The thing in the pit

By rubenmaes, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I have a question about this quest

Every three turns a prisoner is sacrificed.

So I think it is quite impossible to save the first prisoner and if they're really slow even prisoner two.

Now what happens with the countdown when some of the prisoners are already released. Do you for instance in case of prisoner 7 and 8 who will surely be rescued skip the countdown and start for prisoner 9 immediately?

Thanks

Just another thought: do you actually start with prisoner 1 and does the countdown restart every time you open any prison cell?

Yea, that prisoner sacrificing thing seemed to confuse me, It seemed to me that how it's supposed to work is if the heroes go 3 turns without freeing a prisoner, then the OL sacrifices the lowest numbered prisoner who has not already been freed or sacrificed. No one starts with any prisoners freed/sacrificed, and the countdown resets every time the heroes free a prisoner.

"Every round, at the start of your turn, if none of the heroes have opened a cell that turn, place a wound token in front of you. If you have three wound tokens in front of you, discard them, then place a threat token next to the compass rose. Each time this happens, one of the prisoners is sacrificed to the chaos beast, in numerical order as listed on the map. If the heroes have opened a cell that turn, discard all wound tokens in front of you instead of adding one. Once all ten villagers have either been sacrificed or rescued, you no longer need to track the time in this manner."

That could certainly be organized better, but here's what I get from it:

  • If the heroes do nothing, every 3 turns, a prisoner is sacrificed (or possibly every 4 turns--one could conceivably read the "if you have three wound tokens in front of you" as something you do instead of adding a token, but it probably means after you add a token).
  • Prisoner 1 is sacrificed first, followed by prisoner 2, prisoner 3, etc.
  • The rules aren't completely clear on what happens if the next prisoner to be sacrificed has already been freed, but my read is that you should sacrifice the lowest-numbered prisoner that hasn't been freed, skipping over any that have gotten away.
  • Every time the heroes open a cell (whether the prisoner inside has already been sacrificed or not), they reset the timer and get an extra turn (since the overlord discards all wound tokens instead of adding one). Which means the next prisoner isn't sacrificed until the fourth overlord turn (or fifth, see the first bullet point) after a cell has been opened. (Equivalently, after the third hero turn, not counting the turn that they actually open the cell.)

If the heroes open one cell on each of turns 3, 6, 9, 12, etc., then no prisoner is ever sacrificed.


One last thing to make sure I will play this dungeon correctly.

It states in the description that the chaos beast will attack a hero if possible and if not it will attempt to attack a monster.

So if I'm correct you are obliged to attack a monster if a hero is not next to the pit.

Do you choose which monster? Can you play aim or dodge to actually reroll the dices for less damage or maybe a miss? Maybe other things?


Thanks

rubenmaes said:

So if I'm correct you are obliged to attack a monster if a hero is not next to the pit.

Do you choose which monster? Can you play aim or dodge to actually reroll the dices for less damage or maybe a miss? Maybe other things?

Yes, that's right - you choose what monster shall be attacked. And yes, you could play those cards.

But you could simply move all your monsters outside the chaos beasts line of sight as well - remember that out of a pit, only adjacant spaces are in line of sight. (It's up to you to choose the time to activate the great beast - so you can get all your monsters in safety first.)

Or you could simply free the chaos beast in its first turn - just save one card that doubles a monsters speed and you can unleash it immediately. Then you can choose to attack whomever you want to.

Or another possibility: Move your master deep elf next to the pit in line of sight to the chaos beast. Then attack that deep elf - but from distance. It IS in line of sight, so it can be attacked, but its shadowcloak-ability will prevent all damage.

But i think the best solution is to unleash the beast immediately and to attack the heroes instead of thinking about which monster should be sacrificed...

(You see, it's not very difficult to save your monsters from the chaos beasts wrath.)