Spellcrafter Rulebook

Table of Contents

Components
Setup
Gameplay
Scoring
Card Elements
Special Cards
Challenges
Game End
Example
Alternate Rules
Credits

Components

35 cards of each suit: Familiars (Black), Sigils (Red), Cauldrons (Green), and Moons (Blue), including 3 special cards of each suit.

The four suits are: familiars, sigils, cauldrons, and moons.

Setup

Randomly select a dealer to shuffle the deck and deal one face up card to the center of the table. This is a shared card known as the "Jumper" and any number of players may use that card in their word. Next, deal a hand of 8 cards facedown to each player.

Gameplay

The following rules are for 3-5 players. For 2 players, include the alternative rules under Alternate Rules below.

If this is your first game, it is recommended to include the "Friendly Rules" under Alternate Rules below.

Players look at the cards in their hand. Next, select one card to keep by placing it in a pile face down in front of them. Once everyone has selected a card, pass your remaining hand to the player on your left face down.

Repeat this process until you have a pile of 7 selected cards. Instead of passing the last card, place it face down in front of you in a separate pile. When you build your word, this face down card may be used to represent the Jumper card.

When the draft is complete, players may look at their selected cards and have 2 minutes to craft one word. These words must be at least 3 letters long but using the jumper, special cards, or all letters is not mandatory. Refer to Challenges below for additional rules on legal words.

Record your points for the round where it is visible to all players, then discard all cards face-up to create a discard pile beside the deck.

To begin a new round, deal a new hand of 8 cards to each player from the remaining deck and a new jumper card to the middle of the table. Alternate passing direction with each round. If you run out of cards while dealing, reshuffle the discard pile to create a new deck.

Scoring

Each letter has a point value on the top right of the card. Simply add up the value of each letter to determine the value of the word.

Flush: Double the word value when all letters are the same suit.
Straight: Double the word value when the word is 5 letters or longer.
Both: Triple the word value for Flush Straights!

Card Elements

Each letter card shows its suit and its value in the corners, and the letter itself in the center.

Special Cards

Special cards feature an icon, instead of a letter, and include a brief description of their effects. A more detailed description and clarifications may be found below.

Double, Double copies a letter (and its value) of any letter already in your word. The suit of the duplicated letter matches this card, not the copied card. For example, you could craft the word MOTOR using this card even if you have only one "O". Does not copy the effects of Toil.

Toil changes the suit of any one of your letters to match this card and increase its base value by 1. If you change the Jumper, it changes only for you. The point increase affects the base value and is multiplied per normal scoring rules. A Toil may only be applied to each letter card only once and has no effect on Trouble or Double, Double.

Trouble is not worth any points, but its letter may be decided when crafting a word. The suit of the letter matches this card.

Although Qu is a letter card (not a special card), it is unique because it includes two letters. When playing this card, using the "U" is optional and doesn't contribute to the length of your word for scoring or towards the minimum word length. Since the "U" is optional, this card may be played with a "U" letter card for the extra points and length.

Challenges

Before recording the score for the round, any player may challenge a word by announcing they are doing so and looking up the word in a previously agreed upon dictionary. If the word is in the dictionary, the challenging player loses points equal to the value of the challenged word.

If the word is not in the dictionary, discard those letters and the player who played the word scores zero points for the round.

Proper nouns, prefixes, suffixes, acronyms, hyphenated words, abbreviations, and contractions requiring an apostrophe are not legal words.

Game End

When a player plays a single word worth 50 or more points, that player immediately wins the game regardless of any other scoring.

Otherwise, the game ends after four rounds and the player with highest total across all four rounds is the winner! If there is a tie, the player with the longest word in the final round wins.

Example

In this example, a player has played the letters K, I, and T to spell "KIT". Since all the letters are in the moons suit, the total value is doubled: x2 = 16.

Typically, longer words are worth more points! So, in this example the player has added the jumper card, the letter Y represented by a face down card, to the end of their word by also playing a Double, Double special card to spell the word "KITTY". Since the word is 5 letters long its value is doubled: x2 = 26.

This example is similar to the one above, except the player added the Toil special card to the jumper, changing its suit from familiars to moons. Now, the word value is tripled: x3 = 42.

Alternate Rules

Two-Player Rules

For a two-player game, remove the Familiars (black) suit from the deck. Deal a hand of 14 cards to each player and one Jumper card to the center of the table. Each time you select a card as normal also discard one card to the discard pile before passing.

Friendly Rules

For a less competitive game, use the following adjustments to the rules. Using the Jumper card in your word is now mandatory, but it is considered to have no suit, so only look at the cards played for determining flush scoring. Players also keep any selected cards face-up in front of them. During scoring there is no time limit, so it is encouraged to help your neighbors to create the best possible word!

Team Rules

Although there are enough cards to make hands for large groups, with more than 5 players it is recommended to divide into teams and play using the standard rules.

Double-Double, Toil, & Trouble

This variant uses the standard rules with the following change to scoring. Playing three different special cards in one word is worth 10 bonus points! This bonus is added after the Flush or Straight multiplier.

Credits

Game Design & Development: Todd Bayless Artwork: Akakiy Evic Editor: Ben Mansfield BGA Implementation: Justin Woolley

Playtesters: Catrina Tellez, Ryan Spadafora, Justin Woolley, Dane Fredericksen, Arion Clarke, Shane Smith, Darrin Scott & Karl Johnson.