I have Runebound 2nd edition with no expansions.

I red the manual (wich is in italian) and red the online FAQ and manuals but I still have some dubts.

Reading the manual it say that if you end up on a challenge sign you take a card for the corresponding color and you keep taking another card until you find a challenge.

I played until now with a single challenge per turn following this rule.

Is this right or can I keep drawing cards until i die or i decide i had enough?

and about heroes combat

I red that if attacker and defender both dies on the same attack the defender win: does this mean that the wound/effect of this attack are not taken by the defender? And wich is the defender? the one that got attacked in the first place or the defender of that round (you know, they switch side round to round)?

The last question (hopefully)

Do you refill the board with challenges only when an event has been draw? I found that after a while there are no more challenges and you had to face opponent you are not ready for (mainly if you play with a lot of people).

For example in my last game (still going on) my character has been a little unlucky and now have only 4 ability expansion (+2 strenght and so on) while the other 3 players has 7-8. there are no more green and yellow challenge and there is a blue event in place. I still not able to defeat yellow opponent and i now have to face the blue ones. I'm not gonna win this game of course but i'm not gonna enjoy it any more from now on probably

thank you for any reply and sorry for my english

Hi there,

mastro said:

You played it right. Only one challenge per Turn. The manual says you keep drawing cards until you find a Challenge because you can also draw Events (horizontal text) and Encounters (vertical text). Events and Encounters are immediately resolved (or kept for later use, in some cases), but your turn doesn't end until you've faced a Challenge (= an Enemy).

mastro said:

In the rare case when this could happen (I can only think of the Shield of Light Item, or the Mirror of Shael), the defender dies like the attacker but he is the one that takes the reward and is considered the winner. The defender is the player that's not rolling dices in the present round. Looks like you've understood correctly player vs. player mechanics, I believe it's the most confusing rule in the base Rulebook.

mastro said:

You refill the board only when an Event is drawn. The Event needn't take place to refill the board, so if you draw a Green Event while a Blue Event is in place, you still replenish jewels with a star around it.

If you're playing with 5-6 people, you might notice that very often this is not enough to allow everyone to proceed. Then you've realized that Runebound is a game best played with 2-3-4 people.

You're right about what happens to players that are a little bit too unlucky; usually they can't recover and keep on trying lesser challenges while others prepare to win the game. There are some really powerful Items that can grant you victory even if you lost some ground; I remember I "stole" a victory once by specializing in Spirit and Magic attacks and using the Touch of Death. While other players were facing the red challenges, I increased Spirit and Fatigue, then tried to draw a Red Challenge and found Margath. I succesfully used Touch of Death and dealt him 8 damages Before Combat. I couldn't last a single round against him!

Thanks for your reply!

Do anybody use some kind of variant to make the game more suitable for 5-6 people?

May be always refill challenge with stars? or may be the one I found in the manual about finding challange at any place by rolling dices to see if you are going to draw a card or not (Travel Hazard). I'd like to play this variant without the Doom track so I'll just had to find another way of deciding the color of the challenge, any suggestion about it?

The Travel Hazards variant in the rulebook provides an alternate method for determining encounter color if you are not using the Doom Track. I can see how Travel Hazards could be very helpful in a 5-6 player game to prevent anyone from completely stalling out, but not having an escape phase (part of Travel Hazards rule) can be brutal (especially for the hero who's special power is to always succeed in escapes!)