One Last Fight Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Component List
• Game Overview
• The Characters
  • Choose Your Characters
  • Character Card Anatomy
  • Starting Resources and Equipment
  • Attributes
  • Resources
    • Heart
    • Facing Death
    • Power
    • Soul
    • Tracking Heart, Power, and Soul
    • Special Abilities
• The Nemesis
  • Choose a Nemesis
  • Nemesis Card Anatomy
  • Know Your Nemesis
  • Nemesis Abilities
  • Nemesis Challenges
  • Insight
• Setup
  • Arrange the Play Area
  • Build Your Challenge Deck
• Playing the Game
  • Determine First Player
  • Challenges
    • Solo Challenges
    • Party Challenges
  • Challenge Card Anatomy
  • Resolving a Challenge
    • All You've Got!
    • Keeping Challenge Cards
    • Party Challenge Example
    • Solo Challenge Example
  • Nemesis Challenges
• The End
  • The Nemesis Is Defeated
  • The Players Are Defeated

Component List

• 6 Character Cards
• 8 Starting Equipment Cards
• 12 Loot Cards
• 4 Turn Reference Cards
• 6 Nemesis Cards
• 3 Nemesis Challenge Cards (Approach (I), Lair (II) and End (III))
• 12 Moment Cards
• 16 Approach (I) Challenge Cards
• 15 Lair (II) Challenge Cards
• 10 End (III) Challenge Cards
• 1 Slay Them! Card
• 1 Active Player Token
• 1 Metal Insight Tracker (Heavy Metal Edition only)
• 1 Insight Tracker (Standard Edition only)
• 5 Heart dice
• 5 Power dice
• 5 Soul dice
• 5 Special Ability dice
• 8 Challenge dice

Game Overview

One Last Fight is a card-driven, GM-less roleplaying game where 1 to 4 players take on the roles of doomed adventurers on their final quest—to defeat their ultimate Nemesis or die trying. Players create their adventurers' backstories together, establish the story of their Nemesis, and work together to overcome a gauntlet of Challenges (both physical and personal) until they find themselves in their Nemesis' Lair. There the adventurers meet their fate and battle the Nemesis head-to-head—will they survive One Last Fight?

The Characters

The characters of One Last Fight are hardened warriors who have shouldered the burden of defeating an evil Nemesis that is threatening to destroy their world.

Choose Your Characters

Every character has unique abilities and attributes that they can bring to the fight against the Nemesis. Players choose their character using one of the following methods:

• Multiplayer game: All players are dealt one Character Card, or all players decide together which characters they will play from available Character Card options.
• Singleplayer game: A player can either draw and play multiple Character Cards, or play a single Character.

Character Card Anatomy

1. Character name
2. Attribute symbols
3. Heart resources
4. Power resources
5. Soul resources
6. Special Abilities resources
7. Roleplay questions
8. Attributes
9. Special Abilities description

Starting Resources and Equipment

Number of Characters	Heart	Power	Soul	Starting Equipment
1	5	3	0	2
2 or 3	4	3	0	1
4+	3	3	0	1

Players should name their character, then take turns answering the Bonds questions on their Character Card. These questions help tie the characters into the narrative of One Last Fight, and create connections between the characters for the players to roleplay during the game.

Each player takes a Heart die, a Power die, and a Soul die to track resources on their Character Card. Reference the starting resources and equipment table for each resources starting value. Players can set aside their Soul die until they have earned some Soul.

If a chosen character has any Special Abilities with a limited number of uses (represented on a Character Card as "Use X"), set a Special Ability die to the number of uses the ability has.

Then, players should take turns drawing cards from the Starting Equipment Deck, answering any questions on their Equipment Card. See the starting resources and equipment table for how many cards to draw.

Attributes

Attributes represent the various strengths the adventurers have honed during their journey. Attributes are used during Challenges to determine whether adventurers succeed or fail.

• Crown. Wealth and treasures found or stolen. You can't take them with you, so use what you can.
• Key. Stealth and nimbleness. Finding your way into forbidden places is a useful talent.
• Magic. Spells and arcane knowledge. Dangerous to wield, but what have you got to lose?
• Shield. Defenses and armor. Sometimes you have to take the hit, so be prepared.
• Sword. Strength and combat prowess. A weapon by your side will solve most problems.

Resources

Heart

Every character has a certain amount of Heart to represent their stamina and resilience. Challenges and other effects from the Challenge Deck cause players to lose and gain Heart throughout their journey. Characters can never have more Heart than their starting amount. When a character loses their last Heart, they must Face Death.

