They are available at this link. At least, they were briefly, then the demand crashed the servers 😉
So, when that’s all fixed they will be available. I’m assured that the appropriate tech gurus are on the case as we speak…
Note that the Alpha is not the full rules as explained in a previous post.
When you’ve got a copy and have given them a read, do feel free to discuss or ask questions either on my DS Alpha FAQ page or on the Mantic forums.
Enjoy 🙂
Quirkworthy 
I haven’t managed to get on to download the rules yet, too much traffic I imagine. Just wanted to say though that after watching the beasts of war video the dice mechanic is cool. I’ll give a play test a go soon with my favourite opponent.
Alpha Rules are up!
Click to access mantic-dungeon-saga_tiles_01.pdf
Click to access mantic-dungeon-saga_03.pdf
Click to access mantic_necro_cards.pdf
Click to access mantic_hero_cards.pdf
Alpha Rules feedback thread: http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?8770-Alpha-rules-feedback-Thread-Dungeon-Saga-Dwarf-King-s-Quest
Thanks TG.
As always I live only to serve you milord. Alas I am but a mere messenger. The gentleman who got these up and hosted is Willem-Jan Bertram.
Now add the bloody henchmen Thornton! 😀
Basics first, treats later 😉
You heard him, Jake… “Bloody” Henchmen… That’s code for MORE ZOMBIES right? 😉
Not sure if you want feedback here or on Mantic forums or on KS (too many places!) But:
I feel the combat system is too limited & ‘wonky’ in its current form:
1. The Attack/Defend mechanic means you have twice as many dice rolls to determine fights. A better mechanic would be duels (attack/attack) such as Space Hulk or various other formats. Attack/Defend works for ranged attacks, but melee should be more cut/thrust ‘hot’ action. You could compare dice on both sides to score wounds etc, something like that. As it is it takes too long and feels unsatisfying.
2. The armour/dice mechanic is limits the stat values too much – since armour removes all dice equal or lower, armour 6 cannot be used, armour 5 is virtually indestructible (as you need to roll 6s and not have these opposed) and armour 4 is tanky. Where as armour 2 is rubbish and armour 1 pointless. This leaves maybe 3 usable armour values – 2,3,4.
Also the compare dice mechanic combined with armour and attack/defend makes some combats last far too long as you need to roll high, whilst also rolling higher than your opponent. If your window to hurt a model is 5+ (Dwarf is armour 4) then it’s very hard to hurt the model – which feels ‘wrong’. Our heroes are tough but they should take wounds as they fight the ‘trash’ to get to the ‘boss’, otherwise the trash is just pure timewasting from both players POVs – they can’t hurt the heroes, and the heroes can easily smash them up which is boring.
A better mechanic is one where you take wounds…you just have more of them to take. People can feel the increasing tension as they grow closer and closer to death, where as this system is binary – alive, alive, alive, dead.
3. With the limited combat system, I can’t see how you can expand the stats with item upgrades (which every dungeon crawler needs!). Armour can’t go above 4 (so the Dwarf can never use any new armour), a new sword offering extra dice boosts not just attack but also defence – making them much too powerful, additional attack dice don’t offer a linear increase in ability, and once you are rolling 6 or more dice you will pound the opponents into the ground or be invulnerable in defence.
4. The wound system doesn’t allow for much customisation – surely some heroes are tougher than others (I doubt wizards and dwarfs are as tough as each other). Also the instant -1 dice penalty on 5 wound models is a bit harsh “Jeff I’ve stubbed my toe, I can’t fight as well any more!”.
Some suggestions: Use modifiers for weapons, move to a D10/12 system, separate attacking from wounding – I might be a wicked fencer but if I’m a weakling I won’t do as much damage, move to a simultaneous attack system, move to a longer wound ‘track’ – as you move along the track the character board can tell you the adverse effects you are suffering.
I’d prefer feedback here as it’s much easier for me to track. However, I will look at the Mantic forum too.
Some interesting comments. However, I fundamentally disagree with your basic assumption that this approach is limited.
