Game: Runebound (First Edition)

Thread: Re: Bald Men, High Lords, and Mirrors...

nyhotep — 2008-07-04T09:10:51+00:00

Besides which, the Fromax card reads "In place of a melee attack", not "at the start of combat"...

Thread: Re: Bald Men, High Lords, and Mirrors...

MrSkeletor — 2008-07-04T07:57:04+00:00

I revise my answer to nope.

Thread: Re: Bald Men, High Lords, and Mirrors...

chockle — 2008-07-04T05:57:51+00:00

On the Fantasy Flight site, there's an errata you can download. I suggest you do so and note the changes.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/runebound_support.html
The same file is available here on BGG:
http://boardgamegeek.com/file/info/10815

There is a section about the Mirror of Shael

errata version 1.2 wrote:

(v1.1) Mirror of Shael
Card ability should now read: “Before Combat: Activate
and take 1 exhaustion. Until the end of this combat, your
enemy takes 1 wound every time your Hero takes 1 or
more wounds as the result of a magic combat roll.”
Since this is a fairly complicated ability, here’s a brief
explanation of how the Mirror now works: Every time
your hero takes damage as the result of a magic combat
roll (including if he fails a defend roll during the magic
phase, or if he’s hit by a magic attack during “Before
Combat”), then your enemy takes 1 wound.

So, it sounds to me like the big difference is the "...result of a magic combat roll." (emphasis mine) In your battle, the first 2 damage from Ranged would not affect him. Also, the 3 damage from Melee would not affect him either. So, you'd be knocked out and he'd still have 4 Life.

Thread: Re: Bald Men, High Lords, and Mirrors...

MrSkeletor — 2008-07-04T05:35:52+00:00

Yep.

Thread: Bald Men, High Lords, and Mirrors...

naruto55 — 2008-07-04T03:42:54+00:00

Thanks for your posts guys! I just finished my game with my Dad and my brother. Upon finishing, there was a heated debate as to who was the victor! Hmmmm.... I hope you guys can help me out. So here's how it happened...

I was playing as Battlemage Jaes and we had made it to the final rounds. There were only three red dragons left. I had recently lost my trusted Ally, Sir Gareth the Black, to the feared Dragonlord Fromax. The reward for defeating Fromax reads;
"In place of a melee attack, you may activate this card to inflict 3 damage on your enemy."
After finally defeating Fromax, travelling to the nearest town and healing all my damage, I set my sights on the next Dragon Rune. My brother was leading with 2 Dragon Runes( travelling to collect a third,) and my Dad and I were tied with 1. My only shot at winning the game was to defeat the High Lord Maragath, whose slayer wins the game. So I made a quick pit stop in the next town, bought the Mirror of Shael. This was where it got tricky. The mirror of Shael reads;
"Before Combat: Activate and take 1 exhaustion token. Until the end of this combat, your enemy takes 1 damage for each damage inflicted on your Hero or any of your Allies."
When my next turn rolled around, I made my way to the next Red Challenge. I painfully took the top card and flipped it over hoping to reveal Lord Margath. There he was. This was it.
So here is what I did. Margath has 7 health. I started by activating Fromax to give him 3 damage. 3 down, 4 to go. Then, the battle started and I defended against his Ranged first and failed miserably. I took 2 damage but because of the Mirror of Shael's ability ,so did he. So I was at 2 health and so was he. Next, I defended against his Melee attack and again failed miserably. So I took 3 damage....but so did he. I was knocked out......but he was killed? This didn't seem right, after all, I just totally got owned by the toughest dragon in the game. " Did I just win?" I thought to myself. After several minuites of my brother angrily flipping through the rule book, trying to find some kind of proof that I just lost, we ultimatly decided that I had won. After all, I killed the high Lord Margath and was sitting unconsious in the nearest town......

So what do you think? Did I win ?

Thread: Re: Questions about Allies...

MrSkeletor — 2008-07-04T01:21:58+00:00

First check what edition of the game you have - is it first or second edition?

Thread: Re: Questions about Allies...

chockle — 2008-07-04T00:21:15+00:00

naruto55 wrote:
Hey guys,
1.) Can allies be upgraded?
No. The experience counters are only for the attributes of you Hero.
naruto55 wrote:
2.) Can they complete tests for different quests?
No. from the Rules wrote:
...Allies do not have skills and cannot make skill tests. Only Heroes can make skill tests.

naruto55 wrote:
3.) Can you have unlimited?
2 Allies maximum. Allies cannot use weapons or items. Good idea to have 2 allies who are strong in the 2 attributes that your hero is weak in.

naruto55 wrote:
Also, do you add an item to the market every time you enter a city?
During the Market Step (after you are done moving), if you are in a city (even if you didn't move), you draw a card from the market deck and add it to that city's market stack.
naruto55 wrote:
I'm sure these answers are right in front of me but I just cant find them. thanks guys!

Yes, it takes a while to know where to look in the rules. I urge you to download the errata
http://boardgamegeek.com/file/info/10815
and make these corrections & notes on your copy of the rules.

Thread: Questions about Allies...

naruto55 — 2008-07-03T22:37:32+00:00

Hey guys,
Just started playing my first game today. I love it! I just had a few questions about Ally rules...

1.) Can allies be upgraded?
2.) Can they complete tests for different quests?
3.) Can you have unlimited?

Also, do you add an item to the market every time you enter a city?

I'm sure these answers are right in front of me but I just cant find them. thanks guys!

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Cornbread46 — 2008-06-24T21:32:56+00:00

He has HOW MANY points in Melee?

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fishmountains — 2008-04-17T19:12:25+00:00

my wife and i love runebound

Image

fishmountains — 2008-04-17T19:11:43+00:00

she's unbeatable

Thread: Re: Board Warping

Devilduck — 2008-02-20T22:48:41+00:00

OK... been three years I will never get my board replaced!!! LOL

Thread: Re: Activate Items...then a get attacked..can you refresh it

Stormtower — 2007-12-14T06:10:44+00:00

This is actually the primary technique in properly ganking ... I mean, PvP attacks. You wait until your victim ... I mean, target player has just finished a turn where they've activated a lot of their key combat cards... then you swoop in!

