An upcoming question from the German forum:

1) An area-effect (explosion, breath) hits multiple figures. One of this figures has both Shadowcloak and Fear – and this figure is not adjacant to the attacker, so it doesn’t suffer the effects from the attack.
Does the attacker have to spend surges for Fear? I would say yes, because the figure owning Fear is part of the attack, although it isn't affected by its effects. But I’m not definitely sure in this case.

(Another opinion says that the figure owning Fear is not hit by the attack at all, so Fear shouldn't be included in the attack-pool.)

2) The same question goes to the combination Stealth and Fear in an area effect that hits multiple figures: The stealth die shows an X – does the offender have to spend surges for Fear? I would say yes.

And what if the combination Ironskin/Fear appears in an area effect? I think it's the same case.

3) An area effect hits two figures with different rates of Fear: One figure has Fear 1, another Figure has Fear 3. How should this be handled? Just the highest amount counts? Or do they stack?

Graf said:

1) By my reading of the rules (which admittedly could be wrong) I would agree with you. Shadowcloak says that you take no wounds or suffer effects from the attack. Says nothing about not being able to target. Something I never really noticed before, and I don't know if this is too literal a reading of it and therefore incorrect, but Shadowcloak doesn't actually prevent the figure from taking damage , only wounds and effects . So you can hit it with an area attack or any other attack for that matter from a non-adjacent space, but you can give it wounds or effects, but you can give damage. However, since the outcome is in the end null, it doesn't matter. So in the case of Shadowcloak and Fear, you are still in fact attacking the figure so you would need to pay the surge AFAIK.

2) I'm not entirely sure. It would only matter if the one with Stealth is also the one with Fear. In that case, the Stealth makes the attack miss that figure, and since that is part of the actual attack roll I would say it comes before the part where you would then need to spend surges to overcome the Fear. No legit attack to that figure, no need to spend the surges.

Ironskin/Fear I would say yes you still need to pay the surge. The damage done to that figure with Ironskin gets reduced to zero, but the attack still hits it just does no damage. So you would need to spend a surge to overcome Fear or it would be a miss. Of course, I could be wrong since the FAQ ruling on Sorcery and Ironskin can be extended to say that Ironskin covers everyone, blah blah blah, its crazy.

3) IHO, from reading the RAW, they absolutely stack. I know there are few who argue against this.

Good questions. The wording of Descent rules in general, and Fear in particular, is sloppy enough that I wouldn't be terribly surprised if a future FAQ ruled any of these either way. They depend on the precise technical details of processes that just aren't very well defined.

However, if you'd like my take:

1) Fear takes effect "when attacking a figure with the Fear ability." Since technically you never attack figures, only spaces, I'd read that as "when making an attack that has the potential to affect a figure with the Fear ability." Big Remy seems to be focusing overmuch on the second sentence of Shadowcloak, but the first one says the figure "is only affected by attacks made by adjacent figures," and so I'd say it isn't even a potential target of other attacks, and so its Fear doesn't apply.

On the other hand, you could decide that they meant "when making an attack that affects a space containing a figure with the Fear ability," which would give you the opposite ruling.

2) Neither Stealth nor Ironskin negates the attack. Stealth requires the attacker to roll an extra die, and Ironskin reduces the damage to zero. But in both cases, it's still possible to hit the target when you initiate the attack, and if we said that Fear no longer applies just because the attack happened to miss, we'd get a paradox when you don't have enough surges to overcome Fear (causing the attack to miss, negating Fear, causing the attack to hit, meaning Fear applies, causing the attack to miss...). So I'd say Fear applies in both these cases.

3) There was a debate about this before. Most people seem to want to say it stacks, and I think that's the best reading. Again, the wording is sloppy, so it's not clear whether you spend surges to negate the Fear of a specific figure or whether you spend surges to give the attack the "negates Fear" property and apply it to all targets, and both are reasonable mechanics, but if they intended the later, I think they would have made Fear protect only the figure that had it instead of negating the entire attack. (Unless that's also an error, which is entirely possible; it's a terribly written ability that virtually never comes up, so it wouldn't get much scrutiny, and Descent has an abysmal track record for this sort of thing.)

