Sleeping Gods is designed to be challenging. Normal mode can be quite difficult, especially for your first campaign. For a slightly easier campaign, apply the following rules:
• When starting easy mode, begin with 20 XP, 20 extra starting coins, +1 meat, +1 grain, and +1 vegetables. You may spend this XP as soon as you perform a Visit a Port action.
• When your crew reaches 0 health, do the following (in addition to the standard instructions): gain 5 XP, remove all status effects, gain 7 coins, and gain 8 command.
• At the start of each turn, the active player gains 1 extra command.
You can implement these changes even in the middle of a normal mode campaign if you’re finding it too difficult. Just be sure to write easy mode on your campaign sheet. Place the letter E after your final score when you complete the campaign (this is for final score comparison purposes).
If you’re struggling to survive in the world of Sleeping Gods, follow these tips:
• When you’re presented with combat, you can always see the difficulty level before you start. Use the enemy difficulty table on page 37 of the rulebook to gauge if you’ll be able to deal with it. Level 3-8 is fairly easy. Level 14+ is very hard! Many times, you have the option of avoiding combat. If so, you may want to take this option if you’re not ready (even though you usually earn fewer rewards).
• If you can’t avoid combat and you die, don’t worry too much. The game was designed knowing that this would happen sooner or later. Follow the directions to return to the nearest port and remove all damage.
• Sleeping Gods is all about balancing resources. Don’t use crew members on every challenge. Sometimes it’s better to just draw fate without gaining any fatigue if the failure consequences aren’t too bad (for example, 1-2 damage) or the skill number is low (4-6). Save your resources for when you really need them.
• If things are consistently too hard, slow down. Don’t leave the starting maps too early. Spend some turns just building up command and equipping ability cards to crew members. It’s important to equip ability cards and level cards so that crew members have a lot of one type of skill (like 3 or 4 strength on one crew member, for example).
• Try to get some better recipes in the early maps before moving on to the other maps. The further you get from the starting area, the harder things get.
• Make sure to use Gloria! Her ability is extremely useful.
• Getting better weapons makes a huge difference in combat. Try to buy or find at least one weapon before leaving the starting maps.
• Plan out your attacks during combat so that you take advantage of synergy tokens. Use splash damage to hit enemies with high defense. Careful planning with the other players can lead to much lower crew health loss. Winning combat also gives you more XP, which is important for your long-term success. Survival Tips Combat Level Difficulty 3-8 Very Easy 9-11 Easy 12-13 Medium 14-17 Dangerous 18-22 Deadly
The following list includes the most important errors to fix in the 1st printing of Sleeping Gods. It is not a comprehensive list of all typos and errors.
Artifacts: These tokens can be spent as 2 coins at any time.
Venom: Once a crew member with venom reaches 0 health, ignore the venom status token. It does not continue to deal damage to other crew members.
Ability Cards: Each time you reach the end of the event deck (except the last time), be aware that the storybook will instruct you to discard all of your equipped ability cards.
Rule Book, Pg 3 (Component List): The 4 starting adventure cards are included in the market deck (Gloria, Gear, Flapjacks, and Soup).
Rule Book, Pg 7 (Ability Cards): Add a new box with the following: ‘Secret: Players must keep their abilities cards in hand secret until they are played. They may not show them or give them to other players.’
Rule Book, Pg 12 (Ability Cards): In the top box on the page, add this bullet: ‘You cannot ignore an event card. If it only has 1 challenge listed, you must complete it.’ Rule Book, Pg 13 (Hazards): Add the word “successfully” to this phrase: ‘Hazards: If you move into a region with a hazard, you must successfully complete the hazard’s challenge or take negative consequences.’
Rule Book, Pg 14 (Travel Example 1): At the end of the section, change ‘places it on any crew member’ to ‘places it on Captain Odessa.’
Rule Book, Pg 18 (Activate Adventure Cards): Add this sentence: ‘ANY player can use adventure cards you own at any time, even to help another player in a challenge or combat.’
Rule Book, Pg 19 (Challenges): At the end of the ‘step 1’ paragraph, add this phrase: ‘You can choose to have no crew members participate and simply move on to the draw fate step.’
