![Douglas Harvey [TOG] Avatar](http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/1770/harveystudios.jpg)
Post by Douglas Harvey [TOG] on Dec 22, 2010 14:29:25 GMT -5
In this FAQ, I will answer questions asked by players regarding gameplay (and other aspects) of Endicott Epidemic: Infectious Contagion. If you have a question that has not been answered, simply message it to me and I will add it to the list!
Thanks,
Douglas Harvey
ENDICOTT EPIDEMIC: INFECTIOUS CONTAGION
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1) With the way the 4 decks are shuffled, the cure card(s) could find themselves below the last countdown card (as happened in one of our games)? If so, you guys are delightfully evil!
A: Yes, I certainly am.
2) P8 of the expanded rulebook. "Item Card:" has the zombie card text under the header. What text should be there?
A: Wow, MAJOR typo! I have no excuse, that should not have slipped past me.
It will be corrected in all future printings.
Correct text should read:
"ITEM CARD:
When drawn, the player who drew the card has several options. They may KEEP the card, adding it to one of their available equipment spots; LEAVE the card, placing it face up in-play for another player to obtain; HIDE the card by stashing it at a random spot in the deck; or [if it is a First Aid Kit] USE it immediately and discard it."
The rest of the text regarding Item Cards is then explained further on page 14.
3) P10, et al., Even if you are carrying/equipping two items, can a drawn/left First Aid Kit be immediately used? May a left FAK be used in the presence of an existing zombie?
A: Yes, as long as the First Aid Kit is NOT being held by another player (IE: Taking the card and adding it to your equipment slots, which would constitute a "turn"), you may immediately use a First Aid Kit as soon as it is drawn, or alternately as soon as it is your turn and there is one on the table that has been left behind. And yes, First Aid Kits may be used in the presence of a Zombie as long as it has already been drawn. Using the Kit essentially "skips" your turn because using it is your turn's action.
4) P12, et al., "Combat Modifiers": (clarification) If my modifiers are +3/-3, then I can use one of the following modifiers on any particular die roll... +3, +2, +1, 0, -1, -2, -3 ?
A: Yes, exactly. If your Modifiers are +3/-3 you can either add +1, +2, or +3 or subtract -1, -2, or -3 or simply leave your roll as it is.
Another bit of clarification regarding the shotgun weapon: Whatever your roll is (let's say you roll a 4), you may use any of the following modifiers on that roll: +1, +2, +3, +4, 0, -1, or -2; THEN you may also hit other hit zones on the same Zombie using a +2/-2 modifier, so if there is a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 hit zone on the current Zombie, you automatically hit those zones as well. You can potentially blow away a Zombie with one blast of a shotgun!
5) P13, "Dealing Damage": On one particular turn, you have a zombie in play. If I understand correctly, you must roll the combat die (over and over within the particular turn) until you either eliminate the zombie, or fail to achieve a hit, at which time the zombie successfully counter-attacks.
A: Yes, your turn continues until the Zombie is killed or you are wounded; at that point your turn is over and the appropriate action is taken (either you collect the dead Zombie card, or take a hit of damage).
6) P14, "Items: Hide It" Can you place the card on top of the draw deck?
A: Yes, although that might make things a little TOO easy. Personally, when I play I have another player fan out the remainder of the deck and I slide the card I am hiding into a random spot. When playing as an Infected character, stashing items in the lower portion of the deck could work to your advantage.
7) P16, "Reshuffle" I assume this includes reshuffling the discard pile into the draw pile and using this as the new draw pile?
A: No, when RESHUFFLE is drawn, the remainder of the face-down play deck is shuffled along with the reshuffle card that was just drawn. The discard pile remains untouched.
8) P16, "Respawn" The skull icon is displaced in the second paragraph.
A: ACK! How did that happen? I will fix that for future printings.
9) P16/17, "Respawn" If I have a 3 headshot zombie and a 2 headshot zombie, may I respawn my 4 icon character by overpaying the cost, or must I have a combination of 4 headshot zombies exactly? The wording is somewhat ambiguous....
A: As long as you have your character's respawn cost, then it is acceptable to "overpay" to respawn. It does not need to be exact, but you must always keep in mind what combination of cards you are giving up to respawn. If you have to give up a massive Boss Zombie to stay alive, you will lose a lot of points as well.
10) P17-19, "Becoming Infected" Do headshots overrule the need to destroy your infected character's hit zone also?