Thread: Re: Your 2ed. RuneBound games are too long?

Stormtower — 2007-12-14T06:06:48+00:00

deedob wrote:

3) Forget PvP. Attacking other players WILL slow-down your opponent a lot, but don't forget that usually the rewards will be less than what you can gain from an encounter. You are better off moving towards where there are adventures than going towards another character. An encounter provides to you some gold, are usually less dangerous than a character (meaning you need less gold to heal afterwards) AND most important, provides you with experience.

I agree with everything else, except I actually think there are a FEW good reasons to get into PvP. But pulling off a PvP attack is pretty hard to do since you have to stay pretty close to the target player.

At any rate, here's the few good reasons to do PvP:

1. The opponent has this uber item or ally that is actually doing all the work for them. Key example -- White Sword on Red Scorpion.

2. The opponent has this uber item or ally that would work really well if you stole it.

3. The opponent has hoarded a whole bunch of gold, and he's about to go buy an uber item.

4. The opponent has a Dragon Rune.

And in just about every case, the primary technique in successful PvP is to attack the target after they had just finished their turn and they have a lot of their key cards activated.

So, all in all, it's very tough to pull off a worthwhile PvP; but I would never say that it should be forgotten.

Thread: Re: While soloing, I ran out of money at the end

Friendless — 2007-12-14T04:27:20+00:00

These days I don't bother with the health upgrade very much and I play a bit more aggressively. I haven't had the problem again.

Thread: Re: While soloing, I ran out of money at the end

Stormtower — 2007-12-13T18:26:40+00:00

Friendless wrote:
... Without the doom track, time was on my side and I was buying the best of everything to make sure I defeated Margath...

It looks like you managed to prove several things:
1. It's not "wise" to play without a time limit.
2. It's not "wise" to upgrade health, especially if you have a long-term gameplan.
3. It's not "wise" to play conservatively.

To put it simply, you overspent your money and xp on things you don't really need. Kinda like Saruman burning down and using all he has to build a huge army. In the end, all that was needed to beat the big-evil-badguy is a naked mutant and his two hobbit henchmen.

Thread: Re: Fantasy Flight praise and a request

Oldtree — 2007-12-05T10:12:58+00:00

Well,

I just encountered this thread, and ... well I can't resist to comment here.

And it is not going to be a praise for FFG. Why? you might ask. Well the headline caught me. Praising FFG for the First Edition of runebound is just to much for me.

I agree with you on a few points. Yes it was nice of Thaadd Powell to respond so quickly. And what is even better for you, they send you a copy of a card from the second edition.

Technically speaking, I guess they could have said that the first edition without the card Varikas means, that the original owner ordered the second edition as an "upgrade" to his first edition and the intention of FFG was, that the first edition can't be sold (after such an upgrade) because it is incomplete. Well buying an incomplete first edition and requesting than the missing card from FFG is somewhat funny under these circumstances. But as I said earlier it is nice that there are people who seem to care about there customers.

On the other hand, and now I come to my point, I am extremly disappointed how FFG handled the whole affair with the first and second edition thing, for the owners of the first edition. At the time the second edition entered the marked, FFG opened a (in my opinion) small time window for the owners of the first edition to upgrade to the second edition. I was one of the customers, who encountered this time window a month to late. So technically speaking I had to buy the game again to participate in further expansions of the game (because there is only one expansion available for the first edition, all other expansions are only for the second edition).

I don't want to start this whole discussion again, because it had been discussed before (this topic has created one of the larger threads in the FFG - Forums http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=...) and I think FFG just want to forget this whole affair.

I just wanted to state another opinion about the first edition, because people comming here and looking for information about the game could get an, well let's say, incomplete picture. I don't want to say this picture is now complete (after I state my opinion here) but you now have one more opinion to take into account.

To sum things up a bit:

-First Edition is not supported any more by FFG
-There is only one playable expansion available for the 1st Edition
-Make sure you get a complete game, when buying it.. or at least take that into account when analysing the price for the game

Thread: Re: Is a "manual convertion" possible?

nyhotep — 2007-10-22T12:14:38+00:00

- Don't alter the stats, it will only spoil the cards. Although I admit there is a different feeling in the 2nd edition regarding adventures. I haven't made a checklist with all the specific differences but I think the adventure part of the game was inproved.

If you are using 2d10 instead of 1d20, I would add +1/+2/+3 to the stats in each encounter for greeen/yellow/blue-red respectively.

The only real differences are that the highest stat in each encounter is normaly between 1 and 3 higher, some of the dragons originally in the blue deck are now in the red deck (or is it the other way round?) and that about half the encounter spaces on the map have "sunburst" symbols - most event cards also now have the same symbol, when drawn, the sunbursts on the map get replaced (to prevent the map running out of encounters).

There are lots of small changes as well, but with the above changes you can get pretty close to the second addition. Oh, and the experience system has changed a bit, but I can't remember how.

Thread: Re: Is a "manual convertion" possible?

Thunder — 2007-10-14T19:17:41+00:00

I am positive there are 84 challenges. The components list is on the first page of the rule book. You can download it from here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/runebound_support.html

There are a ton of other downloadable files on that same page, have a look through them and you will probably have a better idea of just how changed the game has been.

Peace

Thread: Re: Is a "manual convertion" possible?

Zimeon — 2007-10-14T10:05:35+00:00

Thanks for the replies.

Thunder wrote:
There is 12 heroes, 84 Market cards and 84 Challenges in the 2nd Ed. base game. I do not know if any brand new cards have been added to the 2nd Ed. For this reason alone I would suggest just buying the 2nd Ed. I think the price is more than worth it.
I guess this just answered my question. In the 1st edition, there are 72 _adventure_ cards. Are you positive there are 84 adventure cards in the 2nd edition? If so, then I guess I'd just treat Runebound 1st as a game in itself.

