I recently had an inquiry for Caleb regarding player cards, that may be added to the encounter deck:

The rules state, that every player may set up to 3 cards aside, which can potentially be added to the encounter deck: Ranger of the North, Wind from the Sea, Tom Bombadil and Eagle of the North. Now only Ranger Summons asks for "1 of your set aside" Rangers, the other events only ask for "a set aside" card. Does this mean, I can use cards in my deck, which target the set aside cards of other players, or may everyone only use his own set aside cards?

The answer I got was:

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You may target you  r teammates set-aside cards except in the case of Ranger Summons.

Cheers, Caleb 

Courtesy of @carlosm88 on the CotR Discord:

Question about archery and Loyal Hound: When assigning archery damage how does Loyal Hound interact with it, more specifically:

1. Can I assign one archery damage on loyal hound and then discard it to prevent two archery damage on a hero?
2. Can I assign two archery damage on loyal hound and discard it before it dies to prevent to archery damage on a hero?
3. Can I assign one more archery damage to a hero than his/her HP, to then prevent it with Loyal Hound and bring back to less damage than HP, keeping the hero Alive?

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You cannot over-assign archery damage. You can only ever assign archery damage to a character equal to its remaining hit points. In the case of the Loyal Hound, you assign the archery damage before resolving it. Once it is assigned, you can use the Hound’s Response to discard it and cancel 2 damage that would be dealt to your hero. So if you assign 2 to the Hound and 2 to your hero, the Loyal Hound can essentially absorb 4 archery damage.

Cheers, Caleb

[Ed. note: Wow!]

Asking about a card not actually released yet…

It's the Planning phase. I Sneak Attack a Silvan ally into play, then I play Host of Galadhrim. Does the delayed effect on Sneak Attack still "see" that same ally and thus return it to my hand at the end of the phase? Or did the process of resolving HoG make the game "lose track" of that ally (it left play briefly), thus letting it stick around having been played by HoG? Thanks!

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Sneak Attack says “if that ally is still in play” so I would say that if the ally is still in play at the end of the phase, it should be returned to your hand regardless of what happened to it during the phase.

Cheers, Caleb

If Glamdring/Orcrist is guarded by an enemy, and I kill the enemy and immediately attach the weapon to a hero that participated in the attack, is the weapon Response immediately triggerable?

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No. The Weapon must be attached when you resolve the attack in order to trigger its ability.

9 hours ago, sappidus said:

Asking about a card not actually released yet…

It's the Planning phase. I Sneak Attack a Silvan ally into play, then I play Host of Galadhrim. Does the delayed effect on Sneak Attack still "see" that same ally and thus return it to my hand at the end of the phase? Or did the process of resolving HoG make the game "lose track" of that ally (it left play briefly), thus letting it stick around having been played by HoG? Thanks!

Don't like this one. It seems much neater if a card that leaves play and then returns is treated as a completely unrelated card. Also leads to unresolvable situations: sneak attack a Silvan Ally, let's call it Bob, during planning, use The Tree People to return it to your hand. Play Drinking Song, shuffle your hand back into your deck and draw a new hand. This hand contains a copy of Bob. Is it the copy of Bob that the Sneak Attack is targeting, or not? We do not know.

5 hours ago, NathanH said:

[Sneak Attack'ed ally leaving play discussion]

To maintain the cleanliness of this thread, I'm splitting off specific discussion to here:

Some contract clarifications obtained by @Seastan :

Regarding the "Burglar's Turn" contract: It says that if the attachment has the guarded keyword when you attach it to the active location, you ignore it. But when the active is explored it says to "you may put each guarded attachment on that location into play at no cost". Would you then trigger the guarded keyword on a guarded player card?

Regarding the "Grey Wanderer" contract: If you start the game by choosing a guarded attachment as your one attachment, what happens? My understanding is that during the setup of the player cards, there is not yet an encounter deck with which to trigger the guarded keyword.

