When playing SOB this last weekend, we came up with a few questions:

1. When you land in deep water, such as through knockback or swinging on the rope, do you spend the fatigue penalty that you would normally spend by moving to that space?

2. Orris and Dallak both have penalties to pay by entering into or moving through those cities. If you choose one of those cities as your home port, would you have to pay those penalties if you were to port back to town at the end of a dungeon?

3. I don't see anything saying that a ship blocks line of sight. Is it possible for a figure in the water on one side of the ship to target and attack a figure in the water on the opposit side of the ship?

4. Soaring figures such as manticores: can they end their movement half on a ship and half off or must they end their movement completely on or off the ship?

1. I would rule no, since the rule is when you move into those squares, not when you end up in one of those squares.

2. Good question. I would think "no", since you paid that penalty when you made it your home-port (which can you do on a landlocked city?), but that will have to be a FAQed question IMHO.

3. RAW would allow it, since as you stated, nothing in RAW says a ship blocks LOS. However, I think it's a good house-rule to say a ship blocks LOS to someone *in* the water. Though I think they will never say this, since there are a lot of exceptions (i.e. do ships block LOS to other ships, what about the edge of a ship, how does this affect SOARing creatures, etc). I think they will just say for simplicity of game-mechanics, ships do not block LOS.

4. I assume you mean large soaring creatures. My guess is yes, they can end their movement half-on, half-off, especially since they're soaring (i.e. they're in the air).

-shnar

I agree that the penalty for Orris and Dallak should not apply during restocks, it would get too complicated if it did. But what about training actions after returning to the city or staying multiple weeks. In other words is the cost for these locations paid when the heroes move into one of the cities or each week they are in the city?

Possible simple to manage options:

• Cost applies only when entering or passing through the city during overland map movement.
• Cost applies when hero token moves through one of the cities or ends the week in one of the cities (including fleeing a dungeon, but not hero restocking at home city).

They both use "the party enters" terminology. A single hero entering doesn't seem to count. However, I'd say that if the party returns after a dungeon or a TPK, that would count. It opens the possibility of them being forced to return to Dallak without having 100gp to spend, but that's unlikely to occur and easy to house rule if it does.

shnar said:

Initially I was thinking "no" but on further consideration I'm inclined to agree with you. I'm not comfortable with the whole "they're in the air" argument though - we all know how Descent reacts to logic. I'd be interested to hear from someone who knows the rules better than I do - particularly regarding the rules for where flying creatures are allowed to stop moving. Ultimately all Soar does is increase range for attacks, so the real question here is whether or not Flying creatures can stop half-on/half-off a ship.

Soar does more than add range. It also causes you to ignore terrain beneath you. At least, it does if we assume that the RtL rulings will forward to SoB. Because of that, I see no reason why a soaring creature couldn't end its movement half on and half off a ship.

Soar does more than add range. It also causes you to ignore terrain beneath you. At least, it does if we assume that the RtL rulings will forward to SoB. Because of that, I see no reason why a soaring creature couldn't end its movement half on and half off a ship.

Though this does raise the question of large creatures, can a Hell Hound move half on/half off a boat?

-shnar

While it may be FAQed to mirror the way large creatures and pits work, the answer is currently in the swimming rules. Yes they can, but it will cost them 2 movement points to enter the water space.

Whether a large creature is soaring or walking, it may end its movement half on and half off a ship.

It's in the rules. I don't know the exact wording (someone else can copy/paste it) but it says that the "leading edge" of large monsters is where you pay your movement penalties (for moving into water / pit spaces / etc). The tail end doesn't really do anything except take up space and allow the creature an extra space to draw range and line of sight from.

Further, it says that large monsters benefit from terrain features so long as any part of their body is on said feature. This won't matter much on the ship battles though.