3rd portal in dungeons

By Moneseki, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Posted at

Oboewan said:

This is Descent... rules-lawyer hats aren't permitted ;-)

I thought you had to have a rules-lawyer hat to be eligible to use the forums, though. Even if you don't wear it all the time, you need to at least have one in your closet that you can whip out on special occasions to qualify, right?

Seriously, though, I don't actually think the rules should be interpreted the way I wrote in my last post. I was elaborating on Shnar's statement to show that the literal reading produced unreasonable results.

Posted at

mahkra said:

Oboewan said:

This is Descent... rules-lawyer hats aren't permitted ;-)

I thought you had to have a rules-lawyer hat to be eligible to use the forums, though. Even if you don't wear it all the time, you need to at least have one in your closet that you can whip out on special occasions to qualify, right?

Seriously, though, I don't actually think the rules should be interpreted the way I wrote in my last post. I was elaborating on Shnar's statement to show that the literal reading produced unreasonable results.

The way the words in Descent have, are, and will always be written leaves too many gaping holes and inconsistancies for rules lawyering to even stand up as a concept. There are just too many interpretations for things that really should be simple concepts but that get thrown out of whack because of the inconsistancies of terminology.

If Shnar's group wants to play that the heroes get to all finish their turns even though they screwed up tactically, that's his house rule. "Either way, our group is a little more relaxed than that. If the actions could have been done and the players just did them in the wrong order (and nothing the OL could do to change it through his own actions) then we allow it. So in our example, even if it's immediate, we'd still allow it, since the heroes could have gone in a different order (i.e. the 3 in town first, then the 1 in dungeon running away)."

In my mind, it is crystal clear that as soon as the condition is met, the level ends and the new level begins. It's another layer of the complexity of tactics and strategy that Descent has to offer. The OL has to be cutthroat in this game or he's just another GM creating a fantasy dungeon experience for the "real players" of the game, the heroes.

Posted at

There is a lot of overthinking going on here.

1. 'Entering' the portal and 'going through' the portal are different things entirely. A hero that enters the portal is in transit . When all heroes have either entered the portal or are in town, then all (RtL) or just those heroes who have entered the portal (SoB) are moved to the next level. 'Going through' the portal clearly is the actual moving, not just limbo-ing in transit.

2. There is a distinct change between RtL and SoB. In RtL all heroes are moved to the next level, in SoB only the heroes in transit are. This is a puzzling change. RtL system is distinctly better as it is clean, makes each level start 'afresh' in a familiar and similar manner and makes for much better gameplay by eliminating the tactic of racing a runner to the glyph and having heroes in town boil out of a forward glyph on the first turn . It seems to be a change made for cosmetic reasons without any deliberation as to its actual effect.
Excuse me for a moment while I privately rant at the ( deleted ) who don't understand the game well enough to comprehend the change they made.

3. Heroes 'fleeing' a dungeon must declare when they flee. Thus they can sit in town and heal/shop etc to their hearts content without declaring and only declare when they are ready. Heroes finishing a level are not given this option. Instead at the point (which is another way of saying immediately) where some heroes are in transit and the rest are in the dungeon, the level ends.
Note that the cosmetic change made between RtL and SoB really falls down cosmetically as well here because on the final level heroes who are in town do not get moved anywhere. Now while that doesn't change the rule that the party can choose at the end of the dungeon to be placed in Tamalir or stay at the dungeon location, it does mean that cosmetically there is a failure of connection here, leading some to question whether all heroes must enter the portal on the final level in order to stay at the dungeon location afterwards. For those people the answer is no, there is no such requirement. When the heroes go through the portal (which does not require all heroes in transit) they are still given the option of pacing the party marker on either their home port or the existing dungeon location. Yes, there is a cosmetic disconnect here (actually it is the same disconnect as heroes that die in an encounter immediately rejoining the party). Welcome to Descent. It is a boardgame not an RPG and occasionally some disconnects happen in order to keep gameplay (relatively) simple and consistent.

