Over 2 years later, but me and the boys just bought the game, knowing nothing at all about it, so we spent a good couple hours trying to figure stuff out but ended up being too much to read in the manual, lol. This video taught me everything I needed to know, in a well and simple manner. Thank you so much, my man. Can't wait to play
I appreciate this videos existence. I just picked up the game today and was having a heck of a time trying to understand all the mechanics to this game. Thank you.
This is probably on of the better (if not the best) rules explanation videos I've seen. But (and i could be wrong) when dodging, even if you fail, you can still move that one space; on a fail you just take all the damage.
Thanks for posting and for the feedback. I will double check the rules and post an update in the description if you are correct. Thanks for watching ;)
Hey we just finished playing through to Miniboss and watching your tutorial you reference the Resistance section: In this, the black resistance should be for physical dmg resistance and blue for magical dmg. However, at 33:00 you roll dice for the silver knight and roll 2 defense, but have 1 phys res on your armor. The knight does 5 damage, but you still put that you took 3 damage without -1 for phys resistance.
I love how the health and stamina work both ends against the middle. I also enjoy how the encounters are built. But Dark Souls exposes a simple truth of game design: Grinding is fine in video games, but it's just not fun on a table--especially without the benefit of a story. Here are some ways that I've found to pare down the playtime to something close to reasonable and get the grind under control: 1: The game starts with four souls per hero to level and equip for a mini-boss. Double to 8 for for a boss. 2: Cheapen leveling cost to 1+2+3 cost progression. 3: Have an option to feed 2 souls to the bonfire counter to raise the attempt counter by 1. 4: Have five treasure cards face up for the players to choose equipment from. As they buy things, flip a new card over so five options are available for purchase. 5: The luck token resets for free at the end of each encounter. These house rules get my runs to the mini-boss down to about 3 hours and reduce everyone's dependence on chance.
I defiantly agree with you in video games it is fine and even sometimes fun if done right, but with board games it just doesn't work . Thanks for posting your house rules as well it is interesting to see how gamers change the rules to help correct some of these problems. Thanks for watching and commenting.
I agree on the grinding point. I think it comes down to the mindlessness of video games where one can grind without giving the game your full attention. Board games cannot do that unless someone is literally playing the game for you, no matter how menial the task. As such it is never a good idea to implement. My question to the developers of this one is not just why they thought making an 8 hour play time grind/luck fest was a good idea for a board game, but why they thought grinding was a key part of dark souls in the first place. I have over 1000 hours logged in Dark Souls I, II, III and I have grinded maybe a half-a-dozen times at most? The loop of dark souls is almost never a grind. It is a series of predictable, escalating challenges which you have to pass in their entirety in order to advance. Gloomhaven or Ghost Stories are better implements of this design philosophy. Sorry for the negativity, I just was very disappointed in this game. Thanks for listing your house rules. I'm definitely going to try some of those out to see if it gets gud/better!
@@MoriMemento117 Confession: I've never played so much as a minute of any of the video games. I don't actually play the board game all that much, but I use its components in almost every D&D session I DM for. The $200-odd bucks I tossed to the Kickstarter were worth it to have all those big scary monsters, props, and boards ready to go.
@@MoriMemento117 1000 hours and barely any grind? Lmao. You must have never made a 120lvl PvP character or farmed for the covenant items. Maybe you dont want to admit that farming is basically grinding.
Hey. Thanks for this video. One note, I believe you made a mistake when teaching about dodging at 29:05. You didn't move your character a node because you failed your roll but I believe it still moves a node, and you still take damage. On page 25 is says 1.determine difficulty of dodge 2. spend 1 stamina, move on node 3. gather # of dice determined by equipment 4. Roll them 5. determine if your dodge was successful. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want to make sure I understand the rules. Thanks for the great video.
Thanks for watching and for the question, sorry about the late response I have been crazy busy and wanted to make sure I got the correct answer for you. So I went back and watched the clip than checked my rule book and the one posted on the site just to make sure nothing had changed and in that sequence number 2 states the character must spend 1 stamina and can move 1 node. So you have the choice to move or not you are not required to. I should have mentioned it though so great catch there.
I'm a DS series fan, and one thing that I learn in blood was not fight just to win, but to resist...and the fun you can get in the process, I really like this board game and your explanation is TOPs,...by the way, a very useful concept in both versions of this game is the farming as we all soul fighters know, cause is the best way to upgrade and use the available treasures....is worthy to keep in mind.
Thanks for the feedback and posting a comment. I would agree taking your time and farming are critical to getting through this game and having a shot at defeating the end boss.
