Just had an email from the chaps at Mantic Towers. They’re about ready to release the beta rules to the KS backers, and thought it might be useful to have a thread here for you guys to feed back any comments and ask questions. So here it is 🙂
Backers should have a link to the files very soon.
Quirkworthy 
I like what was described earlier for creating your own heroes, but I was wondering about villains. When creating your own scenarios, will the enemy boss just be a generic stat line like his minions will be, or will it be possible to create your own. e.g. Choose race, type, then pick certain abilities. So a vampire might be not particularly tough but have magic abilities. Or next time a vampire could be created where he has no magic abilities but is a truly formidable fighter? I know I’m rambling, but I really like what you’ve done with hero creation and am just wondering if we could also have villain creation along similar lines?
A perfect example of why articles are better than comments 🙂
Bosses (Overlord’s Heroes) are designed and gain experience in the same way as Heroes.
That’s great, really looking forward to this 😀
Even if there isn’t I’m sure the Hero level up rules could be adapted. I probably will if there isn’t any.
Any idea when well be getting the rules? Was hoping to show my brother before he has to leave tomorrow.
Time is relative apparently 🙂
I guess… sucks though.
All I know is in the original post. Can’t help you with specifics I’m afraid.
Its just teasing! Hopefully they will appear soon.
Yup.
People really cannot wait much longer to lock in their pledges so at this point it really does not matter anymore.
I’m sorry about that. I’ve asked again this morning about when we might see it. Chris said that he tried to upload it yesterday and KS wasn’t playing. He’s going to try again today.
Yeah Kickstarter was down 1.5 hours yesterday (started about 24 hours ago). Should be possible now.
I just do not think that maybe a post every couple of days during the pledge period about the different expansions or the beta rules or the advance rules would not have been too much work.
For example for the Warlord expansion: I really do not care what a resin goblin looks like painted. I would like to here how Green Rage is being done, what some of the tiles look like, what is a new type of card for the overlord, what is one of the druids feats, and maybe a description of what one the missions is like, etc. There are five things for like micro day updates or one long weekly update. Hit up the base game and the 5 campaigns and expansions and these things should write themselves.
Absolutely, it could have been handled better. I’ll see if I can get some more posts up over the weekend. One possibly helpful thought is that I think there will be another pledge manager later, in case you’ve missed anything. That would match recent Mantic campaigns.
Any chance you could get a confirmation on that Jake as it’s a fairly important concern, as I am less than keen to bet on a maybe when it comes to finishing my pledge manager. It will also allow me to pace my purchases better as I am fairly sure I want the 3 expansions and the alternative tile set but there’s a lot of resin bits and models I’d love to add as well, which are in fact a more stable purchase than the expansions because I know exactly what I will receive in terms of quality and content. Where as the expansions are something I know will be must haves as long as the advanced rules do what I hope they will (As then I will want as varied a range of tiles, monsters and scenery as possible for my own adventures/campaigns).
Confirmed. There will definitely be a second pledge manager.
so when you say that the overlord heroes level, is that kind of information in the advanced rules (so as asked, does this apply to vampires, zombie dwarfs, etc)?
Yes. The Overlord Heroes (Bosses) are discussed in the Adventurer’s Companion.
Basic comment here. The singular of “dice” is “die.” Saying “a single dice” is grammatically incorrect. Mantic, please change all references to a single die to “die.”
Its a quirkworthy quirk (couldnt resist). It was also done in Deadzone, the reasoning being that stuff dies in these games. A die could be confusing in some situations. (besides, its pretty common to use “dice” as the singular nowadays)
I think it’s for simplicity so as not to confuse like Tyr said. Not everyone knows the singular of dice.
As they say, it’s a preference of mine. Also, it’s not quite as cut and dried as the singular invariably being die. Living languages evolve, and it is increasingly common to use dice as both singular and plural. Intriguingly, the original medieval singular was dice too: die is a “modern” change 😉
Actually the etymology of die and dice is thus: early 14c., des, dys, plural of dy (see die (n.)), altered 14c. to dyse, dyce, and 15c. to dice.”
