Okay....

Will someone, I don't care who and it won't be me, please formulate a question that will forever resolve what is a potential problem with the Knight skill. Please keep the question as unbiased as possible. I will send it in to the relevant contacts and see if I can get an answer.

No promises, but I will try.

Goodness. This thread is probably the reason why people hate learning English in school. Personally, I read the sentence as inclusive, meaning you spend 2 fatigue to get 3 MP and the possibility to make 3 attacks instead of 2. If you were to survey people on the street as to what that sentence means, I'm confident the majority of people would read it that way too.

The people I have met in my life could give a rat's behind about the rules of grammar. They just say what sounds right. English to me is what people commonly speak, not what rules they teach in school. Trying to enforce rules on something so fluid is kinda like trying to stop music piracy. No matter how much you complain about how right you are, most people just look at you like you don't have a clue.

The day will come when shizzle appears in Webster's, and I will chuckle.

Perhaps something like this:

Q. Which of the following (if any) accurately describes the intended effect of the Knight skill?

1. When you declare a Battle action, you have the option to immediately spend 2 fatigue on the skill. If you choose to spend the fatigue, you gain two benefits: the ability to make an extra attack during your turn, and movement points equal to half your speed (rounded up).

2. Declaring a Battle action allows you to make 3 attacks during your turn, instead of the usual 2. In addition, when you declare a Battle action, you also have the option to immediately spend 2 fatigue in order to gain movement points equal to half your speed (rounded up).

Anyone see any ambiguity or plausible misreadings for either of those? Any other options that anyone wants to commend for serious consideration?

ProtoPersona: You could also construct a lot of sentences where, if you asked people on the street what it means, they'd give you one answer, and then if you asked them to re-read it carefully and pointed out certain key words, would change their mind and tell you it means something else. This has nothing to do with what is "taught in school" and everything to do with internal consistency.

But yes, English is messy and complicated.

Big Remy said:

I did this already. Antistone objects to the extra comments, not the actual question or answers (or so I believe). Then he objected that it must be errata rather than clarification - who cares!

Just the comments - or leave them in, again, who cares!

Corbon said:

Sorry Corbon, I must have missed it. I'll go look for it, and also include what Antistone just put above.

Email sent about Knight, both Corbon's and Antistone's Q/A options sent.

Question asked...

Answer received.

Posted in the GLoAQ , response #75

Hmm, we seem to be on a roll here with the Q&A here....is there anything else we can ask now that is of a pressing nature? I mean...without getting all nit-picky about a certain thing?

Also, good job to all those who made this possible many thanks to everyone!

Also, also....Glad to see that I right with the card

Jonny WS said:

Yes, another fine job Big Remy, thanks.

How about the large creature movement question? Please feel free to suggest improvements or reduce bias

FAQ pg6
Q: Read strictly, the rules for moving non-square figures on page 15 contradict the diagram on page 17, possibly due to non-standard use of the word "half". Can you clarify exactly how non-square figures are permitted to move?
A: Follow the example found in the diagram on page 17.

DJitD pg15
Hellhounds and Dragons are oddly shaped occupying two and six spaces, respectively. They must move in one of the following two ways:
1. The figure moves one half of its body into a non-diagonal adjacent space while the other half of its body moves into the space(s) that the first half just vacated
2. The figure moves to a diagonally adjacent space by moving both halves of its body in the same diagonal direction (also called “sidestepping”). Both types of movement are illustrated in the diagram on page 17.

Unfortunately, the two diagrams on pg17 show us two possible ways of moving. However it is not clear that these are the only possible ways of moving (indeed, it is fairly obvious that they are not as both dragon and hellhound can surely(?) simply move straight forward) and so it needs to be clarified what other ways are possible and what are not.

Further, #1 above is unclear, possibly even impossible for 3x2 figures. How do you define half of a 3x2 figure (also remembering figures face 360degrees despite depiction)?
The top right diagram (the dragon) gives rise to the problem. It is not the front 'half' of the dragon moving into an adjacent non diagonal space, it is the front third or front edge. Apart from the fact that a 6 space dragon does not easily have a 'half' defined, the dragon's front right moves two spaces (N+N) and the dragons front left moves one space diagonally (NW).
Consequently this section needs to be either rewritten for clarity or officially 'clarified'.
2x1 monsters are fairly clear, but 3x2 monsters are not.