Antistone said:

For the rest, what Antistone said.

1) +1 to Antistone´s first hand. When you check each space attacked by an AoE attack for affected figures, then there is no affected figure in the case of Shadowcloak

2) The paradox chaining would not occur - after you checked for attack success and determined a miss, the attack is over. I´d say Fear does not apply in that case.

3) After re-reading that debate, I have to say that I switched camps in the meantime and also say that it would stack.

Antistone said:

I was merely noting that the way Shadowcloak is written, there is nothing there that says the figure doesn't take damage as part of an attack targeting its space. It only mentions wounds and effects, both of which come after a successful attack has been made against that space and damage applied to a figure there. I don't see anything in the wording that says it can't even be a potential target of other attacks. Again the way it is written, it only negates wounds and effects, but does not mention damage.

Shadowcloak: A figure with the Shadowcloak ability is only affected by attacks made by adjacent figures. The figure does not suffer any wounds or effects from attacks originating farther than one space away.

But I also don't feel like starting one of the endless and pointless rules language discussion that plague this board so I'll leave it there.

Big Remy said:

Utter nonsense. If the figure is only affected by attacks from adjacent figures, then it is not affected by any other attacks. And if the figure is not affected by the attack , then it doesn't take damage from the attack. The text doesn't need to specifically mention damage, knockback, bleed, or anything else, because we've got a blanket statement of non-interaction. That first sentence absolutely rules out any conceivable possibility of taking damage, wounds, or anything else from the attack, even if the second sentence wasn't printed at all.

And even if we arbitrarily ignore that, I'm pretty sure that damage is an "effect" of an attack, so it's covered by the second sentence, too.

There is no part of your objection that even superficially makes sense.

Parathion said:

Those two sentences are contradictory. I think it's very unlikely from the rules we're given that checking for attack success is the last step in the resolution process, but if it were, that would mean that you'd have to spend surges before checking whether the attack missed (as spending surges could change the result with respect to range and/or Fear), so you couldn't determine that Fear didn't apply (due to missing the figure with Fear) until after you'd checked for attack success, at which point Fear must already have been taken into account (as that's one of the things that determines attack success) and it's too late.

Antistone: If the Stealth die shows an X, the attack is a miss. The basic rules tell us in step 4 that the attack fails in any case one of the attack dice shows an X (barring any re-rolls). No need and no instruction to check further for Range, Fear or anything else.

Unless one of us didn´t quite understand the OP´s question number 2...

Antistone said:

If I'm wrong about the rules, fine I have no problem with that ever....as the tone of the response I had something written but it is wholly unsuited for public posting. All I will say is that I have gamed with people like you before and am very glad that I chose no longer to do so since it has rarely been worth it.

Antistone said:

+1

Big Remy said:

+1

Antistone said:

I would like a clarification of the bolded sentence. Is this arguing that a figure with Shadowcloak can not be the target of any attack that doesn't originate from an adjacent space? If so, how is this reconciled with the fact that you target spaces and not figures?

Big Remy said:

Yes, it is arguing precisely that.

That is "reconciled" with the fact that you target spaces and not figures based on the fact that I am arbitrarily choosing one of several things the writers might have intended when they wrote "attacking a figure," and if you substitute the particular arbitrary definition I picked, then it's all consistent. I'm reasoning that "attacking a figure" is probably supposed to include cases where you think you're actually going to hurt that figure, and probably isn't supposed to include cases where you don't even consider that figure as a possible target, whether it's because they're not in the affected area or they have Shadowcloak or they're Soaring over a melee attack (but still in the targeted square).

Actually, come to think of it, that's another small shred of evidence in favor of this position: "A soaring monster cannot normally be the target of a melee attack." (RtL p.30) More language about targeting figures.

