The Forgotten Road Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
  • Components
• Setup
• How to Win
• How to Lose
• On a Turn
• Action Cards
• Skill Checks
  • Dice Icons
  • Consequence Icons
• Fight
• Move
• Draw and Place the Next Card
• Boss Cards
• Hero Cards
• Resting
• The Merchant
  • Item Card Key Words and Icons
• Scoring
• Increasing the Difficulty
  • Hard Mode
  • Legendary Mode

Overview

1 player, 20 minutes, Ages 13+

Components

• 32 action cards
• 4 hero cards
• 12 item cards
• 9 dungeon cards
• 3 dungeon boss cards
• 1 dungeon entrance card
• 9 road cards
• 3 road boss cards
• 1 Lux card
• 4 hero cards
• 3 custom dice
• 1 d6
• 7 gold tokens
• 5 damage tokens
• 2 merchant tokens
• 1 rest token
• 1 pawn
• 1 rulebook

Setup

1. Shuffle the action cards and place them within easy reach.
2. Shuffle the item cards and place them within easy reach.
3. Place the dice and tokens within easy reach.
4. Shuffle the hero cards and draw three. Place them in front of you and put the rest back in the box. (Or feel free to use the three heroes that look coolest to you).
5. Locate the Lux card and place it in the middle of the table. Place your pawn on the top half of this card. Locate the Dungeon Entrance card, and place it nearby to be used later.
6. Shuffle the road cards, draw the top six, and place them face down above Lux. Place the rest back in the box.
7. Shuffle the road boss cards, draw the top one, and place it at the bottom of the road cards deck. Place the rest back in the box.
8. Shuffle the dungeon cards, draw the top six, and place them face down to the right of the road cards deck. Place the rest back in the box.
9. Shuffle the dungeon boss cards, draw the top one, and place it at the bottom of the dungeon cards deck. Place the rest back in the box.
10. Draw the top card from the road deck, and place it directly to the right of the Lux so that the boxes line up.
11. The game is ready to begin.

How to Win

You win if you can make it to the dungeon boss and defeat it.

How to Lose

You lose if all of the heroes are incapacitated or if you run out of action cards.

On a Turn

Every turn should follow these steps:

1. Draw action cards until you reach your hand limit of five
2. Skill check
3. Fight
4. Move
5. Draw and place the next location card

Action Cards

Action cards give you the points and icons you need to journey down the Forgotten Road. Each card has a fight side, a move side, and an ability icon.

On your turn, you'll draw up to five cards and discard them from your hand to pass skill checks, fight monsters, and move to new locations.

You may never have more than five action cards in your hand unless a card says otherwise.

Some cards allow you to double the value of another card. To use this ability, you must discard both cards.

If you run out of cards in the action card deck and your hand, you lose.

Skill Checks

When you land on a card, the first thing you'll have to do is pass a skill check requiring certain icons. (Every card has a skill check).

On road/dungeon cards, the necessary icons are on the right side of the card. On boss cards, the necessary icons are in the middle of the card.

To attempt to pass the test, first roll the three skill dice. If you do not roll the necessary icons, you may discard cards from your hand if they have the icons you need. (If you discard a card, you do not draw a new one until the next draw phase).

If you pass, move your pawn to the fight section of the card. If you fail, you receive the consequence indicated in the box. (On road/dungeon cards, the consequence is determined by the next location card. Boss cards have the consequence on them).

Whether you succeed or fail, you move on to fighting the card's monster (unless all heroes are incapacitated).

Dice Icons

• Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma: these icons are used for various skill checks.
• Wild icon: this icon can be used to satisfy any skill icon you need at the cost of one damage to a hero.
• Gold icon: if you roll this icon, increase the amount of gold you have by one.

Consequence Icons

• Action card icon: draw the indicated number of action cards from the deck and discard them from the game.
• Incapacitate icon: incapacitate one hero by flipping it face down.
• Damage icon: place this many damage tokens on the heroes. You may spread the damage out to multiple heroes.
• Gold icon: lose this many gold tokens.