Thank you ! Despite the new core sets, we caught an example of the original core set, and this hour has been rewarding along shuffling through the rulebook 100 times 😂🎉
Thanks for the detailed and well shot video. I just found a used copy of Dark Souls at my local shop and struggled to figure out how boss battles worked by reading the manual. Your video gave great examples of how boss arcs work and explained the colored boss attack arc icons too. My wife and I are now starting to really enjoy this game thanks to your explanations. Keep up the great work :)
A very well made tutorial. I have had this game since it came out and have wanted to give it a go but have been pre occupied with 40k. Thanks to you I now have the confidence to get this out and start a solo run - it looks quite straight forward once you get used to the enemy behaviour cards - I wouldn’t mind grinding a few encounters to level up before taking a mini boss on - I guess at the least it would give you practice with the mechanics of the game. Looking forward to painting those minis as well 😁👍🏻🎲
Thanks for the feedback and for commenting. 40k has a way of doing that and yes once you get the enemy behavior cards figured out the game goes smoothly. Have fun playing and painting the game and if you would like please share some pics with me on Facebook or twitter.
hey man thanks for this video! was 100% helpful, especially when our game came with a misprinted rules book. 1000% recommend this video to anyone who need to learn!
Years later, I finally found this game lol I'm pumped. Your video helped out a ton! My question is the "wound tokens" I have no idea what those do. I may have missed it in your video? Also, when your at the bonfire, you can spend 1 soul to draw a card from the treasure right??
My brain hurts every time I'm done playing my rounds for the day lol. I know it's not that complicated like my brain wants to believe and thanks for making this video and making it easier :) I almost completely get it now
100% agree this is a board game for souls fans first. That said, it seems like a great way to share your love for Souls with others in a fun social environment. If you aren't familiar or flat out don't care for Souls, I can see this NOT being fun for long.
Yep, I do think that they have an opportunity to fix some of that with a good expansion. This can be a good game even for not Dark Souls fans if some things are fixed. We will see what happens though especially with their next project hitting Kickstarter in a couple of weeks.
I would love this. Just bought the game and I'm really having difficulty understanding the boss movement as well as how you're maneuvering during the boss battle.
I will see what I can do. probably after Gen Con. I will try to sit down with Steamforge and go through movement to make sure I have it down and do a small followup video for it. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Question about character activation: it says only at the very start of activating, players can choose the order of characters to activate. And from then on the activation goes clockwise around the table. I guess thats the... Con? I guess...compared to other DC where you can choose any order of characters to activate. Comes with the planning and strategy of defeating an enemy. Back to my question, so if we have to go clockwise, do players have to physically move around the table to activate a plan/strategy?
Okay so with this question I am not 100% sure what you are asking but I think you have the activation incorrect. I on page 19 second paragraph it states (During the very first character activation, the players can activate the character of their choice. From then on, the order in which characters activate goes clockwise around the table. This only happens once in the game after that the first activation token is used to show the next person to activate from encounter to encounter keeping the same order. let me know if this answers your question.
At 33:15 , what rule is being used that says the two models are the same distance from the hollow because they are on adjacent tiles? I can't find anything about this in the rule book and I was told I was adding to the game by stating "nearest" literally meant "nearest" when playing with a friend recently. He linked me your video and I'm fairly confused as to where this idea/rule comes from. Would appreciate it if someone could explain what I'm missing. I know some games do this because they're hex based or block based, but this game isn't and doesn't say anything about using that rule as far as I could see. Am I just overlooking something or...?
I am a little confused by your question, but I will try to explain what I think you might be asking and if not let me know and I will try to help explain it differently. So in the rulebook on page 24 half way down on the right side of the page under enemy movement under the Icon for the the hollow soldiers movement it states( the enemy moves the stated number of nodes which for the soldier is 1 closer to the nearest character which in the video both models are one node away from the hollow even thought the visual distance is different they are still 1 node away. with them being tied for nearest it would go to the one with the aggro and if neither had that than the one with the highest taunt level. hope this helps clear it up for you if not let me know and I will try to explain it differently. Thanks for watching and for the question. Going through the rulebook more Nearest is not truly defined so you could interpret it as either way, the reason I explained it the way I did in the video is because to the rules on nodes and how adjacency works. There are a number of holes within this book and even some of the designers can't agree on which is correct on some things so I would say don't stress on it to much just have fun with the game and make a house rule either way and stick with it;)
Learn to Play Games Thanks. My exact question is; how are 2 nodes the same distance from a starting node because they're adjacent when one is physically further away? I'm assuming this is a generic tabletop rule?