But if you substitute the second arbitrary definition I mentioned in the next paragraph, then it's still all consistent but you get a different answer. Depends whether you decide that "attacking a figure" ought to focus purely on location or on eligibility to be affected or on something else.

It's also quite probable that the writer didn't have any workable definition in mind and just forgot/didn't know how the game actually works, so anything we could possibly do is a rewrite and not following the intent.

But if you want to go by RAW and press the "attacks target spaces, not figures" issue, then no figure can ever be the target of any attack, Shadowcloak or no, and so Fear doesn't do anything at all . (Neither does Taunt, for that matter.) And I'd say that's clearly not the intent, either.

Parathion said:

The steps in the basic rules are not sequential steps, because step 4 tells us to check the result from step 5. You can't get technical details of timing from that passage because it's not written well enough.

Regardless, we're talking about a situation where the attack misses some figures but not others , because some of the figures caught in the AoE don't have Stealth. Surely you're not claiming that we stop processing the entire attack when we discover that it misses some figures but may still hit others ?

I guess you can avoid the paradox if you decide that Fear is ignored when an attack misses due to an X but not when it misses for other reasons , but that seems like an fairly arbitrary distinction. I won't claim there's anything in the rules that actually contradicts that interpretation, though.

Antistone said:

Thank, just wanted to see if it was an arbitrary decision and not solid RAW. As for Soar, it had to be written that way because, IMO , Soar is an exceptional case with a imposed 3rd dimension. You can be adjacent to the Soaring figures space, but not adjacent to the figure.

Antistone said:

Are you really believing that someone proceeds with the steps 5 and 6 after an X was rolled in a normal (non-AoE) attack? The re-checking of attack success due to increased range rolled is a specific exception, and beyond that the scheme is to be followed from 1 to 6.

Of course in an AoE attack involving a Stealth figure, the attack is over for that figure, for the rest is processed as usual (just as I claim for Shadowcloak figures in an AoE attack originating non-adjacent).

But what other reasons in an AoE attack could there be to miss except an X or range too low (which can be fixed by adding dice)? Fear should be ignored on a miss, regardless the reason for the miss. Or what am I not seeing in your argument?

Parathion said:

Flee! Flee! The end is nigh!
I agree with Parathion over Antistone...

Armageddon, indeed

Big Remy said:

According to my understanding of the Soar rules, it only adds range to any attacks, it doesn't change adjacency. You are still adjacent to a Soaring figure and to the space it occupies, but attacks have +4 range (which explicitly affects Melee attacks even though the base rules say you don't check range on Melee attacks.) Oh Descent, how would I fry my brain without you?

Steve-O said:

The whole Soar adjaceny issue is clarified in the FAQ:

Q: How does Soar interact with abilities such as Aura, Shadowcloak, and Grapple that refer to adjacency?
A: A creature that is Soaring is adjacent to no other creatures . A creature that swoops becomes adjacent, as normal. If a creature swoops and becomes grappled, it remains at “ground level” until it is no longer grappled. In order to be adjacent, a figure must be at range 1. Range penalties from elevated terrain are ignored for these purposes.

Parathion said:

Other than an X or having too little range, an attack can also miss due to Fear . If you don't pay the surges to overcome fear, the attack becomes a miss. That's why saying that you ignore Fear if you miss results in a paradox, because Fear could be the reason that you miss.

Obviously you want to create a paradoxon at all costs.

If the attack misses due to X or range, the attack is over. If no X is present and range is sufficient, yet the attacker cannot spend enough surges to overcome Fear, the attack is a miss and over. No reprocessing.

Now, where is the paradoxon?

What you described does not implement the rule "ignore the Fear of any figure that the attack misses."

You have a possible situation where the attack misses a figure, but the figure's Fear still affects the outcome.

only if you let yourself intimidate by invisible things.. we play that it doesnt count.