A: Yes, they do. If the Zombie is wiped out with a swift headshot, there is no need for the Infected character to protect it any longer.
11) P18, "Becoming Infected" If an existing zombie(s) do not have any wounds on them, is your infected character's turn effectively passed, as you have nothing to do?
A: Yes, although you may still take an action if there are left items in play that you can steal and stash away in the deck. In my experience playing the game, however, I've found that when it comes down to one or more Infected players, we are usually in the bottom part of the deck where the difficult to kill Zombies reside so there will most likely be a hit zone for you to heal.
12) P19, "Becoming Infected" Is a Cure Retrieval attempt in addition to your action, or is it your action? I.e., may you draw a card after a CR attempt? May you make a CR attempt with another zombie in play?
A: Attempting to steal a cure card from an Infected player does NOT count as an action, but you may only do it ONCE per turn. If you decide to attempt to do so, you must announce it BEFORE drawing for your turn, otherwise your turn action has been spent by drawing a card. You cannot decide to steal a Cure card AFTER you draw for your turn. You may attempt to steal a Cure card on your turn even if there is a Zombie in play, but after doing so (whether you are successful or not), you must fight directly after (unless of course you successfully stole the final Cure card and won the game).
13) What happens to the zombie in play when you respawn? The Military Troll took out Honey Dear.... I assumed the Troll got discarded (along with Honey's respawn costs) and a new card drawn with Honey at 1/2 hp (3)....
A: The Zombie always stays in play until it is killed by a player. If a Zombie kills you and you respawn, you discard your collected Zombie cards to pay the cost and return with half of your health intact. Your turn is then over and the next player must attempt to kill the Zombie.
14) Is Mercenary Assistance usage mandatory?
A: Yes it is. All event cards are mandatory unless the actions listed cannot be played (like "Time Flies By", because if there are no Countdown cards in play then there is nothing to do; and "Alarming Complication", because if no one is holding a cure card then there is also nothing to do). As long as the actions can be played in the current point in the game, the event cards are ALWAYS mandatory. If you don't want to use the Mercenary Assistance card, don't add it to the deck. :-)
15) Does the BFG fire until the round is resolved?
A: Yes. When you use the BFG Minigun on your turn, as soon as the turn ends (either you successfully kill the Zombie or the Zombie wounds you), you will then rotate the card as stated and you can't use it until another turn passes. Just in case, always bring a backup piece to a shootout.
16) If a character doesn't respawn, and is infected, does the infecting zombie still stay in play?
A: Yes, all Zombies stay in play until they are killed.
17) Infected JD vs the Shotgun: how does this work vis-a-vis the shotgun's special ability? If you had a 3/9/3 zombie, and rolled a 5, would you miss the center spot (5+4-1) and hit the other two (5-2 each), or would Infected JD's ability stop that too? (5-2-1)
A: The shotgun's special ability is simply an additional (but small) combat modifier, so Infected JD's attributes affect that as well. Therefore, when using the shotgun you may modify your roll -1, 0, +1, +2, or +3 for your main shot, and then only -1 or +1 for your other shots. I wouldn't think of it as a math equation like you explained, just subtract 1 from every number in a weapon modifier before rolling and use those instead of the ones listed on the card.
Here's a quick cribsheet for using JD's Infected Attribute::
Shotgun: +3/-1 [Additionally: +1/-1]
Submachine Gun: +2/-1
Handgun: +2/-2
Combat Knife: +1/-1
Axe: 0/0
18) Would JD's ability affect any other special weapon numbers, such as the 9 needed on a thrown combat knife?
A: No, it only affects the combat modifiers of a Weapon Item. Therefore any additional special abilities that are not considered to be a "modifier" on a weapon card (ie: something that actively changes the outcome of your roll) is not affected. The Combat Knife's throwing ability is not affected, Unarmed combat modifiers are not affected, etc.
19) Are Headshots (natural 6) mandatory?
A: No, they are not mandatory. If you manage to damage all of a Zombie's hit zones before rolling a headshot, then the Zombie is dead. Headshots are simply a quicker (but harder) way to dispatch the enemies.
20) Is an unarmed Ant ridiculously powerful? Or am I missing something?
A: Yes, Ant is VERY powerful, and that comes mostly from his training as an MBI Soldier. To balance that out, however, if he becomes infected his new powers will surely do more harm for the rest of the team than any of the other characters would. So in exchange for having a strong character in the beginning of the game you run the risk of making the game even harder to win if Ant is killed.
