AFAIK your most recent major ruling on progress placement during quest resolution is the following: "So from now on, the active location must be fully explored before placing any progress on the current quest. That means you will resolve any effects that trigger as a result of the active location being explored before placing any progress on the quest."

What if the current quest changes as a result of exploring the active location? e.g., Quest 1B of The Withered Heath has 6 progress, no Dragon Sign in the victory display but the active location is guarding a Dragon Sign. I successfully quest with a margin of 1 progress above what it takes to explore the active location. If I'm reading it right, your ruling above indicates that I should place the progress that explores the active location—leaving 1 pending—which frees up the Dragon Sign, which goes to the victory display as a constant effect, which lets the constant effect of quest 1B fire, which advances the current quest to quest card 2. I still have 1 progress pending.

Do I place it on quest 2B? Or was it "assigned" to quest 1B, which is no longer around, therefore losing me that progress? Thanks!

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Progress is still placed on the active location and the quest simultaneously. What I addressed in my ruling was the order of resolution from that point. In the past, I interpreted the rules very strictly as written by insisting that if there was enough progress on the quest to advance that players should do that before resolving anything to do with exploring the active location. That proved to be very unintuitive, so I reversed my ruling to say that players should first resolve any consequences of exploring the active location, and then resolve the progress on the quest.

However, since the progress is still placed simultaneously, if exploring the active location should cause you to advance to the next stage, any progress you had placed on the previous stage will be lost.

Great question! I will make sure that the next FAQ update includes this information.

Cheers, Caleb

This is a wild one…

For Lost in the Wild (WoR 26), what happens if you try to...

• put it into your deck with ally Gildor? (Can a card with an encounter card back enter your deck?)
• use Message from Elrond to send it to another player? (Does Lost trigger after it has changed hands? For whom? I am thinking of Rider of the Mark here. And at the end of the round, if it's still in hand, is it shuffled into the encounter deck?)

Thanks!

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There are currently no rules that prevent you from putting Lost in the Wild into your player deck via Gildor’s ability, or putting it in another player’s hand or deck [sic?] via Message from Elrond. If you did move Lost in the Wild into another player’s hand with Message from Elrond, it would not trigger because it reads “After you play a card…” and it would not be in your hand at that time. It wouldn’t trigger in your teammates hand at that time either because they have not played a card yet.

Cheers, Caleb

If I am playing true solo, and Lightless Grotto is the active location with only 1 progress needed to explore it, what happens if I commit to the quest a character holding a Map of Rhovanion? Does the Forced on the Grotto trigger before the Response on the Map? Or are the timing triggers (worded subtly differently) not truly simultaneous?

Forced effects always resolve before Response effects when they share the same trigger. Since both the Grotto and the Map trigger “after” you commit characters to the quest, you must resolve the Forced effect on the Grotto first.

Cheers,
Caleb

This one is courtesy of Ian from Tales from the Cards, who asked whether a Keys of Orthanc granted Doomed 1 via Gríma could thus trigger itself…

No. The Keys of Orthanc must be in play at the time you play a doomed card in order to trigger its effect.

Cheers,
Caleb

And this one is courtesy of @Onidsen on the CotR Discord…

Hey Caleb - got a rules question for you: When discarding multiple cards from your deck due to a player card effect like A Very Good Tale or Erebor Soldier, we are instructed to put the cards in the discard pile in the order they are discarded. [Ed.: This ruling is reproduced earlier in this thread.] Based on the Rules Reference guide, this would indicate that the cards are not discarded simultaneously, because cards discarded simultaneously are put into the discard pile in the order a player chooses. This leads to my question.

When using Dwarf Pipe to place a card that I have just discarded from my deck on the bottom of my deck, do I have to make that choice at the moment I discard the card? For example, if I discard 5 cards with A Very Good Tale, do I have to discard the cards one at a time, making the choice whether or not to exhaust the Dwarf Pipe with each card? Or can I discard all 5 cards for A Very Good Tale as a single instance, and then exhaust the Dwarf Pipe to choose one of the cards I just discarded and place it on the bottom of the deck? Thank you for the tireless work you put in on behalf of this amazing game!

