Cards

Killing a monster has a small chance to drop that exact monster's card — a permanent, collectible object tied to the enemy that dropped it. Every one of the 176 monster definitions in the game has its own card: 152 archetype cards (one for each normal-tier monster and one more for its elite-tier form) and 24 boss/guardian cards, one per act boss and mid-act guardian across all twelve biomes. Because coverage is 1:1, no monster in the descent is ever "dead content" — every kill still has a reason to matter.

Grades

Every card carries one of three grades, assigned mechanically from its source monster and never authored by hand: Rare for a normal-tier monster's card (76 of them), Epic for that same monster's elite-tier form (76), and Legendary for a boss or guardian card (24). A card's grade never changes once assigned, and it is separate from the rarity of the gear the card sockets into.

Drop Rate & Pity

Cards are RO-scarce by design: a normal-tier kill has a 40,000-to-1 shot at its archetype card (Rare grade), an elite-tier kill a 5,000-to-1 shot at its own (stronger, distinct) elite card (Epic grade), and a boss or guardian kill a 750-to-1 shot at its boss card (Legendary grade). Every one of the three channels carries its own pity counter, so a specific card is never truly unbounded — each exact card is guaranteed within a bounded number of matching kills without one, even on the worst luck. See each biome's page for that page's exact numbers.

Claiming and Keeping a Card

A card drop is a celebration pop-up, not an automatic grant — until you tap Claim (or tap the card itself), it isn't in your binder yet. The very first card-drop celebration shown on any given day can be claimed whenever you like, with no timer. Every one after that on the same day arms a claim-or-lose countdown: exactly 2 minutes to claim it before it slips away. Let the clock run out and the card is simply lost for good — no grant, no binder entry, and no compensation for the miss.

Once a card is yours, socketing it is never a one-way door: removing a card from an item (unsocketing) is free and instant — no gold, no material, no cooldown — and the card returns straight to your loose binder, ready to socket into something else.

Socketing a Card

A card sockets into exactly one equipment slot — the slot printed on the card itself, shown below as its badge (Weapon, Helmet, Armor, Gloves, Boots, Ring, or Necklace). Only Legendary, Cursed, Mythic, and Divine gear carries a socket at all, one socket per item no matter the piece, so a card is a late-game upgrade layered on top of an already-strong item, never a way to prop up cheap gear.

What a Card Does

A card's effect is always conditional or situational — bonus damage against a tier or range of enemy, damage reduction from a certain kind of attacker, a chance-on-hit/crit/kill proc, immunity or resistance to a status family, a build-defining stat tradeoff, or (the system's signature axis) an effect that only turns on while a specific Vow stays sealed for the run. See Vows & Ordeals for what sealing a vow means.

Play free in your browser Every card on this page drops in the descent.