Assault on Doomrock Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Rules for the Rules
• Component List
• Setup
  • Adventure Map Setup
  • Encounter Deck Setup
• Adventuring
  • Area Card Anatomy
  • Location Effects
• Level Up
• Items
• Battles
  • Ability Card Anatomy
• Battle Basics and Positioning
• Battle Setup
• Battle Sequence
  • Roll Phase
  • Start of Round
  • Initiative Phase
  • Minion Activation
  • Boss Activations
  • Hero Action Phase
  • End of Round
  • Battle Example
• Battle Effects
• Scoring
• Difficulty and Optional Rules
• Index
• Player Aid
  • Adventuring Summary
  • Battle Summary
• Credits

Rules for the Rules

Component limitations: The limited components of the game are enemy markers and expose markers. In the rare case of running out of these markers, no further markers are placed. Players decide the distribution of the remaining markers.

In case of expose markers special rules apply ('expose explosion', see Battle Effects).

Event order: Resolve the text of cards from top to bottom, one effect at a time. If at any time in the game, events seem to occur simultaneously, players decide the order in which the events occur.

Other player decision: If a marker or card needs to be placed in game, and the effect does not specify the exact placement, players decide where to place the object.

Component List

Small cards:

• 26 starting ability cards
• 48 ability cards
• 72 battle AI cards
• 20 wilderness events
• 20 mountain events
• 32 common items
• 30 epic items

Large cards:

• 17 map cards
• 6 hero cards
• 8 hero trait cards
• 10 setting cards
• 9 encounter cards

Large markers:

• 16 enemy boss
• 22 enemy minions
• 6 heroes

Small markers:

• 29 shield/heroism
• 20 secret/time
• 1 party position
• 29 expose markers
• 5 silver
• 24 hit point markers

Other:

• 25 dice, 1 rulebook

Setup

"In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded." -Terry Pratchett

Each player should follow the directions below. The game supports from 2 to 4 players. It may also be played solo with the player controlling 2 or more heroes.

Hero and trait cards: Each player draws a random hero and trait card and places them face up next to each other.

Ability cards: Each player collects 3 starting ability cards associated with the hero class, and 1 starting ability card associated with the trait card.

Starting ability cards will have an icon in the lower right section of the card. This icon corresponds to the icon on the hero card and hero marker.

The ability card associated with the trait card is named at the bottom of the trait card.

The starting ability card deck has an orange tinted reverse. After setup is complete, the starting ability, hero and trait decks may be placed back in the box.

Dice: Each hero receives 4 dice.

Heroism marker: Each hero receives one heroism marker.

Hit point markers: Each hero receives hit point markers according to the value printed on the hero card (6 by default).

Hero marker: Pick an appropriate hero marker. This is you. Good luck, hero.

Common decks and markers: Shuffle the decks.

Separate the markers into stacks and place them in a convenient location.

Party marker: Used to track the position of heroes on the adventure map.

Heroism: Represents serious heroic attitude. Used in battles as well as a valuable resource on adventure map.

Shields: Represents small arms, accessories, and other minor defensive advantages. 1 shield may be discarded at any time to prevent 1 point of damage to the owner.

Silver: Used as a resource on adventure map. Often abbreviated 1s.

Gold: Worth 3 silver, may be exchanged at will. May be spent to buy equipment in shops and train heroes with new abilities.

Secrets: Represents undiscovered events and resources on the adventure map.

Time: Used as a resource on the adventure map. Tracks remaining time until a battle occurs.

Hit points: Represents remaining hero vitality. Often abbreviated as HP. If all heroes are down to zero, the game is lost.

Broken hit points: Broken HP may appear as a result of healing in battle (see healing under Battle Effects).

Expose: Represents fatigue, armor flaws, equipment failure and minor wounds. Used during adventure map as well as in battles.

Shuffle the expose markers into a face down stack.

Expose effects: Random effects of expose markers are used primarily during battles (see Battle Effects).

Adventure Map Setup

Prepare the area deck.

1. Doomrock: Draw one random Doomrock area and place it on the bottom of the deck.
2. Unexplored areas: Draw 2 wilderness, 2 mountain and 2 town areas, shuffle these cards and place them face down on the Doomrock area card.
3. Revealed areas: Draw 1 wilderness, 1 mountain and 1 town area, shuffle these cards and place them face down on the top of the deck. The area deck is now complete.

Remaining area cards may be placed back in box.

4. Reveal areas: Draw 3 cards from the area deck and place them next to the deck, starting from left. This is the adventure map.
5. Place secrets: Place stacks of secret markers on the numbered spots indicated below. The number explains how many markers are placed on an area when it is revealed.
6. Place party marker: Party marker is placed near the town area. It represents the current position of heroes on the adventure map.

Encounter Deck Setup

Create the encounter deck. Draw 1 card from each of the encounter decks and place them in ascending order. This represents the secret battles waiting for the heroes. Defeating the third, final battle is the goal of the game.

Setting card — Time constraint: Draw a setting card and place time markers near it, according to the indicated value.

Global effect: This effect is in play as long as the setting card is in play.

LOOT! table: Whenever players are called to make a default LOOT! check, players roll on this default LOOT! table.

Battle rewards: This reminds players to collect the rewards after victory in battle.

Finally, the party as a whole receives silver, depending on the number of players.

• 2 players - 3s
• 3 players - 4s
• 4 players - 5s

The silver is placed in the shared party inventory, where newly gained item cards are also placed.

