I'm still waiting for the Dragon expansion, but I've been pondering the rules, and having grasped the mechanics of this expansion, here are some of my suggestions for a more balanced end game+token drawing mechanic)

Triggers/conditions for Token drawing:

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1)Whenever your character rolls a 6 for his move, draw a dragon token and resolve it before your actual movement.

2) Whenever you encounter any enemy from the adventure deck(whether by landing on it, or drawing it), draw a dragon token and resolve it before proceeding with the encounter.

3) If both of the aforementioned conditions are met during a single turn, characters will draw the tokens twice, as described above.

End game battle

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I've been reading that the end-game battle against the Dragon King tends to be a cakewalk if the character has accumulated enough dragon scales. My thoughts on how to balance it:

Before proceeding to battle with the Dragon King, remove any dragon scales from its card.

Then roll a number of dice equal to the number of matching dragon scales in your possession.

For each roll of 4-6: you get to keep the dragon scale

Each roll of 1-3: signifies that: you lose the dragon scale to the dragon King(put it on its card. Any dragon scale on the card gives the King +1 to his attack score in battle or psychic combat against your character)

There can never be more than 3 scales on the Dragon's card. Any scales in excess of the 3 that are lost due to the above roll, are discarded instead.

Drawing Dragon Tokens

The two alternative methods we use for drawing dragon tokens are as follows:

1) Whenever a character draws one or more Enemies during his turn, before he encounters any cards, he must draw one dragon token at random from the pool and resolve its effect.

OR;

2) Whenever a character defeats one or more Enemies during his turn, before he does anything else that turn, he must draw one dragon token at random from the pool and resolve its effect.

Dragon Scales

We limit the number of dragon scales a character may have in his play area as follows:

Characters may only have a maximum of three dragon scales per Draconic Lord at any time.

Regards,

Ell.

Imposing dragon scale limit is a good idea.

Now that I've gotten the Dragon expansion, I think we'll alter token drawing as follows:

1. Each time you roll a 6 for your move, draw a dragon token and resolve it before moving(t his will ensure that non-draw spaces have a higher chance of getting seeded with scales ).

2. Each time you defeat one or more Enemies during your turn, provided it's a space that doesn't already contain a dragon scale, draw a dragon token and resolve it before encountering anything else in that space.

zealot12 said:

You know, we'll probably scrap the first condition. The less triggers, the better.

talismanamsilat said:

^

Eventually, we went with these, compounding them with the Dragon Spawn variant found in the original rulebook

This seems to be working well for 2-player games.

For reference, here is the full version of our houserules which I posted on the Geek. These basically elevated the Dragon expansion into our absolute favorite so far, along with the Reaper(just got Sacred Pool as well. Haven't incorporated it yet)".

They require no forceful alterations or omissions to the core gameplay, and make full use of the new components without bogging down the game with upkeep.

To start out the game, use the Dragon Spawn variant found in the rulebook:

1. Each player draws 2 random dragon scales from the pool of dragon tokens, rolls a die for each scale and places one that many spaces counterclockwise of his starting location, and the other clockwise of his starting location.

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2 . Any time a player defeats one or more Enemies during his turn, he immediately draws one dragon token and resolves its effect, before encountering/doing anything else this turn.

Exception: if you defeat an Enemy from the Dragon deck and it nets you a dragon scale on your current space, do not draw a token this turn

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3. Each player may only possess up to 3 scales per draconic lord.(no more than 3 of each color)Any scales in excess of this number are discarded.(thanks to Ell for this suggestion)

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4. Each time a draconic lord is crowned, all players suffer the Dragon Rage of the new Dragon King.

If the current Dragon King is crowned again, all players suffer his Dragon Rage, and all spaces seeded with his scales are emptied of all cards(from the original rulebook).

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5. This is entirely optional, but we have decided to put aside the adventure cards and spells of the Blood Moon expansion when playing with the Dragon

, simply because we feel that the the Blood Moon cards contain complex triggers and encumber the game with additional layers of rules. We have found the game too convoluted when playing in conjunction with another rule system.

Wouldn't it be better limiting players to a number of dragon scales? Like 6 or 8??

Uvatha said:

3 dragon scales of each colour = 9 !!!

Ell.

talismanamsilat said:

But per the rules, you're basically capping the number of scales a character can have at 3 of each kind, instead of letting him accumulate more and then discard from the total.

It's basically the same thing, more or less.

Keeping the number of draqon scales low just ensures that the final fight won't be a total cakewalk, and since Dragon Rage with this variant is more dangerous, it also limits your ability to sustain a high number of Rage attacks.

zealot12 said:

By the way, The Dragon King changes with these rules, even when players are in the Inner Region. This is especially relevant for the Tower, since when you're ascending the staircase, you're drawing cards from the Dragon King's deck.

Since any player who defeats one or more Enemies during his turn, draws a dragon token, the Dragon King in the Tower may change mid-climb which will force the ascending player to draw cards from another Dragon deck. (Just think of the Dragons fighting for the Crown in the Tower while you're ascending)

Also, since it's absent from the rules, we've added that a player needs to possess a Talisman to gain entry to the Tower. So, it's basically the key to the Portal of Power.

And one more thing: any character who is killed mid-game, the replacement character of that player automatically inherits all his/her Dragon Scales.