jail and town square

By Artaterxes, in Talisman Rules Questions

Can dragon scales be placed on these spaces?

Just wondering because Terrain Cards can't go there. Actually what makes these spaces so special anyway? Why can't they have Terrain Cards?

EDIT: Actually I figured out why the Town Square can't be Terrained (the Jail says you move to Town Square when you escape, so if the Town Square were Terrained then you would never leave Jail).

But still not sure why Jail can't take Terrain Cards and not sure if Jail can take dragon scales...

Thanks in advance

Edited by Artaterxes

The terrain card question has a definite answer (Firelands expansion rules)

Terrain Cards and Other Expansions
When using an expansion board, if a Terrain Card is on a
space that allows movement between boards, characters can
still move to and from the expansion board following the
normal movement rules of that expansion.

When using The Firelands with The City expansion, Terrain
Cards cannot be placed on the “Jail” or “Town Square”
spaces
of The City expansion board.

If a Terrain Card is placed on the last space of an expansion
board, such as the “Treasure Chamber” from The Dungeon
expansion, a character must end his movement when entering
that space, then encounter the Terrain Card instead of that space.

The Dragon scale one isn't as clear but..

(The City expansion rules)

The City board is comprised of street spaces

and shop spaces...

The Jail space is not a shop or street space and cannot be
entered unless an effect or encounter throws a character in Jail.
When a character is thrown in Jail, his turn immediately ends.

When a character starts his turn in Jail, he does not roll a
die for his movement. Instead, the character must roll a die
and consult the chart on the Jail space
. If a character fails to
escape the Jail, he must roll again on his next turn. Characters
cannot use effects or special abilities to move out of the Jail;
characters can only escape by following the instructions on
the Jail space.

So from what I gather, no matter what you must roll and consult the chart on the Jail space .

Kinda like you cannot pass through the Portal of Power even though the Warlocks cave is terrained (since that portion of the rules is also firmly in place in the rule-book, not on the board). The chart on the Jail space is also there even though it's terrained (you could think of it just like a reference). Kinda like characters start spaces, they are still there even though they are terrained.

(The Dragon expansion rules)

At the start of each player’s turn, he must draw one dragon
token at random from the pool and resolve its effect.

...

The character then takes one dragon scale from the Dragon
King’s card and places it on the character’s space .

The Jail seams to something else than a normal space so I guess you could argue that it can't hold Dragon scales .

Edited by Nioreh

Also:

(The Dragon expansion rules)

When a character lands on a space with a
dragon scale
that matches the current Dragon King, that
dragon scale must be encountered.

So encountering Dragon scales is a land on thingie. When in jail you're just standing there.. :P

What do you think Artaterxes (and all you others), good enough?

Edited by Nioreh

From a previous thread

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/121925-city-rules-questions/?hl=%2Bterrain%20cards#entry1290804

...

...

...

The Jail

To leave the Jail, it seems you "encounter your space," and follow the printed board instructions to roll the die for escaping. Suppose cards are on the Jail, which would most often occur if a character is forced to ditch Objects or Followers due to a Spell or Event. As per normal Talisman rules, you would encounter the cards first, and then the space.

Example: The Thief and Assassin are in the Jail. Someone casts Random on the Thief and turns him into a Toad. He ditches all his Objects and gold. On the Assassin's next turn, he encounters the cards (takes the Objects and gold) before he encounters the space instructions to roll a die for escaping.

Example: The Thief is in Jail. Varthrax is the Dragon King, and there is a Varthrax dragon scale on the Jail. The Thief must encounter the scale instead of his space , so he draws a Varthrax card and encounters it, ignoring the space instructions (and doesn't roll a die to escape).

Is any/all of the above right? What might be incorrect?

I think everything is right in principle, but the part about the dragon scale has something wrong with it. There are no elements in the current rules to support a different solution instead of the one you described. Probably it's advisable to disallow placing dragon scales on Jail, like it was done with Terrain Cards in Firelands rules.

Let's hope to have it clarified in the FAQ.

I'm not sure this is right.. :huh:

More...
From the base game rules:

After a character has finished his movement, he must either
encounter the space
he lands in or a character in that space.

So.. encountering a space is something you do after moving

Encountering a Space – Other Spaces [edit: other than Draw card spaces]
Characters must follow the instructions on the space

...

before they do, any Enemies in the space must first be killed

...

Any Stranger or Place there must be visited and any gold,

Objects, and Followers may be taken.

This (after movement) is where you are allowed to interact with cards (eg take stuff..) on other spaces .

and.. (City rules)

When a character is thrown in Jail, his turn immediately ends .

So you will never interact with cards that end up in jail . (Edit: except through spells...)

Edited by Nioreh

In short:

You can't terrain Jail or Town Sqare.
It's in the Fireland rules.

You can't encounter cards or Dragon scales in Jail , you need to land on things to encounter them.
Sum of various rule books. (Is this right..?)

