In a dungeon when the overlord draws the last card from his deck, does he receive experience points?

What exactly is the rule about going through the deck two times in one level where the heros must flee? Is it two complete times (first to last card) or the second time he draws the last card?

silverkindred said:

1. Yes. This is covered by the fact that rules that are not changed or replaced from vanilla Descent remain the same. There is no change or replacement for how the getting through your dec is handled, so you follow exactly the same procedure as vanilla, including gaining 3CT.

2. FAQ pg12
If the Overlord cycles through his deck twice in the same dungeon level, the heroes are ejected from the dungeon and are forced to flee it. Note that the Overlord's Keep is not subject to this rule.
Cycling through the deck can only mean 'draws the last card' because there is no memory state record for how many cards he was through the deck when the heroes enter each level. If there is no token or marker or anything to record data, the data does not exist, so cannot be officially referenced in the rules.

The physical cards undeniably exist, though, and could certainly be counted.

silverkindred said:

The only reason the "ejection" rule needed to be made was to prevent the meta-gaming of the heroes spending spring break in a dungeon waiting for the OL to cycle through his deck 100 times to get the CT total up to 600 and invoke the "end game". IMHO, if your players aren't dithering around in the dungeons, you don't need to invoke the rule. It's a "sportsmanship" rule intended to give the OL an option when playing with obstinate hero players who don't actually want to play the game but just waste time.

Oboewan said:

+10. I've never cycled the deck twice in a single dungeon, although even if I did I probably wouldn't invoke this rule unless the heroes were being dicks. My friends haven't pulled this kind of crap on me as yet. Honestly, even if they were being dicks, I'd probably just concede the game and not play with them anymore. Who wants to play a game with that kind of attitude?

Oboewan said:

+3.14159

I fully agree. The only time dungeon ejection is feasable (where the players are not trying to be intentionally dickish) is if they work slowly enough in level one or two where the OL has only one card left at the beginning of the next level, and they continue to be slow to where the OL cycles thru his deck that second time. However, there is the power card "Evil Genius" that allows the OL to draw an extra card per turn, which makes deck cycling about 33% faster and put more pressure on the heroes, since the overlord hass more options and more threat, and the players have less turns to prevent a deck cycle. If your players arent being douches, I would take your conquest and continue on, if they are rule-****** bastards, I would eject them.

Addendum: In my SoB campaign, one of my players has the skill that allows him to take a point of damage to heal one damage on each player within 3 squares. And it just so happens that this player is Ispher (who himself heals one damage every turn). If my players advance too slowly to make sure they are "topped off" they run the risk of being ejected. We'll see how this plays out in our next session....

+3.14159

I fully agree. The only time dungeon ejection is feasable (where the players are not trying to be intentionally dickish) is if they work slowly enough in level one or two where the OL has only one card left at the beginning of the next level, and they continue to be slow to where the OL cycles thru his deck that second time. However, there is the power card "Evil Genius" that allows the OL to draw an extra card per turn, which makes deck cycling about 33% faster and put more pressure on the heroes, since the overlord hass more options and more threat, and the players have less turns to prevent a deck cycle. If your players arent being douches, I would take your conquest and continue on, if they are rule-****** bastards, I would eject them.

Addendum: In my SoB campaign, one of my players has the skill that allows him to take a point of damage to heal one damage on each player within 3 squares. And it just so happens that this player is Ispher (who himself heals one damage every turn). If my players advance too slowly to make sure they are "topped off" they run the risk of being ejected. We'll see how this plays out in our next session....

Stupid setup for quoting

I've never come close either, even with my group running slow sometimes...

Though they have learned the folly of letting me not only build up a large amount of threat, but also of just sitting around waiting for rest orders/ town people/ general antipathy to head to the next level, as something EVIL always seems to happen to them... last one being the mage one-shotting another companion through a Dark Charm as they just sat and waited to heal up near a fountain. >.>

MWAHAHAHAHA

Corbon said:

Sorry to raise what might be an old, closed thread but I've just spent a few hours trying to nail down just where this rule has come from.

Point of order. Vanilla Descent rules call for the Heroes to LOOSE 3CT if the Overlord cycles his deck (pg.11)

I have not seen anywhere in RtL that states that the OL gains 3CT if he cycles his overlord deck - nor have I seen a statement that say that CT losses in Vanilla Descent equate to CT gains for the OL in RtL.

