The Basics


Health:
Your HP. When this hits 0, your hero is considered K.O'd.

> Defense: This protects your HP and looks something like this: 3+. This means you must 3 or higher on a normal dice (6 sides, 1-6) to block an incoming attack.

Sanity:
Your mental HP. When this hits 0, your hero is considered K.O'd.

> Willpower: Your mental defense. This protects your sanity and looks something like this: 3+. This means you must 3 or higher on a normal dice (6 sides, 1-6) to block an incoming attack.

Corruption:
Being exposed to Darkstone and the horrific creatures of darkness can cause normal folk to mutate. Most hero can carry a maximum of 4 corruption damage before they receive a Mutation. When this happens the corruption is reset back to 0 and the hero gains a permanent trait.

> Mutations: These can be beneficial or detrimental. They are permanent traits gained from exposure to eldritch energy such as darkstone or monsters. Determination can be spent as usual when rolling on the Mutation table.

XP:
Your experience level, aka how close you are to levelling up and becoming more powerful.

Determination:
Each point of determination allows you to reroll any one dice. This has a myriad of applications - feel free to ask if you can reroll something.

> Example Uses: Movement, Scavenging Checks, Skill Checks, Holding Back the Darkness, Attempting to Hit a Monster, Damage, Defense, Willpower, Checking for Corruption, Receiving a Mutation, Receiving a Permanent Injury, Receiving a Permanent Madness, Catching your Breath, Travelling to Town, Checking Danger Level in Town, Checking Bounties. There are likely more I have missed.


K.O



Revive: A Revive does not go into a character's inventory. There are Personal Revives, which can only be used by one person, and normal Revives that can be used by the whole Posse. When a person is K.O'd and a Revive Token is present, the token is discarded and that Hero is restored to full health and sanity, with 1 Determination as well.

K.O: This means knocked out. The hero cannot do anything until they recover, and other creatures/heros may freely move through the space the K.O'd character occupies while they are knocked out.

Recovering from K'O: At the end of a turn when no enemies are present, the K.O'd character may recover. They stand up on their current space or an adjacent one, and may heal 2d6 (between 2-12) sanity/health damage.

If they were K'Od from their health being reduced to 0, they roll a Permanent Injury. If they were K'Od from their sanity being reduced to 0, they roll a Permanent Madness.

If they were K'Od from losing all their HP and sanity simultaeneously, they must roll both a Permanent Injury and Permanent Madness.


Helping a K'Od hero during battle: A character may help an adjacent KO'd character by giving up their attack action to do so. This can only be done if there are no Enemies on the same map tile as the KO'd character at that time (this includes the arrow squares). The KO'd Hero may immediately Recover, see above.

Dragging a K'Od hero: A hero may drag an adjacent KO'd character by spending 1 extra movement per square moved (so each square you move while dragging a KO'd character takes 2 movement instead of 1.) This can be useful for getting the KO'd character somewhere safe to help them recover mid combat.

Depending on how lucky or unlucky a person is, the Permanent Injury/Madness could be anything from death to serious problems to minor quirks to nothing at all. Please note that determination can be used on the Permanent Injury/Madness rolls if that character has determination available.


Inventory and Loot


> Gold: This can be spent in town to aquire new objects.
> Darkstone: This is a rare resource with unusual properties. It can be used to upgrade and improve items, as well as selling for a good amount of money.
> Gear: Anything from the hat on your head to the gun in your hand, these are useful items that can help make your journey easier.
> Artefacts: Rare powerful objects that have unusual abilities. While these can be found while exploring the mines, they are more likely to be discovered while exploring other worlds.

Your Sidebag
These are one use items and can fit snugly into your sidebag. Some of them heal, some of them can do damage in combat.
> Bandages: Heals 1-6 HP from yourself or an adjacent hero. If you are healing another hero, gain 5 XP for each damage removed this way.
> Whiskey: Heals 1-6 Sanity damage from yourself or an adjacent hero. If you are healing another hero, gain 5 XP for each damage removed this way.
> Dynamite: This can be used as a Ranged Attack. The Range is your hero's strength + 3 squares. This does 1-6 Wounds - ignoring Defense - to the character in the space the dynamite lands on and to all characters adjacent to that space.

If the character misses when throwing dynamite, the dynamite will bounce 1-3 times. For each bounce, the square the Dynamite bounces to is determined randomly, therefore the space the Dynamite hits in the end will be random.

> Tonic: Drink to recover 1 Determination.
> Far Eastern Potion: Drink to add +2 to one of your skills until the end of your turn.
> ????: There are several other sidebag items that have not been discovered yet.


Limits

There are some restrictions on how many items a Hero can carry and use during the game.

Every Hero has a sidebag comprised of 5 Slots (typically) to store Sidebag Tokens in.

Hands: Every Hero starts the game with 2 Hand Slots. Each turn, a Hero must decide and assign what he is using in those hand slots. Any other items that require a hand or two to use do not give any benefit or bonuses that turn.