Thunder wrote:
All Heroes start in Tamalir. This is also the only city that does not start the game with a Market Deck.
Then Tamalir has been moved to the center of the map…

Thunder wrote:
The Encounter Jewels are only in selected locations in the wilderness. In the cities you do the Market step, not the Encounter step.
Yeah, I take it. In order to know where the encounter jewels ended up, I'd need a scan of the 2nd map. Then again, it seems like they moved Tamalir, too.

Regarding the game as itself, improving it with rule changes and stuff is what I always do with board games, so I have no problem with that, but thanks for the tips. My only concern was if I could use this 1st version together with the expansion, provided I knew what new stats and numbers were on the cards (I don't care if the cards show the wrong number, as long as _I_ know what number is the correct one).

Thing is, to be honest, I don't even need to alter the cards, I can keep a separate record of the changes. Changes in the levelling rules is probably no problem either, I'll just have to know the rules and change the counters accordingly.

However, if there are serious map changes, like Tamalir being in the center of the board, and 12 more adventure cards, I guess it's a hopeless situation… Darn. There I though I had saved me a dime.

I'd love to get Runebound and all the expansions, but I guess I'll have to face the sheer fact that I so rarely get to play these games that when I feel for "hey, now I'm ready for an expansion", the game will have been out of print for 10 years…

Thread: Re: Is a "manual convertion" possible?

fixpix — 2007-10-14T07:21:26+00:00

This happened to me too. I struggled as much as I could but in the end I gave up and bought the 2nd edition, thinking I'll be able to sell the first and cut the looses.

My suggestions to you would be the following:
- use 2 D10 instead of the D20
- Don't alter the stats, it will only spoil the cards. Although I admit there is a different feeling in the 2nd edition regarding adventures. I haven't made a checklist with all the specific differences but I think the adventure part of the game was inproved.
- there is much improvement in the "level up" system also, so don't think just altering the stats upgrades the game. I couldn't tell you if it works smoothly with the first edition though.
- Let heroes start wherever they want. This should take care of the first player advantage.
- Leave the encounters on the city spaces...really, what is the difference if you move it one hex to the left or right. You can have a house rule that you can enter cities without defeating the adventure first if it bothers you.
- Descent minis are exactly the same as the ones in the 2nd ed of Runebound

So why did I buy a new game instead of doing all this? First because Runebound is my favorite solitaire choice and I play it a lot so it is important to have the "improved version". Second because it's so expandable but the expansions only work with the second edition. Every now and then I throw in a small box expansion to an order I make, just to round up the sum.

So to wrap it up, if it's not eating you alive that you got the 1st edition, then just leave it to that and enjoy the game.

Thread: Re: Is a "manual convertion" possible?

Thunder — 2007-10-14T06:30:47+00:00

I have never played the first edition, but do have all the second edition stuff. So, here is my "2nd Ed only" (hopefully helpful) reply.

Zimeon wrote:
The single 20-sided die was replaced with two 10-sided dice
No problem, Ive got tons of 10-sided.

Yes, 2nd Ed. has 2D10.

Zimeon wrote:
Statistics for some heroes/challenges/items were adjusted to improve play-balance and to make the game more difficult.
I have a black marker pen… no problem.

There is 12 heroes, 84 Market cards and 84 Challenges in the 2nd Ed. base game. I do not know if any brand new cards have been added to the 2nd Ed. For this reason alone I would suggest just buying the 2nd Ed. I think the price is more than worth it.

I alternatively would suggest looking around on the FFG website, some fans have made card lists and such that may list all the stats. Look through the forums for Runebound, and maybe even ask this question there. To list all the current cards would be a major undertaking for me because I have mixed all the expansion heroes/encounters and market decks into the base game decks.

Zimeon wrote:
All heroes start in the center of the board to prevent the first player from having a distinct advantage.
Sure, no problem. Which space?

All Heroes start in Tamalir. This is also the only city that does not start the game with a Market Deck.

Zimeon wrote:
Encounters were removed from city spaces.
Sure, I'll remove them. Where did they end up instead?

The Encounter Jewels are only in selected locations in the wilderness. In the cities you do the Market step, not the Encounter step.

Zimeon wrote:
Plastic (unpainted) minis were included for heroes, instead of the original cardboard stand-ups.
I don't really care… or I could use the minis from Descent.

The mini's are the exact same ones from Descent, I have both games. Runebound has a couple of additional ones that Descent does'nt, I am not sure if the Runebound base game includes any of the Heroes that Descent does not.

Zimeon wrote:
I'm not too fuzzy; if I have to make changes with a black marker pen on some cards, I'm fine with that, but I'd like to be able to use the expansions. Cut short, unless there are different cards, a completely different map and the likes, I can make the changes myself.

Yes, you could make the changes yourself, but for me personally, it would be a LOT more work than the base game costs. If you buy all the expansions, the base game is just a fraction of the cost of all the expansions. I can understand wanting to just felt pen up the 1st Ed you got stuck with, but its gonna be a lot of work and you will be left with a crappy looking game in MHO. If you end up liking the game, you won't regret buying the 2nd Ed.

Peace

Thread: Re: Is a "manual convertion" possible?

chockle — 2007-10-14T00:42:19+00:00

Good question.
Looking forward to seeing a specific answer.
We've been playing with two 10-siders, letting players start anywhere they want, moving City Encounters 1 hex outside cities, and using whatever mini they want to represent them on the board.

Thread: Is a "manual convertion" possible?

Zimeon — 2007-10-13T22:19:39+00:00

So, I got ahold of a copy of Runebound which, it turned out was the first edition – I had no idea there were different editions… but hey, what the heck. I snooped around a bit, and well, naturally I wonder if it's possible for a manual convertion.

BGG lists these differences:
* The single 20-sided die was replaced with two 10-sided dice
No problem, Ive got tons of 10-sided.

