Dungeonbound permanent upgrades form the core progression loop of The Long Haul, the game's incremental campaign mode. Developed by louidev, this retro first-person auto-battler lets you retain your collected gold, character levels, gear, and purchased enhancements whenever a run ends. You spend your accumulated gold and Skill Points (SP) in the hub to buy from over 400 permanent upgrades across seven heroes, ensuring your character returns stronger for the next dungeon descent.
Permanent progression in Dungeonbound is strictly separated between game modes. While the standalone roguelike mode (The Climb) uses a fresh build system with hearts and relics, The Long Haul preserves your hero's growth indefinitely. Furthermore, each hero maintains an independent purse, level counter, and upgrade tree, meaning resources earned on one character do not pool into another.
How Permanent Upgrades Work in the Long Haul
Between dungeon expeditions, your character returns to the hub where you access the permanent upgrade tree. Upgrades are divided into five primary branches: Damage, Defense, Sustain, Economy, and Unlocks. Advancing through the tree requires two separate currencies earned during your descents:
- Gold: Accumulated by slaying monsters, looting forgotten chests, completing guild quests, and selling surplus equipment. Gold is used for base stat nodes (such as Attack, Max HP, and Speed) and equipment grid expansions.
- Skill Points (SP): Awarded when your character levels up through combat experience or upon completing key floor milestones and boss encounters. Skill Points unlock specialized mechanical passives, execution thresholds, and class access.
| Upgrade Category | Primary Currency | Example Perks and Nodes | Core Mechanical Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Damage | Gold & SP | Honed Edge, Brutal Strikes, Tempo Breaker, First Blood | Increases flat weapon power, boosts damage against full-health targets, and scales attacks against faster enemies. |
| Defense | Gold & SP | Reinforced Plating, Base Block, Dodge Chance, Magic Resist | Expands the damage absorption pool, improves physical mitigation rates, and increases avoidance. |
| Sustain | Gold & SP | Floor Recovery, Regen on Attack, Recovery on Hit | Restores fixed health when entering a new floor and triggers percentage-based healing during battle cycles. |
| Economy | Gold & SP | Tails of Blood, Merchant Haggling, Luck Scaling | Grants bonus gold per kill, reduces shop purchase and reroll prices, and boosts item drop rarity rolls. |
| Unlocks | Gold & SP | Bigger Inventory, Class Licenses (Mage, Monk, Rogue) | Unlocks additional grid rows on the backpack equipment board and enables new playable characters. |
Major Upgrade Tree Perks and Nodes
As you invest gold and SP into the upgrade interface, nodes expand into higher tiers. The most notable nodes observed in gameplay testing include:
- First Blood: Deals +25% bonus damage to enemies that are at full health, allowing high-damage builds to one-shot standard monsters early in a floor.
- Serrated Execution / Finisher: Grants +25% to +30% bonus damage against enemies sitting at half HP or less, accelerating kills against high-health elites and dungeon bosses.
- Tempo Breaker: Adds +20% to +35% bonus damage when fighting enemies whose speed stat exceeds your own, mitigating the threat of fast attackers.
- Reinforced Plating: Directly scales your hero's base block pool, letting shields absorb significantly more incoming physical damage before your health pool takes a hit.
- Inventory Row Expansions: Adds functional tiles to your backpack grid. Because equipment pieces occupy geometric shapes (such as 1x1 rings, 2x2 shields, or 4x1 weapons), expanding the board allows you to equip higher-rarity items without discarding key utility pieces.
In-Dungeon Permanent Stat Absorption
Beyond the hub's skill tree, Dungeonbound includes mechanics during active runs that permanently modify your character's baseline profile. These stat boosts carry forward into future expeditions in incremental mode:
- The Dismantling Bench: Found as a room encounter during dungeon descents. Dragging a piece of equipment into the grinder permanently destroys the item and directly absorbs a portion of its raw numerical parameters (such as +9 to +26 permanent Attack) directly into your character.
- Stat Tomes: Consumable book drops (such as the Tome of Power or precision tomes) that grant permanent stat increases upon right-clicking them in your bag. These include permanent +1 Attack, +5 Max HP, or +2% Critical Hit Chance.
- Shrines and Encounters: Specific friendly encounters, such as the Fair Maiden or the Wishing Genie, offer permanent choices like +1 Speed or +6% Evasion.
When utilizing the Dismantling Bench, remember that items sacrificed only contribute raw parameters. Unique item triggers, elemental tags, and active conditional perks do not carry over through grinder absorption.
Hero Progression and Subclass Separation
Progression is not universal across your entire account. When you unlock a new hero—such as the Mage or Rogue—from the central tree, that character starts at level one with an empty inventory and zero gold.
The Mage class introduces further specialization through three elemental subclasses: Frost, Lightning, and Fire. Each affinity retains its own independent purchase path and stat synergy. Switching between subclasses allows you to pivot your magical build (for instance, swapping from freeze chance to chain lightning procs) without wiping your prior skill investments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you lose your equipment and gold when you die in Dungeonbound?
In The Long Haul (incremental mode), you do not lose your equipped items, gold, or permanent upgrades upon death. You keep your loot and progress, returning to the hub where you can reinvest your earnings before descending again. In The Climb (roguelike mode), a run ends permanently when you lose your five hearts.
How do you unlock other classes like the Mage, Rogue, and Monk?
New classes are unlocked as permanent nodes on the central upgrade board using Skill Points earned from leveling up and completing dungeon challenges. Once an unlock node is purchased, that character becomes selectable at the expedition start.
Does upgrading an item before fusing it carry over the upgrade levels?
Fusing two items at the Fusion Forge creates a new hybrid piece that inherits base stats and tags from the parents, but previous individual item upgrade levels reset back to level one. The resulting hybrid base stats reflect the fused attributes, which can then be empowered again at an upgrade altar.
What is the difference between Gold and Skill Points (SP)?
Gold is the common currency spent on repetitive numerical nodes (Attack, Max HP, Block) and equipment grid tile purchases. Skill Points are awarded on character level-ups and are required to unlock specific mechanical perks, class licenses, and advanced inventory expansions.