Please consider these alternatives...

Option 1A (rewriting/errata)
1. The figure chooses one short edge as it's 'front edge' while moving. The other short edge becomes the 'back half' (a 3x2 figure will thus have a 'middle section' that is not part of either 'half'). The back half moves so that both the back half and any 'middle section' entirely occupy spaces that were previously occupied by the front half and any middle section. The front half may be facing in any direction and all spaces of the front half must now be adjacent to spaces previously occupied by the figure.
See the top right diagram on pg 17 for an example of this. The front of the dragon became its 'front edge' and the back and middle moved to occupy the spaces previously occupied by the front and middle. All new spaces occupied by the front edge were previously adjacent to the figure.
A 3x2 figure moving straight forward/back also conforms to this and is a legal move.
A 3x2 figure moving straight sideways does not and is not a legal move.

2. The figure moves to a diagonally adjacent space by moving both halves of its body in the same diagonal direction (also called “sidestepping”). Both types of movement are illustrated in the diagram on page 17.

Option 1B (rewriting/errata)
1. The figure may take any edge and move all spaces of that edge one non-diagonal space. The remainder of the figure moves in the same direction.
A 3x2 figure moving straight forward conforms to this an is a legal move.
A 3x2 figure moving straight sideways also conforms to this and is a legal move.

2. The figure moves to a diagonally adjacent space by moving both halves of its body in the same diagonal direction (also called “sidestepping”). Both types of movement are illustrated in the diagram on page 17.

These are not substantial changes really, but 'half' of a 3x2 figure is difficult to determine sometimes and how it is determined greatly affects the nature of movement allowed. A 3x2 creature is either restricted from moving sideways in the same way that a 2x1 creature is, or not restricted, so it needs to be clear which is the case.

Option 2A (clarification)
A 3x2 figure may not move directly sideways.

Option 2B (clarification)
A 3x2 figure may move directly sideways.

Note: If you find this split ridiculous, we are sorry. So do some of us. On both sides of the discussion!

That text is very cumbersome to read. What about simply sending diagrams and asking "Which of these movement examples are valid?"

mahkra said:

1. Pictures are not as 'easy' to get into an errata/FAQ document.

2. We would prefer to fix the rule, which as written does not work, rather than settle individual cases, and the rule is text.

3. If you send pictures all you need is some idiot to come up with a different movement (say backwards) and say "but it isn't one of the pictures" - in other words you must show an example of every possible legitimate movement and not miss any. Thats actually a lot more cumbersome than one paragraph of text.

While it was laborious to write, and to read, we only actually need one response, so it isn't as bad as it looks. If someone comes up with a cleaner, easier wording which is suitably 'tight' then I'm all for it though. Thats exactly why such things should be posted here and get more people looking at them to tidy things up before sending to FFG rather than sent directly to FFG in a messy state.

The FAQ has breath attack examples, so why couldn't it have movement examples? It's not being printed, so adding a page to the FAQ does not increase the cost of distribution in any significant way. Also, the answer does not even need to be in a FAQ; it could simply be an email response added to the GLoAQ, like the recent Knight question. And even if the answer did not include pictures, it could be much easier to communicate the question through pictures.

Anyway, how does the rule not work? Here's the exact text from the JitD rules:

Hell Hounds and Dragons are oddly shaped, occupying two and six spaces, respectively. They must move in one of the following two ways:
1. The figure moves one half of its body into a non-diagonal adjacent space while the other half of its body moves into the space(s) that the first half just vacated
2. The figure moves to a diagonally adjacent space by moving both halves of its body in the same diagonal direction (also called “sidestepping”).

Let's look at the lower right dragon on JitD page 17 and consider all possible one-space translations. (A translation means shift the figure without rotating it.)
a) up
b) down
c) right
d) left
e) up-right
f) up-left
g) down-right
h) down-left

The first four are all covered by movement rule (1), and the last four are all covered by movement rule (2).

(Okay, technically , the first two are not covered by rule (1), because the first third of the figure moves to a non-diagonal adjacent space, but I don't really understand the confusion here, because the example in the diagram considers the trailing two-thirds of the dragon to be its "rear half" .)

