Epic Duels – FITSSFF Standard Official Rules

These rules are the official rules of the Florida Institute of Technology Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy. These rules were arrived at after much debate and discussion. It is important to note that in nontournament play, rules may be changed if mutually agreed upon by all players prior to the game starting (for example, sharing cards, not light on dark, etc.).

General Rules

• Games are a light on dark competition.
• Games are normally played using standard decks only, unless agreed upon otherwise.
• The game ends when all characters on a side are defeated, not just major characters.
• Teammates may look at each other’s cards (note, players may decide before game not to allow this).
• Players roll for side, the highest getting to choose which side they want to play on with the next player deciding their team and so forth until teams are filled and balanced. Then, once sides are chosen, players choose in secret which character they will play as and reveal at the same time (team members may consult with each other). This prevents choosing a character that will have a specific advantage over a specific opponent.
• When possible, players will be situated so no player has a turn after the turn of a team member at the start (this will obviously change as characters are killed off).
• You may not directly target a friendly character nor use a card directly on a friendly character that would cause them damage (Examples: Wrath may not be used on a friendly minor, Thermal Detonation may not be targeted on a friendly character but may damage a friendly character if used against an enemy character, Flamethrower may be used on anyone as it does not target any character).
• When a player is forced to discard cards at random, they may shuffle the cards before the opponent draws the cards to be discarded.
• A player must have ten cards in hand at the end of the turn. This means they are allowed to draw cards and then decide which cards to discard. This also means the theoretical max attack for Mace is 10 (10 cards in hand plus the Battlemind played on the second action).
• A player MUST use all actions whenever possible (example, if a player is Meditated, they must still take two actions even if that requires use of a card they would rather not play; however, if no actions are possible such as they only have melee cards and are not adjacent to an opponent, their turn will end).
• After a player has gone through their deck completely twice (aka, reaches the end of their deck, not uses a card such as "Never tell me the odds"), the player/side that has the most points of damage remaining according to their hit counter is the winner. This is not a percentage basis nor the number of hit points taken. This does include untaken damage by minor characters.

Specific Rulings

• Darth Vader can only heal for the number of damage ticks done (for example, if two points kill the opponent, Vader only heals for two points).
• Since Yoda is controlling a force lift, Yoda and only Yoda may use cards that move an opponent when force lifted.
• Battleminds, Counterattacks, etc.  are valueless cards until played.
• Blinding Surge that kills both characters ends in a tie if they were the last remaining characters on the board.
• Once all of a player’s characters are defeated, they are eliminated from the game and cannot use any cards for any purpose (including to release from force lift).
• In a force lift, one player alone must discard all three of the cards at once to stand up a character (that character does not have to be his own). This can be done at ANY TIME including after a roll or before deciding to take an attack.