Facing Death

Death comes for everyone, and when a character loses their last Heart, it is their time to pass on. When a character Faces Death, they get a moment to say a final farewell to their allies. They then perish. Any Loot Cards that character had may be distributed amongst the remaining living characters. All of the dead character's other cards are discarded, their remaining Soul and Power is lost, and their Character Card is flipped over.

Power

Power represents additional advantages and knacks the characters can use to give them a better chance of succeeding on their final quest. A player can spend any amount of Power before undertaking a Challenge. If they do, they may roll an additional die per Power spent. You may never have more than five Power.

Soul

When characters slay creatures and defeat enemies, they are sometimes rewarded with a piece of that enemy's essence, represented by Soul. A player can spend three Soul to gain one Power before undertaking a Challenge.

Tracking Heart, Power, and Soul

Character Cards have spaces for tracking the three resources (Heart, Power and Soul) using six-sided dice. As resources are earned or spent, players can adjust these dice to represent their current totals. If a player collects more than six of a resource, they should use an additional die to keep track.

Special Abilities

Each character has one or more Special Abilities that they can use on their journey. Unless otherwise specified, these abilities can be used at any time during play. Some abilities have a limited number of uses, which is indicated by "Use X".

The Nemesis

At the center of every game of One Last Fight is the Nemesis the characters are facing. They are represented at the table by a Nemesis Card. One side of the card has roleplay questions to help establish details about the Nemesis, and the other side shows how the Nemesis affects the game.

Choose a Nemesis

Once characters have been selected, players choose a Nemesis—an evil that their characters have sworn to defeat. Players choose their Nemesis using one of the following methods:

• Choose a random Nemesis Card
• Draw three Nemesis Cards and choose one
• Choose a Nemesis that interests all players.

Each Nemesis Card includes general information about the Nemesis' motives, as well as a difficulty represented by the number of skulls on the card. If playing One Last Fight for the first time, we recommended choosing a Nemesis with an easy difficulty (one skull).

Nemesis Card Anatomy

1. Nemesis' name
2. Difficulty level
3. Flavor text
4. Roleplay questions
5. Nemesis Ability
6. Nemesis Challenges

Know Your Nemesis

Players should answer the questions on the Nemesis Card as a group. These questions help define the Nemesis and let the players personalize the Nemesis to their characters.

Nemesis Abilities

Each Nemesis has an ability that affects the rules of the game. Players should make note of this ability before the game begins.

For example, the Demon Lord's ability reads: Bound. During "End (III)," any Challenge that includes a Key Attribute require an additional success of 4 or higher.

Nemesis Challenges

To remind the heroes of the ever-present danger, each Nemesis Card has three Nemesis Challenges, one for each of the three phases of the adventure (Approach (I), Lair (II), and End (III).) These Challenges are flavored around the Nemesis' sinister plots, and are slightly more difficult then the standard Challenges of their respective phases. Nemesis Challenges are explained fully in the Playing the Game section of this booklet.

Insight

The final conflict with their Nemesis will push the adventurers to their limit, and they will need every advantage they can get. As they learn about their Nemesis, these advantages come in the form of Insight, a resource lost and gained from resolving certain Challenge cards. Insight is tracked with the Insight Tracker placed beside the Nemesis Card. When a character is attempting the Challenge on the Slay Them! Card, they roll an additional number of dice equal to the amount of Insight.

Component note: the Insight Tracker is listed in the Standard Edition only; the Metal Insight Tracker is listed in the Heavy Metal Edition only.

Setup

Arrange the Play Area

Separate the Moment, Loot, Approach (I), Lair (II) and End (III) Challenge Cards into individual decks and shuffle each of them, making sure to keep the Nemesis Challenge Cards and the Slay Them! Card separate.

Place the 8 Challenge dice within reach of all players.

Build Your Challenge Deck

Over the course of the game, players draw cards from the Challenge Deck, which is composed of cards from the Moment, Approach (I), Lair (II), and End (III) Decks, in addition to the Slay Them! Card.

1. Begin constructing a new deck by placing down the Slay Them! Card.
2. Take 5 cards from the End (III) Challenge Deck and the End (III) Nemesis Challenge Card, shuffle them together and place them face down on top of the Slay Them! Card.
3. Then take 10 Lair (II) Challenge Cards, the Lair (II) Nemesis Challenge Card, and 1 Moment Card, shuffle them together and place them face down on top of the Challenge Deck.
4. Then take 8 Approach (I) Challenge Cards, the Approach (I) Nemesis Challenge Card, 1 Moment Card, shuffle them together and place them face down on top to finish the Challenge Deck.

