I’ll get a FAQ for the DS Alpha done tomorrow. In the meantime, a couple of points about piles of bones.
The Necromancer has a limit of 4 Skeleton Warriors on the board at once in each Scenario. This makes choosing when you raise things from piles of bones far more tactical.
Also, when you raise a model from a pile of bones it always come back as a Skeleton Warrior regardless of what it may have been originally. Think of the dungeon as being strewn with bits of shattered and ancient bodies. Also consider that being repeatedly smashed may not be good for the “bone memory” (the hardcore version of muscle memory). I always think that more skilled and “fancy” undead require more long-winded and complex rituals to create. Animating any old combination of bones as a crude fighter is relatively easy, but only the bottom rung of the necromantic ladder. Of course, as Mortibris gains experience he will also get new spells…
🙂
Quirkworthy 
Is the bone pile removed from the board when a skeleton animates from it? Therefore it follows that if it is then subsequently killed with 2 hits, than the pile reappears on the kill spot. But if it is killed with 3 hits, the skeleton is killed and the bone pile gone for good. Is this correct Jake please?
The rules say replace so it would appear that you remove them. It might be interesting to allow players to attack bone piles to try to remove them. I notice that the limits on movement in opponent front arc combined with the narrow rooms are going to make flanking and such challenging. I might suggest allowing the thief to move out of front arcs with trigger the free attack. Also it appears like wounds would be better used as a model characteristic for the heroes to allow more differences as hopefully there are at least 3 or 4 more heroes to come in a 100 dollar game.
@Han – yes, the POB is removed when you animate a Skeleton. There will be a permanent version that doesn’t get removed (this will be familiar to DKH players).
When a Skeleton is killed with 2 hits the model is removed and a POB is left on that spot. If 3 hits then nothing is left.
@eriochrome – I tried allowing players to attack POBs and it wasn’t a help. What happened was the Heroes tended to insist on destroying every single one and cleansing the dungeon to not leave anything behind them. This slowed the game, removed interesting options for the Necro and introduced a tediously rote floor-sweeping task that the Heroes felt necessary, but which wasn’t interesting to play.
The limits to movement interact nicely with the scenario layouts. Some will have many more routes to move through. It’s only this restricted and linear as we’re at the very start of the campaign.
I think there are already several more heroes up on the KS.
Thanks for the reply. I could see how attacking the piles could slow down the game. The piles are there to allow the villian to keep pressure on the heroes such it they stop progressing to try to regroup to much you can just take that time to raise up more skeletons. If you allow them to destroy the piles then you would probably have to add an addition mechanism to pressure the heroes pace.
Obviously you are writing the scenarios so you know the movement requirements better than I but it seems that most of the rooms can be completely blocked for passage by 1 or 2 guys at most. I was just saying that special abilities that allow models to sneak past these blocks might be interesting. Maybe the halfling thief does not excel at combat but she can slip through models front spaces to get behind them to attack or past them to start working on the door while the more tankish models deal with the baddies.
Sneaking past things is on my list as an ability. It does allow some interesting options.
The rooms in the first scenarios are deliberately small in order to channel the players while they learn the game. As it goes deeper they get more movement options and we start seeing larger rooms and multiple routes through areas.
As you say, without the POBs you need another mechanism to pressure the Heroes and pace the scenario.
The original DKH allowed a model to prevent resurrection by standing on the pile of bones. I liked this, but it appears to not be in the DS rules. And yes, the counter is replaced since it represents a pile of bones being reformed into a skeleton.
This is still true. I’ll add it to the Alpha.
A rust monster would open the game to all kinds of shenanigans for the necro player.. For the theme maybe it would have to be undead, or a future expansion, but it would be sure nice to see some of those fancy dan items be reduced to red dust.
I think a rust monster is a specifically D&D thing. However, there is no reason why spells couldn’t corrode armour. I believe there are similar things in God of Battles.
Yes, it was my first ever memorable D&D encounter, ahhh the memories.. but it was really a vehicle for suggesting something for the necro/dungeonkeeper to keep the heroes power items in check. Spells are good.
Jake,
Will the expansions have their own campaigns or just a few scenarios?
Themed campaigns (though your question does make me ask “how many scenarios does make a campaign?”).
Sweet! And as we have the Ai cards for the necro base game will the goblin xpac come with its own AI cards?
I’d love to say yes, but at the moment I’m not 100% sure. I’ll prod the guys at Mantic HQ…
…and the answer is that they weren’t originally thinking of AI in the spec, so hadn’t been planning on. However, it makes sense so they’re looking at it. Might need to be a small stretch goal to fund the extra components.
That would be great to have a specific AI for living monsters different from undead. They don’t behave the same way : undead are fearless, goblins may flee if they are sourrounded and so on.
You can’t have the same AI for everything. That would be silly and characterless. It does raise the challenge of how to do the Hero AI and still allow for new Heroes to be added. I think I have an idea though…
I’ll take the same example again ^^ : Gears of War boardgame, each monster has its own cards, it gives a different feeling when moving and attacking with them. You don’t know which monster will act, but you know how each will react. I’m sure you’re on this way though ! Can’t wait to try it !
When I played GoW I thought this was a bit predictable, to be honest. You could see what and where each beastie was on the board, and knew exactly what each would do if it acted. I thought that made it all a bit easy to anticipate, avoid or ambush.
You’re right, only 4 cards by beast is a little low, but that’s a good base to create a more complex thing with less anticipation and more surprises. Maybe something like a dice roll on some cards to preserve some randomness would help.
Yup. That sort of thing.
Any idea for special rules for the goblins yet, Jake? Wondering if they have something that reflects their brand of Utterly Spineless in Dungeon Saga without it tipping too far in the Heroes favor.
Not got that far. I’ve had a few thoughts, though I’m really focussing on getting the Core right first, and building from there. I think their character is pretty clear, and it just remains to find the best way to bring that out on the board.
Hello!
There will be some other actions besides killing the monsters? I mean, something like: steal a magic item and escape from the dungeon, decode an ancient text in a wall, deactivate a trap, find a spellbook in the library, etc.
Thanks!
Sure. Some of those are scenario objectives, others are Advanced rules (like deactivating traps).