Complicated question for you all there are lots of different effects that can make a location the active location, is that the same as travelling? Other card specify that you can travel to a location such as Strider's Path or Ghan-Buri-Ghan so does that trigger A Burgler's Turn? Do The Hidden Way, West Road Traveller, South Away, Mariner's Compass and Distant Stars count as travelling? And finally can locations with the attached cards that enter the staging area be cleared by placing progress tokens on them and then still count as explored and grant the guarded attachment?

So is the following hypothetical situation legit: could you Strider's Path a location during questing, clear it (and gain a burgled attachment) travel to another one normally, clear that with The Evening Star (gaining another burgled attachment), travel to another one with Ghan-Buri-Ghan (attaching another burgled attachment) then clear that with another copy of the Evening Star, then swap it with Thror's Map and clear that final location with yet another copy of The Evening Star? For a net total of four attachments in one round?

Traveling to a location, which is what Burglar's Turn requires, is different from making a location active . IIRC, Strider's Path and Ghan are the only player card effects that cause you to travel —things like Thrór's Map and Hidden Way do not.

That said, you can indeed use Strider's Path, the regular travel opportunity, and Ghan, in concert with progress placement effects, to score yourself several burgled attachments in a single round.

17 minutes ago, General_Grievous said:

And finally can locations with the attached cards that enter the staging area be cleared by placing progress tokens on them and then still count as explored and grant the guarded attachment?

This one is answered here:

5 hours ago, sappidus said:

Traveling to a location, which is what Burglar's Turn requires, is different from making a location active . IIRC, Strider's Path and Ghan are the only player card effects that cause you to travel —things like Thrór's Map and Hidden way do not.

THIS is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the contract. You obviously want to build a deck (or fellowship) that maximizes the potential. The questing value hit isn't a major work around. The attachments could be supplied by other players. And there are plenty of item/artifacts that make this contract a "fun" one, but not an efficient one.

Here is the best that I could come up with:

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/7818/aburglarsfellowship

What I found was between all the nice tricks the "support" deck brought and legolas, we had absolutely no problem blowing through locations. Every now and then, we would have no active location during the quest phase because we knocked out two the previous round (or during planning). Haldan and Idrean were hurting for that reason.

Besides recycling these two cards, I really don't see any kind of engine you could build to get through the loot deck. Maybe they were extremely restrictive on purpose so that there's no game breaking combos (I am guessing this is the truth because of the ruling that cards attached to locations cleared in staging evaporate instead of triggering into play or in hand). Maybe it's an oversight, maybe they thought there were more "travel" player cards in the pool. But my gosh, a nice tactics card could be "combat action: when an enemy is destroyed, travel to a location, returning any previous active location to the staging area." It would combo very well with legolas/blades.

Or maybe I'm just a whiner.

Awesome thanks for the thread link and help, follow-up question is this: if a location with a contract guarded attachment is kicked into the staging area and then you travel there again does a second attachment get added?

1 hour ago, General_Grievous said:

Awesome thanks for the thread link and help, follow-up question is this: if a location with a contract guarded attachment is kicked into the staging area and then you travel there again does a second attachment get added?

Yes.

So I am reading The contract and Elf stone very carefully...

If I include elf stone in my loot deck, does not the combo seem to suggest:

1. Travel to location. Attach elf-stone from loot deck (eventually)

2. Active location is now +2 quest points. Elf-stone is guarded by the location.

3. Clear the location. Trigger elf-stone response.

4. Trigger the forced contract: Add elf-stone to your hand (since theoretically you cannot place on active location if there is none).

Furthermore, if you did not want elf-stone in your hand, you could switch out the location from staging and still clear it in staging for the bonus effect. The question is whether the text is active on the card or not. If it isn't, why is there a specification on the contract to ignore "guarded x"? And if it IS ignored, then the +1 quest should not apply, but once the guarding is clear, it should immediately be added to hand. (As, once again, you cannot put it into play at the moment unless there is another active location, somehow)

38 minutes ago, player3351457 said:

The question is whether the text is active on the card or not. If it isn't, why is there a specification on the contract to ignore "guarded x"? And if it IS ignored, then the +1 quest should not apply, but once the guarding is clear, it should immediately be added to hand. (As, once again, you cannot put it into play at the moment unless there is another active location, somehow)

I'm pretty sure the ruling is that the text on guarded cards is not active - so as you say, only the +1 point for the contract (not the one inherent to Elf Stone) and it goes to hand.

I would assume that the mention of guarded is to say that when you put it into play afterwards you don't have to resolve guarded X again, although this is not all that clear from the card text.

Ignoring Guarded X means you can attach a guarded attachment to the active location without discarding cards from the encounter deck to resolve the Guarded X keyword

6 hours ago, rees263 said:

I'm pretty sure the ruling is that the text on guarded cards is not active

What would suggest that this is the case? It seems inherent by the text "place face up" but also gives it the "attach" command which may suggest otherwise.

