Gameplay and Rules FAQ

Skyrim Adventure Board Game: Rules and FAQ
1

Gameplay

  • Is there a Solo mode? Yes. Players who play solo, can either decide to play with one character, following the specific Solo rules provided or to play with more than one character.
  • May I play the campaigns/chapters in any order I prefer? Yes. However, starting the game from a chapter two or three of a campaign will result in a very difficult challenge.
  • One of the players I started playing the campaign with cannot attend the next session. Is it possible to “freeze” his character for the session and keep on playing? Unfortunately, no. The game is structured so that the number of players affects some setup requirements, therefore changing the number of players could result in the chapter not being finished. In that situation, we recommend asking the other players to use their character cooperatively.
  • I have The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms and a lot of Nord minis. Can we play with more than one character of the same type? The game was created with the idea of each player with a different character type. Although it’s not forbidden to play with more than one character of the same type, the players will have to share the character card of that specific type as reference.

Event Phase

  • When taking threat from an event, does the Starting player have to assign it to their own cards? No. Unless specifically stated, Threat can be assigned freely among all players or the Stronghold Chart, with no requirement from the Starting player to assign any of it to their own cards.
  • I have four World Quests already in play and I draw another one, which one do I need to fail? The players may choose which World Quest to fail.
  • An event requires to move a Roaming monster token toward its closest Stronghold, but there are two eligible. Which one should I choose? Also, if more than one route is available, how do I choose one? In both cases the Starting player has the final word on the target and path of the Roaming monster token.

Movement Phase

  • When moving the Player figures, is there a specific order in which this must be completed? No. All movement occurs at the same time and the players can organise it as they prefer.
  • Can I move before or after using a carriage (paying for moving from one Stronghold to another)? No. Players must start and end their movement phase in Strongholds when using a carriage, and may not use any movement points during the Movement phase.
  • A Roaming monster moved onto my space during the event phase, may I still move away from it? No. Unless specified in the scenario rules, when on the same space of a Roaming monster token, the players must spend their Turn action fighting the enemy.

Action Phase

  • Is there a specific order to resolve the action phase? Yes, the Starting player is the first to act and the phase continues clockwise. The only exception is when more than one player is exploring a dungeon. In this case the action phase of all players involved will be resolved at the same time, whenever it’s the turn of the first player in clockwise order. Experienced players, however, can sometimes overlap their action resolution to increase the pace of the game.
  • How many actions can I take in a Stronghold? Each player can take one main action — resolving a City Card or completing a quest — and then they can visit the market. Visiting the market allows the players to sell and buy, craft, upgrade and/or enchant their equipment.
  • What about alchemy? Can I craft potions? Players have the chance to craft Health, Stamina or Magicka potions in any Stronghold using Plant components. Furthermore when using a potion in Combat they will have to spend further plant components. This is the way that the game simulates the alchemy skill; in a way, it’s like crafting potions on the fly.
  • Can I explore a Wilderness or Stronghold to meet a NPC even if I already have two Personal Quests? Yes. Players can still meet NPC and take advantage of the free component and the skill test on the card. Then, instead of removing the card from the game to gain a Personal Quest, they will discard it on the City or Wilderness discard pile. That card will be eventually reshuffled in the deck and available in the future to be encountered again.
  • During this turn, another player already explored the same type of dungeon I want to explore. Would the Dungeon Decks be restored before I start my action? No. The dungeon decks are restored at the end of the whole Game Turn, therefore if several players explore different dungeons of the same type in a turn, these will become increasingly harder.
  • When exploring a Dungeon, what’s the difference between escaping after an Encounter and escaping during Combat? If one or more players decide to leave the dungeon in between encounters (i.e. if there’s no face-up card in the dungeon) there’s no penalty for this decision. However, if a player escapes during Combat, they will have to assign a threat token to one of their cards or to the Stronghold chart.