* Statistics for some heroes/challenges/items were adjusted to improve play-balance and to make the game more difficult.
I have a black marker pen… no problem.

* All heroes start in the center of the board to prevent the first player from having a distinct advantage.
Sure, no problem. Which space?

* Encounters were removed from city spaces.
Sure, I'll remove them. Where did they end up instead?

* Plastic (unpainted) minis were included for heroes, instead of the original cardboard stand-ups.
I don't really care… or I could use the minis from Descent.

I'm not too fuzzy; if I have to make changes with a black marker pen on some cards, I'm fine with that, but I'd like to be able to use the expansions. Cut short, unless there are different cards, a completely different map and the likes, I can make the changes myself.

I snooped a bit more but didn't find any listing of the exact changes… has there been such a listing? Are there more/completely changed cards/map in the Second Edition? If not, then can anyone help me with:
* The changes for the heroes/challenges/items-cards?
* The starting place for the heroes
* Encounter placing.

I'd very much appreciate it.

Thread: Re: Fantasy Flight praise and a request

figarojones — 2007-10-01T21:17:19+00:00

I would like to praise them as well. I got my copy second hand through a charity auction, and it was short wound and exhaustion counters. Within TWO days of inquiring as to whether I could get replacements, the envelope with the pieces was in my mailbox. Can't praise them highly enough.

Thread: Re: Fantasy Flight praise and a request

greg — 2007-08-16T19:43:03+00:00

MrSkeletor wrote:
Pstt, Thadds a girl.

Whoops!

(If you're reading this, my apologies Thaadd!)

Thread: Re: Fantasy Flight praise and a request

ljw74us — 2007-08-16T17:14:32+00:00

If you still need a copy, send me an email and I'll take care of it tonight.

FYI... The differences are that for the First Edition card:

Wounds are 3 (not 4)
Body Value / Melee Damage is 4/1 (not 4/2)

Lee Williams

Thread: Re: Fantasy Flight praise and a request

caradoc — 2007-08-16T13:28:47+00:00

Thaadd has been great when I have contacted FFG. I am more than happy to buy more of the companies games as a result of my interactions with them.

Giles.

Thread: Re: Fantasy Flight praise and a request

MrSkeletor — 2007-08-16T11:03:53+00:00

Pstt, Thadds a girl.

Thread: Fantasy Flight praise and a request

greg — 2007-08-16T08:37:28+00:00

I recently acquired a second-hand copy of the first-edition of Runebound. It was complete except for the Varikas card (obviously sent in as part of the "upgrade to second edition" offer). I wrote to Fantasy Flight asking if they had a copy or scan of the card so that I could complete my copy. Despite the fact that I was not technically a customer (a friend had given me the game), Thaadd Powell was very responsive to my request. He was unable to locate a first-edition copy of the card so he sent me a second-edition one instead (noting that it's likely unbalanced). So even though he wasn't able to get me what I needed, I'd like to publically thank him and Fantasy Flight for the effort.

Of course, if anyone has a scan of the first-edition Varikas card, I'd love to receive a copy. Thanks!

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lothlorian — 2007-03-28T14:20:39+00:00

Closeup of dice...

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davemonkey — 2007-02-19T10:17:58+00:00

That first game is - slow!

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davemonkey — 2007-02-19T10:16:45+00:00

The ring says HERE!

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rayzir — 2007-02-02T22:06:52+00:00

Plano tackle box from Walmart organizes the bits nicely.

Thread: Re: First Time Player

adamjon858 — 2007-01-14T21:24:37+00:00

It was $10 for the 1st edition...so I jumped.

Thread: Re: First Time Player

SanguinousRex — 2007-01-14T04:56:23+00:00

I'm *extremely* happy you like Runebound, its one of my absolute favorite games, but my question is why did you get the 1st Edition of Runebound? The 2nd Edition is infinitely better and fixes a lot of the issues the 1st edition had. The 2nd Edition is also the one that is being supported.

Again, LOVE the game, but I never played the 1st Edition.

Thread: First Time Player

adamjon858 — 2007-01-14T02:21:39+00:00

I just recently received this game through BGG Marketplace

I made a good purchase! We played this game with 3 people for the first time today, here's some highlights:

I noticed that if your starting character has a lot of health (4 or 5) it makes the beginning of the game a lot easier. I started with a character that had 5 health! I didn't die one time the whole game (mainly because I also had some shield items/artifacts) and I didn't have one single ally!

The blue and the red may look intimidating but their not. If you have a player with a lot of health (like I did) it really doesn't make that big of a difference if your fighting a blue or a yellow. I started out attacking 2 or 3 greens and than moved on to 2 yellows. After going to a town or two I fought 3 blues and beat them all the first time. I was feeling pretty cocky at that point and already had 2 runes so I attacked a red and won! This made me have 3 runes and win!!

One of the other players spent the whole time hopping between towns/markets they ended up with 2 allies and a bunch of items, but they still didn't have all that much power since they could only afford the cheap stuff (and their character only had 3 health!!)

The other player copied just about everything I did. When I decided to try my first yellow, so did he. When I tried a blue so did he. He ended up in second and had 2 allies and a good amount of money!

The whole game took about 90 minutes and proved to be a great experience. I didn't notice it but my game has the Shadow of Margath expansion included already!!

A couple minor questions:
-Do the red cards count as normal runes? I had 2 runes and than defeated a red enemy..does that mean I win??
-When you perform combat rolls is it equal or greater? Lets say I had 5 melee and the enemy had 12 melee. I roll a 7...do I dish out damage or do I take damage?
-There seem to be a lot of the event cards...But surprisingly the first one that came up in our game was a blue card which doubled every thing's price...We decided not to follow this rule since it would make the game much harder
-Is it possible to run out of adventures due to knockouts? If players kept getting up to 3 or 4 experience and than dying wouldn't that eventually make the game almost impossible to finish?? I can't see this happening with less than 5 players but 5 or 6..maybe??
-What if there is a tie in total combat roll in hero vs hero??
-Is there a limit to number of allies you can have?

