Cool -- thanks!

I'm assuming that the dice used for threat rolls are d10s. Yes?

Yes.

To the OP: I'm wondering whether the decision to add a new threat token after, rather than before, the threat test was an intentional change from the Midnight rules. I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of difference, but it is a variation from the Midnight rules.

I've played with something very like this system before, although I also adopt the Midnight rule of refreshing the adventure jewels with starbursts each time the threat level goes up, just as if an Event card had been drawn. I find this helps compensate for the diminishing proportion of events in the various encounter decks as expansions are added. I like your idea of starting the threat difficulty at 20 and moving down with wins; I've had trouble winning at 18 (and wouldn't even bother with 16, which is what the Midnight rules suggest using for that expansion).

Not to necromance a thread, but have you thought of any updates for the new decks?

Yeah, Frank, get to work. Don't make me cancel my thumbs-up.

Wow! This is fantastic. Thanks.

Mr. Skles...are you done yet?
And change back to your old avatar; it was a better pic of the oaf. Just a suggestion, flame me at will, sir.

P.S. Thanks for the awesome solo variant; I really enjoyed my game last night. I only won because I played with the Forest expansion and drew Heart of Margath. Beat it, then beat the High Lord as reward. The threat was at 9 and I had a pile of about 7 doom counters, so gettin' close!
Thanks again; great stuff here!
J!

Mr Skeletor,

Thanks for posting this. Of all the solo variants this one is definitely the best. I love the use of the threat track to keep the pressure on. Well done!

+

These rule variants are the best. You should make more for the other
expansions. Thanks Mr. skeleton person guy

Great work.
Can you provide us with a list of the better expansions to play solo games?
In order from the best to the worst...
So I will buy them according to your sequence! I'm interested only in solo play, at this moment.
Thank you very much!

Thank you for posting this. I am always on the lookout for games I can play solo. Now that I have found these rules, this looks like my next purchase.

Thanks for the work on this Frank. Look forward to whatever additional energies you may have the time to devote to it.

Yeoman job to date. Kudos!

robbage

Just wanted to say thanks for posting this great variant.

I've now played solo Sceptor of Kyros twice using these rules and had a blast. In the first session, I was able to defeat 8 giants and trigger the end-game, but was forced to confront Kyros the Mighty in Frostgate with a beat-up squad because the Threat Track was on 10. I fell in a thrilling defeat.

In my second session, I was able to take out all 10 giants before reaching 8 on the threat-track, using a truly game-breaking combo of: White Blade + Touch of Death + Dragon-Rune of Ambush (allows 2 Before-combat items to be used).

The timing and difficulty of this variant is excellent. I can appreciate that SoK is very well designed for multiple players, but it really does work well solo. Trekking around hunting Giants is just a helluva good time.

Skeletor -

Thanks for updating with the most recent decks. I'm a solo Runebound junkie and I'm really enjoying the Cataclysm deck. Probably my favorite of all of the Adventure variants.

I will be uploading a file very soon with what I consider to be a really nice Class Deck solo variant that I have spent a good deal of time playtesting and developing. I hope you get a chance to look it over and enjoy it!

If anyone reading this would like a copy of my Class Deck Variant rules sometime soon, please send me a GM with an email address and I'll send them right along.

Cheers and thanks!

MrSkeletor

Excellent work updating these solo variants.
Looking forward to trying Cataclysm & Scions.

BTW I've mixed all the Market and Challenge card expansions into the main game and really enjoy the variety they add to the games I've played.

Mr. Skeletor, a few questions about your excellent solo variant:

Do you play with 5 XPs per level increase (as suggested by the standard rules) or less?

Do you play using the 2 weapon/1 armor limit rule?

Do you use any market variants or the standard market rules?

These few variables make a lot of difference in making the game easier or harder (when playing against your modified threat track).

A few more questions

What is your average playing time?

What is the threat level difficulty you usually play with (Rise of the dragon lords + all the challenge and items expansions)?

What is the lowest threat level difficulty you've beaten (Rise of the dragon lords + all the challenge and items expansions)?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Yeah, that'll do the trick!

Thanks Mr.Skeletor, dear Sir. Just bought Runebound a couple of days ago and I'm hooked so goin' solo on it is not a step too far away.

My real question is: could these same rules be used when playing the game co-operative? Have you tried it yourself?
For me, although loving the game, it seems like there could be more player interaction and that it would infact be better as a co-op.

Hey Frank,

I'm thinking of getting a couple of small expansions to spice up my solo game. If I only had the budget to get 2 or 3, which would you recommend to add to the solo play experience?

excellent write-up. kudos.


i've played runebound thrice and now have the bug, which expansion(s) would you recommend.

what's the threat track, my used copy of runebound came with it, but i can't seem to find mention of it in the rules, i see here you say it's from the midnight expansion...perhaps the trader mistakenly left it the box...

thanks again

This probably isn't the most original idea, but I have a "substitute" for the Threat track used here.

If you can remember the "difficulty" number you're using, you can keep track of the threat level rather easily with a d20 (preferably a Magic: The Gathering spindown d20) and a d10.

At the start of the game, set the d20 to whatever difficulty you choose, and set the d10 to 10 -- or zero depending on the d10 you're using.

When you make your Threat roll in step 6, merely look at the d20 you set aside to see what number you have to roll. If you match or beat it, set the d10 to the next highest number (which will be one the first time, durrr...?) and reset the d20 to your difficulty level. If you don't roll the required number, set the d20 to the next lowest number; this simulates the doom counter being added.

When the d10 gets back around to zero/ten; matching the number on the d20 during your threat roll means time is up and you lose.

