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Exploration, Encounters, and Combat
11-17-2013, 03:18 AM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2013 10:01 AM by Odie.)
Post: #1
Exploration, Encounters, and Combat
This information was pieced together and compiled by various helpful and inquisitive people on both the SOBS Kickstarter comments section, and the SOBS forums on BoardGameGeek.

Keep in mind that these are not finalized rules for the game.

I'm duplicating it here so we can have a depository of basic game info here on TZG as well:


EXPLORATION TOKENS
-- These Tokens show how many exit doors are in the Room (and if any of those exits are Gates to an Otherworld), as well as if you find any Clues toward accomplishing your Objective.

-- More importantly, the Exploration Tokens tell you if you are attacked or if you need to draw one or more Encounter Cards.

CLUES

- Several of the Exploration Tokens have a Clue icon them that denotes that when you flip that Token, you have found a Clue for your objective.

- Sometimes you are just trying to find X number of Clues, and that last one you need means you have found the Objective.

- Other times, each Clue you find will have a mission specific meaning to it (for instance the first clue you find might be the occult book you need so that when you find the open Portal at the second Clue, you can use the Book to try and seal the gate)

ENCOUNTER CARDS

-- There is a unique Encounter Deck for the Mines as well as for each Otherworld

-- Otherworlds have specific encounters for that world, so in Targa you may encounter Ice Scarabs or an Avalanche, which would be stupid to happen in the mine.

-- Encounter cards present story situations that crop up when exploring Rooms and usually involve one or more Heroes taking a Skill Test (such as Agility, Luck, Lore, etc), making choices, or overcoming some sort of challenge (sometimes all three of these things).

-- Perhaps they have found the sight of a Massacre and must carefully pick their way through the gore, or they may have come across a lost prospector wandering the mines; will he help them, or does he hold dark secrets of his own?!

-- Some Encounters can also lead to an Attack (especially if you fail the tests)

COMBAT

DETERMINING THE NUMBER OF CREATURES

- When an Attack occurs, the Heroes must draw an Enemy card to see what they will face!

- There are three Enemy Decks of increasing Threat Level (Green, Yellow, and Red).

- The Hero Party generally draws a card from the Threat Level based on the number of Heroes in the Party (1-2 Heroes=Green, 3-4 Heroes=Yellow, and 5-6 Heroes=Red), though occasionally this will change based on what caused the attack or if you have found your Mission Objective!

- Some Attack cards will have something like *Peril die symbol* of Tentacles.

- The Peril Die is used mainly for getting a random number of a particular monster. It is a special D6 marked 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. That way the minimum number of Enemies of a group that you will ever see is 3, and it is weighted toward 3 or 4.

Running Out of Figures

-- Running out of a specific type of figures can occur if you need to draw multiple Threat Cards and end up drawing two of the same Enemy Type.

-- Normally, anytime you need to place more of a given Enemy Type than you have figures, you place as many as you have and then all Enemies of that type become Elite for that Fight.

PLACING FIGURES

When you stumble upon a group of Enemies, they are placed in the room starting with the lowest Initiative monsters first and being placed in the back left corner from the entrance, skipping every other space to form a checker board pattern. They also skip over any spaces with Heroes or obstacles in them. Once the room is filled by the normal method, you go back and start filling in the 'skipped' spaces in between the checker board pattern if there are still monsters left to place. In thise way, the monsters naturally fill in the rool without being all clustered together and just waiting for a Bandido with Dynamite to wipe out a bunch at once (unless they are a swarm with tons of monsters filling the room). It also looks way cooler when they are set up this way! This also makes how far you move into an unkown room a questionable prospect.

Monsters

-- Monster have fewer stats than Heroes (no skill stats for one). Monster generally have a Defense (how much damage they stop each time you hit them – unlike Heroes, this is a fixed amount, not a saving roll)
-- Health (how many wounds they can take before being killed)
-- Escape (a D6 roll needed to move away from them if you are adjacent)
-- Melee To Hit, Ranged To Hit,
-- Combat Dice (how many attack dice they roll)
-- Damage (how many wounds each unsaved Hit does to a Hero),
-- Move, Initiative,
-- Type, Size, and lastly XP reward.

-- Most monsters also have one or more abilities that make them special.

-- All Enemy types also have a unique D6 Elite chart that are the different bonuses they might get if they are Elite

MONSTER AI

One of the main intents for the monster AI is that it is simple and fast. The default AI that most monsters use is: If an Enemy has a ranged attack, they will try to keep their distance and fire away at different Heroes. If they are more Melee, they will divide between the Heroes and move in to attack. If a Hero that is being attacked in Melee Escapes the monster and runs away, that monster will select a new target (trying to divide as evenly as possible between Heroes). Some monsters have different abilities that alter their AI, for instance, the Void Hounds slip in and out of reality as they move, passing through other models and savagely surprise attacking different targets each turn. This means that no one is safe from the hounds, even those hiding out in the back or around corners! There are also some monsters that specifically will move to attack Heroes that have a lot of Dark Stone on them, or Heroes that have a Light Source. Things of that nature. There are also some Enemies that will Hit and run, attacking then moving away.

"Another point of note is that there are many monsters that have Fear, Terror, or Unspeakable Terror as an ability. These monsters do Horror Hits to the Heroes (sanity damage) just by being near them! Fear does Horror Hitsto adjacent Heroes. Terrror effects any Heroes on the same Board Section, and Unspeakable Terror effects all Heroes on the same and/or adjacent Board Section. That is all, of course, in addition to their normal attacks!"

BASIC COMBAT

-- At the start of an Attack, Enemies are placed on the board and will move and fight based on a simple set of guidelines.
-- Fights are handled in Initiative order, from highest to lowest.