One big question:
-If I'm attacking a creature that has let's say 12/2, 18/0, 9/3, and 4HP, with my party of me (3/1, 3/1, 4/2, 5HP) and an ally (0/2, 3/1, 1/1, 3HP) is this a valid battle outcome:

Round 1
I decide to attack with my hero for range and ally for melee, I will defend with my hero for magic.
I attack with a roll of 11 and do 1 damage to the creature
My ally attacks with a roll of 5 and loses nothing
I defend with a roll of 3 and lose 3 HP

Round 2:
I decide to attack with my hero for magic and ally for melee, I will defend for ranged.
I defend with a roll of 9 and lose no HP.
My ally attacks with a roll of 20 and does 1 damage
I attack with a roll of 6 and kill the beast!!

Basically, I didn't really understand how allies fight...do they just attack once and become deactivated or do they keep attacking every round (they can't defend though...right?). If I have 4 allies can I fight with 3 allies (one per each phase) and than the next round fight with 2 allies and than with my hero?

I found this game to be awesome and the rules make the game easy to learn but don't cover every loophole leaving a couple things undecided.

I will be very very happy if you answer my questions too! (I can't really afford to give out GG at the moment though....maybe imaginary s )

Thread: Another Sunday of Slaying!

TrekkerMJ — 2006-11-13T05:16:49+00:00

So Runebound seems like our lazy Sunday afternoon game. We don't get those days very often but once every few months we get a completely dead day and Runebound seems to be the game to go with. Having played the game a handful of times now, we are "customizing" the game slowly to our tastes. Pretty much everything is as regular but you gain experience levels with 4 adventure tokens and we have a house rule of not attacking other players. When you have an eight-year old competitive boy in the mix you do those kind of things.

This time we decided to expand the game a bit. Being a bit cheap, I haven't updated to second edition yet. But I've been aching to try some of the expansions. So I had purchased the Drakes and Dragonspawn Adventure deck to add a bit of spice things up a bit. To counter these challenge cards higher stats, we also switched to using two 10-sided dice instead of using the 20-sided dice. Yes, we are heathens and don't use the right forks when we eat either!

So we pull out the board and deal out two characters per player for them to choose from. Chance, my eight-year old boy, goes with Red Scorpion. Interestingly enough, we talk about how she must be a clone of Princess Leia from Jabba's Sail Barge. The metallic bikini and bun haircut puts it over the top! Alexandria, my six-year old girl, goes with Varikas the Dead. I settle down with the Runewitch Astarra. Yes, the boys played girls and the girl played a boy. Interesting I know. Play order goes with Alexandria first, followed by me and Chance.

Of course, things start out slow. Alex can't reach the first city with the reduced starting dice and neither can I. However, I go after the closest green and run in to the Devolved Hatchling from the expansion and can't even pass the Before Combat test. Not wanting to run in to him this early in the game, I pass and leave it behind. Not a fun way to try out this expanded game!

After that things go well for the first few rounds. Green encounters are overcome and we start splitting up to go our different ways. I'm heading to the north because Alex had pulled an event card that placed free market cards in three of the four northern cities. I'm able to score two of the freebies while Alex was able to get the other one. At this point, Alex is getting a bit bored with the downtime so she opts out of the game and my 17-year old brother Luke subs in for her place. He was a bit behind at this point with no experience boost yet, no allies and only Immolate to show something good. Chance had equipped Red Scorpion with the Soul Biter and was loving that all the way. Still, it looked like I had a good little set up going but was very weak in Melee combat. Luke entered one of the northwest cities and revealed Jirta the Fierce - A 10-cost Melee (6/3) Ally with attitude. Unfortunately he only has two gold so I power my way across the top of the map and pick her up before he can garner the gold to purchase her.

With the addition of Jirta I looked to be set. Ranged combat was a weakness but I just added random cheap allies as needed to take the bullet. I was the first to confidently attempt yellows and blue adventures and was racking up the experience. Luke and Chance were doing alright themselves but were a couple notches below me. I thought things were going to be a walk for me the rest of the game.

Well, it wasn't to be that way. The first red adventure I attempted was in the far north east corner and featured Dragonlord Avarax. His before combat text required a jump (melee) test of 15 twice or take three wounds. At only 3 melee I couldn't get past the test and the Runewitch only has three health. I get knocked out and sent back to town. Next turn I power to the other red challenge between Forge and Frost**** and pass it with ease. However, Luke has now bought a nice little Teleport rune and is looking to use it. He starts popping all over the map picking and choosing whatever he wants to do. I'm trudging through an ever more vacant landscape as I try to get enough defense to take on more red adventure. I go to the east and try the other red adventure and get that. One more and I get it. Unfortunately, I am now far from any other red adventure except the one that I can't pass because of the silly Jump test. So I start trudging all the way to the west side of the board as Luke keeps bouncing/teleporting wherever he needs to be. His first red adventure is even one that I'm one hex away from that he pops in to pass (I almost broke the house rule of no attacking other players that next turn!).

So Luke now has the White Blade and Staff of Light to give him plenty of bang even though he hasn't been too lucky with allies. Chance has been playing it a bit too conservative and is falling behind. I can't get to the far northwest red adventure because of not rolling enough forests. Luke keep bouncing around and gets his second red on the next turn. Now its a race for the last red adventure. Hmmmm.... Have you ever raced a teleporter before? It's like race between Wolverine amd Nightcrawler. Sure the Canook is going to hurt someone something fierce but the blue smurf is going to be there first. Such was the case with Luke. His third red challenge ended up being Margrath but he was still able to take him down in two rounds of combat. Again, he did it in the red adventure square I was going to get to on the next round (hopefully!). Still, he pulled it through and we had a fun experience.

