Treasure Hunter Rulebook

Table of Contents

Game Components
Set-up
The Cards
The Treasures
The Goblins
Sequence of Play
1st Phase: Assemble Your Hand
2nd Phase: Play Your Cards
3rd Phase: Use Yellow Magic Scrolls and Prepare the Next Game Round
End of the Game
Rules Changes for a 2-Player Game

Game Components

1 Game board (double sided – composed of two parts; rear side shows the scoretrack for the end of the game)
1 Game round marker
12 Counting tokens (for tracking points at the end of the game)
82 Coins (42x copper, 20x silver, 20x gold)
39 Gems, worth 10 or 20 (27x 10, 12x 20)
22 Goblin tiles
54 Treasure tiles: 30x artifacts (25x positive & 5x negative), 20x yellow magic scrolls, 4x gray magic scrolls
75 Cards: 36x adventurer cards (12x Frosty Mountain, 12x Tangled Jungle, 12x Lava Cave), 12x coin cards (4x each copper, silver, gold), 12x watchdog cards, 15x action cards
1 Rules booklet & 1 extra sheet

Set-up

Piece the game board together and place it in the center of the gaming area. It shows the game round track and the three locations: Frosty Mountain, Tangled Jungle and Lava Cave. At each of these locations, two treasures can be captured. At the right hand side are spaces for three goblin tiles.
Mix the cards and stack them face down near the game board. This is the draw pile.
Sort the coins by denomination and place them next to the game board as a general supply, together with the gems.
Give coins to each player with a total worth of 15.
Place the game round marker on the bottom space of the game round track.
Mix the goblin tiles face down and stack them below the game board, as shown. Reveal 3 goblins and place one on each on the goblin spaces.
Mix the treasure tiles face down and separate them into two stacks of the same size. One is the draw pile for the hard-to-find treasures (spaces marked MAX), the other one that for the easy-to-find treasures (spaces marked MIN). Place the stacks below the game board, as shown. Then, reveal 3 treasures from each stack, one after the other and place one each on the corresponding spaces, from top to bottom.
Randomly determine a card dealer.

The Cards

Each card shows: strength or paw quality, a number, return in coins or discipline quality, the character's name, a colored frame, special action, and name of the card (as applicable to the card type).

Adventurer cards: These are the adventurers the players send out on quests for treasures. Each adventurer is identified by their strength number, ranging from 1 to 12. The colored frame indicates the location where that adventurer hunts for treasures: Blue = Frosty Mountain, Green = Tangled Jungle, Red = Lava Cave.

Coin cards: At the end of each game round, the players receive copper, silver or gold coins for their coin cards, depending on the type of card.

Watchdog cards: While the adventurers hunt for treasures, the watchdogs guard the camp from the sneaking goblins who try to raid the camp and steal coins. The paw quality indicates a dog's strength, and the discipline quality serves as tie-breaker.

Action cards: With these cards, the players can affect the game play. Please see the extra sheet for a detailed explanation of these cards.

The Treasures

Artifacts (Positive and Negative): The number is the treasure's value in coins at the end of the game. Be careful because for some artifacts coins are lost at the end of the game!

Magic scrolls:

Yellow magic scrolls: There is no predetermined value for these scrolls at the end of the game. These can be used at the end of a game round to gain coins. Each scroll depicts a requirement that must be met in order to gain a certain amount of coins. The more often a player meets a given requirement, the more coins they gain. Once used, the scroll is removed from the game.
Gray magic scrolls: Gray scrolls become active only at the end of the game and reward the player with extra coins.

The scrolls are explained in detail on the extra sheet.

The Goblins

Goblins: These sneaking creatures snitch the players' hard-earned coins while they are away hunting for more treasures. Only the watchdogs can keep the goblins at bay.

The paw quality indicates a goblin's strength. The coin value represents the value of lost coins in case the goblins cannot be repelled.

Each collected goblin tile counts as one copper coin at the end of the game.

Sequence of Play

Treasure Hunter is played over 5 game rounds; each game round consists of 3 phases:

1st phase: Assemble your hand
2nd phase: Play your cards
3rd phase: Use yellow magic scrolls and prepare the next game round

Note: You will find rules changes for 2 players on page 6 of these rules.