I'm with you. I just want clarity.

Based on conclusions such as in this thread. I don't have a link to an official ruling.

So we had an interesting discussion last night.

What happens when you travel to a location immune to player card effects? Not too many player cards have the "forced" keyword, but the Burglar contract does. We narrowed it to four possibilities:

1) the forced does not trigger at all, as doing so targets the immune card.

2) the forced effect triggers, but the attachments are then discarded, since player card attachments cannot be played on immune locations.

3) the forced effect triggers, the attachments are attached to locations, but the quest value does not change as that contract would then be affecting an immune card.

4) the attachments are put into play, free of attachments, since their target cannot take attachments (a bit wishful thinking, but akin to playing sting in a deck of enemies who cannot have attachments... it's been ruled that sting is free in this situation).

The lean is towards #1, #2 is the most devastating, #3 is how we played it as a compromise, #4 is wishful thinking.

33 minutes ago, player3351457 said:

What happens when you travel to a location immune to player card effects? Not too many player cards have the "forced" keyword, but the Burglar contract does. We narrowed it to four possibilities:

It's going to be #1 or #2, I think.

The FAQ on immunity basically rules out #3:

Quote

Additionally, cards that are immune to player card effects cannot be chosen as targets of player card effects. This means that any player card that uses a form of the words "target" or "choose" cannot choose a card that is immune to player card effects as its target. This includes the "attach to..." text of any player attachment.

#4, in turn, is not going to happen since the Forced effect that puts the attachment into play at no cost depends on the attachment being on an explored location in the first place.

EDIT: On further contemplation, I think it's just #1. The first Forced effect of the contract can't even initiate, so there's no attachment to discard.

#3 is definitely not right. Immune to player card effects means player cards can't be attached to it, that's a fairly old ruling at this point.

I would also lean towards #1, but I'm not sure.

We play it as #1: the forced travel effect of the contract cannot even initiate.

54 minutes ago, sappidus said:

The FAQ on immunity basically rules out #3:

If I may, i did see this in the FAQ and Caleb's revised ruling in a forum. However, the language of Caleb's ruling was the playing of attachments (i.e. from hand) was an illegal move. But because these attachments are not played, but attached as a "guarded objective".

Further, the nature of "forced" has me questioning this because if it were a response I would solidly say this is a #1. But forced effects, according to the rule book, "initiate and resolve, whether the players want them to or not." I scanned the faq for forced effects vs immunity, and while I tend to agree with you, contracts have been given their own special framework and thus this might be allowed under the second paragraph of 1.47 (immune, expanded). Further, because the location itself isn't "chosen" by the players, the "targeting" paragraph might not apply.

Perhaps I should've quoted earlier in the FAQ also:

Quote

Cards with the text "Immune to player card effects" ignore the effects of all player cards. This means that player card effects cannot directly influence or interact with a card that is immune to player card effects.

and to excerpt the RR:

Quote

If a card is immune to a specified set of effects, it cannot be chosen as the target for or affected by effects that belong to that set .

I think Caleb would say that putting an attachment on a card, even if it is as a guarded objective, counts as "directly interacting with"/"affecting" that card. The general corpus of rulings has always been consistent with the principle that a card that is immune to player card effects cannot receive a player card attachment through any player card means. If The Burglar's Turn allows it, it would be a first AFAIK—as stated above, I don't think it does.

39 minutes ago, sappidus said:

I think Caleb would say that putting an attachment on a card, even if it is as a guarded objective, counts as "directly interacting with"/"affecting" that card. The general corpus of rulings has always been consistent with the principle that a card that is immune to player card effects cannot receive a player card attachment through any player card means. If The Burglar's Turn allows it, it would be a first AFAIK—as stated above, I don't think it does.

Sounds good. So now the only question is between situation #1 and #2. I will reach out to see if we get an official response.

How about Hardan ? Can he commits to the quest ready while there is a loot ? And can he draw cards when get the loot ？

16 minutes ago, kainveus said:

How about Hardan ? Can he commits to the quest ready while there is a loot ? And can he draw cards when get the loot ？

Yes, definitely. They are attachments after all

Haldan does not care where a location attachment comes from, he will still benefit from it.

Hello,

I was wondering what is an attachement ? Is a card like Gandalf Map (Escape from Dol Guldur) an attachement if it is protected by a location ? So does Haldan draw a card wher the location is explored ?

Yes, objectives guarded by a location will work for Haldan's abilities.

On 2/21/2020 at 2:06 PM, player3351457 said:

Sounds good. So now the only question is between situation #1 and #2. I will reach out to see if we get an official response.

According to an official ruling from Caleb, it is case #1. The contract does not trigger.