How to Play Dark Souls Board Game

nick here and today you will learn how to play dark souls the board game this game is a cooperative dungeon crawl board game for one to four players where you must work together tactically to learn how to defeat enemies before finally confronting the boss let's start with the setup place the bonfire tile on the table shuffle and draw four tiles around the bonfire in any way you wish aligning the doorways between them do not use the tiles marked with a red skull for now take the fog gate token and place it on an empty portion of a wall on the tile that is the farthest from the bonfire tile take the bonfire sparks dial and select the value based on the number of players set as 5 sparks for 1 player 4 for 2 players 3 for 3 players and 2 for 4 players place the bonfire sparks dial on the bonfire tile next choose one mini boss out of the four available in the base game you can choose between the winged knight titanite demon gargoyle or the boreal outrider knight for this video i chose the titanite demon place the miniature next to the board get the health dial of the chosen mini boss and set it to max health placing it next to the miniature get the data card and behavior cards of the chosen mini boss they should have the boss's silhouette at the back of the card and place it next to the miniature as well next get the boss's treasure cards they have a treasure icon with a red dot here and the boss's silhouette at the back and place them next to the miniature for the next step get these cards they are the encounter cards there are three encounter card types level 1 level 2 and level 3. separate the encounter cards by level and place them next to the board take the boss's data card and look at the bottom each boss has the difficulty level of the encounters you face prior to the boss written on it for example the titanite demon has one level 1 encounter card and 3 level 2 encounter cards draw them from the encounter cards and place one encounter card face down on each tile place the lower level encounter cards near the bonfire tile and the higher level encounter cards farther from the bonfire each player should pick one character by taking its character board and miniature there are four characters in the game the assassin which focus on dodge and fast attacks the herald which is good for healing the party the knight which is good at defending and the warrior which is good at attacking place the luck heroic action and estus flask tokens flipped up on each character's board place one level up white cube in each square hole for the base level of strength dexterity intelligence and faith find the treasures that have the character icons on the back these are the starting equipment for each character the warrior for example has the ones with the axe icon place the treasure cards with the hand icon on the hand and the card that has the armor icon on the armor slot of the character's board give a few red and black cubes for each player leave them next to the character's board find the common treasure cards which have the chest icon and the chosen character's 5 treasure cards they have a chest and the icon of the character don't pick the ones with the blue outline yet form a deck with those cards and place it on the treasure deck section of the bonfire tile place the character miniatures on the bonfire tile and now we are ready to learn how to play your party's first goal is to defeat the mini boss which will be in the tile past the fog gate token in order to do so you have to explore the other tiles fighting enemies gaining their souls and treasures to level up and get ready for the boss fight the party moves from tile to tile through doorways starting from the bonfire it means that you have two options of tiles to explore at the beginning for my setup i have the one on the left and the one on the front of the bonfire for this example i decided to bring the party to explore the tile on the left when a party enters a new tile flip the encounter card on that tile face up this marks the beginning of an encounter so let's do the encounter setup the first two symbols which are red contains the enemy spawn place the indicated model quantities and types on the spawn nodes most encounters have one or more models on each spawn node but some have enemies on just a single node for this example i have to add the silver knight bowman on the first node and the holocross bowman on the second node the next two symbols which are purple indicate any props you add to the terrain nodes for this card i have to add a barrel token to the first terrain node the second terrain node has no indication so i can leave it empty if the card includes this icon it means you have to add traps to the encounter if that is the case shuffle the trap tokens face down and place one face down trap token on each basic node of the tile excluding any basic nodes that are along a wall that has a doorway in this example it means i cannot place tokens on the nodes on the right top and left sides remember to skip the enemy's spawn and the rain nodes even if they are empty like in the example once that's done take the data cards for each enemy in the encounter and leave them near the board once you have done the encounter setup place the character models on the entry nodes beside the door aligned with the tile the party moved from a node can contain up to three characters or enemies in it if one of those nodes have a tombstone barrel or chest on them like in this example you can only choose the other nodes a beginner's advice is that if there are enemies in the nearby nodes pair the knight and the warrior with the assassin and herald since whenever you enter a tile the enemies start attacking first next choose which character will lead the way into the encounter and place the aggro token on that character's model now we are ready to battle during an encounter enemy models and characters take turns activating start with the enemy models enemy models activate all together but only one character activates during each character activation during the very first character activation the players can activate the character of their choice from then on the order goes clockwise around the table the order in which enemies attack is determined by the threat level enemies with the highest threat level attack first in this