1st Phase: Assemble Your Hand

The card dealer deals 9 cards from the draw pile to each player face down. The players take these cards in hand; keep the remaining cards as a draw pile near the game board.

Then, each player chooses one of their cards and places it face down in front of them. After all players have chosen one card, they pass their remaining cards face down to their neighbor. During the 1st, 3rd, and 5th game rounds, the cards are passed to the left neighbor; during the 2nd and 4th game rounds, pass to the right neighbor. Repeat this procedure until each player has 9 cards face down in front of them.

Note: The players are allowed to look at their chosen cards at any time. There is no choice for the last card; everybody just takes the card given to them by their neighbor.

Finally, the players return their cards to their hand, then the game continues with the 2nd phase.

Example (choosing the first two cards): A) Frank chooses the blue "2" card from his hand and places it face down in front of him. He passes the remaining 8 cards to his left neighbor. (The icon next to the game round marker shows in which direction the players pass the cards.) B) He received 8 cards from his right neighbor, decides to keep the red "12" card, then passes the other 7 cards to his left neighbor.

2nd Phase: Play Your Cards

This phase is played in three steps in the following order: A: Capture treasures, B: Keep goblins at bay, C: Collect coins.

A: Capture Treasures

The players find out who will capture the hard-to-find and the easy-to-find treasures at the three locations: Frosty Mountain, Tangled Jungle and Lava Cave. They start at the Frosty Mountain:

First, all players place all of their Frosty Mountain adventurer cards (blue frame) face up in front of them. Players cannot withhold any blue framed cards. Then, the players sum the strength numbers of their adventurer cards. Now is the time to play any action cards from their hand if a player wants to affect their sum (see below).

After the tally is complete, the game continues as follows:

The player with the highest total captures the hard-to-find treasure. (The treasure tile to the left of MAX)

The player with the lowest total captures the easy-to-find treasure. (The treasure tile to the right of MIN)

In case of a tie for the highest and/or lowest total, the tied player who had played the card with the highest strength number wins the tie and captures the treasure.

Important: Players who did not play any Frosty Mountain cards (blue frame) because they had none and players who had lowered their sum to zero or even a negative total cannot capture any treasures.

Example: Ani's total of 30 is the highest and she captures the hard-to-find treasure (MAX). Frank captures the easy-to-find treasure, having the lowest total of 3. Jenny captures nothing.

Example (tie): Jenny and Frank are tied for the lowest total. Because Jenny has played the highest card (6) of the two of them, she captures the yellow magical scroll.

Playing action cards: After all players have played their cards for the current location, the card dealer has the chance to play an action card, followed by the other players in clockwise direction. Each time an action card is played, all other players and the player themself may react and play an action card as well. If nobody plays an action card or nobody wants to react to a played action card anymore, the treasures are assigned.

Note: The action cards are explained in detail on the extra sheet.

If only one player played Frosty Mountain cards, they capture both treasures: the hard-to-find one and the easy-to-find one. If no player played Frosty Mountain cards, remove these two treasure tiles and place them back in the game box.

The players keep their captured treasures face up in front of them.

Following the same procedure, the players find out who captures the treasures in the Tangled Jungle and in the Lava Cave. Of course, in the Tangled Jungle players can (and must) play only Tangled Jungle adventurer cards (green frame), and in the Lava Cave only Lava Cave adventurer cards (red frame).

Example (including action cards): 1) Frank has the highest total (18), and Ani the second highest (16) before action cards are played. 2) Then, Ani plays her Flaming Sword and increases her total by 4 to 20. 3) Frank reacts by playing his Animal Companion, doubling his adventurer sum, giving him the highest total again with 36. He captures the hard-to-find treasure because Ani does not play any additional action cards.

B: Keep Goblins at Bay

To begin with, each player may play the action cards "Scaregoblin" or "Mystery Mule" (see extra sheet).

Then, all players place all of their watchdogs in front of them, face up, and sum their paw qualities.

Next, each player compares their paw quality with each goblin's paw quality, one after the other:

If the player's paw quality is at least as large as that of the goblin, they have kept the creature at bay and do not lose any coins.

If player's paw quality is less than that of the goblin, the goblin steals coins from the player equal to the value indicated on the tile; the player must place these coins on that tile.

