Lairs · Board game rules
How do you conserve dice in a Monster Lair?
Quick answer
Use the Conserve action to move up to three Fresh cubes into your Conserved slots, which immediately ends your turn.
Details
The Conserve action lets you move 1–3 Fresh cubes into the Conserved slots beside your Fresh basket [p.8 — CONSERVE 1-3]. Taking this action immediately ends your turn, so you can't Conserve and then keep exploring afterward [p.8 — CONSERVE 1-3].
Cubes placed in Conserved slots are saved from this turn to be used on your next turn. On that next turn, you spend a Conserved cube into your Fresh basket first, and then it can be spent again as usual into your Spent basket — effectively letting you spend it twice across the two turns [p.6 — SPENDING CUBES].
Note that Conserved cubes do not move during the normal Refresh step at the start of your turn (they stay in the Conserved slots until you choose to spend them into Fresh) [p.7 — ON EVERY TURN]. Also, for penalty purposes (like fatigue effects), Conserved cubes count as Fresh cubes [p.7 — PENALTIES & FATIGUE].
Watch out: Since it's dice (not cubes) that you buy for checks like fighting Monsters or disarming Traps, you can't "conserve dice" directly — you conserve cubes, which you can later spend to buy dice for a check on a future turn [p.7 — CHECKS] [p.8 — CONSERVE 1-3].