So, judging from the Rules Reference, it looks like you lose the game when:

Quote

A player is eliminated from the game if all of his heroes are killed, if his threat level reaches 50, or if a card effect forces his elimination.

What happens if you lose all of your heroes, but for reasons other than they are killed?

(a) What happens if you are playing the Gray Wanderer and your only hero leaves play for reasons other than death (e.g. Lost and Alone or Stinker flipping Smeagol to Gollum)?

(b) What happens if your last hero in play is killed, but you have other heroes currently (temporarily) out of play (e.g. Lost and Alone or Smeagol)?

(c) What happens if your last hero in play is killed, but you've got an ally in the discard pile from an effect that discarded but did not kill them? (e.g. Folco Boffin or Caldera)? Technically, all of your heroes have not been killed.

(d) Do you not lose if your last hero is discarded from play by an effect that does not kill them (e.g. having 0 Willpower in Stage 3B of the Redhorn Gate or getting a second copy of Bitter Cold)?



Thanks. It seems like this is potentially exploitable since undefended tacks just whiff if you don't have any heroes (barring non-damage shadow effect penalities for undefended attacks), especially since with the Grey Wanderer contract now around it seems like these sorts of situations will be much more common. I was certainly treating my Grey Wandering attempts at Redhorn Gate as auto-losses if I got two Bitter Cold conditions attached, but now I'm not so sure...

Is "killed" ever even defined in the RR? If so, I can't seem to find it, though the ruling on Lost & Alone suggests that you a hero is not killed unless it is in the discard pile. This is to say that being in the discard pile is a necessary condition for being considered killed, but is it sufficient? Do Caldera and Folco become "killed" when they trigger their abilities?

Killed is one of those weird terms that only seems to be used within these Loss Criteria, and it's especially weird given that the game puts so much emphasis on the more common distinction between being discarded vs being destroyed , but both presumably equate to being "killed" (if one makes the assumption re: the Lost and Alone ruling that being in a discard pile is both necessary and sufficient for being killed), which is pretty counter-intuitive to the heavy focus given on being discarded via card effect vs destroyed via damage. But if "killed" merely equals "being in the discard pile," then why not have simply made the Loss Criteria rule that "A player is eliminated from the game if all of his heroes are discarded , his threat...."? This makes me think being killed is not merely being discarded...?




OVERTIME FOLLOW-UP:

(e) What if a Messenger of the Kings player is only running Ceorl as a lone hero, and they pass Ceorl to another player. Obviously, Ceorl is no longer "his/her" hero, but the player doesn't have any other killed heroes in the discard pile.., they simply have no heroes. So, as I understand it, they are not eliminated (since Ceorl has not been killed -- ie he is NOT in a discard pile), so can that player just try to engage as many enemies as possible and take undefended attacks for the other players? Bonus points if the other players are running Ranged en mass, I assume.

38 minutes ago, EBerling said:

What happens if you lose all of your heroes, but for reasons other than they are killed?

(a) What happens if you are playing the Gray Wanderer and your only hero leaves play for reasons other than death (e.g. Lost and Alone or Stinker flipping Smeagol to Gollum)?

(b) What happens if your last hero in play is killed, but you have other heroes currently (temporarily) out of play (e.g. Lost and Alone or Smeagol)?

(c) What happens if your last hero in play is killed, but you've got an ally in the discard pile from an effect that discarded but did not kill them? (e.g. Folco Boffin or Caldera)? Technically, all of your heroes have not been killed.

(d) Do you not lose if your last hero is discarded from play by an effect that does not kill them (e.g. having 0 Willpower in Stage 3B of the Redhorn Gate or getting a second copy of Bitter Cold)?

I think it's best to read the RR statement as "…if all his heroes are in his discard pile , if his threat level…" rather than "killed", as this would match the general understanding of how the game actually ("actually", ha) works—see the Lost and Alone FAQ linked below.

As for those situations with Lost and Alone and Sméagol, they have been ruled as the game continuing. As you mentioned, damage from undefended attacks simply whiffs.

[EDIT: I now see you made another post recognizing the Lost and Alone FAQ, sorry about that.]

http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/#Card468

30 minutes ago, EBerling said:

But if "killed" merely equals "being in the discard pile," then why not have simply made the Loss Criteria rule that "A player is eliminated from the game if all of his heroes are discarded , his threat...."?

Human imperfection, heh.

I do note for the record the FAQ on Escape from Dol Guldur that asserts that the player with the captured hero is eliminated when his other heroes are gone.

http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/#Card125

Frankly, I take this as a bit of Golden Rule-ish card addending, rather than illustrative of some underlying principle we're supposed to follow in other scenarios. YMMV.

