Hey all,

I have a question seeking out an official ruling that references doors and other similar obstacles that can be attacked as if they were a monster. (For examples, see the rock in the final encounter in Forgotten Souls co-op campaign, or the door in Encounter 1 of Rise of Urthko in Heirs of Blood)

If they are anything liked Summoned Stones, then it means they can suffer conditions. However, since doors never activate, conditions like Poison, Burn, Immobilize, Bleeding, Terrify and Disease would do nothing to doors. Doom and Weaken however, would be very useful against doors. The Overlord would also have no means of cleansing such conditions from the door.

Can doors receive Hex tokens from a Hexer and can they be used against the door?

If a hexed monster is adjacent to a door, and a Hexer uses Plague Cloud, does the door become hexed, and then is targeted by the Plague Cloud?

Can a door be moved by weapons that move the target around, such as a Whip or a Crossbow (after all, the surge says 'move the target', not 'move the monster', but the door doesn't occupy squares so..)?

Can they be given an Elixir token, such as from the Inky Substance ability of Apothecary?

Are they considered a monster for granting bonus green dice to a Beastmaster with Savagery?

Can a Knight use "Oath of Honor" to teleport adjacent to the door?

Can Sahla move a condition from a door to another monster or vice versa?

Can a Knight that defeats a door use Advance after the door was defeated?

Does a Skirmisher recover Health and Fatigue from Born in Battle after defeating a door?

Can the Overlord play cards such as Dark Fortitude to shore up the defenses of an attacked door?

Can Durik move through a space containing such doors and perform an attack with his heroic feat?

If Skye is adjacent to a door, does it provide bonus damage + range to an attack on the door?

If a monster adjacent to the door is destroyed by the Blasting Rune, does the door receive 2 damage?

Does Roganna the Shade get bonus +1 damage if attacking a door when not adjacent to other heroes?

What about Bogran the Shadow attacking a door when another hero is adjacent to the door?

Can an Overlord playing the Alric Farrow plot deck use the Armor of Darkness plot card to add shields to the door?

Can an Ironbound that is adjacent to a door take the hit for a door using Protect?

Obviously the answer to many of these has to be 'no' for things to make any sense. However, I would love a list of things that can and cannot affect doors, or at least some kind of overarching general ruling that can be applied, as right now this is a very murky area for me. They can be attacked as if they were a monster, yet they are not a monster.

Some thing that affect a 'target' cannot possibly affect the door, but other things must. Many skills trigger off of attacks, but they specify 'monster', and aren't actually the attack itself. Finally, most things that work off of an attack make assumptions that the thing being attacked actually is a monster, including surges that can be spent during the attack.

We have pretty good rulings regarding the meaning of something that "acts like a hero", but not much for something that "acts like a monster, but only when attacked"

I have an FFG response or two which will help.

For the sake of brevity, in this post I am going to refer to an object that can be 'attacked as if it were a monster' as a mobject.

Until a ruling is discovered, this is my current house rule for mobjects:

Until an attack is explicitly targeting the mobject, it is NOT a monster, cannot suffer hearts, etc.

At the precise moment that an attack targets the mobject, then it transforms into a monster for the duration of the attack.

The very second that the attack resolves, the mobject reverts to a non-monster state.

Additionally, mobjects are immune to effects that change its position.

I think this is the cleanest solution I can find.

One consequence of this is that attacks that do not target the mobject cannot affect it. (e.g. A blast attack on an adjacent monster would not harm the mobject, and a Giant's sweep attack would not harm the mobject).

There are many additional side effects, as during the lifetime of the attack, tons of abilities that trigger off a 'monster' will now work on the mobject.

The movement immunity is important. It is not good enough to simply say that since a mobject does not occupy spaces it can't be moved, as some mobjects DO occupy spaces, and still shouldn't be moved (e.g. moving a rock that the heroes have to destroy to open up a passage would break the encounter in Forgotten Souls)

Additionally, conditions can be applied to a mobject, as it was a monster at the time the condition was given out. This makes Doom and Weaken excellent choices against mobjects.

My ruling has the following implications for the questions above:

Can doors receive Hex tokens from a Hexer and can they be used against the door?

Yes, but ONLY if the mobject was a target during the attack. Otherwise it is not a monster and thus cannot be given tokens.

If a hexed monster is adjacent to a door, and a Hexer uses Plague Cloud, does the door become hexed, and then is targeted by the Plague Cloud?

No, the mobject hasn't been targeted by an attack yet, so the mobject is not a monster at the time that hex tokens are given out to adjacent monsters. However, if the door already HAD hex tokens on it, then it would be hit by the Plague Cloud, because it will be targeted.

Can a door be moved by weapons that move the target around, such as a Whip or a Crossbow (after all, the surge says 'move the target', not 'move the monster', but the door doesn't occupy squares so..)?

No, mobjects are explicitly immune to effects that reposition them. (they have the 'immovable' flag, essentially).

Can they be given an Elixir token, such as from the Inky Substance ability of Apothecary?

No, because it is not a monster at the time Inky Substance can be exhausted.

Are they considered a monster for granting bonus green dice to a Beastmaster with Savagery?

Yes, because they have become a monster while they are being attacked.

Can a Knight use "Oath of Honor" to teleport adjacent to the door?