It has never been common to use dice to mean singular. Context should make it more than clear which meaning of die is intended, especially since in ‘to die’ it is a verb and in ‘a die’ it is a noun.
Grammar is especially important in the written form of a language.
You’ve been rather selective on your quotation there, ampoliros. Cut and pasting from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dice?s=t we get the piece you came up with above:
“Word Origin and History for dice
n.
early 14c., des, dys, plural of dy (see die (n.)), altered 14c. to dyse, dyce, and 15c. to dice.”
You’re absolutely right. But it then continues…
“As in pence, the plural s retains its original breath sound, probably because these words were not felt as ordinary plurals, but as collective words” [OED]. Sometimes used as singular 1400-1700.”
So it was used as singular.
Perhaps more importantly, further up the same page we have:
“British Dictionary definitions for dice
dice
/daɪs/
plural noun
1. cubes of wood, plastic, etc, each of whose sides has a different number of spots (1 to 6), used in games of chance and in gambling to give random numbers
2. (functioning as sing) Also called die. one of these cubes.
3. small cubes as of vegetables, chopped meat, etc.”
So, reading definition number 2, functioning as singular is an acceptable dictionary definition.
It may be a minority usage, and it may be more used in British than American English, but it’s not incorrect. It cannot be that uncommon either because it is listed as the second definition rather than the third. Nor was it marked as slang, dialect, obsolescent or any of the other things dictionaries have a tendency to note for peculiar and outdated usages.
Sorry if I’ve missed this somewhere. The rules state that when the core game is played as a campaign, if the heroes lose they simply retry the mission. How exactly does the Overlord win then? Do they have a fixed number of retries?
To clarify, how does the Overlord win the campaign?
Jake has stated elsewhere that players have total time to complete the campaign. Replaying a mission costs you time and once you are out of time you lose. Obviously I’m not jake so you’d rather hear it from him but this was stated in responses to other questions. I’m at work so can’t really afford the time to track down the specific posts sorry.
As Shane says, there is a 15 “try” limit. If the Heroes fail too many times then the Overlord wins.
Honestly I don’t like this mechanism… I don’t think it is a good way to handle the problem of determing a campaign winner. Playing a scenario again especially, when you lost it isn’t so much fun. The first playover is maybe ok for a few players, but a second or a third won’t happen in my gaming group. So at this point the campaign would be over and the interest in the game would sink.
Maybe you could add the option, that the heros can instead of playing the map again search for a way around it. This way around would cost them 2 additional hours, so it’s more than just a second try, but they don’t have to play the map again, if they don’t want to.
I agree that replaying misions seems weak. Some type of point gaining and using syatem would be preferable. Heros win a mission then they get some points. They then spend point out of thier pool to maybe buy an extra potion fr a mission or maybe to have the necromancer start with on fewer overlord card in his hand. Necromancer might get 2 points by winning an mission by reducing a hero to zero health or 1 by timing out the heros. He could spend points on picking a specific overlord card to start with, an extra card or pile of bones to place.
If you look in the side panel on page 4 (second double page) of the adventures book not the rule book
Thanks. Don’t know how I missed that big black box…..
(15 attempted missions is the hero limit)
A couple of things just glancing though the cards, I know you have said spells will go into families (presumably you can get items or abilities to grant immunities to families and magic items which count as belonging to a family (flaming sword – when a model the first hit each combat counts as two hits when calculating damage, [this weapon is a fire magic item])
Also please number the overlord cards as it makes it easier to seperate out cards without sorting (first mission necrancer has a fixed deck of cards 1-8, 16-20 otherwise you end up creating piles to get 5 of one card and 3 of another etc. it also allows for addon packs for the game, where the overlord levels up replacing cards 5-9 with expansion cards 23-27 or adding more cards for longer games.
Is the second mission 1b meant to be wiz and elf or dwarf barbarian, the text and picture disagree.
I will try to do some actual play testing tomorrow and then give feedback.
Yeah, I believe it is like the Alpha Rules in that you have the Elf and the Wizard starts with Feet of Stone, Flame Bolt, Burn and Break Ward. I see a distinct lack of Healing Potions in the new version of Adventure A. So chances are Adventure B probably lacks them too?
