Battling in the world of
Grammaticus
You are a master of monsters and summoner of sprites in the world
of Grammaticus. You are trying to become the most powerful master
in the world, but to do that you will have to defeat the other masters
of Grammaticus.
To defeat them you must use your skill at using the many monsters
and sprites that inhabit Grammaticus , but they will only do your
bidding if you utter their own personal power words…
PLEASE NOTE
These are the rules for battling in the world of Grammaticus. This is a first draft of the rules and will
probably contain many errors and mistakes. When you find them, please let me know. To play the
game you will also need the battling cards.
STARTING AND SET UP
Each player will need



A deck of cards. They will need two of each card.
20 health point counters (or any other way of keeping track of their health points) .
A white board and white board pen (or anything they can write on and with)
Set up :
1. Players play the game opposite each other.
2. Each player need to take their deck of cards and separate them into core cards and support
cards. Shuffle all the core cards together and all of the support cards together. Each player
places these two new decks of cards next to them face down.
3. Each player should have a place to place cards when they discard them (the discard pile)
4. Each player places their health counters on their side of the table.
5. Each player randomly takes 1 core card and 2 support cards. These cards should be kept
hidden from their opponent. These three cards are called the player’s ‘hand’
6. The battle is ready to begin.
An example of game set up and ready to go:
Object of the game
To reduce the opponent’s health points to 0
.Players can do this by attacking their opponent with their monster cards on their turn.
A game turn
Players will take it in turns to play, attack and draw cards.
A player’s turn is broken down into these phases:
Phase 1: Play cards
Phase 2: Activate cards
Phase 3: Draw cards
Once a player has finished these three phases it is the end of turn.
First turn special rules.
On each player’s first turn use these special rules:
 A player cannot activate any of their cards, however they may
play cards.
 The first player may only play one card. The second player may
play as many cards as they wish.
Phase 1 : Play cards
In this phase of a term a player may play any cards that they can from their hand. A player does not
have to play a card.
There are three actions a player can do on their turn:
1. Play a core card
2. Play a support card
3. Connect cards
Play Core cards
A player can take a core card from their hand and place it face up in the battle arena.
Play a support card
A player can take a support card from their hand and place it face up in the battle arena. Support
cards must be connected to a core card. To show that two cards are connected place them next to
each other.
The symbols (letters) at the bottom each card shows which card (if any) they can be connected to.
A card with and arrow symbol with a letter in it
symbol with the same letter in it
can be connected to a card with rectangle
.
When a two or more cards are connected they become a group of cards and effectively act as one
core card. Groups of connected cards cannot be separated once they have been connected, however
other card can be connected to the group or the group can be connected to other cards.
Example
Josh plays a verb core card :
He can then connect a support card with
support card (which has the
symbol on it to this core card . Josh plays a Past tense
symbol) and connects it to his Verb Core Card.
Connect cards.
Sometimes a player will have two or more cards in the ‘battle arena’ that could activate separately.
For example:
Josh has played the verb core card and the adverb core card on separate turns:
The adverb card has the
the
which shows that it can be connected to the verb core card which has
symbol. Josh connects theseon his turn to make them one group:
Phase 2: Activate cards
In this phrase of a player’s turn they can choose to activate one of their cards or group of connected
cards. When a player activates a card or group of connected cards, they can then attack with them
and try to reduce their opponent’s health points.
To attack with a card or a group of connected follow these steps
1. attacker chooses card
2. defender chooses card
3. Activate cards
4. Resolve damage
1. Attacker chooses card
The player whose turn it is may choose to attack with one of their card or one group of connected
cards. That player will declare which card they are using to attack with. They will then push that card
forward on their battle arena.
A player may attack with a single core card. If a player has a group of connected cards , they can
attack with that group of cards.
Example: It is Player 1’s turn. They currently have a verb card and a connected Past tense card in
play as well as a separate noun card. Player 1 chooses to attack their opponent with the Verb card
and the connected past tense card.
Example:
It is Player 1’s turn. They
currently have a verb card and a
connected Past tense card in
play as well as a separate noun
card.
Player 1 chooses to attack their
opponent with the Verb card
and the connected past tense
card.
They push this group of cards
forward to show they are
attacking.
2. Defender chooses card
If a player is being attacked, they can choose one of their monsters to defend themselves.
To do this the defending player chooses one of their monster cards (or group of connected cards).
The defending player declares that they are doing this and push those card(s) forward so they are
opposite the attacking monster.
Example:
Player 2 decides to try and
defend against Player 1’s attack.
