Rules Compendium

Declare the action and performer, pay every cost, generate the effects, then resolve. An action must be legal before declaration unless a permitted React or effect can make it legal. Do as much of an effect as possible, but do not voluntarily stop or omit a legal part.

Multiple instances do not add more dice. Any amount of advantage and disadvantage cancel each other, producing one normal roll. Planar changes which eligible die is retained for affected strikes.

Equipped refers to Items equipped to Characters. Attached cards are not equipped, and equipped Items are not attached; older instructions to attach an Item mean equip it. A scribed Action is attached, not an equipped Item. Attaching or equipping a card to an opponent’s card does not itself transfer control. Cards leaving play go to their owner’s appropriate zone. When a bearer leaves play, first destroy its equipped Items, then discard its attached Actions, then other attached card types, one at a time in each owner’s chosen order within those groups. Attachment itself is not an ongoing effect: ending a tied effect does not necessarily detach its card.

All strikes from an attack must target opposing Characters. Printed strikes are performed first in printed order. Additional strikes gained from effects may follow in an order chosen by the controller. The first strike is mandatory; later strikes may be forgone before their strike process begins, and new strikes gained during the attack may join the same attack.

A card goes to its owner’s banish zone only when an action or effect says to banish it. Banished cards are visible to all players and are not in play.

Bonuses and penalties to ATK, AC, Skill, HP, level, and feats, plus granted feats, last until end of turn unless specified otherwise. Generated values are set once the effect is generated; a relevant stat can still change while the effect is being generated. A bonus for Characters in a location applies as Characters enter or leave that location during its duration. A bonus to specified targets or Characters adjacent when it was applied stays with those Characters for its duration. Effects measured within ranks of a source follow that source. Ongoing effects on a card end when it leaves play. A duration tied to a source card or ability also ends if that source leaves play or that ability is lost.

Counters can only be placed on cards in play. Counters with the same name are indistinguishable. Stat counters give a bonus to their corresponding stat equal to their number; if the card lacks that stat, those counters remain but have no effect until it gains the stat. Counters are not ongoing effects, even if placed by an action, and all are removed when their card leaves play. Wounds are not counters.

The damage types are Physical, Lightning, Radiant, Fire, Necrotic, Poison, Frost, and Arcane. A Character’s printed strike symbol supplies its base type. An equipped Weapon supplies the base type of melee strikes and a Bow the base type of ranged strikes; Item-produced actions use that Item’s type. An action’s damage-bearing action traits supersede the Character’s base damage type. If multiple types apply, the strike, action, or effect has all of them. Matching Resistance and Weakness to the same strike, action, or effect cancel each other.

Death React is shorthand for “React: Before this character is killed.” It occurs after the Character is determined to be dying and before it is placed in the discard pile.

Include a Warlord and a legal starting army. Standard Constructed requires at least 50 cards; Limited requires at least 30. There is no maximum deck size. Normally include no more than three copies of a card, or one copy of an Epic card name. Characters, Items, and Actions must each account for no more than 50% of the deck, counting the starting army. A card with multiple printed card types counts toward each of those types. You may include at most one Character of each named leader type: Warlord, Overlord, Daemonlord, Dragon Lord, and Medusan Lord. Card text and special formats can change these defaults; deck-building effects on starting cards apply only if those cards start in play.

Critical results automatically succeed or fail and cannot be changed or rerolled by effects. Opposed rolls are an exception: identical results are rerolled with the same modifiers, and two critical successes or two critical failures are rerolled regardless of modifiers. A natural roll is the rolled or preset result before modifiers. If an effect rerolls a roll made with multiple dice, all dice are rerolled. A preset result remains preset despite reroll or extra-dice effects; initiative has special rules for tied presets.

Discard piles are not in play and are visible to all players. An instruction to discard a card means discard it from hand unless the instruction identifies another zone.

Each player may first discard any cards from hand, even when above hand size, then draws one at a time until their hand equals their current hand size. A player still at or above hand size after optional discards draws none and is not forced to discard down. Standard hand size is five unless modified.