Now we can consider rotations.
i) pivot 90 degrees about one of the dragon's middle squares
j) pivot 90 degrees about a corner square of the dragon

The first rotation example is covered by movement rule (1). (Again, not technically , but it is explicitly shown in the top-right example on page 17.) The second rotation example is not covered by either rule (1) or (2), so it is invalid.

I do see how a "rules lawyer" could take issue with the incorrect use of the word "half" and question the meaning of "adjacent space", but I don't understand how anyone could in all seriousness not understand the intent of the written rule. Is there actually legitimate confusion about how to move large figures, or are we just being difficult when asking for clarification?

If you want a re-written rule #1, I'd propose the following:

The figure moves one edge of its body into spaces that are all non-diagonally adjacent to the spaces originally occupied by the figure. The remainder of its body remains within the spaces originally occupied by the figure.

In my estimation, a dragon can make 12 different legal movements. (24 if you consider facing, but that has no meaning in Descent. 25 if you consider turning a 180 in place, though that is not a movement at all and affects nothing in the game.) I'd be happy to share a pdf with simple diagrams if anyone is interested.

First off, my apologies for posting 3 times in a row. As I started to do some actual 'real work' today, though, one statement from earlier in this thread jumped out at me:

"2x1 monsters are fairly clear, but 3x2 monsters are not."

Dragons are two spaces "wide", so movement rule (1) from the JitD rules could describe a completely lateral 'sidestep' (in quotes because the rules use the term sidestep to describe a forward-and-sideways movement), but hellhounds are only one space wide and therefore could not legally move in such a manner. But are 2x1 figures intended to be 'less maneuverable' than 3x2 figures? Should a completely lateral 'sidestep' be illegal for both? Legal for both? Legal for 3x2 but not for 2x1?

Despite this revelation, I do think we're over-thinking the issue. I'll add one edit to my re-written rule #1, then leave the forums for a while and actually do some work.

The figure moves one edge of its body into spaces that are all non-diagonally adjacent to the spaces originally occupied by the figure. The remainder (if any) of its body remains within the spaces originally occupied by the figure.

Two questions for a quick clarification (I know it is clear by RAW, but I guess the designers didn´t think about these special situations):

1) A hero with a Stun token is sitting next to a glyph in a RtL dungeon. At the start of his turn, he discards the token as per the basic rules and would receive just one half-action in a normal turn. Is he allowed to take a full Restock action instead, rendering the Stun token he has just discarded irrelevant?

a) He is allowed to Restock as normal.

b) He is allowed to move to Tamalir (e.g. for safety) but doesn´t get a Restock action this turn.

c) He is not allowed to move to Tamalir and may only perform one half-action in the dungeon.

d) Something different, please specify.

If b) is the answer: In the case of multiple Stun tokens on the hero, what are his options in subsequent turns in Tamalir?

b1) Discard a Stun token. Then take a full Restock action (would be inconsistent) or receive one half-action as usual and move back to dungeon
b2) Discard a Stun token. No Restock action, or receive one half-action as usual and move back to dungeon.

2) Are lingering effect tokens on a hero in general affected by a Restock action, e.g. Burn/Frost/Web/Daze tokens when Restocking in the Temple in Tamalir?

Corbon: Your option 1B doesn't appear to allow rotations.

Mahkra: If you follow the rules strictly as written, hellhounds have 10 movements and dragons have 6. The diagrams make it clear that dragons are supposed to be able to rotate, despite the written words, but to say that this is allowed because its rear two thirds is considered its "rear half" (plus some other necessary fudging) strikes me as more of a leap. Even if you say that, its allowed movements change depending on whether you can only divide it into 1/3 and 2/3 segments or you can also divide it down its long axis into two 1x3 halves.

So there's at least 3 vaguely plausible sets of movements that could be legal for dragons, depending on whether you give priority to the text or the diagram and what you think is the "best" way to change the text to agree with the diagram, and at least 2 plausible sets of movements that could be legal for hellhounds for reasons you managed to figure out in your last post.

I think most people play that dragons can't move "sideways," on the grounds that they imagine the rules are correct for 1x2 figures and that 2x3 figures should move in an analogous fashion. We also know with reasonable certainty that blood apes (another 1x2 figure) cannot move "sideways" because it says so in the FAQ (bottom right of page 11), though it hilariously cites the rules we're asking to clarify as the reason that they can't.

mahkra said:

I don't know about anyone else, but I find this cumbersome and difficult to visualize.