Adventuring

An adventure definition: 'A bold undertaking as a result of need for discovery or foolishness, with aspects of life hazards, unforeseen dangers and sometimes tragic end.' -Walter Moers

Adventure map overview: Adventure map is a row of 3 face up area cards and the face down area deck. Only the 3 face up area cards are considered to be in play. Players will travel across the areas as a whole party, searching them for loot and silver.

Players will also venture forth, exploring new area cards from the area deck with the goal of arriving at the Doomrock area, where the final challenge awaits.

Time constraint and battles: Time passes and must be spent as players travel and perform actions on the adventure map. The remaining time is represented by the remaining time markers on the setting card.

If an action on the adventure map costs time, heroes must spend a time marker from the setting card before proceeding with an action. If heroes ever run out of time markers, they may finish the current action, and start any number of new actions that do not cost time. After that, players must start a battle, by revealing the top card from the encounter deck.

Battles are described in detail in the Battles, Battle Setup and Battle Sequence sections.

Victory and loss conditions: The game ends with player victory if the final battle is won.

It ends with failure in three cases:

• On the adventure map, if all the heroes are defeated at the same time.
• During battle, when all the heroes are defeated.
• When the final battle is about to start, but the Doomrock area card has not yet been revealed.

Defeated heroes: A hero reduced to zero hit points is defeated.

Heroes defeated on the world map are immediately restored to 1 hit point, as long as there is at least one other hero with 1 or more hit points.

Heroes defeated during battle stay defeated throughout the battle. After the battle, if at least one hero is undefeated, each remaining hero is restored to 1 hit point.

Area Card Anatomy

Secret quantity: When an area card is revealed, place that many secret markers on the card.

Exploration bonus: Indicates a one-time bonus earned after all secret markers are removed from the card.

Location entry cost: Must be paid before location effect may be used. In order to visit some locations, heroes must pass additional, special requirements. They are written in parentheses at the bottom of the location's description. Just like entry cost, if not fulfilled, heroes may not visit this location.

Keywords: Keywords describe the location type and may be addressed by other card effects.

Flavor text: This section of the card has no impact on game-play.

Locations: May be visited by paying the location entry cost. Once visited, the described effect occurs.

Global effect: This effect is always in play and players should always keep track of the bottom section of area cards. These effects may affect the entire game.

Adventure map actions: There are 4 types of actions the party may perform on the adventure map.

1. Travel
2. Visit location in an area
3. Explore current area
4. Venture forth

1. Travel: Players may spend one time marker to travel to any of the 3 face up cards. When traveling this way, simply move the party marker to the desired location. After travel is complete, check active global effects for additional effects.

2. Visit location: Players may visit any number of locations in their current area card. Locations may be visited multiple times as long as the party can fully afford to pay the entry cost each time. After paying the entry cost, the effect of the location is resolved once.

Entry cost for the location is listed by the location name.

• Time: Discard one time marker from the setting card.
• Secret: Discard one secret marker from the current area card.
• Coin: The party as a whole must spend one silver marker.
• Heroism: Each of the heroes in party must discard one heroism marker.
• Shield: Each of the heroes in the party must discard one shield marker.
• Peril: The party must suffer a peril.

Example: Heroes must remove 2 secret markers and pay 1 time marker to visit the Elder tree. Heroes must discard 1 silver to visit the Stinky tavern. Visiting Fool's Hole shop does not cost any resources, heroes on the current area card may visit it freely.

Perils: Perils may appear as a location entry cost, location effect, or through events.

Skull symbol indicates that the party must suffer a peril. To resolve a peril, draw an event card of type appropriate to the currently occupied area and apply the peril effect to each party member.

The first keyword from the area card indicates the type of area. This points to the deck from which to draw perils and events for current area. Town and wilderness areas use the wilderness event deck. Doomrock and mountain areas use the mountain event deck.

Event card types:

• Custom LOOT! Perform a LOOT! action using the custom table from the event card, instead of the default table from the setting card. Apply all possible LOOT! modifiers as usual.
• Text event: These events give the party two options to choose from.
• Permanent event: Events marked with crosses stay in play, attached to the area card they were drawn from. They leave play together with their parent area card. Players should treat this permanent event like an extra location on the area card.

Location Effects

When visiting a location follow the text on the location from top to bottom to resolve it once.

SHIELD +/-: Each hero must gain or lose the indicated number of shield markers, if able.

EXPOSE +/-: Each hero must gain or lose the indicated number of face down expose markers, if able.

HEROISM +/-: Each hero must gain or lose the indicated number of heroism markers, if able.

Silver +/-: Silver is gained or lost from the party inventory; the amount does not depend on the number of players.

CAMP: The camp effect is often followed with positive effects allowing heroes to recover.

HP +/-: Each hero gains the indicated amount of hit points or is dealt the indicated amount of damage. Heroes may not gain hit points above their maximum, but may become defeated as a result of this effect. If all heroes are defeated, the players lose the game. Heroes may discard their shield markers to prevent this effect (see Shields, in Setup).

PERIL: Suffer a peril.

LOOT! +/-: When resolving the LOOT! effect, one of the heroes rolls a 6 sided die. Add the LOOT! modifier listed after the LOOT! keyword and check the loot table for rewards. If the result is lower then the lowest table result, gain the lowest table result. If the result is higher then the highest table result, gain the highest table result.

By default, the loot table from the setting card is used. However, a custom loot table may appear under the LOOT! effect. If it does, the custom table is used instead.

D6: D6 represents a six sided die result. This abbreviation may appear in card text.

Example — LOOT! example: The party performs two LOOT! -2 checks. For their first roll, the party rolls a 6. This yields a result of 4. The party gains a common item to their shared inventory. The second hero rolls 1. The result is -1, so the lowest reward is gained. Party receives nothing.

