This game seems impossibly hard.

We started up a game - it seemed we died 3 out of 4 times we fought. And since dying means you lose your gold, and item, and unspent experience - it was impossible to gain any items or levels - meaning we would never get anywhere.

We read the rules multiple times, and seemed to be doing combat right (pick 1 phase to attack, defend the other 2, etc). Any popular variants out there to jump start the early game?

Eric

It should not be so hard. Are you really taking easiest challenges or did you try harder ones?

Greens are easiest, then yellow. Blue ones next, and then red.

erc1971 said:

Impossibly hard for everyone is hard to believe. Perhaps you guys have been doing something wrong, difficult to tell exactly what. You should tell why you lose the combat, what result do you find impossibly hard to obtain. Then we can try to help you.

It might be hard sometimes, when you draw a couple of Green Challenges that don't suit your Hero starting stats. There are some Challenges that are deadly if drawn at the very beginning (Assassin on the Loose, just to tell the nastier), but most of them are a piece of cake. Do you have problems winning against Vingolen, Berserker Ent, Mistress of the Ferrox or Night Wolves? Then only way this can happen is when you're rolling only one 10-sided die instead of both.

Moreover, when you die you lose all your Gold, your highest value Item or Ally, but you KEEP unspent experience. There's a mistake in the rulebook (a really big one to be honest) and this has been corrected by the FAQ. You can download the Runebound FAQ from the FFG website:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp

erc1971 said:

This is your mistake. You don't lose unspent experience. If you did, you're right, it would be very difficult to gain levels if you got knocked out. On the other hand, you shouldn't be dying that often. Once you get the hang of the game, you'll find that the first thing you should do as soon as you get a little money is to buy an item that helps you fight or an ally that can be your meat-shield... err.. helper. This will make taking on greens much easier.

However, if you still find the game too hard, the most common house rules to make the game easier have been one or more of the following:

1. When you're knocked-out you lose either you most valuable item or ally or all your gold, which ever is greater.

2. You can heal all wounds for 1 gold (not 1 gold per wound).

3. Experience needed to go up a level is equal to your current level+1 (i.e. you only need 1 experience to gain the first level, then 2 for the 2nd, 3 for 3rd, etc).

Good luck defeating Margath.

Ignore this post.

I found out my problem.

Thanks,

Eric

ROFL

You can ignore my previous post.

My question has been answered - just as I suspected, we were doing something wrong. The rules say to roll the dice, but upon looking at them, I noticed I did not find anywhere in them that they instruct you to roll "2" dice. We were only rolling 1, which is why we were getting smacked so hard. Thanks Warlock for pointing that out.

Thanks,

Eric

erc1971 said:

I've been lucky in my guessing.

Happy gaming!

The_Warlock said:

I didn't know that and have lost the unspent expirience. Thx

The_Warlock said:

Wow...your insight is simply amazing.
I would never have guessed, 'cause it's the simple things that get you in the end.

Ruvion said:

To be honest, I was inspired by a post by another user some time ago. There are other gamers who didn't understand they need to roll 2d10 and the Rulebook is not very explicit.

People with an RPG background know what a d20 system is. Runebound is clearly a d20 system game (10-sided dice have been introduced in 2nd edition, 1st ed. used to have a d20) and a former or current D&D player will notice this immediately. Most people don't know what's d20 and since most boardgames require you to roll not more than 1 die, it's easy to get it wrong the first time.