Just a few questions, probably silly, that I need to know and can't figure out from the intsructions manual. If you could answer any that you can that would be great.

1) Let's say you're a character (hero) who has a ranged weapon. Can you attack with Melee?

2) Can you have more than 4 skills activated at once or do you have to sub them in?

3) And is it only 3 in a hero pack?

4) Which card decks do you reshuffle into the deck. Which cards do you discard (outside of deck)? Which cards do you put at bottom of deck?

5) The item deck -- Is it free for players to just shuffle through and look at or is there a way of going at it?

6) Do Undying monsters continue rolling to ressurect, or do they only do it once?

7) Can large monsters (2 spaces or more) walk over rubble water or pits? Partially or fully?

8) When you Aim can you use the attack with the aim the same turn or the next one?

9) When the OL runs out of cards does he shuffle and start over?

ColtonPhillips said:

I'll do my best since I don't have the rules in front of me.

1) Yes/No. You can attack an adjacent monster with a ranged weapon. I do not think that this counts as a melee attack.

2) You always have your skills available, passive and those that cost fatigue.

3) I am not sure I understand this question.

4) Are you playing vanilla Descent/.

5) If you are talking about the shop item deck, then yes. Players are free to buy their starting equipment.

6) Yes, they roll until they fail. If they could only roll once FFG would have included a token.

7) That's complicated. But basically, water and puts maybe. Rubble no. Also...I am pretty sure that a large monster can only walk over 1 space of a non-line of sight blocking obstacle.

8) Yes, if your turn was aim-attack.

9) Yes. And it costs the Heroes conquest tokens.

ColtonPhillips said:

1. You can attack adjacent with ranged. You can also use melee but unless you equip a weapon it wouldn't be a great idea.

2. 4 is the max, no subbing allowed

3. packs hold 3 items, and you can equip 3 potions and an item in each hand, as well as 2 'other' items

4. No idea what this question is referring to

5. The shop deck is open to anyone, and inventory is limited by the cards themselves

6. As many times as they die, they can keep trying to come back. Only one attempt per death though. No surge, no revival.

7. Rubble = no. Nothing that blocks movement. Other obstacles are no problem as long as the entire figure isn't over it.

8. You can use it the same turn.

9. Yes he does, and the heroes lose 3 conquest in vanilla descent. He gets 3 XP in RtL.

I suggest you download the FAQ, it has some of this in it, details about the obstacles I believe.

ColtonPhillips said:

1) A hero with a ranged weapon can always make a ranged attack, even against adjacent figures. A range of 1 (adjacent) is still a ranged attack if made with a ranged weapon. Any hero (including one with a ranged weapon) can unequip their weapon and make an unarmed melee attack with 1 red dice (and any melee trait dice). See DJitD pg 19.

2) Yes. A pack can hold 3 items maximum. Heroes can also equip items in their hands (shields and weapons, 2 hand symbols worth), wear 1 armour, wear 2 'other' and carry 3 potions (sort of in a potion bandolier). Anything beyond this limit must go in the pack, filling one of three 'spaces' in the pack. Note that the Bag of Holding is an 'other' item, not a pack, and when carrying it one 'other' slot is being used and all three 'pack' slots are still available.

3) Most (for a long time all) heroes always start with three skills. Read section 4A on page 6. Then the hero players draw their skill cards, each player drawing the number and type of skill cards indicated on his hero sheet. Each hero player may then choose to trade in one (and only one) of his skill
cards for a new card from the same deck.
This trade in is part of the setup only. Basically you get three cards according to your character sheet. Then if you don't like one of them you can swap it for another drawn card. Later during the game you can buy an additional skill draw (for 1000cash IIRC) which would give you a 4th skill as per answer 2).
There are heroes from the ToI expansion that start with 2 or 4 skills on their character sheet. In RtL campaign games heroes begin with only 1 skill.

4) You need to give some context here, that is a terrible, open, ambiguous question. But I'll try to answer it anyway.
Skill cards: When a hero trades in a skill during setup (see answer 3), the skill card he trades in is shuffled back into that skill deck immeidtaely after he draws a new skill card. Thus the card he trades in will be a possible drawn card if another hero chooses to trade in and get their additional draw from that deck, or if any hero later in the game is able to buy another skill draw.
Shop equipment cards: Shop equipment is always available - every item to any player. There is no 'discard' or 'bottom of deck' pile.
Treasure cards: Treasure equipment that is 'discarded' by players is shuffled back into the treasure deck the next time it is shuffled. The rules send mixed information here, as we are not ever told to shuffle treasure decks and if they run out they should not be reshuffled - yet clearly they are intended to be shuffled at some time!
OL cards: OL cards, when used or discarded, are placed in a discard pile. When the OL runs out of cards in his draw pile he shuffles his discard pile and it becomes his new draw pile (and he gets 3CT!).
Feats and Treachery are complex to explain and I suspect you are not talking about those anyway.
I can't think of any cards that get placed at the bottom of the deck, nor of any cards that get permanently discarded (except under certain conditions is a RtL campaign). Basically in virtually every case you should have a discard pile and it will at some stage get shuffled back in. For skills during setup, it is immediately aftert the replacement draw. For OL cards it is when the draw pile runs out. For treasures it is... confused.

5) There are shop items (both sides the same) and treasure items (3 decks, each with a different coloured back).
For shop items anyone at the shop or during steup has access to all items.
For treasures access is always a random draw and is limited. You get access when openin a chest, and once a chest of a colour has been opened thn that particular colour deck is available for buying random draws at the shop (ie pay cost then draw a random card).