SHOP (current inventory): The SHOP is where players may buy the items from the current inventory, as well as sell items and resources. A SHOP keyword is followed by the list of items available for purchase. Use the information in the bracket to draw appropriate resources for the shop as soon as the card with the SHOP effect enters play. Drawn items that does not match the stock of the shop are shuffled back into the appropriate deck after finishing with the setup.

When an area card with this effect is revealed, immediately draw 2 random common items and 1 random epic item and place the cards underneath the area card.

Players may then purchase the selected items for the indicated silver price.

Example: This instructs you to draw common items until you find 2 common artifact items. These inventory cards are attached to this area card and will leave play if the area card leaves play.

Heroes may always sell items in any SHOP. When selling, 2 common items are worth 1 silver and 1 epic item is worth 1 silver.

When visiting a shop, any number of sells and purchases may be made during a single visit.

Exploration bonus: If the last secret marker is removed from a card due to exploration or location effect, heroes immediately gain the exploration bonus indicated below the secret count.

Example: If players completely explore the Abandoned mine, they will gain 2 silver. Furthermore, the area will be considered explored and the negative global effect of the Abandoned mine will cease to work.

3. Explore current area: If there is at least one secret marker on the current area card, the area is considered not explored. Players may spend 1 time marker and remove one secret marker from the current area card in order to draw an event card. For wilderness and town areas, a wilderness event is drawn. For Doomrock and mountain areas, a mountain event is drawn. The first keyword from the area card indicates the area type.

Explored area: If there are no explore markers on an area, it is considered explored.

4. Venture forth: Players may pay 1 time to travel to a new area card from the area deck.

When venturing forth, follow the order:

• Pay one time.
• Discard the leftmost area card along with all attached cards.
• Draw the top area card and place it on the rightmost side of the adventure map.
• Place secret markers on the newly revealed card.
• Move the party marker to the new area card.
• Suffer one PERIL for the newly visited area.
• Draw an event card for the newly visited area.
• Check global effects for additional effects.

Example — Venture forth: The party at Thick forest ventures forth into the top area card, which is a mountain area. The Abandoned mine is left behind and leaves play. It is discarded along with any markers and attached cards. A new location is revealed; the Cursed swamp. Players place on the card a number of secret markers indicated in the top left corner of the new card. The party arrived at the Cursed swamp. Now heroes must suffer a PERIL and then draw an event.

Heroes suffer the PERIL from venturing forth. They draw an event card from the mountain deck (because Cursed swamp is a mountain type card). The peril deals each hero 1 point of damage.

Next, the party draws another card in order to resolve an event. There is a decision to make: the party may either perform a free CAMP or try their luck at a decent LOOT!

Level Up

Heroes may perform level ups as a part of CAMP effect. Any number of heroes may level up during a single camp.

To level up, choose one hero from the party and pay a number of silver coins equal to the number of ability cards the hero currently owns.

When leveling up, a player draws 3 random ability cards from the ability deck and keeps one of these cards. Place the remaining cards back in the deck and shuffle it.

Hero then gains 1 additional die. A hero should always have a number of dice equal to the number of ability cards he or she owns.

A hero may have maximum of one card more than another hero with the lowest number of abilities in the party. Heroes have to level up as equally as possible.

Gaining abilities from other sources should be treated the same as leveling up from CAMP, respecting the same restrictions and providing with additional die.

Example: The rogue has 2 Agi ability cards at start of the game, therefore his agility statistic at start of the game equals 2.

Items

Only item cards are considered items. Received items are placed in the shared party inventory. Heroes may trade, equip and unequip items outside of battle. Only equipped items may be used in battle.

In order to equip an item, a hero must meet the stat requirement noted in the lower right corner of the item card. The hero must have an appropriate stat value equal to or higher than the indicated value.

The statistics on cards are abbreviated:

• Str. - Strength
• Agi. - Agility
• Int. - Intelligence

The particular statistic value of a hero equals the number of ability cards with the associated statistic value. Some items may also increase statistics, when equipped.

Equipped items are placed in equipment slots around the hero card and trait card. Heroes may equip one armor, one artifact, and up to two 1-hand weapons or one 2-handed weapon. 2-handed weapons occupy both weapon slots.

Some items are marked with a consumable trait. These items may be used and discarded at any time and this action may interrupt enemy actions. Consumable items may be equipped in any of the 4 item slots.

Item card anatomy: Item name, item type, passive effect, use effect, required statistics.

Using items: Many items provide passive abilities. Some items need to be used for their effect and may be used only once per round. To use an item, at any time rotate it 90 degrees to indicate that it was used this turn. Only one 'Use:' effect from each item may be applied each round.

TEST: Sometimes an effect may call to test a statistic of a hero. To make a test, the hero rolls a D6 and adds his statistic value to the roll. In order to pass the test, the result must be higher or equal to the test difficulty.

• TEST STR 3 - Test strength with difficulty 3.
• TEST AGI 4 or STR 2 - Test either agility with difficulty 4 or strength with difficulty 2.
• TEST ANY 6 - Test any of the desired statistics with difficulty equal to 6.

Example: The rogue has 2 agility. He attempts a TEST AGI 4. He rolls a result of 3 and adds his agility value for a result of 5. Test is passed, because the result equal to or higher than 4.

Battles

Brief overview: Battles are divided into rounds. Before each round starts, players will first roll their dice pool and place the dice on their ability cards, therefore planning their actions for the next round.

Then enemies will be activated and perform their actions.

Next, players will be removing the dice from their ability cards in order to activate their effects (move, deal damage, heal etc).

