Encountering Obstacles and Getting Delayed

By Slavicist, in The Witcher Adventure Game

Posted at

I've got two questions regarding these cases:

1) Can a hero get delayed multiple times ? I.e. if he/she gets delayed twice, does that mean two actions will be skipped (ia whole turn, rather than just one)?

2) Since a delayed hero loses an action, and fulfilling two actions is a prerequisite for encountering Obstacles, does that mean that the hero will not encounter an obstacle?

Posted at

You can only be delayed once,

DELAYED HEROES
ѵ
When an effect delays a hero, he must forfeit his next action.
As a reminder, he lays the hero figure on its side. The next
time he would perform an action, he stands the figure
instead of performing that action.
ѵ
If the delay effect occurs during the player’s first action this
turn, he forfeits his second action of this turn.
ѵ
If the delay effect occurs during the player’s second action
this turn, he forfeits the first action of his next turn.
ѵ
If an effect instructs a delayed hero to become delayed again,

he ignores this effect.

That is from the Rules Reference Guide. Fulfilling two actions is not the prerequisite for encountering obstacles. Turn order states that you get your 2 actions, then when the time for your available 2 actions is completed you encounter obstacles. In this case if you were to skip your turns actions for any reason, you still have to encounter obstacles.

ENCOUNTERING OBSTACLES
Monster tokens and foul fate tokens are obstacles that heroes
encounter during the game.
ѵ
After a hero performs two actions and opts not to perform
more operations, he encounters one obstacle in his region.
ѵ
To encounter a foul fate token, the hero discards the token,
draws one foul fate card, resolves its effect, and then discards
the card (unless otherwise specified).
ѵ
To encounter a monster token, the hero flips the monster
token faceup if it is facedown and fights a battle against it.
ѵ
If there is a foul fate token and a monster token in the hero’s
region, he chooses which of them to encounter.
If he chooses to encounter a monster token, and there are
multiple monster tokens in his region, he chooses which
one of them to encounter. He may temporarily unstack the
monsters—but not flip them—to check his options. It is
important that the player leave the tokens’ facing (faceup or
facedown) as is.
ѵ
If there are no obstacles in his region, he advances the war
track by moving the war track marker clockwise one space.
He takes the obstacle shown in that space of the war track
and places it in his region’s obstacle zone.
ѵ
Some effects allow a hero to “ignore” an obstacle. A hero
cannot choose to encounter an ignored obstacle. If, by
ignoring one or more obstacles, a hero does not encounter an
obstacle, then he does not advance the war track.
Posted at

But you've just written that yourself:

ѵ

After a hero performs two actions and opts not to perform
more operations, he encounters one obstacle in his region.

It seems that this might've been intentional.

Also it introduces an intriguing concept of intentionally choosing to get delayed (when the game gives such options) in order to evade an obstacle.

Posted at

The issue I have with that statement is trying to find a loophole in the rules. Delaying forfeits your action forcing you to have "performed" it without doing anything. If you decide to skip your actions on your turn, you are forfeiting them and still spending your actions on things that don't progress you but will force an encounter anyway. The game is set up to make heroes take their actions and then encounter the space.

Posted at

The issue I have with that statement is trying to find a loophole in the rules. Delaying forfeits your action forcing you to have "performed" it without doing anything. If you decide to skip your actions on your turn, you are forfeiting them and still spending your actions on things that don't progress you but will force an encounter anyway. The game is set up to make heroes take their actions and then encounter the space.

Skipping actions? There's nothing in the Rulebook even insinuating you could forfeit an action; we've always played so that they're mandatory (in order to avoid certain exploits in that manner).

Posted at

Skipping actions on your turn hurts you just as bad as being delayed so you wouldn't want to do it anyway. The point is that the encounter obstacles phase will always occur, regardless of taking both actions or being delayed, or skipping actions.

Posted at

Didn't you just say that Fantasy Flight is big on phrasing and very precise?

Please be careful when you read the words because Fantasy Flight is big on the phrasing that they use and are deliberate in the words that they use.

Posted at
Rules Question:
In The Witcher Adventure Game, if you somehow happen to lose both of your actions on a turn due to injuries, delayed, skipping, etc. Do you still perform the Encounter Obstacles step at the end of the turn?
Thank you for the question!
Even if you are unable to perform steps 2 and 4 of your turn (listed on page 9 of the Reference Guide under “Turn Structure”), you still perform all the other steps, including the Encounter Obstacles step. This means that you can also perform an operations that you wish to during your turn, even if you are unable to perform any actions.
I hope that helps!