Rather than trying to categorize things in the same way as the existing rules (that don't work), why not abstract things differently? Here's how I would rewrite the rules, according to my current best guess at how they're supposed to work:

1. The entire figure may move one space in any diagonal direction, or along its long axis ("forward" or "backward", but not "sideways").
2. The figure may rotate 90 degrees (one quarter-turn), while continuing to occupy as many of the same spaces as possible (i.e. occupying one of its previous spaces if the figure is 1x2, or four of its previous spaces if the figure is 2x3).

As far as I know, the term "side-stepping" is not used anywhere outside that section, so we don't need to preserve it.

I think mahkra´s final version of non-rotating movement is comprehensive and easily understood.

Why are you excluding side-stepping for 2x1 figures by limiting the non-diagonal movement to along their long axis? I think this should be specifically ruled in or out as well in a direct manner (and not only in the "indirect" way via the FAQ Leap answer).

Parathion said:

As far as I can tell, both of Mahkra's proposed rules actually cover rotating movement, but not diagonal movement. So thanks for underscoring my point.

Parathion said:

Note that the original Descent rules define "side-stepping" as diagonal movement, not as orthogonal movement along the short axis.

As for why I'm excluding it implicitly, that's just the normal way rules are written; it's impractical and confusing to list all the things you can't do, so you list the things that you can do, and anything not listed is implicitly excluded. I also didn't explicitly exclude teleporting around the dungeon.

I did include a parenthetical note pointing out that "sideways" movement was excluded by that description, as an aid to clarity. I suppose I don't have any serious objection to making that note more pronounced.

"Non-rotational" was a mere typo, I meant "non-diagonal" movement. No underscoring intended.

I think it is still in the realm of possibility that the non-diagonal side-stepping could be allowed for 1x2 creatures. That´s why I would like to see a dedicated ruling on this.

Sorry it took me so long to figure out what has apparently been discussed before. I admit I got lost in all the text and missed a few things (which is why we need diagrams!) And I will openly admit I have not read all 150 pages of this forum, so I am not aware of all previous conclusions.

Antistone said:
The diagrams make it clear that dragons are supposed to be able to rotate, despite the written words, but to say that this is allowed because its rear two thirds is considered its "rear half" (plus some other necessary fudging) strikes me as more of a leap.

How is this a leap? The caption of that very diagram says "The Dragon moves up, and its rear half follows its front half as shown above." I didn't make up my reasoning to justify the picture; I simply read the caption. And I'm not sure what the other "necessary fudging" is... the term "adjacent"? I read that as "adjacent to the original figure", not "adjacent to the square that part of the figure formerly occupied".

A few points / questions, itemized for easier discussion:

1. Is there more than one 'accepted' theory pertaining legal rotations? The rule may be poorly written, but if the diagram gives a consensus interpretation, it seems a waste of our time and a waste of FFG's time to ask them to "fix" it.

2. I see now that there is at least one unanswered question: Can 1x2 and/or 2x3 monsters move laterally / sidestep / move sideways? If this is the only issue people are actually confused about, I think we should simply ask that. A more convoluted question will likely confuse the reader to the point that the answer does not address the important part of the question.

3. What if a monster in a future expansion faces sideways? Long axis / short axis instructions then make little sense. But forward and backward can also be questionable terms, since figures face in all directions at once.

4. Why not simply draw up some diagrams? If we accept that a figure could never move further than one space away with one movement point (i.e. if a 2x3 figure starts at the center of a 4x5 rectangle, it could never cross the rectangle in one movment), there are only 16 possible ending locations for the figure within that box. By right/left symmetry and front/back symmetry, this reduces to 5 unique theoretical movement types.

5. I did not address diagonal movement, because rule (2) in the rulebook is very clear. I was only suggesting a re-write of rule (1).

