Hello guys. Probably a somewhat silly question, but still..

So, there is situation: Hero with crossbow declares an attack, targeting my poor little barghest who was 4 spaces away. He rolled distance of 3 and decided to spend his surge on movement effect. Then he just moved my monster closer to him so he could reach him with attack. Which is undoubtedly absolutely illegal, as I suppose, but I had nothing really solid to prove that. I mean, he obviously missed with his attack and therefore effect won't take place but they didn't listen to me. Other hero told me that there is nothing in rules about it and it's ok. But I'm not so sure about this. So, please, be so kind and clarify this for me.

Simply put surges cannot be spent if the attack is a miss unless the surge is spent to overcome the miss. (such as range or shadow, for example)

I will say that if your rules lawyer-fu was strong enough you could argue that moving the monster into position makes the attack not a miss and is therefore valid, if it wasn't for the fact that part of the effect that moves the monster also adds 1 to the damage, which means the movement wouldn't be applied until when damage was dealt, and therefore couldn't move the monster into position to get hit by the attack in the first place.

Man, re-reading that is making my head hurt, hopefully you got the gits of what I was saying. The short and sweet of it is that no, what they did wasn't legal.

The steps involved in a Hero attack are resolved as follows (page 9 of the base rules):

1. Declare Weapon and Target
2. Roll Dice
3. Check Range
4. Spend Surges
5. Deal Damage

If you do not have the range to a target, it is a miss. The only surge that can impact this is a surge that allows you to add range. You cannot use a surge to trigger an ability of the weapon, if the attack did not have the range to reach the target.

From page 12 of the base rules:

"If the total range obtained from the attack rolls does not equal or exceed the distance between the spaces, the attack is considered a miss unless the range can be increased".

At no point does it state that you can spend surges to trigger abilities that would move the target closer to you to obtain the proper range.

Hello guys. Probably a somewhat silly question, but still..

So, there is situation: Hero with crossbow declares an attack, targeting my poor little barghest who was 4 spaces away. He rolled distance of 3 and decided to spend his surge on movement effect. Then he just moved my monster closer to him so he could reach him with attack. Which is undoubtedly absolutely illegal, as I suppose, but I had nothing really solid to prove that. I mean, he obviously missed with his attack and therefore effect won't take place but they didn't listen to me. Other hero told me that there is nothing in rules about it and it's ok. But I'm not so sure about this. So, please, be so kind and clarify this for me.

I'm actually conflicted about this situation, and I think you should submit a rules question.

On the one hand, on page 12 of the rulebook, it states that attacks that roll insufficient range are misses unless the range can be increased. The target moving doesn't increase the range rolled, it decreases to the range to the target. However, in the unofficial FAQ, Justin says,

It could be argued that by moving the target, you are converting the miss into a hit. However, it's entirely possible that's not what he meant, but rather ("if by some means you can increase the range, you are free to spend surges as normal.") That's why you'd have to ask FFG.

This same sort of question came up for my group regarding Magic Staff

Magic staff has:

Surge = Deal 1 ❤ to another monster within 3 spaces of the target

Surge = +1 Range

Can this go off on a miss? We ruled it that the hit was required, especially since thematically the magic is splitting off the main target, so if the target is short on range, you can't deal that extra damage to the extra monster. Both the FAQ above and page 12 of the rules confirm this ruling as well.

So for crossbow, even though you can move the target one space with a surge, page 12 holds bearing with "...misses unless the range can be increased." So since the attack is STILL a miss at this point, you can't move the barghest closer. The second sentence from the unofficial FAQ Zaltyre posted above may seem hazy, but its not, because he's separating the two occurrences: "If by some means you convert a miss into a hit, THEN you are free to spend surges as normal ." That holds perfectly with the rule book saying no surges except to increase range.

Also, watch your group here and maybe be a bit more assertive. I don't have insight beyond a single post but it looks like they really wanted to pull something ridiculous on you, especially if one of them glazed over the rule on page 12 that covers this. Sure "rules as written" often conflict with what seems thematic A LOT, but this situation should clearly be a bit out there to anyone who games regularly, and be a red flag for everyone to take a moment and really check if this crazy situation is valid. Keep your boys and girls in check. Yes, Descent is competitive and it's hard to be unbiased as OL unlike a Pen and Paper DM who's not directly against the players, but don't get pushed over either.

Good luck friend!