The Isle of Dr. Necreaux F.A.Q.

all Q&A taken from BGG, all answers provided by the games designer Jonathan Leistiko
Errata. The way combat should work is if you retreat from a Monster, you end your turn. If you defeat a Monster, you keep moving. The incorrect rule is: Quote: If the Monster suffers damage equal to or greater than the number of players on your team, the Monster is defeated. Discard it and end the Turn. Otherwise, combat continues (unless the team retreats). It should read: Quote: If the Monster suffers damage equal to or greater than the number of players on your team, the Monster is defeated. Discard it and CONTINUE the Turn. Otherwise, combat continues (unless the team retreats)."

Rest Actions Q: For things like Resourceful, Precise, and Rapid Healer, do these free rest actions also give you (1) the ability to look at the top card and move to the bottom? and/or (2) the option to get a new face-down Character card when using the Dirty Dozen variant? (And a related question, do Event/Room cards that allow you a rest action also allow you to peek at the top card, and get new face-down Characters?) A: Let's start with a blanket statement. All Rest actions, regardless of when you take them or how you obtained them, allow the team to look at the top card of the Adventure deck and replace or buy it, and allow each team member to flip a card and charge a card. I hadn't thought about that Dirty Half-Dozen situation. Gimme a second to read the rules for that... (*reads the rules*) Wow. Rapid Healer would dominate that game. I'm strongly disinclined to make a special rule for a variant, just to keep a few Character cards under control. That said, anything that lets you take a Rest action during The Dirty Half-Dozen also lets each player draw and keep a face-down Character card.

Free Rest Action Q: Cards that can reward you with a bonus rest action - what is the timing of the rest action? Do you take it immediately and treat it as part of the same turn it was rewarded (so you take the rest action and then tick the clock down for the end of your regular turn), or do you end the regular turn first (ticking the clock down first) and then take the bonus rest turn? A: A "free" rest action occurs immediately (unless the card tells you otherwise). It occurs as part of the turn (and may occur in the middle of adventuring, which can be darn useful sometimes). Rest actions that occur, "at the end of a turn," also occur before the timer ticks down. Q: This is important because I want to know if the bonus rest action/turn is considered a turn or not for other cards which have gametext that says "At the start of the turn..." Does the bonus rest action allow those cards to activate? A: Free rest actions are not turns. If they were, you'd have to lose a countdown token for them and they'd stop being free. Face Down Cards

Q: I'm pretty sure you can't, but asking just to be sure - can you add a charge to a face-down card? A: Only if the card can take charges and it says that it works even if it is face down or otherwise neutralized. I just checked. There are not any cards like that. Yet. Q: In line with the previous, do face-down cards count as "tech", "heroic", etc. or do they only count while face-up? A: Only while face-up. Page 7 of the rules says, "Treat face-down Character and Item cards as blank they no longer count as their type (Heroic, Tech, and so on) and provide no game benefit unless otherwise stated." Note: My design intent was that cards that say that they work when face-down or otherwise neutralized would still stop providing their traits (Heroic, Tech, etc.). However, I'm not sure what ruling seems clearer for how the card is worded. I'm open to suggestions. Traits Q: Cards that refer to a trait (ie. "tech") and rolling dice for the number of those traits in your group, I assume that each instance of the trait printed on all cards adds up to give you your total. For example, if the only tech card in my entire team is the Gadgeteer (which has the keyword "Tech" on it 3 times), I assume that when cards say to roll dice for every tech card in my team, I get 3 dice. A: You are absolutely correct. That's one of the special perks of being a Gadgeteer. Q: What about when a card says "For every psychic character on your team..."? Lets say we're playing a 2 player game and I have 2 psychic character cards, my teammate has none. How many psychic characters are on the team - 1 or 2? A: Very good question. Each player is playing one character. Each character is composed of three character cards. Most character cards have traits on them (like Psychic). Using your example, you have one psychic character on your team. Q: Precise Internal Clock A: It is hard to charge Precise Internal Clock, but not impossible. Things that can charge Precise Internal Clock are: * The Scientists * Armory * Cavernous Hive Mind Computer * Conjunctive Astral Harmonizer * Energy Transference Inducer * Obsidian Amulet (This one is really good) Q: Resourceful character - Is this ability counted as a Free rest action? It doesn't spcifically state it on the card, where as Rapid Healer does? A: The rest action is "free". It's also a weird exception, since you can interrupt a turn with it and it only benefits you, not the rest of the team. Q: Tactician - If this card has more than 1 charge on it. Can you discharge more than 1 counter at a time to add more than 1 to a combat die roll? i.e. 2 counter add 2 to the dieroll etc A: Yes! You can discharge 3 tokens to give yourself +2 and another player +1 for example. If you're the Psychic Blaster you can discharge two tokens to automatically get a seven in combat.