example the silver knight great bowman activates first followed by the crossbow hollow the enemy's data card contains the enemy's behavior so let's have a look at it the behavior is at the bottom of the behavior card and you read them from left to right the first symbol of the enemy's behavior is the sword and shield which means physical attack so this enemy starts by attacking first the range of the attack is here this enemy has infinite range which means it can hit any node on the board the symbol on the top right of the sword and shield indicates the target when the symbol is the skull it means that it will attack the player character with the aggro token in this example the character with the aggro token is the knight and if the attack has the node symbol on it it means that the attack hits all player characters inside the target's node otherwise only the targeted character is hit so in this example both knight and assassin will receive damage the damage value is written inside the symbol so this archer deals for physical damage note that obstacles like props or other characters do not block or prevent ranged attacks whenever an attack happens you must resolve it before continuing the behavior when the enemies deal damage you can either attempt to dodge or block the attack the right choice depends on the character's equipped items as well as their current health and stamina to attempt the dodge look at the symbol on the enemy's data card the number indicates the dodge difficulty for example this enemy's attack dodge difficulty is one then spend one stamina by adding one black cube to your endurance bar stamina is added from the left to the right a benefit of dodging is that you can move one node in any direction if you wish to sometimes this is a good move to cut or create distance from an enemy or to reposition around the boss then look at your character's gear and gather the green dice equal to the symbols shown in the equipped items dodge in this example i can gather two dice then roll the dice if the number of dodge icons rolled equals or exceeds the dodge difficulty the character suffers zero damage otherwise they are hit by the attack and suffer its full damage when a character suffers damage add 1 red cube to the endurance bar per point of damage suffered damage is filled from right to left but be careful if all 10 endurance bar boxes have cubes the character dies and the party is immediately defeated in case you do not have good chances of dodging you can block which reduces the damage your character will take to perform a block look at your enemy's attack and determine the damage value and whether it's physical or magical physical damage has the sword and shield icon while magical damage has the magical orb icon for physical damage gather dice equal to the symbols shown in the characters equipped items block icon which is the first icon from left to right for magical damage gather dice equal to the symbols shown in the characters equipped items magic resist icon which is the second icon from left to right for black icons gather black dice for blue icons gather blue dice and four orange icons gather the orange dice roll the dice and add them together subtract the rolled total from the enemy's damage if your roll equals or exceeds the attack value the character suffers zero damage otherwise the character suffers the resulting damage in this example the character rolled physical defense for four because the enemy's damage is four as well the character suffers zero damage after attacking both characters on the node this enemy's behavior continues the second behaviour it performs is a movement which is represented by the cross icon various smaller icons appear around the movement icon modifying how the enemy moves the number on one of the sides of the cross indicates how many nodes the enemy will move on that direction and the skull icon indicates it will move relative to the character with the aggro token in this example the enemy moves one node farther from the character with the aggro token when a model moves move it from its current node to an adjacent node that does not have a prop on it an adjacent node is any node located directly next to the model's current node horizontally vertically or diagonally like this this move ends the activation of the silver knight great bowman next enemy activation goes to hollow cross bowman let's read this enemy's behavior the enemy starts by moving first it moves one note farther from the character with the aggro token then it attacks with an infinite range the character with the aggro token with a magical attack that deals 3 damage and has a dodge difficulty of one the player checks its character's gear resist icons which are these ones together dice to resist the magical damage the knight has only one black die for magic resistance the player rolls one black dye resisting 2 out of 3 damage points the player adds 1 red cube of damage to the character's sheet before we move to the player's turn let's check push and melee behaviors if a push icon appears on an enemy's movement like the one on the large hollow soldier card each time the enemy moves onto a node move all player characters on that node onto adjacent nodes chose by the player because this move has the ring icon it means it targets the closest character if two or more characters are at the same note distance check if they have an aggro token if one has that character becomes the target if the characters don't have the token then the aggro is decided by the taunt level on the character's board the warrior has a higher taunt level than the herald so he's chosen as target also if the push icon includes a number characters pushed out of the way suffer the amount of damage which can be blocked or dodged note that if an enemy has the push icon on movement and there are player characters on the same node when the enemy is supposed to do a movement push move each character onto an adjacent node chosen by the players before performing movement and push behavior no damage is dealt in this case in this example the character was pushed with no damage taken as it was on the same note as the enemy at the enemy's activation the enemy moved the character on an adjacent node and then the enemy performed its movement and push behavior towards the knight as he has a higher taunt level then the player