-Samuel

Hi Samuel,

I would say the correct time to trigger the Response on Dwarf Pipe is immediately after you discard an individual card that you want to put on the bottom of your deck. This is based off the fact that when you discard Mithril Cache or Ered Luin Miner from the top of your deck, you immediately trigger the Response effect before continuing to discard cards.

Cheers,

Caleb

21 hours ago, sappidus said:

And this one is courtesy of @Onidsen on the CotR Discord…

Thanks for compiling it here!

If an enemy with Followed attached changes engagement from with you to with one of your fellow players, does Followed keep on working, or not? As far as I understand, the owning player retains control of traps he played no matter where they travel around the table (thus the wording of Ambush, to skirt around this), so this is really a question about who the "you" on Followed refers to. Thanks!

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Control of Followed does not change when the attached enemy disengages you. The “you” on the card refers to the attachment’s controller. So if the attached enemy engages another player or returns to the staging area, you cannot trigger the effect anymore because it is not engaged with you.

Cheers, Caleb

Suppose I have two Songs of Mocking out: one on, say, Aragorn and one on Beregond. I trigger both of the Songs, each one targeting the other hero. What happens when Aragorn takes damage? Does the most recently-triggered Song take priority? Or do I get the choice of where to put the damage?

The way Song of Mocking is worded, it redirects damage that is assigned before it is applied. Once it is applied, it does not move. So if you have Aragorn use Song of Mocking to redirect damage to him from Beregond (and vice versa), any time Beregond would take damage from a source other than Song of Mocking it would be applied to Aragorn. And any time Aragorn would take damage from a source other than Song of Mocking, it would be applied to Beregond.

To editorialize here: this essentially seems to mean that Song of Mocking intercepts the dealing damage framework of RR Damage at step #2 (assignment) and directly places damage tokens on the attached hero at (the equivalent of) step #3, "past" the assignment step.

Or it just creates an infinity loop and your game crashes.

On 1/10/2019 at 10:02 AM, Yepesnopes said:

Sam and Pippin just became insanly good!

To clarify, Haradrim Elite on his own will not trigger Sam and Pippin. Wait no Longer and Dunedain Hunter may result in you being engaged with Haradrim Elite (or any other enemy), which would then trigger Sam and Pippin.

Here's one about Mount Gundabad:

Question:

Hi, In Mount Gundabad, the instructions on the quest cards tell the player to flip from side 2A to side to 2B at the beginning of the quest phase. However, the rules insert says to do that at the beginning of the staging step, under the 'creating the quest deck' section (which parallels what players did in Flight from Moria). Which is correct? Thank you!

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Response:

The cards are correct. You should flip the quest cards over at the beginning of the quest phase.

I hope you enjoy Mount Gundabad!

Cheers,

Caleb

Courtesy of The Purple Wizard on the CotR Discord… The question references an encounter card just released, so to respect not spoiling it, I will redact somewhat. The general principle seemed important to record, though.

The card in question contains a Forced effect of the form, "After [trigger condition], [enemy] makes an immediate attack against each player with [another condition]." Importantly, the phrase "in turn order", which often is in such effects, is not present on this card.

The question was regarding whether the attacks must occur in player turn order anyway.

I think it was reasonable for you to assume the “in turn order” was implied, but this is actually a case of “the first player decides.” As the core rules state, when there is more than 1 effect that would resolve at the same time, the first player decides the order they are resolved in. So if more than 1 player is going to be attacked as a result of the Forced effect…, the first player will decide the order in which those attacks resolve.

Citing this interesting ruling , I asked the following about enemies that make immediate Forced attacks after engaging:

There are two Ravenous Spiders (WoR 35) engaged with other players. I, with my low-threat deck, control an exhausted Sam. During the encounter phase, I play The Hammer-stroke, simultaneously engaging those two Spiders. Now, there are two Forced effects and two occurrences of Sam's Response that all share the same trigger condition. How does this end up playing out? Will I be able to get two defenses out of Sam? Just one defense, with doubly-boosted stats?

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The Spiders and Sam share the same trigger condition, but Forced effects always resolve before Response effects. So they do not all trigger at the exact same time. Here’s what will happen when you use Hammer Stroke to engage two Ravenous Spiders at the same time:

1. Both will trigger their Forced effects causing them to initiate an attack.
2. The first player will decide which attack to resolve first.
3. Immediately after the first Spider is dealt a Shadow card, Sam will ready and get + stats as this is the first opportunity for his Response to trigger. He will get the + stats bonus twice because you engaged 2 enemies with engagement cost higher than your threat, but he cannot ready more than once at the same time so the second ready is redundant.