Savant Q: If you draw the Savant at the beginning of the game during Setup, what is the significance of placing them face down? Do you get to look at them? Since you have to pass two, can either or both be passed on? Do you get to know what they are before deciding? A: This is a fantastic question. It points out an important error in the wording of Savant. Savant says, "Discard this card when drawn. Draw two new Character cards from the Character Deck and place them face down." This is misleading. It should read something like: "Discard this card as soon as you claim it as a Character card. Draw two new Character cards from the Character Deck and place them face down. You may look at and heal these cards normally." Savant, like all other Character cards, should not take effect until you have selected it to be part of your character. Consequently, you should not actually draw the two Character cards as soon as you draw the card. Instead, you should replace Savant with two Character cards as soon as you claim Savant as your Character card. The intent of Savant was to give you two Character cards for the price of one, but those cards enter play "wounded". Once you heal them, you have a much better character than the other players (you have four Character cards, while they have three).

Q: When you draw the Savant card and use its ability. If the cards are allowed charges do they gain their full allowance of charges straight away when flipped over later in the game? A: Charges appear on pre-charged cards when they enter play. This is true whether the cards enter play face-up or face-down. Cards that enter play face-down come into play face-down with charges on them. For example, if you're a Savant and you get Robust and Precise Internal Clock, they each enter play face-down with two charges.

Charge/Discharge Q: I'm pretty sure you can't, but asking just to be sure - can you add a charge to a face-down card? A: Only if the card can take charges and it says that it works even if it is face down or otherwise neutralized.

Q: Discharge - For example 'Stone Cold Killer', Do you decide to Discharge 1 to gain +2 to your combat roll before or after rolling ? A: You pick after you roll. This is the "default" way to use charges. The only card I can think of that forces you to spend the charge before rolling is Psychic Blaster. Q: Are discharges one time only for that event? Example: PyroKineticist says: Discharge 1 to add 1 to any combat roll. So - I'm allowed to add +1 ONLY per combat roll (per discharged token)? Or can i discharge multiple tokens to get a bigger bonus on the one roll? A: As often as you can pay (unless the card says otherwise). So you can pay two charges to get a +2.

Diabolical Research Lab Q: Okay, here's another one where the card's wording seems to be overly advantageous to the players. The card allows you to take one item from the discard or pending items cards if you qualify. If, however, there are "no pending item cards, your team gains a free rest action." This is the situation we had. No cards in the pending items, but one item in the discard. Team had one tech so rolled one die. The die result was a 5, so the team took the item from the discard pile. However, since there were "no pending item cards", could the team also take a free rest action? It seems like that would be allowed based on the wording. Thoughts?

A: Quick Answer: Um... Oops? Long Answer: That's certainly a wording error. My intent was if you didn't get an item from the card, you got a free rest action. We overlooked completely qualifying the rest condition after a re-write that added the option to take a card from the discards. If you don't take the rest if you get an item, you're playing it as intended. If you play it as you described, you're playing it as written, and that's okay too.

Sliding Wall Q: Sliding Wall/Solitaire Play A: Sliding Wall is one of the nicest cards you can draw when you're playing solo. Why? Because it does nothing to you! When you're playing Doctor Necreaux, you have one character. What your character can do is described by three character cards. Those three character cards describe three things your character can do they can not split off and go do things on their own. You never have to have a "ghost player". If you want to play solo with two characters, that's certainly a valid way to play, but you can also play "pure solo".