When a card is activated (when a die or dice are spent from the card), the text effect on the card may be resolved once.

A round is over after all players declare that they are finished with their actions.

Ability Card Anatomy

Ability name.

Keywords: The keywords indicate the type of ability. This may be referred to by other card effects.

Activation effect: The basic effect of an ability that is activated.

Heroism effect: Heroism effect is marked with a Heroism symbol and a colon. The effect after the colon comes into play only if a Heroism marker is spent during card activation. Multiple heroism markers may be spent for a multiplied heroism effect.

Heroism effect may activated only if the ability card is activated first.

Activation value: The dice symbols on the card indicate by which dice results the card may be activated.

Statistic: If present, a statistic value increases the particular statistic of a hero by 1.

Charges: Rune symbols indicate the maximum number of dice sets (each dice set sufficient to activate the ability once) that may be assigned to a card at the same time.

Class icon: Used to determine starting abilities for classes as well as to identify the class decks for the class deck variant.

Activation condition: Sometimes the card states that it may not be used under certain conditions. The condition is always listed on the bottom of the card. It is a prioritized effect and should be considered an exception from the 'resolve card text from top to bottom' rule (see Rules for the Rules).

Example — activation values: A card may be activated with either 5 or 6. Two charges indicate that up to two dice may be placed on this card.

A card may be activated with two 6 results. One charge indicates that up to two dice may be placed on this card (one set of dice required to activate the ability).

The lightning next to the die symbol represents an initiative enabled ability. This means that the ability may be activated before enemies perform their actions.

Initiative enabled ability that may be activated with either 5 or 6 (all results are initiative enabled).

Dice lock: This means that once a die is placed on this card, the card is immediately activated and the effect of the card enters play from the start of the round. The die on the card is considered locked. Locked dice do not have to be rolled during consecutive roll phases. They may remain on the card, providing a lasting passive ability.

Battle Basics and Positioning

Battles are fought between heroes and enemies.

The term character refers to both hero and enemy.

Hero characters are represented by hero tokens. Their hit points are represented by hit point tokens kept by the hero character sheet.

Enemy characters are represented by stacks of tokens. Each stack of tokens represents one enemy and the number of tokens in the stack represents the remaining hit points of that enemy.

Minion tokens: 2HP (minion), 1HP (reduced minion), 2HP (boss), 1HP (reduced boss).

Defeated characters: If the hit points of a character are down to zero, the character is defeated. By default, heroes win the battle after defeating all enemies. However, an encounter card may have a victory objective specified. Heroes lose the battle and the entire game if they are all defeated. Remove the defeated character tokens from the battle. After battle, defeated heroes are restored to 1HP as long as the battle was won.

Position: Position of characters in relation to each other is represented in an abstract way.

• Characters may be either distant or adjacent to each other.
• Characters are adjacent when their tokens are in physical contact.
• A group of characters is one or more characters positioned adjacent to each other.
• Every character in a group is considered adjacent to every other character in a group.

Moving: During battle, heroes and enemies will activate abilities which will allow them to perform a move. Hero performing a move may change its position by moving to a group or moving out of a group.

A character is considered to have moved during a battle round if he changed groups or created a new group by moving away from other characters.

A character may move to a new group, even if not adjacent to any other characters. While this does not change the position of that character relative to other characters, it represents the character running around the battlefield and is also considered a move.

Surrounded: Characters in a group are considered surrounded if adjacent to twice the number of characters from an opposing side. Some ability cards may not be used when a hero is surrounded.

Engaged: Both a hero and an enemy are considered engaged when adjacent to each other.

Example: Heroes are distant from each other and from enemies. There are 2 groups of enemies. One includes 2 enemies, and the other 1 enemy.

Example: The rogue moves adjacent to one group of enemies. He is now surrounded and cannot activate his Maneuver ability.

Example: The separated enemy and the paladin move to the big group with the rogue. All the characters are now adjacent to each other and the heroes are not surrounded. The rogue then decides to move away to a new, distant group, leaving the paladin surrounded by 3 enemies.

Battle Setup

Battle setup:

1. Set up party formation, gear up.
2. Enemy setup.
3. Enemy deck setup.
4. Shuffle expose markers.

1. Set up party formation:

• Heroes may start the battle adjacent or distant to each other in any possible configuration. Heroes must start distant from enemies.
• Players may not trade and equip items after battle starts. This is the final opportunity for the heroes to switch gear, before the battle card is drawn.

2. Enemy setup: Draw the next encounter card.

The topmost section of the card will explain how to set up the enemies. It will provide information for enemy quantity, their hit points, armor, shields and command. By default, enemies are grouped in pairs.

Example — sample setup of Goblin shaman party for 2 players: Heroes decided to start the battle distant from each other.

3. Enemy AI deck setup: Find the deck of small cards that matches the name and image of the encounter card. This is the artificial intelligence deck.

Check the deck for player count dependent cards. Look for the cross symbols and remove the card from the deck, if the number next to the cross matches the current number of players. Shuffle the deck.

Some high level boss encounters like 'The Dragon' will specify to use a random level I encounter in addition to the default card setup.

In this case, draw a random tier I encounter card from all available cards and setup the additional enemies accordingly. These enemies will use their own AI deck during minion activations.

Example: After drawing 'The Dragon' encounter, players need to draw a random tier I encounter and set it up as well. Players draw the 'Zombie horde' encounter, so now they have to set up all the zombies and zombie AI deck according to normal rules.

4. Shuffle expose markers: Shuffle all expose markers (except the current expose markers of heroes) into a face down stack.

Heroes retain their current hit points, expose, shield and heroism markers into an encounter.

