard Kit in the off-hand. The specialist companions arrive on later floors.

Advanced kit — and that's the point. Blunt, Trigger, and Blade are the beginner picks. Survival is one of the three that isn't: a multi-tool kit with a combine-the-tools ceiling, not a point-and-swing weapon. It rewards the runner who wants to think about the floor. It also carries a poor melee fallback on purpose — every kit has one — but a Survival runner who is reduced to swinging it has lost the plot of the kit.

Best paired with. Trigger (set the trap, then take the shot from across the room), Demolition (the hazards a rigged room is built around), Salvage Sense (the floor's cordage and components are the kit's ammunition).

The Blade Kit

🗡

Identity. Close and precise. The duelist who turns a blocked hit into an opening and lets the wound do the rest.

Signature weapon. Combat Knife — a one-handed piercing blade. Two techniques: Quick Stab (the daily attack) and Slash (opens a bleed that follows the target out of the room).

Primary skill. Blade — scales every blade hit; precision, bleed amplification, and Anatomy Read positioning. Trains by hitting things.

Kit identity. The blade runner is a counter-fighter. The one-handed blade leaves a free offhand for a shield, and the kit ships one — which makes Parry a reliable defense: time it, deflect, and riposte. The signature loop is parry → riposte → the target is now bleeding → your precision bonus lands harder on a wounded mark. Where the blunt runner plants and soaks, the blade runner deflects and bleeds you out. The trade is reach and burst: you win on attrition and timing, not one big swing.

Best paired with. Mend (you live in melee range), Stealth Routing (don't be seen lining up the cut).

The Cyber Kit

🖧

Identity. Delegated. Networked. The runner who doesn't face the floor alone — they bring a unit.

Signature weapon. MR-T1 Handset — a consumer-grade remote for a Merritt Robotics home-assistant droid. The Handset isn't the weapon; the MR-T1 droid is. The runner deploys it, points it, and the droid does the work. Its techniques are commands, not swings: Focus Fire, Overclock, Diagnostic Patch, Shock Pulse (the area discharge, available once Cyber Tinkering reaches L15), and Improvised Jolt — a feeble built-in stun-prod that surfaces only when the runner has no live droid.

Primary skill. Cyber Tinkering — scales the droid's damage, splices the floor's electronic locks and terminals, and reads the security state of anything hackable.

Kit identity. The cyber runner commands a second body. The MR-T1 ("Mister T-1") is a player-owned companion — it takes its own combat turn, follows the runner across rooms, and obeys standing orders (Follow / Guard / Engage / Hold / Stand Down). The droid's damage scales off the runner's Cyber Tinkering, so the discipline that opens the floor's locks also makes the droid hit harder. The trade is fragility and dependence: the droid can be destroyed, and a runner without a live droid is down to the Handset's emergency jolt. Kit identity ships with a Homecoming Cartridge (redeploys a lost droid — one use) and a Repair Patch (field-heals the droid's chassis).

Best paired with. Electrical Engineering (the droid's discharge and the floor's current reinforce each other), Survival (let the droid hold the line while the floor does the rest).

Sponsor. Merritt Robotics — working-class consumer robotics. "A Merritt is family."

When your droid is destroyed

A destroyed droid does not come back on its own. There's no respawn timer — getting Mister T-1 back on his feet is always a deliberate act, and it always costs you something.

You start every run with exactly one Homecoming Cartridge, and it's single-use. Spend it and you're droidless until you get another. That scarcity is the point: the cartridge is a second life, not a respawn button.

There are three ways to get another, all live on Floor 1:

• Salvage — the cheap path. A destroyed droid leaves a lootable wreck holding an MR-T1 Service Core. Carry the Core to a workbench, combine it with a length of wire, and you have a fresh cartridge for far less than building one from scratch. The catch: the wreck is contestable. It sits on the floor like any other loot, and anyone can take it — including whoever just destroyed your droid.
• Craft from scratch. At a workbench, electronic components plus dense scrap metal make a cartridge with no wreck required. More expensive than salvage, but it doesn't depend on recovering the body.
• Buy from Sully. Her supply window sells cartridges for around 8 chits. The priciest option and the most reliable — it's there whether or not you can reach the wreck.

If you have no cartridge and no live droid, you're down to the Handset's built-in Improvised Jolt — a feeble stun-prod, and the cyber runner's only personal attack. It's a fallback, not a plan; get a droid back as soon as you can.

Parking is not death. Below Cyber Tinkering L20, unequipping the Handset parks the droid instead of destroying it — Mister T-1 is preserved, and re-equipping the Handset brings him back for free, no cartridge spent. So if your droid "didn't come back," check whether it was parked and re-equip the Handset before you spend a cartridge. Only an actually destroyed droid needs one.

The Signal Kit

!

Identity. Production decides the target deserves less HP. The runner who never has to be in the room, never has to see what they are shooting, and never wins quickly.

Signature weapon. Broken Production Remote — a cracked Standards & Practices handset that still talks to the floor. Two techniques: Punish, the daily attack, which reaches eight cells and does not require line of sight; and Protective Bubble, a self-cast skin of air that halves incoming melee for a while. The remote hits softest of any starting weapon and reaches furthest by a wide margin.

Primary skill. Signal — the discipline of talking to a floor that was never meant to take requests. It scales the remote, and it is the only way of fighting on this floor that treats a wall as a formality.

Kit identity. The Signal runner is reach without pressure. Everything else on the roster answers "how do I win this fight"; the remote answers "why am I in this fight." Eight cells and no line-of-sight means a Signal runner can open on something that does not know where they are, and keep opening on it from a room it cannot path to quickly. The trade is real and it is not subtle: the lowest direct damage in the game, so expect long fights and win them by never being where the swing lands. A Signal runner caught in a doorway is a Signal runner losing.

And then it becomes something else. The remote can be specialised into a channel, later, on the floor, for free — and un-specialised just as cheaply. Specialising doesn't add a technique, it replaces Punish:

Every channel trades some of the hit for something that keeps happening after it. Both the channel's skill and Signal train at full rate, so a specialised Signal runner is not choosing which discipline to level — they are choosing what their attack leaves behind.

Advanced kit — and the label is not flattery. Signal asks a new runner to be patient with the smallest numbers on the floor, to fight from positions instead of from stats, and then hands them a second decision they were not expecting. It is the kit that rewards knowing the room.

Best paired with. Stealth Routing (never be where the answer is), Survival (a rooted target eight cells away is not going anywhere).

Provenance. Not a sponsor — a department. Standards & Practices is the desk that decides what airs and what gets quietly reclassified off-broadcast, and this is their remote. It is cracked, it is on the floor, and nobody has filed to have it returned. The Programming Director has opinions about S&P that she does not broadcast.

A note on choice

The Network does not require runners to commit to their kit's primary skill. A blunt-kit runner who trains Cyber Tinkering is a blunt-kit runner with cyber skills — they will be slower than a runner who arrived in the cyber kit, but the floor will not stop them. The kit is a starting position, not a class.

That said: the Network has observed that runners who lean into their kit's identity die later, on average, than runners who don't. The Programming Director offers no comment on the correlation.

Next → Weapons & Gear — The gear, the techniques, the numbers.