And there you have it--the threat track effectively(?) replaced by two dice. Any similarity to any previous suggestions is purely coincidental. No animals were harmed making it; though I think my game board has a few extra cat hairs on it.

d20 or d unlike d can easily roll if you accidentally nudge the table. I recommend using using a deck of (poker) playing cards instead.

DIFFICULTY 14 ---- THREAT 6

This is in regards to the rules for the Seven Scions deck.

According to the deck's rules, the amount of challenge cards you use for each level is based on the number of players. Does this mean that you only use one card for each level? Doesn't sound like much of a 'deck' considering that you say that one deck has to be empty for the scion to be awakened.

Also, you might want to change the object to killing the STORMLORD. Killing Scions is bad, mmmkay?

I would modify MrSkeletor's Threat rule. From a mathematical point of view, my suggestion is exactly the same. But it has two psychological advantages: Higher difficulties are represented by higher numbers. And rolling high is actually good for you.

Additional setup
Set the Threat level to 0. Set the number of doom tokens to 0. Set the difficulty to whatever you like; a difficulty of 3/5/7 corresponds to MrSkeletor's difficulty of 20/18/16.

Step 6: Threat roll
This step comes each turn after the experience step.
The game launches a threat attack against you. The strength of that attack is the difficulty level plus the number of doom counters.
Defend as usual by rolling 2 dice, you get no bonus from anywhere. If you win, add one doom token. If you lose, increase the Threat Level by 1 and reset the number of doom tokens to 0.

If the Threat Level ever goes past 10 you instantly lose the game.

I found a few issues with some of the cards while playing Solo Runebound with the "Crown of the Elder Kings" game variant plus all the available market/challenge expansions.

These are the issues, Mr. Skeletor, I propose some ways to handle these cards, but this is your guide, so it's your call.

1) Drakes and Dragonspawn - The "Scavengers of the Sky" event card.



This event card, while active in multiplayer RB, allows the player to the left of the active player to trigger its effect on the active player after he defeats a challenge. However, this effect can only be triggered once against each player. The effect requires the active player to pass an ability check, mind spot (15), or he has to reduce the reward received for beating the challenge, according to how far he missed the roll. Keep in mind that it potentially affects the reward received from just one challenge for each player.

The solo rule for this card states that a check must be made against mind spot (15) each time a challenge is beaten. If not, the card's penalties apply.

As this is a green event and arguably most characters won't have significantly advanced in levels, this check has a below-average-to-low probability of success. Since most green challenges rewards are only 1 or 2 GP (very few give 3GP), this can effectively strip the challenges of their rewards, leaving you no way to pay for healing, other than trying to beat other challenges (and risk getting knocked out) and hoping that after beating them you'll pass the check.

This card is way too harsch if played as Mr. Skeletor's guide specifies it should be played it got me knocked once, almost twice until another event replaced it. The card (played under solo rules) certainly has a much greater impact than the one it has if played following the card's instructions in a standard multiplayer RB game.

Proposed change: Next time I plan to reduce its effect to only affect the first reward after the event is played; Or perhaps keeping the solo rule as originally specified by Mr. Skeletor, but reducing the check to 10 could also do the trick?

2) Crown of the Elder Kings - The "Guardian of Thelsvan" challenge card.

The solo rules for the "guardian of..." cards state that part of their reward is that you can buy stuff at the guardian's town for 1 GP less than its stated value. Thelsvan, however, is not in the map, so the reward for this specific card should be modified.

Proposed change:
See below.

3) Crown of the Elder Kings - "The guardian of..." challenges



In general, the standard multiplayer rules for the "guardian of..." cards state that you receive 1 GP, and also, you get to keep the card for added effects. Some of this added effects are very good, and make this cards powerful additions.

The cards and the effects:

Guardian of Greyhaven:Discard this card to refresh X activated artifact items, where X is the number of cards in Greyhaven's market stack.

Guardians of Riverwatch/Vynelvale: Discard this card to discard X wounds from each hero and ally, where X is the number of cards in Riverwatch's/Vynelvale's market stack.

Guardians of Tamaril/Frostgate: You may discard all exhaustion from a hero or an ally by placing an exhaustion on this card; if there are ever more exhaustions on this card than there are cards in Tamaril's/Frostgate's market stack, discard this card.

Guardian of Dawnsmoor: Discard this card when you use a weapon item's special effects in place of activating or discarding that weapon item.

Guardian of Nerekhall: Discard this card to take an ally card that has just been discarded by another player. You receive that item or ally for free.

Guardian of Forge: Discard this card when you use an armor item's special effects in place of activating or discarding that armor item.

Guardian of Thelsvan: Discard this card when you use a rune item or dragon-rune card's special effect in place of activating that rune item or dragon-rune card

The solo rules

The solo rules for the "guardian of..." cards state that you receive 1 GP, and you get a discount of 1 GP when you buy anything on the related town. The modified reward for the solo rules seems to make te rewards on these cards much less "rewarding".

Proposed changes: This is how I decided to play these cards:

Guardians of Dawnsmoor, Forge, Tamaril, Frostgate, Thelsvan: As specified in the original cards.

Guardians of Greyhaven, Riverwatch, Vynelvale: As specified in the original card, but X is at least 1 even if the market stack is empty.

Guardian of Nerekhall: Discard this card to hire any ally worth 4 GP or less for free.

Note: As I play a modified market step, drawing 3 cards from separate weapons/armor, allies and magic-item decks, I calculate the number of cards in a town's market stack by dividing it by 3 (rounded down).

Edits: Typos, added some needed clarifications

Mr Skeletor,

I can't tell you how much I value your solo guide for Runebound, thanks a ton for all your work. Any plans/target for updating the document for the Frozen Wastes expansion? Thanks again!