When an encounter ends, heroes will discard all their heroism, expose and shield markers and retain their current hit point value.

Battle Sequence

Battle phases:

1. Roll phase.
2. Start of round.
3. Player initiative (Initiative abilities).
4. Minion activations (2 per player).
5. Boss enemy activations (Automatic).
6. Hero actions (any hero abilities).
7. End of round (Cleanup).

Roll Phase

Each player collects all of his or her dice (exception - locked dice), then rolls the collected dice. Each player is allowed to re-roll twice. Players may re-roll any dice. The result of the third roll must be kept, assigned to cards and spent, if able.

Assign dice: Dice with results matching the ability cards may be placed on these abilities in order to be activated later during the round. The charge symbols indicate the maximum number of dice sets that may be placed on the card. Players may never place more dice on a card, than the number that would allow to activate the card number of times indicated by the charge symbols.

Unassigned dice are immediately considered spent.

Each hero must assign dice from his pool to his own cards.

Once all the dice are assigned, they cannot be moved in later portions of battle round.

Heroism: Rolls of 6 are considered heroic! Before the end of the roll phase, a player may spend a dice result of 6 to gain a heroism marker. The marker may be later spent to improve the effect of some abilities. Heroism markers are discarded at the end of round.

Shields: Rolls of 1 are defensive rolls. Before the end of the roll phase, a player may spend a dice result of 1 to gain a shield marker. Shield marker may be spent at any time to prevent 1 point of damage to the owner. Shield markers are discarded at the end of round.

Note that the roll phase is not considered a part of the round.

Start of Round

This phase serves as a placeholder in time, when many effects start to work.

Initiative Phase

During the initiative phase, players have an opportunity to activate their initiative enabled abilities, before enemies perform their actions.

Activating initiative enabled abilities works just like activating regular abilities and is explained in detail in the Hero Actions phase, below.

Minion Activation

Each undefeated hero, starting with the one with the highest threat value, must perform minion activation 2 times, if able. In case of a draw in threat value between two or more heroes, players decide which hero have higher threat.

Threat value: Threat value is listed in the top right corner of the card. It is an indicator of how much enemies want to attack and interact with this hero. Heroes with higher threat values will generally be attacked first and more often.

Example: Paladin's threat value equals 8.

Highest threat / Lowest threat: Refers to the undefeated hero with the highest or the lowest threat value.

Active hero: It is the hero who is currently activating 2 minion enemies. The hero is considered active for the duration of the actions of the enemies he or she activates.

To perform minion activation:

• Choose a minion that has not yet been activated this round.
• Draw an enemy AI card for that minion. If there is no card to be drawn for that minion, shuffle the appropriate AI discard pile and draw a card from newly formed deck. Remember to not shuffle the deck unless each card was drawn once.
• Perform the actions listed on the minion part of the AI card, following it from top to bottom. Unless stated otherwise, the enemy performing the actions is the enemy the AI card was drawn for.
• If an action cannot be performed due to failed conditions, skip that action and continue the activation.
• After finishing resolving the card, put it on a matching AI discard pile.

Repeat these steps to activate a second minion, unless all minions have been activated.

Rampage: If, at the start of a hero's minion activation, all enemies have already been activated this round, that hero must still activate at least one minion. He may choose any minion, and that minion is considered rampaging.

AI card anatomy: Action name, action script. The sword symbols by the action name indicate that this action is an attack (attack sign). The swords and helmet divides the minion part of the card with the boss part of the card (boss divider). Follow the arrows to look for an alternative action target, if the first target is not valid (alternative target arrows). Use the red part of the card to activate boss type enemies, if they share the same deck with minions (boss activation part). During battle setup, remove the cards with numbers matching the number of players (player balance).

Example — simple activation: There are 4 heroes and 4 undefeated minions. Highest threat hero activates two minions. Second highest threat hero must activate the remaining two minions. The third hero starts his activation, but all the enemies have already been activated. The third hero must still choose and activate one of the minions. This will be the rampaging minion. Next, the fourth hero must also activate one minion as a rampaging one.

Boss Activations

Boss characters are marked with a (boss) text next to their setup instructions.

Boss characters always activate automatically after minion activation is finished.

When activating a boss enemy, draw one card from the enemy AI deck and resolve the effect below the swords and helmet divider. Boss activation cards are resolved just like minion activation cards, with the exception that there is never an active hero during boss activations.

Enemy spawn: If an effect specifies to spawn one or more enemies, players should immediately place the appropriate number of enemies in the current battle. By default, that enemy has all the properties as written at the top of the encounter card. Note that enemy markers are limited components, so the maximum number of enemies that may spawn during a battle is limited.

Enrage: Both minion enemies and boss enemies may enrage. When an effect calls for an ENRAGE +/-, add or remove a time marker from the encounter card. The amount of time markers on the encounter card is the enrage value.

Enrage serves as a time limit for battles. When fighting a battle for too long, the added effect of the enrage value shall bring doom upon the heroes.

Special enemy abilities: Most encounter cards contain a block of text at the bottom of the card. This text provides a list of passive abilities for the monsters. These effects are considered to continually be in play throughout the encounter.

Hero Action Phase

In any order, undefeated players may physically remove the dice from their cards to activate the abilities and resolve their effects, one card at a time. Text on a card must be fully resolved before next card may be activated. If available, players may also spend heroism markers to fuel the currently activated card's heroism effect. Any number of heroism markers may be spent at once.

Ability activation:

1. Choose ability targets, if able.
2. Remove dice from the ability card.
3. Spend any number of heroism markers to activate the card's heroism effect.
4. Apply effects to targets.

