Adventurer Kings - Rules Update

Please note the following changes / additions to the printed rulebook.

[2.0] - Characters : Skill level is rated from level 1 to level 9, not 4 as listed. Secret spells and abilities are attainable at high levels of ability. They can vary from game to game.

[2.1] - Kings : No more than one King of Divine or Undead alignment is usually permitted per game. This may vary depending on game size or variant. A Divine King receives a +1 modifier to his White Magic skill, and starts with zero aptitude in Necromancy skill. An Undead King receives a +1 modifier to his Necromancy skill, and starts with a zero aptitude in White Magic skill. Undead and Divine Kings cannot start with any ability in a skill in which they have zero aptitude.

[3.2] - Explore : You can explore a province even if its been 100% explored, with the object of learning whether there are destroyed armies in the province.

[3.3] - Search Feature : You can Search a feature to Scout it even after the monster has been killed. You may Search a feature you have not discovered yet if you know the location and feature number.

[3.4] - Recruit Army : A character is allowed to recruit an army in a province belonging to his ally. The recruiter pays 1 gold to his ally for each recruited army. The computer always makes sure that in any given phase the owner of the territory has the right to recruit before you do. If you are recruiting in your former home province which is now your ally’s province, you can recruit 4 units, which start as Average. In order for you to recruit in your ally’s territory, he MUST issue a "Treat" order with you (even though you may already be allied).

[3.8] - Leave Army : If one of your characters and one of your armies are in the same province, but the character does not lead that army, then the character is still allowed to "Leave" the army to another character, or the garrison commander. Therefore the "Leave Armies" order becomes an all-purpose "Transfer Armies" command. When you use "Leave" as this transfer command, if you "Leave All" it will still only leave units that you directly lead, not units under other commanders or the garrison command.

[3.9] - Pick Up Army : To Pick Up all UNLED armies (with Garrison Commander) in the province, write "(PI)ck Up All"

[3.14] - Spy Province : Sage ability also has something to do with spying out inventions. If a spy sees an invention, some Sage ability will help him figure out how to get it for your kingdom. Sage level 1 will be more than enough to understand all common inventions, but higher ability may be needed for inventions of obscure design. The chance for discovering an invention by spying is limited to twice the chance of discovery by Sages.

[3.15] - Defend : A characters Defend order is cancelled if he loses a battle, to prevent further needless defeats. A "Defend" order will include defending your ally’s territories, but only if you are Enemies with the player who attacks your ally.

[3.16] - Characters on Patrol : This is like the Defend order, except whenever the character hears of an intruding character, he chases him down. Write this order by having the character ‘Pursue’ his own character number. This means the character will track down any detected Enemy character who enters a hex next to the character. The evasive skills of Thieves and Spies still operate normally. The patrol order works differently in some important respects from the Defend order, while in order respects they are quite similar:-

  1. Only leaders not leading armies may Patrol, and they chase only characters not leading armies.
  2. Only patrol the current hex they are in and all adjacent hexes.
  3. They only intercept enemy characters.
  4. The Patrol stays active until the next Move, Trail or Pursue order ; other orders after the patrol order are used if there is no current threat to be intercepted by the patrol.
  5. A Patrol may be unable to detect an enemy character if he is using his Spy or Thief ability that game turn.
  6. A Patrol will only intercept in owned or Allies territory.
  7. A Patrol will only attempt to pursue intruders whose best skill in Archery, Melee or Magic is equal to or less than the Patrol’s best such skill.
  8. If there are more than one such intruders, the most threatening one is intercepted, by "highest skill" as defined in point (g).
  9. The "Spy Table" is still used : When intercepting a character in an adjacent hex, if the Patrol has no Spy skill, there is a 50% chance that the character will wander into a random hex rather than intercept the intruder.

[3.18] - Give : You can give limited amounts of gold to other Kings. Only a King may use this Give Gold order. The King does it by using the Give command together with a specified amount of gold, giving it to another player’s character (King or Hero) located in the same province. A King may give out in a game turn no more than 10% of the size of his treasury at the start of that turn (although he may always give out at least 10 gold if he has it in his treasury). Be careful that you don’t GIVE an amount of gold that equals a magic item ID number carried by the King.

