It's unclear if Runemaster Thorn needs to pay additional costs when he uses his teleport ability to enter spaces like water and mud. Does his ability replace the standard movement costs (regardless of extra cost?) Or does he pay extra in order to "enter" the space?

His ability reads "Once per turn, Runemaster Thorn may spend 5 movement points to move to any empty space in his line of sight."

In the Well of Darkness expansion, it says "Mud costs 2 movement points per square to move through instead of 1" (p3), and is stated differently in the Sea of Blood rulebook: "It costs 2 movement points to enter a mud space" (p37) This indicates that moving from one space to the mud space still costs 2 total, not 1 for the movement cost and 2 extra for the entry to the space for a total of 3. It shows that the wording changed, and that it is the total movement cost.

For the new SOB water rules, it says "It costs two movement points to enter a water space, regardless of whether it is shallow or deep. In addition, it costs heroes one fatigue to enter a deep water space. This cost is increased by one fatigue for every two points of armor the hero has." (p30)

I read it as the written cost to enter the space is the standard movement cost from adjacent spaces / falling from a rope / knock-back etc. In the Sea of Blood rulebook, all of the movement cost entries have been changed to "It costs X movement points to enter a ____ space." I think Thorn's ability replaces the standard costs of traditional and special terrain spaces.

Has anyone ran into this situation yet?

There's no reason to make him pay movement costs, but I would still make him pay the fatigue penalty for deep water. That is really more of a one-time terrain effect than an entry cost.

I'm basing this reasoning largely on the following FAQ entry :
Q: If movement point costs are ignored by figures suffereing Knockback (or smaller movement styles like Swinging on a Rope, Jumping, and Climbing out of a Pit), do they still pay Fatigue penalties (such as Sea of Blood's deep water?)
A: Yes.

EDIT - 'smaller' = 'similar', perhaps? Typo in the FAQ?

The first question that needs to be answered is: What exactly is an empty space that is a prerequisite to trigger Thorn´s ability?

The OL cannot play a trap (space) card on a mud space or the like, since it is not empty for that purpose. I think only corrupted space is exempted from this, so that would count as "empty".

My feeling is that Thorn simply cannot teleport onto mud, deep water and so on, so the question does not come up in the first place. Yet I am too lazy to look up the rules and FAQ to locate any suitable references.

So one point and one comment:

Point: The Knockback ruling from the FAQ doesn't really apply to Runemaster's ability since the rules for knockback specifically allow the figure to enter as space as long as it is one that doesn't block movement. The wording for swinging on a rope also doesn't indicate it has to be an empty space, just one that doesn't contain a movement blocking obstacle. His ability says "empty space" so you have to assume it means a space free of map elements/tokens.

Comment : That being said, I don't know if it would be game breaking to allow him to teleport to spaces containing obstacles that have a MP/Fatigue penalty such as mud, shallow/deep water, trees, etc etc.

Paying the fatigue sounds like the best non-ruled compromise for the heroes and the OL. This is considering logical reasoning that fatigue is used to swim up and keep oneself at the surface of the water.

However, I don't believe the fatigue or extra movement is a penalty , but rather solely part of the initial cost to entry- based on the wording:

"In addition, it costs heroes one fatigue to enter a deep water space".... saying outright that the fatigue is part of the same cost of entering the space.

Since every movement rule has updated from "X movement points to move to" to "X movement points to enter a ___ space," it would make sense for Thorn's ability to be also updated to read "Once per turn, Runemaster Thorn may spend 5 movement points to enter ( instead of move to ) any empty space in his line of sight."

That would simplify the problem, letting us choose between 2 options;

a) spend 2 movement + 1 fatigue (+1 for every 2 armor) to enter the space; or b) spend 5 movement points to enter the space.

Jumping and pit climbing were loopholes to "moving to" a special terrain space in terms of traditional movement, so they re-worded "moving to" a space to "entering" a space to encompass these.

The FAQ mentions instances where MP cost is ignored for entering the space. Both Knockback and rope falling involve forcing the space entry, thus forcing the cost. When a hero has available MP on their own turn, they are still forced to spend the required amount for entering the space. (Notice that empty normal spaces do not say "it costs 1 MP to enter this space.")

As far as the rulebook goes, it still needs some tweaking on special terrain spaces. Going word for word from the rules would mean spending MP twice for moving to and entering a space. It would be best if the movement rules stated "It costs 1 additional movement point to move into this space" to combat the double expenditure problem. It would be nice if it was distinguished if "moving to a space" was the same as "entering a space."

At this point I think it's a judgment call for the players. We will most likely go with spending the fatigue for the ability in water based on the real-world reasoning of staying afloat.