Q: Sliding Wall/Team Death. Once Sliding Wall has come into play, if the "main" team (or the "lost" team, for that matter) all die on their turn, is the game over, or does it simply switch to the remaining team being the "main" team?... A: As I was preparing to answer your follow up, I thought about this for a moment. Consider this: Teams are separate. Main team declares a speed and dies before end of turn. *** Does the (deceased) main team advance the countdown clock at the end of the turn they died? The rules really don't address this issue at all. I'd like to say that it resolves as if the teams had reunited, but that's weird. Saying that death ends their turn and... Okay. I've got it. My first reply was wrong. The secret is in the rule for how to handle The Scientists if they're on one half of a split team that dies. The lost team actually stays "lost" until the teams reunite. Death ends the main team's turn. At the end of their turn, they advance the countdown timer. Play passes to the "lost" team. They take their turn, then play passes back to the (deceased) "main" team. They can't do anything, so they advance the timer and play passes back to the lost team, etc... If the Scientists were on the (deceased) main team, they can not explore or rest. They can only do those things if they have characters to protect them. Yeah, this functionally acts like the lost team being the main team. There is one game effect, though. All the next Sliding Wall trap does is reunite the lost team with the remains of the main team. There is no roll to see if it triggers and splits what remains of the team. Traps Q: When you roll for a trap, does a single specific team member roll for the trap, and only gets that team member? Or does the team make the single roll, and all relevant team abilities combine? (i.e., the Security Expert and Skilled are on two separate characters: does the "team" roll twice, keep the best, and add 1?) The rules aren't clear on "who" makes the die roll. A: Short answer: In your example, you can use Skilled or Security Expert, but not both. Long Answer: Skilled says, "You may gain +1 to any die roll you make." Security Expert says, "When rolling

for a Trap, roll two dice and keep one." It's a little vague, but the cards are implicitly talking to you, the cardholder. This means that the player with the Security Expert gets to roll two dice for traps and the player with Skilled gets +1 to all rolls, including trap rolls. If you're encountering a trap that requires just one die roll, you have to choose if the Skilled player or the Security Expert will roll and you'll get that player's Character card effect. If you're rolling for a trap where each player rolls, each player will roll and take the benefit of his or her respective Character card.

Q: If you fail the roll, can you retreat from the Cybershark trap? A: You betcha. The trap springs, becomes a Monster, and the normal rules for combat apply. Retreating is a pretty good idea, too.

Combat (also see Combat Example at the end of the FAQ) Q: What is your team size? Is it the number of players you started the game with or the number of players remaining alive? A: The number of living players is the correct answer. If a character dies during combat, the number of hits a Monster can take adjusts downward. If a Monster with two hits on it is fighting a team with three characters and one character dies, the Monster is immediately defeated (since it has two hits on it and is fighting a team with two characters). The Elixir does not reduce the Monster's hit points, since you're still a member of the team. Q: Is a retreat (hit) classed as normal combat damage in regards to such monsters as Shadow Servant? Good question! "Normal" combat damage occurs after a die roll. Retreat damage is simply damage dealt by the monster. This has interesting ramifications... * Xenomorph damage effect occur any time a xenomorph deals damage, including to retreating characters. Retreating from a xenomorph is a bad idea, but ma be essential. * Retreating from a Plasma Ghost will mess up your equipment. * Retreating from a Shadow servant deals just one damage to each retreating character. Q: during combat, say you have two players fighting a monster who has one damage marker already. One player hits and the other misses. The one hit is enough to kill the monster - do the players still suffer the results of the miss? A: The team suffers the results of the miss. Everything resolves simultaneously. The successful hit kills the Monster, and the failed (non-tied) miss deals one damage to the team. If the hit killed the Monster before the miss takes effect, then order becomes important and it's not simultaneous.

Parasites Q: Played last night with the ability that lets you discard a charge to cancel two wounds. We had one of those critters that attach to a card after it deals damage. Would preventing the wounds also prevent that effect?... A: This is a great question, and I'm really glad you asked it. The answer is hard to tease out from the cards or rules, and I haven't even really figured out the answer myself yet. Let's start with what the cards say: All parasites say, "After the (parasite) deals damage," bad stuff happens.