Makes it less of a walk over for the Heroes than in the Alpha as does the look of the new layout for Adventure B.
I have a question about Break Away Moves. Looking at the image below:
Can either of the heroes make a break away move? I marked the target squares with Piles of Bones. Both are diagonal moves to squares that are not in opponents front arcs but the squares on both other sides are. According to diagonal movement rules you need to be able to move into one of these squares to move diagonally but you cannot into them in this case since it is a break away.
Thats a great question. +1 My gut would say no they can’t make the move. Obviously after rule clarification as well!
Excellent question. My intention was that they could break away, though I can see exactly what you’re saying. I’ll change the wording accordingly.
The difference for me is that a blocked movement is obstructed by a physical barrier. Front arcs are empty spaces that could possibly have something in (but don’t). In game terms both systems work, and it’s just a case of picking which is the one to use. On balance, I think that the interpretation you’ve used above makes it a bit too easy to box people in and will tend towards a more static game.
The other thing of note is that in a normal diagonal move you could go to the squares either side – it’s only the fact that there is a restriction on going from front arc to front arc that makes this impossible. I’ll re-read this section carefully and see how I can improve it.
Great catch!
Probably wording for diagonal moving saying that one of the square must exist (be on the board) and not occupied by an object(friend, foe, door, or furniture) that would prevent a model from entering it.
Can doors be out numbered?
Jake has said in previous posts that they can’t but quite right it doesn’t say this in the rules.
Very true. No, you can’t outnumber doors because they can’t be put off their defence (which is what outnumbering reflects). Probably needs to be explicit though. I’ll check.
You said that in the Alpha Rules FAQ.
So that will likely apply to chests and other containers that use the Locks and Wards rules too I suppose, for keeping everything uniform and simple purposes, right?
It is, I just reread its in a little box, doors, furniture etc can’t outnumber or be outnumbered.
I think I missed that box but it actually says that they do not count for outnumbering (ie they cannot cause -1 to opponents attacks) not that they cannot be outnumbered.
Only played the Restless Guardian adventure once, solo.
It was quite the cool game. I’m glad that the old Baleful Gaze options the Necromancer used to have to choose carefully to use only a few times an adventure are now cards that can be drawn during the scenario.
Makes it seem like the Overlord has a chance now to stall/defeat the party.
During the game, I had the Banshee do two Banshee Wails, one terrified the Elf, annoyed the Barbarian (typical). Later ones had the same Annoyance factor. I summoned a Ghost twice but only had one Ghost at a time. The heroes managed to bust down the normal doors easily, and got two fragments (the North two) really quickly with minimal opposition. Only once we got to the two South ones that things started to turn ugly. The Dwarf kicked in the door with the Dwarf Revenant, which waited for him to come to it. The Banshee summoned a Ghost to block the way out and fight the Elf while two bone piles appeared thanks to the Graveyard Overlord Card. A skellie Archer then appeared from one of the original POBs near the dwarf revenant chest room and proceeded to fire a shot at the Elf, while Danor made his own way to the last chest.
Rordin had some issues trying to kill or sometimes even harm the Dwarf Revenant, axe blocking hammer or hammer not quite doing enough Hits to matter.
Meanwhile, the Elf had to engage in melee versus the Ghost, until Orlaf finally made his way to it after having picked up his second fragment from the north rooms.
Danor had some trouble trying to kill his own skellies as he went for the magically warded chest and got it open.
The Overlord played the Delay card earlier on, making the clock tick closer to the end.
A Kill Him! card let the Ghost and one Skellie try to murder the Elf…
The Dwarf managed to kill the second Ghost on his way out of the Revenant Room fragment in hand, and then it all came down to the very last Heroes Turn, after the Overlord had drawn the last card the Round prior, it all rested on a number of factors coming into play.
With a skellie being raised from POB in the room Danor was in, it got obliterated by Orlaf’s Free Strike. Danor moved one square to get adjacent to the barbarian to hand him the third fragment, before a flamebolt took out a pesky Skeleton that would have prevented the Barbarian’s final run to victory… Then the Barbarian hoofed it to the Dwarf and managed to collect all four just before the game would time out.