1. I don’t understand your point. If I run up and attack you then I roll the dice once. If you’re killed the the fight is over. How is that slow? If you survive and fight back then it obviously carries on, as it would with any system. There is only one roll per side per fight.
2. Your analysis of the available numbers is broadly right (though we will see 5s), and if the only variable was this single armour value then you would have a point. However, there is no reason why this must be the case. Armour can do other things beyond being +1 to that value.
Heroes can and do take wounds fighting the “trash”. It’s hard against a Dwarf, but it happens most times I see the scenario played. To me this difficulty feels right: the hordes of rubbish undead struggle against the most heavily armoured of the heroes, but can eventually wear him down with weight of numbers. Meanwhile he is chopping them down.
Remember that whilst a player may have a single Hero to use as his “force”, the Necromancer player has a small army and should be playing with them as a whole, not as individuals. Individual skeletons aren’t important to Mortibris and their loss is unimportant as long as they slow or stop the Heroes. This is a big difference in playing styles, which I see as a fun alternative and a strength of this approach.
The system for wounding Heroes has 3 states: alive and OK, alive and injured (modifiers to dice rolls) and crippled. Monstrous Heroes will work the same way. I’m not convinced that giving skeletons 10 wounds and them taking a dice worth of damage per hit would make the game any more fun, but it would definitely slow it down and add to the bookkeeping. We don’t need to recreate D&D.
3. Same as 2. You are assuming that there is only a single scale to modify things on, and there isn’t.
4. Same as 2. Plus you have to draw the line somewhere. There must be a point at which you say then you were unpenalised, now you suffer some detriment. I’ve put it at the simplest stage which is when you suffer any damage that counts as an injury. There are many ways to modify this between Heroes. It is likely that some Heroes will have a number of wounds that is more or less than 5, but I’m looking at this as a whole. The Wizard dies more easily overall because his armour and fighting ability is poor even if the number of “wounds” he can take is the same. Having modified 2 values to gain the desired effect, why do I need to modify a third? For me, what’s important is the overall result, not the exact method it is achieved.
D10/12 isn’t going to happen as I don’t think it’s at all necessary and would require starting the game from scratch. Similarly, I can’t see a real benefit to separating attacking and wounding.
Sorry for saying no a lot – I think we’re just coming from slightly different places. Also, with your focus on details you’re clearly someone who’s more interested in the Advanced game than the Core, and what you have in the Alpha is the most simple end of the Core game. Do not fear – there’s loads more variation to come 😉
Hi,
Sorry to reply to your reply but I think the context is right.
I had a “don’t like it” feeling when reading the fighting rules as well. While I don’t think they will slow down the game as Chris wrote I feel that they are less “action” than they could be.
If all the defender can do is to “defend” it feels as if the player has to wait to long until he can respond. I confess to the chance that I have misunderstood something but my initial feeling was that the mechanic from a certain SF-skirmish game that I recently pledged for 🙂 would be more action-laden. I.e. instead of only having the option to defend you could choose to use your fight statistic or the defend ditto.
Here is room for more “tweaks” for instance undead not having a controller might be so slow that they only can defend and then attack when they are activated… if they survive that is 🙂
One thing that Ronnie has already mentioned as being on the edge of the radar is a sort of “fantasy Deadzone”. That would obviously use the sort of mechanics you are talking about. I think DS needs to retain its own style and character because it isn’t a tabletop game in the same way: it’s a board game with miniatures. Granted, the miniatures are very much the focus, but it’s still a board game, whereas DZ, even with the gridded mat, is more of a tabletop skirmish.
And I’ve got several ideas for ways to tweak DS combat for more experienced Heroes, even without an extra stat 😉
I think dice should be called fight.
Armour should be armour.
And there should be a new stat called toughness
Zombies have toughness 2 ignoring the first two points of damage. Skeletons have toughness 1 and a special ability called pile of bones.
Wizard has toughness 0. So any damage is a wound.
Dwarf and elf have toughness 1 ignoring 1 point of damage. Barbarian toughness 2 as he is insane.
This would save having the injury table and allow characters to take more than 1 wound if they get hit hard. I also agree with people that are saying taking 1 wound and losing a dice is harsh. Over half would seem better.
