Our heroes just left town on a one-step trip to a nearby dungeon. Unfortunately they encounter some bad guys in the woods along the way and the chance encounter leaves them decimated. All have only a bit of health left and it would require every potion they have packed to even improve a little. Having survived the encounter though, they have to proceed to the dungeon right? Once there they dont necessarily have to enter it, but if they dont, do they cross it off the list or can they return to it another day when in better fighting shape? Could they instead just cancel the trip and end the week in the town they just came from?

Thanks

rgrove0172 said:

If at least one member of the party survived the encounter, the party continues on to the next location. If it is a dungeon they have not found, they find it and get a conquest point. They then decide if they want to enter the dungeon. If they do not enter, they can later come back to the location and explore the dungeon. However, the second/third/etc time they come to the location they do not get another conquest point because they found the dungeon the first time.

So basically, there are two separate actions:

1) Finding a dungeon - First time they first a location. They find the dungeon and get a conquest point.

2) Exploring a dungeon - Once found, they can enter and explore the dungeon once . Once they enter, explore and leave it (by fleeing or completing it), they may not reenter it.

And no, they may not cancel the trip. Sorry, being a hero is hard sometimes. They will have to spend another week to return to the city if they want, and risk another encounter.

They can however choose to enter the dungeon, have three Heroes sit around in town at the Temple / Buying Potions / going to the market and send in the toughest hero straight on the Transport Glyph with a Dodge order and carrying two shields. On the next turn he can leave the dungeon and go back to town and flee the Dungeon. The downside is that the Dungeon may be one where the OL gains extra conquest for killing villagers but this is a relatively slender chance.

rgrove0172 said:

There seems to be a general confusion about exploring the dungeon location and exploring the dungeon itself (due in no small part to the wording of the rules). When the Party moves to a dungeon location on the map that they haven't been to yet, they mark it off and receive a conquest. This is just for physically moving the Party marker to the location on the map where a dungeon is depicted. This IN NO WAY has anything to with whether they actually explore the dungeon or not and once they've gotten the CT for just moving there, they don't get CT for moving to the location in the future. That's the only reason to mark it off.

In your situation, since the Party won the encounter, they continue their game week action and move to the end of the trail. If they haven't been there before, they get a CT and you mark down that they have explored the map location. They now have a choice of either exploring the dungeon (which might be bad for them given their health) or just ending their game week on the dungeon location. If they choose the latter, they can always come back at another time and actually enter the dungeon. It's only the action of entering the dungeon itself (rather than the location) that prevents them from revisiting it later (once they flee (or complete all levels) they can't go back in).

I don't believe there is anywhere in the RAW that allows the Party to "backtrack" on their move action after an encounter on a trail. In your case, it may actually be more efficient to drink some potions and tackle the dungeon... sending 1 or 2 guys back immediately for Tamalir healing. Situations like this make me wonder if it's a good idea to upgrade the temple at Tamalir as early as possible.

Good luck!