Can Wind Pact be used to force the OL to discard one of his Treachery Cards in an encounter?

Wulf

Yes. Though he only gets them in lieutenant encounters (your question wasn't clear).

Question: do the cards that are discarded via Wind Pact give Threat to the OL?

Yes, they should.

Its written on the skill card afterall :

Quoted from http://www.descentinthedark.com/_w_/wind_pact.php : You may move through pit obstacles without effect. In addition, when a new area is revealed, you may immediately look at the overlord's hand and force him to discard 1 card of your choice. He receives threat for the card that you force him to discard.

Threat for Crushing Blow is far better than Crushing Blow.

Wulf

That is silly. Gaining threat for killing blow only gives the OL a very limited amount of resources at a time when there is very little to spend those resources on. And then it only lasts for the encounter. By Crushing blow one of the heroes best items, you reduce one of their key items for an extended period of time and you force them to spend further resources (time and money) trying to recover the lost item.

I assume Wulfgar61 meant the threat was better for the heroes , explaining why you'd bother with the skill at all.

And this ignores another major component of the card: You get to see the OL's hand, to you can try to anticipate his plans for the next few moves.

Sorry, another question that maybe it's self-explaining in the text, but I have the expansion in italian

Can crushing blow discard only a card EQUIPPED or also a card from the bag?

And when can this card be re-shuffled again in the deck?

Thanx in advance.

Any of their equipment is fair game. As for when it should be shuffled back into the deck...probably immediately. I can only see this as being a problem when the heroes haven't visited town yet in a dungeon or if they have the wishing ring.

amadou said:

amadou, you can read english texts for most cards at www.descentinthedark.com
From that site...
Crushing Blow
Play after making a successful attack on a hero (an attack that doesn't miss). Instead of dealing damage to the hero, choose and discard one item the hero is carrying . Pay 4 threat if the item is a shop or copper item, 8 threat if it is a silver item, or 12 threat if it is a gold item. Relics cannot be targeted by this card.

The emboldened part above indicates an item the hero is 'carrying', not any item the hero has 'equipped'. Therefore an item from the hero's backback is also a legal target.

In RtL the market deck is shuffled at the end of the week. In vanilla it's never shuffled (unless I'm misremembering).

I'm disappointed that this was FAQ'd. Encounters have no "Areas" so the card shouldn't apply as written... was the forum concensus (or FFG perception) that Lieutenant battles were too OL-weighted? My read of everything out here says LT battles are usually swept by Heroes before an LT gets to act, and if he's lucky he can escape w his life. Ditching a card when you only get cards you've bought with expensive treachery is extreme. When Wind Pact was written, it was given that you might have junk cards in your hand, so it had a certain probability of ditching a good card, but more likely only an average card. In LT battles it's guaranteed to discard a very expensive and certainly effective card every time. It might as well be: Wind Pact: Reduces the OL's spendable treachery by 20. Because that's what it can do in every LT battle.

And on the flip side, the OL gets to choose the hand when he goes into it instead of having a hand of random crap.

If the heros have Wind Pact and you want an effective hand in an OL battle, get multiple cards that aren't treachery-based, or buy multiple treachery upgrades. If you've got 3 "Danger"s and a random event worth 2 to discard, Wind Pact does nothing. They make you dump the 2-pointer, then when the lieutenant gets his turn he moves up, nukes someone with 5 gold dice from upgrades, and uses the rest to flee the encounter (or stick around, depending on who he is and what the situation is after his attack). Non-event treachery isn't as good at doing this, but they can all do it, and the non-event stuff doubles as offense.

In other words, don't rely on Crushing Blow to win the fight. Instead, use it to force them to let you keep 2 Dark Charms and the Danger you need to power them both.

poobaloo said:

Virtually all of the "Lt lucky to even get an action' was from before they removed Telekinesis. Without Telekinesis Lt encounters are much more interesting all round, even with Feats.

A Lt without treachery is still rather vulnerable.

A Lt with a lot of treachery is actually very very dangerous to the heroes.

All Wind Pact removes is 1 card - so an OL with a significant treachery investment will barely feel the pain anyway. Largely it stops single overpowering cards, Smart OLs use many smaller cards anyway, making Wind Pact relatively minor effect. Its if you don't have it (Wind Pact) that the OL can pull the super powerfu cards out and turn Lt encounters into a joke.

One of the keys, for most Lts, is to get a spread of Treachery (some of each type).

A typical treachery hand of 3/2/1 treachery will consist of 2-3 spawn cards, a Danger (or two), a Rage, a Crushing Blow, a Dark Charm or two and 1-2 other smaller traps. The most significant thing to Wind Pact out is usually the CB or a nasty spawn (a raged Diamond Manticore or Medusa will almost certainly kill 1-2 heroes per turn for example, and Dark Charms can be negated by disarming each turn or by anti-trap Feats).

We've found once you get 5-6 treachery it becomes a very tough fight and the single most important thing is which map is drawn. The heroes can usually edge out a win, forcing the Lt to flee, but can rarely afford an immediate second Lt battle.

With 7+ treachery things become very, very hard for the heroes.

In either case, without WInd pact the heroes are quite easily screwed by just a few powerful cards.

As for the "Areas" part, encounters do have an Area. They have one Area by default, the same way a dungeon does.

If your spawning from a treachery card in a Lt encounter I take it that the spawns follow the same rules as reinforcements for entering the map, or can they spawn anywhere out of LOS same as the dungeons. I have just bought 2 points of Trap treachery (Spider Queen), I thought that would be best, but if I can "Spawn" rather than reinforce that may be may be worth buying for my next upgrade.

mordak5 said:

From the GLoAQ
Can spawned monsters in outdoor encounters be activated the same turn or are they treated as reinforcements?
They are treated as reinforcements in all respects. The normal limit of one spawn card per turn still applies. They do not get to move until the next turn

Thanks, I guess thats fair enough.

Corbon said:

I assume from the above you can't spawn and reinforce in the same turn. And as per above "spawns via cards" come on at the enter points next turn same as as reinforcements.

Are you limited to which spawn cards you can have in you hand? must they be the same type as start on the Lt Card?

You can reinforce as many monsters in the same turn as you can afford and you can additionally play one spawn card in the very same turn.

The spawn cards may be of any type, they are not limited to the types the Lt. can reinforce.

Thanks for that we'd been playing it as 1 reinforcement, not had any spawn cards to play so far only just bought some treachery.