If a hero has been transformed into a monkey can the overlord spawn monsters within it’s line of sight?

An example happened in our recent session whereby the Overlord claimed that as the hero figure had been replaced by a monkey marker it did not prevent spawning (the other heroes were nowhere near it).

Rules state:

Transformed

Curse of the Monkey God is a trap card the overlord can play when a hero opens a chest. The hero must roll one power die. If he rolls a blank, the card has no effect. If the hero player does not roll a blank, the hero is transformed into a monkey. When a hero is transformed into a monkey, the player must immediately replace his hero figure with the monkey marker.

Spawning

The overlord player may not place a spawned monster in a space to which any hero figure on the board has line of sight.

I’m sure this came up on the old boards but obviously I don’t have access to them at the moment.

Was there an official ruling/response on this?

Thanks

Being transformed into a monkey does not magically make your Hero blind. He's just a monkey. Last time I checked, a monkey can see. There is nothing in the rules to support the idea that the monkey no longer prevents spawning via LOS. A transformed Hero can still use skills and spend fatigue for movement.

The OL in your game was mistaken.

The ability of the monkey to see is not in question & given that they cannot perform movement actions, cannot attack & have a total armour value of zero, most (though not all) skill cards are irrelevant. The most important detail here is that the HERO FIGURE is removed and replaced by the monkey marker and the rules specifically state that it is a HERO FIGURE which prevents spawning.

I do vaguely seem to remember posts on the old boards making a distinction between ‘figures’ & ‘markers’ (either heroes, monsters, familiars or monkey) but I can’t remember if it was to do with this particular issue.

Does anybody know if there has been an official ruling by Kevin on this one?

Cheers

I haven't seen an official ruling concerning this from KW.

However, the monkey token is a lingering effect marker that REPRESENTS the Hero figure on the game board. The only things that have changed about the Hero is their armor and speed, and limitations on spending movement points. They can still use relevant skills, such as Telekinesis.

There were numerous discussions on the old board (one for example: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/4318.page#84520 ) concerning this and the general concensus was that the the transformed Hero is still a Hero and therefore grants LOS for spawning purposes. If he didn't, the Curse of the Monkey card would be a near instant kill, since all the OL would have to do is drop a Beastman War Party or some such right on top of him next turn and he's dead.

You are welcome to play it however you want, but my interpretation of the rules is that Monkey do in fact have LOS for purposes of spawning. The Transformed hero has not suddenly become a familiar, its still the Hero but under restrictions for 3 turns (its current turn and the 2 following).

I'd say that since Boggs the Rat can prevent monster spawning, then it seems reasonable that a hero-monkey (monkey-hero?) would have a similar ruling.

I didn't think about the skills, however. Now thanks to that clarification, and the example of telekinesis skill, hero-monkeys will now in my mind's eye be more like Mojo-Jojo and less like... a regular monkey.

theMage said:

I had to LOL on the reference to Mojo-Jojo

Also thanks on the POV on the use of skills even if you've been turned into a monkey. I havent had this scenario yet but this definitely gives me an answer just in case it does come up

As an Overlord, it might be one of my favorite things to have a monkey fall into a spiked pit and then drop a crushing block on his little Mojo head while trying to get into town, bless the man that came up with the monkey curse.

Hi,

Hawknight said:

What does playing Spiked Pit and Crushing Block more effective against a monkey than against a hero?

-Kylearan

Its not, I think its more for the "adding insult to injury" effect. Doing that is practically akin to rubbing salt and then spraying lemon juice into someone's paper cut

Kylearan said:

Big Remy is TOTALLY right. Not more effective, just waaaay more fun. The hero is already pissed he's a monkey, and try desperately to get back into town before he dies, i like to let him get real close to the glyoh...then....bye bye monkey-man.

And i agree that you can not spawn beasties in LoS with the monkey-hero.

Hi,

Big Remy said:

Ah, I see your point. Once I've gone past the "...and where's the rule on that?" stage as an Overlord in our campaign, I definitely have to explore that mindset more.

-Kylearan

Yeah, once you get a solid handle on the rules and implementing them it definitely becomes time to find nasty ways to harrass the Heroes. I personally like using Ogres with Knockback to throw Heroes into pits.

Or playing a Mimic card on that silly mage the group decided to run 12 spaces with fatigue to grab that treasure chest. Or just have that Mimic run around in circles, staying just outside the range of the Heroes. I've actually wasted Dodge and Charge cards before on a Mimic'd chest just to annoy the Heroes.

Or using Gust of Wind to block down the LOS, and place a Skeleton Patrol or Sorcerer's Circle 5 spaces away from the trailing magic user.

So many fun things you can do once you get a good handle on things. Being the OL actually involves a lot more than just figuring out the best place to put your monsters and when to play cards. Its timing, and a good deal of it is trying to throw off the Heroes game by demoralizing them right as they think they are about to pull something off. Like Dodging a Power Potion attack if they weren't smart enough to Aim it. That especially causes angst in RtL.

I personally think the Overlord "Dodge" card, should be a litteral Dodge, NOT just a re-roll of the dice with an X on it...but i am evil at heart

On 'Dodge': although I LOVE this idea I think it would make the card way too powerful.

Noodle2977 said:

Too powerful, yes, but awesome. This is how we played at the very beginning before we understood all the rules, it was sooo much fun to dodge what the heroes thought was the final attack on the end boss, and then kill one more off just before the end...but alas...no more.