Rule Book, Pg 28 (Defeat): After the phrase, ‘Discard 6 event cards from the top of the event deck,’ add the following: ‘If the event deck runs out while discarding, count the remaining event cards you need to discard and place an equal number of damage on the event deck slot. The damage is placed here to remind you how many cards you must discard the next time the storybook instructs you to make a new event deck. However, if this is your third time through the event deck, you don’t need to keep track because you won’t be making a new event deck.’
Rule Book, Pg 29 (Adventure Cards): Add this sentence to the first box: ‘ANY player can use adventure cards you own at any time, even to help another player in a challenge or combat.’
Rule Book, Pg 29 (Weapons): Add the underlined words to this sentence beneath the weapon card: ‘You can equip this to a crew member (or give it to a different crew member) at any time outside of combat.’
Adventure Card 20: Add the following text to this card: ‘Return this card to the box after completing quest 74.’
Adventure Card 28: This card should say: ‘Gain 1 fatigue after you deal damage with this weapon. If you already have 2 fatigue, you cannot use it.’
Adventure Card 74: Change printed ability to: ‘Ignore the effects of the event card you draw this turn.’
Market Card (Tincture Recipe): This card has an outdated materials symbol used in the prototype and should have the final symbol.
Story 4.3: The text says, ‘Draw 8 adventure cards,’ but it should say, ‘Draw 8 market cards.’
Story 58: Add a note at the start of this story: ‘Note: This location is treated as a town. You may only make each choice once per explore action.”
Story 58.1: Add an option D that says: ‘Do not bid. (Turn to 58)’
Story 72: After the phrase, ‘Gain Dinosaur Egg Token,’ add this text: Return to the ship.
Story 82.4: The text should say to turn to 82.6 instead of 84.6.
Story 98: Just before it says, ‘Gain 1 materials. Return to the ship,’ it should say, ‘C. Leave this place.’
Story 146: Choice B should be CUNNING 6.
Story 160.9, 160.10, 160.11: Gain adventure card 16 instead of the listed 23.
Story 208: Gain adventure card 90 instead of the listed 192.
Story F1: Add the underlined to the defeat instructions: ‘...journey log sheet and start at F1 again. In addition to removing all of your crew damage, ship damage, and fatigue, remove all status effects and return all command to the supply. Collect 7 EXTRA command and 10 XP. If you are defeated a 2nd time, simply mark a defeat and continue to F2. If you are defeated while playing brutal mode...’
Player count: This should be listed as 1-4, not 2-4.
Q: Does Gloria’s ability let you draw 2 cards on a fate draw, or draw 2 cards into your hand?
A: Gloria’s ability lets you draw ability cards into your hand. Her ability cannot be used on fate draws. You can use it at any time. Note: Remember hand limit of 3, so if you ever have 4+ cards in hand, you must discard down.
Q: If player 1 purchases a weapon from the market, can player 2 equip the weapon onto one of their crew instead? If one of the crew from player 1 has a weapon can they just pass that weapon to another crew member? Can players swap crew members during their turn between players?
A: Yes, any player can equip the weapon. Players decide together who gets each weapon (in the case of a dispute, the Captain player decides). Yes, you can pass weapons to other crew members at any time except during combat. No, players cannot swap crew members between turns.
Q: How does Laurent’s Watchful skill work?
A: When you use the deck, draw 1-3 tokens as normal. After this, draw 1 extra token. The damage from this token does not apply. Then, as normal, choose the reward from 1 token. This ability is useful because it means you could draw 2 tokens when using the Deck action but only take damage from the first (if it has damage). Only 4 tokens have a negative effect, so your chances of taking damage go down quite a bit. Also, if you’re looking for specific food or resources, this helps you find it.
Q: We finished our first campaign and are restarting. We noticed the rules don’t start you with Quest 1 and Quest 2. Should you start with them?
A: Yes, you should start with them. (Note: The intro scenario in the Quick Start Guide gives you quests 1 and 2.)
Q: The Refine ability lets me spend 1 command to repair the ship. Since I don’t put spent command on ability cards, I can always repair the ship as much as I want, at any time, as long as I have 1 command to spend. Is that right?
A: Right. There are intentionally several ways for players to repair ship damage.
Q: If there is a Hazard in the first space I enter, can I travel more than 1 space after I resolve the challenge, no matter if I win or lose it?
A: Yes. If you enter a hazard space you must complete the hazard’s challenge or take negative consequences (and you always draw fate even if you decide not to fatigue anybody). After that you can take the remaining movement.