Initiative: Abilities marked with a lightning symbol next to the activation value are initiative enabled. These abilities may be activated in the hero initiative phase as well as during hero action phase. Therefore, initiative enabled abilities may be used before the enemies act, but not between the enemy actions.

Reaction: Some abilities may contain a reaction trait and effect. These abilities may be used only if specified conditions are met. Reaction abilities may often be used out of event sequence. When using a reaction ability, activate the ability in the usual way, by removing the appropriate dice from the card.

Limitation: Ability may not be activated, when its effect may not be fully resolved, for example there is no applicable target. Characters may be targeted by an ability that would increase something beyond the normal limitation, but anything over the limit will be wasted (for example HP). The same rule applies to reductions, if something is reduced below zero, this reduction stops at zero and goes no further.

End of Round

At the end of round heroes and enemies discard all of their heroism markers and shield markers. Characters stop being hidden and all of the abilities cease to work.

With the exception of abilities with locked dice, no ability and item effects carry over to the next round.

Battle victory: By default, victory is achieved through defeating all enemies. However, some encounters specify certain types of enemies as objectives. The battle ends with victory immediately after all enemies marked as objectives are defeated.

Example: The encounter with 'Tentacle Monster' ends with victory after defeating 'The monster', because it's marked as (objective) on the encounter card.

If victorious, all expose, heroism, shield and broken HP markers are discarded. As long as at least one hero survived the battle, defeated heroes are restored to 1 hit point.

Afterwards, the party receives battle rewards as listed on the setting card.

If the battle was the final battle, heroes win the game. Otherwise, party may continue the game on the adventure map, by drawing a new setting card.

Battle Example

The rogue and paladin face off against two goblins and the goblin shaman. During the roll phase, the rogue managed to gain 1 heroism marker and place two 6 results on his Poisonous stab ability.

The rogue is adjacent to one of the goblins. The initiative phase starts. The rogue decides to activate his Poisonous stab once, to deal damage to the adjacent goblin. He spends one of the 6 results from the card to activate the effect.

Poisonous stab hits the goblin for 2 damage. The goblin has a shield marker and 1 armor. Firstly, the shield marker is removed as it absorbs 1 damage. Secondly, the armor absorbs the remaining damage.

The goblin's hit points are not reduced, but he gains an expose marker as a result of the Poisonous stab effect.

The rogue attempts to attack the goblin again. He spends his second 6 result from the card and this time decides to also spend his heroism marker, for the +1 damage effect.

The rogue deals 3 damage to the goblin. One damage is absorbed by armor, so the damage would reduce the goblin to 1HP. However, the goblin's expose marker is revealed and consumed. The rogue is hoping for a +1 damage effect, which would eliminate the goblin. The marker does turn out to be a +1 damage effect. The goblin receives 1 extra point of damage from the attack and is defeated.

No further initiative enabled skills are available. The heroes are out of options for their initiative phase. Now the enemies make their move.

The paladin performs minion activation first, because he has higher threat value than the rogue. He must now activate two minions; but there is only one minion available, so he only needs to activate that minion.

He draws an enemy artificial intelligence card and checks the minion part of the card, above the sword divider.

The paladin follows the actions from top to bottom. Firstly, the goblin moves adjacent to the paladin, because the paladin is the active hero. Secondly, the goblin deals 1 damage to the paladin with his 'Hack' action. Ouch, the paladin is reduced to 5 hit points.

The paladin's activation is over. Now the rogue needs to activate two enemies that were not activated before. He is out of valid enemies to activate for normal minion activation, so he needs to activate one minion as a rampaging minion.

Similar card is drawn; however the goblin is engaged with the paladin, so he may not move to the active hero - the rogue. He remains adjacent to the paladin, and since he cannot attack the active hero, he attacks the highest adjacent threat. Since the highest adjacent threat is the paladin, he gets hit again.

The minion activation is over. Now it is time for the boss to do something. The boss is automatically activated: players draw an AI card from the event deck and check the boss section below the sword divider.

The boss moves to a group containing the goblin and paladin. Then, he gains an enrage marker (time marker), which is placed on the encounter card. Finally, he attacks the paladin for 2 damage.

Enemy activation is finished. The game continues to the 'hero actions' phase. Players may now activate their remaining initiative and non-initiative abilities.

Battle Effects

Expose markers: Expose markers may be placed on characters through various effects in the game. These markers are always drawn randomly and placed face down on character tokens. A character with at least one expose marker is considered to be exposed.

When an exposed character is attacked or dealt damage during battle, all of his expose markers must be consumed. When an expose marker is consumed, it is revealed and its effect is added to the effect of the attack. Revealed expose markers should be placed aside.

If players ever run out of face down expose markers, all face up expose markers should immediately be turned face down and shuffled to form a new marker pool.

Expose markers may be consumed only due to attacks or damage and only during battle. Non-attack ability effects that do not deal damage may not cause expose markers to be consumed, and damage taken on Adventure Map does not cause expose markers to be consumed.

There are 4 types of expose markers:

1. Blank: Has no effect when revealed.
2. +1 damage: When revealed, each +1 marker increases the damage dealt to the target by 1.
3. Push: The push marker causes the target to be moved out of the current group, to a new, distant group. This effect always takes place before damage from attack effect is applied.
4. Battle cumulation: After this marker is revealed and the attack is resolved, players must immediately follow these 3 steps:
   • Place this marker and all previously revealed blank expose markers away from the expose marker pool. These markers will no longer be used in this battle.
   • Flip all remaining revealed expose markers (including markers currently revealed), face down.

