Am I right that the Fire-Drake just sits there during all of stage 2, without ever attacking? He can't leave the staging area, so even though his engagement is less than my threat, he's not engaged (nor ever anywhere considered engaged), so doesn't attack during the enemy phase. And his Forced ability doesn't trigger after I explore a location because I can't return him to the staging area when he's already there. Right?

I played this as the Fire-Drake attacking everyone from the staging area after the active location is explored. Just because you can't return him there doesn't mean you ignore the rest of the sentence—to wit:

Quote

Once an ability is initiated, players must resolve as much of each aspect of the effect as they are able, unless the effect uses the word “may.”

[RR Effects]

This would be different if the Fire-Drake were worded "Return Fire-Drake to the staging area. Then, Fire-Drake makes an attack against…" But it is not.

17 minutes ago, sappidus said:

I played this as the Fire-Drake attacking everyone from the staging area after the active location is explored. Just because you can't return him there doesn't mean you ignore the rest of the sentence—to wit:

[RR Effects]

This would be different if the Fire-Drake were worded "Return Fire-Drake to the staging area. Then, Fire-Drake makes an attack against…" But it is not.

That was the unfortunate thought I had, but I can never remember those arcane rulings about "and" vs "then", yada yada. Do we have any confirmation for that? Not that I don't believe you, but it'd be nice to have a ruling to keep things clear going forward.

The rules about "then" is stated pretty clearly in the FAQ:

(1.15) The word “then” If a card effect uses the word “then,” then the preceding effect must resolve successfully for the subsequent dependent effect to resolve.

I feel like this pretty clearly indicates that in the absence of a "then" you have to resolve the 2nd effect even if the 1st effect doesn't resolve.

I see I need to replay this quest. There will be much charred elf flesh...

However, Stage 2B of the King's Quest specifically states that "Fire-drake cannot leave the staging area". So, if he can't leave, he can't return, which would seem to negate the potential for an attack? Fire-drake specifically states "After the active location is explored, Fire-drake returns to the staging area and makes an immediate attack...." but since he doesn't return , it would seem that the second directive following the "and" would not be in play.

15 minutes ago, Orcstalker said:

However, Stage 2B of the King's Quest specifically states that "Fire-drake cannot leave the staging area". So, if he can't leave, he can't return, which would seem to negate the potential for an attack? Fire-drake specifically states "After the active location is explored, Fire-drake returns to the staging area and makes an immediate attack...." but since he doesn't return , it would seem that the second directive following the "and" would not be in play.

Well that's the question at hand. Normally your logic applies in situations where the effect is worded "A then B". However, this case is "A and B". There have been rulings in the past that if you have an and effect, you fulfill as much as is possible.

I agree that the wording, while ambiguous, indicates that the Drake attacks regardless of whether he returns to (or remains in) the staging area. Of course, the Drake cannot leave the staging area per Q.2B. But Q.3B doesn't have this limitation, and so the drake would return. This hurts in Q.3B because not only can you not attack, but you also have extra threat to overcome next round to add progress to declare attackers.

This understanding must be correct:

(1) The wording that would require the Drake to NOT attack is further from the current wording.

(2) This reading is the worse situation for the player, and that seems to always be the intent.

Unfortunately, it seems that FFG does not have a dedicated Rule Writer/Scholar. Wilds of Rhovanion has a proofreader. But clarifying rules is not the job of a proofreader. And of course the game designer did an amazing job with the game mechanics and combos, but the Designer is the least able to provide an unbiased interpretation of the card wording. I'm not sure what the role of the play testers is, but it would be nice if they could provide rule clarification suggestions to the Designer to be added to the rule sheet. This seems to have been a problem since the beginning of the game given the sheer volume of commonplace questions.

4 hours ago, Network57 said:

Well that's the question at hand. Normally your logic applies in situations where the effect is worded "A then B". However, this case is "A and B". There have been rulings in the past that if you have an and effect, you fulfill as much as is possible.

This is awfully ambiguous; if that were the case, why even mention the active location? It could just say that the FD makes an attack at the end of each travel phase in Stage 2B, since that is essentially what would happen. And, yes, 3B is different, since you may have FD engaged in combat so it could get bounced back to staging. It sure makes a big difference since it takes a while to get through 2B!

It does give you some amount of control over how often the Drake attacks. We opted to skip traveling several times in order to prevent the extra attacks.

12 hours ago, Orcstalker said:

This is awfully ambiguous; if that were the case, why even mention the active location? It could just say that the FD makes an attack at the end of each travel phase in Stage 2B, since that is essentially what would happen.

Basically what Authraw said. You are definitely not guaranteed to explore an active location every round as you can just ignore travelling and even putting progress on the quest altogether.

This gives you some fun deck construction choices before the quest even starts. Do you build a deck with lots of cards that let you explore locations in the staging area? Do you Build a deck with one super defender that can just take a dragon attack every round if you are exploring locations the normal way? Do you build a deck that just has massive willpower that ignores the threat of those locations in the staging area? You probably should be able to do it all just to be safe . This seems like a quest that wants you to build a specific deck for it, especially with the beneficial effects on Lost Armory and Dragon Hoard that require you have specific type cards to work.

7 hours ago, donkler said:

...especially with the beneficial effects on Lost Armory and Dragon Hoard that require you have specific type cards to work.

Right? The text on Dragon Hoard is literally begging you to have Necklace of Girion.

I had Amarthiul with 2 Armored Destriers, 2 Dunedain Warnings, a Raiment of War, Vigilant Guard, and Captain of Gondor, so defending for 7, 6 HP, and ready with 5 attack. He could take some serious Dragon hits.

9 minutes ago, Network57 said:

I had Amarthiul with 2 Armored Destriers, 2 Dunedain Warnings, a Raiment of War, Vigilant Guard, and Captain of Gondor, so defending for 7, 6 HP, and ready with 5 attack. He could take some serious Dragon hits.

That's a pretty stacked defender! I don't think 4 Restricted attachments is strictly legal though ?

8 minutes ago, donkler said:

That's a pretty stacked defender! I don't think 4 Restricted attachments is strictly legal though ?

****** I forgot about the Destriers! Oh well... Even without, a single defense of 7 with 6 HP would be pretty bananas.

I played it as he attacks everytime a location is explored. Generally i tend to choose the difficult option. Had to sacrifice one ally but apart from this managed toovercome this

Also indeed Necklace of Girion was used with Dragon hoard ... it fitted perfectly hehe