I talked with contacts...and for right now they are not able to devote time to answering single questions about things. I am however going to soon be entering a discussion with someone at FFG about a few things, one being the possibility of getting a comprehensive rules wiki made that can be easily updated and changed.

mahkra said:

The diagram doesn't show a division between "front half" and "back half"; one proposed interpretation is that it's divided into a front third and a back two-thirds, but there have also been serious discussions about cutting the dragon cleanly in half through the middle of its middle two squares (creating two 1x1.5 segments), or having a half that consists of 3 squares in an L-shape. One could also imagine a "front two thirds / back one third" split. There are probably other options, too.

The "fudging" that is required includes, but is not necessarily limited to:

• Moving the back 4 spaces "into the space(s) that the [front 2 spaces] just vacated", when technically they can't possibly fit, due to being twice as big.
• Pluralizing "adjacent space" to "adjacent space s ".
• There are several possible interpretations of "adjacent spaces" in this context, and every one of them has issues. The one you picked has the issue that it doesn't forbid the selection of spaces that are adjacent to the figure but not adjacent to each other, so it technically would allow movements that would cause a 2x3 figure to no longer be a 2x3 rectangle at the end of the movement.

Those aren't exactly show-stoppers, but it's not like the "half" thing is the only part where you'd be deviating from RAW. It's a really poorly-written rule.

As to your points:

1. By strict RAW, dragons can't rotate. I'm not aware of anyone holding meaningfully conflicting theories specifically about legal rotations that are consistent with the diagram, but since the rotation rules are tied in with other movement rules as written, it's not really practical to ask for clarification without touching on the rotation rules.

2. That is not the only issue people are confused about. Even if it were, the rule is really amazingly poorly worded, and it's quite probable that someone will find more things to be confused about in the future if it's not changed to something vaguely sane.

3. Telling people to change how a figure moves based on its artwork is a Really Bad Idea. Wendigoes could already spark arguments about that fairly easily. The only objective, mechanical distinction between axes is which one is longer or shorter. If they want to come out with a new monster that has different movement rules, they will need to write new movement rules for it .

4. Diagrams might be helpful, but its really going to be inconvenient for a lot of different reasons if we can't describe this stuff with text. It is definitely worth at least attempting to find a clear text version, even if we supplement it with diagrams.

5. I understand. I'm suggesting rewriting both because I think the simplest and clearest way of describing the legal movements is to group the translations and group the rotations, rather than their current split.

1. The diagrams in the rulebook are part of RAW, so dragons clearly can rotate. And if the wording in the text part of the rulebook is unclear to anyone, FFG has already clarified that by instructing us to follow the diagrams.

And as for these comments:

- Pluralizing "adjacent space" to "adjacent spaces".
- There are several possible interpretations of "adjacent spaces" in this context, and every one of them has issues. The one you picked has the issue that it doesn't forbid the selection of spaces that are adjacent to the figure but not adjacent to each other, so it technically would allow movements that would cause a 2x3 figure to no longer be a 2x3 rectangle at the end of the movement.

If these are our concerns, I can see why FFG wouldn't think a FAQ is really necessary.

Yeah, the fact that there are a bunch of conflicting things the rules could mean is hardly a problem, and the fact that the rule is worded as if it only applied to 1x2 figures and not 2x3 figures can't possibly tell us anything about what they were thinking when they wrote it. Plus, if I mention any problem that is in any way trivial, that automatically invalidates all the other points I made, no matter how significant or unrelated they might appear. Even if I tried to avoid going into details in the first place and you demanded that I go back and elaborate.

I did ask you to elaborate, because I didn't think you had any sensible argument for the "fudging" comment. After you did elaborate, my feelings did not change. I wanted to at least hear your reasoning before dismissing the statement offhand, though.

But I'm not trying to say that such trivial issues invalidate your legitimate points. I'm trying to say that the y distract from legitimate points.

Yes, there are problems in the rulebook. I'm not disputing that. But there's some stuff we can figure out on our own and there's other stuff we can't. If I were FFG, I would ignore nitpicky concerns from players and only spend time addressing issues that seemed to cause genuine confusion. It's a waste of time to discuss whether dragons can move in such a way as to occupy a non-contiguous block of spaces, or whether the OL can discard for threat without having any cards (and go to a negative hand size), or other such nonsense.

Well, maybe "waste of time" is too harsh. It could be interesting to discuss such random topics as a purely academic exercise. But if we're trying to have a serious discussion about items to include in a FAQ, such issues merely distract from the actual point of the conversation.