Manny Thomas This is because as far as the game is concerned nodes are the unit of measurement, and physical distance has no bearing. Its just game logic being different than IRL logic
i think what is confusing you is the distance itself? turn your board to look like a diamond shape, and see how the nodes are TRULY placed. It's a trick of the eye to "see" some nodes as further than what they truly are.
Yes, you would look at all your equipment and gather all the dice listed in the magic resist symbol and round them or you could also try a dodge roll, but remember it replaces your resist roll and is all or nothing. Hope this helps and thanks for watching.
So green arc= boss hit everyone who is in range, black arc = only player that has aggro or who is closest and not others who are still on range, red arc = boss dont attack there and player gets +1bd? If there is front green, right green, left black and behind red. There is players every direction. One in front with aggro token got hit same as one on right, but left and behind doesnt get hit by boss right? If player who is on ”normal arc” has aggro token then all 3 in front, left and right got hit? Hard to explain, hope you understand what im asking and understand my examples 😄 Edit: Just tell me how to ”use” normal arc correctly please. 🤔
I just played my first game, as 1 character. I actually used this as one of my shields with the piercing shield. I tanked so hard but still could attack. It was glorious!
On the Steamforge video part 1, one of the guys said you can equip 2 shields to increase your defense, but you cannot attack so it's doable, but not beneficial
Thanks for answering this one I don't get notifications on additional posts within a question so I don't always see others posting questions or helping me out with answers to questions;)
Thanks and could you clarify what you mean by what happens about the embers? Basically they are a countdown to the end of the game or the number of lives (so to speak) you have.
Thanks so much, to answer your question on page 13 home base " the soul cache usually starts with 0 soul tokens, but in a game with just one player, the soul cache starts with 16 soul tokens instead." hope this answers your question;)
I am going to be doing a separate video taking a closer look at how bosses work. I will be working with Steamforged games and one of the rules designers to help clarify some of this. To answer your question I am not a 100 percent sure and don't want to tell you the wrong thing, but will have the answers soon when I do that boss video which will be correct for the designers of the game as well. Thanks for watching and for the question.
good! Let's hope it doesn't take that much time for you to upload it. Also, another rule I want to be clarified is that what when for example, a boss moves 2 nodes towards a player that is one node away from it, the boss moves towards him and pushes the player. Does the boss pursue him to where he was pushed or just keeps moving forward? Thanks!
Thanks, I will do my best to cover the bosses as Accurate as possible. I would like to say that this will take some time though as I will need time to film this than pass it over the Steamforged to look over and to get feedback on than make any changes to it and finally complete the video. The original film took about 30 hours of work to make just so clarify what goes into these. On top of that I have a very busy schedule with all the kickstarter coverage and games I got at Gen-con as well to work on. I want this video to clarify peoples questions around boss interaction and movement so I want to make sure everything is correct. Thanks for the questions and comments and for watching.
sometimes, just have to do a judgement call, like in D&D, DM has to make fair and just judgement calls. If he is aiming for Agro characters or the one with most taunt, then have him face there, as no matter the distance, THAT is who is pissing it off.
And what if the attack card has a power of 5 and just black and red arcs (that means no green arks, which are the attack ones), how the hell does the attack happen then? Just like 46:40, I can't understand this at all!! How could it attack you if there were no green nodes??
sorry for the late response I forgot about the question until I was answering some of the other DS questions so if you are referring to the hyphen under the ax symbol in the top left hand side of the card that meet that that item is not a weapon and can't attack such as some shields, armour and a few other items. Let me know if this is what you are talking about and thanks for watching and for the question.
I think you misunderstand. While on the bonfire tile, you can spend 1 soul at the Fire Keeper to flip your luck token. This doesn't reset all of the encounters. Its also in the manual. Resting at the bonfire uses up a spark and resets everything, except chests.
Yep this one is challenging and the rule book can be hard to interpret. They also created two updated core games which more or less replaced this one. I did a play through video covering one of them a little while back.
The vanilla game is an unplayable mess, you need a ton of rules to turn it into an almost playable boardgame. At LEAST double the Souls (you can half the sparks if you want to increase the difficulty) and add additional souls for rooms with higher difficulty encounters, have a 4-5 card "shop" with 2 presorted sets of cards: one with the low level items up to the miniboss, and one you use after the miniboss (containing cards with 2 prerequisites above 20 or one above 30). You can restock the shop for one soul and sell 2 cards for 1 soul (or 1:1 for legendary boss items). Since all normal encounters usually only have ONE most effective strategy and the rest ist luck of the dice, we tracked the damage/stamina used for each player and just "skipped" rooms we allready cleared applying the stamina drain/damage of the previous run (unless you want to redo certain rooms again). With all those changes the game still needs at least 2 hours, but the grinding gets WAY more bearable leaving you more time with the most fun part boss fights.
