Dead Hand

Dead Hand is a solitaire roguelike adventure played entirely with three standard poker decks. Each turn you draw a handful of dungeon, treasure, and monster cards, then decide the order to resolve them in a tense sequencing puzzle where every choice matters. There are no phases and no downtime — just a constant push‑your‑luck flow of tactical decisions, resource management, and escalating danger.

You begin with a small set of stats (Attack, Defense, Skill, HP, and DrawMod), and the dungeon grows more dangerous as your DrawMod increases. Monsters scale by tier, treasures provide temporary or permanent boosts, and Aces act as powerful one‑off events that can swing a run in your favor… or complicate everything. Combat is simultaneous and driven by simple dice math, with two high‑impact mechanics:

 Perfect Block: If a monster deals 0 damage, you roll on a special table for bonus effects.
 Overkill: If your killing blow deals 3× the monster’s starting HP, you trigger a second Perfect effect.

Monsters become especially deadly at Tier 4, gaining +2 to all stats, and Ace Monsters only drop their Boss Shards when defeated at this highest tier. Collecting shards is the long‑term progression goal of the run.

Dead Hand is designed to be:

 Portable — playable anywhere with common components
 Fast — a full run takes 15–25 minutes
 Replayable — every turn is a new puzzle
 Tactical — sequencing, stat‑burn healing, and deck manipulation all matter
 Print‑and‑Play friendly — the rulebook and components are easy to produce at home

If you enjoy Talisman‑style encounters, MTG‑style combat math, or solitaire games with teeth, Dead Hand aims to scratch that itch with a compact, endlessly replayable system built from the most familiar components in gaming.

—description from the designer