In the end, Sam’s ability will only allow you to get 1 defense from him, but with his stats boosted twice.

Cheers,
Caleb

If someone else puts a Curious Brandybuck into play under my control using its Response, then that player is eliminated… What happens when the active location is explored at some future time? Does the Brandybuck get removed from the game, or do I keep him? Thanks!

In the situation you described, the Curious Brandybuck would be removed from the game after you explored the location.

Cheers, Caleb

Orcrist and Glamdring have the text "After attached hero destroys an enemy, ...". This is different in wording to all previous similar cards, which either say "After attached hero attacks and destroys an enemy..." or "After attached hero participates in an attack that destroys an enemy...". Does this mean that heroes with the ability to deal non-combat damage - Tactics Bilbo Baggins or Argalad, for example - could trigger the Responses on Orcrist and Glamdring if they destroyed an enemy through that non-combat damage?

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For the attached hero to destroy an enemy, it must attack and destroy that enemy. We just shortened the language to make it fit the card.

Cheers, Caleb

Forked Passage has a Response you can trigger before resolving the Deep keyword. Among other things, this Response adds the card to the victory display. If you do this, are you supposed to still resolve Deep anyway? Or does the Deep trigger only if you decline to use the Response? Thanks!

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The Response on Forked Passage allows you to choose which of the top 2 cards of the Caves deck you will get after you travel to Forked Passage. The Deep keyword will resolve whether you trigger this effect or not.

Cheers, Caleb

I didn't doubt this would be ruled thusly, but I just wanted to nail it down…

You said in a Hirgon/Thranduil ruling that hero Gandalf only makes the top card count as if it were in your hand "at the time you play it". What about immediately after? That is, if using him to play a card off the top of your deck with an "after you play [this] from your hand" ability—e.g., West Road Traveller—can you trigger the ability?

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Yes, you can trigger the ability on West Road Traveler and other similarly worded effects when you play them from the top of your deck with Gandalf because you are playing them as if they were in your hand…

Gandalf’s ability does not add the top card of your deck to your hand, which is why it does not work with cards that specifically target a card in your hand. But he does allow you to play that card as if it was in your hand, which will combo with the cards you mention.

Cheers, Caleb

The below set of rulings excerpts were obtained during an exchange between the Cardboard of the Rings hosts and Caleb. They were discussed during their podcast (episode 132, https://cardboardoftherings.com/2018/04/29/episode-132-the-bombur/ , around the 35:40 mark).

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The ‘phase ends’ box is when the phase ends. There is no ‘beginning of the end’ or ‘end of the end’ - it’s a single point in time. In the example you sent, you highlighted two options. Both are wrong. The phase ends the moment you reach item 3.5 “Quest phase ends.”

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You cannot trigger any effects that last until ‘the end of the phase’ during an attack that was initiated at the end of the phase. You could still trigger effects that last ‘for this attack.’

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If an effect lasts “until the end of the phase” then you must be in a phase in order to trigger that effect. This is consistent with A Game of Thrones where certain effects last “until the end of the challenge.” In that game, if a character is not in a challenge, then he cannot be the target of an effect that lasts until the end of a challenge. Similarly, if you are not in a phase, then you cannot trigger an effect that last until the end of a phase.

This may reverse one or two previous rulings I have made about triggering effects outside of a phase, but it is the simplest answer and it helps to avoid other strange interactions.

So now end of phase tests are not in a phase at all! It would have been so much easier just to treat the end of phase as inclusive to the phase, and "until the end of phase" as being active at the end of the phase.

Here's a doozy, again courtesy of @Onidsen …

Assume that I have a warrior character equipped with the attachment Vigilant Guard as well as the Mithril Shirt. If I reveal Necromancer's Reach, which deals one damage to each exhausted character, may I choose to trigger the response on Vigilant Guard every time an exhausted character would take damage, and then reduce each of those instances of 1 damage by one with the Mithril Shirt, thereby doing no damage at all [?]