I don't dispute that it makes sence but I'm trying to nail down just where the rule comes from.

Nevun said:

You've already seen the answer over at BGG, unless the post timing differs radically between BGG and here..

GLOAQ
which is a list of answers from official FFG replies
Does the Overlord gain Conquest when he cycles through his deck?
When the OL cycles his deck in RtL he does indeed gain 3 conquest.

FFG make some brilliant games, but in Descent at least they are truly abominable at editing and even being internally consistent.
The simple fact is that the Advanced campaign engine runs on CT. To have anti-fuel breaks the engine . It is extremely obvious to a blind and deaf monkey with no hands, nose or tongue, that all CT 'losses' should be converted to CT gains for the opposing side. It is so obvious that even when it was pointed out to them, FFG didn't think it was worth putting in the FAQ. They did confirm that -ve CT = +ve for other side in an email, but apparently some questions are too dumb to be worth putting in print.

Corbon said:

Where did you possibly get the idea that the GLoAQ is no longer an authoritative source?

Those are official answers from FFG. Not just on the first page, but in several other posts in that thread. All those answers come from game designers who have worked on Descent for FFG. I do not see how it gets less authoritative than that. Since none of the forum users have admin access, and FFG discourages its employess from browsing the forums we have no way of correcting it. That does not negate its validity however.

Besides, the rule that the OL gets CT for killing heroes IS in the RtL rulebook.

pg15: Hero Death and Fleeing
Since there are no glyphs of transport on the encounter maps, hero death during encounters does not follow the normal procedure (see “Hero Death” on page 24). If a hero is killed in an encounter, the overlord simply receives the hero’s conquest value in conquest tokens and the hero is removed
from the board until the end of the encounter (see “Party Recovery,” below).

While yes it could be argued that it only applies to encounters and not dungeons, it clearly sets a precendent for the OL gaining tokens instead of the heroes losing them upon hero death.

As for the cycling the deck rule, same applies. As an added argument, SoB which was released after RtL and has many of the corrections from the FAQ and GLoAQ in its rulebook says on pg21:

Running Out of Time
If the heroes take too long while exploring a dungeon, they may run out of time and be forced to flee. If the overlord ever depletes his Overlord deck twice on the same level ( receiving three conquest tokens each time ), the heroes are immediately expelled from the dungeon as though they had fled the dungeon.

There is the exact same rule as in GLoAQ, right in the SoB rulebook.

Big Remy said:

This just brings back the discussion wondering who makes the rules - the designer(s) or the publisher? Yes, a designer may have clarified an ambiguous situation. But if that clarification did not make it into a subsequent FAQ, it's perfectly reasonable to wonder if the publisher actually supports that designer's ruling. The only indisputably authoritative sources are the original rulebook and the published FAQ.

mahkra said:

While in principle I agree (that only physically published written data, eg rules and FAQ/errata, should count), the sad truth is that FFG are not particularly competent in this area (collating all their rules and FAQ/Errata).

The answers on the GLOAQ come from official FFG sources, many in direct response to questions asked through the channel of the official online rules questions link.
Even I can't argue that, collated into a sticky thread on the official game forum, that makes these rulings official. They are made by official sources, in official responses, to official questions, through the official questioning route. They are in a public location accessible to anybody who could also access the FAQ/Errata.
I don't like that they are a third source, and not as obvious to find, or as easy to search, as the other sources, but they are definitely authoritative in origin - the only dispute being if someone made up a fake answer disguised as being from FFG staff (which would not be hard to do).

If the game designer's and the publisher's opinions differ, I'd almost always give a higher authority to the game designer (unless what he says doesn't make any sense). Opinion creator > opinion businessman.

No matter if the publisher's opinion is printed on 20'000 rule booklets and the designer's is just a lone line lost in a forum.

Game designers are not always the best game testers or rule writers, though, and may not really understand the consequences of their statements. In theory, a publisher employs people in other roles that can refine the designer's raw ideas into a game that actually works.

Also, as has been pointed out in these forums before, the designer can often be too close to the game to be a trusted authority. He's been there through all the different revisions and rule changes and may not have a good sense of what rules were actually chosen at the end, especially if he's since moved on to other projects.

In practice, I defer to the GLoAQ in ambiguous situations if and only if the answer actually makes sense. (Off the top of my head, the one ruling I know I ignore is the one about ignoring figures not in LoS when determining LoS.)