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``````Burglar’s Turn bypasses the guarded keyword altogether. Once you explore that location, you can attach the guarded attachment to an eligible character.

The Grey Wanderer has a Setup ability. This should be resolved after you do the Setup on the quest. There will always be an encounter deck at that point.

Cheers, Caleb

Note that the Grey Wanderer part of this ruling implies that contract Setup is resolved at a different time than hero Setup (after setup step #7 and at step #3, respectively). In particular, you already have your post-mulligan starting hand when you do the contract Setup.

EDIT : Implied by the above, but an official small clarification from Caleb:

With regard to Grey Wanderer, yes you could end up with the card you want in your opening hand.

Not a ruling, exactly—more of a verbal confirmation Caleb gave during a recent episode of Card Talk… (It also jibes with prior understanding of how this situation plays out, but it was nice to hear him state it plainly.)

If Sméagol is your last hero, and Stinker flips him to Gollum, you are not eliminated. Any damage that would be dealt from undefended attacks [framework step 6.4.3] while you're in this state evaporates into the ether.

https://youtu.be/ri5AtxinPq4

Some questions on The Burglar's Turn Contract answered:

1) What happens when the Loot card you are about to put on a location is a unique item already in play? Do you place it out of play and draw a new Loot card for the location? Or do you place it out of play and the location gets no Loot card?

2) The second part of the contract says “When the active location is explored, you may put each guarded attachment on that location into play at no cost, or add it to your hand.” What happens if you attach an item to a location by traveling there, but then the location is pushed back into the staging area by a card effect such as Strider’s Path and is explored in the staging area? Do you still get to put the guarded attachment into play per the usual Guarded Objective rules and merely do not have the option of adding it to your hand, or is it placed entirely out of play?

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1. The rules for unique cards will prevent the loot from entering play. That will unfortunately cause the effect to whiff that turn.
2. Exploring a location out of the staging area will result in the attachments being discarded. The guarded keyword on attachments put into play by The Burglar’s Turn is ignored.

Thanks for playing!

Cheers,

Caleb

Looking for a ruling on how the cards Elf-Stone and Ranger Provisions work with the new Burglar's Turn contract. When would you get those card effects? I can see it happening as soon as the active location is explored? Or does it need to attach to another location after the active is explored and then when that subsequent location is explored you gain the benefits. Just looking for some clarity. Thanks!

On 11/29/2019 at 11:29 AM, nvbostwick said:

Looking for a ruling on how the cards Elf-Stone and Ranger Provisions work with the new Burglar's Turn contract. When would you get those card effects? I can see it happening as soon as the active location is explored? Or does it need to attach to another location after the active is explored and then when that subsequent location is explored you gain the benefits. Just looking for some clarity. Thanks!

Burglar's Turn contract prohibits the contract deck from having attachments in it, but nothing in it forbids other players from playing attachments on the active location. Another player could add both Elf-Stone and Ranger Provisions to the active location -- this would result in the active location needing 4 more quest points, 3 from Burglar's Turn effect, and one from Elf-Stone's text.

Once explored, the forced effect on Burglar's Turn would deal with the attachment from the contract, then the responses to Elf-Stone and Ranger Provisions could be done. As responses to the same trigger (clearing the active location) those two can be done in any order.

I think, he asks, what happens, when you include Elf-stone and Ranger Provisions in the loot deck and attach them to the active location after travelling.

(Besides what's explicitly asked, the below ruling also clears up things like the limit on ally Galdor in the context of triggering him off of hero Erestor's discard, which happens outside a round proper.)

You had a great interview on Card Talk the other day [ https://youtu.be/ri5AtxinPq4 ]. Thanks for that!

