Runebound: Mistrz Runów Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Expansion Overview
• Components
• Cards
  • Feat Cards
  • Spell Cards
  • Place Cards
  • Challenge Cards
  • Talent Cards
  • Card Markings
  • Symbols
• Setup
• Turn Sequence
  • Purchasing a Talent
  • Refilling Your Hand
• Playing Class Cards
  • Spending Threat
  • When to Play Class Cards
  • Threat Cost of Spells and Feats
  • Epic Cards
  • Resolved Class Cards
• Changes to the Battle Sequence
  • Multiple Challenges
  • Gaining Threat for Challenges
  • Playing Cards with the Book Symbol
  • Penalty to Escape Tests
  • Battles Between Players
  • Example of Play
• Other Rules
  • Golden Rule
  • Threat Cost of Adventure Cards
  • Stunning
  • Card Text
  • Miscellaneous
• Advanced Rules
  • Deck Building
  • Draft Variant

Expansion Overview

The RUNEBOUND character decks add variety and excitement to your RUNEBOUND game. The cards in these decks give your Hero new skills and abilities, and they also let you thwart your opponents with clever spells and deadly challenges. You must use this new knowledge wisely, because every action has a cost!

Playing with character decks greatly increases the level of interaction between players. Your character deck contains enemy cards that you play during another player's turn to weaken his Hero or to make the Challenge he is facing more dangerous.

Character decks also give you greater control over your Hero's development. The decks contain friendly cards that you may play on your own Hero to give him a temporary benefit, and Talent cards that give your Hero new special abilities. When you gain Experience and purchase higher-level Talents, your Hero becomes steadily more powerful!

Finally, once you have mastered the basic rules of character decks, you can create your own unique decks by mixing cards from different sets. You can build a deck that focuses on your strengths or on your opponents' weaknesses. For example, if you have the Battlemage deck and want to focus on melee attacks instead of Spells, you might add some Feats from the Blade Dancer deck. The rules for building a deck are simple, but it takes skill to put together a strong one.

Components

The game uses all of the components of the base RUNEBOUND game, including the Trade and Adventure decks, together with the new components from this expansion. This expansion contains three character decks, and each one includes:

• 25 class cards (Feats, Spells, Places and Challenges)
• 5 Talent cards
• 10 threat tokens

To play with this expansion, each player needs their own character deck and their own threat tokens.

The box also contains green Adventure markers. You may use them when playing with a character deck, or when playing with the base RUNEBOUND game only.

This booklet describes how to use a single deck, consisting of one character deck and 10 threat tokens. When several such decks are in use, apply these rules to each deck separately.

One set contains three different character decks. Cards from each deck are marked with a symbol and a number, according to the legend below:

Set 1: Runemaster	Set 2: Blade Dancer
Battlemage (Mag Bojowy)	Blade Dancer (Tancerka Ostrzy)
Spirit Kin (Pobratymiec Duchów)	Shadow Walker (Kroczący Wśród Cieni)
Runemaster (Mistrz Runów)	Frontiersman (Pogranicznik)

Cards

This expansion includes five kinds of cards. The class deck contains Feat, Spell, Place and Challenge cards, while the Talent deck consists of Talent cards.

Feat Cards

Friendly Feats give your Hero temporary bonuses and abilities. Enemy Feats are played during another player's turn: they either impose a penalty on that player's Hero, or give the Challenge he is facing a powerful advantage in combat.

Spell Cards

Spells are similar to Feats, but they usually require different proficiencies to play (see page 5).

Place Cards

Place cards can be played on a Hero who is standing on a particular type of terrain. Friendly Places give Heroes temporary benefits. Enemy Places are played during another player's turn: they often disrupt carefully prepared plans. Some Places remain in play for several turns and affect all Heroes.

Challenge Cards

Challenge cards from a class deck resemble the Challenge cards from the Adventure deck. They differ only in how they come into play: to play a Challenge card from a class deck on another Hero, you must pay threat (see page 4).

Talent Cards

Talent cards present new abilities which a Hero may purchase with Experience points or Experience tokens. Talents also grant Heroes proficiencies, which make it easier to play Spells and Feats.