Posted at

shnar said:

The only question I have is how soon does the dungeon end? For example, let's say 3 heroes are in town and 1 in the dungeon at the start of the hero's turn. The one in the dungeon goes first, enters the portal. The other 3 are in town but have not yet taken their turn. When does the level end and start back up, after all the heroes have taken their turn? Or after the "end conditions" are met (i.e. in my example, the 3 heroes in town would not get their turn). I think we play that the level ends at the end of all hero turns, then if conditions have been met, start the next dungeon.

We play that the dungeon ends immediately as soon as no one is left on the map and at least one hero has entered the portal. If the other heroes want one last turn in town, they can take their turns first before the hero in the dungeon leaves. One of them could even come back to the dungeon if they want it to keep going but the guy in there now wants to get out.

Posted at

Corbon said:

There is a lot of overthinking going on here.

1. 'Entering' the portal and 'going through' the portal are different things entirely. A hero that enters the portal is in transit . When all heroes have either entered the portal or are in town, then all (RtL) or just those heroes who have entered the portal (SoB) are moved to the next level. 'Going through' the portal clearly is the actual moving, not just limbo-ing in transit.

2. There is a distinct change between RtL and SoB. In RtL all heroes are moved to the next level, in SoB only the heroes in transit are. This is a puzzling change. RtL system is distinctly better as it is clean, makes each level start 'afresh' in a familiar and similar manner and makes for much better gameplay by eliminating the tactic of racing a runner to the glyph and having heroes in town boil out of a forward glyph on the first turn . It seems to be a change made for cosmetic reasons without any deliberation as to its actual effect.
Excuse me for a moment while I privately rant at the ( deleted ) who don't understand the game well enough to comprehend the change they made.

3. Heroes 'fleeing' a dungeon must declare when they flee. Thus they can sit in town and heal/shop etc to their hearts content without declaring and only declare when they are ready. Heroes finishing a level are not given this option. Instead at the point (which is another way of saying immediately) where some heroes are in transit and the rest are in the dungeon, the level ends.
Note that the cosmetic change made between RtL and SoB really falls down cosmetically as well here because on the final level heroes who are in town do not get moved anywhere. Now while that doesn't change the rule that the party can choose at the end of the dungeon to be placed in Tamalir or stay at the dungeon location, it does mean that cosmetically there is a failure of connection here, leading some to question whether all heroes must enter the portal on the final level in order to stay at the dungeon location afterwards. For those people the answer is no, there is no such requirement. When the heroes go through the portal (which does not require all heroes in transit) they are still given the option of pacing the party marker on either their home port or the existing dungeon location. Yes, there is a cosmetic disconnect here (actually it is the same disconnect as heroes that die in an encounter immediately rejoining the party). Welcome to Descent. It is a boardgame not an RPG and occasionally some disconnects happen in order to keep gameplay (relatively) simple and consistent.

+1

Posted at

Corbon said:

2. There is a distinct change between RtL and SoB. In RtL all heroes are moved to the next level, in SoB only the heroes in transit are. This is a puzzling change. RtL system is distinctly better as it is clean, makes each level start 'afresh' in a familiar and similar manner and makes for much better gameplay by eliminating the tactic of racing a runner to the glyph and having heroes in town boil out of a forward glyph on the first turn . It seems to be a change made for cosmetic reasons without any deliberation as to its actual effect.

I'm not seeing the change. While the section on moving to the next level only mentions the heroes that went through the portal, the section on level setup explicitly states that all of the heroes' figures are placed "on, or adjacent to, the activated glyph as normal." It's poor wording, but one section says what happens to the heroes who went in the portal, while the other section says what happens to all of the heroes. There's no conflict, just bad editing.