may decide to dodge or block the push damage and then the character gets pushed again for melee enemies let's have a look at the silver knight swordsman behavior the enemy starts by moving two notes towards the closest character if two characters are at the same distance the enemy moves towards the character with the aggro token and if none have it it will move towards the character with the highest taunt level melee enemies will stop movement at the range that they can attack because this enemy's range is zero it means it needs to be at the same node as the target only three characters and or enemies can share a node at the same time if there are already three models on a node and another model moves on to that node the players must push one of the three models already on the node then it deals physical damage to all the characters inside that node any character hit by the attack is pushed to an adjacent node now that both enemies have performed their behaviors it's time for the first player's activation when a character starts their activation they gain two stamina because the first player is the knight and it does not have any stamina cubes on the characters board nothing happens otherwise remove two black cubes from the board if the player character activated is not the player with the aggro token then move the aggro token to that character the character may swap items between their backup slot and hand slots which we will see when the next character activates then the character moves and attacks or attacks and moves whatever fits best with your strategy in this example the knight wants to attack the holocross bowmen to attack the character needs to be in weapons range an equipment card's range determines the base range from which you can attack enemies or assist allies this weapon has zero range so the character needs to be on the same note as the enemy therefore let's start by moving first characters have one free node move which is called walk like enemies you can move to any adjacent node horizontally vertically or diagonally you cannot move into a node with a gravestone or chest a character can move onto a node with a barrel but it must spend one additional stamina to do so when they do flip the barrel token to the destroyed side the first time a player character moves into a node with a face down trap token flip that trap token if the token is not blank the characters must suffer the damage or attempt to dodge a trap's damage cannot be blocked the icon on the left indicates the damage and the icon on the right indicates the dodge value because the knight doesn't have equipment to dodge they suffer full damage traps cannot be reset during an encounter and will not trigger again during that encounter to get to the holocross bowman the knight needs to move one more node you can move additional nodes by spending one stamina point per node you move into there is another face down trap token on this note but fortunately it's blank now that the knight is in weapons range let's talk about character attacks during an activation a character can make up to one attack with each weapon they are holding in their hand slots the knight has a shield on one of the weapons so he attacks with the long sword the player chooses one of the weapon's attack options the first number represents the attack's stamina cost the black blue or orange icons with a number indicates the number and color of the dice roll for the attack for example this weapon has two attack options the first option costs zero stamina and the player rolls one blue die for damage the second option costs four stamina and the player rolls one blue and one black dies for damage for this example the knight will use its second attack option spending four stamina and rolling one blue and one black dice resulting in two damage in general weapons cause physical damage and the players will subtract the target's block value from the damage total spells or elemental weapons cause magical damage instead and are identified by this yellow icon near the dice icons if so players have to subtract the target's resist value from the damage total if the enemy's block or resist value equals or exceeds the damage total the enemy suffers zero damage otherwise place a number of wound tokens beside the enemy model equal to the damage it suffered if the total number of wound tokens on the enemy equals or exceeds its health the enemy is defeated remove the model and the wound tokens from the tile note that some weapons have attack options with special abilities this icon is called shaft meaning that this weapon cannot be used against targets at range 0. attacks with the node icon target all enemies on a single node within range make the attack roll once for all enemies when the move has the shift icon the character may move up to the number of nodes shown if the icon appears before the dice icons the character can move before rolling the dice if the icon appears after the dice icons then the move is done after rolling the dice this movement is free of cost and does not replace the characters options to move during their activation attacks with the repeat icon allows the character to use that entire weapon option the number of times indicated in the circle note that some weapons are two-handed so the weapon goes into either the left-hand slot or the right hand slot and requires the other slot to be empty some attacks inflict conditions on their targets when an attack has a condition icon place the corresponding condition token on the model hit by the attack bleed when the affected model suffers damage it suffers two additional damage then remove the token poison at the end of a model's activation if it has this token it suffers one damage frostbite a character with this token must spend one additional stamina each time it walks runs or dodges for enemies decrease movement value by one stagger a character with this token must spend one additional stamina to use their weapon's actions enemies affected by this stat have their damage value reduced by one before we move to the enemy's activation there are three limited actions you can perform during your character's activation once used these actions cannot be used again until the party rests at the bonfire which i will explain soon the first one is the estus flask each character has one estus flask represented