Hat of the Hound
In Shadowdark, the Hat of the Hound turns the wearer into a mastiff, gear included, for a total of 10 rounds per day. That is the whole allotment. Not 10 rounds per encounter, not 10 rounds refreshing at will. Ten, then the hat is spent until the next day.
The mastiff form is not a combat upgrade. It is a tool: faster movement across open ground and a working nose for tracking. The value sits in those two functions, not in the teeth. Spending the transformation to add a mediocre bite to a fight the party was already winning is how the budget evaporates before it matters. In Shadowdark, a round is ten seconds, so 10 rounds is roughly a hundred seconds of dog per day. Ration accordingly.
The math favors saving it for a specific problem: a lost trail, a fleeing target, a gap the party cannot close on two legs. Those are the moments the hat was built for.
At the table: The quarry bolts down a branching tunnel and the party loses the sound of footsteps. The wearer spends 2 rounds as the mastiff to catch the scent, follows it to the correct fork, changes back, and has burned 2 of 10 for the day instead of blowing the whole allotment on a brawl.
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