Topaz Ring
| Topaz Ring | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Ring |
| Effect | Defense (+1) |
| Location | Adventurer's Guild; Fishing Treasure Chest (0.05%) |
| Price | 1000g |
| Sell Price | 100g |
Killing ten Slimes finishes the Initiation quest and opens the Adventurer's Guild, and the Topaz Ring is the cheapest thing Marlon keeps on the shelf behind him. A thousand gold buys one point of Defense, which sounds like nothing until the arithmetic is examined: Defense in Stardew Valley subtracts from each hit rather than scaling it, so one point matters most on the early floors where everything in the room hits for four or five. Fishing Treasure Chests can also cough one up once Fishing level 2 is reached, although the odds there are slim enough that nobody should go looking. Two rings give two points, which is as much armour as a cheap pair of boots. It is a starter piece, and by the time a Crabshell Ring and a decent pair of boots arrive, its best use is as something cheap to feed into the Forge.
Location
Marlon sells the ring over the counter at the Adventurer's Guild, east of the Mines, once the Initiation quest is done. It sits at the bottom of a price ladder that climbs steeply: the Amethyst Ring costs the same thousand gold, the Aquamarine Ring and Jade Ring ask two and a half thousand, and the Emerald Ring and Ruby Ring want five thousand each. For a farmer who has just scraped the Guild open, the Topaz Ring is often the only thing in the room they can afford.
The other route is fishing. Treasure chests pulled up with a fish can contain the ring from Fishing level 2 onwards, but it is one of the rarest items in that pool, so it arrives as a surprise rather than as a plan.
Effect
Each point of Defense takes one point off every blow that lands, and no blow can ever be reduced below one point of damage. That floor is what makes the stat behave so oddly. Against a monster that swings for twenty, a single point is a rounding error. Against the small knocks that fill a mine floor, the same point is a tenth or a quarter of the damage, repeated dozens of times in a day.
The numbers all pour into one total. Boots contribute, rings contribute, several weapons carry Defense of their own, and a cooked dish adds a few points for a handful of minutes. The Topaz Ring is simply the smallest of those contributions, and the only one available before the first serious pair of boots turns up. A second ring adds a further point, which is a reasonable use of a spare finger in the first year and a waste of one later.
It is worth separating Defense from Immunity, because the shop sells rings for both and they do unrelated jobs. Defense decides how much a hit takes off. Immunity decides whether a debuff sticks. Armour will not stop a farmer being slimed, and no amount of Immunity makes a Shadow Brute's club hurt less.
Notes
Orange is the ring's dye pot in Emily and Haley's house, on 2 Willow Lane.
Twenty Cinder Shards at the Forge will join the ring to anything else, and that is the kindest thing to do with one late in the game. A point of Defense bolted onto a ring that is already earning its slot costs nothing in comfort, and the ring itself is cheap to replace at Marlon's counter if the experiment goes badly.
The honest comparison is with armour that does more for the same finger. A Crabshell Ring gives five points for sixty Rock Crabs rather than a thousand gold, and Marlon's boots climb far higher than that again. The Topaz Ring's moment is the stretch between opening the Guild and earning either of those, which in most saves is the first spring and summer underground.
All Rings
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
| Name | Image | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Amethyst Ring | 
|
100g |
| Aquamarine Ring | 
|
200g |
| Burglar's Ring | 
|
750g |
| Crabshell Ring | 
|
1000g |
| Emerald Ring | 
|
300g |
| Glow Ring | 
|
100g |
| Glowstone Ring | 
|
100g |
| Hot Java Ring | 
|
100g |
| Immunity Band | 
|
250g |
| Iridium Band | 
|
1000g |
| Jade Ring | 
|
200g |
| Jukebox Ring | 
|
100g |
| Lucky Ring | 
|
100g |
| Magnet Ring | 
|
100g |
| Napalm Ring | 
|
1000g |
| Phoenix Ring | 
|
100g |
| Protection Ring | 
|
100g |
| Ring of Yoba | 
|
750g |
| Ruby Ring | 
|
300g |
| Savage Ring | 
|
750g |
| Slime Charmer Ring | 
|
350g |
| Small Glow Ring | 
|
50g |
| Small Magnet Ring | 
|
50g |
| Soul Sapper Ring | 
|
100g |
| Sturdy Ring | 
|
750g |
| Thorns Ring | 
|
100g |
| Topaz Ring | 
|
100g |
| Vampire Ring | 
|
750g |
| Warrior Ring | 
|
750g |