Player 2 decides to defend with
the Noun card that they have in
play. The player then pushes the
noun card forward.
4. Activate Cards
Once each player has decided which cards they are going to attack of defend, each player must
activate their cards.
To activate a card (or group of cards) a player must write an example of the grammatical feature (or
features) that is stated on the cards.
If a player is attacking or defending with a group of cards (like player 1 in the example of above),
they must write an example of all the grammatical features on all the cards.
Both players (the attacking and defending player) must activate their cards by writing an example of
the grammatical feature on their own card.
If a player does not write an example, their card is not activated and they cannot attack or defend
with their card.
Example:
Player 1 is attacking with a VERB
card and a connected PAST
TENSE support card. To activate
this group of cards, Player 1
must write an example of a past
tense verb.
Player 2 is defending with a
NOUN card. To activate this
card, Player 2 must write an
example of a noun.
Player 1 write ‘pushed’ to
activate their group of their
cards.
Player 2 writes ‘table’ to
activate their card.
5. Resolve damage
Once both players have activated the cards that they want to activate, resolve how much damage
the defending player will take.
To do this follow these steps :
1.
2.
3.
4.
Calculate total attack power
Calculate total defence power
Calculate damage on the defending player
Remove Health points
Calculate total attack power
The attacking player calculates how much total attack power they have. The attack power of each
card is shown inside the attack power symbol
. If a player is attacking with a group of
connected cards, that player will need to add together the attack power of all of their cards.
Example:
Player 1 has already activated
their group of cards.
They have 2 cards in their group
of connected cards.
To find out their attack power,
Player 1 adds together the
attack power of both of their
cards
In this case, the player has 8
attack power from his VERB card
and 3 attack power from his
PAST TENSE card.
Player 1 add together these two
attack powers ( 8 + 3 ) which
gives Player 1 a Total Attack
Power of 11
Total Attack power :
11
Calculate Total Defence Power
The defending player calculates how much Total Defence Power they have. The defence power of
each card is shown inside the defence power symbol
. If a player is defending with a group of
connected cards, that player will need to add together the defence power of all of their cards.
Total Defence Power:
6
Example:
Player 2 has already activated
one of their cards to help
defend.
To find out their defence power,
Player 2 looks at the defence
power on his card
In this case, the player has 6
defence power in their NOUN
card. Because they do not have
any other connected cards,
player 2 has a Total Defence
Power of 6
Total Attack power :
11
Calculate damage on the defending player
Once the attacking player and the defending player have calculated their Total Attack and
Defending Power. Now the players need to work out how much damage the Attacking player
has done to their opponent. Defending cards will take some (or all) of the damage to help
protect their Master (player).
To do this , compare the Total Attack Power and the Total Defence Power (if there is any)
Firstly calculate how much attack power the defending cards will stop and how much attack
power will still damage the Defending player. To do this subtract the Total Defence Power
away from the Total Attack Power. However much attack power is left will be the amount of
attack power that will damage the defending player.
Example:
Total Defence Power:
Player 1 has calculated
their Total Attack Power.
6
Player 2 has calculated
their Total Defence
Power.
The players now
calculate how much
attack power will be
blocked by the defending
NOUN card and how
much attack power will
still damage the player.
To do this the players
subtract the defending
player’s Total Defence
Power (6) from the
Attacking player’s Total
Attack Power (11).
11 – 6 = 5
The NOUN card block 6
attack damage, however
there is still 5 more
attack power. This will
directly damage the
defending player.
Total Attack power :
11
If the defending player has no cards to defend with or has chosen not to use a card to to
defend with, then ALL of the attack power from the attackers card(s) will damage the
defending player directly.
Total Defence Power:
0
Example:
In this example player
2 does not have any
cards to defend with,
therefore all of the
attack power (11)
from the attacking
cards will directly
damage Player 2.
Total Attack power :
11
Remove Health points
Once the players have calculated how much attack power will directly the defending player,
that player must remove health points equal to the number of attack power that is effecting
them directly.
If a player is reduced to zero health points, they have lost and the opposing player in the
winner.
Once health points have been removed, both players will discard all the cards that they used
to attack or defend that turn. These cards are placed in each players discard pile face up.
Phase 3: Draw cards
A player will then draw cards from their core and support card decks so that they have a
total of THREE cards in their hand.
Drawing from the different decks
When a player is drawing cards from their deck, they may only pick ONE card from the CORE
DECK of cards. A player may draw as many cards from the support deck as they like
(however they may not have more than three cards in their hand).
Once the player has drawn their cards, their turn is over and it is the other player’s turn.