Awesome situation arose last night in a three player game (actual events simplified for illustrative purposes).

Wizard with low strength and awesome Craft is at the Crown and the Warrior with awesome strength and terrible Craft is at the Valley of Fire holding a Golden Statue.

Wizard has 2 life, Warrior has 1.

Warrior gets to the crown space, combats the Wizard and takes life (no roll needed, he's 6 points higher in strength). Now each has one Life.

Wizard's turn, attacks the Warrior with Psychic Combat (no roll needed, he's 6 points higher in Craft). Wins, is FORCED to take the Golden Statue.

...

Warrior's turn, he HAS to attack (on crown space), he HAS to win (+6 strength), he HAS to take the Statue back (statue card).

Repeat.

Either character can ditch the statue at any time, but doing so ensures death immediately following the ditch (due to enemy being able to take his last point of life).

So who wins?

The third player. Neither character in the middle (engaged in a mortal battle) is willing to concede in the infinite loop battle, so the Thief still wandering in the Outer Region is named victor, since he has an infinite amount of time to aggregate power by himself. The great part is, his luck was AWFUL, and after 50 turns of terrible luck (he still had his beginning strength and only 2 points more of craft), ends up winning against seemingly impossible odds.

Awesome, just awesome. Thanks, FFG, for making a game where such a crazy, unpredictable ending is possible.

LOL... that's great.

A endless battle at the Crown

These things can happen. Another would be high-Str + Runesword (with low Craft) vs Ghoul. Each gets a life after winning a round of combat. For the Golden Statue, I'd just rule it has lost its luster at the Crown, so nobody gives a rat's ass about it, so you take a life instead. Doesn't solve the Runesword vs Ghoul problem, maybe nullify their life-gaining effects at the Crown, straight-out slugfest instead.

librarycharlie said:

The Wizard has a significant edge. He can draw a Spell each time he uses his last one. He can win the game with several Spells:

1) Immobility/Sleep: makes the Warrior skip an attack, so the Wizard attacks (and wins) twice in a row, taking both Statue and last life.

2) Invisibility/Cloak of Shadows: same as above

3) Preservation/Healing: allows the Wizard to suffer the loss of one Life and ditch the Statue

4) Fireball: takes one life before engaging into battle (Wizard's Craft might allow an automatic success?)

5) Summon Bear/Serpent/Phoenix: forces the Warrior to fight with the beast and not to take the Statue from the Wizard. The Wizard then strikes his psychical blow

6) Shatter/Acquisition: destroy or take the Statue from Warrior before attacking him, thus killing him

7) Temporal Warp: this gives you 3 consecutive attacks, one more than needed

8) Gust of Wind: cast on the Character with the Statue, might cause him to loose the Statue (less sure than previous solutions)

9) Random: can always do something really bad to the Warrior (less sure than previous solutions)

10) Psyonic Blast:depending on the Warrior's Strength, a +5 Bonus can allow the Wizard to win when attacked by the Warrior (less sure than previous solutions)

All Spells from base set + Reaper can be cast thanks to the other Character in play (the Thief). The only Spells that will stop Wizard's spellcycling are: Teleport, Barrier, Dominate, Water Walking, Summon Stormcrow and Transference (I'll ask about this one).

Was the Wizard already stuck with one of these Spells? Otherwise you'd better play some more turns next time.

But I would have ruled it as you did. I also tend to be confused in the last phases of the game and I would have been uncapable of such a reasonement. Only a winning Spell in my hand as the Wizard would have made me think that victory was possible.

If the thief die outside then it is a draw or a no-victory, if thief manage to become strong he join the fight.

I think "draw" can be a possibility result so maybe no need to houserule to avoid it.

The_Warlock said:

As I mentioned, the actual situation was simplified. The character in the middle first was a homebrew called the Temporal Witch who has many traits in common with the Wizard. She did have one of the "useless" spells, like stormcrow. Generally speaking, it's the worst spell in the game and forces the average spellcycler (pixie, prophetess, wanded character) to lose a lot of power for half the game or more trying to get it out of hand. Not so bad for a character with psychic combat, but still bad.

And as for the thief dying in the outer region on his own... that was also a homebrew (the Ranger from the 20 Familiar Faces set), and the odds of that happening in a functionally single player game with no opposition... slim to none. You'd have to hit Leper (bad roll), pestilence, then 2 monsters you couldn't beat before you could land in the chapel, city, or village to heal. Functionally never going to happen barring terribly bad luck, and players who are killed in our games generally are allowed to start as a new character in the following turn if they so choose. While this is usually foregone when someone is at the crown, in an otherwise stalemate game, one might as well come in again.

Anyway, I like the Ghoul vs Runesword stalemate as well. I hadn't encountered it, but I like it.

librarycharlie said:

I the Wizard/Temporal Witch was stuck with a useless Spell, then it was an unsolvable stalemate. But if you really had the Stormcrow (bad spell indeed), the Wizard might have cast it instead of attacking (perhaps Stormcrow could not defeat the Warrior in psychic combat) and then hope to break the stalemate with the new drawn Spell(s). It's a big risk for the Wizard, but was the only way to end up things. Win or lose.

You never know if you don't play, but the Thief (or Ranger) was likely going to be the winner if the stalemate continues. It would have taken several hours perhaps.

Digging this one back up!

I had this happen but between a wizard and the prophetess.

The wizard had really low str but the prophetess had the golden statue which he always had to take when he won the psychic combat.

The prophetess won in the end due to the higher str but it took a while.

We argued a bit on the Golden Statues text which says that they must take the statue instead of the normal reward.

Is taking a life really considered a reward for combat? Could the designers have really wanted this item just to be protection against taking a normal magic object from a player and not to prevent the loss of life?

Either way i didnt feel bad beating down that wizard that got to the crown with 4str.

Msrushing said:

"5. Claim Reward.
The winner may either force the loser to lose one life
(which may be saved by use of an Object or Spell), or may
take one Object or one gold from the loser to add to his
own." (p. 12).

Those 2 options appear to be the normal rewards.