Beginning with the initiative winner, players may perform eligible end-of-turn actions, then resolve every effect that happens or expires at end of turn one at a time. Multi-card expirations resolve for each affected card before moving to the next effect.

Enter React is shorthand for “React: After this character enters play.” Entry requirements, loyalty, orientation, and legal formation handling still apply before or around the trigger as specified by the effect.

The standard equip Order reveals an Item from hand and equips it; it does not inherently spend the Character. Meet all class, trait, and additional card requirements. The Character’s level, including applicable equipping modifiers, plus its rank in your formation must meet or exceed the Item’s level. In another player’s formation, do not add rank. A Character cannot equip a second Item with the same name. When equipping creates an equip-location conflict, immediately choose and destroy enough conflicting Items to meet the limits, even the newly equipped Item if desired, before equipment Reacts. Equip locations are checked when equipping, not continuously; Cursed and Dual Wield can change the options.

Feats grant specific skill-based actions with their own timing and costs. To perform a feat, make a DC 20 skill check, adding Skill and the relevant feat bonus as well as applicable modifiers. Bonuses to the same feat from multiple sources add together. A non-feat action that requires a feat-based check does not require the Character to have that feat and does not use the feat’s per-turn allowance, but any applicable feat bonus still applies. Feats are keywords, not traits.

Forward means toward the front rank and backward means away from it. Characters next to each other in one rank are adjacent. Your front rank and each opposing front rank are adjacent, and “within” a number of ranks includes the source rank plus ranks in both directions.

Every melee strike in an attack must target an opposing Character. A melee strike produced outside an attack may target another Character you control if all targeting requirements are met. A ranged strike also chooses another legal Character, not necessarily an opponent, unless the producing action restricts it. Read the whole ability: an instruction to perform an attack retains the attack restriction even when that instruction comes from an ability. A standalone strike does not bypass distance or an explicit opposing-only restriction.

Characters fall forward one at a time until every rank is legal. A ready character becomes spent, a spent character becomes stunned, and a stunned character simply moves. Formation repair interrupts normal resolution before the next step, except an eligible React to falling forward resolves first.

Each chosen Warlord rolls a d20 plus applicable generic die-roll and initiative bonuses, not Skill merely for being a Warlord. Highest acts first and play proceeds clockwise. Only tied highest Warlords reroll; matching critical successes or failures tie regardless of modifiers. Bonuses for the next initiative roll carry through tie rerolls, as do presets. If both players have tied preset initiative results, roll normally without either preset.

Kill React is shorthand for “React: After this character kills target character.” It targets the killed Character using its game statistics at the moment it died.

Limited applies to the granted action even if its source is temporarily lost and regained during the same turn. Older “once per turn” costs function the same way.

A Character whose faction differs from your Warlord suffers the loyalty penalty when put into play and enters stunned. Mercenary Guild Characters never suffer this penalty.

A maneuver moves its performer forward one rank, backward one rank, or to a different left-to-right position in the same rank. Any resulting illegal formation is repaired immediately.

Choose a legal Character within one rank, roll a d20, and add the strike ATK including applicable bonuses and penalties. Meeting or exceeding AC normally hits for one wound. A strike that names a specific target can ignore normal rank distance.

A card with more than one class is all those classes simultaneously. A Fighter/Wizard can qualify for both Fighter and Wizard cards, subject to other requirements. When an Item or Action lists multiple class restrictions, matching one of those classes is sufficient; level, trait, and other restrictions still apply. Older printed class declarations are treated as class symbols, not a removable textbox ability. Permission to act regardless of a requirement does not grant that class or trait. Permission to act as if possessing a trait adds that trait for the costs and effects of that action.

An ongoing effect continues for its stated duration after an action generates it. A static effect is active card text that does not come from an action. Unless stated otherwise, both affect cards in play. An ongoing effect may target when generated but does not keep targeting; static effects do not target unless they produce a strike. When actions and ongoing or static effects respond to the same event, resolve the actions first, then the ongoing and static effects with initiative order and trigger validity checks. Effects written to apply for one or more copies of a named card apply only once, not once per copy.

