Alternative Rules for Solo Frostgrave: It's Open Ended and your Warband Hates You

My friend bought Perilous Dark and we were playing through the campaign cooperatively before the pandemic. We didn’t love it for many of the reasons other people have pointed out. The difficulty level seemed out of whack unless you tailored your spell list to the missions. The monsters were immune to a lot of our spells. It felt bad. And so on...

I don’t have the book anyway and I am stuck at home. I want to play a solo game that felt more like open ended old school Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve got my very old school Heritage Miniatures. I’ve got a bunch of terrain made from junk. So, Here’s what I came up with.

This table was much too big for my single player game. Also
yes my terrain has a brutalist garbage aesthetic.

Step One: Pick a Random School of Magic for your Wizard

No real Reason to do this, but I felt like it so I made this chart.

Roll	School
1-2	Chronomancy
3-4	Elementalism
5-6	Enchantment
7-8	Illusion
9-10	Necromancy
11-12	Sigilism
13-14	Divination/Soothsaying
15-16	Summoning
17-18	Thaumaturgy
19-20	Witchcraft

I rolled a 4 so I got a Elementalist. I named him Beebler Boyden

Step Two: Roll for Starting Gold
 

I decided that having a random amount of gold at the beginning of the game would better suit the vibe I was going for. I decided to roll 2d20 * 10 instead of the traditional 3d6 * 10.

I got a 3 and a 2 for a total of 50gc. Beebler did not have a lot of money. Yikes.

Step Three:  Roll to Recruit Hirelings.

I wanted to further limit Beebler’s choices and create the feeling of going into the tavern and paying the town crier to help you recruit mercenaries. The amount of money you pay the town crier determines what table you roll on to see which soldier responds to your request. You can choose to take that soldier into your warband or pay and roll again.

	5gc	15gc	45gc
1-2	Thug	Thug	Thug
3-4	Thug	Thug	Thief
5-6	Thug	Thief	Infantry
7-8	Thief	Thief	Man-at-Arms
9-10	Thief	Treasure Hunter	Treasure Hunter
11-12	Treasure Hunter	Barbarian	Barbarian
13-14	Treasure Hunter	Man-at-Arms	Archer
15-16	Barbarian	Archer	Tracker
17-18	Man-at-Arms	Tracker	Templar
19-20	Tracker	Templar	Apothecary

Beebler spends 15gc to roll 3 times on the first column and get two thieves and a tracker. If you play Frostgrave you are probably noticing that Beebler cannot afford to hire two thieves and a tracker; he only has 35gc left. There are new rules for that and some other things. Beebler has his warband together let’s look at the new rules.

New Rules:

Upkeep: You do not pay the price of a soldier when you recruit them. Instead you pay the price of the soldier after each adventure as upkeep or the soldier leaves your warband to find someone who hill pay him. If you a soldier’s upkeep their loyalty increases by one point.

Loyalty: Soldiers will not always do what you wizard wants them to do. There will be times when a soldier must make a loyalty roll. To pass a loyalty roll the character must roll a d20 and add its loyalty score and get higher then 10. Loyalty: starts the same a will. Wizards do not need to make loyalty rolls. Here are the situations when a soldier must make a loyalty roll so far:

i)      When a model finds a treasure and the wizard is more than 6” away. It must make a loyalty roll, failure means it starts heading to the edge of the table to retire with its ill gotten gains.

ii)    When a model falls into a trap and survives it must pass a loyalty roll or head towards a table edge. It will still be in the warband

Finally, Soldiers will not attack a fleeing member. If a wizard attacks a fleeing warband member, All soldiers’ loyalty will decrease by one. But, if a wizard kills a fleeing warband member all members make a loyalty roll. A failure means their loyalty decreases by one.  A pass means loyalty increases by 3.

Do not Place Treasure Tokens: This is pretty self explanatory

Searching:  Instead of getting treasure tokens and moving off the board with them, the war band is searching the terrain to see what treasures they can find. A warband member that is in contact with a terrain piece may spend an action to search. They roll a die, and if they number they roll is higher than the Trap number, consult the Search table. After a successful search roll, check to see if monsters spawn as if a treasure token was picked up for the first time.

