as the topic says; do you follow the rules in every aspect of the game? I recently found out the the monk only can add his starting craft to his strength in battle! how do you play the monk?

we try to play by the rules, and have a vote if we disagree. but like the ocassion with the monk, I think we have some "houserules" that we are not aware of...

3 houserules that I can think of:

Assassin isn't RAW. We use him as he has always been, can only Assassinate already faceup Str-Enemies, not ones he draws.

Raiders are again the old Raiders, who take Gold AND Objects, and there is nothing you can do about it (unless Gypsy, Prophetess, Orb of Knowledge, Alteration...).

I have the BI edition, so I use that board. I only use the Village errata for the board, so no Fate replenish at Graveyard or gain 2 Fate at Temple if you roll 11.

I generally follow the Rules and like to have official FAQs to answer all the questions raised by card interpretation.

However, I do not like that FAQ that you cannot stack effects because they have the same text, especially in the Monk's case. Monk can use Psionic Blast and Warhors AND his Inner Belief ability in my games. He doesn't look overpowered because of this; he's been limited to starting Craft (permanent +3) which is good, but he has no compensation for his low stats and Weapon/Armour restriction. 5 Fate? He's good, he'll waste the token before the game's done and can't replenish.

Assassin is definitely imbalanced now. Nothing scares him, everything is killed immediately with less or no effort. Too much. I don't know if we shall rule as Dam does (which is 2nd Edition/BI Assassin) or give him some restraint like: "you may assassinate only Enemies that have your same Strength or lower". I don't like the idea you may assassinate enormous creatures like Dragons with only 3-4 Strength. For now we still play by the current rules.

Since I bought the base game and the Upgrade Pack I have put some additional cards in the deck.

Objects:
Bag of Gold (8x)
Two Bags of Gold (3x)
Raft (1x)

Enemies:
Giant (1x)
Dragon (2x)

Events:
Book of Spells (1x)
Market Day (1x)
Raiders (1x)

In the first games of Revised 4th ed. I felt there was less Gold than before. I added a lot of Bags of Gold and still don't see too much Gold in my games. Dam always speaks of Characters hoarding coins because they can't do nothing with them... that's not my experience. Here everybody spends his Gold quickly (Sorcerer, Village, Market, Healing, Mercenary, Academy).

My gaming group does have a few house rules, but these are agreed upon by the majority of the group and are kept in a printed list of houserules. One such house rule is regarding the Random spell. Depending on the roll, the target could lose all of their Strength or Craft. We determined that this is way too much penalty later in the game (imagine you have built up 10 cones of Strength and then lose it all on one spell), so our house rule is that the Random spell makes you lose half.

There are some rules that we have had a "mutual" interpretation on, and only thru discussion on this website have I noticed that we might be in error. One example is the Wand ( http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=129&efcid=1&efidt=198302 ).

I try to stick by the rules as much as is possible.

But i have house rule the Trapdoor because that card is not so dangerous as it should be..( i have use the text from third edition for this)

(Burrow wurm) has also been change..

I have made a house rule for rafts too. ( you can only get to ONE opposite of the river. ( the one who makes the most sense that is the opposite)

I am not going to dwell on the Assassin much- only to say I thought he was over-powered at first, only for me to beat him easily the next game simply because he didn't come across many Battles. It's all the luck of the game as to how well he does. Therefore, I have decided to keep his rules as written.

I always try and stick to any rules written down on the board or the cards. I found the game played better by having an extra rule for Battles or Psychic Combat though- whereby if you roll a 1 and the enemy rolls a 6, you automatically lose and vice versa. I came upon this idea from these forums, where auto-wins were discussed and how to stop them from making the game dull. It works perfectly, allowing you to lose even to a boar, and to win even against a dragon and a giant together! Also, with this in mind, I allowed one exception to the Assassins rules, whereby if he rolled a 1 when assassinating, he automatically fails and loses a life.

Other than that, I am (trying) to stick to the rules as best I can, although I do make the odd mistakes (like using Psychic Combat at the CoC last time we fought there!)

The main rule that I go back & forth on houseruling is the limit of 1 armour rule. I don't think it would be that broken to allow someone to utilize say, both a helmet & armour if he really wants to waste 2 of his precious 4 item slots.

I mean, the worst outcome from this is someone could buy a helmet, shield, & armour, but then what are they gonna do? Yeah, it'll be hard to wound them, but they'll only have 1 other item equipped, probably just a weapon (or talisman late game), which likely gives you the upper hand depending on your items. They also have to find/steal/buy all 3 different pieces, which is a chore in itself. You could also attack them and take a piece of their armour instead of trying to do a wound. So, idk, seems still decently balanced.

Mattr0polis said:

Gladiator + Mule Army + Horse & Cart with Armour, Shield and Helmet would own even more. Rolling for 3+, 4+ and 5+ before wounded in battle. Anointed Robe can't be on an Evil char, but does the same (give +1 to Armor rolls).

I guess I would only allow the extra armours to work if they were "equipped", aka actually in your main 4 item slots, not your extra slots from mules and such. I guess I would just need to make sure people keep their other items slightly separate from their main 4, to show exactly what is "equipped", or else I guess it maybe could get out of hand.

Mattr0polis said:

So are you using equipment slot house rule then?

No, I just meant I guess I probably would if I was going to do the armour houserule. Though the equipment slot houserule is a really good rule. I would only say it's not really needed in normal rules games as it's very rare that someone will have more than 4 constant effect type items. If they do have that many good items, someone is gonna attack them and take one. Plus if you have that many good items you probably could've already made a run for the crown.

black knight said:

Just curious, where does it say that Monk can only use his starting craft? I thought I had remembered that he got changed to that text & so I kinda just forgot about his wording, until today when one of my players drew the Monk and was asking about him. My character card for him does not say 'starting craft'. Was this errata'ed somewhere officially? If not, where & why was I & you thinking this had changed? Was that just a Black Industries errata that no longer applies?

Questions aside, I really don't think it's that unfair for the Monk to be able to use all his craft, since compared to some of the other really powerful characters that have been released lately, it's not really any worse.

Mattr0polis said:

Craft is even easier to get these days, with Craft-trophies available. Monk is good to okay character as is, would be horrible (as in horribly good/overpowered/broken) if got to use all his Craft in battle.

As for the question:

"A character’s Craft can never drop below that character’s Craft
value (i.e., the number printed on the character card)." (p. 5)

BI FAQ also clarified the Monk this way, FFG worded it like this from the get-go, though some "weirdos" claim they missed that bit. Pfft, sounds like they just didn't read the rules while paying much attention .

Dam said:

Ah, ok! Yeah, like I said, I thought it worked this way, I had just forgotten WHY it works this way. Thanks for the reminder.