I would like to discuss (again) the exact sequence of events that are triggered when a hero who has access to abilities that modify his Health or Stamina ( Survey , Brute , Iron Ring, etc.) is defeated.

According to my understanding of the rules and uFAQ the following happens in sequence:

1. The hero has damage tokens equal to his current health on his card (either by suffering damage or by having his Health reduced)
2. Abilities or effects like Death Siphon may be used and are resolved.
3. If the hero has still damage tokens equal to his current Health, he is defeated.
4. Effects and abilities that trigger when a hero is defeated may be used (e.g. Stalwart , One Fist 's Heroic feat.) and are resolved.
5. Effects of being defeated trigger simultaneously:

• The hero 's turn ends.
• The hero suffers damage and fatigue up to his current Health and Stamina, respectively. Any abilities modifying Health and Stamina are still active.
• The hero replaces his hero figure by hero token.
• The hero discards any condition cards
• The OL gains an OL card or a threat token

6. The hero is considered to be knocked out
7. Effects of being knocked out trigger:

• The hero may not use abilities or benefit from passive abilities unless explicitly allowed.
• Any abilities that modify Health and Stamina are thus inactivated. Fatigue tokens suffered after step 5 remain on the Hero sheet (even tokens in excess of the current Stamina). Damage tokens in excess of the current Health are discarded.

Do you agree with this point of view? The only problem that I see is with steps 6 and 7; the rules are a little bit vague when it comes to heroes being defeated vs. being knocked out.; e.g. One Fist 's Heroic feat and Stalwart state that the hero is knocked out at the end. However, it would not make much sense if effects of being defeated (step 5) would be skipped. On the other hand, there seems to be a fine line distinguishing being defeated from being knocked out and associated effects. They are not the same.

EDIT:
Another possibility to solve this would be to differentiate between the process of becoming knocked-out and the state of being knocked-out.

This statement has worked for me as a standard (quest rules may differ):

"All types of figures can be defeated. When a hero is defeated, instead of being removed from the quest, he is knocked out."

That is, the process of being defeated is the same for all figures as far as ending activation, use of potenial saving abilities, and removal from the map.

Heroes are unique in that their spaces get marked by a token, and instead of being erased from existence (as a monster or familiar) are instead "knocked out" which is a state having limitations on ability use and interaction with the current quest (can't be targeted by OL cards or qbioities other than healing or specific to KO heroes...)

I agree. However, unfortunately there are different triggering conditions associated with a hero being defeated and a her being knocked out. See e.g. Stalwart.

Yes. "Defeated" means "suffering wound equal to your remaining health". Becoming knocked out is a result of being defeated (for a hero).

Sadgit I think your actual steps description seem fine and more clear than the one actually on the CRRG that make me doubt !
Just as a reminder the rules states

Quote

"When a hero is defeated, he immediately suffers fatigue up to his Stamina, damage up to his Health (if defeated by some other effect), and the
controlling player removes his figure from the map, replacing it with one of his hero tokens."

So clearly the suffering step is before the KO 'state'

Yep, thinking again about all this clarified some things for me, too. I think that the list is ok as it is and should help players to sort out timing of interrupts and such. The only doubt I have is the timing of the discarding of damage tokens in excess of the hero's Health, e.g. if a Berserker with Brute is defeated. Not sure when this happens.

In practice, I don't think it ever has to happen. As long as the hero is on the map, he has the additional health from Brute. As long as he is KO, his health is irrelevant. (his skills will be unaffected, and he can't even lose gear cards while KO).

The only quests where this is not true are fringe cases where the Brute skill may be flipped down while the hero is KO or something like that.

I am not sure if it is irrelevant. Let's say the warrior has 10 Health +4 from Brute. He is knocked out and I loses access to all his skills even the passive ones like Brute. As a consequence two things can happen:

a) All 14 damage tokens remain on his sheet and he has 4 tokens in excess of his Health.
b) 4 damage tokens are discarded from his sheet

If our warrior is revived and recovers let's say 3 damage tokens in the process he would end up with a) 11 tokens or b) 7 tokens.

don't forget the +2 from the Brute power
Joke aside and I know I'm linked to those question ... but I think I'm with Zaltyre on this one.

The rules says :

Quote

Heroes cannot suffer fatigue past their Stamina value, nor damage past their Health value—even when knocked out. A knocked out hero cannot
receive any Condition cards and is immune to all attacks and most hero abilities.

I think even, if it's not worded clearly enought, that this means : while KOed all stay the same, you can't put more token than what the hero already has.. but you can not remove either
as you can't trade items / remove powers while a hero is KOed this means the heroe will mandatoryly be revived with the same "state" he had when defeated

Perhaps what can conduct to a weird situation is if an KOed hero, who has an object that gives him health decides during the equip phase to unequip / or equip it (like the Rune Plate)
In th first case I suppose he will need more health recovery than the tokens in excess
in the other cases ... perhaps it's considered as healing ?..