[4.2] - Magical Abilities : The same Combat spell cannot be cast more than once in an encounter. The spellcasting limits for Action and Combat spells are separate.

[4.21] - White Magic : When a Divine king resurrects a hero, his alignment becomes Good, thus enabling the King to gain a character at reduced pay. A Divine King can cast resurrection on one of his own living heroes to turn him into a Good character. Undead characters can be resurrected if they die, in which case they become the same alignment as whoever resurrected them (except for an Undead King).

[4.21] - Bless Province : A Bless spell can remove buried skeletons permanently (the chance is (white-skill x 10%) + 10%). Armies "Paroled into population" in a battle are not eligible to become skeletons.

[4.22] - Charm : When cast by an Undead character, the Charm spell is a Necromantic spell (not a Psychic spell). When an Undead King (not a hero) Charms a hero (as an action spell only), he also turns Undead. An Undead King may Charm his own heroes in an attempt to turn them to undead. Heroes with advanced skills are more resistant to being turned undead (although the cast chance itself is not lessened). For these heroes, corruption occurs gradually : alignment will change by 1-3 steps per spellcast.

[4.22] - Clairvoyance : A character can only cast one Clairvoyance spell per gameturn. A subsequent Clairvoyance spell will nullify the one currently in effect.

[4.23] - Illusory Terrain : You can select the terrain the illusion will mimic.

[4.23] - Invisibility : The Invisibility spell also allows a +30% chance to Flee an encounter.

[4.25] - Skeletal Army : Limit is 350 armies. The oldest destroyed armies will rot away when the 350 army limit is exceeded. Skeletal armies controlled by an Undead Kingdom have a 100% chance of fanaticism. An Undead King also starts the game with one of his armies being Skeletal. When a Skeletal army dies (but not a non-skeletal army), it is reduced in quality by one level.

[4.25] - Plague : If a unit survives a plague, it’s immunised from dying in future plagues (it may instead drop a level in quality).

[5.0] - Encounters : Two exceptions to the combat initiative rule should be mentioned: At Spell range, Spell attacks come before closing to Bow range, and at Melee range, Melee attacks always go first.

[5.4] - Negotiate : If a character of Druidic alignment succeeds in talking to a monster, it may be more willing to assist him than a non-Druidic character. Some of you will run across riddling monsters in your adventures searching features. Helpful hint: When you return to their lair to answer the riddle, you can take as many guesses as you like in your "SA-y" tactic. You may not use both the Talk and Fulfill tactics in the same encounter plan.

[5.5] - Steal : If the thief is going after a King or a Hero who leads an army, the chance of success is halved. If you go after a king, you may be able to bag a certain percentage of his treasury (try it to find out how much). If a thief fails in an attempt to steal, he won’t necessarily get caught (the chance to avoid capture rises with each level of thief). Steal, Talk and Fulfill are mutually exclusive and only one of these tactics may appear in any encounter plan. Even if the thief is successful, the monster involved has a chance of hiding a magic item (e.g. sleeping on it). A creature of average intelligence would have about a 10% chance of hiding a magic item per stealing attempt, whereas a smarter monster would have a 25-50% chance.

[5.7] - Give : You can Give gold to another Kingdom using this tactic.

[5.10] - Special Encounter Plan : If you want to refuse a challenge to a duel by an enemy commander, the FIRST tactic in the Special Encounter Plan must be Flee. If it’s in any other place in the plan, the computer will assume you want to fight it out before fleeing. However, if you have a Flee tactic anywhere in your Special Encounter Plan, you won’t challenge for a duel.

[6.2] - Movement and Transport : Camels and Elephants are considered mounted units for transport purposes.

[7.1] - Supreme Commanders : If a character who leads no armies is present in a province where a battle occurs, he will appear at the battle to take over in case the supreme commander dies (but he will not have to fight a duel). He will not appear if there is no supreme commander already at the battle for his side.

[7.2] - Battle Lines : If a battle line is shorter than the terrain allows, the flanking second-line units of a force which is superior in numbers may outflank the enemy force. If they do that, they count as 100% strength instead of 50%.

