It seems the questions never cease with this game. We've now finished our fifth session of our first RtL campaign, and we still constantly look up rules and face occasional haggling over vague conclusions. Some of these are actually "vanilla" Descent issues, I guess, but they all came up during our last session:

- In the "Pull of the Depths" (I think) dungeon, each hero is pulled one space toward the nearest pit at the beginning of the OL turn. In our game last night, one hero fell in a pit and just stayed there. If the occupied pit is the one closest to another hero, is the hero pulled toward that pit (that he can't fall into)? The only scenario listed on the card in which a hero is *not* moved toward a pit is if blocked by an enemy figure.

- Regarding the leader's ability in that same dungeon, he's able to spend a movement point to move any figure in his line of sight one space. Assuming there is a hero next to a pit in his line of sight (which the leader is also adjacent to, giving him LOS into the pit), could the leader move the hero in and out of the pit? We ruled that he could, but that moving out of the pit would cost two movement points instead of one.

- Can large-based figures move across obstacles? I've had a couple of situations where I had a large monster blocked by a single rubble space or water, and I wasn't sure if the monster could move through the space and end on a clear set of spaces. I know they can straddle pits, but what about other obstacles?

- Hero makes an attack and announces damage. OL plays dodge and forces a re-roll. After the re-roll, the hero wants to add more dice, using fatigue. Permissible?

- Can a rubble space be targeted with a breath attack?

- Do magic attacks suffer any penalty when an encounter condition states that all ranged attacks are at -1 range and -1 damage?

Okay, now for the really bad part: The second dungeon level that capped off our session last night featured Sess the Dragon. Not too bad a deal for the heroes, since my beasts are still Copper and we're right at the threshold of Silver campaign level. BUT --I screwed up a rule that worked out pretty heavily in the OL's favor. Basically, I didn't notice until looking through some things today that the Soar ability doesn't function in dungeons. So, neither of the party melee attackers last night got a chance to tangle with the dragon, since we were applying the Soar ability (i.e., no melee attacks). I think the dragon got a total of four attacks in before being vanquished single-handedly by Ystarra, and this likely would have been cut by a turn or two if I hadn't screwed up the rule.

Sess's special ability (to destroy armor/shields) knocked out three items in total, but on his first two turns (so I think those items would have been lost regardless). But, he managed to kill Ystarra twice and may have only killed her once, otherwise. I have a (likely accurate) suspicion that the heroes are going to be plenty miffed next session when I explain the screw-up, so I'd like to hear opinions on how to fairly account for the mistake. The options I see are:

- Give back all CP the OL earned during that dungeon (13, total--Ystarra's double-death and two other hero deaths achieved using Dark Charm and Silver Sniper Skellies).

- Give back the portion of the CP earned by dragon kills that might have otherwise been avoided (3, total--the lone Ystarra kill after the first two rounds)

- Return destroyed items (even though I think they'd have been destroyed, regardless)

- Award a sum of CP or gold to the heroes as penance

- Some combination of the above

Does anyone have any thoughts? We've had rule screwups before--not always in the OL's favor--but this is the biggest one, AFAIK. Thanks for any input!

NigelTufnel said:

your questions and options numbered and lettered above for reference...

1. Yes the hero is pulled toward the occupied pit. There is no reason why the hero should not be pulled toward the pit other than 'I don't like it, its wasteful'. Not pulling the hero toward the pit is inventing new rules.

2. Yes he can move them in and out. As with Telekinesis (this is basically identical to the skill) it should only cost 1MP to move the hero out of the pit. A figure in a pit may 'climb out' for 2 MP (DJitD pg 16) but that is not what is happening. It costs the Sorceror 1MP to move a figure 1 space. Simple.

3. They can move through obstacles as long as they are not impassable . Both Rubble and water are impassable, so large monsters cannot move through/over them. Impassable is just that! There are no exceptions... except one! - one of the outdoor encounters (Ancient Grove or something?) has been faqed to say that the trees are only impassable to 1 space figures. The mere fact that this need to be except-ed further proves the 'normal' reading that impassable is impassable and large creatures don't get to be exceptions.

4. No, although OL should really give an opportunity before playing teh dodge for new dice to be added. FaQ pg 5
Q: Is the effect of the overlord’s “Dodge” card that the hero’s attack completely misses, or that the overlord can force the hero to re-roll dice rolled for the attack, as with the hero dodge orders?
A: The “Dodge” card allows the overlord to force re-rolls. It does not allow more dice to be added after the re-roll. Once the dice are rolled, any fatigue may be spent to add power dice. Once all dice are done being rolled, the Overlord may play the dodge card. Once the card is played, no more dice may be added .
In effect, the OL when playing a dodge should first check whether the hero wishes to add dice.