I agree that FFG is not particularly good at consolidating rules, but this does not make the GLoAQ more authoritative. If FFG takes no action to make a ruling official, this lack of action cannot be the action that makes a ruling official. (Circular reasoning hurts my brain; I'm sure that wasn't typed well.)

mahkra said:

In the case of FFG, it is clearly the designers. How do I know this? Because after working on editing two FAQs, I've had contact with both the game designers and publishing/producers at FFG and the publisher/producers ALWAYS defer to the game designer.

The FAQ are done by the DESIGNER not the publisher. The publisher pretty much brings them the list of questions and they answer them for us. If something is already in the GLoAQ, which the DESIGNER IS COMPLETELY AWARE OF, in my experience it does not make it into the FAQ.

The concept that the GLoAQ, 99% of which are answers FROM THE DESIGNER IN RESPONSE TO DIRECT QUESTIONS, is not a valid or authoritative source is incorrect.

Big Remy said:

Is it a valid source? Yes.

Is it an authoritative source? No. It's only marginally more "official" than a question being answered by KW during a conversation at a convention.

If a ruling makes sense and clears up an ambiguous situation, that's great. But if a ruling seems odd for any reason, there's certainly room to wonder if FFG would actually put such a ruling in print somewhere, or if it would be (or maybe even was already) vetoed out of a FAQ after being considered further.

mahkra said:

Have you ever read the FAQ? Half the answers in there are either vague or ambiguous, my to my dismay. There are later posts in the GLoAQ that are solely there to clarify statements made in the FAQ that FFG didn't feel like fixing. That right there is enough evidence for me, and the majority population on this board, to understand that FFG considers the GLoAQ an authoritative source.

The fact that something has not appeared in print somewhere is in no way evidence that it is not authoritative.

What exactly is your criteria for "authoritative"?

Here's a definition I had in mind:
( http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861587801/authoritative.html )
au·thor·i·ta·tive
adjective
Definition:
1. reliable: convincing, reliable, backed by evidence, and showing deep knowledge
2. backed by authority: backed by an established and accepted authority
3. showing authority: showing confidence in or the expectation of being obeyed

If the GLoAQ were "official", there would at an absolute minimum be a link to the forums from the Descent support page. But there is not. And the fact that it's stickied in the forums means nothing; I bet it's stickied because the forum users want it to be more than for any other reason.

I do think the GLoAQ is a useful resource. However, it's a major stretch to consider it part of the official rules. I mean, consider the context of the GLoAQ 'rulings' - by my understanding, those are email responses sent to individual players by individual FFG employees. Were those rulings vetted by the Descent team as a whole? Were they intended to be set-in-stone-'official'-rules? It seems much more likely that they were on-the-spot rulings intended to clear up an issue for a single player. (This opinion is strengthened by KW's own attitude - he's not a stickler for rules and encourages players to tweak the rules as they see fit to get the most enjoyment out of the game.) On-the-spot rulings often have unanticipated and totally undesirable consequences, which is why I believe the GLoAQ should be taken, as they say, 'with a grain of salt'.

The fact that the GLoAQ has not appeared in print is actually the exact reason it's not authoritative. FFG can't have "the expectation of being obeyed" (see #3 above) if FFG does not even present the information to us.

1. reliable: convincing, reliable, backed by evidence, and showing deep knowledge

It is RELIABLY referenced repeatedly in regards to answering rules questions. It follows and elaborates the rules of Descent and this EVIDENCE IS BACKED by several of the things in the GLoAQ having been inserted into the FAQ or the SoB rulebook.

2. backed by authority: backed by an established and accepted authority

EVERY answer to a question in that GLoAQ, apart from random misposts by new people, was an OFFICIAL response given by people in places of authority over the rules for Descent. This includes Dan Clark, Kevin Wilson, JR Godwin and Sally whoselastnameIcan'tremember. If FFG employees and the game designer do not count as established authority, I don't know who does.

3. showing authority: showing confidence in or the expectation of being obeyed

FFG has used that thread in the past to post clarification to FAQ rulings, which implies CONFIDENCE in it. EXPECTATION is fulfilled because if they didn't expect people to follow the corrections that they have made there, they wouldn't do it.

If the GLoAQ were "official", there would at an absolute minimum be a link to the forums from the Descent support page. But there is not. And the fact that it's stickied in the forums means nothing; I bet it's stickied because the forum users want it to be more than for any other reason.

