Health Capacity, or Maximum Hit Points (HP), is the amount of damage a character can take before they die. Health is displayed at the top left of the HUD as spheres filled with red. One full bubble of health represents 2 Hit Points, and a partially filled bubble represents a single Hit Point. Bosses' health is also displayed in the HUD at the top-right corner, and it fills up only in the form of purple bubbles when the boss fight begins, being empty the rest of the time. During Co-Op, bosses will have additional health in the form of gray bubbles displayed over the regular purple ones, the number of which varies depending on the boss fight. All other Enemies also have health, but it is never displayed on screen.
During a New Game Plus, any damage suffered will result in a loss of twice the number of Hit Points compared to a normal playthrough, with various cheat codes also altering that number in some way.
Various methods exist to regain health after it has been partially depleted, like eating food, using curative items (Ichor of Renewal ,Health Tonics, Leech Liquid, Will Skull), entering a new stage, or collecting a permanent health upgrade, in which case any lost health will be refilled before increasing in quantity.
Health[]
Shovel of Hope[]
Shovel Knight starts with 8 Hit Points at the start of Shovel of Hope. Health Capacity can be increased by increments of 2 points by buying meals from the Gastronomer in exchange for Meal Tickets. 3 Meal Tickets can be purchased from the Goatician (for the prices of 1000, 4000, and 6000 respectively) with 3 more being found in the chest at Shovel Knight's camp each time he clears a quadrant of The Valley, for a maximum of 20 Hit Points after redeeming all of the Meal Tickets in the game.
Plague of Shadows[]
Like Shovel Knight, Plague Knight starts with 8 Hit Points as well. Unlike Shovel Knight, there are no Meal Tickets for Plague Knight to redeem. Instead, after completing each quadrant of The Valley, Mona (Or Percy) will give Plague Knight a Health Potion, increasing his Health Capacity by 2 points each time, for a maximum of 14 permanent Hit Points. His health can be further upgraded (albeit temporarily) through the use of Health Tonics, which increase his Health Capacity by 2 green bubbles for each tonic consumed, which will disappear if he dies. These can be used to give Plague Knight a temporary maximum Health Capacity of no more than 20.
King of Cards[]
In King of Cards, King Knight's health is represented by a meter of red hearts. He starts with 4 hearts and can refill his health by collecting heart-shaped pickups, in addition to the usual food items. Unlike the other playable knights, anything that damages King Knight will deal one full heart of damage. Furthermore hearts can be recovered during battle by damaging sturdy foes, which will pop out healing hearts after three successful hits against them; hearts will always pop out the opposite direction from which the hit was delivered. Alternatively, the use of the Healing Hammer will always pop out two healing hearts after each successful hit. By paying his mother to cook Hearty Meat Pies for him, King Knight can increase his Health Capacity by one heart for each pie consumed, up to a maximum of 10 hearts.
Showdown[]
Unlike the normal campaigns, the Health in Showdown is represented only with full bubbles, for a possible maximum of 4 hit points; each attack always deals the same amount of damage, meaning that up to four hits are necessary to down an opponent, after which they lose one of their Life Stock. The color of the bubbles depends on team color, meaning that a blue team will have blue health, a red team red health and a green team green health bubbles.
Pocket Dungeon[]
In Pocket Dungeon Health is counted once again in full bubbles, with the playable character having red ones and bosses having a total of 20 health points, composed of 10 white armor bubbles and 10 purple health bubbles. Playable characters have initially only 5 health bubbles, but they can potentially increase its quantity if they find Meal Tickets and Premium Meal Tickets for purchase, which will respectively raise the health quantity of two and three bubbles. Whenever attacking an enemy damage is always traded, meaning that the health meter is constantly dropping, making Potions an indispensable healing item, with Specter Knight being the only character that does not benefit from its effects.
Will[]
In Specter of Torment, Specter Knight's undead nature makes it so that he doesn't have health, but instead has green Will, which contributes to his Will Capacity, or Maximum Will Points. Specter Knight starts with 8 Will Points. His Will Capacity can be increased by increments of 2 points by finding Willful Wisps, 6 of which are hidden in various stages across The Valley, meaning Specter Knight has a maximum Will Capacity of 20, similar to Shovel Knight's maximum Health Capacity. If Specter Knight completes a stage that has a Willful Wisp without collecting the wisp, he will be able to buy the missed wisp from Missy.
Specter Knight also has a cloak that directly deals with Will Capacity, the Raiment of Risk. When a Checkpoint is reached, and Specter Knight is not already boosted by the Raiment, there will be a special gem inside the Checkpoint. If Specter Knight destroys the Checkpoint and grabs this gem, his Will Capacity will be reduced back to the starting 8 Will Points (regardless of his current maximum Will Capacity) in exchange for continually regenerating Darkness, and additional reach and strength for his Scythe in the form of small fireballs shot after any standard Slash. These changes are not permanent and will only last until the end of the stage or until Specter Knight dies.
In a Specter of Torment New Game Plus, there are no Will Points; instead, Will and Darkness are combined into one giant Darkness Bar, which continually decreases as time goes. It can only be refilled by collecting Darkness. This also results in the Will Skull becoming unusable.
For consistency sake with the other playable characters available, in Showdown and Pocket Dungeon Specter Knight's life is referred to as normal Health. In particular, in Showdown only normal Food will show up and heal Specter Knight, instead of the decayed counterparts that appear in Specter of Torment, but in Pocket Dungeon, Specter Knight special ability make it so that Potions, usually healing items, instead inflict damage on the undead reaper, who instead regains health after successfully slaying an enemy.
Trivia[]
- During his memories of the time he was alive, Specter Knight will have a regular Heath Capacity instead of his undead Will Capacity.
- Plague Knight's apparent lack of physical strength is reinforced by the fact that he has less permanent maximum Health Capacity (14 Hit Points) compared to the other protagonists (20 Hit Points).
- Sometimes, should a character die and yet still manage to deal the finishing blow to a boss, his health will then be refilled with one single Hit Point.
- A similar instance happens both times Plague Knight clashes with Shovel Knight in Plague of Shadows, with the latter always rising up again on his feet after his defeat before dealing Plague Knight a Charge Handle attack from behind.