Need some help about how to interprete the rules regarding the doors in this quest, as we plan to play this quest this evening.

The quest rules say "If the hero passes [the attribute roll], he may choose a door that is not locked and place his figure in the empty space closest to that door".

Does it mean any side of any door? For instance, if you pass a test on the green door, can you teleport to any space adjacent to the blue door?

My reading is yes. The map is already segmented in such a way that you can't count spaces to either side of the door, so it doesn't really make sense to say you can only teleport to one side.

EDIT: And here I thought this was going to be a topic about house rules.

I don't think that's right..

This just seems to be a matter of poor wording on FFG's part. If you keep reading further down, you'll see that it explains monsters can choose a door that is not locked and then pick the empty space closest to the opposite side of the door. In order for the door to have an 'opposite side' it must be referring to the door they are currently adjacent to.

I don't see why the door should function differently for heroes vs. monsters, so I would say if you are at the green door you can only move to the other side of the green door with a successful test.

--

And I agree Zaltyre, I was thinking the exact same thing about the topic name

Oh well

I don't think that's right..

This just seems to be a matter of poor wording on FFG's part. If you keep reading further down, you'll see that it explains monsters can choose a door that is not locked and then pick the empty space closest to the opposite side of the door. In order for the door to have an 'opposite side' it must be referring to the door they are currently adjacent to. I don't see why the door should function differently for heroes vs. monsters, so I would say if you are at the green door you can only move to the other side of the green door with a successful test.

I don't know if that's true, though, Charmy. There are several quests (such as "The Monster's Hoard" or "Let the Truth be Buried") where the special movement rules for the heroes and monsters are intentionally distinct.

Given the later bit of text, I agree it's a bit unclear whether they intended them to function differently. However, RAW, I think a hero can place on either side of another unlocked door.

I cannot rename the thread, sorry

Yeah that sounds a bit weird to me too, even if the rules can well be made asymetrical between heroes and monsters. It means you can skip the corridor with Skarn in completely and rush for the shards for the cost of one move point.

That's the way we´re going to play it I guess, but that feels odd to me.

EDIT: As a consequence, having Skarn remove the door by linking to the shard seems like a benefit from the OL perspective as it prevents heroes from using the door to teleport. Not sure if that would be correct either.

I think it will ruin the quest if you allow the heroes to teleport to any door they wish from any door while the monsters cannot. As you said, the heroes can skip hazards in the center room effortlessly and screw over the monsters if played that way.

I know as OL I would never allow this rumor quest to be played unless forced to with that ruling. Definitely a case of RAW vs. RAI, if you ask me.

Oh, and a small point that tilts the ruling towards my interpretation: For the heroes, the rules say "the" empty space closest to that door, rather than "an" empty space closest to that door. This implies that the writer was thinking of the 'opposite side' of that door, rather than any door. Not iron-clad, I will admit, but its something.

I would e-mail FFG about this one, personally.

Problem is, we´re not playing this quest as a rumor, but as quest number 3 in the Manor of Ravens campaign, so we cannot skip it. I´ll try to get a response from FFG before tonight :-/

I think it will ruin the quest if you allow the heroes to teleport to any door they wish from any door while the monsters cannot. I know as OL I would never allow this rumor quest to be played unless forced to with that ruling.

I would e-mail FFG about this one, personally.

Oh, no question that it's hazy enough to ask the question- but Indalcio said it's getting played tonight, so my personal stance is until you know otherwise, play RAW.

Also, I don't think it breaks the map (though I admit, I haven't played it.) The heroes start at the entrance, right? So:

-If the heroes are rushing the shards, they're going to be moving away from the entrance.

-The win condition is that 1 hero has all the shards- so they need to get back to each other.

-The OL chooses the attribute to test- so he controls where the heroes are moving to, and can keep splitting them up.

-The treasure is in the middle, encouraging the heroes to spend some of those tests getting treasure, and not the shards.

Most importantly, since the monsters move differently, Skarn can just walk off the map (he's only 4 move actions away from the entrance!) Once the heroes leave to get the shards, the path is clear for Skarn to leave, and the OL wins. They also can't kill him.

-The win condition is that 1 hero has all the shards- so they need to get back to each other.

-The OL chooses the attribute to test- so he controls where the heroes are moving to, and can keep splitting them up.

Most importantly, since the monsters move differently, Skarn can just walk off the map (he's only 4 move actions away from the entrance!) Once the heroes leave to get the shards, the path is clear for Skarn to leave, and the OL wins. They also can't kill him.