As we cleaned up, we talked about the game. I think we will have a house rule that the teleport rune can only be used three times. A usage limit that wouldn't make it over powered and a negative play experience for others. We'll work that out.

The other thing we'll change is how we gain experience. I noticed the Advanced Rules have players receive two experience tokens for each advancement but they can't be used on the same attribute. I like this. It speeds the game up even if we go to a higher amount than the 4 cost that we have been playing with.

Things look good for our family and Runebound. One of these days I'm sure I'll have to buy the Second Edition just to fully enjoy the Runebound experience. For now though, it looks like our ad-hoc approach is working just fine!

Keep on gaming!

Thread: Re: Allies

Jormi_Boced — 2006-10-20T01:19:31+00:00

There is an eratta that limits players to 2 allies.

Thread: Re: Allies

MrSkeletor — 2006-10-20T00:04:14+00:00

There was no ally limit in first edition, as far as I know.

Thread: Re: Allies

Octavian — 2006-10-19T22:28:33+00:00

Mishenka wrote:
One correction to what Octivian said. You are limited to 2 allies, not 1.

I hadn't interpreted his post to mean you are limited to 1 ally, but you are of course correct.

I forget if there even was an ally limit at all in first edition...

-MMM

Thread: Re: Allies

Mishenka — 2006-10-19T20:57:48+00:00

One correction to what Octivian said. You are limited to 2 allies, not 1.

Thread: Re: Allies

Octavian — 2006-10-19T19:42:40+00:00

ZeeWolf wrote:
hello

i have a question about the allies you can buy and how the work.
becaus there aint any rule about them in the manual i got
so we made a rule that we can buy 1 allie and then he can attack and your hero can attack in different phases in a combat round (Range,melee,magic)

but i dont think this is the right rule for them.

That is the correct rule, actually.

my secont question is about buy extra health.
can you buy extra health with XP so if your character max hp is 4 you can buy 1 so its 5.

Pls can any1 help me with this.

greets zeewolf

I don't remember if you can get extra health in first edition. In second edition Runebound you can select an extra health token, however every extra health you take restricts you from the lowest color of adventure (your first prohibits you from ever taking green challenges for the rest of the game...second prohibits yellow...etc.)

-MMM

Thread: Allies

ZeeWolf — 2006-10-19T17:48:19+00:00

hello

i have a question about the allies you can buy and how the work.
becaus there aint any rule about them in the manual i got
so we made a rule that we can buy 1 allie and then he can attack and your hero can attack in different phases in a combat round (Range,melee,magic)

but i dont think this is the right rule for them.

my secont question is about buy extra health.
can you buy extra health with XP so if your character max hp is 4 you can buy 1 so its 5.

Pls can any1 help me with this.

greets zeewolf

Thread: Re: Which expansions are for the first edition?

RecklessJester — 2006-09-16T20:36:17+00:00

The only one that I know of for 1st is the original Runebound - Shadows of Margath (First Edition), which is coming out later this month (maybe? hopefully?) for 2nd Ed.

Thread: Re: Which expansions are for the first edition?

Herr Niemand — 2006-09-16T20:34:01+00:00

I think the only expansion for first edition is Shadows of Margath.

I've got a copy, if you'd like to arrange for a trade or something. I'd be happy to part with it since I've moved on to second edition and Shadows doesn't really work and play well with the later Runebound.

Let me know if you're interested and we'll work something out.

Thread: Which expansions are for the first edition?

Checkallday — 2006-09-16T20:19:48+00:00

I'm a litte confused because there are so many games listed under Runebound. Which ones are for the 1st edition.

Thanks for any help

Thread: Quests and Treasure!

ced1106 — 2006-08-15T11:46:01+00:00

Introduction: This variant allows players to obtain items from challenges, not just gold. (Don't know about you, but I found the idea of getting your magic items only from the intermittently-stocked Magical Sharper Image kind of odd.) This variant has a secondary result of removing these items and allies from the Marketplace deck, so random draws for free items don't result in beginning characters with high-valued items.

Summary: Defeat one or more challenges. Reveal the top card of the stripped-down Marketplace or appropriate Quest deck. Get item and gold. Gold received is the total gold of the challenge(s) less the value of the item.

Setup:

Marketplace deck: Separate out the Marketplace items and allies by value:
* 1st Quest deck: Items of value 5-6.
* 2nd Quest deck: Items of value 7-8.
* 3rd Quest deck: Items of value 9-10.
* Place the 9-10 value allies in the farthest city, the 7-8 value allies in the next farthest city, and the 5-6 value allies in the third farthest city. These allies may only be acquired through purchasing.
* The Marketplace deck now only contains items and allies of 1-4 value.

Quest counters: The Undefeated Challenge counters are used instead as Quest counters. Give each player a Quest counter. The player to his left now places this counter six hexes away from the starting city, on a space not occupied by an encounter token. Undefeated challenges are now discarded.

Adventure counters: Adventure counters are no longer used as experience counters and are now discarded. Use Experience counters (eg. glass beads) to track experience instead.

Explored counters: Exploration counters represent areas on the board where a quest has been completed. Exhaustion or Would counters can be used as Explored counters.

Play:

Treasure: Challenges now have treasure in addition to gold. After a challenge is defeated, reveal the top card of the Marketplace deck. If its value is equal to or less than the gold received from challenge, the player receives the item, an amount of gold less the value of the item, and any other challenge rewards.

Quest: Upon entering the space with his quest counter, a player draws a challenge from the appropriate deck and encounters it normally, except he does not receive a reward yet. (He still receives experience.) For the 1st quest, draw from the Green challenge deck. For the 2nd quest, draw from the Yellow challenge deck. For the 3rd quest, draw from the Blue challenge deck. If the player fails the challenge, discard it.

On his next turn, the player has a Movement phase, but does not move. He then draws a challenge card of the same color and encounters it as above. If the total gold of the challenges he defeated as a result of the quest is equal to or greater than the quest item deck, the quest is over. For the 1st quest, this is 6 gold. For the 2nd quest, 8 gold. For the 3rd quest, 10 gold.