Card Markings

1. Name: The name of the card.
2. Epic symbol (#): A card with the # symbol beside its name is considered Epic. Only one Epic card may be played during a given player's turn.
3. Card text: This text describes the card's effects and special rules. Text in italics is flavour description and has no effect on play. 4a and 4b. Threat cost: Threat is marked on cards, and in the rest of this booklet, with the word "threat" (shown on the card as a threat icon). All class cards have a threat cost. The threat cost of an enemy card is shown on a blue symbol (4a); the threat cost of a friendly card is shown on a red symbol (4b).
4. Timing symbols: The three symbols, a boot (|), a book (\) and a bat (*), show the moment at which a class card may be played.
5. Talent level (Talents only): The level of the Talent.
6. Proficiencies (Talents only): There are five proficiencies in the game: Wizardry, Divinity, Fighting, Survival and Subterfuge. A proficiency represents an area of training on which a Hero concentrates. For example, the Wizardry proficiency makes it easier for a Hero to cast Spells.
7. Talent requirements (Talents only): When a player purchases a new Talent, it must match a proficiency of the Talent the Hero currently has.
8. Proficiency requirements (Spells and Feats only): If the proficiency icons in this field do not match the proficiency icons on the Hero's current Talent card, the Spell or Feat will cost the player more (see page 10).
9. Terrain requirement (Places only): When a player plays a Place card on a Hero, that Hero must be standing on a space matching the terrain requirement of the card.

Symbols

The symbols used in the game are:

• Wizardry, Divinity, Fighting, Survival and Subterfuge: the five proficiency icons.
• Threat: the threat icon.
• Epic card: the dragon icon (#).
• Timing: the boot icon (|), the book icon (\) and the bat icon (*).

Setup

1. Each player shuffles their class cards and places them face down beside their Hero card.
2. Each player places their 5 Talent cards in a face-down pile beside the class deck.
3. Each player draws 6 cards from the top of their class deck. These cards form the player's starting hand.
4. Instead of starting the game with 3 gold, each player may choose to start with a level 1 Talent. If they do, they take any level 1 Talent from their Talent deck and place it face up beside their Hero card.
5. Each player places 10 threat tokens beside their Hero card. These tokens form the player's threat pool.

Turn Sequence

When playing with character decks, the turn proceeds slightly differently than in the base RUNEBOUND game:

1. Regeneration: This phase proceeds normally.
2. Movement: At the end of this phase, each player may play class cards with the boot symbol (|) (see pages 8-9).
3. Adventure: At the start of battles with Challenges and battles between players, players may play class cards with the book symbol (\) (see page 9). This expansion also introduces several changes to how Challenges are resolved, described on pages 11-12.
4. Trade: This phase proceeds normally.
5. Experience: In addition to the normal actions a player may take during the Experience phase, they may also purchase one Talent and refill their hand of cards.

Purchasing a Talent

A player may spend Experience points to purchase one Talent. The cost of a Talent depends on the number of players taking part in the game:

Number of players	Cost of a Talent
1-2	5
3-4	4
5-6	3

Instead of spending Experience points, a player may exchange one of their Experience tokens for a Talent.

A player may purchase only a Talent whose level is equal to, one lower than, or one higher than the level of the Talent they currently have. The requirement of the new Talent must match a proficiency of the Talent the Hero currently has. Level 1 Talents have no requirements, so a player may purchase any level 1 Talent without restriction.

Example: Janek's Hero currently has the level 1 Talent "Sense of Danger", which grants the Fighting, Survival and Subterfuge proficiencies. Janek would like to purchase "Scout", a level 2 Talent with a Survival requirement. The new Talent is only one level higher than his current Talent, and his current Talent grants the required proficiency, so Janek may purchase "Scout" without any problem. Janek could not purchase a level 3 Talent, or a Talent requiring Wizardry or Divinity.

When purchasing a new Talent, the player returns the current Talent card to the Talent deck, and places the new card face up beside their Hero card. A player may have only one Talent at a time.

Refilling Your Hand

Normally a player holds a hand of 6 cards. At the end of the Experience phase, a player may draw cards from their class deck until they again have six.

Example: Szymon has 4 cards in his hand. When he refills his hand, he draws 2 cards from his class deck so that he again has six cards in his hand.

If a player holds more cards than the hand limit, they keep the excess cards.

If a player did not play any class card during their turn, they may discard one card before refilling their hand.

If there are not enough cards left in the class deck to refill the hand, the player may skip their next turn in order to shuffle their discard pile of class cards into a new class deck.

