The 12 Best Rulings Made in Kingdom Death (Patreon)

There have been many clarifications, FAQ answers and similar made by Adam and his design team over the time of the game's existence and I thought it would be nice to celebrate some of the finest ones he's made.  Because while Adam's wording might not be the best at times, he can demonstrate the brilliance of his design capabilities quite often.  

So here are in my opinion the 12 best rulings that the design team have made.  Why 12? Because the d12 is my favourite die.

1. Updating the Villain Role in The Lion Knight Expansion

You may not be aware how this update came about, but the changes to the Doomed ruling in 1.5 had me take a long hard look at a lot of things and I noticed that the Bug Patch + Vermin Obsession Disorder and the Villain Role in the Lion Knight expansion both had huge impacts on the survivor inflicted with them.  

We discussed this in the Community Edition discord and Travis Williams (from TechRaptor) fed my comments up to Adam (because I don't like to bother the design team directly).  What came back was confirmation that Adam was happy with the Bug Patch interaction, but that the Villain one needed to be changed.  We got an update to the villain role card in the very next kickstarter update (which I hope made it into the Lion Knight expansion).

Simple, elegant and it brings the Villain back into line, while also creating some new opportunities when combined with certain Secret Fighting Arts or Abilities.  This change opened up design space and is fantastic.

2. Blood Paint and Shields

When asked about using Blood Paint to activate a shield to Block, Adam thought about this and then allowed it as a valid interpretation.  Creating a whole new category of survivor known as 'Bruisers' who are a DPS/Tank hybrid (aka the Off-Tank).  This confirmation has swung the meta of tanks away from just being 'Grand Weapon' + 'Shield' and opened up a large amount of other viable builds.  It has also made non-shield weapons with activated abilities like The Blast Sword and Oxidised Lantern Sword more interesting.

3. REDACTED

4. Blood Paint and Fist and Tooth

When Adam was asked if Blood Paint in the bottom left corner of the grid would activate Fist and Tooth like so:

This means that training Fist and Tooth has become something you can do via Blood Paint if you build with enough luck. It's a fantastic ruling and is allowing players to do more in the game rather than limiting them.

You can still currently see the old ruling in the FAQ. 

5. Shared Experience

Shared Experience was an update to the Lantern Horde designed to allow and encourage players to field newer survivors by letting them gain hunt exp from older ones.  It's best used on survivors who have inherited weapon proficiency points from their parents in order to hit Age I.  A nice tweak demonstrating how the carrot works better than the stick, when you want to form behaviors from players.

6. Furious Scrag

The original butcher was completely immune to critical hits, Founding Stones would bounce off this monster and it would just keep coming.  However, during one Let's Play a group of beleaguered survivors slew the Butcher via the Deathblow with a Founding Stone. 

Adam enjoyed this misunderstanding so much that the Butcher was permanently altered to retroactively make this deathblow kill legal!

7. Crafting More Copies of Gear

The FAQ clarifies that you can craft as many copies of an item as you want, with only unique gear being limited.  This means that even a settlement that's struggling to make armor can at least get everyone dressed in Rawhide.  It's also helped 5+ player games a lot also!

8. Fixing Tom (The Old Master - Legendary Dung Beetle Knight)

This one took a lot of prodding to get sorted, but eventually Josh (from Twist) got an answer from Zachary B on the design team (designer of The Manhunter, Gold Smoke Knight, Dragon King and other monsters).  He confirmed that TOM should have Separation Anxiety and that his sixth AI card was Shoulder Smash, not Resin Hilt Smash (which doesn't exist).

Here is what he should be, I believe the DBK rulebook is still incorrect.

Suddenly Tom went from being almost unkillable outside of cheese strats (Quad Feta, 1000 Insanity Immortal, RROD) to a fair Legendary.  He's still most likely the single hardest monster in the game, but now at least he doesn't deal 454 damage with his ball alone.

9. Making Legendaries Unique

In 1.31 you could hunt the legendary monsters over and over (apart from TOM who would remove himself from the timeline when slain). This didn't make much sense and it also resulted in players farming the Beast of Sorrow (who was far too easy for the rewards it gave) over and over.  1.5 changed this and now the Legendary monsters are truly legendary and unique.

10. Double Murder!

During one of TWIST's streams, Adam happened to be watching when the guys drew the Murder settlement event card while Murder was already on the timeline.  He clarified immediately via a tweet that they were going to have to deal with both murders. Confirming that the settlement event cards drawn were separate from the timeline ones. 

Update: This situation has become a lot more hard to understand in 1.5 and therefore this entire entry here isn't in the best rulings anymore. It's being left here as a record of the unfortunate mess made.

11. Updates to the Screaming Antelope

The Screaming Antelope received a huge number of updates in 1.5, some of them were balance changes (Screaming Armor), some of them were quality of life (Hunt Events, Hit Locations) and some of them integrated the Antelope further into the game.

12.  Can a person who has two dismembered arms use Fist & Tooth? 

Clarified in the FAQ, a survivor does not need any fists or teeth to be able to attack using Fist and Tooth.  The Legend of the Monster Claw Style, Death Touch no armed Woman of doom shall never die!