I have a question.

In Mists, a new type of terrain was introduced: crumbling terrain.

I'm afb, so the particulars may be vague.

The rules state that heroes entering a crumbling tile may test one of two attributes or suffer the terrain under the 'crumble' but it mentions nothing of the sort for the monsters.

We played it that this means monster never suffer the effect of the underlying terrain, but it seems to be that crumbling terrain is strictly there to hinder the heroes.

What is everyone's opinion on this?

The thing to remember is that the crumbling terrain token's presence is what blocks the underlying terrain (the lava is covered by rocks). When a hero tests, he's testing if the token is getting removed. If he fails, the crumbling terrain goes away and he falls into the lava. For the rest of the quest, it's just a normal lava space.

Monsters are incapable of passing tests, so they are not required to test. If they were, the result would be that monsters would obliterate crumbling terrain just by walking over it, and that would be rather counter-productive to the mechanic.

Monsters are incapable of passing tests, so they are not required to test.

What about lieutenants?

Monsters are incapable of passing tests, so they are not required to test.

What about lieutenants?

LTs could hypothetically pass, but the way the crumbling terrain rules are written, they are not required to test.

LTs could hypothetically pass, but the way the crumbling terrain rules are written, they are not required to test.

Ah, got beat to the punch.

Let me add then that figures that are 'treated as heroes' do not have to test (or auto-fail) either. This includes familiars such as the Reanimate or Wolf. This is because figures treated as heroes are only affected by hero abilities/monsters/overlord cards that target heroes.

My thoughts was that this is a very OL-centric terrain rule, since it obviously allows the OL to move monsters over terrain that should harm them, without having to test, or consider what's underneath, while heroes have to succeed at a test (allowing the OL to play a card on that test) and suffer consequences if they fail (1 damage from "lava", I fatigue (or 1 more damage if fully fatigued) if the terrain requires more than 1 MP to enter).

When our group encountered it, the heroes went the long way around to avoid it, the OL just trampled all over it, taking the short way round.

The current rules of crumbling terrain certainly favor monsters over heroes. However, because the core mechanic is an attribute test, the alternative is to have the terrain overwhelmingly favor the heroes (crumbling terrain over water would cause a monster to take a damage for entering a water space. Does that sound like a fair alternative?)

A better alternative would have been for a mechanic that affects everyone the same, like the lava, pit, water...etc mechanics...

The way this mechanic is done seems to reinforce to me the comments about Mists having nothing for the heroes at all. Even the terrain mechanics are OL favoured.

But all I really wanted was to confirm that we were indeed playing it correctly.

Thanks Zaltyre!

Heroes get +2 health from tainted cards.

Heroes get +2 health from tainted cards.

yeah, that's a BIG help...

We all chose heroes with 12hp... except 1 who has "only" 10.