Playing Class Cards

Class cards give players many ways to support their own Heroes or to hinder the Heroes of other players. During each player's turn, all players (not only the player whose turn it is) may play class cards. Remember that every class card is played on the Hero (or sometimes on that Hero's Allies) belonging to the player whose turn it is. That player is called the "active player", and all the other players are called "enemy players".

Spending Threat

Players use threat tokens to play cards. Each player has exactly 10 threat. The threat cost of a class card is shown on a blue or red symbol.

A player may play friendly cards (red symbol) only during their own turn, or when their Hero is taking part in a battle. When a player plays a friendly card, they take the number of threat tokens shown as its cost from their threat pool and place them on their Hero card.

Example: Ania has the friendly Spell "Bestow Blessing" in her hand, with a threat cost of 6. To play it, Ania must take 6 threat from her threat pool and place them on her Hero card. She could not play this card if her pool held fewer than 6 threat.

A player may play enemy cards (blue symbol) only on other players' Heroes, and only during those players' turns. To do so, the player takes the number of threat tokens shown as the card's cost from the card of the target Hero and places them in that Hero's threat pool.

Example: Szymon has the enemy Challenge "Ice Giants" in his hand, with a threat cost of 8. To play it on Ania, Szymon must take 8 threat from Ania's Hero card and place them in Ania's threat pool. He could not play the card if Ania's Hero card held fewer than 8 threat.

The text of some enemy cards states that they may be played either on the player's own Hero or on the Heroes of other players. If a player plays such a card on their own Hero, they must play it during their own turn, and they move the threat from their Hero card into their own threat pool.

When to Play Class Cards

The symbol in the upper left corner of a class card shows the moment in a turn when the card may be played.

Cards with the boot symbol (|) may be played at the end of the active player's Movement phase.

Starting with the player to the left of the active player and continuing clockwise, the enemy players may play one or more cards with the boot symbol on the active player's Hero. When a player has played all the cards they wish to play, they must pass. When a player passes, the turn moves to the next player, and so on, until every enemy player has had a chance to play cards. When all the enemy players have passed, the active player has a chance to play cards with the boot symbol on their own Hero.

Important: A Challenge may not be played on a Hero who is in a town. Also, to play a Place card, one of the card's terrain requirements must match the space occupied by the active player's Hero.

Each Place is resolved immediately after it is played. Challenges are not resolved until every player has had a chance to play cards with the boot symbol.

Cards with the book symbol (\) may be played at the start of battles with Challenges, before any "Before Combat" actions are taken.

Starting with the player to the left of the active player and continuing clockwise, the enemy players may play one or more cards with the book symbol on the active player's Hero. When a player has played all the cards they wish to play, they must pass. Once all the enemy players have passed, the active player may play cards with the book symbol on their own Hero.

Cards with the book symbol are resolved immediately after they are played.

Cards with the bat symbol (*) may be played in the situation described by the text of the card itself.

If more than one player wishes to play a card with the bat symbol at the same time, the player to the left of the active player plays their card first. Then the next player, moving clockwise, plays, and so on, ending with the active player.

Cards with the bat symbol are resolved immediately after they are played.

Threat Cost of Spells and Feats

When a player plays a Spell or a Feat, they must check that the proficiency icons on their Talent card match the proficiency requirements of the card being played. Each proficiency icon on a Spell or Feat that has no matching icon on the player's Talent card increases the cost of playing that Spell or Feat by +2 threat.

Example: Ania wants to play the Spell "Polymorph", which has a threat cost of 2 but also requires the Wizardry and Survival proficiencies. Her current Talent, "Scroll Calligraphy", grants her the Wizardry and Divinity proficiencies. Ania's Talent does not grant the Survival proficiency, which is one of the requirements of the Spell she wants to play, so the final cost of "Polymorph" is 2 threat higher.

Epic Cards

Only one Epic card (one with the # symbol) may be played during a player's turn. If an enemy player plays an Epic card, neither the active player nor the other enemy players may play their own Epic cards for the rest of the active player's turn.

Resolved Class Cards

Resolved class cards are placed on the class discard pile of their owner.

Unresolved Challenges from a player's class deck are not placed on the unresolved Challenge track. Instead, they are simply discarded.

Changes to the Battle Sequence

When resolving a Challenge or a battle between two Heroes, use the rules of the base RUNEBOUND game, with the additions and modifications below.

Multiple Challenges

If an enemy player plays a Challenge on the active player's Hero, the active player must first resolve that Challenge. If the Hero defeats it, the Hero may then undertake an adventure from the Adventure marker or unresolved Challenge token on their space.