Fight

After the skill check, move your pawn to the bottom half of the card to fight the monster. To defeat it, you must discard one or multiple action cards that have fight points that add up to be equal to or greater than the number indicated on the monster.

If you are unable to discard enough fight points (or choose not to), you suffer the consequence indicated in the bottom right corner.

• Incapacitate icon: incapacitate one hero by flipping it face down.
• Damage icon: place this many damage tokens on the heroes. You may spread the damage out to multiple heroes.
• Gold icon: lose this many gold tokens.

Move

When two cards are placed next to each other, you can see two numbers separated by a + sign. To move to the next card, discard one or multiple action cards that have movement points that add up to be equal to or greater than the total indicated by the cards, and move your pawn to the top half of the next card.

If you are unable to discard enough movement points (or choose not to), you suffer the consequence indicated in the skill check box and then move your pawn to the top half of the next card (unless all heroes are incapacitated).

Draw and Place the Next Card

When your pawn lands on a new location, draw the next card in the road or dungeon deck and place it directly to the right of the card you currently occupy. You may now discard rest and merchant tokens (explained below) or move on to the next skill check.

(You'll notice that the dungeon cards line up differently than the road cards to simulate your party moving deeper and deeper into the dungeon).

Boss Cards

You'll work your way through the road cards until you get to the road boss. When you land on it, you must defeat it before you can move to the dungeon.

After defeating the road boss, remove all road cards from play, place the Dungeon Entrance card in the middle of the table, and place your pawn on its top half. Draw the top card in the dungeon deck, and repeat the same process of working your way through the deck to get to the boss.

Many boss cards have a die icon on them next to their health. This means you must roll a d6 and add the number to the boss's health before fighting it.

Hero Cards

The three heroes in your party each have a special ability that will help you. You may use a hero's special ability at any time during your turn by exhausting the hero and turning the card sideways.

Each hero also has a skill check icon in its top left corner. You may exhaust the hero card by turning it sideways to use the icon in a skill check.

If a hero card is exhausted, you may not use its special ability or skill check icon until the hero gets restored by certain item cards found at the Merchant.

Each hero can only receive a certain amount of damage before it's incapacitated. This number is indicated in the top right corner of the card. When a hero is incapacitated, flip it face down. If all three heroes are incapacitated, the game is over, and you lose.

Certain item cards found at the Merchant can revive heroes and flip their cards back over.

Resting

When you run out of action cards (or are about to run out), you may discard your campfire token to rest. When you do this, shuffle the action cards in the discard pile with any unused action cards on the table to create a new draw pile.

You may only rest at the beginning of a turn when your pawn first lands on a location.

The Merchant

Throughout the game, you'll gain gold coins when you defeat monsters. These coins can be traded in to buy items from the merchant.

When your pawn is on a location, you may discard a merchant token and draw three item cards. You may then discard gold tokens to buy any of the three cards and place them in front of you. All unpurchased cards are discarded from the game.

You may only visit the Merchant at the beginning of a turn when your pawn first lands on a location.

Item Card Key Words and Icons

1. Exhausted - A hero card that is turned sideways after its special ability OR skill check icon has been used.
2. Incapacitated - A hero card that has run out of health points and been flipped facedown.
3. Restore - Turn an exhausted card right-side up so that its special ability or skill check icon can be used again.
4. Revive - Flip an incapacitated hero card faceup.
5. (+heart icon) Add this many health points to a hero or heroes.
6. (+die icon) Roll a six-sided die and add the number to the indicated card.

Scoring

If you get to the final boss and defeat it, you win. However, you can also keep score to see if you can achieve a higher score on future runs.

1. 4 points for every hero that's not incapacitated
2. 3 points for every hero that's not exhausted
3. 2 points for every health point the heroes have remaining
4. 1 point for every gold you have remaining

The total is your final score.

Increasing the Difficulty

To make the game harder, you can do the following:

Hard Mode

• Start the game with only one merchant token.
• Add one more road card and one more dungeon card to the decks.
• Discard the top two action cards from the game before beginning.

Legendary Mode

• Start the game with only one merchant token.
• Add two more road cards and two more dungeon cards to the decks.
• Discard the top four action cards from the game before beginning.