@@LearntoPlayGames Well, I have about all of the expansions, but I have not had a chance to play them all. I do really like Darkroot... but Phantoms adds some very neat mechanics I also feel that Characters is a must to change things up a bit and give some more options.
that is funny I played it correctly but the way that I stated it did come off as if the knight was rolling good catch. Thanks for watching and pointing that out ;).
First off, thanks for the turtorial. Very well made.Second, this game is kind of intended for fans so "will it hold up" isn't necessarily a fair argument.Third, equip is present tense, not equip't. Equipped is past tense, not equip'ted. Had a friend that said it like this and I wanted to strangle him xD
You have some good points and I would agree, my defense is that I have seen far better games than this fade away and just like so many companies Steam Forge is working on other games and still focused on their big game Guild Ball. I am interested in seeing what happens with this. Also thanks for the corrections and sorry if it was hard to hear I will try to keep that in mind when making my videos. Thanks for the feedback and for watching
That's a BS excuse for bad game design decisions. Dark Souls isn't about THE Grind its about learning from mistakes and getting better. Here there's no getting better because at the end of the day you only prevent damage by the roll of the die, a horrible mechanic to copy a purely skill based video game.
I had a couple of issues with it yes and when you have so many games coming out each year you do need to make a solid game. I am not saying that it does not fit with the theme as Dark Souls the video game is very challenging but grinding on a video game is totally different than in a board game. I think my biggest issue is you can play for 4 to 6 hours and end up getting treasure cards you can't use and lose because you had bad draws from the treasure deck with no way to mitigate that and the lack of terrain playing any part in the game as in the video game that was a huge feature that must be used to win. That is just my opinion though and if you enjoyed the game that is great not every game fits with every person that plays it and that is why I make teaching videos instead of reviews I want people to play the game and decide for themselves if they like it or not. I hope you don't feel this is an attack I love talking board games and love hearing from different people no matter if they agree with me or have a different opinions. What are your thoughts on the game both good and bad? Thanks for posting and watching;)
Over 2 years later, but me and the boys just bought the game, knowing nothing at all about it, so we spent a good couple hours trying to figure stuff out but ended up being too much to read in the manual, lol. This video taught me everything I needed to know, in a well and simple manner. Thank you so much, my man. Can't wait to play
Thanks, hope you guys enjoy the game!
I appreciate this videos existence. I just picked up the game today and was having a heck of a time trying to understand all the mechanics to this game. Thank you.
Your welcome, there are a couple of mechanics that are very challenging to figure out. I am glad the video was able to help.
The rule book is an unsorted mess...
This is probably on of the better (if not the best) rules explanation videos I've seen. But (and i could be wrong) when dodging, even if you fail, you can still move that one space; on a fail you just take all the damage.
Thanks for posting and for the feedback. I will double check the rules and post an update in the description if you are correct. Thanks for watching ;)
Hey we just finished playing through to Miniboss and watching your tutorial you reference the Resistance section: In this, the black resistance should be for physical dmg resistance and blue for magical dmg. However, at 33:00 you roll dice for the silver knight and roll 2 defense, but have 1 phys res on your armor. The knight does 5 damage, but you still put that you took 3 damage without -1 for phys resistance.
I love how the health and stamina work both ends against the middle. I also enjoy how the encounters are built. But Dark Souls exposes a simple truth of game design: Grinding is fine in video games, but it's just not fun on a table--especially without the benefit of a story.
Here are some ways that I've found to pare down the playtime to something close to reasonable and get the grind under control: 1: The game starts with four souls per hero to level and equip for a mini-boss. Double to 8 for for a boss. 2: Cheapen leveling cost to 1+2+3 cost progression. 3: Have an option to feed 2 souls to the bonfire counter to raise the attempt counter by 1. 4: Have five treasure cards face up for the players to choose equipment from. As they buy things, flip a new card over so five options are available for purchase. 5: The luck token resets for free at the end of each encounter.
These house rules get my runs to the mini-boss down to about 3 hours and reduce everyone's dependence on chance.
I defiantly agree with you in video games it is fine and even sometimes fun if done right, but with board games it just doesn't work . Thanks for posting your house rules as well it is interesting to see how gamers change the rules to help correct some of these problems. Thanks for watching and commenting.
I agree on the grinding point. I think it comes down to the mindlessness of video games where one can grind without giving the game your full attention. Board games cannot do that unless someone is literally playing the game for you, no matter how menial the task. As such it is never a good idea to implement.