EDIT this stays consistant with an answer from FFG stating that if an hero has only one [heart] left and unequips an object giving Health he is immediately defeated !

Thinking some more about it, it's likely I got the idea from the CRRG entry "defeated":

Quote

A knocked out hero may not:
• use abilities or benefit from passive abilities unless explicitly allowed.

I am no longer sure this is actually correct.

it's true that the rules only state :

Quote

A hero cannot use skills or abilities while knocked out, unless an effect specifically allows it.

This only forbids using ... nothing is told about passive ..

This sayd my example with equip / unequip stays valid ... I think

4 hours ago, Sadgit said:

I am not sure if it is irrelevant. Let's say the warrior has 10 Health +4 from Brute. He is knocked out and I loses access to all his skills even the passive ones like Brute. As a consequence two things can happen:

a) All 14 damage tokens remain on his sheet and he has 4 tokens in excess of his Health.
b) 4 damage tokens are discarded from his sheet

If our warrior is revived and recovers let's say 3 damage tokens in the process he would end up with a) 11 tokens or b) 7 tokens.

The moment he recovers any health, brute becomes active again. If he was KO and he recovers 3, he will be at "Health-3" tokens on his sheet, or 11 tokens. I am aware this means he may actually GAIN damage tokens when he stands up. I am not troubled by that fact as the damage tokens are really just counters.

He will not recover 3 and then magically have 7 health remaining.

Therefore, in practice it makes sense to just leave the 14 wounds on him. If he stands up and recovers 3, remove 3 (11 remaining). Note that in this case I've been forgetting about brute's secondary ability... so if he rolled 3 he'd ACTUALLY recover 4.

I am actually no longer sure that the passive Health increase by Brute (or any other Health/Stamina increase) is "switched off" when the hero is knocked out. Do we have an uFAQ on that?
As Felin pointed out, this is most likely different when items that grant additional Health/Stamina are unequipped.

I am not sure about a uFAQ about this. If I come across one, I'll let you know.

I think the key difference with unequipping an item is that the hero is alive (EDIT: usually) when it happens. Now that you mention it, there may indeed be q uFAQ about removing a +health item while at low health remaining... I'll let you know if I locate it. (It may not be mine).

Edit: It was mine , but Charmy was the main driving force.

18 minutes ago, Zaltyre said:

I think the key difference with unequipping an item is that the hero is alive when it happens.

Are you impling that a KOed Hero doesn't have start of turn ?
Doesn't an hero who is KOed can for example change his equipment before reviving? or just staying down ?

A KO hero still has a start of turn. I did not intend to imply otherwise.

I think I see what you're getting at. A KO hero (10 base health) wearing leather armor would have effectively 11/11 health suffered. Unequipping the armor while KO means 10/10 health suffered. Then, he rolls let's say 3 standing up and has 7/10 health suffered. Next round he re-equips armor and has 7/11 (effectively 4 recovered).

The question is when he unequips do the tokens really go from 11 to 10 ?

the hero is KOed
from what I understand while KOed tokens are not to be 'touched' ...

I think damage tokens are removed, fatigue tokens are not.

1 minute ago, Sadgit said:

I think damage tokens are removed, fatigue tokens are not.

why make a distinction ? on the rules they specify both together ...

According to the rules a hero can never suffer damage in excess of his Health. Therefore, excess damage tokens need to be removed if the total Health of a hero decreases for whatever reason. Fatigue tokens are different according to this uFAQ:
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/12375557#12375557

this is when hero is alive
but from the rules :

Quote

Heroes cannot suffer fatigue past their Stamina value, nor damage past their Health value—even when knocked out. A knocked out hero cannot
receive any Condition cards and is immune to all attacks and most hero abilities.

fatigue and heath follow the same rule ...
at least it's how I understand it ...

I agree. Just quoting answers that people received from FFG on this topic.

My group and I still houserule/handle our health as in Descent 1e where you start with the number of health as hearts on your sheet and take hearts away when you get damaged.
You get KO'd when you're at 0 hearts on your sheet.

From this point of view it makes more sense. When you get revived you get a number of health, no matter what your maximum health is.

Regarding RAW: For me the question is: do KO'd heroes even get to perform the equip phase?

5 minutes ago, Psymia said:

Regarding RAW: For me the question is: do KO'd heroes even get to perform the equip phase?

Yes, they do. This has been confirmed by FFG ... and leads to all kinds of shenanigans.

17 minutes ago, Psymia said:

My group and I still houserule/handle our health as in Descent 1e where you start with the number of health as hearts on your sheet and take hearts away when you get damaged.
You get KO'd when you're at 0 hearts on your sheet.

From this point of view it makes more sense. When you get revived you get a number of health, no matter what your maximum health is.

It's true it's easier and more logic...
but doesn't take into account what FFG has ruled : if one hero with let's say Leather Armor and 1 HP left removes it.. he is immediaty defeated !!!? (don't ask me why .... )