It's more complicated, because Skarn cannot move off the map before he has linked to each shard, so there is a ton of move around to be done from his part.

Also, the OL choose which attribute to test (but not the one linked to the door) but if the hero passes, the hero player decides where to place the figure, not the OL. So I don't see a problem for re-uniting as long as the heroes don't screw up too many of these tests (my party is strong on attributes rolls, have Lindel etc).

I´m not complaining for inbalance or anything because I don't know, I have never played this particular quest, but I just wanted to make sure we did this one right, as it's a bit important to said quest =)

Yes, precisely Indalecio. I was about to correct Zaltyre's points on the quest but you already did it for me.

I haven't played the quest myself either, except in my head.

However, when I play it out in my head, its a disaster for the OL without the doors functioning the same way for both sides. The OL has to move around a lot , and the heroes zip around much faster if they have such superior door mobility and will complete their objective way earlier. Not cool.

But it would mean the other doors (not the green one which is the first encountered door for all heroes) are only useful to get back from one of the three other areas, so the whole thing works as a one-direction system?

Skarn is going to move off the corridor anyway off to his personal quest, so corridor is empty bar small monsters.

If the heroes go first for Shard A for instance and I get Skarn to move himself to shard B, then I couuld remove the B door which means heroes cannot teleport to the door B spots anymore and have to go through the corridor. maybe that's the way it's supposed to be played

EDIT: but yeah, heroes have very good mobility using that system, plus they only need to send one guy to gather them all, like Lindel in our case =) They win as soon as the fourth shard has been found, they don't need to be anywhere specifically.

EDIT 2: well, not quite true, they win as long as one hero carries them all

Removing the doors gives the OL less choice for attributes to pick when heroes want to test, but also starts connecting the map. I think Skarn definitely wants to save the green scar for last (especially if the heroes have poor awareness), though I may be wrong on that. I feel like a broken record at this point- it would be great if we could have an FFG answer right now, but we can't- so my vote is play RAW and see how it goes.

Yeah I asked FFG some time ago, but I have no real hope of getting to the bottom of this today. I got the confirmation that the question had been received, if that proves anything.

Removing doors does not affect the tests though Zaltyre? The OL still picks any attribute of his choice except the door's imprinted one, so that's still 3 to choose from?

Yeah I asked FFG some time ago, but I have no real hope of getting to the bottom of this today. I got the confirmation that the question had been received, if that proves anything.

Removing doors does not affect the tests though Zaltyre? The OL still picks any attribute of his choice except the door's imprinted one, so that's still 3 to choose from?

If there's no "Awareness" door, I don't think the OL can pick "Awareness," since if the hero passes, there is no door to move adjacent to. Maybe I'm wrong on that, too.

I shall be interested to hear how FFG rules. I try and answer these things myself, thinking logically, and thinking how I would have designed it. Having said that, I have been completely wrong numerous times in the past when FFG's ruling came down.

If I had to make an "educated" guess on this, however, I would interpret the rules the same way that Charmy is ... I really can't see giving such a huge advantage to the heroes ... it just doesn't "feel" correct.

Of course, now I really want to know what FFG says ...

Also, Indalecio, I would be interested to hear how this quest played out if you play it with your/Zaltyre's interpretation ...

If there's no "Awareness" door, I don't think the OL can pick "Awareness," since if the hero passes, there is no door to move adjacent to. Maybe I'm wrong on that, too.

The quest rules say that the OL can pick any attribute except the one imprinted on the door, so the presence (or not) of other doors should not affect that particular choice. Then if the hero passes, he can choose the door he teleports to, even if it's the same door (if it's the only door left). If the hero fails then the hero is sent to the objective token corresponding to the attribute imprinted on the door, which is always there. Skarn "links" to them and a fatigue token is placed on the shard to show that, but the token remains there.

Well that's what I get from reading the quest rules, feel free to object if I got that wrong lol.

...and Nathan replied

Your understanding is correct. The hero can be placed on any side of any non-locked door. As long as the heroes can pass, it does allow them to get around. However, the overlord can freely move his monsters through the doors with movement points (but not any door as the heroes can) and really mess with the heroes when they fail. If the heroes are good at testing, they will do well on this map. A few failed rolls and it gets ugly fast.

The question I asked is if the hero may move to ANY space adjacent to ANY door.

So yeah, that's basically the confirmation that the "any door" instance is correct in the rules. Heroes will effectively be flying over that particular map while Skarn tries to get his carcass to these shards before then.. Looks like a tough objective for the OL if the heroes are good at testing, like Nathan foresaw.