Gaining Threat for Challenges

When a Hero takes on a green, yellow, blue or red Challenge, the Hero immediately receives a number of threat that depends on the colour of the Challenge (see below). The player taking on the Challenge takes the corresponding number of threat tokens from their threat pool and places them on their Hero card. If there is not enough threat in the pool, the Hero must receive as much threat as possible and still take on the Challenge.

• Green: 1 threat
• Yellow: 2 threat
• Blue: 3 threat
• Red: 4 threat

Playing Cards with the Book Symbol

Class cards with the book symbol (\) are played at the start of a battle, after the Hero has received threat for taking on the Challenge (as described above), but before any "Before Combat" actions are taken.

Penalty to Escape Tests

During the escape phase, enemy Spells and Feats played on the active player's Hero during the current Challenge (but not during previous Challenges taken in the same turn) impose a penalty on escape tests equal to their total printed threat cost. Do not discard enemy Spells and Feats before the battle has ended, so that all players stay aware of this penalty.

Battles Between Players

At the start of a battle between players, friendly cards may be played, but enemy cards may not. The attacker plays their friendly Spells and Feats first, followed by the defender.

Example of Play

In a 3-player game, Krzysiek's turn begins. Bartek sits to Krzysiek's left and Szymon sits to his right. Krzysiek's Hero card holds 2 threat, and 8 threat remains in his pool.

Krzysiek rolls the movement dice and lands on a forest space with a green Adventure marker. Now, starting with Bartek and continuing clockwise, the players may play cards with the boot symbol (|). Bartek plays the enemy Place card "Desecrated Graveyard", which has a cost of 0 and "forest" as its terrain requirement. Bartek resolves the card immediately: Krzysiek fails the search test required by the Place card, so, as the card says, Krzysiek takes 1 threat from his pool and places it on his Hero card. Bartek does not wish to play any more cards with the boot symbol, so he passes.

Szymon plays the enemy Challenge "Rock Hound", which has a threat cost of 3. Szymon takes 3 threat from Krzysiek's Hero card and places it in Krzysiek's threat pool. The Challenge will not be resolved until every player has had a chance to play cards with the boot symbol. "Rock Hound" has the # symbol, which means that no other Epic card may be played during Krzysiek's turn. Szymon then passes.

Once both enemy players have passed, Krzysiek may play cards with the boot symbol. He plays the friendly Feat "Pit with Stakes", which costs 2 threat. Krzysiek takes 2 threat from his pool and places it on his Hero card, and then he passes.

Now that all players have passed, Krzysiek begins his Adventure phase. A Challenge has been played on his Hero, so before he can undertake an adventure from the green marker, he must face that Challenge.

This is the start of a battle, so players may play cards with the book symbol (\), starting with Bartek and continuing clockwise. Bartek passes. Szymon decides to play the enemy Feat "Mark of the Hydra", which increases the Challenge's Life value to 6. The cost of this Feat is 2 threat, so Szymon removes 2 threat from Krzysiek's Hero card, leaving 1 threat on it. Szymon also plays "Hurl Boulder", an enemy Feat with a cost of 1 threat. The Feat is resolved immediately: Krzysiek fails his Jump test and takes 1 wound. Then Szymon passes. Krzysiek does not wish to play any cards with the book symbol, so he passes too.

Now that all players have passed, Krzysiek resolves the battle, beginning with any "Before Combat" abilities. His Feat "Pit with Stakes" deals 1 wound to the Rock Hound.

Krzysiek could now try to escape, but he would suffer a -3 penalty on the test, because the total threat cost of the enemy Spells and Feats played during this Challenge is 3. If Krzysiek succeeded in escaping, his turn would end.

Instead of escaping, Krzysiek decides to continue the battle. First he plays a Feat with the bat symbol (*), with a cost of 1 threat, called "Accurate Shot". Its text reads: "Play before your Hero makes a ranged attack." Krzysiek succeeds on his ranged attack roll, so he deals 2 wounds to the Rock Hound for his Hero's ranged damage, plus 1 wound from the Feat "Accurate Shot".

Krzysiek succeeds on his melee defence roll and, in the magic phase, attacks the Rock Hound with his Ally, "Shan, Runesmith". The attack roll succeeds, and Shan deals 3 wounds. Krzysiek defeats the Rock Hound and receives a reward of 2 gold.