Combat

  • Is there a specific turn order players have to follow when involved in Combat together? No. Players are free to strategize and choose their combat order. After each player takes their Combat Round, they must turn their Character card upside down, and cannot act again until their Character card is turned back into its original position. Whenever all Character cards are turned upside down, all players may turn them back into their original position
  • I have equipped a Heavy Armor and a dagger. May I sneak? No. Having a heavy Armor equipped prevents a character from using Sneak actions in combat. Similarly, players cannot Sneak using a Spell. If the player had a Spell and a dagger equipped, for example, they would be able to Sneak, but only using the dagger.
  • If I have a Heavy Armor equipped, would I automatically fail a Sneak skill test out of Combat? No. The rules regarding Heavy Armor and Sneak only apply in Combat.
  • What happens if I enchant my heavy armor with a Muffle enchantment? The Muffle enchantment doesn’t give the ability to Sneak with Heavy Armor. If you draw a Muffle Enchantment when Enchanting a Heavy Armor, it’s recommended to spend an additional Soul Gem to draw a new Enchantment card.
  • I have equipment and skill that give me a total value of Sneak equal to two, does this mean I roll two dice when rolling Sneak skill tests out of Combat? No. The players roll a total of their Sneak value plus three dice. Sneak is considered a Skill test and therefore there is a base of three dice for the roll. However, players who seek a more challenging experience may decide to remove the starting three dice from Sneak rolls, as indicated in the rules.
  • Does this mean that I can sneak with three dice if I don’t have any sneak value? Yes. You would only roll 3 dice, but it’s sometimes worth a try.
  • If I am dealing a Heavy Damage to an enemy and they have both Heavy and Light Armor, may I choose to assign the damage to the Light armor? No. The damage must be assigned to corresponding Armor. Only if there is no corresponding Armor, the players can choose where to assign the damage.
  • If one of my weapon’s attacks deals more than one damage type, may I apply both? No. The players have to choose which one type of damage to apply.
  • If one of the enemy attacks deals more than one type of damage, may I choose which one of my armor will absorb it? No, enemy attacks must be assigned so that they deal the maximum damage possible.
  • I have no more Stamina or Magicka, can I still perform attacks and or Push? Yes. However, every point of Stamina or Magicka needed for the attack or Push, will have to be substituted with a point of Health.
  • If I wield two weapons or spells, may I perform two attacks? No. Players will have to choose which weapon/spell to use. The advantage in having two weapons resides in the increased possibilities to strategise.
  • Can I level up during the Combat to recover my Health, Stamina and Magicka? No. Levelling up must be performed at the end of the Game Turn.
  • When fighting more than one enemy, may I choose which one to attack? No. The attack must be performed against the leftmost enemy. When the players are required to fight multiple enemies “in a single encounter” they have to draw the cards and arrange them in the order provided by the text. For example if the card ask to “clear 501, 502 and 504 in a single encounter”, the players will arrange the card in that specific order, with 501 being the leftmost and 504 the rightmost.

End of Round

  • Do I have to level up? Yes. If the players have enough XP at the end of the round, they must level up their characters and cannot gain any XP over the amount needed to level up.
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Rulebook Error
Page 6 of the PDF rulebook for included components: “Staring Player Token” should be “Starting Player Token”

3

I have two questions about clarifications from the pdf.

On pg29, Traps, if the first player fails the disarm, it says “the next player will try to disarm the trap.” Should this say “the next player can try to disarm the trap”? or do they have to try to disarm the trap.

On pg34, Damage Against Enemies, “The enemy always suffers at least 1 damage from an attack, even if the armor is the same value as the player’s attack.” I assume the also suffer 1 damage if the enemy’s armor is greater than the player’s attack.

4

Tutorial Errors I have noticed today.

  • Adding Threat. At one point you are told to add Threat Tokens to all Quests, the tutorial says to add to all World Quest, Main Quest & Personal Quest, but the Personal Quest does not have a Threat Level.

  • Page 14, as part of the test you are told to discard 2 Plants to push soil test, but you already spend all of these on previous test.

  • Page 15 - The final test says to roll 3 skill dice, but due to the event card drawn this should actually be 4.

5

I have played today and I have found the same, but in the first point, it is the Main quest wich does not have any threat slot.
I would add the image wich it is supposed to be like you in that moment (in the tutorial handbook, second one) it appears with the plants (you should not have in that moment), and there is a healing potion equipped, wich the tutorial does not mention in any page.

6

Dunmer Dark Elf character in game rules booklet on TTS shows the Wood Elf card graphic.

7

SQ CARD 30 tells you to draw S31 (small card 31)

There isn’t any in the demo, this leads to having a bounty on your head rather than a positive outcome.

It should be card + 30 instead from the main deck.

8

Hi Hitchhiker42,

Thanks a lot for noticing this and letting us know. We’ve added a patch to correct that, and we’ll try to upload a new updated version of the card as soon as possible.

9

No Problem.