Ah well I´m going to throw some Hideous Laughter at that to see what happens

Thanks guys for the discussion, it was cool to get that much feedback so quickly.

You're right about the door removal, Indalecio. My (now obviously too quick/ too decaffinated) scan of the quest missed a lot.

You're right about the door removal, Indalecio. My (now obviously too quick/ too decaffinated) scan of the quest missed a lot.

It's all good Zaltyre, you made me re-read the rules, which was a good thing.

...and Nathan replied

Your understanding is correct. The hero can be placed on any side of any non-locked door. As long as the heroes can pass, it does allow them to get around. However, the overlord can freely move his monsters through the doors with movement points (but not any door as the heroes can) and really mess with the heroes when they fail. If the heroes are good at testing, they will do well on this map. A few failed rolls and it gets ugly fast.

Wow, it is really cool that Nathan replied so quickly. Good stuff! Now.. how about some updated errata FAQ?

I was a bit bummed out by the answer, but since I haven't played the quest in actuality, I will hold off on my OL ravings. I would very much like to know how your quest turns out though, Indalecio.

I wish you the best of luck in getting Skarn out of there in one piece despite those pesky heroes teleporting everywhere!

Yeah Charmy, it was very nice indeed to get feedback that quickly. But that's the way we would have played it anyway for lack of better reason not to

So yeah, we played this quest yesterday, and as expected the heroes had great mobility over the map. Failing a test sending the hero to an uncharted zone (to get the bindings) is no real problem since it helps them moving even faster. So in fact there is high relevance in choosing a high attribute so they don't fail the test in this situation.

Skarn is very slow but the problem is to get him to expand in the middle corridor between all the figures. The centre zone was swarming with monsters and transiting heroes so effects like Radiant Light had great effect. It was hard to keep Blast in check. Wraiths spawning right in the action helped a lot to keep the heroes engaged, despite Wraiths clearly lack punch to do any actual damage, and bandits still have enough mobility to reach these areas even coming from the remote exit.

I chose Changelings as my open group for Hideous Laughter, but I had to expose the master monster since he couldn't do these shenaningans from the middle corridor (you cannot count spaces through doors, even if those are magical, lol). They went down fast, but at least they focused the heroes' fire for a while.

So yeah, they managed to get Lindel to find two bindings, got a third one on another hero, and proceeded to go for the final fourth by the time Skarn headed to the second shard! No major mistakes from any part but I felt at this point they would clear the quest by the time I get to the third shard. Like Nathan said, heroes are granted very high mobility, and you can even control where you land if you fail as you can guess what attribute the OL is going to ask you to test. I couldn't get hold of relevant OL cards and missed a lot of attacks.

Then, as Nathan said, the "ugly" happened, in form of the two-bindings carrier missed a door test and ended up in the middle of bandits. He went down, and from there the game took a turn. Basically the heroes decided not to stand him up (to avoid OL card draw to snowball, everybody else was very far from him, he was Black Venomed and I had 4 monsters in range of him). It let me focus on the Disciple to kill him, and get the warrior to low life.

It ended up being an OL win. Lindel stood up at some point just to get killed again, the two original bindings left on the floor and the heroes couln'r find a way to reach the tokens (and spend actions to pick them up) while reuniting the missing ones. Skarn slowly got the third shard and I made way in the corridor for him to expand (for that I had to focus fire on one hero to kill him), then a Blinding Speed on 4 put him adjacent to the final green shard. I took a risk and made Skarn link to it as his final action as he needed two actions to move off the map from his position, and that opened the door and exposed the dropped tokens. But there wasn't enough time.

Skarn did not get attacked and only lost life due to Radiant Light and the Raven flock spawn. Not sure the heroes had actual time to mess around with him.

This quest must be heroes-favored in design, but you have to make sure you have a plan B in case one of the dudes gets killed.

YES! Those are my favorite maps. It looks like the heroes are going to walk away with the victory, and then things just turn sour in the blink of an eye. I recall playing "Monster's Hoard" awhile back- the heroes won encounter 1, so they could use the glyphs. By turn 3, they had their hands on "Trueshot", and were ready to make their escape- all was lost. However, the person who found "Trueshot" was all alone, and with a miraculous shadow dragon attack (11, pierce 1, fire breath) I was able to knock down the other 3 heroes in the same turn. This gave me the edge I needed to trap the 4th, and I was able to keep them pinned until the 8 turns were up.