Here is the Search Table:

1	A roll of 1 Always a trap Even with bonuses
2	A monster emerges from the opposite end of the table: roll on the encounter table and place the monster opposite the warband’s starting position.
3	A premonition of danger. Pick a terrain piece no soldier will search that terrain piece or move within 6” of it.
4	Foreboding, -2 to the next search roll
5	Dreariness, -2 to the next loyalty check
6	Only the cold, -1 to the next loyalty check
7	A long dead cat, -1 to the next search roll
8	A long dead child
9	A long dead peasant
10	Just dust and debris
11	1 gc
12	A hungry but friendly dog. Place a neutral war hound on the table by the ruin. The war hound will try to eat imps and giant rats.
13	A vague notion, a hint of a clue, pick an unsearched terrain piece add 1 to the search roll when searching that piece.
14	Ancient Graffiti with a vague clue, pick an unsearched terrain piece, add 3 to the search roll when searching that piece.
15	A clue, pick an unsearched terrain piece, add 5 to the search roll when searching that piece.
16	D20 gc
17	D20 * 2 gc
18	Roll on treasure table
19	Roll on treasure table add 1 to roll
20+	Roll on treasure table add 2 to roll

Traps and Trap Number: At the beginning of a game the trap number is 1. You must roll higher than the trap number when searching or the warband member performing the search action has sprung a trap. After a successful search action, trap number becomes the number rolled for the search action. After a failed search action the trap number resets back to one unless the base trap number is modified by some other rule I haven’t come up with yet. Don’t worry I have recorded a full example of play below. Also, Here is the Trap Table:

1	Struck down by deadly arcane magic, reduced to 0 hit points
2	Arcane bolts of fury from a broken magic device, +10 shooting attack. Model is moved back 1” for each point of damage suffered.
3	KABOOM, Model suffers a + 10 shooting attack, instead of taking damage model is launched 1” directly up into the air for each point of damage that would be taken. Then the model takes whatever fall damage they would normally take.
4	Vampire Hovel, The model has stumbled upon the resting place of a vampire. Place a vampire in base-to-base contact with the model
5	Deep hole, The model falls into a 12” hole. Later gator.
6	Imp Ruin, a decaying ruin that kept imps imprisoned, now it’s broken. Summon 1-5 imps place them 1” away from the model but within line of sight
7	Monster bait. The model is now cursed to attract all monsters. Monsters will use their actions to move towards this model even without line of sight.
8	Possessed by a ghost demon, model suffers a +5 will attack. If the model fails that model is affected as if by a possession spell and becomes hostile to the party acting as an uncontrolled monster.
9	Arms switched, some crazy magic has switched the models left and right arms. -2 to fight and shoot scores, until fixed (who knows how that will be accomplished).
10	Something heard you, place a random monster 1d20” away in a random direction
11	Sticky Goop explosion, all models within a 3” radius suffer a +10 melee attack. For every point of damage a model would take they lose 1 action.
12	Lesser Arcane bolt, model suffers a +5 shooting attack
13	Disturbing voices from beyond, model’s will score is reduced by 2
14	Rat hovel, model is surrounded by 1-4 giant rats
15	Ghost of a union organizer, model’s loyalty score is reduced by 2
16	Falling debris, model suffers a +0 shooting attack
17	A very spooky ghost, model moves 6” in a random direction and loses its next turn
18	A sexy ghost, model suffers a +4 will attack, if it fails it loses its next turn
19	Coated with an ancient hallucinogen, model moves randomly during its turn until it passes a will +0 check
20	SMOKE BOMB! Fog as the fog spell surrounds the model in a 5” radius. Search actions cannot be performed in the fog. The fog moves 6” randomly each turn

Special Soldier Traits: So this is a work in progress. I am coming up with special traits for some of the soldiers for solo play:

1.     Thieves and lower Treasure Hunters lower the Trap Number by 5 each time they perform a search action.

2.     Trackers get +1 to their next search roll if they find a dead thing.

3.     If a model is within 3” of a friendly war hound when performing a search they get lower the trap number by 3 (I promise to add war hounds in later).

Example of Play

Pregame:

Beebler fails to reveal a secret and fails to animate a construct bummer (this is the only way I can think of to get a normal treasure token on the board so far).