A link on the support page in no way can be applied as an absolute minimum. That is your criteria. If your judge the fact that it is sticked to mean nothing than the absence of a link means nothing as well since FFG is very lax on maintenance of the forums.

I do think the GLoAQ is a useful resource. However, it's a major stretch to consider it part of the official rules. I mean, consider the context of the GLoAQ 'rulings' - by my understanding, those are email responses sent to individual players by individual FFG employees. Were those rulings vetted by the Descent team as a whole? Were they intended to be set-in-stone-'official'-rules? It seems much more likely that they were on-the-spot rulings intended to clear up an issue for a single player. (This opinion is strengthened by KW's own attitude - he's not a stickler for rules and encourages players to tweak the rules as they see fit to get the most enjoyment out of the game.) On-the-spot rulings often have unanticipated and totally undesirable consequences, which is why I believe the GLoAQ should be taken, as they say, 'with a grain of salt'.

I complete disagree with you here. As for them being individual responses, yes that is what they are. And those were collected to make that thread. The Descent team as a whole? The Descent team as a whole, by all indications, is two people, three at the most. As for them not being meant to be set in stone rulings, why even bother to answer the questions then. So by your logic, the ruling in the GLoAQ that a gold pile in RtL is worth 400 gold is not set is stone, and the players should have the freedom to make it worth as much as they like. Same logic would apply to then pretty much anything else in the GLoAQ, INCLUDING ANYTHING THAT MADE IT INTO THE FAQ since it had its origins here.

The last two FAQS that you are so fond of calling official have arisen ENTIRELY from list of questions to specific circumstances brought up by players, which is identical to the format of the GLoAQ.

The fact that the GLoAQ has not appeared in print is actually the exact reason it's not authoritative. FFG can't have "the expectation of being obeyed" (see #3 above) if FFG does not even present the information to us.

Neither has the FAQ officially appeared in print if you want to be technical about it. It has appeared as digital document. And they do present the information to us in the forum of a community forum thread on a website that is maintained by FFG.

1. If some things from the GLoAQ have been inserted into the FAQ or later rulebooks, why hasn't everything? Are the things that were not added to the FAQ not credible? Did FFG change their mind on those rulings between when the GLoAQ answers were given and when the FAQ was updated?

2. No idea what you mean by "OFFICIAL response". Response to whom? There's a big difference between an email to one person and an FAQ published for the community. One is intended for an audience of one, whereas the other is intended for everyone.

3. I place no more weight on an FFG employee posting in a forum thread than I do on the GLoAQ itself. In the GLoAQ thread, they're only talking to people who are already discussing the GLoAQ. If they actually wanted to disseminate the information to the wider Descent community, they'd make the GLoAQ as accessible as the OFFICIAL FAQ.

You think it really matters that the thread is stickied? By that logic, is the "Where are you" thread also an OFFICIAL FFG/Descent player directory? Seems a bit of a stretch to me...

The Descent team is only 2-3 people? That's not even enough to play the game. No wonder so much of it seems untested... (Also, you mentioned 4 names in #2, so clearly there are more people involved. Unless one of those people answering questions for the GLoAQ is actually a random nobody?)

By Kevin Wilson's own mouth, the players DO have the freedom to make gold piles worth whatever they like. But yes, I do not think it's a "house-rule" to ignore a GLoAQ ruling. I see the GLoAQ as an employee's suggested resolutions of ambiguous situations, not actual official rule revisions.

Same logic would apply to then pretty much anything else in the GLoAQ, INCLUDING ANYTHING THAT MADE IT INTO THE FAQ since it had its origins here.

It doesn't matter where a question originated. It matters that the ruling was added to the FAQ.

I used the term "appeared in print" loosely. I assumed readers of these forums would be intelligent enough to understand my meaning, but I apologize if I was mistaken in that assumption. I did not mean to cause confusion with my incorrect choice of words.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_npm_sec.asp

This is the customer service page.

Rules Questions
At some point you may find yourself in the midst of enjoying a game among friends, when suddenly an unusual rules question arises. If you have already reviewed the rulebook and are still unsure, here are a few potential sources of assistance:

* Visit the Support page for your game . You may learn that we have already posted an answer to your question.
* You can pose your question to the community-at-large by posting on the FFG Community Forums.

If you have not found the answer you seek, please visit our Rules Questions page and fill out the form thoroughly so we have as much information as possible. Please understand that we are unable to answer Rules questions by phone.