No, it is not a monster while it is not being attacked, and thus can't be targeted by this ability. The attack performed during Oath of Honor is a consequence of it. The Oath of Honor is not an attack in itself.

Can Sahla move a condition from a door to another monster or vice versa?

No, it is not a monster at the start of Sahla's turn.

Can a Knight that defeats a door use Advance after the door was defeated?

Yes, the mobject was a monster during the attack and thus fulfills the criteria.

Does a Skirmisher recover Health and Fatigue from Born in Battle after defeating a door?

Yes, see above.

Can the Overlord play cards such as Dark Fortitude to shore up the defenses of an attacked door?

Yes.

Can Durik move through a space containing such doors and perform an attack with his heroic feat?

No, the movement is performed prior to any attack, so the condition of moving through a monster is not fulfilled. Ditto for Skirmisher's Carve the Path.

If Skye is adjacent to a door, does it provide bonus damage + range to an attack on the door?

Yes, the mobject has become a monster during the attack.

If a monster adjacent to the door is destroyed by the Blasting Rune, does the door receive 2 damage?

If a mobject was targeted by the attack that also happened to destroy an adjacent monster, yes. Otherwise, no.

Does Roganna the Shade get bonus +1 damage if attacking a door when not adjacent to other heroes?

Yes.

What about Bogran the Shadow attacking a door when another hero is adjacent to the door?

Yes.

Can an Overlord playing the Alric Farrow plot deck use the Armor of Darkness plot card to add shields to the door?

Yes.

Can an Ironbound that is adjacent to a door take the hit for a door using Protect?

Yes, the mobject has become a monster for the attack that was targeting it, so it can be given protection by the Ironbound.

I think I agree with that summary for the most part, Charmy. The only difference I would suggest is that "targeting" might not be necessary (depending on quest rules) but "affected" by an attack is almost certainly sufficient. For example, you can blast or fire breath a summoned stone- they're not mobjects, but they're obstacles which can be attacked. By the way, here's the question/response I was referring to:

I think I agree with that summary for the most part, Charmy. The only difference I would suggest is that "targeting" might not be necessary (depending on quest rules) but "affected" by an attack is almost certainly sufficient. For example, you can blast or fire breath a summoned stone- they're not mobjects, but they're obstacles which can be attacked.

You're right about summoned stones, but they are not mobjects.

I think it is a trickier task when dealing with mobjects.

For example, say a Necromancer kills a shadow dragon and uses Dying Command to Fire Breath a 'door' mobject. Which square does this mobject occupy? Does it need to move through the door to affect it?

Also, the Rise of Urthko door can only be attacked if the attacker is adjacent to the door. This is why I chose to have 'targeting' be a requirement to harm a mobject. The quest rules involving mobjects tend to talk about targeting requirements that must be met in order to be able to attack them.

This implies to me that they are not monsters until those requirements are met. The FFG ruling you posted reinforces this notion to me. Given that, a Hexer should not be allowed to hex this door if they are attacking some other monster.

I think the cleanest general ruling would require targeting in order to 'transform' the mobject into a monster. Of course, every quest involving mobjects tends to have additional rules which could override the general one.

I wonder if it might be worth submitting the question to FFG, perhaps with reference to this thread.

Charmy, while I see the potential for questions when you're just "affecting" a mobject, it is clear that "attacking" doesn't only mean "targeting." Take for example any number of abilities which result in targetless attacks (Sweep, Carve a Path, etc.) If a Giant "Sweeps" a hero, he is attacking that hero- whether or not that hero was targeted is irrelevant. Obviously, the quest rules will impact this. If the special rules say the mobject can be "targeted as if it were a monster," that's clear. If the hero has to be in an adjacent space to attack the mobject, that's obviously going to limit the number of abilities which will affect it (the hexer could target a mobject with "Plague Cloud," but only if she is adjacent to the mobject in that case. It also couldn't be hexed unless she were adjacent to it, since otherwise it can't be treated as a monster.)

Again, it depends on how the rules for a given quest relate to the object, but if it is as simple as, "the door can be attacked as if it were a monster" I see no reason AoE attacks would be exempt from that. The prerequisite to "transformation" is the steps of combat, not the declaration of that mobject as a target.

An FFG question this should definitely be. It would also be helpful if we could point to specific examples of mobjects, rather than just discussing hypothetical mobjects in general (since everything is so dependent on specific quest rules.) One example I know is the Rift Crystal in encounter 2 of "Into the Dark."

I just wanted to point out this answer by Justin:

Q: In the Labyrinth of Ruin quest "Fortune and Glory" the quest book says that the Hidden Passage can be attacked as if it were a monster. How does this affect the use of abilities like enfeebling hex or inky substance? Specifically, is the Hidden Passage an eligible target for hex and elixir tokens?
A: In all cases, the "object" is only treated as a monster in the fashion that it can be affected by hero attacks. Things like Enfeebling Hex and Inky Substance cannot trigger because they used with monsters, but something like a Valor of Heroes merely adds damage to an attack role (regardless of target).

Source

It seems to contradict Kara's answer in Zaltyre's post above ...

Do not get me wrong, I am with Charmy and Zalt concerning this. It definitely makes more sense to treat mobjects like monsters during the attack.

This is also in line with the rulings on Dark Charm and similar effects, which cause heroes to be considered as monsters. Here, a number of FFG answers confirmed that all game effects that target monsters can also target charmed heroes.