-- If two Heroes have the same Initiative, they can choose between them each turn who gets to go first.

-- Monsters with the same Initiative as a Hero go before the Hero.

-- Characters get to roll all of your Combat dice or Shots from a Gun at once and then choose what enemies to assign the hits to one at a time.

-- To Hit rolls of 6 (or 6,7,8 on the 8-sider) are critical Hits that ignore a monsters defense, so what order you assign your Hits and to what targets makes a big impact on the Fight!

- For example I am a Gunslinger. I have a pistol. I have two shots. My to hit is 3+. I roll a 3 and a 1, 1 hit! I am shooting at a tentacle, I roll my damage die, I roll a 4. Tentacles have 2 defense with 4 wounds. I have done 2 damage to the tentacle.

-- Monsters can have different damage die and that some monsters when they hit you, if you don't defend they can do multiple damage.

-- Certain monsters have special abilities, for example the Tentacles have a special ability called Smash. If they hit you by rolling a 6 they do damage that ignores your defense.

-- You defend against monsters by rolling your defense stat, if a monster hits you 4 times, you roll 4 dice and use your defense stat. If my defense stat is 4+, any 4 or more will defend against the hit, any 3 or below rolls I will take a wound.
HERO KO

-- When a Hero is KO’d, they are basically out for the rest of that Fight (unless someone has something that can Heal an ‘Injury’, not just damage).

-- At the end of that Fight, The Hero must roll on the Injury Table (or Insanity Table if they reached 0 Sanity) and get back up, often with some lasting penalty (which is usually only for the rest of the mission or sometimes just until healed at the Doc’s Office

WINNING THE FIGHT

-- Once all of the Enemies are defeated by the Heroes, each Hero is allowed to draw a Loot card for each Enemy Threat card that took part in the fight.

-- Heroes also gain Experience for every Enemy they defeated (or for Wounds that they caused to larger Enemies) and the Heroes are allowed to Catch Their Breath, recovering a small amount of Health and/or Sanity.

LOOT DECK

-- Currently the Loot deck is 12 cards

-- These are shuffled after every Fight and tell you whether you found money, Dark Stone, or a Gear/Artifact

-- There are 2 cards that give Gear and only 1 that gives an Artifact draw (as Artifacts are more rare).

-- While in an Otherworld, these cards are actually reversed, so it becomes two cards that let you draw an Artifact and only 1 for Gear! In this way, it is far more likely to find cool, crazy Artifacts while exploring in another world!

-- The Loot Deck is reshuffled after every Fight.

GEAR/ARTIFACT DECKS

-– These cards represent items the Hero can find and collect to help them out in their adventures.

-- Gear are more common, Earthly items like guns, equipment, maps, etc. while Artifacts are more occult objects, often from an Otherworld.

-- Artifacts can also include ancient tomes, runic upgrades, special weapons, cursed objects, or even crazy alien tech! Loot Cards

ENDING THE MISSION
-- Satisfying the mission objective - Win
-- All heroes KO'ed at one time -- Lose
-- Darkness escapes mines -- Lose


Minor info on the Goliath monster boss, from Mary Beth at Flying Frog:

"The Goliath, that thing is nasty. It's immune to critical hits, has an area attack, and gives you sanity hits if you're even on his board section."

So among his stats, he would most likely be counted as having the Terror ability.


From Jason at Flying Frog:
“How do the Skill Tests work for Encounters?” – Can’t do a super detailed walkthrough right now (it’s already 3AM here and I’m afraid I am getting a little on the sleepy side to do it justice). I will say that the Skill Tests are usually resolved similar to the Skill Tests in Fortune and Glory – roll a number of dice equal to your skill and try to get x number of successes equal to the Test’s target value. There are all sorts of different Encounters, and the style of tests and challenges vary quite a bit. One example of a ‘choice’ type Encounter is the ‘Lost Prospector’ that you can run into where you need to decide how to react. Do you pay him off to Heal you or do you attack him and try to take his stuff? You must choose, but each choice has potential benefits and negatives.

“Can you talk more about Dark Stone mutation?” – Carrying too much Dark Stone at once can start to corrupt you over time. This can come in the forms of gain different types of insanity and or physical mutations! These are sometimes advantageous, but usually make you an outcast in Towns (harder to visit all the places you want to and penalties for various Town Event charts).

“How long is too long to carry around Dark Stone?” – It depends how much you have and if you have any special way to carry it or modifiers to you resistance. Generally, it would be over multiple missions. Mutations can sometimes be healed (or even 'cut off').


“Can Monsters ever surprise the Heroes and show up right next to them?” – Absolutely! It’s called an Ambush and when it happens, the Enemies are placed adjacent to Heroes instead of the normal placement system. They also get +2 Initiative in the first turn of the Fight. This can happen through Cards, Depth Events, or even some monster Elite abilities or even Otherworld global special rules (like in the Swamps of Jargono).

“Will Enemies scale with Heroes that level up?” – Yes, through Elite bonuses mostly.


Original Link: Exploration, Encounters, and Combat

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Odie Bracy - Fiction Blog

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11-17-2013, 11:47 AM
Post: #2
RE: Exploration, Encounters, and Combat
Thank You for this post -I know a lot of SoB comments are about wanting a rule set
but actually FFP has given out quite a bit of info but in a rather disjointed style.

OD

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11-17-2013, 06:53 PM
Post: #3
RE: Exploration, Encounters, and Combat
No problem. It's taken a lot of work by a lot of people asking questions when FFP comes on the Kickstarter comments, but yeah, there's actually so much more info out there than people realize.

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