Wildcards Deck Each player may play with any 60 Encounter Cards and 25 Hero Cards in their decks, but there can be no more than one copy of any card except spells. All cards are considered unique.

Exacto Deck Each player must play with exactly 60 Encounter cards and exactly 25 Hero Card in their decks. All other deck construction rules still apply.

Quick Game Play for 3 or less game turns. Works well in multiplayer games.

Death Match Play until all players except one have no heroes left

Beat the Clock Play to a set time limit instead of a certain number of game turns. Once the time limit is reached, finish the current game turn and then count GP Values.

Friendly At the beginning of the second and later game turns, all players draw an extra hero from their Hero deck. This hero is immediately added to their party. Players with eight heroes can set this hero aside in a Reserve. This extra hero can be brought into play (as a summon) as an action during the Action phase. At the beginning of the second and later game turns, all players draw an extra hero from their Hero deck. This hero is immediately added to their party. Players with eight heroes can set this hero aside in a Reserve. This extra hero can be brought into play (as a summon) as an action during the Action phase. At the beginning of the second and later game turns, all players draw an extra hero from their Hero deck. This hero is immediately added to their party. Players with eight heroes can set this hero aside in a Reserve. This extra hero can be brought into play (as a summon) as an action during the Action phase.

Narrow Entrances The only hero that can be dueled in the surprise round is the entering hero. When using this variant, the monster player does not announce whether or not there are any traps in an encounter until after the hero player selects the entering hero.

Close Fights If the hero player wins a melee by two or less points, he must defeat the meleeing monster; he cannot choose which assigned monster to defeat when this happens.

This requires some modifications to party construction. After drawing ten heroes at the beginning of the game, each player rolls one die. The player who rolls highest plays one hero. Proceeding clockwise, each player plays one hero. When a unique hero is played, all other players must discard all copies of that hero in their hand. If this forces any player to have less than eight hero cards (including those already in play), that player can draw a hero card immediately after discarding to bring his total number of hero cards back to eight. Once all players have eight heroes in their party, begin placing items in the same order.

Good vs. Evil Two players only. One player creates an Encounter deck with only monsters and traps, and the other player creates an Encounter deck with only spells and items and a Hero deck. These Encounter decks should be half the size of a normal deck; at least 30 cards with total GP Value no more than 7500, no more than 2500 of which is items. Hand size is also halved; the hero player always draws to 5, the monster player always draws to 6. Instead of alternating play as monster player and hero player, one player remains the hero player throughout the entire game and the other player plays the monster player all game.

To play this variant competitively, switch roles for a second game and compare GP Value totals after four rounds apiece.

For a true test of skill, use the same decks for each of the two games. In the second game, the player who was the hero player in the first game becomes the monster player and uses the exact Encounter deck that the monster player used in the first game.