Combat Cards
This variant requires 1 deck of standard playing cards for up to 4 players or 2 decks for 5 or more players.

Combat rolls (missile, melee, and magic) are resolved with the combat cards instead of dice. All other rolls in the game (e.g. skill checks, before combat rolls, etc.) are still resolved normally using dice.

Each player receives one suit of cards. The combat deck consists of 11 cards numbered 1 (the Ace) to 10 plus the Jack. The King is placed next to the hero card as a reminder of the player’s suit. The Queen is not used.

The player shuffles his combat deck, and deals 5 cards to himself and 5 cards to the player on his right (i.e. the player that precedes him in the playing order). The last card remains face down. To make a roll, both players choose a card, revealing their selection when both are ready (and have a selected card in hand). The sum of the two cards is the result of the roll. If a jack is played, the other card is doubled. Used cards are placed face up such that players may review what cards have already been played. The process is repeated after all of the cards are played.

Players must do a “roll” for each missile, melee, and magic combat, even in situations where the outcome is negligible – for example when defending against creatures that do no damage.

Designer's comments: The intent of this variant is to give players influence over the results of their rolls – allowing them to take measured risks and tradeoffs. Because there are only 11 cards, there is a great deal of information available to the player about what to expect which makes for some exciting decision making in combat.

The Queen Variant – include the queen in the deck and leave 2 cards face down. When a queen is played, the top face down card replaces the queen.