Expose explosion: In a rare case when an expose marker should be placed, but players have ran out of expose markers (both face down and face up), the expose explosion occurs. The game pauses, and all expose markers from characters are consumed.

Damage: Whenever damage is dealt to characters, they must consume their expose markers, then reduce the total damage by their shields and then by their armor. Finally, they must reduce their hit points by the appropriate amount.

Note that enemy tokens are double-sided, and one side represents 2HP. Therefore, a stack of 6 tokens represents 12HP, unless the top marker is flipped, in which case the stack represents 11HP.

Damage type: Unless specified otherwise, the type of damage is indicated by the trait of an ability that generated the damage (for example 'Ray of doom' generates a 'magic' and 'arcane' type of damage). Damage may have no damage type.

Damage source: A single attack is considered a single damage source. A second attack would be considered a separate damage source.

Armor: Armor reduces the incoming damage to a character by 1 for each armor point. The damage is reduced from each source separately. If an armored character is also shielded, the shield markers absorb damage before the armor absorbs damage. Some effects reduce armor. Armor reduction is cumulative, but may not reduce armor below zero.

Healing: Healing may be performed in battle through abilities, in order to restore hit points. However, during battle heroes receive broken hit point markers instead of regular ones. When taking additional damage, broken hit points may be discarded first. During battle, treat these hit points just like normal hit points, but after battle, heroes must discard all of their broken hit point markers.

Party damage: Whenever a card states that the party is dealt damage, the damage may be divided between any number of heroes. A hero may not accept an amount of damage that would reduce his or her HP below zero.

Push: Push effect may be caused as a result of expose markers, abilities or various other effects. Whenever a character is pushed, he or she performs a compulsory move out of the current group into a new, distant group.

If damage is dealt during a push effect, the damage is dealt after the push move takes place.

Die steal: Whenever an enemy steals a die from a hero, the hero must choose one of his or her assigned dice and place it on the enemy who is performing the dice steal action. Only unspent dice still assigned on cards may be stolen.

Stolen dice remain on the enemy until the end of the battle, or until the enemy is defeated. When an enemy holding stolen dice is defeated, the dice may be distributed among any heroes currently missing dice.

The returned dice must be rolled once and may be immediately assigned to ability cards, following the dice placement rules of the roll phase.

Reassign dice: Whenever an effect instructs for a die to be reassigned, it needs to be assigned to a card belonging to the original owner of the die, following dice placement rules of the roll phase.

Extra dice: If an effect allows a player to roll additional dice at any point of the round, he needs to roll and assign them following rules of the roll phase. If it happens during the roll phase, they may be rerolled with other dice if any re-rolls are still available to the hero.

At the end of the round, hero must reduce his dice pool by the number equal to extra dice he had this round. If it is not possible because of stolen dice, reduce the pool to zero and leave all the stolen dice on enemies. Later during battle, if a die is returned from being stolen, and no hero have missing dice, simply discard it.

Hidden:

• Hidden hero has threat value of zero.
• The hero is never considered surrounded.
• Once per round, before a hidden hero activates an enemy, he or she may decide that another hero will be activating this enemy as an active player instead of the hidden hero.

Hidden heroes may decide to stop being hidden any time during a round. A hero also stops being hidden if attacked or at the end of the round.

Command value: Minions from tier I encounters will have a command value listed in setup section. This value by itself has no impact on gameplay, but may be referred to by other card effects.

Anytime: If an effect specifies that it may be used at "any time", it may be used to break the usual turn sequence. For example, it may be used to interrupt enemy actions. Most items and some trait abilities may be used anytime.

Scoring

Calculate the final score as follows:

• 3 points per non-basic ability card.
• 1 point per common item card.
• 2 points per epic item card.
• 1 point per silver.
• 1 point per remaining 1 HP of each hero.
• 10 points for completing the game.
• 2 points per time marker remaining on setting card, if the game was won.

Difficulty and Optional Rules

Heavy planning: Adds difficulty and tenseness to the battles. This is recommended as a default mode after players get familiar with the rules.

• Whenever players gain heroism markers, they must place them on specific ability cards. Ability cards may use heroism only from heroism markers placed on them.
• Items may not be used after expose markers are revealed, but before the expose effects are applied. Exception to this are items that explicitly state that they may be used after the expose markers are revealed.

Quick Play: Those looking for a shorter game should try this alternative rule, it completely skips the first encounter. Apply these changes during setup in order to play this variant.

• When creating the Adventure Map, create unexplored areas from only one card of each type, instead of two.
• Create Encounter deck without first tier encounter.
• Each hero starts with 2 HP.
• Reduce the starting silver by 1.
• Two different heroes resolve a level up, without paying silver.
• Players draw four common item cards, keep two and discard the rest.
• Before drawing a setting card that will be used during the game, players draw one setting card, resolve the battle reward section, and then discard the card.