In it, you are asked about Spirit Dain and "at the end of the phase" attacks. You gave an answer that was quite clear, except the audio cut out a little at the end. So just to clarify:

Dain defends during the Combat phase, using his action 3 times. Then, an attack occurs at the end of the phase. If Dain is ready somehow and defends against this new attack, he can again use his action up to 3 times, with the "limit 3 times per phase" now applying to both this attack (not in a phase) along with the NEXT phase (in this case, the Refresh phase)…?

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You have it correct.

Glad you enjoyed the interview. The Card Talk guys are great and real easy to chat with.

Cheers, Caleb

@PeaceAndThought on the CotR Discord asked about Host of Galadhrim putting out a Galadhrim Weaver and got this ruling:

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Host does not enter your discard pile until you fully resolve its effect. That means it will “float” until you have put all your Silvan allies back into play and resolved their ‘enters play’ effects . [Ed: emphasis added]

I was confused by this, as the Weaver has an "After… enters play" trigger condition, and I thought the HoG would be done resolving by the time the Weaver would trigger. So I asked for clarification:

You recently shared a ruling with a community member re: Host of Galadhrim and a Galadhrim Weaver, stating that the event would still be floating outside the discard pile at the time that the Weaver's Response [could be] triggered.

I just want to clarify this, as the Weaver has an "after... enters play" Response—we should consider events as still resolving until all triggered effects due to things the event may have incited (even "after"s) have completely resolved as well?

Related: is it also the case that Sneak Attack and Tree People are still outside the discard pile at the time the Weaver triggers (if a Weaver is the relevant ally put into play)?

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Yes, the rule for playing an event is that you wait until its effect is fully resolved before placing it in the discard pile.

Cheers, Caleb

Ally Galadriel puts an attachment into play, as opposed to playing it. Vilya also can do this. Can this attachment be put on another player's character?

Of course, the rules for attachment cards specifically say you can " play " them on other players' characters. But RR Ownership and Control states "By default, cards enter play under their owner's control". I wasn't sure if that was intended to still apply with Galadriel/Vilya.

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If you put an attachment into play with Galadriel’s ability you can still attach that attachment to any legal target. For example, if it says “attach to a hero” that can be any hero in the game, regardless of who controls that hero.

Cheers, Caleb

(This was a @GrandSpleen question, but I submitted the query…)

Lots of people are excited about Saruman and his Staff—great design! A question his Staff brings up: suppose you use it to reduce the Doomed value of the next event by 2. Then you want to use the Response on a Steward of Orthanc to give an otherwise vanilla event Doomed 1. This would end up being Doomed 0 because of the Staff's lasting effect… Do you still get to draw a card from that Steward of Orthanc?

The hesitation comes from wondering whether we really paid the price of "give it Doomed 1" or not. Thanks in advance!

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You can combo Steward of Orthanc with Saruman’s Staff. It works like this:

1. Trigger Saruman’s Staff (-2 doomed)
2. Play an event
3. Give it Doomed 1 with Steward of Orthanc (+1 doomed)
4. You end up drawing a card without raising your threat because you reduced the doomed value to 0.

Cheers, Caleb

So if you use Grima to give an event Doomed 1 and use Steward to give it Doomed 1, then reduce the value by 2 with Saruman’s staff, you get an event at -1 cost and it draws you a card.... without a threat raise. Nice.

This is a Caleb ruling back from 2018, but I can't seem to find it recorded on the forum, so I share it now:

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When an effect raises your threat by 1 “for each X” you should calculate the total and then raise your threat all at once. So if you have 5 characters not committed to the quest when Pursued by Shadow is revealed, you would raise your threat by 5 all at once, not by 1 five times. That means Elfhelm’s ability would cause you to raise your threat by 4 instead of 5.

Another ruling from 2018 addressing a simple question, but I couldn't find a similar reference ruling. This one was shared by CotR host Chad:

You cannot cancel a Great Barrow with The Door is Closed! because the “immune to player card effects” is active immediately in step 1, which prevents you from targeting Great Barrow with the event.