Gripping stuff.
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The clarity of the shoot rules has been diminished. Models in Front of the firer is not clearly defined (used to have figure to illustrate) and neither is what blocking line of sight means. DKH games used a very tough line of sight with like center to center measurement while the alpha rules used if any point in firer square to any point in target square is clear then the shot is clear. This version has no clear indication for this.
I’m thinking it’ll be the same as the Alpha Rules for clear line of sight determination. A new thing that I see in the Beta Rules that raised an eyebrow is that Shooting now has the same minimum 2 dice like Fighting does. Is that correct? Also, if a non Marksman Hero gets an item that lets them make a Shooting attack, will the item give it’s own Marksman ability or will it default to 2 dice (the minimum) or no dice seeing as the Hero never had any Marksman dice to begin with?
I was trying to forget the alpha rules and faq. Anything in the faq that is not clear in the rulebook should be address again.
Book of Valandor allows major spells to be cast as minor spells. This appears to allow both 2 major spells and no recharging. Is that correct?
If it only allows you to cast them without need for recharge then it’s not so bad, but if it makes Major Spells cast by the holder of said Book of Valendor trade the keyword ‘Major Spell’ for ‘Minor Spell’ then you’ve essentially made Focus Feat useless.
Definitely something I could live with, but still.
And how does it stack with the staff?
The Book is in the Villian deck while Focus is a hero party so maybe no one has both as none of the Bosses have feats listed. A Magister with the Book could be pretty nasty though.
They could be either way. We’ve already been told that Thorfin’s Hammer is one of Rordin’s future items in the default campaign, and it is in the Necromancer Cards pdf. Probably there for space reasons rather than definite bad guy kit. That and/or we kill whoever has it and claim it for ourselves as loot.
Mortibris has it according to the story so the heroes will probably not get it in this campaign. Maybe in the future or it might be too powerful for them to control and they need to return it to its proper place to avoid the destruction of Mantica.
The heroes might get it in the Valendor expansion though. Seems fitting. 🙂
I think I remember Ronnie mentioning a book being one of Danor’s future items. Plus the Book’s card itself says it is ONE of the Books, not THE Book “of Valendor” but we shall see what we shall see. It could make the expansions interesting starting with the loot taken from Mortibris (should they defeat him) when starting the Warlord of Galahir and those after it.
The Return campaign I think will continue with the legendary heroes but Warlord probably has them different since it involves two new heroes(one is probably the Shapeshifting Druid) and two old heroes.
Given the nature of the single core dice mechanic which pretty much runs the whole game, what ways are going to be used to modify it.
I can think of:
Adding or Subtracting Dice
Increasing or Decreasing Target Number symmetrically or assymetrically.
Rerolling n dice that miss target number, Rerolling n dice that beat target number, Rerolling any n dice, and rerolling all dice.
Adding or subtracting a value to each die rolls (similar to assymertically changing target number).
All of these types of things could be seen in attack based on type (Fight, Shoot, Magic) and defense also based on type (Fight, Shoot, Magic).
I see skimming the cards that you have adding and subtracting dice, and rerolling misses but not much else. Given all the different stuff you are trying to have some more of these different modifications could be helpful.
For example rerolling 1 any die is better than just rerolling 1 die that missed but probably not as good as rerolling 2 dice that missed. Rerolling all your dice could be pretty useful but would not be an every time type of thing like rerolling dice that missed.
Which heroes out of the like 10 ones in the core pledge or which classes have access to the break ward minor spell.
Break Ward is a petty magic spell, so any spell caster can get it.
So Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Paladin (?), Demonhunter (?)
Printed and played Adventure 2 last night and had some questions (I don’t have access to the Alpha rules–requested from Mantic but never got a reply):
1. Where is the range ruler? This is not included in the packet.
2. How and when do you drink potions? Does it take an action?
3. Is there any reason for the heroes to go to the upper-right quadrant of the map? I know that you don’t place the map section until after they open the door but with a 4/4 door, the heroes went directly to the Troll room and then completed the quest.