21) What good is an Axe to anyone with an unarmed combat bonus of +/-2?
A:For those who have just the core game, the axe really only acts as pseudo-fodder for Honey Dear's character attribute (being able to discard items to heal herself) as well as balancing the deck out (if the deck was only filled with the critically important cards, the game would get boring because you know you'll always draw something you need or an enemy/Countdown. Having some cards that feel "worthless" gives the game some more variety).
While the axe is pretty useless in the base game, it won't always be that way. With coming expansions the game builds upon the axe and it becomes a very powerful tool. In Radioactive Rumble, for example, the axe (or the combat knife) is needed to amputate the feet of irradiated characters. Without it, the radioactivity spreads and continues to slowly kill your character (and that health can't be regenerated). The axe will also come in handy when playing with the Intrigue expansion because characters may become trapped behind doors or panels that need to be blasted open with a powerful weapon (which would be hard to find if you can't move very far), or hacked open with an axe.
22) In what order do Events occur? I just happened to draw (in this order):
Heroic Stand, Mercenary Assistance, then Aggressive Assault. BEFORE I drew any zombies... call it luck or bad shuffling, but it happened.
A: Events are played out in the order they are drawn. So for your example, you would play Heroic Stand first (the player who drew the card takes a hit of damage and puts the card aside until a Zombie with 3 hit zones or less is drawn); then Mercenary Assistance is put to the side with 3 chits (every time a Zombie with 3 or less hit zones is drawn, a chit is removed until all three are used) [NOTE that the first time a Zombie is drawn that has 3 or less hit zones it is killed by Heroic Stand and not Mercenary Assistance]. Finally, Aggressive Assault is played and the player who drew it keeps it next to their character card. The next time THAT player draws a Zombie, the card's effects are used.
23) What are the skulls in the top left corner of a character card for?
A: That is your RESPAWN COST. If your character's health drops completely, you are considered killed unless you can pay the respawn cost (by discarding your collected Zombies to match the number of skulls - so for example a character with a respawn cost of 3 skulls needs to discard Zombie cards equaling 3 skulls (or more, if an even payment can't be made). You then return to the game with HALF of your total health (rounded up to the nearest whole). Respawning drops your total point score, but it keeps you from becoming Infected. This system is explained on page 16 of the Survival Kit rulebook and on page 13 of the core game rulebook.
24) The box. I don't think I'll be putting any additional expansions in it any time soon. It's a little thin and flimsy.
A: Originally, my planned expansions were going to be simple packs of 18 or so cards, but since I have a habit of making things more complex than I intended them to be I ended up making the expansions more in-depth (thus requiring more pieces). Since the Survival Kit had already been produced when I made the Black Ops expansion bigger, the box's ability to store future expansions was destroyed. It's my fault for not realizing my knack for wanting to make things bigger ahead of time.
However, to make up for this I am creating a "Survival Chest" that will consist of a casewrapped 8.5x11x2" rigid setup box that can hold all of the coming expansions and the Survival Kit and/or Core Game . The Chest will come bundled with the game and some expansions, or it can be sold separately as just the empty box for people who already have the game and expansions. Customers who have purchased the Survival Kit prior to the Chest's release will get a discount on the empty Chest.
25) The hit chits. It might be just me, but I use the x's for everything. But maybe I'm lazy.
A: Perfectly understandable, because I do the same thing. I included the different types of chits for the people who want to be able to tell the difference between player hits/zombie hits/headshots/etc.
You will find that the chits in the Black Ops expansion are very specific though, because depending on which Soldier marks you, you have to use the matching chit to avoid confusion. The numbered Marked chits and the Executed chits are the only ones that absolutely MUST be used the way they were intended to though.
26) Nowhere in the rules are the Character Cards called out and/or discussed. Seems like a pretty big oversight.
A: The character cards ARE discussed in the rulebook, but not in a specific section dedicated just to those cards like the Items or Zombies. That's because every aspect of the Character Cards are explained in the sections they pertain to. For example, the respawn cost on the card is discussed in the "Respawn" section; using your character's items is discussed in the "Equipped/Unequipped" section; the unarmed combat rules are discussed in the "Combat" section; and the player's health track is discussed in both the "Taking Damage" and "Respawn" sections.