Dragon scales (and cards) seam to be able to end up in jail but since your turn immediately ends when you get there they will never be encountered (..?)
I'd suggest they are discarded instead but this is pure suggestion. Like The_Warlock said, lets hope it gets mentioned in a coming FAQ.

Edited by Nioreh

The Jail cannot have a Terrain card on it because it does not have any movement arrows or adjacent spaces to move to. So, if it became a graveyard, any player already occupying the space would be stuck with no option to move somewhere else.

I agree with Nioreh above for the most part. Scales can and should be placed on the Jail space, they just cannot actually be encountered. I don't agree with discarding any cards or scales on the space though, since cards can be displaced via spell or effect and additional scales would be placed in another space.

Thanks Sanity for reminding me the Jail is not adjacent to any space.

And Nioreh for raising the question of whether the Jail is actually encountered.

Under current rules, cards can end up on the Jail (e.g. you ditch one, a character casts a Spell on you), and so can dragon scales. The question is what to do with them.

Based on The City rulebook, as Nioreh quoted, a character in Jail must consult the Jail chart. I think we can safely assume that no other type of encounter can occur, which means a character cannot fight someone in Jail, and by extension, he cannot encounter a dragon scale. This would imply that a dragon scale would be functionally useless in Jail, and probably best not allowed there in the first place. Agreed or no?

I am still unsure what to do with cards that end up on the Jail space. I don't think it's right to discard them, because the discard pile can be accessed. They can be kept there, but it would be confusing if they're just ignored.

But at least I have my answer to the Terrain Cards and dragon scales.

This seems similar to how the Deep Realms is handled. Generally Terrain Cards and dragon scales aren't allowed on spaces that mess around with normal movement and adjacency, such as Deep Realms, Inner Region, or in this case, Jail.

Maybe once I get the Deep Realms I can see how the rules treat the cards on the space and apply the same rules to the Jail as the Catacombs or Old Sewers use?

The Jail cannot have a Terrain card on it because it does not have any movement arrows or adjacent spaces to move to. So, if it became a graveyard, any player already occupying the space would be stuck with no option to move somewhere else.

I agree with Nioreh above for the most part. Scales can and should be placed on the Jail space, they just cannot actually be encountered. I don't agree with discarding any cards or scales on the space though, since cards can be displaced via spell or effect and additional scales would be placed in another space.

The Jail cannot have a Terrain card on it because it is clearly stated in the game rules..

Thanks Sanity for reminding me the Jail is not adjacent to any space.

And Nioreh for raising the question of whether the Jail is actually encountered.

Under current rules, cards can end up on the Jail (e.g. you ditch one, a character casts a Spell on you), and so can dragon scales. The question is what to do with them.

Based on The City rulebook, as Nioreh quoted, a character in Jail must consult the Jail chart. I think we can safely assume that no other type of encounter can occur, which means a character cannot fight someone in Jail, and by extension, he cannot encounter a dragon scale. This would imply that a dragon scale would be functionally useless in Jail, and probably best not allowed there in the first place. Agreed or no?

I am still unsure what to do with cards that end up on the Jail space. I don't think it's right to discard them, because the discard pile can be accessed . They can be kept there, but it would be confusing if they're just ignored.

But at least I have my answer to the Terrain Cards and dragon scales.

This seems similar to how the Deep Realms is handled. Generally Terrain Cards and dragon scales aren't allowed on spaces that mess around with normal movement and adjacency, such as Deep Realms, Inner Region, or in this case, Jail.

Maybe once I get the Deep Realms I can see how the rules treat the cards on the space and apply the same rules to the Jail as the Catacombs or Old Sewers use?

I agree .

So I'm not the only one waiting to get my hands on the Deep realms exp..

Awesome reminder actually, as it happens (kinda weird, super low odds) I will be walking by near my favorite game store tomorrow (which is normally rather far of).. fingers crossed for a copy crossed waiting there for me :)

The discarding suggestion was actually to make them more accessible . Sure, random adventure cards aren't very accessible in the discard-pile but more accessible than being locked on a space.

I don't really count spells as a working mechanistic for freeing them. It should work without spells.

Above all, Talismans would be returned to the 'talisman deck' and there they are relatively very accessible.

Buy as I said, this was purely a suggestion/house rule on how to play it awaiting a clear ruling.

The Jail cannot have a Terrain card on it because it does not have any movement arrows or adjacent spaces to move to. So, if it became a graveyard, any player already occupying the space would be stuck with no option to move somewhere else.

I agree with Nioreh above for the most part. Scales can and should be placed on the Jail space, they just cannot actually be encountered. I don't agree with discarding any cards or scales on the space though, since cards can be displaced via spell or effect and additional scales would be placed in another space.

The Jail cannot have a Terrain card on it because it is clearly stated in the game rules..

The OP states that already, he was looking for insight into why it was so. My reply relates to a possible reason why it can't have terrain cards placed on the Jail space.