The two bolded sections are links.
The first leads you (eventually) through to the support page where the FAQ can be found.
The second goes to an official form for asking official questions from FFG - thats FFG, the publisher . Now it so happens that the people answering these questions for Descent have historically also been involved with the design of Descent or it's expansions - that is the Designers .
So you have an official link , through the publisher , for rules questions (and therefore answers ), answered by the designers in official capacity . Those answers have been collated and turned into a sticky thread (presumably by FFG staff, since I don't think anyone else can sticky a thread) so that it is always easily accessible.

The GLOAQ is as official as the FAQ. It's answers actually make sense too (even though some are significant changes), unlike some of the FAQ answers!

I'm not disputing that it's the official way to ask questions. I'm saying that the answers, apart from those that end up in the FAQ, are not presented to the community by FFG. I don't have a problem with most of the rulings in the GLoAQ; I just don't know how anything (whether a rule makes sense or not) could be considered "official" when the publisher has never even made the information available to the vast majority of players.

mahkra said:

Except that they appear on a community based forum hosted by FFG and is one of the locations that FFG points people to looking for assistance on rules.

You can pose your question to the community-at-large by posting on the FFG Community Forums.

Hell, by that standard Antistone is a more official than the GLoAQ (and btw Antistone, this is no way a jibe at you. With the possible exception of a few others who are your equal, you've clearly demonstrated your superior rules knowledge).

And who says the FAQ is available to the vast majority of players? Given the number of questions we get on the forum that are solved by a simple cut and paste out of the FAQ it makes me wonder how many people have actually looked at it.

Unless you have an internet connection, you have no way of getting the most recent FAQ update since it doesn't appear in its entirety in any of the printed rulebook that comes with the game. So by your logic, if the vast majority of players are unable to obtain the FAQ due to lack of access and FFG does not make it available through another means such as a widely available printed version that can be requested from FFG or is sold mass market, even though it contains official answers it would cease to be "official"?

One final piece of evidence that FFG considers the GLoAQ to be official (and I say last for me because we are probably not going to change the others positions here) is this:

Reply #47 on pg4 of the GLoAQ:

The first entry for the Gathered List has been changed to reflect the new FAQ.

As far this question:

Q: The rulebook states that a lieutenant or hero must end their movement in the same location to attack each other?
A: Heroes and Lieutenants must declare a move action if in the same location and wish to attack each other, but do not have to move a trail away from their current location during the move action.

Thank you all for your patience,
JeR

JeR is JR Goodwin, who was the FFG producer in charge of the previous FAQ update that happened in 2009. I'll take the fact that a FFG employee came onto the forum and editted the GLoAQ to update it to reflect a change made in the FAQ as evidence that FFG considers it official.

Big Remy:
they appear on a community based forum hosted by FFG and is one of the locations that FFG points people to looking for assistance

This is basically the same thing as me giving Verizon the credit for the GLoAQ just because that company provides my internet connection so enables me to read the GLoAQ. FFG did not author the GLoAQ thread ; they merely provided a forum for players to discuss things. Players posted the GLoAQ for the community.

Big Remy:
who says the FAQ is available to the vast majority of players? Given the number of questions we get on the forum that are solved by a simple cut and paste out of the FAQ it makes me wonder how many people have actually looked at it.

The fact that people did not read the FAQ does not mean it was not made available to them. It is true that the FAQ may not be accessible to someone without internet access, but that does not really strengthen the GLoAQ; it just weakens the FAQ.

The major difference between the FAQ and the GLoAQ is that the FAQ is published (online) directly by FFG; it's a primary source. The GLoAQ is secondhand. We are relying on players' submissions for that list. Even if we do believe all of the players who submitted FFG's answers are 100% honest (which I do), we have no way of knowing what answers (if any) from FFG were NOT forwarded to the GLoAQ.
This is really the biggest problem with the GLoAQ concept to me. What if there's another 'official' ruling floating around that conflicts with something in the GLoAQ, but nobody ever submitted it? I have no way of knowing because only a subset of all FFG answers are included.

Consider an alternate setup. FFG could have an "Answered Questions" page, where all emailed questions that had been answered were simply posted in order. No compiling things into a FAQ, no sorting questions, just FFG making the answers available to everyone instead of sending private emails to the asker. That would make the answers public and would be 100% more 'official' in my mind.