This has probably been asked before, but the search facility here ... let's just say it needs improvement.

Assume Corbin was swallowed while at full health (8). At the start of his turn, he rolls 8 power dice and none are blanks. This is one 'attack' that deals 8 wounds and Corbin only takes 7 of them; now he's down to 1 health. Next turn, Corbin rolls 1 power die; regardless of the result he can ignore the wound.

So does Corbin just run up and say "Come on! Eat me! I'll rip you're insides out!" and, if swallowed, just use his single red die (or other one-handed weapon) to eventually kill the monster?

I noticed a similar question was asked about using shields while swallowed.

I expect that by the rules there won't be much to deny this conclusion, although now that it's been pointed out it reeks of future errata

Of course, the jokes on Corbin when he hacks his way out of a stomach only to get a spiked pit played on him the moment he is free.

I recently wrote a fairly detailed response to this exact question on the BGG forum, so allow me to copy it here:

Looks correct to me (by RAW). In fact, since it says that each non-blank causes you to suffer one wound, rather than saying you suffer a number of wounds equal to the number of non-blank dice, you could argue that Corbin's ability negates all of the damage.

You can also stay alive indefinitely with the Skull Shield.

If I were writing it, the "digestion" damage wouldn't be damage/wounds, it would be direct health loss, unblockable by anything, ever, period. Not Corbin's ability, not the Skull Shield, not the Ghost Armor (even if you could spend fatigue), not the Tunic/Cloaks, nothing. Having the overlord accidentally swallow someone that can't be digested, and then having the rest of the heroes hide in town while Corbin (or whoever) punches the boss to death from the inside is stupid.

The Swallow ability is fairly poorly written in general. It restricts you to one attack and says you can't use any ability or skill that requires advancing, running, battling, or readying, but it doesn't actually prevent you from doing those things or restrict you to a half-action, so technically you can attack on your turn then place a guard order and attack on the overlord's turn (that's still only one attack per turn). It restricts you to one hand's worth of weapons, but doesn't prohibit using your other hand slot for something else (like the Skull Shield).

But the Swallow ability is rare and arguably broken on general principles, all monsters in Descent tend to die really fast anyway, and FFG rarely responds to rules questions, so I suspect that there will continue to be lots of ways to stay alive in an ice wyrm's stomach by RAW for the foreseeable future. Do with that what you will.

If FFG ever does address this, I predict that they will add special-case rules that specifically address the particular survival methods someone pointed out to them instead of making a general rule, and that therefore they will either miss one, or a new one will be introduced in a future expansion that's not covered by the first fix, and they'll have to errata it a second time.

Antistone said:

I've seen RAW several times now. What does it mean (besides something that's uncooked)?

RAW = Rules As Written