6) When an Undying figure is killed, roll one power die. If a power surge is rolled, the figure is instantly restored to full health (although any leftover damage from the killing blow is then applied to it).
The undying figure rolls every time it is killed. That could be many times from one big attack (leftover damage is applied, killing it again, then the leftover leftover damage is applied, killing it again...) or many times spread over several attack or turns.

7) No. Rubble and pits are both impassable (unless the figure has Fly, Acrobat or similar skills). There is no exception for large based monsters. This sometimes (often) means that the big lumbering idiots are severely restricted in maneouverability.

8) Placing an Aim token means just that, you place an Aim token. You do not get an attack when placing an aim token (the part that says a hero that has placed an aimed order may make an aimed attack does not indicate that you get a free 'aimed' attack - although that could be a possible reading, it would contradict the further explanation). Instead, so long as you still have the Aimed token, when you make an attack you may choose to use the token to make the attack an aimed attack.
An aim order stays with a hero until removed by one of the following events: 1) the hero takes one or more wounds , 2) the hero moves one or more spaces, 3) the hero changes his equipped items , or 4) the hero uses the order to make an aimed attack.
The aimed attack does not have to be the next attack the hero makes, though it usually will be (especially since you must declare that it is an aimed attack before rolling, not after).
If you choose Ready (place aim order, then attack) then it is possible to use the Aim the same turn you placed it.

9) Yes. DJitD pg 11
When the overlord player draws the last card in the overlord deck, the heroes immediately lose three conquest tokens (see “Conquest Tokens,” page 13). The overlord player then shuffles the discarded cards and creates a new overlord deck.

I think a couple of the answers posted so far are in error...

2) There is no limit to the number of skills a hero can have, except in the Road to Legend extended campaign. Buying more skills is fairly rare, though.

4)
Treasure: I'm not sure about Road to Legend, but in normal Descent, treasure decks are not reshuffled. "If a treasure deck runs out of cards, it is not reshuffled. The heroes simply cannot gain any more treasure of that type this game." (JitD rules page 19) However, this is very unlikely to come up.
Skills: When a hero redraws one of his skills at the start of the game, the skill being replaced is shuffled back into the deck after the replacement skill is drawn (JitD rules page 6). Other than that, it's not possible to lose a skill once it's drawn, so if you miraculously manage to run the deck dry, there's nothing to reshuffle.
Feats: Discarded feats are reshuffled when a hero draws the last feat in the corresponding draw pile (ToI rules page 6).
Overlord Cards: When the last card in the overlord deck is drawn, the heroes lose 3 conquest, and the overlord reshuffles the discards (JitD page 11).

7) Rubble and water block movement, and large monsters can never make a move that overlaps them. But monsters are only affected by pits if they move such that every space they occupy is a pit space (JitD rules page 15), which means they can often ignore small pits, and can skirt the edges of large pits without penalty.

What's vanilla descent? The first one? Confused.

So is it 4 skills or unlimited?

Generally vanilla refers to non-Road to Legend.

As was said, Road to Legend is the only part of Descent that limits skill counts, but most characters in vanilla descent start with 3. You can purchase others, although I've played a lot of Descent and never seen anyone do it. Road to Legend characters start with 1 skill.

"Vanilla" Descent usually refers to anything but the Road to Legend extended campaign.

Except in Road to Legend, heroes start with the number of skills listed on their hero cards, and can buy more skills during the game for 1000 coins each, with no limit. I have no idea where you're getting the number 4 from.

Corbon said:

Just to clarify, the OL can only try to revive with a surge ONCE per turn. So the undying figure would have a stack of wound tokens sitting on its card and if it revives (via surge roll) then the wounds are still valid and could kill it again, if the surge roll is sucessful then you remove enough wound tokens equal to its full health leaving the remainder(if any) wound tokens. I am assuming that the OL can activate on the same turn as well.

Is this correct?

Not entirely. The OL has to roll for undying each time the figure with undying dies, right when it dies. With vanilla carrying over extra damage from an attack, a single attack could end up forcing the overlord to roll multiple times for undying. But, and this is very important, as soon as a roll is failed, the monster is removed.

Awesome, thanks for the clarification SamVines!

SamVimes said:

And just to muddy the waters, this doesn't happen in RtL. You roll, if successful they come back at full health with all status tokens removed.

Very true. RTL makes more sense to me, personally. I find the vanilla undying tedious.

SamVimes said:

Depends...have you ever had a Master Ogre make 5 Undying rolls in a row and go back to full health?

Big Remy said:

Yes (I was OL, and it may have only been 4 times, not sure). However as it was a Gold Boss (22/7, probably + 8-12/1-2 boss bonus) in an early silver encounter, there wasn't a huge amount of difference between Vanilla and RtL rules. Each time it 'died' there didn't tend to be much 'leftover' damage anyway.

When the heroes did get to the next dungeon they ended up throwing in the towel when a horde of Gold kobolds (12/2, Masters13/3) rolled over the blasting wizard and then the ranger in consecutive turns without even getting to half damage on any kobold.

unless Hero has the weapon that ignores undying ability, thas a bit annoying

mordak5 said:

I think your spelling is in error.

replace the 'bi' in bit with 'lo'.

Big Remy said:

We had a master Skele-bob get up 9 times in RTL. I just hate fiddling with leftover damage.

SamVimes said:

In Vanilla I had a master sorcerer make his undying roll, publicly, 9 times in a row, and drop characters like crazy. They ended up deciding my die rolling skill was too much, and everyone rushed the last room with the boss and shut the rune-locked door since no mob could open it, and the boss was not going to get through the party.

Now THAT is a funny thought. Imagine writing a quest where you "named" every creature in the dungeon, so that the "hide behind the rune-locked door" doesn't work any more.