The deck should contain 29 cards in total.

The printed build summary reads:

• 8x Approach (I) Challenge Cards + 1x Approach (I) Nemesis Challenge Card + 1x Moment Card
• 10x Lair (II) Challenge Cards + 1x Lair (II) Nemesis Challenge Card + 1x Moment Card
• 5x End (III) Challenge Cards + 1x End (III) Nemesis Challenge Card
• Slay Them! Card

The booklet's play area example (3 players) shows the Challenge dice, the Nemesis Card and Insight Tracker, and the Approach (I), Lair (II) and End (III) Challenge decks laid out in their phases.

Playing the Game

Determine First Player

Choose a player to take the first turn and give them the Active Player Token, and the 8 Challenge dice. You are now ready to begin your adventure!

Starting with the player who has the Active Player Token, players take turns revealing the top card from the Challenge Deck and resolving it.

Challenges

Every Challenge has a name, flavor text, and a question to help fold the Challenge into the ongoing story. Challenges have two varieties, Solo and Party.

Solo Challenges

A Solo Challenge only requires one player to attempt it. The player who drew the Solo Challenge can decide to take on the Challenge, or pass it on to the next player in clockwise order. That player then gets to choose to take on the Challenge or pass it along, and so on. This continues until a player decides to attempt the Challenge or all players have passed on the Challenge, at which point it returns to the player who drew the Challenge, who must attempt the Challenge.

Party Challenges

A Party Challenge is a large-scale encounter that requires all players to attempt them. Starting with the player who drew the Party Challenge and going around in clockwise turn order, each player attempts the Challenge on the card, resolving it in the same way as a Solo Challenge. Each player succeeds or fails their attempt individually, receiving rewards or suffering penalties based on their results. Once all players have attempted the Challenge, the card is discarded.

A note on Party Challenges: Unless otherwise specified, whether or not an individual player succeeds or fails a Party Challenge has no effect on the next player's attempt at the same Party Challenge. All players might succeed, or they might all fail, or there may be a mix of both.

Challenge Card Anatomy

1. Name of Challenge and type of Challenge (Solo or Party)
2. Flavor text
3. Roleplay question
4. Attribute symbols
5. Target Numbers
6. Success flavor and rewards
7. Defeat flavor and penalties

Resolving a Challenge

1. The player taking on the Challenge begins by reading the flavor text on the card aloud.
2. They then answer the question presented on the card, to help flesh out the nature of the Challenge. In the case of Party Challenges, all players answer this question as a group.
3. Each Challenge shows a number of Attribute symbols and a series of Target Numbers. When a player undertakes a Challenge, they assemble a number of Challenge dice equal to one plus the number of matching Attribute symbols they have on their Character Card, Starting Equipment, Loot, and any other cards they've collected. The player then rolls the dice. To succeed at the Challenge, the die roll must result in a unique die that matches or beats each of the Target Numbers presented on the Challenge Card. If the player succeeds at the Challenge, they must follow the Success result on the card. If they fail, they must follow the Defeat result.

Depending on the outcome of the Challenge, a player may be rewarded with Loot Cards or resources (like Power and Soul), or may have to suffer losses of Heart or other items.

All You've Got!

Some Challenges don't have specific Attribute symbols, and instead ask for ALL YOU'VE GOT. In that case, the player resolving the Challenge counts all their Attribute symbols to determine how many dice to roll.

Keeping Challenge Cards

Some Challenge Cards will tell you to keep the card as part of the Success or Defeat text of the Challenge. In that case, the player who resolved the Challenge adds the card to their Loot and Starting Equipment Cards. The Attribute symbols displayed in the top right corner of the Challenge Card are added to the player's pool of Attribute symbols, and can be used in future Challenges.

Party Challenge Example

Freya (Knight), Tom (Witch) and Jess (Illusionist) are in the Approach (I) phase of their journey towards confronting their Nemesis, the vile Demon Lord. Freya is the active player, so she draws and reveals the next card in the Challenge Deck and it's Crossing, a Party Challenge. As a group, the players describe the challenge as a rickety rope bridge that spans a large gorge. The gorge is never crossed here because there are large crows that attack anyone who attempts to cross the bridge.

As the player that revealed the Crossing Challenge Card, Freya attempts the challenge first. Crossing has two Attribute symbols on it, the Key and the Crown. Freya examines her cards and sees that she has two symbols that match, a Crown on both the Knight Character Card and the Star Token Starting Equipment Card. This brings her Challenge dice pool for this Challenge to three dice. Freya rolls her dice pool and gets a 2, 3, and 5—a success, with at least one die meeting or beating the single Target Number of 4 on the Crossing Challenge Card. Freya describes fending off the crows as her Knight crosses the bridge safely.