Once the quest is over, the player draws the top card of the appropriate quest deck. He receives the item, the total amount of gold from the challenges less the value of the item, and any other rewards from them. He then places an explored counter on this space. The player to the left places the quest counter six spaces away on any space without an adventure counter, another player, or an explored counter. If all players have completed their 1st quest, shuffle the 1st quest deck into the Marketplace deck. The same applies for the 2nd and 3rd quests.

Comments: This variant originally was just the treasure variant. However, no challenges in Runebound 1st edition have more than 8 gold, and I wanted some sort of quest variant. In play, challenges are more interesting because you're receiving an item as well as gold. Players no longer make a side trek to the marketplace, only to reveal an item or ally they can't afford. Instead of wandering all over the board, the quests provide more purpose to play -- and encourage players to face more difficult challenges earlier in the game. Adventure counters ended up more like opportunistic random encounters.

But, most importantly, more items come into play faster so players have more toys to play with!

aka. Washu! ^O^

Thread: A lazy Sunday afternoon of Magical Slaughter

TrekkerMJ — 2006-08-07T18:15:19+00:00

So my boy Chance has been doing pretty good lately. He's eight years old, rocking in Cub Scouts and is enjoying a lazy summer. A little too lazy it seems. He hits me up for a "long" game. None of these 30-60 minute games. He wants to play a "long" game. When he says this I know which one he wants.... Runebound. Railroad Tycoon fits in there but we had played that recently so I knew it had to be Runebound.

We hadn't played for over eight months so there was a bit of getting reacquainted with the rules. It's just me and him playing and as such we make it a house rule to need only four experience points rather than the prescribed six in order to level up. He likes leveling up even if it shortens the game a bit. We also deal three heroes to each and then decide on one. Chance goes with Varikas the Dead while I stick with Sir Valadir.

As we start, I honestly think I have the advantage. I am a big believer in Allies and Sir Valadir is the man when it comes to that. Chance has that pre-battle Magic attack with Varikas but I figure I can overcome that. Not to be it seems. One of the first events that pops up puts a free face down market card in three of the northern cities. Chance takes the cue to charge through and gets two of the three freebie market cards. He scores huge on those two. The first was Sir Loren (?) which was a seven cost Ally that gave Chance a reliable ranged attacked and a double damage on melee attack. The other score was artifact that if successful on a melee or magic attack could be activated to give three damage to any creature. This was huge compared to the one cost throw away I got as the third freebie!

Chance was now set to go forward and kick but but is going slowly on the greens to level up a bit. I had a Honor Blade (dwarf ally) which was respectable and the Monk ally who could exhaust to boost one of my rolls. I was feeling pretty good until Chance went to a market and found an ally he couldn't pass up... The Valakyre chick at 10 cost. He picked her up and then went to town on a yellow challenge without breaking a sweat. He marketed again and got the other artifact that gives +4 to magic attacks and +1 to magic damage for a phase. All of this with his two beefie allies lead to him skipping all the other yellows and heading for the Blues and Reds. I tried to counter by getting the artifact that allowed me to attack twice with my hero and one of the bows that buffed up ranged attacks. Still I knew I was running at half the pace as Chance. It was going to be an uphill battle.

At this point, Chance was taking over the top of the map. His ability to sniper anything with Magic pre-combat was amazing. He was leveling up and had +8 on Magic with just his character. I ran to the bottom of the map hoping to find the big daddy dragon and win on a fluke. Chance wasn't having any of that and while I got stuck trying to traverse mountains, Chance went to town on the red challenges. Only one challenge took him to the second round. All the others were finished in pre-battle phase or in first round. It was amazing to see.

In the end, Chance swept through - winning by garnering three dragon runes. I never got an opportunity to face even one red challenge. I got hamstrung by a little pre-combat test from a green challenge that wouldn't go down. That and a blue challenge that tore me up a bit kept from trying any reds.

Chance won with a great display of sportsmanship. Its amazing how much easier that is when you win! He got a good character and had the right support and ally cards fall in his hands. I was set up pretty good but he just had everything go his way!

Great game and a nice reintroduction to Runebound after a bit of a sabbatical.

Image

Jormi_Boced — 2006-06-29T12:31:50+00:00

My first ally ever!!!

Image

Jormi_Boced — 2006-06-29T12:31:03+00:00

Scouring the Countryside

Image

Jormi_Boced — 2006-06-29T12:18:17+00:00

Starting out alright.

Thread: First time playing!

hseldon — 2006-06-25T18:16:34+00:00

So I had a whole day off to play games. KyleCsigs, Mckeon13 and I spent the day playing our hearts out. Pat (McKeon) suggest Runebound for our secons game and Kyle and I were eager learners. The rules seemed a bit complex but once gameplay got underway, it was simpler than the explanations. This seems to happen a lot, but that is another post. Things were going fairly smoothly as I was able to bump up a couple of levels quickly taking on green boogens and then yellow. I got brave and decided to go after a blue. Boy was I surprised when I flipped over the card that double the price of everything in the markets. The other guys were not too happy with me either for that. To make it worse, I was on my way to get the Rune Plate for 15 gold, and poof! It now cost 30! Argh! Then I turned over the first blue boogen. I about fainted. I had to roll a 17 to survive a range attack, or it would wound me x5. I could only survive 4. So, I whacked him with one before combat point to knock him down to 4 health, then I actually rolled a 17! I was saved! I used my +2 mace to make a nice melee combat and killed him, but man, that was the last blue one I wanted to face for a while.
I wound up going up some more levels, drinking some potion that made me undead and boosting my scores and was able to get the money for the Rune Plate. After that I went after another blue. This time I had to roll a 16 to survive a range attack (I still only had four health points), which I did and then whacked that monster too. Pat had amassed quite a pile of cash and took full advantage of it when the even I drew dropped the priced in the market back to normal. He got some sweet stuff that gave him all sorts of damage additions and defense. Kyle, on the other hand, had a harder time and died a bit. He was trailing behind and still fighting green and starting on yellow when Pat & I were openly taking on blue.
The turns ended and it was time to search the red deck. I survived the first one, but did not have enough items on me to survive the second red nasty. Pat's collection of cool artifacts and good rolls got him through three red nasties for the victory.