Q: Does at least 1 crew member need to “participate” and gain fatigue in each challenge?
A: No. You can choose to not give any crew member fatigue and simply move on to the draw fate step of the challenge.
Q: For the rare challenge that is restricted to one person, if that person is controlled by the non-active player are they forced to spend a command token to have them participate or does the story condition override that rule?
A: In this rare case, the non-active player doesn’t need to spend a command.
Q: I recently came across a SIGHT challenge; is this the same as perception?
A: As for the “sight” challenge, that is something we missed. It should be “perception.”
Q: Can I place damage over the top of previously-placed damage?
A: No, you may not. If, for example, you place 1 damage in a corner that is already surrounded by damage tokens from previous attacks, any unused damage is simply not placed.
Q: How do weapons work in combat?
A: You don’t have to choose one weapon per fight, but you do have to choose one weapon per attack action. Stats from equipped weapons don’t stack.
Q: Can you move weapons between crew during combat, or only outside of combat?
A: You can only move weapons between crew members outside of combat.
Q: Can a crew member have multiple synergy tokens on their crew board?
A: Yes, a crew member can have multiple synergy tokens, and they can even use them together on the same attack.
Q: Let’s say for example Rafael has a synergy token on Sofi’s board. If Rafael is then reduced to 0 health, does his synergy token remain available to use on Sofi’s board?
A: Even if Rafael is reduced to 0 health, you can still use his synergy token on Sofi’s board. Thematically, when a character reaches 0 health, it means that they’re just really hurt (instead of knocked out or dead).
Q: Let’s say Rafael still has his synergy token on his own board. If he then misses an attack and is reduced to 0 health by the counterattack, then places a damage token on a space with a synergy symbol - do I still get to place Rafael’s synergy token on another character board?
A: If Rafael misses an attack and is reduced to 0 health by the counterattack, but then places damage on a space with a synergy symbol, you still get to place Rafael’s synergy token on another character board.
Q: How does Marco’s synergy token really work?
A: When used, add an extra 2 damage to your total. Of that total, 2 must be placed in squares that aren’t hearts.
Q: If you use an adventure card that deals damage without an attack to cover a synergy point (e.g. Stone of Blood), who gets to give their synergy token?
A: Any one crew member (you choose).
Q: Can Stone of Blood (45) be combined with an attack that does 1 damage to cover a heart worth 2?
A: Yes.
Q: A crew member attacks with Adrenaline active and hits. Base damage is 2, so I place 3 damage. Then, I discard the Adrenaline ability for an extra damage. Can I place that extra damage (4 total), or is 3 total damage still correct?
A: You trigger abilities sequentially, so you can get the bonus damage from Adrenaline, then discard it for another damage, for +2 total (4 total damage in the example above).
Q: A crew member attacks, misses, then resolves damage first due to the Rapid Strike ability. During the damage resolution, I discard Rapid Strike to get +1 damage. Does the damage still get applied first?
A: Yes. Once you’re in the “apply damage” phase, you can use various abilities and discard cards, but it won’t modify what combat step you’re in.
Q: Which goes first: Rapid Strike crew ability, or First Strike monster ability? Does it matter if it’s a hit or a miss?
A: First Strike goes first. Doesn’t matter if it’s a hit or a miss.
Q: Can you use the Alzarrian Cookbook to cook a oneingredient recipe using zero food?
A: Yes, you could cook these recipes with no food tokens.
Q: Can you use the Alzarrian Cookbook to cook a recipe that already has a command token on it? A: Yes, you can.
Q: When can I cook a recipe? In the middle of a noncombat challenge? In the middle of an exploration before making a choice? After reading text?
A: Any time, except during combat (rulebook page 18). “During combat” means any time after you’ve looked at the enemy cards and before they are defeated. If you see there is combat about to happen, the game rules allow you to eat before fighting (thematically, you ate the food before the fight started).
Q: The Lost Sailor mild event card goes away when you “visit” a port. What does that mean exactly?
A: When you take a port action or visit a location with a port symbol.
Q: Event Card Merchant Vessel: ‘Buy Food’ Pay 1 coin to gain 2 grain.. Can I pay 2 or more coins for more food, or is it only 1 coin for 2 grain ONLY?
A: You can only pay 1 coin for 2 grain in this event (you cannot repeat it and buy more grain).