Hi guys,

If the mythos says that a monster moves two spaces towards the nearest investigator, but the nearest investigator is just one space away from the monster, what happens?

Does the monster stop moving once it reaches the investigator? Or it passes by the investigator and stops in his adjacent space?

Thanks in advance!

Moving "towards" something in game terms (see Rules Reference, "toward") means decreasing the distance, not increasing it. So the Monster moves up to X spaces to get as close to the target as possible, it does not move away from the target.

That's what I thought.

Thank you for clarifying it to me!

Also one thing to notice, which my group REALLY struggles to grasp.
If the effect is

"The Monster moves 2 spaces towards the nearest investigator within range "

and no Investigator is within range, then the Monster does not move.

54 minutes ago, Runko said:

Also one thing to notice, which my group REALLY struggles to grasp.
If the effect is

"The Monster moves 2 spaces towards the nearest investigator within range "

and no Investigator is within range, then the Monster does not move.

I would say the monster moves regardless . I understand the semantics and how if an investigator is not within range then it seems the condition doesn't apply, but I would move the monster simply towards the next investigator. The app has that command and then would ask "The monster attacks" or "No investigators within range", a moment when the monster would move an extra two spaces towards the next investigator. Monsters have two actions, and can attack only once per turn.

You would have to think, if there are no investigators within range, then the monsters just wastes a turn sitting there?

At least, this is how I play!

No, the monster does not just sit there. When you choose "No Investigator within Range", you will get a new instruction that moves the monster.

The whole sentence is "Moves two spaces towards the nearest investigator within range. Then it attacks the investigator". You can select no investigator within range so you get a second instruction, so the monster moves twice in that turn, not only after you select "no investigator within range". It is my understanding that monsters have two actions per turn, but only attack once.

On 18/08/2016 at 1:51 PM, Totengraber said:

I have been treating it like the monster gets 2 actions, like the investigators. The monster moves 2 spaces and attacks if an investigator is in range, but moves an additional 2 spaces if there is not.

Someone confirmed this was the correct way I believe, I just feel it makes more sense this way.

The problem is not all monsters move the same. Some do move twice (zombies for example). The example in his thread they only move once. You should read the instructions as literally as possible and not make assumptions that the description of the action is wrong.

Of course you are free to play it however you like.

11 hours ago, err404 said:

The problem is not all monsters move the same. Some do move twice (zombies for example). The example in his thread they only move once. You should read the instructions as literally as possible and not make assumptions that the description of the action is wrong.

Exactly. This is one (of the many) point(s) where the app excels: in a normal boardgame, we need to define a standard monster behaviour (how they move, how they attack); some variance is certainly possible, but there can't be more than a few patterns, otherwise the game becomes too complicated AND having a good wording could be impossible. The app allows to define several patterns (and each expansion can introduce new creatures moving in different ways; for example we could have monsters teleporting, monsters stalking investigators, monsters moving through walls, and so on) and these patterns are simply coded in a series of text instructions; you read those instructions literally and resolve the movement without need for extra rules, specifics, and stuff to memorize. How awesome is that?

5 hours ago, Julia said:

Exactly. This is one (of the many) point(s) where the app excels: in a normal boardgame, we need to define a standard monster behaviour (how they move, how they attack); some variance is certainly possible, but there can't be more than a few patterns, otherwise the game becomes too complicated AND having a good wording could be impossible. The app allows to define several patterns (and each expansion can introduce new creatures moving in different ways; for example we could have monsters teleporting, monsters stalking investigators, monsters moving through walls, and so on) and these patterns are simply coded in a series of text instructions; you read those instructions literally and resolve the movement without need for extra rules, specifics, and stuff to memorize. How awesome is that?

So true. This is the golden intersection between software and board gaming as far as i'm considered. From a developers' perspective, it takes less to implement movement AI because you only need to come up with a suitable logic for drawing text instructions, rather than implementing the move as code in itself. Because that's the job of the players, and part of the fun. As such, the code for AI handling doesn't need to be nearly as complex as in a full software-realm game. In the best of situations, that could mean more and textually varied AI actions, provided that the designers see it fit.
A drawback compared to full software implementation is that you can't get carried away with nested condition clauses for determining actions - that would be a drag for the players to check manually. But that goes for a completely physical board- or role playing game, too.

As for how complex instructions can get without getting in the way, Magic the Gathering always stood out as very clear to me; at least from 4ed and onward. I dropped out before they formalized just about everything with key words, though, so i don't know how things are now.