Krzysiek then undertakes an adventure from the green marker on his Hero's space. He draws "Spectral Stag". The Spectral Stag is a green Challenge, so Krzysiek takes 1 threat. Now there are 2 threat in total on his Hero card.

This is the start of a battle, so players once again have the opportunity to play cards with the book symbol (\). All players pass. Next, the "Before Combat" abilities are resolved. The text of "Pit with Stakes" states that it has an effect "until the end of your Adventure phase", so it also applies during this second Challenge: the Spectral Stag takes 1 wound.

Krzysiek then moves to the escape phase. No player played enemy Spells or Feats during this Challenge, so Krzysiek takes no penalty to any escape test.

Instead of escaping, Krzysiek makes a successful attack in the ranged combat phase. His Hero deals 2 wounds, which defeats the Spectral Stag. He receives a reward of 1 gold and a green Adventure marker.

Krzysiek has finished his Adventure phase, and it is time for the Experience phase. If Krzysiek had 4 Experience points or an Experience token, he could purchase a new Talent. Krzysiek ends his turn by drawing cards until he again has 6 in his hand.

Note: The threat totals in this example are transcribed as printed. They do not fully reconcile with the costs stated in the example (for instance, after "Pit with Stakes" the Hero card would hold 2 threat, not 3, before "Mark of the Hydra" is paid), but they are left unchanged here.

Other Rules

In addition to the basic RUNEBOUND rules, follow the extended rules below, which apply to the new elements introduced by the character decks.

Golden Rule

If the text of one card contradicts the text of another card, the card that was played later takes precedence.

Threat Cost of Adventure Cards

Challenge cards from the Adventure deck have a threat cost of zero.

Stunning

If a Hero is stunned, all threat tokens on that Hero's card must be returned to the threat pool of the Hero's player.

Card Text

The phrase "you receive threat" means that the player must take the appropriate number of threat from their threat pool and place it on their Hero card. When a card instructs a player to "discard threat", the player must take the appropriate number of threat from their Hero card and return it to their threat pool.

When a card refers to "this Challenge", it means the Challenge card that the active player is taking on.

Some enemy class cards have bold text above a horizontal line. That text refers to the player who plays the card. Text below the line refers to the player on whom the card is played.

Example: Szymon has the enemy Spell "Soul Drain" in his hand. Its bold text reads: "Play immediately after any Hero or Ally fails a magic combat roll." This text tells Szymon when he may play the card. During Ania's turn, in a Challenge, her Hero fails a magic combat roll. Szymon plays "Soul Drain". The text below the line reads: "For each wound this Challenge deals in the magic combat phase, discard 1 wound from that Challenge's card." This text tells Ania what effect "Soul Drain" has on the game.

When a card refers to other cards that contain a specific word in their text, the player should also consider cards in which that word appears as part of a longer phrase or in an inflected form, as well as cases where an adjective derived from that word appears. For example, if a card refers to "cards with the word 'dragon' in their name", the player also takes into account cards such as "Draconic Shape".

"Your first combat roll" refers to the first combat roll made during a given battle.

Miscellaneous

If a Challenge card and an Adventure marker are on the same space, and the unresolved Challenge is a different colour from the Adventure marker, the player must first take on the unresolved Challenge.

If several Adventure markers of different colours are on one space, the player chooses which adventure to undertake.

If a card is discarded, all tokens and markers that were on that card, or under it, must also be discarded.

Advanced Rules

These rules are intended for players who are familiar with the base RUNEBOUND game and with this expansion. They allow players to build their own character decks.

Deck Building

If a player wishes to build their own character deck, they must follow these restrictions:

1. A player may have up to 30 class cards in their class deck.
2. A player's class deck may not contain duplicates.
3. The class deck must include at least 12 enemy cards (Spells, Feats, Places and/or Challenges).
4. A player may have up to 5 Talent cards in their Talent deck.
5. The Talent deck may contain several Talents of the same level (for example, two level 3 Talent cards).

Draft Variant

This variant is recommended only for players who have prepared their decks with it in mind. At the start of the game, each player chooses 10 enemy class cards from their class deck. From these 10 cards, the player chooses 5 and passes them to the player on their left; the other 5 cards are passed to the player on their right. Each player then takes the 10 cards dealt to them and shuffles them into their class deck. Players should record in advance which cards they pass to others, so that they can later separate their own cards from the cards of others.