Game Tips for Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game

2

Jan 3rd, 2012| Tip

26 of 27 gamers found this helpful

“Monster Movement ”

Make sure you put the monster in the best place possible for the players. There was a little confusion on this when my group first played. The game is brutal enough as is.

7

Dolus {Avid Gamer}

Aug 16th, 2011| Strategy

33 of 35 gamers found this helpful

“Try to end movement at the edge of the tile”

Since you will draw an encounter card any time you fail to explore, try to end your movement at the edge of a tile so that you can explore and avoid the encounter card. Towards the end of a scenario, it’ll typically be better to not explore and instead to draw encounter cards so that you’ll keep the monster count low, and you’ll have enough experience to remove the bad encounter cards.

Since every tile brings with it a monster, try to also position monsters or use movement/range attacks such that you can attack the monster while you’re on a board’s edge.

5

S.C. Barber {Avid Gamer}

Aug 18th, 2011| Tip

25 of 27 gamers found this helpful

“Spend XP late in the game”

There are plenty of times an encounter card will spell near-certain doom, especially near the end of the game. Early on take the damage, but as the healing surges get spent having a pool of XP around to cancel encounters could mean the difference between winning an losing.

10

Andy {Avid Gamer}

Aug 15th, 2011| Rule

30 of 33 gamers found this helpful

“Drawing treasure at beginning of the game variants”

There was confusion for many groups concerning the rule about drawing a treasure at the beginning of the game. It appears the intent was to have each player draw one treasure card, and discard it if it is not an item.

Many groups play that you draw until you get an item (everyone gets to start the game with an item). This “feels” more right to people, since you are an adventurer and you want to have magical items.

Our group has also played where (for the beginning of the game draw only) a “discard immediately” item becomes a one-time use potion. You keep it, and choose when to play it. This likely makes the initial treasure draw a little too powerful, but it gives adventurers another layer to keep in mind, and can add to the theme of the story.

Wrath of Ashardalon, the second game in the series, took away the confusion surrounding starting treasure by eliminating the draw, which is another option for Ravenloft adventurers.

7

Taylor {Avid Gamer}

Oct 15th, 2015| Rule

7 of 7 gamers found this helpful

“Initiative House Rule”

PROBLEM:
The enemies always get the first hit on the heroes.

RULE:
1. If at the start of your turn, or during your first action, you end up on a tile’s edge, you can declare you are attempting initiative.
2. Initiative Attempt:
a. Draw and place a new dungeon tile and monster on that tile.
b. Roll the dice and add any remaining movement you had on your first action to the dice roll.
c. If your total is equal or greater than the monster’s AC then you may continue your hero phase. Continue any movement you had left from your first action and then complete your second action.
d. If your total is lower than the monster’s AC then end your hero phase and go directly to the Villain phase.

7

Taylor {Avid Gamer}

Oct 30th, 2015| Strategy

6 of 6 gamers found this helpful

“Fighting the Wraith”

When the Wraith moves and attacks, keep the wraith on a different tile than the tile your hero is on. This will eliminate getting damaged when you destroy the wraith.

7

Taylor {Avid Gamer}

Nov 2nd, 2015| Rule

6 of 6 gamers found this helpful

“Monster Tile Variant”

I use the monster tiles in every adventure. Instead of drawing a monster card on the explore phase, draw a monster tile. The monster tiles can have anywhere from 0-3 monsters. I wanted to add an element of surprise when exploring and wanted to eliminate uniform monster distribution. I don’t like the perfect distribution of 1 monster per tile.

When drawing a monster tile, you could confront 0, 1, 2 or 3 monsters on a newly explored tile. Adjust the distribution of the monster tiles based on your level of difficulty.

Here is the distribution I use:

Level 1 characters:
0 Monsters (x7)
1 Monster (x5)
2 Monsters (x5)
3 Monsters (x1)

Level 2 characters:
0 Monsters (x6)
1 Monster (x5)
2 Monsters (x5)
3 Monsters (x2)

NOTE: If you play where your characters can continue to increase levels, you can continue to adjust the monster tile distribution.

4

Piggy {Avid Gamer}

Oct 22nd, 2012| Rule

25 of 28 gamers found this helpful

“Optional Treasure variant”

At the start of the game seperate the “item” treasures from the ” play immediately” treasure. Use a spare dice, I prefer 10 sided, rolled and place the result on top of the “non item” deck. Players then have the option to purchase the top card of the deck for the die result×100 gp. Lets players use gold inn the game and adds chance, that card may or may not help when purchased.

7

Shamus {Avid Gamer}

Oct 18th, 2012| Rule

20 of 23 gamers found this helpful

“Optional Level Up rule”

So you have the experience to level up, but you just can’t get that die to roll a natural 20. How frustrating is that? So close to level you can taste it, but you have to keep going with your level 1 character.

Well, I say, nuts to that. Hence the optional rule: A player can spend a turn doing nothing; no moves, no attacks. If they do so, and they have the experience at the start of their next turn, they can level up their character as if they had rolled a natural 20. Of course, by doing so, they are subject to the encounter card deck for that turn, but that’s the tradeoff.

3

Matt {Social Gamer}

Aug 24th, 2011| Tip

25 of 30 gamers found this helpful

“Healing and experience.”

We rarely play the game without some kind of healer (every time we have gone without a healer, we’ve lost).

The other part is to not worry about turning in experience to skip encounters. The encounters can ruin so much more than leveling can help.

3

Thor {Avid Gamer}

Aug 23rd, 2011| Rule

17 of 26 gamers found this helpful

“ Encounter cards”

We have a house rule about the encounter cards.
When a hero does not move we don’t draw an encounter card this is for my opinion ok because when you don’t move you are not effect the environment.

3

Xoxua {Avid Gamer}

Aug 18th, 2011| Rule

7 of 19 gamers found this helpful

“Rolagem para ataques em área”

No jogo existe diversos momentos que acontecem ataques em área, seja num encounter, num monster, ou até mesmo na habilidade especial do dragon born.

A nossa house rule consiste em fazer apenas uma rolagem em situações como essa. Se acertar, pega todo mundo, se errar, erra todo mundo. Pode até parecer bobeira, mas agiliza muito a partida.

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game - Tips & Strategies

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