Edit- In basic movement rules in Descent rulebook (p9) it says "Figures may pass through spaces occupied by friendly figures during movement, but they cannot attack while in the same space as another figure and they must end their movement in an empty space. " Figures can end their movement in water, mud, and on glyphs, gold and chests, so an empty space must be defined as a space where a figure can end their movement.

That last quote is very interesting. We could never find a list of empty spaces save the one for traps, so in the end we decided to house-rule this (as the list for traps is for traps and not movement). Luckily we house-ruled it just like in the quote, anywhere square he could walk into and then end his movement on was an empty space.

In our SoB campaign we applied the fatigue penalty for landing in water, but not the movement penalty. We treated it like swinging from a rope or being knockbacked in this respect.

mtnshredder718 said:

That's all well and good for the particular discussion, but if you take that to be your definition of "empty space" then the OL can also start spawning on such things as long as there's no LoS (barring activated glyphs which are expressly forbidden.) I'm sure there are other problems that would arise from using this as your definition of empty space as well. I'm inclined to say this new revelation of the rules is yet another example of poor editing, and it should probably be this sentence that is revised to say something like "must end their movement in a space with no other figures." The jist of this passage is that a figure cannot end on top of another figure, it isn't really referring to other terrain at all.

Back to the subject of Runemaster Thorn, I am personally in the camp of "he needs to teleport onto an empty space," nor do I ascribe to the above definition of empty spaces, so things like mud and water would be invalid target spaces IMHO. That said, if you want to allow such spaces as valid in your own game, I think a fair house rule is that he would need to pay all extra costs for the space he lands in, as he has entered that space, but obviously he wouldn't need to pay for other spaces he passes over (which was never really in question, I'm just saying.)

Steve-O said:

Check the spawn rules again. It is perfectly legal for the OL to spawn there already. From the base rules:

"The overlord player may not place spawned monsters
in a space that contains a figure or an obstacle, such as a
pit, rubble, water, or slime."

"The overlord player may place spawned monsters in a
space that contains a treasure or encounter marker."

Those and LoS are the only limitations for spawning.

Steve-O said:

Why would he need to pay additional MP costs? There's no range restriction on his teleport, just LoS, so his teleport effectively provides infinite movement for a cost of 5 MP. If he teleports 50 spaces, he pays 5 MP for a movement that would normally cost 50. Why should he pay more than 5MP to teleport 8 spaces and land in mud? Why wouldn't the added MP cost simply be absorbed into the effective infinite MP provided by the teleport ability?

Also, the term "empty space" is purely a movement concept. It is only used in the rulebooks with regard to movement (and things involving movement, like Leap). The spawning rules do not mention that term, so if mud is an "empty space" (which it must be for movement) that does not have any effect on spawning.

And let's look at the FAQ:
Chests, Glyphs, Potions, Coin Piles, and Rune Keys do not count as empty spaces for the purposes of playing traps .

It does not say that those are not empty spaces. It says they " do not count as empty spaces for the purposes of playing traps . " This means that they are empty spaces, but you still can't play traps in them.

Incidentally, trap cards only reference empty spaces when referring to heroes moving into empty spaces. The only quasi-exception to this is Drugged Darts, which mentions an "empty section of corridor" .

I can't find any reason to believe an empty space is anything other than a space with no movement-blocking obstacles (rubble, subterranean water) and no figures.

I think that Descent prevents traps being played on special terrain and small tokens for a couple reasons-

a) to prevent the OL from effectively changing the terrain of a special space for balance and intended scenario reasons.

b) to prevent the OL from forcing players to damage themselves when picking up items or critical objects (example, the pit kills a hero so the object doesn't get picked up, and the object just lays in the pit)

Badend said:

There's also the unrevealed areas restriction, and two additions in the FAQ:

Q: May the overlord spawn monsters on or move monsters into the dungeon level exit portal spaces?
A: No. Monsters may never enter or be spawned in these spaces for any reason.

Q: In Island levels, spawning works similar to inside dungeons, monsters can spawn anywhere out of line of sight of the heroes. Since masts block line of sight, it is quite possible for monsters to spawn on the Revenge unless one hero stays behind on the ship, essentially out of action. Is this intentional? ...
A: Monsters may not spawn on the Revenge during island levels. They may only spawn on the island itself.

I think it's important to point out, as you have, that spawning does not require an "empty space"; it requires the absence of a figure or obstacle. However, mud is an obstacle (even though it's an "empty space"), so spawning is not allowed.

BTW, what is "slime" ?

mtnshredder718 said:
I think that Descent prevents traps being played on special terrain and small tokens for a couple reasons-

Except there's nothing in the rules preventing traps being played on special terrain. The FAQ mentions props/objects, not terrain.

mahkra said:

It doesn't exist. apparently the original version of JitD had a slime obstacle in it, but it got removed prior to print and they missed some references.