by this token at the start of the game the estus flask is full during a character's activation they may flip the estus flask to remove all black and red cubes from their endurance bar the second action is the luck token any character may flip their luck token to re-roll one die in their attack block or dodge roll and finally each character has a heroic action flip the heroic action token and read the instructions on your character's board the instructions are fairly straightforward but if you want to know more you will find a link in this video's description where i detail their gameplay and talk a little more about each class after the first player activation it's time for the enemies to activate the silver knight great bowman will start by attacking with unlimited range all the characters inside the node where the character with the aggro token is dealing far physical damage to each character hit assuming the knight blocked let's continue the enemy then moves one note farther from the character with the aggro token in this case there are two options available the nodes on the top and bottom left once the enemy finishes its behavior it's time to activate the next player character let's assume the next player character is the herald at the character's activation they gain the aggro token the character gains two stamina but because they don't have any stamina cubes on the character's board nothing happens the herald wants to give some stamina to the knight by using their talisman the talisman is on the backup slot therefore it cannot be used in combat unless swapped with an item equipped on the hand slot because at the beginning of each character activation you can swap an item from the backup slot with one from the hand slot the herald does so the talisman has two attack options and the herald wants to use option 2 which by spending 3 stamina one character within range gains 6 stamina since the knight is within range one node away the herald does not need to use its movement action the herald spends three stamina points to use the talisman giving six stamina the night so the knight removes up to six stamina cubes from the board now it's time for the enemy to activate and the encounter continues if the party defeats all enemies and no characters are killed the party wins remove all black and red cubes from the character's endurance bars then add two souls per character to the soul's cache give the first activation token to the next player in order of play an encounter that has been cleared will not spawn new enemies so characters can move freely within cleared encounter tiles place cleared encounter cards face up to help now the players must decide if they want to move to another encounter or go to the bonfire to buy equipment level up or rest the bonfire tile serves as the base of operations for the party's exploration and characters may return to it at any time they are not in an encounter let's talk about what you can do there to purchase treasures remove one soul from the sole cash and draw the top card from the treasure deck revealing it equipment cards have stat requirements that must be met for a character to use them for example to equip the winged spear a character must have 20 strength and 22 faith any character who meets the stat requirements may equip the item if they wish you can upgrade your character's stats by leveling up to level up you must spend souls to increase one of your stats increasing a base stat to tier 1 costs 2 souls to increase a tier 1 stat to tier 2 costs 4 souls and from tier 2 to tier 3 costs 8 souls each stat is upgraded individually sometimes you'll find equipment upgrades they enhance your equipment cards each weapon and armor equipment cards has a slot showing you how many upgrades the equipment can hold for example the winged spear can hold two upgrades weapon upgrades provide bonuses to weapon cards and armor upgrades provide bonuses to armor cards you can upgrade your equipment in the bonfire tile armor upgrades can be freely added or removed in case you find something that fits better for your current build weapon upgrades cannot be removed from the weapon once applied so be careful when considering adding a weapon upgrade to your weapons characters can also restore a spent luck token by spending one sole to flip their luck token to the ready side the last action you can do is resting at the bonfire when resting at the bonfire turn the spark dial down one number and flip all estus heroic action and luck tokens to the ready side turn all the encounter cards face down this means you will have to fight the enemies from those encounters all over again but it also means you can collect additional souls from those encounters if any character dies during an encounter the party is defeated when that happens place all characters on the bonfire tile and perform a forced action of resting at the bonfire then place all soul tokens from the soul cashie even if it contains souls from multiple encounters on the node where the character was defeated the party can retrieve souls by moving onto the node where the souls were dropped but if a character dies before retrieving them the souls are discarded be careful if the bonfire reaches zero the characters can no longer rest here and the next time a character is defeated it's game over continue the playthrough clearing encounters and upgrading equipment and leveling up after the party defeats the encounter on the tile with the fog gate token you enter the mini boss encounter or you can continue exploring tiles let's imagine this party is ready so let's talk about the boss encounter place a miniboss tile on the table place the character models on the entry nodes beside the door then place the aggro token on one of the characters and place the miniboss model on the miniboss spawn node with its front arc facing the door now let's set up the boss behavior deck separate the standard behavior cards from the heat up behavior cards take a number of random standard behavior cards equal to the behavior deck for example the titanite demon behavior deck is composed of four cards reveal one random card from the behavior deck for each gravestone on a tile with a face up encounter card this will help your party understands the types of attacks the miniboss has shuffle the behavior dac and place it face down next to the board