Note: In the rare case that a player whose coins are stolen has no coins, there is no penalty and nothing happens.

Example (keeping goblins at bay): Jenny's paw quality of "2" is enough to keep the two lower goblins at bay. However, she is not successful against the top goblin with its paw quality of "3", so she must place one of her silver coins on that tile.

Finally, the players compare their paw qualities with each other. The player with the highest total gains each goblin tile that they had successfully kept at bay, along with all of the coins on that tile stolen from other players.

This player places the coins and the goblin tiles face down in front of them.

Any goblin that was not kept at bay by that player is returned to the game box, with the stolen coins returned to the general supply.

Example (gaining goblins): Ani's paw quality of "6" is the highest, so she claims all three goblins, along with the silver coin stolen from Jenny.

In case of a tie for the highest paw quality, the tied player with the highest discipline quality watchdog card claims the goblin tiles.

Example (tie): Both Jenny's and Ani's paw quality is "3". However, Ani's watchdogs have the highest discipline quality and thus Ani is the winner of the tie.

C: Collect Coins

Each player places all of their coin cards in front of them and receives copper, silver, and gold coins from the supply according to their cards.

Note: The gems (worth 10 and 20) make it easier to count coins, and a player may exchange coins for a gem of the proper value (and vice versa) at any time. In addition, coins may be exchanged for other coins of different denominations at any time. At the end of the game, gems are worth a coin value of 10 or 20.

Example: Frank receives one silver and one gold coin from the supply. Then, he exchanges coins worth 20 for a gem.

Any players who have unused action cards in their hand discard these cards in front of them.

3rd Phase: Use Yellow Magic Scrolls and Prepare the Next Game Round

Use yellow magic scrolls: Each player now may use one or more of their yellow magic scrolls.

When using a scroll, the player receives the appropriate number of coins from the supply, then places the scroll tile back into the game box.

It is not mandatory to use a scroll during the game round in which the player obtained it.

At the end of the game, any unused yellow magic scrolls are worthless.

Note: All scroll tiles are explained in detail on the extra sheet.

Example: Ani has played 4 Tangled Jungle adventurer cards during this game round, and now uses her yellow scroll "Strong team" to gain 4 silver coins (4 x 2).

Prepare the next game round:

Shuffle all of the cards, then place them face down as a new draw pile. Clockwise, the next player becomes the new card dealer.
Draw 3 cards from each pile of the treasure tiles (hard-to-find and easy-to-find), and place them on the appropriate spaces, one after the other, face up and from top to bottom.
Place one new goblin tile drawn from that pile on each of the goblin spaces.

Important: Do not deploy any yellow magic scrolls when preparing the 5th game round! If drawn, discard it and continue drawing until you draw an artifact or a gray magic scroll!

Move the game round marker upwards to the next space. The new game round can start now.

Note: Skip this step during the final (5th) game round. Instead, proceed to the end of the game.

End of the Game

The game ends after the 5th game round has been completed. All players calculate their final score:

Flip the game board to the rear side showing the scoretrack.

Each player takes two counting tokens of the same color, placing one next to the scoretrack and the other in front of themselves.

Now each player counts their total worth in coins on the scoretrack:

Total worth in coins of gray magic scrolls (example: = 6)
Total worth in coins of artifacts (example: = 26)
Total worth in coins of collected goblin tiles (example: = 3)
Total worth of coins and gems (example: = 41)

Example: Ani counts all of her worth in coins: 6 (gray magic scrolls) + 26 (artifacts) + 3 (goblin tiles) + 41 (coins and gems). She tracks these values with her counting marker step by step and reaches a total of 76.

The player with the highest total is the most successful treasure hunter and winner of the game. In case of a tie, the tied players share the victory.

Rules Changes for a 2-Player Game

1st phase: Assemble your hand

Each player receives 9 cards as their hand from the draw pile plus 9 cards as a face down personal draw pile that they place in front of them.

Each time before a player chooses one card to keep, they draw one card from their personal draw pile into their hand.

Then, they choose one card to keep and place it face down in front of themselves, along with one card to discard and set aside, face down. Subsequently they pass their hand to the other player.

All other rules remain unchanged.