Narthak Jumping Pit

By smurfpumper, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

New players, some questions I couldn't clear up with Search:

1. I had a player blocking the landing spot (2x2) for Narthak, he wanted to jump pit and cleav/reach them, but one player occupied the spot on the southeast quad of the target area (which is the only option if jumping the first quests end-room pit).

>>I assume the player is blocking this from happening (Narthak occupying a space with a player on it)?

2. Cleaving - You cannot move between immediate attacks? Correct?

3. I do not understand leveling, ending the first quest. We finished it (Heroes won, barely), now next session, what happens? New Characters or keep the ones they have and go by the Quest Completion Chart for leveling (from Quest Guide)?

4. Quickshot (Manticore) does this mean everytime Manticore attacks it is 2 attacks if not moving? Every turn it has two attacks if just attacking melee?

5. We finally figured out that we were using Power Surges as Power Enhancements,making weapon special abilities used alongside enhancement bonuses, basically each power surge was damage for us. It worked out fine, but was incorrect. A Power Enhancement is just a Slash?

Thanks in advanced

sp

smurfpumper said:

New players, some questions I couldn't clear up with Search:

1. I had a player blocking the landing spot (2x2) for Narthak, he wanted to jump pit and cleav/reach them, but one player occupied the spot on the southeast quad of the target area (which is the only option if jumping the first quests end-room pit).

>>I assume the player is blocking this from happening (Narthak occupying a space with a player on it)?

2. Cleaving - You cannot move between immediate attacks? Correct?

3. I do not understand leveling, ending the first quest. We finished it (Heroes won, barely), now next session, what happens? New Characters or keep the ones they have and go by the Quest Completion Chart for leveling (from Quest Guide)?

4. Quickshot (Manticore) does this mean everytime Manticore attacks it is 2 attacks if not moving? Every turn it has two attacks if just attacking melee?

5. We finally figured out that we were using Power Surges as Power Enhancements,making weapon special abilities used alongside enhancement bonuses, basically each power surge was damage for us. It worked out fine, but was incorrect. A Power Enhancement is just a Slash?

Thanks in advanced

sp

1. Yes. However note that Narthak can simply ignore the pit entirely and has no need to jump it.
DJItD pg15
Large monsters are not affected by pits unless they move entirely into one
...superceded by the FAQ pg2
The overlord may choose to have a monster affected by any terrain it partially occupies. A monster MUST be affected by any terrain it completely occupies. If the monster is completely occupying multiple terrains , the figure has to be affected by one of the terrains (Overlord's choice).

2. Correct. Cleaving is an 'immediate' attack and cannot be'delayed' so you can spend an MP (either to move or to drink a potion or anything else) before the cleaving attack.

3. Forget the 'levelling up' thing in the quest guide. It is a weak hack job patched onto the rules for those who wanted more and doesn't work very well. The intent of the rules is that every quest is a unique experience completely from scratch (ie new heroes) and that provides the richest experience. However, you are free to keep heroes if your players really want to (as a house rule) however they do not get to keep anything else. New skills and most definitely entirely starting from scratch for new equipment. It is extremely critical that they do not keep any equipment/treasure or additional trait dice or skills they purchased in preceding quests.
If your players want a more 'continual campaign' experience then purchased the advanced campaign expansions (RtL or SoB), though you are better of playing most of the non-campaign quests first in order to gain experience and learn tactics and varying capabilities.

4. No, it means it gets 2 attacks each turn instead of one. In addition to moving. (And 4 attacks if Raged).
A monster with the Quick Shot ability attacks up to twice each time it is activated.
Nothing there about not being able to move as normal...

5. A slash? Enhancements are your choice of either +1 range or +1 damage (the slash is there to show you can choose either the heart symbol or the 1 range number, not both). Surges are ~ and can be spent on effects that require ~(s) to activate - sometimes damage, sometimes range, sometimes other special bonuses, all depending on weapon (or 'Other' in the case of Gauntlets of Power).

smurfpumper said:

1. I had a player blocking the landing spot (2x2) for Narthak, he wanted to jump pit and cleav/reach them, but one player occupied the spot on the southeast quad of the target area (which is the only option if jumping the first quests end-room pit).

>>I assume the player is blocking this from happening (Narthak occupying a space with a player on it)?

I agree with what Corbon said. Furthermore, I don't think the jumping rules say anything about need to land in an empty space (it's been a while since I read them though.) Narthak would normally be allowed to move through friendly figures so I don't see any reason why he couldn't jump onto them, provided he had enough movement to end in a empty quad-space, of course. Of course that's moot since, as Corbon said, he can just step over the pit.

smurfpumper said:

2. Cleaving - You cannot move between immediate attacks? Correct?

I'm not sure if there's FAQ support for this, but it is commonly accepted wisdom around these parts that "immediately" means it must be the next thing you do, or else it can't be done. Obviously if you had two "do this immediately" effects, you would have to choose one each time and you wouldn't be able to do both.

smurfpumper said:

3. I do not understand leveling, ending the first quest. We finished it (Heroes won, barely), now next session, what happens? New Characters or keep the ones they have and go by the Quest Completion Chart for leveling (from Quest Guide)?

Theoretically you could keept he same heroes or draw new ones and be levelled. As Corbon said the "campaign" rules in the base game are somewhat pathetic. I second his suggestion that you ignore them and just play each quest as a one-shot adventure. If you want a continuous journey type game, you might want to look at one of the two "advanced campaign" expansions, Road to Legend and Sea of Blood.

smurfpumper said:

4. Quickshot (Manticore) does this mean everytime Manticore attacks it is 2 attacks if not moving? Every turn it has two attacks if just attacking melee?

Quickshot means it attack twice. No further limitations, so it can still move normally. The Manticore always makes Ranged attacks, whether the target is adjacent or not (this can be important sometimes.) Most monsters only have one type of attack and cannot "choose" to make a different type of attack. The only exceptions being monsters with Morph (I may be misremembering the name - the ability that lets you choose your dice) or monsters that have template attacks who can choose to discard the template. See the FAQ for more details on that issue.

smurfpumper said:

5. We finally figured out that we were using Power Surges as Power Enhancements,making weapon special abilities used alongside enhancement bonuses, basically each power surge was damage for us. It worked out fine, but was incorrect. A Power Enhancement is just a Slash?

A power enhancement is the face that has "1 / [heart]" on it. You must choose 1 range or 1 damage for each such face you roll (barring skills or other special abilities.) Power surge (sometimes just called "surge") is the little lightning bolt, the effects of which are dictated by the weapon you are using. The blank side is, well, blank. It means you get nothing.

Steve-O said:

Most monsters only have one type of attack and cannot "choose" to make a different type of attack. The only exceptions being monsters with Morph (I may be misremembering the name - the ability that lets you choose your dice) or monsters that have template attacks who can choose to discard the template. See the FAQ for more details on that issue.

For completeness, there are also some quest bosses with more than one kind of attack. The dragon boss in the final Well of Darkness quest has two attacks, so does the dragon boss in the bonus scenario "Aerie of Death". I can't think of any others off-hand, but they may exist.

Thank you Corbon

And thanks to YellowPebble and Steve-O too.

You cleared up so much with just these replies. Thanks a ton.

BTW our first time run went well, everyone loved it (although I lost as OL =D partially on purpose shhhhh)

Love the game, now I love the support.

SP