1. When a player uses the Sleep Spell advantage card to deal with the Character duel from The Old Inn encounter card (thus incapacitating the Character), does this count as defeating the character - thus letting the player add him/her to their party, or does it count as avoiding the character, and therefore no adding of that character is allowed?

2. In the Reset Phase, when do the players measure when a particular player has the least character and/or advantage cards? At the beginning of the phase, or at the moment that they reset (they reset in order of speed)? Here's why I ask: pretend my party is faster than your party, I have 3 advantage cards and you have two. There is a Dragon Claw in the discarded advantage cards. I reset first. I drop an advantage card. We now have an equal amount of advantage cards. It is now your turn in the reset phase. Because I discarded an advantage card, you are now prohibited from getting an advantage card (including the Dragon Claw card) from the discard deck. Is this really how it works? From reading the rules, it seems like it is.

Thanks,

Chuck at Game Empire Pasadena

Hey,

I would think the sleep spell does not defeat the old inn character. The card should probably be changed from an event to a creature encounter, or some clarification needs to be given, as what happens if it shows up in one of those levels that a creature stays in if they are an undefeated preliminary encounter?. Anyways, the sleep spell should just let you bypass the prelim without picking up the character in my opinion.

As for the pickup mechanic in the reset phase, the player with the least of that type of card picks it up whenever someone else discards during the reset phase, with ties in lowest players being nullified. So if you were to discard an advantage card and your friend has less cards than you, he would pick up that card you discarded as far as I understand