Also, Im playing solo, just got to level 4, I understand its just a demo, but there is only 1 lv2 dungeon card per dungeon. Some of the quest at this point require 2-3 of the same deck to be drawn (SKYFORGE II needs 3 undead, 2 Dadra) Would I just play the same card 3 times?

I saw in the update we may unlock more content for TTS in the social unlocks, extra cards in douengon to play for longer would be nice.

10

Also, I’m a fellow game designer, I’ve been using TTS for my own demos and was wondering how you added the search function to a deck?

I haven’t come across this before and would be useful for game set up.

Thanks.

Jack

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Hi Jack,

Regarding the limited number of cards in the demo, unfortunately, you would have to fight the same card several times (or houserule otherwise), at least until we expand the demo with new content.

Regarding the search boxes in the TTS demo, we coded the search function, first adapting it from something used in a different TTS mod, and then customising it so it would meet our needs (the mechanic by which it searches for the next card if the card you’re looking for is missing, for example.) Feel free to take a look at the code and see if it you can recycle it somehow; it’s all fairly straightforward LUA and XML.

12

Hi Juan,

Thats fine, i just copied and pasted the frost spiders, really no sneaking past those!!!

Thanks for the info, I won’t be ready for wider play testing until next year but good to know, I’ll have to look into youtube tutorials, I’ve never coded before.

13

Hi, after having read through the entirety of the rulebook in the TTS demo I find that there are several things the rulebook doesn’t address that is implied or mentioned in sources outside the demo (like youtube playthroughs etc.), and I hope you guys would clarify these things.

Roaming monsters are particularly unclear despite nearly a full page dedicated to them, so I’ll ask about them first. Basically, the rulebook doesn’t seem to specify when the roaming monsters move, how far they can move, and what actually happens to them when they reach a stronghold.

Of course, both the event cards and the rulebook (later on) specify what happens to the stronghold when a roaming monster reaches it: it gets degraded, which means a threat token is applied. However, nothing within the game demo specifies what happens to the roaming monster itself. From sources outside the demo it seems the monster is then removed from the board.

I’ve also come to assume that the roaming monsters also only move when specified by an event card, thus will in most game turns simply be stationary obstacles unless an active event keeps them on the move? (though I’m aware no such active event exist, at least in the demo)

I also got the impression that they only move 1 tile at a time, but as it hasn’t been specified anywhere then they might be allowed to move as far as a player at a time for all I know, even if that seems a bit savage.

Finally, I’m left to wonder if it’s possible to escape combat with roaming enemies like you can with dungeon battles? And if one succeeds in escaping (assuming one can) how does this affect the players move? (limited to that one tile move perhaps?) I mean, seems kinda harsh if these battles are entirely “fight to the death” scenarios.

Confirmation, correction, and clarification in regards to these things would be appreciated. Hopefully future iterations of the rulebook will address these things as I hope you guys don’t expect people to watch 2 hour playthroughs to figure them out, lol.

14

Hi ShadowTani,

Roaming Monsters move as a result of Event cards or specific game events (such as results of Quests.) At the beginning of the game (what’s in the demo), Roaming Monsters are more infrequent and move less often. Later on, there are Chapter-encompassing conditions that spawn and even move all Roaming Monsters of a specific category every turn, making them much more impactful. There are plenty of different ways in which these Monsters are used, and they take center stage in some Chapters.

Whenever a monster is prompted to move towards a Stronghold, the card or event that prompts that movement also specifies what happens when the monster reaches the Stronghold. For example, the Event “Daedric Invastion” says: “Move one Daedra token toward the nearest Stronghold.
If it reaches the Stronghold, degrade it and remove the token.” In that case, the monster token would be removed. It is possible to escape an Encounter against a Roaming Monster. This would count as “resolving” the Encounter. As such, rules for resolving Roaming Monster Encounters apply: the player moves their Player Figure one space in any direction, and the Roaming Monster card is returned to the Numbered deck. Moving the Player Figure helps making sure the player won’t be trapped in a loop where they have to fight the same monster over and over again until they defeat them. Unless otherwise specified, Roaming Monsters will always move only one space.

We’ll of course check to make sure nothing’s unclear in the rulebook or the cards. Thanks a lot for your feedback.

15

Thank you Juan, your answer was very helpful!

Seems I overlooked the “remove the token” part on the cards, if I didn’t misread it as “adding a threat token” instead… Sorry about that!