Posted at

James McMurray said:

I'm not seeing the change. While the section on moving to the next level only mentions the heroes that went through the portal, the section on level setup explicitly states that all of the heroes' figures are placed "on, or adjacent to, the activated glyph as normal." It's poor wording, but one section says what happens to the heroes who went in the portal, while the other section says what happens to all of the heroes. There's no conflict, just bad editing.

And I'm not seeing the word "all" in that sentence in SoB, or at least not in the pdf copy from the support section. I'm assuming you mean the part on page 19 at the top concerning Dungeon Level Setup. I copied this right out of the pdf I have:

Once the overlord has set up the dungeon level board according to the map, the hero players place their figures on, or adjacent to, the activated glyph as normal.

Nothing in that sentence indicates that all the heroes place their figures, just that hero players place their figures. Combine it with the statement that all the heroes in the portal move to town and it indicates that those who used the portal place their figures as normal.

Posted at

Big Remy said:

Nothing in that sentence indicates that all the heroes place their figures, just that hero players place their figures. Combine it with the statement that all the heroes in the portal move to town and it indicates that those who used the portal place their figures as normal.

Stupid edit time limit, this is what I meant to type:

Nothing in that sentence indicates that all the heroes place their figures, just that hero players place their figures. Combine it with the statement that only the heroes in the portal move to the next dungeon level and it indicates that those who used the portal place their figures as normal.

Posted at

Corbon said:

2. There is a distinct change between RtL and SoB. In RtL all heroes are moved to the next level, in SoB only the heroes in transit are. This is a puzzling change. RtL system is distinctly better as it is clean, makes each level start 'afresh' in a familiar and similar manner and makes for much better gameplay by eliminating the tactic of racing a runner to the glyph and having heroes in town boil out of a forward glyph on the first turn . It seems to be a change made for cosmetic reasons without any deliberation as to its actual effect.
Excuse me for a moment while I privately rant at the ( deleted ) who don't understand the game well enough to comprehend the change they made.

We play with this new rule in SoB, and until now we couldn't get advantage of it (we have no Runewitch Astarra or One Fist or Runner skill with which we could kick a monster off a distant glyph on the 1st turn, or maybe we didn't draw the right dungeon for such a tactic yet), so it was mostly only an annoyance as the hero in town had to pay 1 more movement to come back. However, since the game is rather more difficult (imo) for the heroes in SoB than in RtL, maybe the makers of the game wanted the heroes to be able to use this tactic to give them a (very small) compensation for the increased level of difficulty of the campaign.

I would refrain from ranting against any rule that can give a slight advantage to the heroes in SoB, because it seems that they need all the help they can get! I'll gladly change my mind the day we crush the OL into oblivion in the final fight, but until then... serio.gif

Posted at

James McMurray said:

Corbon said:

2. There is a distinct change between RtL and SoB. In RtL all heroes are moved to the next level, in SoB only the heroes in transit are. This is a puzzling change. RtL system is distinctly better as it is clean, makes each level start 'afresh' in a familiar and similar manner and makes for much better gameplay by eliminating the tactic of racing a runner to the glyph and having heroes in town boil out of a forward glyph on the first turn . It seems to be a change made for cosmetic reasons without any deliberation as to its actual effect.

I'm not seeing the change. While the section on moving to the next level only mentions the heroes that went through the portal, the section on level setup explicitly states that all of the heroes' figures are placed "on, or adjacent to, the activated glyph as normal." It's poor wording, but one section says what happens to the heroes who went in the portal, while the other section says what happens to all of the heroes. There's no conflict, just bad editing.



Heroes remain thusly in transit until all of them either enter the portal or move to town, at which point all of the heroes are moved to the next level.

Heroes remain in transit until all the heroes enter the portal or use a glyph to move to town, at which point all of the heroes who entered the portal are
moved to the next level.



Once the overlord has set up the dungeon level board according to the map, the hero players place their figures on or adjacent to the activated glyph as normal.

Once the overlord has set up the dungeon level board according to the map, the hero players place their figures on, or adjacent to, the activated glyph as normal.