Thread: Re: 3 Runebound Questions.

SorenK23 — 2006-06-24T02:16:06+00:00

Woody, if you haven't already been back there, I just answered these Qs on the FFG Runebound site (Torbal).

Note, my answer to #1 differs to what others will say.

Thread: Re: 3 Runebound Questions.

maka — 2006-06-24T00:50:17+00:00

For 1 I don't know 'cause I don't have the card. (Edit: I don't have it right now )

2. I'd say you have to first discard and then roll. I think unless it specifically states that you can change a die after rolling, all the bonuses are applied before rolling.

3. A combat roll means both attack roll and defense roll, so you can use it even if you're not attacking with magic.

These answers are not definitive (I guess only the designer/publisher could give definitive answers) but I'm pretty sure of them

Cheers!

-Jorge

Thread: 3 Runebound Questions.

bangor boy — 2006-06-23T22:52:24+00:00

Just got back into the game and hit some questions along the way. Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light on them for me.

1. Rune Seeker Ally Card - Can she take 2 exhaustions in one play to cancel 2 wounds from a hero?

2. Banner of the Wolf Card (Relics of Legend Expansion Deck) - "Discard 1 wound from this card to receive a +2 bonus on a Before Combat roll" Can I roll and only then discard the wound counter if the +2 bonus would help, or do I have to decide to discard it before I roll?

3. Immolate (Rune) Item Card - Can I activate this (as long as no other activated cards were played in the two previous phases) even if I am not attacking in the Magic phase to increase my defense roll. Also it states that it also inflicts +1 wounds in magic combat. Do I have to be attacking in Magic for the wound to take affect? It says only combat rolls not attacking roll and I want a clear yes or no what happens in with this card.

Thread: Re: Strangely priced items

ruvion — 2006-05-23T21:17:44+00:00

Ghost Armor is too broken in my opinion...I'm houseruling it so that this rune does not work against the Dragonlords (or at least just the first round of combat like the Charmer Flute). And maybe houseruling the Wings of Regiroth so that you can wear gauntlet or shield (but not body armor) in addition to this armor.

Thread: Re: Runebound with more than 6 players?

heinzy57 — 2006-05-04T12:02:27+00:00

Here's the scoop:

I think we started at around 7:30 PM with 6 players. The 7th player was due to arrive at 8:30 PM, so I decided that player would come in at the lowest experience level and with the lowest gold value (including all market cards). To make sure he didn't get stuck in the bottom of the board, I also decided to let him start in one of the towns in the middle of the board. To make sure that we could fit the game in a 4 hour session, I added one of the suggested rule variants from the Advanced Runebound rule set. I allowed the players to receive two experience chits instead of one when they turned in enough XP to level. One player suggested with this many, it would have been good to increase the reward gold value by 1.5x also. I think the game worked out reasonably well without the extra gold. I also arbitrarily declare during points of the game that once you reached a certain level, you could no longer attempt different color quests. I was trying to make sure that all levels had adventures they could undertake. Next time, I'll try to implement the Event adventure counter replenishment rule from 2ed. It may make things a little easier to keep track of. Does anyone how many spaces on the 2ed board have replenishable adventure counters? All said and done, the game lasted about 3 hours, which I was very pleased with. There were two players that leveled 12 times, one that leveled three times, three that leveled twice, and one that never leveled, which I wasn't pleased with. Anyway, I think the game was enough of a hit that it will be requested again.

Thread: Re: Runebound with more than 6 players?

Konwacht — 2006-05-03T17:09:27+00:00

Well, we needed about seven hours. Not much more than in games with six players ^.^ I believe that really depends on how much joking is down and how well the players can handle the rules

Back to PvP: Your really don´t need the dragon runes. In games with a lot of players there are much more market steps in towns and so very much items. Because of the fact that all players battle less challanges they have reduced finances to buy these items. We felt that this forced all players to only buy those items they really needed - but these came up really fast because of the mass of market steps. And with the right items - and enough experience counters (Level 10+ at your character) - you are without problem able to beat up the big boss. Only thing we noticed was, that players used to fight more blue encounters than in usual games (where we often jump from yellow to red challenges and passing the blue step very fast) to get the needed experience.

PvP in such full games really kills fun (in my opinion). We startet with it but ignored PvP the rest of the game since you managed to do your action and then you stood there without activated items (that had often been used in your own challenge) being beaten by each player who passed by during the rest of the turn ^.^

Anyway - have fun and I´m interested in your short report

Thread: Re: Runebound with more than 6 players?

heinzy57 — 2006-05-03T12:25:45+00:00

Konwacht wrote:
Good idea! In this case I would simply forbid fighting each other - come on, ten persons on one board.

This might do as much harm as good. With 7 players, which is what I'll run this game with tonight, that's one red encounter per player. Since the red encounters are pretty well spread around the board, it's going to be hard for one person to get three Dragon Runes. This is pretty much the case with 6 players too, so it's not too big of a deal. However, if you eliminate PvP, it becomes near impossible since you can steal someone's Dragon Rune if you defeat them. You speed up the game at the risk of virtually eliminating one of the victory conditions. Maybe that's OK. I'll have to play to find out.

Konwacht wrote:
Then it's great fun - most groups I believe will suffer under the downtime that can getting very large...

I think my group can handle the downtime, seeing as they are primarily RPGer, but I'll update this post to let you know how it turns out.

One more question...

I saw in a post talking about game length that the game lasts 1 hour per player, in their experience. Am I in for a 7 hour game? What is everyone else's experience? How long was the 10 player game that you referred to?