In the near future, I plan on overhauling the rules and mechanics using the feedback I've been getting so that another rulebook can be released that is more clear. Obviously, all customers who have purchased the game before the new rulebook is implemented will get theirs for free.
Thanks,
Douglas Harvey
ENDICOTT EPIDEMIC: INFECTIOUS CONTAGION
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1) With the way the 4 decks are shuffled, the cure card(s) could find themselves below the last countdown card (as happened in one of our games)? If so, you guys are delightfully evil!
A: Yes, I certainly am.
2) P8 of the expanded rulebook. "Item Card:" has the zombie card text under the header. What text should be there?
A: Wow, MAJOR typo! I have no excuse, that should not have slipped past me.
It will be corrected in all future printings. Correct text should read:
"ITEM CARD:
When drawn, the player who drew the card has several options. They may KEEP the card, adding it to one of their available equipment spots; LEAVE the card, placing it face up in-play for another player to obtain; HIDE the card by stashing it at a random spot in the deck; or [if it is a First Aid Kit] USE it immediately and discard it."
The rest of the text regarding Item Cards is then explained further on page 14.
3) P10, et al., Even if you are carrying/equipping two items, can a drawn/left First Aid Kit be immediately used? May a left FAK be used in the presence of an existing zombie?
A: Yes, as long as the First Aid Kit is NOT being held by another player (IE: Taking the card and adding it to your equipment slots, which would constitute a "turn"), you may immediately use a First Aid Kit as soon as it is drawn, or alternately as soon as it is your turn and there is one on the table that has been left behind. And yes, First Aid Kits may be used in the presence of a Zombie as long as it has already been drawn. Using the Kit essentially "skips" your turn because using it is your turn's action.
4) P12, et al., "Combat Modifiers": (clarification) If my modifiers are +3/-3, then I can use one of the following modifiers on any particular die roll... +3, +2, +1, 0, -1, -2, -3 ?
A: Yes, exactly. If your Modifiers are +3/-3 you can either add +1, +2, or +3 or subtract -1, -2, or -3 or simply leave your roll as it is.
Another bit of clarification regarding the shotgun weapon: Whatever your roll is (let's say you roll a 4), you may use any of the following modifiers on that roll: +1, +2, +3, +4, 0, -1, or -2; THEN you may also hit other hit zones on the same Zombie using a +2/-2 modifier, so if there is a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 hit zone on the current Zombie, you automatically hit those zones as well. You can potentially blow away a Zombie with one blast of a shotgun!
5) P13, "Dealing Damage": On one particular turn, you have a zombie in play. If I understand correctly, you must roll the combat die (over and over within the particular turn) until you either eliminate the zombie, or fail to achieve a hit, at which time the zombie successfully counter-attacks.
A: Yes, your turn continues until the Zombie is killed or you are wounded; at that point your turn is over and the appropriate action is taken (either you collect the dead Zombie card, or take a hit of damage).
6) P14, "Items: Hide It" Can you place the card on top of the draw deck?
A: Yes, although that might make things a little TOO easy. Personally, when I play I have another player fan out the remainder of the deck and I slide the card I am hiding into a random spot. When playing as an Infected character, stashing items in the lower portion of the deck could work to your advantage.
7) P16, "Reshuffle" I assume this includes reshuffling the discard pile into the draw pile and using this as the new draw pile?
A: No, when RESHUFFLE is drawn, the remainder of the face-down play deck is shuffled along with the reshuffle card that was just drawn. The discard pile remains untouched.
8) P16, "Respawn" The skull icon is displaced in the second paragraph.
A: ACK! How did that happen? I will fix that for future printings.
9) P16/17, "Respawn" If I have a 3 headshot zombie and a 2 headshot zombie, may I respawn my 4 icon character by overpaying the cost, or must I have a combination of 4 headshot zombies exactly? The wording is somewhat ambiguous....
A: As long as you have your character's respawn cost, then it is acceptable to "overpay" to respawn. It does not need to be exact, but you must always keep in mind what combination of cards you are giving up to respawn. If you have to give up a massive Boss Zombie to stay alive, you will lose a lot of points as well.
10) P17-19, "Becoming Infected" Do headshots overrule the need to destroy your infected character's hit zone also?
A: Yes, they do. If the Zombie is wiped out with a swift headshot, there is no need for the Infected character to protect it any longer.