My question to the developers of this one is not just why they thought making an 8 hour play time grind/luck fest was a good idea for a board game, but why they thought grinding was a key part of dark souls in the first place. I have over 1000 hours logged in Dark Souls I, II, III and I have grinded maybe a half-a-dozen times at most? The loop of dark souls is almost never a grind. It is a series of predictable, escalating challenges which you have to pass in their entirety in order to advance. Gloomhaven or Ghost Stories are better implements of this design philosophy.
Sorry for the negativity, I just was very disappointed in this game. Thanks for listing your house rules. I'm definitely going to try some of those out to see if it gets gud/better!
@@MoriMemento117 Confession: I've never played so much as a minute of any of the video games. I don't actually play the board game all that much, but I use its components in almost every D&D session I DM for. The $200-odd bucks I tossed to the Kickstarter were worth it to have all those big scary monsters, props, and boards ready to go.
@@TooLateForIeago That's pretty clever! I will admit, the models for dark souls the board game were/are very well done!
@@MoriMemento117 1000 hours and barely any grind? Lmao. You must have never made a 120lvl PvP character or farmed for the covenant items. Maybe you dont want to admit that farming is basically grinding.
Hey. Thanks for this video. One note, I believe you made a mistake when teaching about dodging at 29:05. You didn't move your character a node because you failed your roll but I believe it still moves a node, and you still take damage. On page 25 is says 1.determine difficulty of dodge 2. spend 1 stamina, move on node 3. gather # of dice determined by equipment 4. Roll them 5. determine if your dodge was successful. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want to make sure I understand the rules. Thanks for the great video.
Thanks for watching and for the question, sorry about the late response I have been crazy busy and wanted to make sure I got the correct answer for you. So I went back and watched the clip than checked my rule book and the one posted on the site just to make sure nothing had changed and in that sequence number 2 states the character must spend 1 stamina and can move 1 node. So you have the choice to move or not you are not required to. I should have mentioned it though so great catch there.
I'm a DS series fan, and one thing that I learn in blood was not fight just to win, but to resist...and the fun you can get in the process, I really like this board game and your explanation is TOPs,...by the way, a very useful concept in both versions of this game is the farming as we all soul fighters know, cause is the best way to upgrade and use the available treasures....is worthy to keep in mind.
Thanks for the feedback and posting a comment. I would agree taking your time and farming are critical to getting through this game and having a shot at defeating the end boss.
Thank you !
Despite the new core sets, we caught an example of the original core set, and this hour has been rewarding along shuffling through the rulebook 100 times 😂🎉
Thanks for the detailed and well shot video.
I just found a used copy of Dark Souls at my local shop and struggled to figure out how boss battles worked by reading the manual.
Your video gave great examples of how boss arcs work and explained the colored boss attack arc icons too.
My wife and I are now starting to really enjoy this game thanks to your explanations.
Keep up the great work :)
Thanks so much, love hearing my videos are helping;)
Amazing. One of the most helpful videos that acutally helped me to understand how to play the game to the smallest details. Thank you!
You are very welcome, Thanks for watching and posting.
There is a lot to learn but your video was a fantastic help, I very much enjoyed it. Well done!!!!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching and posting;)
A very well made tutorial. I have had this game since it came out and have wanted to give it a go but have been pre occupied with 40k. Thanks to you I now have the confidence to get this out and start a solo run - it looks quite straight forward once you get used to the enemy behaviour cards - I wouldn’t mind grinding a few encounters to level up before taking a mini boss on - I guess at the least it would give you practice with the mechanics of the game. Looking forward to painting those minis as well 😁👍🏻🎲
Thanks for the feedback and for commenting. 40k has a way of doing that and yes once you get the enemy behavior cards figured out the game goes smoothly. Have fun playing and painting the game and if you would like please share some pics with me on Facebook or twitter.
This was incredibly helpful. Thank you so much.
hey man thanks for this video! was 100% helpful, especially when our game came with a misprinted rules book. 1000% recommend this video to anyone who need to learn!
Thanks so much, its great to hear it was helpful.
You have and the rulebook combined.just taught me dark souls thank you I love this game.
Sweet, Happy to help. Thanks for watching and posting hope you have fun with the game;)
Such a great tutorial! Really impressed and help out alot.
Thanks for watching and for the positive feedback;)
An excellent instructional video as usual. It is way easier now to go through the rulebook.
Thanks so much for your support and for continuing to post your thoughts on my videos.
Wow the best turtorial for this game!
23:35 "It will push all of them out" - To where I wonder? Is it optional to choose the node to be pushed to by the player?