Other than that the only other thing I found that seems to have been omitted by the rulebook is the potion making feature. I know from the youtube playthroughs and the above FAQ answer that you can trade in plant components for potions when you’re in a stronghold, but dunno if this consumes your action or is considered along the lines of selling and buying goods (I’m assuming the later)? Either way, this feature should probably be mentioned in the rulebook as well, lol. Though since pretty much everything else in the above FAQ is in the rulebook already I guess there’s a chance that this is on your radar already.

Anyway, I think that should be most of the major “holes” in the rules I’ve found. Sorry for any nitpicking, I might be oversensitive to “legal loopholes” due to my experience from working with contracts, but hope it might be of help!

Also want to wish you guys success with the production chain and release of the game. It was an instant deluxe tier for me, not because it was Skyrim themed, but because the game itself seems really well designed and fun. So goes without saying, but I hope for it to do well enough that more expansions will be justified in the future. :3

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Hi ShadowTani,

Nitpickicking is good! It really helps us finding out what’s clear in our minds but not-so-clear in the rulebook. Legal loopholes can be the death of fun; we often talk about writing rules as “thinking like lawyers” for that very reason!

Brewing potions works the same way as crafting; it’s part of a Market action, which you can do on top of your turn. In fact, when playing, I often start off the game moving to a Stronghold to draw a City card, sell the Minor Health Potion and brewing a Health Potion with the starting 2 Plant Components. As far as I can remember, the Health Potion is not in the demo, but it basically works like the Minor Health Potion, but it consumes just 1 Plant each time it’s used.

In any case, we’ll take a look at the rules to see if we can make it clearer.

Thanks!

17

How do shields work? the rulebook does not say much about it. Does it add armor by itself? do you need the block skill to get the armor bonus from the shield? does the block action work like Dodge, avoiding the enemy attack?

When an objective says clear 3 undead, do you fight them one by one or is it a multiple encounter?

When you are hit by the enemy’s attack, and it has 2 damage types, you need to choose your weakest armor, but if you have only an armor against just one damage type, do you get the full damage because you don’t have the other armor type?

What happens exactly when you “die”?

By the way, page 26 says “War quest” referring to World quest !

18

Hi DK-Dark,

Shields give you armor automatically. Having the Block skill helps with the Block action, which works exactly like the Dodge Action.

When an Objective states anything like “Clear 3 Undead”, they are clear in different Encounters. There are instances where an Objective calls for “Clear 3 Undead in a single Encounter”; in those cases, the enemies are faced in a single Encounter.

If an enemy attacks you with two different attack types, and you only have one armor type, you take the full amount of the damage.

When you suffer a critical injury (when you run out of Health), the following happens:

  • You add 1 Threat per player in the game.
  • You draw and resolve an Event card.
  • You leave the current Combat. If there are more players involved in that Combat, they can keep on fighting.

Thanks for finding the page 26 reference! Mentioning a War Quest there is correct (it’s something for Campaign 2), but we are checking to see if adding World Quest there would make sense.

Thanks!

19

Question about the Sneak skill. In the rulebook that’s in TTS, page 43 says that the Sneak skill lets you “roll an additional die” when performing tests with this skill, and also says “gain Sneak (1).” Does this mean that you basically get 2 extra dice when sneaking, one from the skill and one from the Sneak (1) that the skill adds? Or is the “Gain Sneak (1)” meant to be just another way to say “roll an additional die when performing tests with this skill?” The Light Armor says the same thing, so in that case, I would assume you get an additional die when doing Light Armor tests, and an additional die when Sneaking because of the Sneak(1) on the Light Armor, so it would make sense that the Sneak skill would end up being 2 total for Sneak tests, but the Legendary version is 2 extra dice and Sneak(2), which would end up being 4 extra Sneak dice. So, I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be 2 dice at regular level and 4 at Legendary, or 1 die at regular and 2 at Legendary.

20

Hi RebJaenus,

The dice pool for Skill Tests and for Sneaking in Combat are different. In Combat, you roll three dice plus every instance of “Sneak (X)” you have in your character (including Equipment, Skills, Status and any other cards.) Skill Tests do not include these.

So, when Sneaking in Combat, if you have the Sneak Skill, you gain +1 die, as the Skill says “Sneak (1)”. If you have the Light Armor Skill, you gain a die for the same reason. If you have both, you gain 2 dice. The extra die for Sneak Skill Tests that the Sneak Skill provides does not count towards the Sneaking in Combat dice pool.

Legendary Skills can increase the “Sneak (X)” value to 2, which would add an additional die when Sneaking in Combat.