Also why not different wounds for each character and boss characters? Why all characters 5 wounds?
There needs to be more stats. There is a limit to what can be done at the moment.
I also think wizard needs a minor magic missile.
Adding toughness means new equipment could effect more stats making it more interesting.
I will be quite and stop rambling now
You can always add more stats, and if I was adding one then Toughness would be an early consideration. The question for me is whether it is something that most models would need a different value for. If it’s not (and I don’t think it is here), then it is probably best dealt with in other ways rather than clutter a character card up with stats that do nothing more often than not. For example, I could have included a shooting ability as a standard stats. I haven’t because hardly anyone will be able to use it and there’s no need to add “-” to everyone’s card.
Even if you had toughness you’d still need the injury table for things like Skeletons being reduced to piles of bones.
I answered the wounds question above (point 4) and the general point about more stats too. You can do all sorts of things without filling a character card with loads of stats.
Ability pile of bones could be used. I think it makes things clearer and simpler haveing toughness on a character card or as part of the monsters profile rather than a table. It is a stat which all monsters/ characters could use and be another way to make enemy’s harder.
The problem it has is dice clashes with armour and armour clashes with the amount of hits needed to score to kill a monster.
In my mind
dice= attacks
Armour = defence
Hits needed = armour
It Also gives magic armour something to buff. Also means you can give the hereos some added protection and take multiple wounds from on devastating attack. I want to see a big baddy that can take a character down in one massive blow.
You say all sorts of things can be done without adding stats to a character card, what do you have in mind? At the moment the game is a bit bland. I understand alpha is about getting the core right.
I think I like how the damage/death states are in a table in the alpha. I thought it seemed very clear, and it also makes it very easy to do “custom” stuff for new units without generalizing it into a common statistic or whatever.
What Torkel says.
In terms of varying armour you have a number of options. For example:
it could block a fixed number of hits in addition to its normal effect.
It could force opponents to re-roll some or all their successes.
It could be more or less effective against specific attack types (e.g. fire).
It could heal the character (though this would be a very high end magic)
It could have other spells bound into it.
It could reflect damage on the attacker.
I’m sure I’ll think of lots more options during development and play test 🙂
Actually I think
attack (dice)
Defence (armour)
Toughness
Makes sense?
The fight / armour seems fine as using one single dice roll to get the fight roll result.
I like the option for armour to be a threshold to beat : it is logical from an attacker point but i like it more from defender’s point as you can rely on your armour to create a efficient defense (like allowing an ennemy to cut into your heavy armour blocking his blade before crunching his head with a hammer… I think there is a fight in game of thrones that looks like this)
I like the notion for the necromancer to have a skeletons belcher ability which is really immersive in the necromancer role (reminiscent of space hulk swarms of genestealers and also evoking some warhammer cover : sthg rotten in kislev)
Have you been considering alternatives to igoyougo turns ?
While i understand that the necro gets the interrupt cards to mess into the process of waiting players to complete their turns, but wouldn’t it be more fun / tactical / headaching to have a turn system similar to x-wing or diplomacy ?
This would allow the necro to mess up into players actions as well as players to mess up between themselves wether on purpose or by missunderstanding the cooperative actions to perform.
I think the system for “cooling down” the Wizard’s major spells could use a little tweak.
If I understand right how it works, each major spell can be used every two turns (Turn X: You use it -> Turn X+1: Nope -> Turn X+2: Hey, it’s ready again!). The problem I see is that just putting a recharging counter on top of the card or placing it face-down is not enough to track the stage of the spell, because if the players used it in the past turn (X), and they remove the token/flip the card on the current one (X+1) to update the refreshing, it looks like the card is ready again instead on the X+2 turn.
What I suggest is using the token AND putting the card face-down (or alternatively, use a refreshing token with two different sides: “Refreshing: 2”, placed when the spell is used; and “Refreshing: 1” on the other side). The refreshing phase at the beginning of the Heroes turn would be like this:
A) If there is any face-down card without a token on top of them (or with the two-sides token, if there is any card with a visible “Refreshing: 1”) place the card face-up (or remove the two-sides token) so the spell is ready again to be casted this turn.
