Hey all, quick rules question. Really enjoying the Verminous plot deck, but I ran into this issue today when deciding whether to pick up Initiation.

When Initiation triggers, it states: "Until that monster is defeated, it uses the characteristics, abilities, and dice of the master monster (not an agent) in its group."

Say my minion kobold downs a hero, and I perform Initiation on it. It then behaves exactly like a master kobold right?

But what happens when it is defeated? According to Initiation, the abilities only persist until defeated. However, the master kobold has split, which reads:

"When this monster is defeated, replace it with 2 minions of the same type in the closest available empty spaces, ignoring group limits."

So I think I have a timing issue. Initiation lasts "Until that monster is defeated" and split goes off "When this monster is defeated".

I'm leaning towards interpreting this as the Split would NOT occur, but I know there is also the "Golden Rule" when interpreting things that happen with similar timings.

I have the same question regarding Undying. "When this monster is defeated, remove it from the map and then replace it with a minion of the same type, ignoring group limits." So the same question applies to minion Sorcerers that have this card played on them.

Thanks in advance!

As it turns out, the answer is that it depends on who's turn it is when the kobold dies. When there's a timing conflict (such as in this case) the player with priority (that is, the player who possesses the current turn) chooses the order in which effects resolve. If the kobold dies on the overlord turn for some reason (like if it's poisoned or something), then the overlord can have split resolve first and then the end of initiation resolve next. If it's a hero's turn, the hero can have the initiation end first, and then split can't resolve.

I think the "until this monster is defeated" line only makes sense, if it tries to exclude all "if this monster is defeated" abilities, because why write it like that in the first place, if that's not the intention.

In a pure grammatical sense this wouldn't be the case because "until" means "including this moment" hence "this effect lasts until the monster is defeated" means the same as "this effect ends after the monster is defeated", which means all effects of "When this monster is defeated" would still be included.

However FFG isn't very carefull with their formulations, so I think you should look more for the intentions than purly what is written down.

It could also be a timing conflct like Whitewing said.

I agree with Whitewing on the invocation of the Golden Rules. If a minion monster is effected by "Initiation" it has "Undying" or "Split" if the master does, and its defeat would proceed as if a master had been defeated. You have multiple things triggering at the same time. Undying, Split, and the cessation of the effects of "Initiation" all trigger "when this monster is defeated."

The current player gets to choose the order in which they resolve. If they choose to end the effect of "Initiation" first, then the monster that dies has the stats of a minion, not a master, and I would say it doesn't get to "Split," because it no longer has that ability.

Hmm, so I just ran into the following ruling on BGG:

Q)When using a Stalker's Ambush ability at the same time as a monster moves adjacent to a trap, would both abilities trigger or would the OL be able to choose which to activate first (I.E. the trap), and making Ambush invalid?

A)If this happened, Ambush would still trigger. The timing conflict will merely reflect which will happen first. The trigger, a monster entering a space adjacent to (or within 3 spaces of) a trap token has still been fulfilled for both.

Thanks,

Justin Kemppainen

Creative Content Developer

Fantasy Flight Games

This suggests to me that in this case the condition for both Split and Initiation are met on defeat and will trigger. the order of resolution is decided by the active player, but that doesn't matter in this case. It appears the conditions are not retested as each effect resolves.

Thoughts?