1 hour ago, EBerling said:

What if a Messenger of the Kings player is only running Ceorl as a lone hero, and they pass Ceorl to another player. Obviously, Ceorl is no longer "his/her" hero, but the player doesn't have any other killed heroes in the discard pile.., they simply have no heroes. So, as I understand it, they are not eliminated (since Ceorl has not been killed -- ie he is NOT in a discard pile), so can that player just try to engage as many enemies as possible and take undefended attacks for the other players? Bonus points if the other players are running Ranged en mass, I assume.

It is not possible for a player using MotK to start with 0 regular heroes—the rules specify you must start with 1–3 (modified to 1–2 when using MotK)—so the situation as written cannot occur.

It does bring up some other possible situations that get hairy with the rules, like why exactly Desperate Alliance'ing your last hero doesn't eliminate you ( FAQ ), but having a last hero of MotK (or Sword-thain) Ceorl sent away via his ability presumably would (?)…

1 hour ago, sappidus said:

It does bring up some other possible situations that get hairy with the rules, like why exactly Desperate Alliance'ing your last hero doesn't eliminate you ( FAQ ), but having a last hero of MotK (or Sword-thain) Ceorl sent away via his ability presumably would (?)…

I actually think that if you send away a MotK/Sword-Thain Ceorl that's also your last hero you should not lose. Surely Ceorl (especially with this new contract) gives rise to a lot of difficult situations, but the fact that you might get him back (like in the Lost and Alone case for any hero) could be ground for avoiding elimination.

16 hours ago, sappidus said:

It is not possible for a player using MotK to start with 0 regular heroes—the rules specify you must start with 1–3 (modified to 1–2 when using MotK)—so the situation as written cannot occur.

It does bring up some other possible situations that get hairy with the rules, like why exactly Desperate Alliance'ing your last hero doesn't eliminate you ( FAQ ), but having a last hero of MotK (or Sword-thain) Ceorl sent away via his ability presumably would (?)…

Ah, good point! I suppose the next best way to approximate this would be to run Smeagol + MotK Ceorl, then hope that Stinker is revealed relatively quickly. Then the players can just leave Gollum engaged (which is without risk when he is engaged with Smeagol's now-hero-less player). Once Smeagol is Gollum, Ceorl can be passed and the player can engage as many of the enemies as possible with no risk.

18 minutes ago, EBerling said:

Ah, good point! I suppose the next best way to approximate this would be to run Smeagol + MotK Ceorl, then hope that Stinker is revealed relatively quickly. Then the players can just leave Gollum engaged (which is without risk when he is engaged with Smeagol's now-hero-less player). Once Smeagol is Gollum, Ceorl can be passed and the player can engage as many of the enemies as possible with no risk.

To be fair, Gollum engages the 1st player at all times, so you can't just leave him with the player who started with Sméagol. But yes, this would overall seem to be potentially quite powerful. If others chip in ways of getting Stinker to the top of the encounter deck as quickly as possible—Lore Denethor and Firyal (possibly also MotKed!) are options, as is Risk Some Light, Shadow of the Past, et al.—a group might land the setup with plausible odds.

One issue to be solved in optimizing such a fellowship is how to get as many enemies as possible engaged with the 0-hero player, as once the 0-hero state is achieved, he can't play any cards (well, almost any) to help overcome the usual cap of 1 optional engagement/round. But such a discussion wanders from rules issues, per se, so I defer further thoughts for elsewhere.

I did send in a related query to Caleb, so we will see if/how he responds.

46 minutes ago, sappidus said:

To be fair, Gollum engages the 1st player at all times, so you can't just leave him with the player who started with Sméagol.

Correct, which means that only 50%/33%/25% of the time Gollum's attacks will be meaningless, pending the number of players. Still, if the Smeagol player is picking up the lion's share of engagments, leaving Gollum engaged is not terribly risky (especially if the other players are running someone like Sp-Beregond, who wants an easy block each turn), and doubly-so if the go-to sentinel defender is sporting some Shadow-cancellation.

There certainly several tricks the Smeagol "player" could use to try and maximize their ability to engage prior to losing Gollum and sending away Ceorl.

2 hours ago, sappidus said:

But yes, this would overall seem to be potentially quite powerful.

Not to mention being thematically quite odd that enemies would sit there indefinitely stabbing at "nothing," even ignoring whatever allies the Smeagol player manages to bring into play before going hero-less.