On priority, play a Character, have a Character perform an Order, or pass. After an Order resolves, priority moves clockwise. A prior pass does not prevent later action if another player breaks the consecutive-pass chain.

Standard options include playing a Character, attacking, equipping an Item, maneuvering, using an Order card or printed Order, and format-specific Dungeon or Epic Class Orders. Spend Order means spending the performer is part of the cost.

A normally played Character enters the rank equal to its level and cannot create an unfixable illegal rank. Effects that put a Character into play may specify another source or rank. Entry still observes applicable Unique, loyalty, formation, and additional card requirements unless text overrides them.

Choose a legal Character exactly two ranks away, roll a d20, and add the ranged strike’s own modifier plus effects that specifically modify that roll. Meeting or exceeding AC normally hits for one wound. A strike that names a specific target can ignore normal distance.

Each copy of a React may be used once per trigger. Players take reaction priority beginning with the initiative winner, returning to the original trigger after each React. The reacting card and relevant rank conditions must have existed when the trigger occurred.

Spent cards become ready and stunned cards become spent simultaneously. The Ready phase also occurs on the first turn.

Ready cards are upright, spent cards are turned 90 degrees, and stunned cards are turned 180 degrees. A stunned card is also spent. Stunned characters cannot perform actions; stunned items cannot provide printed actions, although their modifiers and other effects remain.

Every save is a skill check, but not every skill check is a save. A bonus to all skill checks applies to saves; a bonus only to saves does not apply to other checks. Checks and saves cannot be voluntarily failed.

A Character must meet an Action card’s class and trait restrictions and have sufficient level, including applicable action-level modifiers, to perform it. Rank does not add to casting level. Classless Actions have no class requirement unless their text provides one. All Cleric or Wizard Action cards are spells, including multiclass Actions with either class. An effect can also make another action or strike a spell; a spell that is not an Action card is level zero and its level cannot change. Play an Action into the action zone, observe its Order or React timing, pay its costs, and normally discard it after resolution unless its text directs another destination, such as attaching it.

Players simultaneously reveal their starting armies before the first turn. The five non-Warlord Characters must share the Warlord’s faction, and the starting army cannot contain multiple copies of the same Unique card or any Reserved card. No actions may be performed during setup, though static text applies. Card text and special formats may change the starting army. A replacement must replace something you could legally start and satisfy the other starting requirements; the replaced cards need not actually be in your deck.

Each strike declares its performer, chooses a legal target, rolls, determines hit or miss, determines wounds, inflicts wounds, then resolves. Each boundary can create its own React timing. Strikes are effects, not actions by themselves.

Targeting includes direct stat, orientation, location, check, wound, action, attachment, cancellation, or similar changes described by section 511. Actions usually target only cards in play unless they state another zone. Mass and multi-target effects choose legal targets one at a time and affect them in that order.

A token represents a card created by an effect, and its creator owns it and initially controls it. Unless overridden, Character tokens follow normal entry rank and loyalty rules, and Item tokens follow normal equipment requirements. Character tokens are summoned Characters. Leaving play still counts as the relevant death, destruction, discard, banishment, or other zone change, but the token then ceases to exist and cannot be retrieved. A token is not itself an ongoing effect, even when an action created it.

Resolve the five phases in order. Initiative establishes who acts first in the Order phase, and the Order phase continues until every player passes consecutively.

A player loses as soon as they do not control a Warlord character. The last player controlling a Warlord in play wins, unless a card effect ends the game first.

Check wounds whenever wounds are placed or maximum HP is reduced. A Character also dies if its actual HP or level becomes zero or less; an effective level of zero for performing an action does not cause death. An effect may replace death with banishment, in which case there are no death or kill Reacts. For a normal death, resolve eligible Death Reacts, then discard equipped Items, attached Actions, other attached card types, and finally the Character, to their owners’ piles. Removing wounds does not stop an already determined death unless the effect specifically says the Character no longer dies.

Formation, action, battlefield, and dungeon zones are in play. Deck, hand, discard, and banish zones are not. When a card leaves play, cards attached or equipped to it are discarded or destroyed in the required order.