There are several factors that modify or affect the strength of units in battle. These are detailed beneath the Army Type Table. For Druidic Kingdoms, if a monster in a province where a battle is being fought is closer in alignment to Druidic than the player he is fighting, it may come to help the Druidic cause. A very powerful monster in a 1-column battle in mountains may even have a better effect than the fanaticism sometimes given to armies of Good alignment.

[7.4] - Retreat : If you kill an enemy general in a duel, the troops will usually carry his body with them in their retreat. That would be the reason why you don’t see his grave in the province of his death.

[9.0] - Finances : Each King starts with 10 gold, not 20.

[10.1] - Imperial Offices : The Prize fund is not being implemented by Pagoda Games at this time.

When you gain an Office, a special ability may be given to you for as long as you hold it. There are also additional "Titles" that may be gained, with special abilities, but they do not give you any percentage prize share at the end of the game.

[10.3] - Valhalla : Undead and Divine Kings may enter Valhalla for Good or Evil, but do not receive visits from Valhalla.

New Rule: A player can normally ally over a spread of no more than 4 alignments : For example, a Divine player could ally with anyone from Divine to Neutral, while most other alignments have a choice : a Neutral player could have an alliance spread of Divine-Neutral, Neutral-Undead, Good-Pagan etc. A player may exceed the 4-alignmnet spread, but then random "diplomatic gaffes" and "border incidents" can occur at any time, resulting in a sudden reduction of diplomatic status to Neutral or Enemy. Alignments within 2 steps of your own alignment will break during the gameturn only if two conditions are met: 1/ The other alignment is 3 or more steps away from your own alignment : 2/ Both players are in violation of the allowed 4-alignment spread. Otherwise, alliances only break down at the end of the gameturn.

 

EXAMPLES OF MOVES FOR ADVENTURER-KINGS

Here's an example of a "moves sheet" which you can use to give orders to one of your characters:

Moves:

Character ID Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5

1_________ (__)_______ (__)_______ (__)_______ (__)_______ (__)______

(Kyron______) (__________) (__________) (__________) (__________) (_________)

Enctr Plans: __________ __________ __________ __________ _________

Special Plan: __________

The first line is used to fill in the order, for example, "(HI)re_88___". The second line is for anything else that is needed to explain the order (for example, how much are you going to offer character 88 to join you?) The third line is for more notes, and for the plans for Encounter and Search actions.

The "Special Plan" line is for encounters with random monsters and duels at battles, and will be in effect for the entire turn. Here are examples of how to write moves for each order:

 

[3.1]

[3.2]

[3.3]

[3.4]

[3.5]

[3.6]

Move

Explore

Search

Recruit

Hire

Disband

 

 

 

 

 

 

(MO) NE 304

(EX) 304

(SE) 33

(RE) for 22

(HI) 88

(DI) 33,44

(Bergundy)

(Bergundy)

(Dungeon)

(LE, Le, HC)

(Lancelot)

(112,113)

 

 

FI, ME

 

for 3 gold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[3.7]

[3.8]

[3.9]

[3.10]

[3.11]

[3.12]

Fire

Leave

Pick Up

Cast Spell

Use Item

Encounter

(FI) 88

(LE) 8, 9 to

(PI) 33,34

(CA)-BL

(US) 19

(EN) 88

(Lancelot)

(Garrison)

( )

(on 304)

(Magic Wand)

(Lancelot)

 

 

 

 

On 88

TA, FL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[3.13]

[3.14]

[3.15]

[3.16]

[3.17]

[3.18]

Practice

Spy

Defend

Pursue

Trail

Give

(PR) TA

(SP) 304

(DE) 304

(PU) 88

(TR) 88

(GI) 19

( )

(Bergundy)

(Bergundy)

(Lancelot)

(Lancelot)

(to 88)

 

 

 

CA_FI, ME

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You don't really have to include the names of provinces and characters in orders, since the computer operator will just type in the number. But it may be a useful note for you and sometimes serves as a double-check.

If you run out of space when writing an order, put an asterisk (*) and continue the order on the bottom of the moves sheet.