Hard Mode House Rules

It has probably not gone without notice, but Maladum is BIG!

With a branching campaign story, loot bag draws, random searchable item contents and 15 characters with 20 classes (that’s 300! different combinations) there’s a lot going on before you even start rolling dice.

While this kind of depth adds richness to the narrative each player experiences, it occasionally leads to game imbalance later in the campaign. Some parties get lucky right out of the gate and find great items, have some lucky rolls and start gaining experience to quickly level up the best skills. Others might not be so fortunate, struggling to find upgraded gear, having a bad run of dice rolls that start killing the party and they need to sell everything they find just to keep adventuring.

Maladum was balanced so that even the unluckiest group can still enjoy the game no matter how hard it gets. This was done as we believe that the ongoing narrative of your party should be the focus rather than the tactical challenge and we did not want players to feel like they were unable to continue their adventure.

However, with so many moving parts, the lucky party might find themselves overpowering the game to the point where the challenge just disappears.

So, how do we address that?

There are already several suggestions in the advanced rules section of the Deluxe Rulebook such as always playing with darkness and increasing starting Dread as well as ways to hinder your adventurers when they have low health. However, these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ways you can adjust the game.

Below you will find a selection of optional house rules you can add to your campaign to spice up the difficulty. You can use as many or as few of them as you want to suit your playgroup.

We have also created a set of print and play veteran event cards that you can use to add variance to your games. They have been designed to work in tandem with the house rules in this article.

You will also find a set of achievements to accomplish. These are designed for experienced players and will also add Campaign Points to your campaign score (which we looked at last time).

House Rules

Maladum already comes with a built-in system to increase the difficulty of any given quest in the form of Veteran cards. If you are finding a quest too easy even when adding these cards to the Event Deck you can double the number of veteran cards added. For an even greater challenge shuffle them back into the deck after they resolve instead of discarding them.

Resting:

In the core rules, an Adventurer can Rest if there are no enemies in the same room or within short range and line of sight even if they are Prone and/or Fatigued.  Changing how often you can Rest will increase the pressure. 

• Resting adds a peg to the Dread Tracker
• Increase range for enemies to medium
• Adventurers can only Rest in an enclosed room (with the door closed or barricaded with terrain)

Armour:

One of the biggest advantages a party can have is a heavily armoured fighter to fulfil the role of “Tank”, an adventurer who is always chosen to be the target of attacks because they have the highest armour. This can significantly increase the survivability of the entire party.

Maladum is designed to work with small numbers, which means changing something by as little as 1 can have huge impact, as is the case when your party finds the Plate Armour. Reducing all incoming attack damage by 2 can make any adventurer feel invincible. We have put together some suggestions to help punish heavily armoured characters.

Sundering Attacks

Sundering is a new ability that can be applied to enemy melee attacks.

Sundering : If this attack rolls a critical hit, after the attack is resolved one item used by the target to negate one or more damage is broken (including weapons used to Parry), even if no damage is caused. If there is no such item (e.g. the target was unarmed or their armour is innate, they suffer one damage instead.

Warded characters must spend an additional Magic peg to boost their armour’s strength instead of breaking an item, even if the attack would have been otherwise negated by their magical armour. If they cannot, they suffer one damage.

We suggest applying Sundering to attacks made by any enemy of size 2 or greater (such as a Troll), as well as applying it to Myria attacks once the Dread Tracker reaches Dismay.

Piercing Attacks

We suggest applying the Piercing ability to Hellfonts’ ranged attacks, as well as Event-card based Adversary attacks such as Balefire.

Defensive Re-rolls

To add more pressure to enemy attacks, you can change Defensive Re-roll to the following:

Defensive Re-roll: The character may force a single die to be re-rolled from any attack made against them, unless the attack ignores physical armour. If an attack scores a critical hit, no dice may be re-rolled.

Cleave

Survivability isn’t the only factor that can decrease the challenge at higher levels. When combined with dice-boosting Skills like Frenzy, Cleave can let one adventurer kill 3, 4, or more enemies in a single action. The following change is intended to slow down this rapid kill chain without removing the fun of multi-target attacks.

Cleave: If a melee attack with this weapon defeats an enemy, any leftover damage may be applied to another eligible enemy. You may continue to do this you fail to defeat an enemy or there are no eligible enemies remaining.

Example: Grogmar rolls 5 dice and scores 3 hits. He kills 1 Myria (which takes 2 hits), leaving 1 hit that can go to a Lamentor if one is available. Previously, this could have resulted in 2 Myria and 1 Lamentor being killed. With the change to Cleave, Grogmar can still cut his way through foes, just not as effortlessly.

Ultimate DOOOM mode:

This one is not for the faint of heart. Flip the Adversary board to the Doom side at the start of the game. If the Dread reaches Doom, all Adversaries gain .

Adding some of these House Rules, or all if you’re mad enough, will provide a more challenging experience if you feel like your party are getting too powerful.

Achievements:

Last time, we covered Campaign Scoring, a system for tracking Campaign Points to measure success. Below are some achievements that add extra challenges and reward you with additional Campaign Points.

Campaign Wide Achievements:

Naked as the day you were born!
Complete the campaign with no member of the party using physical armour that provides a damage reduction (Defensive re-rolls are still allowed) 10CP

Duchess of Queensbury Rules!
After each Quest, sell all your weapons. You begin each Quest unarmed and can only use the equipment you find in each dungeon. 20CP
You may want to use the rule for makeshift weapons (Deluxe Rulebook page 89) when attempting this. You can also allow Weapon Racks to be searched once per Adventurer instead of once overall.

Civilisation sucks!
Complete the campaign without visiting the Inn, spending all Rest Phases in the Wilderness. 10CP

I Bring DOOOM to you all!
Wait until the Dread Tracker reaches Doom before leaving each Quest. 20CP

Veterans are the Besterans!
When building the event deck for each Quest, shuffle 10 Veteran cards and no Beginner cards into the deck regardless of the level of your party. (Requires Revenant Retribution). 10CP

Team Effort!
Complete the campaign without losing a single Adventurer. 5CP

Where are my friends?
Complete the campaign with a party roster of no more than 3 Adventurers. Your party cannot include more than 3 Adventurers at any point during the campaign (including assembling your party). 10CP

Single Quest achievements:

An apple a day keeps the Revenant away!
Defeat an enemy by throwing food at it (Requires Ranged Expert rank 2) 5CP

I said… “I cast Fireball!”
Defeat 5 enemies with a Blast attack. 5CP

Fight fire with FIRE!
Inflict Burning on an enemy, while you are also burning. 5CP

Status Symbol!
Be Poisoned, Wounded and Burning at the same time 10CP

OVERTHRILLER!
Defeat a Lamentor by dealing it 5 or more damage. 5CP