Still going back through the archives and posting rulings that I'm not sure ever reached the forum… This one is from @McDog3 , asking in 2019 about enemies "considered to be engaged with each player":

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If an enemy is considered to be engaged with each player, it will make an attack against each player during their ‘resolve enemy attacks’ step. In that regard, the rules reference should probably be updated to say “has not yet attacked the active player” in order to make that more clear. I will make a note to do that with the next FAQ update.

As for shadow cards, an enemy that is considered to be engaged with each player should be dealt a new shadow card each time that it attacks. I will make a note to clarify that with the next FAQ update as well.

Cheers, Caleb

[Please, let there actually be a FAQ update someday…]

N.B.: The shadow card part of this ruling is slightly different from what the Shadow and Flame rules state we should do for Durin's Bane.

Just got a reply from Caleb about the Setup timings of Contracts

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Setup effects are resolved during step 7 of the game Setup instructions. You should resolve player card Setup abilities after resolving the Setup instructions for the scenario. That does mean it is possible that you could draw your only copy of a card before that, so it is good to include multiple copies or have a back up plan. It also means that Guarded cards will pull cards from the encounter deck.

Cheers,

Caleb

Question about Mount Gundabad and Setup

2 minutes ago, kainveus said:

Question about Mount Gundabad and Setup

Q1:Several Stage 2B of Mount Gundabad reads "After characters are commintted to the quest……“ , should it be trigger "After a player commits characters to the quest……” or "After the players commit characters to the quest……" ?

Q2:About trigger time of "Setup" effect.

There are several "Setup" in the game now??Contract cards like "Messenger of the King"/"The Grey Wanderer" , other player cards like Thurindir/The One Ring , and also quest cards. But when did these effect triggers? Before the players draw their openning hands , or after ?

Some cards, like Gandalf's Delay ,should be trigger before player draw their hands and mulligan, but how about Thurindir? Should he search for the side quest , and draw the other 5 cards? If so , how to take mulligan ?

If the "Setup" effect triggers after the players draw their hands , If they get the Ally/Attachment for "Messenger of the King"/"The Grey Wanderer", do that means they had to prepare a Plan B ?

Q1. “After characters are committed to the quest” is the same as “after the players have committed characters to the quest.”

Q2. Setup abilities should be resolved during step 7 of the Setup rules for the game: “Follow Scenario Setup Instruction.” Resolve the scenario Setup instructions first, and then resolve any player card Setup instructions. The only exception to this is Gandalf’s Delay. That card doesn’t actually work as intended as written, but we have never issued errata because players seem to have intuited how it was meant to work and resolved it on their own. It does however create confusion with regard to other Setup abilities as you pointed out, but if you understand that Gandalf’s Delay is the exception and not the rule, the rest of the Setup effects work as intended.

Q3. It is possible to draw the card you want to search for in your opening hand with Messenger of the King and The Grey Wanderer. In those cases it is prudent to have a backup plan.

Cheers,

Caleb

So now not only have contracts moved to step 7, but hero abilities as well? Thurindir's timing was previously in step two.

It's difficult for me to believe that post step 7 was "as intended" for setup abilities, for several reasons:

1) Thurindir was ruled differently in the past

2) The article introducing contracts had it in step 2 with the hero setup.

3) Hero setup abilities logically belong in hero setup (step 2) anyways

4) The necessity for dead cards to find your target with the contract could have been avoided with "deck or hand" wording easily *if* that had been intended timing. Surely Messenger of the King wasn't *meant* to be unreliable, rather than just hero-ify a *predetermined* ally.

All this seems like a lot of collateral damage just to prevent Guarded player cards from being used with Grey Wanderer. As has been pointed out, there *is* an encounter deck in play in step two. I realize pulling an enemy or location in step two that was going to be set aside might make some scenarios behave in an unintended fashion, but I can't think of a quest off the top of my head where it will make it *better* for the player instead of worse.

moved