B) After checking that, if there is any face-down card which has also a refreshing token on top of it (or if there is any “Refreshing: 2” token visible) remove any refreshing token leaving the card face-down (or flip to token to show the “Refreshing: 1” side). This way the card will be still unusable this turn, but will fulfill the requirement for “A)” in the next one.
I know it maybe sounds complicated written like this, but it is really a very easy and simple way to accurately keep track of the refreshing spells.
I thought the exact same thing.
Is this really that unclear? Each Hero has access to their own spells (usually none) and so all you are remembering is whether that Hero used that spell this turn. Surely short term memory isn’t that bad.
I start a Hero’s turn. I look at the spells to see what’s available. I then do that hero’s turn, using a spell or not. At the end I mark the one I just used and unmark the other one. Using the same counter does both things in one move. You only have to remember the spell you used for a few seconds.
its not unclear. I just flip the cards. If a card is flipped at the beginning of your turn, you can’t use it. As soon as you use a spell, you flip it. At the end of your turn, you unflip the one that was flipped at the beginning. Pretty simple.
Resist complexity, Jake! I love the simplicity of both DKH and DS, so far.
Resisting.
Well, its too soon and I’m sure more food for though will be produced during the campaign and after. Nevertheless, I thought I might share my current feelings.
While I haven’t played DKH for quite some time, after reading the DS:DKS rules I got the general impression it was exactly the same (give or take a few details). This leaves me a little aprehensive tbh: back in the day when I got DKH I considered briefly the possibility of extending the game into a full campaign. But I quickly abandoned that idea because the system is, for the better and the worse, very tight. By this I mean, for example, that a healthy dwarf is vastly superior to its undead foes, but this changes dramatically once it is wounded: there is no soft degradation from healthy to badly wounded. This can be good in a tactical skirmish: you can plan to take risks and more clearly understand possible consequences of actions: things are more “black and white”. However, in a RPG-style game, one can expect a more nuanced variation of abilities since heroes are expected to find new gear, gain experience, level up, etc. The system must (well – should) support lots of variation points over which character evolution can gradually happen. I don’t think that’s the case right now: changing a single point in an attribute or even a simple action like healing a wound seems to have potentially massive effect on character abilities. From where I’m standing, this seems to have the potential to severely constrain the available design space. For example, reading between the lines between the manual and the “legendary” version heroes, I can surmise that the conspicuous absence of “experience levels” is due to the fact that characters actually won’t level up (other than jumping from “normal” to “legendary”). This can be understood and explained by the fact that character prowess is highly sensitive to even minor tweaking, making continuous leveling highly challenging from a balancing perspective. Of course, you can justifiably claim that you actually prefer that system, that there is nothing wrong with it and that the game is better that way. That would be fair enough. But my point is that actually no other alternative could be even considered due to the restrictions of the system.
Having said this, I’m confident in your ability to produce an engaging and entertaining game. I feel a lot of these concerns may be alleviated when more information (e.g. advanced rules, book of depravity, etc) becomes better known.
I hope this makes sense and I hope you see this as positive feedback (though I guess its not very constructive since I don’t actually suggest much – sorry about that).
Looking forward to seeing more stuff.
Experience will be done in small increments, not D&D-esque levels.
The design space is tight, though that is intentional. DS isn’t intended as an RPG. However, there is still plenty of room to expand and vary by using other approaches than simply adding 1 to a stat 🙂
Various opinions, many of which have been mentioned elsewhere, based on reading the rules and watched the video but no actual test games yet (I own DKH, but no recent plays).
Rules. “Outnumbered” isn’t defined for combat penalty. It isn’t clear if a bone pile respawns as the original type or always as the basic skeleton. Does the Dwarf get Free Strikes while using his feat?
Movement. I’d prefer each enemy whose front arc you enter or leave to get a single Free Strike but that it not stop movement, this would also remove the limit from breaking away. I also think one action, one move in either order speeds things up a little without any added complexity.
Potions. Only passable to another member in front arc and/or requires an action to consume.