The Character card you're referring to is: Robust / Heroic / Charges (2): Discharge 1 to reduce damage you suffer by two. Let's look at some other Monsters with effects that trigger when they "deal damage". Consider the CellCloned Raptor: "The Cell-Cloned Raptor deals four additional points of damage when it deals damage." ...and the Xenomorph Queen: "The Xenomorph Queen deals two additional points of damage when it deals damage. Cards discarded (or flipped) by damage dealt by the Xenomorph Queen are randomly selected. (You pick who takes the damage.)" What this all comes down to is when "damage dealing" effects on Monsters trigger. Do they trigger when a player rolls less than a Monster's CV, or when a character actually takes damage? Well, if you look at Monsters like the Xenomorph Queen or (especially) the Raptor, it's clear that those effects don't trigger when the character takes damage. Those effects trigger when you're figuring out how much damage the team is about to take. Imagine if the Raptor dealt four extra damage for each point of damage it dealt. Two normal points of damage would turn into 10 points of damage. That'd be utterly outrageous and can't possibly be right. This means that if one or more team members' combat result is less than a Monster's CV, the Monster deals damage. In other words, if your team has pending damage from a Monster (before applying the effect of any Items or Character cards), that Monster has dealt damage. Therefore, if the team has pending damage from a parasite, that parasite is going to attach itself to someone on the team and end the combat, even if that damage is reduced or prevented. Note that if a team manages to reduce all damage to zero, the team does not suffer or take any damage. This is important because some items (like the Predictive Portable Tac-Comp or the Isometric Photon Pack) are discarded if you take damage. This means that (even though it seems like a contradiction) it's possible to have a Monster deal damage and for the team to not take any damage at the same time. Q: Brain Spiker A: This is a great question. It also points out just how harsh the parasites are. Getting hit by a parasite is no fun. Let's take a look at the exact text on the card: "After the Brain Spiker deals damage, place it under one of the damaged characters cards, end the combat, and discard any pending Item cards. The character with the Brain Spiker suffers one point of damage at the start of each Turn. When the Character card is discarded, so is the Brain Spiker. A player may forfeit the benefits of a Rest action to remove the Brain Spiker." Now we'll walk through it. "After the Brain Spiker deals damage, place it under one of the damaged characters cards" - I can totally see how this could be ambiguous. My intent was that if you're the one who takes the damage from the Brain Spiker, you have to attach it to one of your Character cards. The Brain Spiker does not have to go under the Character card that took the damage. "The character with the Brain Spiker suffers one point of damage at the start of each Turn." - Again, my intent was that you take a point of damage, but you can allocate this damage to a card other than the one that has the Brain Spiker in it. "When the Character card is discarded, so is the Brain Spiker." - Note that "Character" is capitalized in this sentence. It's referring to the Character card. Yeah, it's a subtle distinction (that you caught and pointed out in your original post) and I'm uncertain if we're consistent with that throughout the cards and rules.

So I understand your son's interpretation and how he reached it. Unfortunately, it's harsher than what I'd intended. Still, I'm really glad to hear another "family game" story! One more thought: In retrospect, I wish that I'd put the rules for parasites in the rule book and keyworded it on the cards. That would have helped clarify how the parasites work. Speed/Card Markers Q: when it says "mark your speed with the speed marker," where exactly do you mark that? A: I put the speed marker on the track where the number that matches my speed is. If my speed is 5, I put my speed marker at "00:05". Similarly, I put the card marker at the number that matches the number of the card I'm about to draw. It starts each turn at "00:00", and advances one step just before I draw a card. When it reaches the speed marker, I know I'm on my last card. I know that remembering how many cards you've drawn may seem like an easy thing to keep track of, but sometimes you get so caught up in resolving the most recent card that you can lose track. The card marker can actuall be rather helpful.

Definitions of Player, Character, Team and Team Member ======= Player: If you're playing The Isle of Doctor Necreaux, you're a player. Character: Typically, you start the game with three face-up character cards. These three character cards describe three aspects of the person you pretend to be during the game. This person is your character. For example, you could be a Lucky Stone Cold Killer with Deja Vu. Team: One or more characters who are exploring the island together. At the start of each turn, the characters' players decide - as a group - if they are resting or exploring. If exploring, they decide as a group what their speed is. Sliding Wall traps can split a team into two teams or reunite two split teams into one whole team again. Team Member: A character who belongs to a given team is a member of that team, or a team member. The number of team members determines how many hits it takes to defeat monsters the team encounters. When a team takes damage in combat, the team typically gets to choose who will take the damage.