the boss data card includes the same information as enemy data cards plus the boss unique characteristics the threat level block value resist value and starting health all function the same way they do on the enemy data cards each boss has a special ability for the titanite demon if it suffers three or more damage for one attack roll reduce the damage by one and the heat up symbol indicates when the boss introduces new attacks to its behavior for example the titanite demon heats up when it reaches 10 health points but we will talk about the heat up behavior later just like in the regular encounters the boss activates first then the next player character activates and so on at the start of a boss's activation flip over its topmost behavior card and place it in a discard bio face up beside the behavior deck that card will be used to represent the boss's behavior during this activation bosses do not have a single attack range or dodge value like other enemies instead each behavior card has its own attack range and dodge value you read the card the same way as regular enemy cards but these cards have symbols unique to the boss encounters let's use this behavior as an example the boss starts by moving two nodes towards the nearest character when a boss moves towards a character turn the boss so the center of its front arc faces an adjacent node that is the closest to the character like this this movement has the push icon so our character will get pushed if the boss moves onto the same node as the character you must move the character to an adjacent node that is in the same arc of the movement nodes that touch the boundaries of an arc are valid options as we continue the movement note that if the boss behavior requires it to move away from a character turn the boss so that the center of its back arc faces an adjacent node that is the farther from the character the boss then backs up onto that node without changing its facing let's go back to our behavior example the boss attacks with a range of 1 all the nodes on its right left and back arcs dealing 4 physical damage to all the characters inside each node hit and pushing them from those nodes this attack has a dodge difficulty of 2. so as you can see the green areas indicate the arcs that the boss attacks the red arc indicates the boss's weak spot positioning your character on a node that directly faces that arc and performing an attack grants an extra black die for the damage the black arcs are not targeted by the attack a character can be in more than one arc if it's on the same node along the arc line this makes it easier to gain the weak arc bonus but it also means that the character will be targeted by the attacks against either arc some behaviors include the repeat icon which means the boss will perform its entire behavior multiple times when resolving that behavior card other new symbols you might find are the turn and rotate icons when a turn icon appears rotate the boss 90 degrees to the left or right according to the icon shown if it's a rotate icon turn the boss in place making a full 180 degrees turn some attacks might have the leap icon this attack allows the boss to move directly to its target remove the boss from the tile and place it on the node where the target is located the boss does not change its facing when it leaps so keep its orientation leaps have the push icon and because the boss comes crashing down on the character characters can be pushed onto any adjacent node if you have more questions about push rules watch my detailed video on this topic by clicking on the link above when moving to the same note as the boss the character must remain in the arc they were in before moving if the character was in two arcs before moving choose which of the two arcs to move into when a character on a boss's node would move one node as part of the wall can run they can instead choose to move around the boss to an adjacent arc if your character chooses to dodge while on the boss's node you can ignore the normal rules for boss arcs and instead move to any arc onto any adjacent node when the boss behavior deck is empty at the start of the boss's activation pick up the discard pile and turn it face down without shuffling it to create the boss behavior deck then combat continues normally when the boss's health is reduced to its heat up point or below the boss will heat up take one random heat up behavior card and shuffle it with the behavior deck players will now have to relearn the boss's attack pattern some bosses have special rules on their boss data card which alter how the heat up works so always check them before i've done a video describing each mini boss behavior you can find the link in the video's description or by clicking on the link above after the players defeat the mini boss encounter place that boss's treasure cards in the inventory then add one sole per character to the soul cashie for each spark remaining on the bonfire for example our party of 4 has 3 sparks left so we get 12 souls after that reset the play area to begin your journey to fight the main boss the setup is done the same way as the mini boss and you carry over your character's progression for the treasure deck add the transposed treasure cards for each character playing and randomly select five legendary weapon cards shuffling the deck when fighting the main boss you use two boss styles when the party defeats the main boss they win the game i've done a video describing each main boss behavior you can find the link in the video's description or by clicking on the link above and that's how you play dark souls if you still have questions about specific details check the faq in this video's description or leave a comment i hope you enjoyed the video want me to do a how to play video on your favorite game leave some suggestions in the comments below for more how to play videos subscribe to my channel see you next time

Channel: Tabletop Duo

Views: 7,804

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: _jgFn_R8Txo

Length: 34min 4sec (2044 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/philfz09]

I wrote a comment on YouTube and I'll do it here to, great tutorial! Clear and Simple.

the editing is sharp!

Good job

[u/AnomaliaAaaa]

I would like to do a special thanks to DamtheMan50 for providing me with great feedback as I was working on this.