It is usually not necessary to assign items outside of a fight.

One-Handed: This takes up a single slot. A Hero may carry two one-handed weapons or items at one time.
Two-Handed:This takes up both hand slots. A Hero may only use one Two-Handed item a turn.


Carry Limit:Every Hero has a carry limit. This is 5+ their strength value. Most items have a weight value of one or more, though some smaller items (such as Journal Pages) do not weigh anything.

Keyword Restrictions:Some items can only be used by certain types of Heroes, such as "Law only". These are labelled at the top of the item, and may only be used by Heroes with the appropriate keywords.

Clothing Items: Some items have the Keyword "Clothing" on them, followed by a keyword which describes what clothing slot that item fills. For example - Torso, Shoulders, Gloves, Coat, ect. A Hero is limited to only a single Clothing Item equipped per Clothing Slot.



Fights


Fights occur when an enemy spawns to when all enemies (or heros ;D) are killed. Typically this is through revealing an exploration token with an "Attack!" or "Ambush!" on it, though the Darkness and certain challenges can cause Fights to happen.

Threats
How difficult a battle is depends on the threat level, which is typically based on how many members there are in the party. 1-2 Heroes: Low Threat, 3-4 Heroes: Medium Threats, 5-6 Heroes: High Threats. Epic Threats are usually only used for boss battles.

Threat Cards are drawn to determine what type of monsters - and how many of each - are present on the battlefield. Some Threat Cards draw other threat cards, making things more difficult.

At the end of a battle, each character receives a loot card per Threat Card drawn. So if two threat cards were triggered initially, each character would receive two loot cards at the end of the battle. This stacks to a maximum of 3 loot cards received at the end of battle.

Attack!
When an attack happens, enemies are placed on the board as usual, and the round follows initiative order, with faster monsters and heroes taking their turns earlier then slower ones.

Ambush Attack!
When an Ambush Attack happens, the monsters got the drop on you. The enemies are placed on the board adjacent to the posse, the monsters with higher initiative being placed first. The ambushing enemies get +2 initiative during the first turn of battle. If the ambush happens during a fight, this +2 bonus is applied to all monsters of the same type during the initial round the new monsters were placed. Basically, they get a bonus when their bros turn up.


Combat



Any character or monster can be shot passed without penalty.

You have two hand slots to hold weapons. You can either hold two one-handed items or one two handed item. You may change what you are holding at the start of a new turn.

You can no longer scavenge or reveal new rooms during combat, unless specifically stated otherwise (e.g, you may scavenge in the Mining Room for dynamite during combat, for example)

Characters activate in order of speed - faster characters and monsters go higher up in the initiative order.


Escape: Heroes may move during combat as usual, unless they are adjacent to a monster. If they are adjacent to a monster, they must roll to get away from the creature before they can move. Like Willpower or Defense rolls, this is a certain value on a normal dice that the character must roll equal to or above in order to succeed. For example, 4+ is a 4, 5 or 6 on a D6.

The good news is once an Escape roll is succeeded, that character may move passed all of that enemy type and enemies of a lower escape value for the rest of their turn. For example, a hero who succeeds a 4+ Escape test would be able to dodge any monster with a 4+, 3+ or 2+ escape value without having to roll again.


Melee Attacks
A hero uses his Melee Combat score, plus any bonuses he receives from items and abilities, when making a Melee Attack. An attack like this can only be made against adjacent enemies. Combat is the number of dice a hero may roll to attack, so a Melee Combat score of 2 allows the character to roll 2 dice.

Once it is determined whether or not the hero hits and these hits are assigned to monsters, damage is then rolled.

Ranged Attacks
So long as you have a ranged weapon - such as a pistol or shotgun - you can make a Ranged Attack. Items like this have a Range value and a number of Shots assosciated with them. Your Range value determines the furthest you can shoot, so a Range of 6 allows you to shoot up to 6 spaces away from your Hero's position.

Shots are the number of dice you may use to hit with, so 4 Shots allows that character to roll 4 dice to shoot, meaning they might be able to hit their target four times.

Once it is determined whether or not a hero hits with their ranged weapon, these hits are assigned to monsters. Hits must be assigned to creatures in range of the weapon, as well as the target being in line of sight of the hero. Walls are the only thing that block line of sight, other creatures and set dressing have no effect.

To Hit
Every Hero must first attempt to hit the target before they can assign damage. A To Hit value is similar to Defense or Willpower values, and looks like this: 3+. This means this character, on a roll of 3+, will successfully hit their target.

To Hit rolls also determine whether a character crits or not. On a To Hit value of 6, in most cases, the hero causes critical damage. Crits ignore all armour and do direct damage, just like dynamite.


Free Attacks
Some items and abilities give a Hero a free attack. A hero may make a Free Attack along with their reguluar Attack in a turn. There is a limit to 1 free attack each turn.