Yes, you can choose an adjacent node.
Years later, I finally found this game lol I'm pumped. Your video helped out a ton! My question is the "wound tokens" I have no idea what those do. I may have missed it in your video? Also, when your at the bonfire, you can spend 1 soul to draw a card from the treasure right??
I believe wound token are to track damage on non boss enemies
My brain hurts every time I'm done playing my rounds for the day lol. I know it's not that complicated like my brain wants to believe and thanks for making this video and making it easier :) I almost completely get it now
Your welcome, and I totally understand I have had a number of games do that to me.
I have never played the game and found this was a very helpful video-thank you!! 😊
Thank you for your positive feedback, It really helps keep me motivated hearing all these wonder comments:)
100% agree this is a board game for souls fans first. That said, it seems like a great way to share your love for Souls with others in a fun social environment. If you aren't familiar or flat out don't care for Souls, I can see this NOT being fun for long.
Yep, I do think that they have an opportunity to fix some of that with a good expansion. This can be a good game even for not Dark Souls fans if some things are fixed. We will see what happens though especially with their next project hitting Kickstarter in a couple of weeks.
Omf thank you for this tutorial. I watched others and it was painfull to watch. This is an amazing video. Thank you now I can learn to play.
Thanks so much for the wonderful feedback, I am so happy my video was able to help you learn to play it.
Excellent explanation! Died at mini boss though
Thanks for the feedback one thing I am confused on did you die at the mini boss or my explanation of boss combat died?
I like the lore in dark souls. It is a unique game compared to others.
How do you make the boss life roulette work? I only have the symbol circle and the life circle but nothing to put them toghether
thanks @Learn to Play Games , a very comprensive guide
thanks for the feedback and for watching ;)
As the most difficult aspect of the game is the boss movement one suggestion is to make a dedicate video explaining movement etc.
thanks for the suggestion, I have thought about it and I agree boss movement is a pain to understand and would make a good video by its self.
I would love this. Just bought the game and I'm really having difficulty understanding the boss movement as well as how you're maneuvering during the boss battle.
I will see what I can do. probably after Gen Con. I will try to sit down with Steamforge and go through movement to make sure I have it down and do a small followup video for it. Thanks for watching and commenting.
dark souls of board games
Ooze lol
Question about character activation: it says only at the very start of activating, players can choose the order of characters to activate. And from then on the activation goes clockwise around the table. I guess thats the... Con? I guess...compared to other DC where you can choose any order of characters to activate. Comes with the planning and strategy of defeating an enemy.
Back to my question, so if we have to go clockwise, do players have to physically move around the table to activate a plan/strategy?
Okay so with this question I am not 100% sure what you are asking but I think you have the activation incorrect. I on page 19 second paragraph it states (During the very first character activation, the players can activate the character of their choice. From then on, the order in which characters activate goes clockwise around the table. This only happens once in the game after that the first activation token is used to show the next person to activate from encounter to encounter keeping the same order. let me know if this answers your question.
At 33:15 , what rule is being used that says the two models are the same distance from the hollow because they are on adjacent tiles? I can't find anything about this in the rule book and I was told I was adding to the game by stating "nearest" literally meant "nearest" when playing with a friend recently. He linked me your video and I'm fairly confused as to where this idea/rule comes from. Would appreciate it if someone could explain what I'm missing. I know some games do this because they're hex based or block based, but this game isn't and doesn't say anything about using that rule as far as I could see. Am I just overlooking something or...?
I am a little confused by your question, but I will try to explain what I think you might be asking and if not let me know and I will try to help explain it differently. So in the rulebook on page 24 half way down on the right side of the page under enemy movement under the Icon for the the hollow soldiers movement it states( the enemy moves the stated number of nodes which for the soldier is 1 closer to the nearest character which in the video both models are one node away from the hollow even thought the visual distance is different they are still 1 node away. with them being tied for nearest it would go to the one with the aggro and if neither had that than the one with the highest taunt level. hope this helps clear it up for you if not let me know and I will try to explain it differently. Thanks for watching and for the question. Going through the rulebook more Nearest is not truly defined so you could interpret it as either way, the reason I explained it the way I did in the video is because to the rules on nodes and how adjacency works. There are a number of holes within this book and even some of the designers can't agree on which is correct on some things so I would say don't stress on it to much just have fun with the game and make a house rule either way and stick with it;)
Learn to Play Games Thanks. My exact question is; how are 2 nodes the same distance from a starting node because they're adjacent when one is physically further away? I'm assuming this is a generic tabletop rule?
