Yours Truly,
United States
Gainesville
Florida
-
So, I love Mr. Skeletors solo runebound rules, and they've given me many hours of enjoyment with the base game. But, I just got Sands of Al-Kalim, and his solo rules for that game I found a bit lacking. So I've come up with some alternatives, which so far have worked great, and I wanted to share them.
For context, here are his solo rules for Sands (he threw a tantrum and deleted the original post, so rather than a link here they are in full):
Quote: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SANDS OF AL-KALIM
Set up and play the game according to the Solo and Sands of Al-Kalim rules with the changes noted below.
Winning the Game
You must complete 4 quests before the Threat Level reaches 10, or you lose.
Drawing Legendary Quests
Whenever the Threat Level is raised, take the top card in each Legendary deck and put it at the bottom on that deck. In this way the quests you can choose from will cycle throughout the game.
Moving the Sandstorm
When the sandstorm first appears you may place it in any orientation you wish.
For every hex the Sandstorm needs to move roll a 1d10. On an even number it follows the left arrow, on an odd number it follows the right arrow on the marker.
Survival Gear
When you use a piece of Survival gear it is returned to the box. In other words, the component limit tells you how much survival gear you may buy during the whole game.
Adventure Cards
Chaos Beast: If you are knocked out by this challenge gather all of your experience counters, mix them up and choose one without looking - this is the experience counter you lose. Then roll 1d10 on the below table to see what it is replaced with:
1-2: +2 mind
3-4: +2 body
5-6: +2 spirit
7-8: +1 life
9-10: +2 stamina
Devolved Orc: If you are forced to take this card, ignore the bit about being adjacent to another hero and instead make the mind Resist (15) roll after you complete your next challenge. If you pass discard this card, if you fail discard this card but then immediately draw other challenge card of the same color as the one you just fought and fight it. You get no reward for beating this second card, but still get the experience as normal.
Legendary Cards:
Merchant of Mystery: Instead of gaining abilities from another player, the card may gain the ability of the topmost Legendary Artifact card of the Legendary Artifacts deck.
Lamp of the Djinni Instead of gaining abilities from another player, the card may gain the ability of the topmost Legendary card from any of the Legendary Cards decks.
--------------------------------------------------
The threat track still works great, and I like the sandstorm movement and the equipment limits. But, I didn't particularly like the Quests mechanism and the Legendary Cards rule.
For Drawing the Quests, the problem is that the cards cycle through the quests so quickly and at a weird granularity; the rate is faster than it would probably be if playing against human opponents, and you would never get a burst of 5 gone at once. And they never are gone for good, they just cycle back after a while.
The problem with the Legendary Card rules is that I found them annoying b/c you have to constantly be checking the backs of each of the 5 currently available quests to see if you want to use any of them. (They are stacked requirement face-up, rewards face-down, so you can see what you need to do to complete them).
My variant
Drawing Legendary Quest Cards:
When the threat track ratchets up a level, roll a D10. 1 or 2 is the left-most stack of quests, 3 or 4 is the next stack, and so on for the 5 stacks. What ever stack you rolled, remove the top quest and place it reward side up in a "claimed quests" area. This quest has been claimed by another hero, so you can never claim it.
This variant is a little more dangerous since it simulates nicely some quests being taken by others and no longer available to you (rather than just having to wait until it cycles back through). It also removes the problem of having 5 quests disappear all at once - you have a better chance of still being able to grab that juicy one you had your eye on!
Legendary Rewards:
For the merchant and the lamp: you can pick from any of the abilities in the "claimed quests" area.
This will make it easier to pick and choose from among available rewards when using the Lamp or the Merchant, since the rewards are all face up. Also as the game goes on, those cards will become more powerful since there will be more potential abilities, which simulates more of the dynamics of the multiplayer game as well.
******************************************************
Let me know any improvements or feedback, enjoy!
-
|
|