The party consists of: Beebler Boyden (Elementalist), Harriet (Tracker), Barry the Bagman (Thief), and Plumb Bob (Thief).

Turn one (Trap number is 1): The warband moves to different terrain pieces one thief peels off alone (Barry the Bagman) the other (Plumb Bob) stays close to the wizard. My wizard moves with the tracker into a ruined section of building and rolls an 18 for search. He gets a treasure! 20 gc and a cloak of protection! I start marking searched terrain with dice.

Next I am going to have a thief (Barry the Bagman) search. The trap number is now 18 but the thief will only need to roll a 13 or higher to avoid a trap because of his special rule. Barry the Bagman rolls a 13 and triggers a trap. He has found a rat hovel and 3 rats surround him! And by rats I mean evil penguins. Barry the Bagman passes his loyalty test but he is in trouble. The other soldiers move closer to try and rescue him.

Monster phase: Barry kills a rat but is brought down to 4hp.

The penguins are horrified by Barry the Bagman's Face.
It looks like deformed blob of lead. That's why he wears a hood.
If I ever figure out where his eyes are supposed to be I will paint them.

Turn two (Trap number is 1 again because a trap was found): The wizard searches and finds dust and debris(rolled a 10).

Harriet moves in and kills a rat. Plumb bob does not fare as well and gets taken down to 4hp. Barry the Bagman holds his own

Monster Phase: The last penguin is felled by Barry.

You go first.

Turn 3 (Trap number is 10): The party groups up to search an ancient furnace. Barry rolls a 19 on his search. 20gc and a grimoire.

Turn 4 (Trap number is now 19, yikes). The party approaches the giant ruin in the middle of the table.

Turn 5 (Trap number still 19): Flanked by the rest of the warband Plumb Bob makes it to the entrance and searches. He rolls a 14. With his thief skill he does not fall into a trap. Lowers the trap number to 14 and finds ancient graffiti with a clue. I choose a nearby monolith as the piece of terrain alluded to in the clue.  A monster spawns to the east. It’s a worm. Not good. The worm can see the party so extra bad news.

Monster phase: The worm heads towards the party luckily it is fat and has trouble squeezing through the terrain.

I needed to use a very high shutter speed to capture this image.
That worm was moving really fast.

Turn 6 (Trap number is back down to 14): the party heads towards the monolith while shooting at the worm. Beebler fires off an elemental bolt that does 13 points of damage. Harriet misses.

Monster Phase: the worm charges into combat with Beebler and Harriet

Turn7: Beebler wishes he had found the time to cast elemental shield or elemental hammer. He let’s Harriet attack first. She is hit and down to 4hp. Beebler lashes out and rolls a 20. The worm is dead. He moves towards the monolith. Plumb Bob rolls a 21 searching the monolith and finds 30gc and 3 scrolls. No monster appears.

Turn 8 (Trap Number is now 21, yikes).

The party is injuried accept for the wizard. They decide it is time to stop pushing their luck and head home.

Post Game:

Beebler fails to create a grimoire.

He has a chance to look at the scrolls and Grimoire he got and adds up his GC 70 total.

Scrolls

Enchant armor

Telekenesis

Create Grimoire

Grimoire:

Brew Potion

He also has a cloak of protection.

Experience: The party found 3 treasures tokens for 150xp and the killed 3 rats and worm for 20 xp.

Beebler gets 170xp.

Upkeep: Beebler has some tough decisions to make. Each thief is going to cost 20gc and Harriet tracker is going to cost 80gc. That’s 120 gc and he only has 105 Gc on hand. He decides to sell his scroll of create grimoire to cover the rest. Well fed his warband each gains +1 loyalty and he is left with 85gp. Beebler spends his point making it easier to cast reveal secret.

Post Mortem

I had fun. There were times I felt that I had to adapt to unexpected emergent situations. I was concerned about my warband dying but also not being able to afford keeping them. It felt good that monetarily I started out just a little ahead of where I started and that I had to sell something to pay for everybody. Thieves might be over-powered. I might need to tinker with their special ability. I may want to make it so that if a wizard does not attack first in melee it triggers a loyalty check. I may also want to make monsters spawn more often. The rule for trackers probably needs a buff.