Pentos
Pentos Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Goal of the Game
The game is won in one of two ways:
- Cast the ultimate spell (the Megalos), which ends the game and gives you an immediate and absolute victory.
- Or have suffered the fewest koâs (magic burns caused by badly digested ingredients) at the end of the 3 rounds.
Components
- 45 ingredient cards, with black backs. They come in 5 different colours, with values from 1 to 9 for each colour.
- 10 special cards, with grey backs.
Setup (at the start of each round)
- Shuffle the 45 ingredient cards to form a draw pile.
- Build, one after another, three columns of two cards by turning over the first 6 cards of the draw pile. Each column represents a cauldron (marmite) in which the ingredients are simmering.
- Shuffle the 10 special cards to form a second draw pile.
- Turn over the first two cards of this pile.
How to Play
At the start of the game, the first player is chosen at random. For the following rounds, once setup is complete, the player with the most koâs chooses the first player (they may choose themselves).
Players take turns in clockwise order. On your turn, you perform one single action from the following:
- Add ingredients to the cauldrons,
- Or taste a potion,
- Or cast a spell.
Adding Ingredients to the Cauldrons
For each cauldron A, B and C, in that order, add the ingredient from the top of the draw pile.
Example: Sabine added the blue 7, the red 9 and the yellow 1.
Special bonus: At the end of this action, if each of the three cauldrons contains at least 2 ingredients of the same colour and/or the same value (as is the case in our example), the player must take an ingredient of their choice from one of the cauldrons and add it to their hand.
Continuing the example, Sabine decides to take the blue 7.
Note: taking the ingredient that is most useful to your left-hand neighbour is generally a good choice.
Tasting a Potion
This action consists of taking several ingredient cards from a single cauldron into your hand:
- Either all the ingredients of the same colour,
- Or all the ingredients of the same value.
Example: Franck may take the two value-1 ingredients from cauldron A, or the three scorpions (yellow) from cauldron C.
Note: cauldron B cannot be chosen, because its ingredients all differ in both colour and value.
Casting a Spell
This action consists of discarding a combination of cards from your hand. The spells, from most powerful to least powerful, are:
Megalos
- A combination of 9 ingredients of the same nature (colour).
- Casting a Megalos is exceptional. It immediately wins the game for you, whatever the number of koâs you have already suffered.
Example with a Megalos Dragon: nine ingredients of one colour.
Pentos
- A combination of 5 different ingredients of the same value.
- Casting a Pentos immediately ends the current round.
- The player who cast the spell takes no koâ, while their opponents receive a number of koâs depending on the cards left in their hands (see End of Round: Scoring).
Example of a Pentos of 1s.
Mikros
- A combination of at least 3 ingredients:
- Either values that follow one another (a run) in the same colour,
- Or the same value.
- Casting a Mikros allows the player to choose one of the 2 special cards that are visible. If it is a joker, the player keeps it in their hand. If it is an enchantment, the player applies its effect immediately and discards the card. The chosen card is replaced by a new special card from the draw pile.
Two examples of Mikros are shown in the rulebook: on the left, a run of octopuses; on the right, ingredients of value 3 with a joker.
Note: whatever the spell (Megalos, Pentos or Mikros), the combinations may contain jokers.
Special Cards
There are 2 types of special cards:
- Joker ingredients (2 cards): This ingredient joins the cards in your hand. It can replace any other ingredient at the moment you choose.
- Enchantments (4 enchantments, 2 cards of each): The chosen enchantment is used immediately. If a card has two effects of which only one is possible, that is the one you must choose. If no effect is possible, the card is simply discarded.
The four enchantments are:
- Choose either the draw pile or the discard pile of ingredients. From these cards, take the ingredient of your choice and add it to your hand. If you took from the draw pile, reshuffle it.
- Example: if the draw pile is empty, you must choose from the discard pile.
- Take the ingredient of your choice from one of the three cauldrons and add it to your hand.
- Give the opponent of your choice 1 to 5 of your ingredients of the same colour (but not jokers), or look at their hand and take from it 1 to 5 ingredients of the same colour (but not jokers) to add to your hand.
- Discard from your hand 1 to 5 ingredients of the same colour (but not jokers).
End of Round: Scoring
A round ends in one of two ways:
- When a player casts a Pentos.
- Or when the ingredient draw pile is completely empty and, at the start of a player's turn, that player cannot play, or has no card left in hand at the end of their turn.
If a player cast a Pentos, they take no koâ.
The other players who still have ingredients in hand group their cards, trying to form runs of ingredients of the same colour:
- Each ingredient that belongs to a run is worth 1 koâ.
- Each isolated ingredient is worth a number of koâs equal to its value.
Each player's koâs are added up round after round (it is advisable to note them on a separate sheet).
Example: Thierry suffers 12 koâs. 2 koâs for his first run of octopuses (1-2), 3 koâs for his second run of octopuses (6-joker-8), 4 koâs for his isolated octopus (4) and 3 koâs for his isolated scorpion.
End of Game: Winner
The game ends in either of the following two cases:
- If a player casts a Megalos, they immediately win the game, whatever the number of koâs they have already suffered.
- The third round ends. The player who has suffered the fewest koâs wins. The player who has suffered the most is turned into a toad in the field!
Optional Atmosphere
Each ingredient and joker card carries syllables. They form magic formulas that must be spoken to cast spells!
Example: to cast this spell, pronounce clearly: TûûPûûDûûKûû!