1. Can I heal damage dealt to my allies while in towns? (or once they are hit in combat is it irreversable short of a special card allowing me to heal them?)

2. Is there a limit on the number of artifacts that I can carry as there are with weapons/armor/allies?

Thanks ahead of time to any respondents.

Allies can be healed at the same cost as your hero. As for item limits, we have been playing that there are no limit to the number of artifacts one may have, as long as they are not the same type. You can't have two cloaks or two banners for example.

Short answer is no - check the rule book page 5 bottom of the second column - it states that the only limits are on Allies, Weapons and Armour. But Runebound is a fairly adaptable game, and house rules like Rivans work well and is very common.

I'm sorely tempted to allow players to have two different types of armor (eg., Armor: Shield and Armor: Gauntlet).

But I'm worried that it would make the game too easy...

Necrozius said:

I'm a new player (4 completed games) but have been thinking about this as well. My first couple games, I allowed one of each type of armor piece. I think this would probably be OK if you're using the standard market rules. However, I was using a market variant ( www.boardgamegeek.com/article/3074773 ) and having the option to look at 3 armor cards I think makes this out of balance. By the end of that game, I had at least 4 armor pieces which is probably way more than you could accumulate during a normal game given the lack of armor cards compared to other market cards. So, my last couple games I've been playing with the standard item limits and I think I like it better. Sure, you can't have all the cool items you want, but it really makes you think about the choices you make. That said, I'm also thinking about allowing two pieces of armor. Along these same lines, I was thinking about allowing 3 weapons, one of each type: ranged, magic and melee, but whether this helps or hurts would be based on the character being played. Have to think about this a while more.

I was also going to post about the artifact limits. In my current game, I have 2 cloaks and while I would certainly like to use both, it just doesn't feel quite right. I'm probably going to do what another poster said and restrict it to one artifact of each type but will probably look closer at the various types of artifacts to see if this would "make sense" in all cases.

My goal is to not feel so restricted in what I can and can't use, but I also don't want to make the game too easy, so it's a fine balancing act, I think.

Really it comes down to whatever works for you and your group and how you play. IMO I agree Necrozius about the market varient idea, it would unbalance the game, as it seems to me that it's more of a challange and fun to play the game with the standard rules for pulling items and allies. Also, I found that after adding a couple of expansions to the deck, having the option of buying multiple cloaks for example is rare, and I'm hesitant to limit the collection/use on artifact types, but that's because we play the standard rules for pulling items - you're forced to use what's available to you so the standard item limits works well. Also it's more exciting to have that special sword or rune or armour turn up in the next game rather than having the possibility of purchasing it every game.