Simple Combat Example: ====================== Alice, Bob, and Claire are playing. All of them have three face-up character cards. They've just drawn a Monster with a CV of 4. They decide to fight the Monster instead of retreating. All three players roll one die and compare their result to the Monster's CV. Alice rolls a 6. 6 is greater than the Monster's CV, so the Monster takes one hit. Bob rolls a 2. 2 is less than the Monster's CV, so the team (not necessarily Bob) is going to have to take a hit. Claire rolls a 4. 4 is neither greater nor lesser than the Monster's CV, so nothing happens. The team has to assign one point of damage to itself. Alice has a card that works even when it is face-down, so she chooses to take the point of damage and flips that card face-down. The Monster has one hit on it. The team needs to deal at least two more hits to the Monster before it is defeated (because there are three players on the team, and Monsters have hits equal to the number of players on the team they're fighting). At the end of round one, Alice has three character cards (one face-down), Bob has three character cards, and Claire has three character cards. The Monster has one hit on it and can take two more.

Since the Monster is not defeated, a new round of combat starts. The team has to decide if they will retreat or keep fighting. They decide to continue the combat. All three players roll one die and compare their result to the Monster's CV. Alice rolls a 1. 1 is less than the Monster's CV, so the team is going to have to take a hit. Bob rolls a 2 (again!). 2 is less than the Monster's CV, so the team is going to have to take another hit. Claire also rolls a 2, resulting in a third hit for the team this round. This is not good for the team. The team has to assign three points of damage to itself. Bob has a card that isn't needed for combat and is hard to charge, so he takes a point of damage and flips that card face-down, then takes another point of damage and discards that face-down character card. Claire volunteers to take the third point of damage and flips a character card face-down. At the end of round two, Alice has three character cards (one face-down), Bob has two face-up character cards, and Claire has three character cards (one face-down). The Monster has one hit on it and can take two more. Since the Monster is not defeated, a new round of combat starts. The team has to decide if they will retreat or keep fighting. They decide to retreat. Because they're retreating, each team member takes one point of damage. Alice flips another character card face-down. Bob flips a character card face-down, and Claire discards her face-down character card. The team discards the Monster and their turn ends, even though they were only on their third card out of seven (their speed was seven). At the end of the turn, Alice has three character cards (two face-down), Bob has two character cards (one face-down), and Claire has two face-up character cards.

Simple Example, Alternate Ending: ================================= Now, through the magic of ExampleTron (TM) Technology, we'll rewind time to the start of their second round of combat. This time the team rolls a 3, 5, and 6. The team has one point of damage coming in and deals two more points of damage to the Monster. Bob chooses to take the damage and flips a character card face-down. The Monster has three hits on it which is just enough to defeat it. The team discards the Monster and the combat ends, but the turn continues. (Note: This contradicts the rules. The rules have a typo here.) At the end of the combat, Alice has three character cards (one face-down), Bob has three character cards (one face-down), and Claire has three face-up character cards.

Two Other Things of Note: ======================== 1) If a player leaves (or joins) a team during combat, the number of hits the Monster can take immediately adjusts. If a team with three players is fighting a Monster that has taken two hits and one of the players dies, the Monster can take one fewer hit and is immediately defeated. 2) Every member of the team that's encountering the Monster must roll in each round of combat, whether you want them to or not. You can't send your combat experts into combat and leave your trap-scouts and precognitives behind. Etc.. I won a game fairly easily as I got the room that doubles as the escape shuttle pretty early on. Y'know... I've been thinking that that card may be too powerful. I know that access to it depends strongly on traits (Heroic), so it's limited, but getting it early radically short-cuts the challenge of the game. I think it'd play better if it let you look at the bottom 10 cards of the deck and rearrange them. That way, if the Escape Shuttle was way at the bottom, you'd be able to put it a bit closer to the top. Wow. I wish I'd thought of that about 9 months ago.