Shooting. I’d like the Elf to be able to shoot past models. I think it’s thematic for her to have more skill and it gives another chance at removing a blocking enemy with the new armored foes.
Magic. Does the Wizard’s feat allow one minor / one major spell or only two major?
Balance. This looked pretty easy for the heroes. I know it’s tempting to say things get harder in later scenarios, but does that mean only a few in the middle with be “fair” with one or the other side having a clear advantage in most scenarios. Maybe this is colored by the fact that we found DKH to be skewed toward the dwarves.
Downloads. The maps are included in the “rules” with setup so it would be nice if the setup wasn’t printed on the “tiles” version.
Just to start, this was shorter but as I slept on it it has exploded a little…
I had a play through of the 2 training scenarios last night and greatly enjoyed them.
Journey from the west got quite bogged down into static dice rolling when the heroes got seperated and mobbed by skellies. Whether this was due to the barbarian running off or just what happens with aggressive use of necro cards will require more play to establish. Also with a full party to do other things this would probably be less off a drag. It did result in an exciting and thematic end though as with few wounds remaining the dwarf broke away to help free barbarian and then blocked the corridor while the door was bashed in.
Journey from the east was more dynamic with a stream of skeletons flowing down to try and reach the wizard, again very thematic.
Overall i enjoyed the mechanics as they are simple but still have some tactical depth in planning and manouvering. I prefer the attack/defend fighting better than an attack/attack as it prevents a badly injured hero shying away from combat a bit more and means that non-ranged characters can inflict damage without reply which is needed thanks to limited wound resources.
For me the game is mostly going to be 1v1 due to who I have to play with so the barbarian or dwarf potentially being a little dull isn’t so much of an issue but I could see that for a single player it could be. Obviously these are basic alpha rules but maybe they need very minor buff abilities, limited short range shooting attacks (limited throwing axe cards?) or ‘overwatch’ to allow them to interrupt the necromancer, as he does to them?
Speaking of necromancer interrupts, there may need to be a way of recycling these in long scenarios as in the intros I used almost all of them. Then again rationing should probably ‘ve required for longer missions, perhaps tipping off the heroes who don’t know the length of scenario?
Anyway good work Jake. Looking forward to some of the extra bells and whistles to really pad this ruleset out!
Can I use a raise Skelton card and activate the same skeleton in the same turn? Can I activate the same model more than once? Not sure if this is clear in rules.
No. If you raise a skeleton in the Necromancer Turn, then it can’t also Move and Act. HOWEVER, Jake said recently you CAN use Interrupt to raise skeletons from a Pile of Bones, so that’s a good way to set up more skellies for you to be able to activate in the Necromancer Turn.
I’m thinking maybe the Heroic Feats should be on separate cards (assuming they aren’t already) instead of being part of the Hero Cards. Maybe even having each Hero capable of getting new Heroic Feats as they grow, to further their badassness. Even if this is only for Advanced Games.
Oh yeah, one Q… Will there be enemies in Dungeon Saga that can take Injuries/Wounds other than Bosses? Say living creatures like Orcs (even if in later releases)?
Again this is the reason I think toughness is needed. Boss characters can have toughness plus wounds making them hard. Characters can gain armour to increase this.
I’m also hoping feats will be on cards and there will be a choice on what to take with progression.
Also allows you to create bad guys picking feats to suit your villian
I think the Zombies are the best example of something close to Dungeon Saga’s version of a Toughness ability so far. The extra step of ‘No Effect’ is pretty much ‘Toughness’ a la Deadzone. ‘Extra Toughness’ would likely be another step of ‘No Effect’ imho.
While the zombie and armoured zombie are still relatively rubbish fighters compared to the majority of dedicated fighters, they need at least 3 hits in the same attack roll to dispatch, which is a good compromise for not having some kind of ‘body parts’ token that the Necromancer player can reassemble like the Pile of Bones counters for the skeletons.
Yes, in effect. Still no need to give every model toughness 😉
The dwarfs armour/defence should start at 3 IMO not 4. This gives more room for progression and balances him better in the starter scenario. But I also think he should have toughness 2 and heroes can take more than 1 wound if toughness is beaten.
