Portcullis in Road to Legend

By Z-Train, in Road to Legend

Hey Guys,
Long time lurker first time poster.....

Before SOC came out Road to Legend monsters did not have the ability to open doors. I ran into a level in seeds of corruption where monsters were spawning behind a portcullis. These monsters were then instructed to Engage closest hero.
Do monsters have the ability to open the portcullis as an activation? Or do they just stay cooped up in the room behind the portcullis until my hero'opens it?
My apologies I haven't been able to locate this info in the FAQ or this forum.

That's actually a good question.

I know what moment you're talking about, and personally made them open the portcullis, but I wasn't sure.

This actually happened on more than one occasion during the campaign so just trying to find out how others dealt with this.....

I was curious about that myself, found a notation in the main rules that both heroes and monsters can open doors, so made the common sense (to me) ruling that if a monster in RtL is told to engage a hero, they would spend an action to open the door as part of their attempt to engage.

Unless noted otherwise in the rules/info, they treat the portcullis just like they might an elevation line- they don't open it necessarily.

Make sure that you tell the app when YOU go through the portcullis, whether you open it or teleport through it.

On 01/31/2017 at 7:39 PM, Zaltyre said:

Unless noted otherwise in the rules/info, they treat the portcullis just like they might an elevation line- they don't open it necessarily.

Make sure that you tell the app when YOU go through the portcullis, whether you open it or teleport through it.

What about doors and hedges? If I shut a door in a monsters face, wouldn't it just open the door as part of its next engage/spot instruction?

Or is closing a door actually a viable strategy to cut off things that you don't want to fight?

11 minutes ago, Kaaihn said:

If I shut a door in a monsters face, wouldn't it just open the door as part of its next engage/spot instruction?

Or is closing a door actually a viable strategy to cut off things that you don't want to fight?

In the case of RTL, you can't:

Quote

In Road to Legend, doors that are opened cannot be closed again unless the app instructs otherwise.

Road to Legend rules page 5 "HERO TURNS AND ACTIONS"

On 01/02/2017 at 11:39 AM, Zaltyre said:

Unless noted otherwise in the rules/info, they treat the portcullis just like they might an elevation line- they don't open it necessarily.

So they don't open doors then?

I've always played that Monsters can't, so if they needed to engage a hero on the other side of a door, they would go the other way around (comes up in one of the Kindred fire levels).

In the first example in SoC, it seemed fitting that it was showing what you avoided if you had've gone the other way, and seemed very thematic for the mindless creatures to be ganging up on the other side of the portcullis and shambling about.

I can't find any reference to say that they can't open doors though...

Edited by maxam
grammar

Monsters can certainly open doors, but (so far as I am aware) that isn't part of the engage instruction. However, I must confess that the RtL rulebook is not my expertise.

Neither the "engage" nor the "spot" command in RTL allows for monsters to perform an open door action.

I suspect when the rules document for the App was written, there was an underlying (and incorrect) assumption that a shut door = "unexplored" or empty space behind it... i.e. no monsters. Which is why there is no explicit statement about it in the document.

Of course, this doesn't take into account circular maps that may end up with an explored (and populated) area behind a door, or portcullis's (portculli ?)

200_s.gif

Edited by maxam
12 hours ago, maxam said:

In the case of RTL, you can't:

Road to Legend rules page 5 "HERO TURNS AND ACTIONS"

Thanks, missed that detail. There was a Delve mission that I was in that used the Labyrinth of Ruin Overgrowths. A shadow dragon spawned behind one, it seemed odd it would just stand there waiting. Guess that's just how it works though.

6 hours ago, Kaaihn said:

There was a Delve mission that I was in that used the Labyrinth of Ruin Overgrowths. A shadow dragon spawned behind one, it seemed odd it would just stand there waiting. Guess that's just how it works though.

Overgrowth can be freely moved through, just no line of sight or adjacent attacks through them. They can be removed with an "Open Door" action, but it is not necessary to do so.

Having said that though, large models like Shadow Dragons, can have difficultly moving through them as they are not allowed to end their move "straddling" the Overgrowth (i.e., the Overgrowth cannot be anywhere within their base area at the end of their move). This is hard enough for most 4 square base creatures, but a 6 square like the dragon can have huge difficulty on a cramped map with Overgrowth.

Quote

Figures cannot trace line of sight through overgrowth.
Even though adjacent spaces separated by overgrowth are still considered to be adjacent, figures cannot attack through overgrowth. However, figures can move through overgrowth. In addition, when counting spaces for an ability, players can count spaces through overgrowth. Large monsters cannot occupy two spaces that are separated by overgrowth.

LoR rulebook p. 5 "Overgrowth"

The monsters behind the portcullis can melee attack heroes adjacent to them on the opposite side (or further with Reach), so an instruction to engage is perfectly viable if heroes are grouping there ready to open it.

Otherwise, unless the app instructs otherwise, there's no reason to assume the monsters would open the portcullis.

Bit of thread necro. We played The Archive yesterday and

were able to kill the lead zombie with ranged attacks from the elevated platform. Despite not being adjacent to the target the App still said the hero who killed the zombie got the key for the locked door. Additionally one of the chests spawned next to the elevated platform so is technically adjacent (according to the rules) and available to a passing treasure hunter.

Edited by Suhawk75

Hey i have a question about portcculis doors in rtl . If you summon an figure treated as hero past the portcullis . An should you inform the ap for a buypass as you you should do when a actual hero buypass it ?