Tom is next in turn order, and his Witch only has one Attribute symbol that matches the Crossing Challenge Card, a Key on his Impossible Pocket Starting Equipment. He rolls two Challenge dice (one, plus one for the matching Key Attribute) and rolls a 1 and a 3—a failure. Neither die meets or beats the Target Number on the Challenge Card, and Tom resolves the Defeat result on the card. Tom describes his Witch's foot slipping through a gap between planks on the bridge, and loses one Heart.

Jess is the last player to attempt the Challenge and has a Challenge dice pool of three dice (one, plus two matching Key Attributes on their Illusionist card and their Shimmer Boots Loot Card.) Jess rolls their dice and gets 2, 2, and 3—a failure. They decide to spend one use of their Illusionist Special Ability, Legerdemain to reroll all their dice. Jess rolls three 6s! They triumphantly describe how their Illusionist nimbly crosses the rickety bridge.

Now that all players have attempted the Challenge, Freya passes the Active Player Token to Tom and he reveals the next Challenge card from the Challenge Deck.

Solo Challenge Example

Enzo is playing the Heavy, and is resolving the Bloody Challenge. They read the flavor text aloud and answer the question. They decide that the warrior they are fighting has had their mind clouded with dark thoughts, which turned them to violence. Now, Enzo must use their dice pool to attempt the Challenge.

The Bloody Challenge shows two Attribute symbols—Sword and Shield. Enzo has both those symbols on their Heavy Character Card, and has the Crest Shield as part of their Starting Equipment, which provides them with an additional Shield. Enzo collects their dice pool: one die, plus one for each matching Attribute symbol they have on their cards, for a total of four Challenge dice. There are two Target Numbers on the Bloody Challenge Card: two 4s. Enzo rolls their dice and gets a 1, 3, 4, and 6. The 4 and the 6 are equal to or higher than the Target Numbers and Enzo succeeds at the Challenge! They check the Success result of the Challenge Card, and are rewarded with a Loot Card and one Soul.

Nemesis Challenges

Mixed in with each of the Approach (I), Lair (II), and End (III) phases of the Challenge Deck are Nemesis Challenge Cards. These cards introduce Nemesis-specific Challenges that are more difficult then the standard Challenges.

When drawn, the player who drew the card consults the Nemesis Card for the details of the Nemesis Challenge.

Nemesis Challenges follow the same rules as Solo and Party Challenges.

Moment Cards

Drawing a Moment Card from the Challenge Deck signals a break from the action, and gives the players an opportunity to roleplay as their characters. When drawn, the players should read the flavor text and answer the first question as a group.

Each Moment Card has three roleplaying prompts, which give a jumping-off point for a scene. Players should work as a group to choose one of the prompts, and roleplay the scene together. Not all players need to participate in the scene, though all players can share in the rewards of the Moment Card (unless otherwise specified on the card). Scenes can last as long as the players want, as long as everyone is enjoying the interaction, but if the players want to keep things moving, a 10–15 minute timer can be set for the scene.

If the players would prefer not to act as their characters, they can instead just describe the scene as a group, inspired by their chosen prompt.

Once the scene is resolved, the player who drew the Moment Card resolves the outcome part of the text. Most Moment Cards have positive outcomes, but occasionally the outcomes can be detrimental.

Moment Card Anatomy

1. Moment Card name
2. Flavor text
3. Roleplay question
4. Prompt choices
5. Outcome

Ending a Turn

A player's turn ends when a Challenge (Solo, Party, or Nemesis) or Moment Card is resolved. The Active Player Token is passed clockwise to the next player.

The End

There are two ways for One Last Fight to end: either the Nemesis is defeated, or all players have Faced Death before they get to the end of the Challenge Deck.

The Nemesis Is Defeated

Once the players resolve the last card of the Challenge Deck (which is always the Slay Them! Card), they have fulfilled their mission and defeated their Nemesis. The party's life of adventure is over and all players should take turns describing what their characters do next. Players should describe how the journey to defeat the Nemesis has changed their characters, for good or for ill. Any players whose character Faced Death should describe how their character's deeds are remembered.

The Players Are Defeated

If the entire party Faces Death before resolving the Slay Them! Card, then they have failed to stop the Nemesis. All players, as a group, should describe how the Nemesis changes the world. How does it look now? How do they control people? Lastly, each player should describe one way that their character's actions during the game provide hope for the next heroes who rise up to fight the Nemesis once more.