I also think injured penalty (-1 dice to fight) should be after taking more than half starting wounds.
The barbarian could then gain 1 dice when injured rather than lose one dice as his special trait.
Traits for each hero would also bring more character to the characters.
Half fling trait for example could be when breaking away the enemy does not get it’s free strike as he is sneaky.
I also think movements are way to high. Move 8 is so far you can get behind and around things to easily.
For me it should be movement should be
Elf 6
Barbarian and wizard 5
Dwarf 4
I then think attacking then moving would not be a problem.
Also elfs trait could be to shoot at any point of movement and then continue movement.
I also agree with what a few people have said regarding stopping movement when going past enemy’s. I don’t think it should stop but the enemy gets a free strike and the break away gets a -1 dice modifier. (Again this ties in with halfling being able to break away free or maybe with out the -1 mod.
Then the halfling lines feat could be a backstabbing ability? 6 dice fight attack 🙂
Anyway as you can see I have loads of ideas, many of which you properly hate haha but I’m play testing a lot and can email you more ideas as I go if you like?
Just played another game using ideas above.
Changed move stats for the characters as above and worked much better. Made the good guys have to think about where they are going more.
I gave dwarf toughness 1 ( ignores 1 point of damage) and defense (armour) 3 he was still hard as nails plus giving him 6 wounds and making injured only count after taking half wounds made him a lot more sturdy. I now think fight with 5 dice makes him the best attacker and defender in the party. I think he should fight with 4 dice as should the barbarian. The dwarf becomes the tough guy to take down and the barbarian the crazed fighter. Giving barbarian the trait of gaining a dice when injured instead of losing one makes him become the better fighter of the two when injured but having to take 3 of his 5 wounds before this happens is very risky and makes the dwarf become his body guard. I also gave dwarf a trait to allow him to push back all enemy’s in front arc 1 square instead of attacking making him feel like a true bodyguard.
Changing how injured works makes you have to think about when to use the potions as before you just used them as soon as someone took a wound. I also made it so you could only use them in your turn and had to have a potion although these could be passed freely to a character next to you. Again making movement more important.
Gave the wizard a trait called magic missile, basically a 3dice long range attack. Made him more useful. He is extremely vulnerable with only 4 wounds and allowing more than 1 point of damage in a single attack. You really have to think about protecting him which is great.
Elfs trait allowed him to shoot before during or after moving at -1 dice. Did not use it as there was no where to hide from skeletons haha.
This was using scenario 1. I made two changes to the scenario. First was necro had to kill half of the party (2). He failed to kill any but was very close to killing wizard and barbarian.
2nd change was necro had 2 skeleton archers in room two at the very end of the corridor.
I don’t understand why introduce the archers in the journey from the east game and not include them here! Gave the necro much more flexibility and more fin to play as. Aldo seemed to help balance and made it a much closer battle.
All of this and the game was just as fast and a lot more fun and tactical. Using toughness was easier to explain to my friend than the injury chart as well.
The only heroe with a point of toughness (armour) was the dwarf.
Just played another. Lasted no more than 30mins.
Necro won for first time!
Killing elf and barbarian in the 2nd chamber.
Taking multiple wounds from a single attack can be devastating if dice go your way and makes for a much more exciting and tense game.
Dwarf with 4 attack dice was still good at fighting but needed support a bit more against some of the better armoured undead.
I’m thinking that maybe instead of -1 dice for outnumbering the enemy you should get +1 instead? Have you tried that jake?
Can you use an interrupt card before the first character moves?
The necro deck is a bit bland. How about adding cards to dive extra dice in combats like dead zone? Or trap cards?
”Interrupt cards. These are played after one Hero has completed their Turn and before the next begins.”
Nope, one hero gets to act before any interrupt cards are played. 🙂
This needs to be crystal clear in the rules. I already knew the answer but it will get asked as it reads at. the moment guaranteed
I like the idea of gaining and extra dice in combat occasionally.