11) P18, "Becoming Infected" If an existing zombie(s) do not have any wounds on them, is your infected character's turn effectively passed, as you have nothing to do?
A: Yes, although you may still take an action if there are left items in play that you can steal and stash away in the deck. In my experience playing the game, however, I've found that when it comes down to one or more Infected players, we are usually in the bottom part of the deck where the difficult to kill Zombies reside so there will most likely be a hit zone for you to heal.
12) P19, "Becoming Infected" Is a Cure Retrieval attempt in addition to your action, or is it your action? I.e., may you draw a card after a CR attempt? May you make a CR attempt with another zombie in play?
A: Attempting to steal a cure card from an Infected player does NOT count as an action, but you may only do it ONCE per turn. If you decide to attempt to do so, you must announce it BEFORE drawing for your turn, otherwise your turn action has been spent by drawing a card. You cannot decide to steal a Cure card AFTER you draw for your turn. You may attempt to steal a Cure card on your turn even if there is a Zombie in play, but after doing so (whether you are successful or not), you must fight directly after (unless of course you successfully stole the final Cure card and won the game).
13) What happens to the zombie in play when you respawn? The Military Troll took out Honey Dear.... I assumed the Troll got discarded (along with Honey's respawn costs) and a new card drawn with Honey at 1/2 hp (3)....
A: The Zombie always stays in play until it is killed by a player. If a Zombie kills you and you respawn, you discard your collected Zombie cards to pay the cost and return with half of your health intact. Your turn is then over and the next player must attempt to kill the Zombie.
14) Is Mercenary Assistance usage mandatory?
A: Yes it is. All event cards are mandatory unless the actions listed cannot be played (like "Time Flies By", because if there are no Countdown cards in play then there is nothing to do; and "Alarming Complication", because if no one is holding a cure card then there is also nothing to do). As long as the actions can be played in the current point in the game, the event cards are ALWAYS mandatory. If you don't want to use the Mercenary Assistance card, don't add it to the deck. :-)
15) Does the BFG fire until the round is resolved?
A: Yes. When you use the BFG Minigun on your turn, as soon as the turn ends (either you successfully kill the Zombie or the Zombie wounds you), you will then rotate the card as stated and you can't use it until another turn passes. Just in case, always bring a backup piece to a shootout.
16) If a character doesn't respawn, and is infected, does the infecting zombie still stay in play?
A: Yes, all Zombies stay in play until they are killed.
17) Infected JD vs the Shotgun: how does this work vis-a-vis the shotgun's special ability? If you had a 3/9/3 zombie, and rolled a 5, would you miss the center spot (5+4-1) and hit the other two (5-2 each), or would Infected JD's ability stop that too? (5-2-1)
A: The shotgun's special ability is simply an additional (but small) combat modifier, so Infected JD's attributes affect that as well. Therefore, when using the shotgun you may modify your roll -1, 0, +1, +2, or +3 for your main shot, and then only -1 or +1 for your other shots. I wouldn't think of it as a math equation like you explained, just subtract 1 from every number in a weapon modifier before rolling and use those instead of the ones listed on the card.
Here's a quick cribsheet for using JD's Infected Attribute::
Shotgun: +3/-1 [Additionally: +1/-1]
Submachine Gun: +2/-1
Handgun: +2/-2
Combat Knife: +1/-1
Axe: 0/0
18) Would JD's ability affect any other special weapon numbers, such as the 9 needed on a thrown combat knife?
A: No, it only affects the combat modifiers of a Weapon Item. Therefore any additional special abilities that are not considered to be a "modifier" on a weapon card (ie: something that actively changes the outcome of your roll) is not affected. The Combat Knife's throwing ability is not affected, Unarmed combat modifiers are not affected, etc.
19) Are Headshots (natural 6) mandatory?
A: No, they are not mandatory. If you manage to damage all of a Zombie's hit zones before rolling a headshot, then the Zombie is dead. Headshots are simply a quicker (but harder) way to dispatch the enemies.
20) Is an unarmed Ant ridiculously powerful? Or am I missing something?
A: Yes, Ant is VERY powerful, and that comes mostly from his training as an MBI Soldier. To balance that out, however, if he becomes infected his new powers will surely do more harm for the rest of the team than any of the other characters would. So in exchange for having a strong character in the beginning of the game you run the risk of making the game even harder to win if Ant is killed.
21) What good is an Axe to anyone with an unarmed combat bonus of +/-2?