If I can do this, can I also do the same thing with archery damage, thus negating all of the damage as long add there are enough characters in play that I can assign only one damage per character?

The way Vigilant Guard and Mithril Shirt currently work, you can negate a ridiculous amount of damage. I think everyone forgot about Vigilant Guard during play-testing, including me. I expect this combo will take a hit when the next FAQ finally gets posted. It’s likely that Vigilant Guard will receive a limit of some sort that makes it impossible to redirect damage more than once per phase.

Abuse while you can, kids!

One more from Onidsen:

The campaign resolution for the Black Gate Opens… says that if the first player controls Gwaihir at the end of the game, the players add the boon to the campaign pool. Does this mean that if the game ends with the player controlling Gwaihir as second player, the players do not add the boon to the campaign pool? And if so, was this an intended interaction? Because it seems odd that whether or not you get the boon depends not only on whether or not you reveal it, and not only on whether you can keep it in play until the end, but also on the random chance of whether or not you end the game with Gwaihir controlled by the 'correct' player.

It was our intention that if Gwaihir was in play at the end of the game, the players would earn that boon. I think the original version of that Gwaihir had the language “the first player gains control of Gwaihir” so that if he was in play at the end of the game, the first player would always control him.

This one was shared by Marcelf on the CotR Discord, who asked if (the upcoming) Leadership Frodo's second sentence depended on paying the resource to trigger his 1st effect.

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The threat reduction is part of his Response effect. So if you do not trigger the Response effect, then you will not lower your threat for questing successfully.

Cheers, Caleb

For hardly the first time, I am sympathetic with a @naverag take: the "spend 1 resource" is the cost of triggering the Response—this is to be distinguished from the trigger condition of "After Frodo commits to the quest…". So if you do not pay the cost, you don't get to trigger any of the Response, in particular the 2nd sentence.

A similar situation is seen with Gúthwinë's "After attached hero is declared as an attacker, exhaust Gúthwinë to give that hero +2 Attack for this attack. If this attack destroys an enemy, return a Rohan ally from your discard pile to your hand." For further reading, see RR Initiating Abilities / Playing Cards : http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/#Rule545 .

This was shared on the CotR Discord back in 10/2017, but I'm not certain the text has ever been recorded here:

Was I correct in assuming that you could stack Hirgon's ability with Theoden's to play a 2 cost ally for free? (By applying Hirgon's minimum 1 ability first, followed by Theoden's passive minimum 0 ability)?

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When you play an ally with Hirgon's ability, his reduction ability has to be applied first because it's part of his effect. That works out nicely for Theoden since reduction (to a minimum of 0) is then applied after.

Cheers, Caleb

I asked a question about when a quest is considered "defeated" for the purposes of a card like The Road Goes Ever On: Is a quest card considered 'defeated' if no progress tokens are involved in advancing to the next stage of the quest? (Advancing via an effect printed on the quest card instead)... examples I include advancement when no enemies are in play during Into the Pit 2B, and all of the quest cards in Fate of Wilderland.

And the response:

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A quest is defeated when it has progress equal to its quest points. If a quest has game text that says “this stage cannot be defeated unless…” then that stage is defeated when it has no progress remaining and that condition is met.

If a quest instructs the players to advance without making progress equal to its quest points, then that stage was not defeated.

Cheers,

Caleb

Here's an intriguing one courtesy of @Jekzer :

I have a question regarding the new spoiled Faramir (A Shadow in the East): if there's a trap unattached on my play area (i.e. Outmatched or Followed) at Planning phase, I play Faramir, engage an enemy and deal damage to that enemy... Do I deal 4 (because in the process of engagement you attach that trap) or just 2?

Reading Faramir card it says 'Engage that enemy AND deal 2 damage...' instead of 'Engage that enemy, THEN deal 2 damage...' Not sure if there's a chance to attach a trap if the wording is 'A and B' instead of 'A, then B'.

Thanks a lot!

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Both Followed and Outmatched created constant abilities while unattached in your play area. Constant abilities must be resolved instantly when their triggering condition is met, which means that they would be attached to the enemy the instant you engaged it. That means they will attach to the enemy at the same time that the damage is applied. Whenever two effects would resolve at the same time, the first player decides which one to resolve first. So it is up to you if you want to do 2 damage or 4.

Cheers, Caleb