Manny Thomas This is because as far as the game is concerned nodes are the unit of measurement, and physical distance has no bearing. Its just game logic being different than IRL logic
i think what is confusing you is the distance itself? turn your board to look like a diamond shape, and see how the nodes are TRULY placed. It's a trick of the eye to "see" some nodes as further than what they truly are.
Question:
When blocking a magic projectile like the Archers, do I only roll the resistance dice or...?
Yes, you would look at all your equipment and gather all the dice listed in the magic resist symbol and round them or you could also try a dodge roll, but remember it replaces your resist roll and is all or nothing. Hope this helps and thanks for watching.
Is the top of the boss arc on the behavior card directly in front of the boss?
So green arc= boss hit everyone who is in range, black arc = only player that has aggro or who is closest and not others who are still on range, red arc = boss dont attack there and player gets +1bd?
If there is front green, right green, left black and behind red. There is players every direction. One in front with aggro token got hit same as one on right, but left and behind doesnt get hit by boss right?
If player who is on ”normal arc” has aggro token then all 3 in front, left and right got hit?
Hard to explain, hope you understand what im asking and understand my examples 😄
Edit: Just tell me how to ”use” normal arc correctly please. 🤔
While it might make not much sense, could you dual wield shields, and have no attack? I didn't see anything in the rules regarding it XD
That is a very good question, I am not sure on the answer to that, but I know one of the designers and will see if I can get an answer for you.
thanks I appreciate it :)
I just played my first game, as 1 character. I actually used this as one of my shields with the piercing shield. I tanked so hard but still could attack. It was glorious!
On the Steamforge video part 1, one of the guys said you can equip 2 shields to increase your defense, but you cannot attack so it's doable, but not beneficial
Thanks for answering this one I don't get notifications on additional posts within a question so I don't always see others posting questions or helping me out with answers to questions;)
This was very helpful thank you!
thanks:)
Loved the video! But what happens about the embers?
Thanks and could you clarify what you mean by what happens about the embers? Basically they are a countdown to the end of the game or the number of lives (so to speak) you have.
I think you keep your ember token until you die. Then it´s gone (if this was your question)
Can you use the bonfire room as a pass through room to other rooms without resting?
Yes you can.
Great video! Thanks
Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching and posting;)
This video was sooooo helpfull but I still don't know with how many souls you start
Thanks so much, to answer your question on page 13 home base " the soul cache usually starts with 0 soul tokens, but in a game with just one player, the soul cache starts with 16 soul tokens instead." hope this answers your question;)
Question: if you die in an encounter, but you have past other encounters, do you reset the all past encounters?
Yes. This is covered on page 15 top right paragraph.
46:10 where would the boss face if he had to face the character on the farthest node?
I am going to be doing a separate video taking a closer look at how bosses work. I will be working with Steamforged games and one of the rules designers to help clarify some of this. To answer your question I am not a 100 percent sure and don't want to tell you the wrong thing, but will have the answers soon when I do that boss video which will be correct for the designers of the game as well. Thanks for watching and for the question.
good! Let's hope it doesn't take that much time for you to upload it. Also, another rule I want to be clarified is that what when for example, a boss moves 2 nodes towards a player that is one node away from it, the boss moves towards him and pushes the player. Does the boss pursue him to where he was pushed or just keeps moving forward? Thanks!
Thanks, I will do my best to cover the bosses as Accurate as possible. I would like to say that this will take some time though as I will need time to film this than pass it over the Steamforged to look over and to get feedback on than make any changes to it and finally complete the video. The original film took about 30 hours of work to make just so clarify what goes into these. On top of that I have a very busy schedule with all the kickstarter coverage and games I got at Gen-con as well to work on. I want this video to clarify peoples questions around boss interaction and movement so I want to make sure everything is correct. Thanks for the questions and comments and for watching.
sometimes, just have to do a judgement call, like in D&D, DM has to make fair and just judgement calls. If he is aiming for Agro characters or the one with most taunt, then have him face there, as no matter the distance, THAT is who is pissing it off.
Question: what is the advantage for the boss to have a character in his black or green arc?
No advantage for black arcs, but green is the bosses attack arcs and when the boss attacks it will target each green arc.
And what if the attack card has a power of 5 and just black and red arcs (that means no green arks, which are the attack ones), how the hell does the attack happen then? Just like 46:40, I can't understand this at all!! How could it attack you if there were no green nodes??
Geralt of Rivia it attacks the character with the aggro token, it says it in the card, at distance within 1 node
Amazing Video. Thank you
Thanks
What does the range with the hyphen on it mean?
What cards are you finding that on?