4. What do the door numbers mean? I assume “3/3” means defense dice and armour but what does a plain “2” mean?
5. I know that you can’t move diagonally if both orthogonal spots are blocked but do you still have line of sight? (e.g. shoot diagonally.)
I feel like I played something wrong because it was a cake-walk for the heroes. I played as Overlord and drew only cards that gave me additional commands as well as one delay card. I never drew any raise dead nor interrupt cards which made it super hard as overlord. Also, the heroes killed the troll in 2 turns, first because the Dwarf used his feat making it so that my troll couldn’t activate and the Elf getting three shots at it! Then it was easy to just open up the door for the end-game. The minions barely slowed down the heroes with their pathetic 2 dice and my lack of raise dead meant no extra minions. Am I doing something wrong that it was so unbalanced?
Glad you share my experience. My try felt kind of the same. It’s to easy for the heros.
Yes the betas aren’t in great shape, there is for example the text for a whole mission missing, because the copy pasted it with the previous one -.-.
1. Yes the rulers are missing and it sucks! I guessed they are 4 and 8 boxes long.
2. I think an explanation is needed in the rules. We played it that they don’t need an action to be drunk but that was also guessed. Like the healing potions, which can even be drunk when a hero recieves a wound. Which by the way seems kind of overpowered. It doesn’t encourge a decision. You don’t have to think about when to drank it, instead it’s possible to just way until you would get crippled and ignore this wound.
3. Maybe 1 out of 10 will use that way, because it’s the bigger door and is there to protect the exit… But my group took the same way as your. Plus they also finished with two cards left on the pile. It didn’t feel exciting after the killed the troll and saw the exit.
4. Also an clarification for the doors is needed. In which order dice and armor value is? Don’t know but apart from that your right.
From the context I reasoned that these are the doors blocked by magical wards. An explanation of the symbols is missing.
5. Don’t know… Are corners blocking?
Actually you missed obvious one rule, the “raising the dead” rule. Even though it sounds like you have to mortibris on the map to use it. From the alpha rules I know that there was the ability to raise a skeleton instead of using a command on another creature.
The writing of the rule with casting a spell is very much misleading in my opinion, because spells are also used from models on the board. Even though it’s a spell from the narrative perspective it doesn’t work like one gamewise, so it should get another name. Assuming that I noticed the intetion of this rule correctly.
3. This is probably a matter of party taste. Some players like to murder everything in the dungeon before moving on and or loot it clean. Otherwise it might affect experience depending on how that is rewarded in a game. If Glory is only for eliminating a model, then Pile of Bones reanimation could be an ongoing obstacle for those who don’t just stand on them once they’re close enough.
5. The current wording seems to suggest no. As two models that are adjacent to a square you’d have to move to along the diagonal would block movement, they likely block your line of sight too. Kinda funny as melee attacks don’t seem to worry much about the same problem as long as that diagonal square is still in your Front Arc.
Unless Jake sez different of course. 😉
3. With the timelimit for each dungeon in mind and the fact that there is no bonus for looting or killing every thing there is realy no need for doing so.
5. It’s possible to argue that the corners of a box are not part of the box and therefor don’t block line of sight. But in the rulebook is nothing about the corners and therefor no clarification.
Most of them have a time limit anyway. Plus for some people, they don’t care if there’s an incentive to raid the entire dungeon. It’s just something they like to do either for fun or for an extra challenge like ‘I wonder if I can do everything AND win the adventure?’ like getting Gold on a Bronze, Silver and Gold ranked challenge in a computer game for races or collecting artifacts.
Having a diagonal move blocked by two models or whatever stopping movement as well as blocking shooting (from the appropriate angle) would make it easier to remember both rules. Less confusing at least. Streamlines things if they are alike. At least IMHO.
You can always raise dead as an Overlord action. This includes Extra Activation cards. (not sure about interrupts, would have to check)
The single number on doors means its warded, with a ward as strong as the number shown. The range rulers arent included Im afraid, but theyre 4.5 and 8.5 inches long (found in the alpha FAQ).
I *think* you can drink potions at any time during your activation, but Id have to check to be sure… and I dont know if you could shoot.
Damn ninja Smuds. <.<
(took me longer since I looked up the length for the range rulers. :P)