A:For those who have just the core game, the axe really only acts as pseudo-fodder for Honey Dear's character attribute (being able to discard items to heal herself) as well as balancing the deck out (if the deck was only filled with the critically important cards, the game would get boring because you know you'll always draw something you need or an enemy/Countdown. Having some cards that feel "worthless" gives the game some more variety).
While the axe is pretty useless in the base game, it won't always be that way. With coming expansions the game builds upon the axe and it becomes a very powerful tool. In Radioactive Rumble, for example, the axe (or the combat knife) is needed to amputate the feet of irradiated characters. Without it, the radioactivity spreads and continues to slowly kill your character (and that health can't be regenerated). The axe will also come in handy when playing with the Intrigue expansion because characters may become trapped behind doors or panels that need to be blasted open with a powerful weapon (which would be hard to find if you can't move very far), or hacked open with an axe.
22) In what order do Events occur? I just happened to draw (in this order):
Heroic Stand, Mercenary Assistance, then Aggressive Assault. BEFORE I drew any zombies... call it luck or bad shuffling, but it happened.
A: Events are played out in the order they are drawn. So for your example, you would play Heroic Stand first (the player who drew the card takes a hit of damage and puts the card aside until a Zombie with 3 hit zones or less is drawn); then Mercenary Assistance is put to the side with 3 chits (every time a Zombie with 3 or less hit zones is drawn, a chit is removed until all three are used) [NOTE that the first time a Zombie is drawn that has 3 or less hit zones it is killed by Heroic Stand and not Mercenary Assistance]. Finally, Aggressive Assault is played and the player who drew it keeps it next to their character card. The next time THAT player draws a Zombie, the card's effects are used.
23) What are the skulls in the top left corner of a character card for?
A: That is your RESPAWN COST. If your character's health drops completely, you are considered killed unless you can pay the respawn cost (by discarding your collected Zombies to match the number of skulls - so for example a character with a respawn cost of 3 skulls needs to discard Zombie cards equaling 3 skulls (or more, if an even payment can't be made). You then return to the game with HALF of your total health (rounded up to the nearest whole). Respawning drops your total point score, but it keeps you from becoming Infected. This system is explained on page 16 of the Survival Kit rulebook and on page 13 of the core game rulebook.
24) The box. I don't think I'll be putting any additional expansions in it any time soon. It's a little thin and flimsy.
A: Originally, my planned expansions were going to be simple packs of 18 or so cards, but since I have a habit of making things more complex than I intended them to be I ended up making the expansions more in-depth (thus requiring more pieces). Since the Survival Kit had already been produced when I made the Black Ops expansion bigger, the box's ability to store future expansions was destroyed. It's my fault for not realizing my knack for wanting to make things bigger ahead of time.
However, to make up for this I am creating a "Survival Chest" that will consist of a casewrapped 8.5x11x2" rigid setup box that can hold all of the coming expansions and the Survival Kit and/or Core Game . The Chest will come bundled with the game and some expansions, or it can be sold separately as just the empty box for people who already have the game and expansions. Customers who have purchased the Survival Kit prior to the Chest's release will get a discount on the empty Chest.
25) The hit chits. It might be just me, but I use the x's for everything. But maybe I'm lazy.
A: Perfectly understandable, because I do the same thing. I included the different types of chits for the people who want to be able to tell the difference between player hits/zombie hits/headshots/etc.
You will find that the chits in the Black Ops expansion are very specific though, because depending on which Soldier marks you, you have to use the matching chit to avoid confusion. The numbered Marked chits and the Executed chits are the only ones that absolutely MUST be used the way they were intended to though.
26) Nowhere in the rules are the Character Cards called out and/or discussed. Seems like a pretty big oversight.
A: The character cards ARE discussed in the rulebook, but not in a specific section dedicated just to those cards like the Items or Zombies. That's because every aspect of the Character Cards are explained in the sections they pertain to. For example, the respawn cost on the card is discussed in the "Respawn" section; using your character's items is discussed in the "Equipped/Unequipped" section; the unarmed combat rules are discussed in the "Combat" section; and the player's health track is discussed in both the "Taking Damage" and "Respawn" sections.
In the near future, I plan on overhauling the rules and mechanics using the feedback I've been getting so that another rulebook can be released that is more clear. Obviously, all customers who have purchased the game before the new rulebook is implemented will get theirs for free.