We are currently playing quest number 4 of TOI (Castle of Dragons). We have run into a situation which has resulted in quite a debate.

The situation is as follows: the 4 heros are moving up the east corridor which is filled with 2 white and 1 red Lava Beetles. These monsters have Blast 1. The Overlord targets a square that is 1 square short of the hero in question (2 of the 4 heros are within the blast zone, and all 4 heroes are within 3 spaces of each other).

One of the heros has the feat card "Protect Thyself" which states:

"Play this card after the overlord has declared a monster's attack against any hero, but before he has rolled the dice for the attack. Your hero, and all heroes within 3 spaces of you, gains +2 armor until the start of your next turn. Leave this card face up in front of you until the start of your next turn."

The Overlord is arguing that he is not attacking a hero, as he is targeting a space that no hero resides in. Since Descent is really based on the spaces you target, and not the hero who may or may not be in the space, the Overlord claims the card should not be playable.

Understandably, the heroes respectfully (heh) disagree, and feel that the monster's intent is to attack the heroes through the blast, and thus they should be allowed to use the card.

We have searched on-line on this forum for a ruling and have found nothing. In addition, we have read the entire latest FAQ (3-18-2010) and have found nothing that pertains to the situation.

How would you rule?

any2cards said:

I believe it goes to the heroes on this one, IMO.

The card is worded badly. Yes, you never declare an attack against a figure but its space. Based on that, and your OL is correct here, however that would then the make the card unplayable ever at any time in the game.

The only tricky spot here is if the OL said he wasn't using Blast then you couldn't play it. But since he is using the Blast attack, the attack will end up affecting the hero which counts as attacking him since it will deal damage to the hero.

Blast
Attacks with the Blast ability affect every space within
X spaces of the target space, where X is equal to the
rank of the Blast ability . A space is only affected by the
Blast attack if it has line of sight to the target space.
Blast areas cannot pass through walls, closed doors, or
blocking obstacles. The Blast attack deals its full damage
to each figure affected by it (friendly and enemy). If
a Blast attack is dodged by more than one figure, only
one re-roll may be made (the first dodging player to the
attacking player’s left decides which dice, if any, are to
be re-rolled).

S while I wait for the dissenting view to be presented (as I'm sure it will be), IMO based on my knowledge of the rules is that yes the hero can play that card since protection versus Blast is probably what it was designed for in the first place.

I'd agree with Remy, mainly because of the fact that such attention to detail makes the card never playable. If the card said "Play this card after the overlord has declared a monster's attack targeting the space occupied by your hero", then I think there'd be more of an argument for the OL, since the blast attack would affect that space but clearly is not targeting that space. But since the card doesn't use such specific language, that makes me think it's intended to be used any time a hero would be affected by an attack.

Parsing Descent like it's a legal document leads to bad things. The monster is making an attack, that attack's sole purpose is to damage a hero, therefor the monster is attacking the hero.

For what it's worth, the Taunt skill uses a similar wording: "...you may force the figure to target you with that attack if it is able to do so."

...and Taunt was ruled in the FAQ (p.12) to work against area attacks, including Blast, Breath, and Bolt. That's still not an entirely clean resolution (it still never says what it means for a figure to be "targeted" by a Blast attack), but I can't imagine what it could reasonably mean for Breath and Bolt other than "being in the area potentially affected by the attack," so that's how I've always ruled it for all area attacks.

I concur with the others. I particularly like Remy's point about the card never being usable by the OL's argument since you always target spaces and not figures.

Yay, I got something right! It seems like I rarely type something without an dissenting view arising anymore :-)

I appreciate all of the responses. It is nice, every once in a while, to actually see consensus within this forum. I think the most compelling argument for us was the reference to the FAQ and clarification of the Taunt rule. I think our issue dove tails nicely with this ruling. Once again, thank you for the replies.