Learn to Play Games the shield and a few other items.
sorry for the late response I forgot about the question until I was answering some of the other DS questions so if you are referring to the hyphen under the ax symbol in the top left hand side of the card that meet that that item is not a weapon and can't attack such as some shields, armour and a few other items. Let me know if this is what you are talking about and thanks for watching and for the question.
According to the rule book when resting at the bonfire you do not need to spend a soul to flip your luck token back over. Just an amendment
I think you misunderstand. While on the bonfire tile, you can spend 1 soul at the Fire Keeper to flip your luck token. This doesn't reset all of the encounters. Its also in the manual. Resting at the bonfire uses up a spark and resets everything, except chests.
Very nice tutorial
Thanks;)
What stuff could yu put in backup slot?
Did I talk about this in the video? been a while sense I have played I don't remember there being a backup slot.
@@LearntoPlayGames never mind , but thanks
Very informative! Underappreciated game though, imo.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Watched the video thinking of giving this a go on tabletop simulator.... my brain is bleeding...
Yep this one is challenging and the rule book can be hard to interpret. They also created two updated core games which more or less replaced this one. I did a play through video covering one of them a little while back.
The vanilla game is an unplayable mess, you need a ton of rules to turn it into an almost playable boardgame. At LEAST double the Souls (you can half the sparks if you want to increase the difficulty) and add additional souls for rooms with higher difficulty encounters, have a 4-5 card "shop" with 2 presorted sets of cards: one with the low level items up to the miniboss, and one you use after the miniboss (containing cards with 2 prerequisites above 20 or one above 30). You can restock the shop for one soul and sell 2 cards for 1 soul (or 1:1 for legendary boss items). Since all normal encounters usually only have ONE most effective strategy and the rest ist luck of the dice, we tracked the damage/stamina used for each player and just "skipped" rooms we allready cleared applying the stamina drain/damage of the previous run (unless you want to redo certain rooms again). With all those changes the game still needs at least 2 hours, but the grinding gets WAY more bearable leaving you more time with the most fun part boss fights.
Thanks for posting, It is great seeing how different groups house rules this game to handle some of its issues.
I like this game quite a bit. It takes some real nerdery to win. That is what "makes it" for me.
Have you had a chance to use any of the expansions with it and if so what are your favorites?
@@LearntoPlayGames Well, I have about all of the expansions, but I have not had a chance to play them all. I do really like Darkroot... but Phantoms adds some very neat mechanics I also feel that Characters is a must to change things up a bit and give some more options.
This game left me with a mental trauma
Yep, it is a nasty one;)
at 33 minutes or something like that, you made the silver knight roll the attack dice hahaa :') Anyway thx for the help
that is funny I played it correctly but the way that I stated it did come off as if the knight was rolling good catch. Thanks for watching and pointing that out ;).
It says the knight moves 2 but you moved him 1. So that's to be interpreted as "move up to 2 until he hits the nearest target?"
First off, thanks for the turtorial. Very well made.Second, this game is kind of intended for fans so "will it hold up" isn't necessarily a fair argument.Third, equip is present tense, not equip't. Equipped is past tense, not equip'ted. Had a friend that said it like this and I wanted to strangle him xD
You have some good points and I would agree, my defense is that I have seen far better games than this fade away and just like so many companies Steam Forge is working on other games and still focused on their big game Guild Ball. I am interested in seeing what happens with this. Also thanks for the corrections and sorry if it was hard to hear I will try to keep that in mind when making my videos. Thanks for the feedback and for watching
That's a BS excuse for bad game design decisions. Dark Souls isn't about THE Grind its about learning from mistakes and getting better. Here there's no getting better because at the end of the day you only prevent damage by the roll of the die, a horrible mechanic to copy a purely skill based video game.
Found the game too hard did you? You're on a right debbie downer.
I had a couple of issues with it yes and when you have so many games coming out each year you do need to make a solid game. I am not saying that it does not fit with the theme as Dark Souls the video game is very challenging but grinding on a video game is totally different than in a board game. I think my biggest issue is you can play for 4 to 6 hours and end up getting treasure cards you can't use and lose because you had bad draws from the treasure deck with no way to mitigate that and the lack of terrain playing any part in the game as in the video game that was a huge feature that must be used to win.
That is just my opinion though and if you enjoyed the game that is great not every game fits with every person that plays it and that is why I make teaching videos instead of reviews I want people to play the game and decide for themselves if they like it or not.
I hope you don't feel this is an attack I love talking board games and love hearing from different people no matter if they agree with me or have a different opinions. What are your thoughts on the game both good and bad?
Thanks for posting and watching;)