Index

• Ability card — 12
• Activation (of enemy) — 17
• Activation effect (ability card) — 12
• Activation value (ability card) — 12, 13
• Active hero — 17
• Adventuring — 6
• Anytime — 22
• Armor — 19
• Artificial intelligence card (enemy AI) — 15
• Assign dice — 16
• Battle cumulation — 19
• Battle setup — 15
• Battles — 12
• Boss activation — 18
• Charges (ability card) — 12
• Command value — 22
• D6 — 8
• Damage — 19
• Damage source — 19
• Damage type — 19
• Dice lock — 13
• End of round (phase) — 18
• Enemy AI (deck) — 15
• Enemy setup — 15
• Engaged — 14
• Enrage — 18
• Explored area — 9
• Exploration bonus — 9
• Explore area (map action) — 9
• EXPOSE (on map) — 8
• Expose explosion — 19
• Expose markers — 19
• Extra dice — 22
• Gold — 3
• Healing — 19
• Hero actions (phase) — 18
• Heroism (marker) — 16
• HEROISM (on map) — 8
• Heroism effect (ability card) — 12
• Hidden — 22
• Highest threat — 17
• HP (on map) — 8
• Initiative (phase) — 17
• Initiative enabled (ability) — 13, 18
• Items — 11
• Keywords (ability cards) — 12
• Keywords (area card) — 6
• Level up — 11
• Location cost — 7
• Location effects — 8
• Locations — 7
• Locked dice — 13
• LOOT! — 8
• Lowest threat — 17
• Map actions — 7
• Minion activation (phase) — 17
• Move/Moving — 14
• Party damage — 19
• Party formation — 15
• Party marker — 3
• Perils — 7
• Position — 14
• Push — 19
• Rampage (minion) — 17
• Reaction (ability) — 18
• Redirect — 22
• Roll (phase) — 16
• Secret markers (exploration) — 9
• Setup (encounters) — 5
• Setup (hero) — 2
• Setup (map) — 4
• Setup (settings) — 5
• Shield (marker) — 16
• SHIELD (on map) — 8
• SHOP — 8
• Silver — 3
• Spawn — 18
• Start of round (phase) — 17
• Statistic — 12
• Steal die — 22
• Surrounded — 14
• TEST — 11
• Threat / threat value — 17
• Travel (map action) — 7
• Venture forth (map action) — 10
• Victory condition (battle) — 18
• Victory condition (game) — 6

Player Aid

Adventuring Summary

1. Travel: Pay one time marker. Move hero marker to one of face up areas.

2. Visit location: Pay location cost to activate the locations effect once.

3. Explore: Pay 1 time marker and remove 1 secret marker from current area. Draw an event card of appropriate type.

4. Venture forth:

• Pay one time.
• Discard the left most area card along with all attached cards.
• Draw the top area card and place it on the right most side of the adventure map.
• Place secret markers on the newly revealed card.
• Move the party marker to the new area card.
• Suffer one PERIL for current area.
• Draw an event card for the current area.
• Check global effects for additional effects.

EFFECTS

• SHIELD +/-: Each hero must gain or lose the indicated number of shield markers, if able.
• EXPOSE +/-: Each hero must gain or lose the indicated number of face down expose markers, if able.
• HEROISM +/-: Each hero must gain or lose the indicated number of heroism markers, if able.
• Silver +/-: Silver is gained or lost from the party inventory; the amount does not depend on the number of players.
• CAMP: The camp effect is generally followed with positive effects allowing heroes to recover.
• HP +/-: Each hero gains the indicated amount of hit points or is dealt the indicated amount of damage. Heroes may not gain hit points above their maximum.
• PERIL: Suffer a peril.
• LOOT! +/-: When resolving the LOOT! effect, one of the heroes rolls a 6 sided die, adds the LOOT! modifier, then checks the loot table for rewards. If the result is out of range, gain highest or lowest reward.
• Party damage: Whenever a card states that the party is dealt damage, the damage may be divided between any number of heroes as they see fit.

Battle Summary

Roll phase (not part of the round): Roll dice equal to the number of owned ability cards. Must roll all dice except for the locked dice. Assign dice to abilities or spend for heroism and shields. 1 = shield. 6 = heroism.

1. Start of round: Check for start of round effects.

2. Initiative: Spend dice from initiative enabled abilities to activate them.

3. Minion activation: Starting from highest threat, each player activates 2 minions not previously activated this round. If new player starts activation and no more not activated minion remains, he activates any one minion.

4. Boss activation: Draw an AI card for the boss.

5. Hero actions: Spend dice from abilities to activate their effects. Any player order allowed.

6. End of round: Discard shield markers and heroism markers from characters. Check for end of round effects.

Ability activation:

1. Choose targets.
2. Remove dice from the ability card.
3. Spend any number of heroism to activate heroism effect.
4. Apply effect to targets.

Dealing damage:

1. Reveal all expose markers.
2. Add damage from +1 expose markers.
3. Absorb the damage with shields.
4. Absorb the damage with armor.
5. Reduce the hit points by remaining damage dealt, if any.

Level up:

1. Pay silver in amount equal to current number of ability cards.
2. Draw 3 ability cards.
3. Choose and keep one card. Gain 1 extra die.

Credits

Game designed by Tomasz Stasiak. With the assistance of Krzysztof Niewiadomski.

Rulebook: Tomasz Stasiak

Rulebook moderation: Jan Janicki, Kurt Zillgitt, Krzysztof Niewiadomski, Barry Siebenthall, Tim Patterson, Gautier Dhordain, Olivier Prevot.

Illustrations: Bartosz Pławecki, Przemysław Geremek, Adam Kabalak, Michał Grochalak, Tomasz Stasiak, Tomasz Florkiewicz, Marcin Rubinkowski.

Graphic design: Tomasz Stasiak.

Lead tester: Krzysztof Niewiadomski.

Testers: Zbigniew Krowieranda, Maciej Stępiński, Jerzy Niemojewski, Kamil Kubiak, Mateusz Bartwicki, Wojciech Mirowski, Dawid Morowiak, Michał Kuna, Karolina Fairfax, Igor. W. Adamowski, Shogun (the cat).

Special thanks to: Teresa Stasiak, Sławomir Stasiak, Renata Stasiak, Richard Ham, Remigiusz Bukowiecki, Ignacy Trzewiczek, Robert Marcinkowski.

A game by BD Games Tomasz Stasiak. All rights reserved. www.bdgames.pl