In fact I like quite a lot of your ideas. Some of them I noticed in my little bit of alpha play, but I need to spend a bit more time before I post my thoughts up here. 😉
*an extra die
The move cards should not allow you to raise models from bones. It makes the raise dead cards pointless.
Actually it just means you can do more with the Interrupt Cards… and maybe the Extra Model Cards while the Raise Dead Cards are less flexible. Not useless, just nowhere near as desirable.
Ok it not useless just pointless as other cards do the same and more. I think raise dead cards should be the only card which allows it and can be played in both turns.
I think a lot of players are agreeing one cripple to win ain’t right.
I changed it to needing half the party crippled to win in my players ting worked better IMO.
Also opens up oppurtunity to heal them with a paladin…… Whilst crippled. Or first aid. Or Zombiefide by the necro 🙂
QI don’t like the limit on the number of creatures the necromancer player can control a turn. Unless there is an in game, narrative basis for it i think the necromancer should be able to control as many creatures as they like. If there is an in game narrative reason for the necromancer only being able to control a certain number of creatures then i think it would be interesting if the actions of the adventurers might effect how many creatures the necromancer could control
This I agree with. I also think that the only way you can raise bones should be via cards. This will make cards more important. Other cards should should be interrupt, +1 fight dice, +2 movement, activate same model twice, trap cards etc.
Activate extra models and the double activation cards would not be needed. The deck could be much more interesting.
At the more by the deck is booorrrrrinnng
Awesomehotdudes door cards could also just be included in the standard deck as trap cards the necro can play when the hereos try open a door/ treasure chest
Going to have a go at creating a deck now 🙂
Double Card is probably more useful in the bigger scenarios, when I had it, I couldn’t really make good use of it for lack of undead to use it on.
Dungeon saga alfa rules
Page 6 – move diagonally
If you move diagonally the actual distance is larger then the distance moved through squares next to each other. (Dust tactics uses a system where the first diagonal move is the same as another move, the rest costs double.)
Page 6 – move
About not being able to move through squares in the front arch of enemies. This will limit tactical options. Better to have movement that reflects a treath, like being able to move 1 square or get a free attack from the creatures treathening the model, then only be able to break away.
Page 11 – Potions
About giving a potion to each other. I think it’s more realistic if the models are next to each other instead of anywhere on the board. Or maybe by throwing it with a penalty or the danger of breaking it.
Page 12 – doors
Can doors also be opened by turning the knob? 😉
What happens if a skeleton falls to a pile of bones on a pile of bones counter? Stack them?
Yup.
Cool, that’s what I been doing.
@Matthias –
p6 diagonal: yes, I know. People very often forget that rule in Dust games I’ve played and watched, and it’s widely disliked. As both sides have the same rules I don’t really see what’s gained by being trigonometrically precise.
p6 move: it limits some tactical options and adds a bunch more. In my view it works better this way as it gives the other side more opportunity to react. Certainly for the Core game, it’s more forgiving and makes for a more even playing field for differing levels of player skill.
p11: it’s certainly more realistic if they have to be next to each other. That may be in the advanced rules. It’s also massively less doable and in play test they often ended up not being used when we tried it.
p12: that’s crazy talk!
Hi Jake. The rule from DKH (Shooting) “You may not shoot at an enemy model adjacent to one of your own models” does not appear to have carried over to DS. Was this intentional? Makes a bit of a difference. :). Thanks!
It does make a difference, and yes it is intentional.
Exploration: can the necromancer move his units through doors to reveal rooms? How does it go? In the demo video, the first section of the dungeon is laid out, not the second. Do you start with the dungeon fully displayed or do you reveal one room at a time as heroes move through doors?
In all cases, what about the necromancer’s units? Can they move from one room to another? Can you raise skeletons in a room other than the hero’s room (once it is revealed if the dungeon is not revealed from the start)?
You get the idea.
The Necromancer cannot open doors to reveal rooms. This would allow him to swamp the Heroes easily.
Only lay out the tiles and models that are accessible. In other words, if it’s beyond a closed door then it should not be laid out until that door is opened. This also means that anything beyond that door cannot be activated until the door is opened.