5. A breathe attack does not target any space. It affects all spaces under the template, 'billowing through' (FaQ pg 3) rubble and similar obstacles.
Effectively the answer to the question is yes, it just wasn't quite a correct question.

6. No. Magic attacks may be at range (small r) but are not Ranged (big R) attacks.

Fix: I'd combine b) and c) - especially if the destroyed items were mostly shop items rather than treasure items (as it is no really big deal for you to destroy those so you aren't losing anything significant that you should have kept. IMO it is your error so you should go slighty further than necessary to 'repair' things. OTOH, if the items were treasures, I wouldn't think it would be fair to give up both of your treasure destructions so I'd argue for keeping one treasure destruction (the first, but maybe heroes choose). If/when you do 'go further' because it is 'your' mistake (meaning in your favour - actually they have as much responsibility for the rules as you do), make sure they know it so that wen an error goes in their favour they will be more reasonable about 'fixing it' about where you think is fair.
You probably also need to look at any potions they used.
Also worth pointing out that the sheer ability to do melee attacks when they thought they could not could easily mean Sess dying on the first or second turn, possibly earlier than you expect (possibly, not definitely). Just the change of possibilities can give different options, so melee heroes may have burnt fatigue+potions to get close and battle, or all sorts of things (its even worse if they have feats). So you really do need to be fairly generous in fixing it. It's not just what they didn't (couldn't) do, its what they didn't even try to do because their options were inaccurately limited.

Also worth noting. These things happen.
My last game night I played 2.5 levels before noticing one of my heroes was carrying the Silver +2 melee damage other item. I only noticed it for a Dark Charmed hit! Dangers of playing all 4 heroes, and having several months between sessions...

Corbon said:

Thanks for the thorough and quick reply! I'm amenable to being generous when it comes to recompense, but--just to be absolutely crystal clear on the situation--the heroes didn't realize they couldn't melee until they had already moved the tanks up to attack, and at that point Sess had already had his first two turns (which destroyed the two items--a mage robe and plate mail). For this reason, I'm not especially inclined to return the burned items. I don't think the rules mistake had anything to do with them being destroyed. Obviously, I wouldn't mind giving back the mage robe, but the plate mail is what they'd be concerned about.

Actually, now that I think about it, Sess destroyed the third item a few turns later--another shop item, leather armor. I guess maybe I'll offer to return the last two items destroyed (the two shop items) + the 3CP. I don't know if they'll find that reasonable or not. Knowing some of them, probably not.

+1 to Corbon's reply's

As for the dungeon mess up...if it was the last level you played, you don't happen to remember what everyone's status was before you started that level do you? If you do have that info, I actually recommend resetting to the start of the level and just playing it over again.

Big Remy said:

Resetting the CP would be easy, but recalling everyone's health/fatigue would be nigh impossible, I think.

We had comparable questions when we played "the pull of the dephts" a few days ago:

What if the mage pushes a hero from one pit into an adcajant pit space? Does he get some more pit-damage or is he just walking "on the ground of the pit". (In our game, he got the damage)

Would it be possible to walk in a pit long pit under a boulder? (Some kind of boulder-subway)

Graf said:

Numbers added...
1. No damage. See FaQ pg 6
Q: What happens when a figure in a pit space moves to an adjacent pit space?
A: Pit spaces that are adjacent are considered to be part of the same pit. Moving from one pit space to another does not require any extra movement points and does not inflict damage in the same way that entering or leaving a pit does. Furthermore, if multiple figures are in the same large pit, all may trace line of sight to each other as if they were on normal floor spaces. All normal line of sight restrictions still apply, of course.

2. It isn't clear, but I don't see why not. Boulders prevent climbing out of the pit, and are obstacles, but say nothing about preventing movement along a pit that the boulder is not 'in'.

Corbon said:

I'll have to find the supporting statements later, but I'm almost positive you can do that.

NigelTufnel said:

Well, you could be generous and just give them full as repayment for the mistake. Or just knock everyone down by 25% in both wounds and fatigue.

Corbon said:

So what about the Demon leader in the Dark Shard rumor? He starts behind a summoning circle that blocks movement, so does that mean that he is stuck to his starting position? Seems odd.

NigelTufnel said:

Not quite restricted to his starting position, but more or less, yes. He does however have an attack that operates at range, so is not helpless.

He is a big demon, in a tight wee dungeon. It is not really surprising that he has restricted movement. Note that he can't fly because there is no room, yet if outdoors he could Soar.
Being confined probably doesn't improve his mood though....