We are playing a game now, and the OL has enough curses to play a power card before he has collected threat and cards. IF he collects threat and cards, he has to discard a card(which he wants to keep) since his hand is limited to 8 cards. Playing power cards are done in the start of OL turn, before step three which is spawning monsters. Is he therefore allowed to pay threat to play the powercard before drawing new cards and threat?

First, a few relevant excerpts from the rules:

JitD :
Overlord Player’s Turn
Step 1: Collect Threat and Draw Cards
Step 2: Spawn Monsters
Step 3: Activate Monsters

JitD :
Important: The overlord may play cards that say “Play at the start of your turn” any time before activating his first monster for the turn.

JitD :
Power cards can only be played on the overlord’s turn before activating any monsters in step 3.

WoD :
Overlord Player’s Turn
1. Play up to 1 Power card
2. Draw 2 cards and discard down to 8
3. Collect 1 threat for each hero and each discarded card
Any time: Discard additional cards to gain threat
4. Play up to 1 Spawn card
5. Activate monsters (each moves and attacks once)

FAQ :
Overlord Cards
Q: When does the overlord play power cards? The Well of Darkness rules summary on page 28 and the core rule book seem to disagree.
A: The rules summary in the Well of Darkness rule book is in error; refer to the main rule book instead. The overlord may play a power card at the beginning of his turn. Remember that when a player has multiple effects that occur at the beginning of his turn (such as spawning and playing a power card, for example), he may resolve them in any order. Thus, an overlord may draw cards, discard down to his maximum hand size, and then play a power card, spawn card, and/or any other cards that are played “at the beginning of turn” in any order. He must resolve all these effects before proceeding with activating monsters.

I see no reason the overlord would not be allowed to play a power card before collecting threat & drawing cards. Both are start of turn effects, so I would think they could be done in any order.

However, I'm not sure if the overlord can collect threat, then play a power card, then draw cards. The way the rules are written, "Collect Threat and Draw Cards" could be interpreted as one action. On the other hand, those two actions are separated in the WoD summary. That summary was rejected by the FAQ, but I assumed that it was in error because it's not the *only* way to order start-of-turn effects, not because it's actually an invalid order.

This is addressed in the FAQ, but it's not especially clear:

"Remember that when a player has multiple effects that occur at the beginning of his turn (such as spawning and playing a power card, for example), he may resolve them in any order. Thus, an overlord may draw cards, discard down to his maximum hand size, and then play a power card, spawn card, and/or any other cards that are played “at the beginning of turn” in any order." (FAQ p. 6-7)

Based on the word "then", I believe the majority consensus last time this came up was that the overlord needs to draw cards (and discard down to 8) before playing any cards on his turn. But remove the word "then" and that sentence has the opposite meaning.

They've never been terribly explicit for heroes, either, about what counts as a "start of turn" effect that can be done in any order, and what has to be done before you declare your action but in a specific order defined in the rulebook.

Antistone said:

The word "may" in the sentence tells us that it's just one legal example, though. I'd be wary of reading too much into that.

It doesn't really make sense to me that drawing & discarding would happen before "start of turn", which is why I figure those must be just another start of turn effect. It's certainly possible that some things are actually supposed to happen before start of turn effects, though.

I don't see where the confusion lies.

• The rulebook specifically states Important: The overlord may play cards that say “Play at the start of your turn” any time before activating his first monster for the turn .
• Power cards say "Play at the start of your turn."
• Drawing a card happens before activating monsters, so "before drawing a card" must also happen before activating monsters.
• The FAQ doesn't redefine the timing rules to disallow playing power cards prior to drawing.

Yes, you can play a power card before drawing.

Thanks all. We have encountered another situation we are not sure how to handle. We have entered dungeon lvl 4(legendary). OL reshuffled early on that level, and is about to reshuffle again. I recall I read something about heroes being ejected if the OL reshuffles his OL-card deck twice, yet someone houserule this to not happen if the heroes are really trying to advance in the game. If the heroes are rejected, they will lose the entire silver legendary reward(sad for them naturally). Any input?

Moneseki said:

The usual responses:

1. The deck never needs to be re-shuffled twice in our games. Why would this ever happen?
2. Per the FAQ, 2 re-shuffles in one level automatically ejects the heroes. Just follow the rule.
3. If the deck is really close to finished, we don't count that first re-shuffle.
4. That FAQ ruling only exists to eliminate an exploit where the heroes would sit in a dungeon forever, causing the OL to gain so much threat that the campaign would be forced to the final battle (thus avoiding an impending loss by plot). If the heroes aren't abusing the game in this way, you don't really need to enforce that auto-eject rule.

So, um... it's really up to you and your group? (I know it's not much help, but IIRC there hasn't really been consensus about this rule the past few times it's been discussed.)

It may be hard to reach a consensus considering what's on the line, so I'd probably just flip a coin this time and then decide as a group how to play it in the future.

We don't enforce the rule of two re-shuffles in a legendary area. These dungeons are long(the last level is like a full-scale vanilla dungeon) so it's understandable that it may take more turns for the heroes to complete, possibly allowing the overlord to deplete his deck twice.

mahkra said:

Mahkra covered it superbly.

The rules are clear, the heroes are ejected.
If they were smart, and worried about this, they could have delayed their entry into the final level until after the last card was drawn the first time. Basically they didn't play this well.

But it is a massive penalty in this case, for something that is purely designed to eliminate an exploit.

OTOH, it is a potentially game changing mistake, by the heroes. Should they be punished for it? Who is going to win if they are not.... ? Who is going to win if they are?

The heroes will lose the bonus of 4 upgrades. Even so, they have killed 3 ltnts(only 1 remaining). OL has no chance of winning by plot, and it will all cook down to the final battle. None of us has ever been to final battle, but according to input from other players its autowin for players. If this happens to be true, the heroes will most likely win with or without the bonus from silver legendary. Heroes have accepted their fate to be ejected, yet we are not 100% sure if we want to play the game this way.

Our game ended with first hero opening the last encountermarker in area 1, and hero players had the option of getting 2 maybe 3 heroes at encountermarkers in area 2(the pool). 1 or 2 heroes had to wait another round. On the OLs turn, he drew the last 3 cards and heroes would by this rule be ejected. That said, the heroes only needed 1 more round to complete the areat(sadly).

In total the heroes had 12 rounds to complete the legendary area for this reason:
40 OL cards(vanilla and well of darkness)
-4 cards (OL upgrade(focused))
evil genious was in play
after turn 2 in lvl 4, OL reshuffle. He then has 6 cards in his hand.

The first reshuffle gives OL 30 cards in his deck = 10 turns.

A good dungeonlevel for the heroes is finished with 3 heroturns and 2 OL turns. A bad one is 6-7 heroturns. This is our first legendary area as heroes missed the one in copper. The silver level seems doable in 10-12 rounds if the heroes are well geared and lucky, but my guess is 15-20 turns would be the average.

We have put the game on hold since we are not 100% sure what rule to use. Mahkra seems to cover all options(thanks). As first said, the heroes will probably win the campaign nonetheless, the legendarybonus will only make it easier. Getting or not getting the bonus is probably not gamebreaking. But the ruling now will be guiding for situations later(first time it has occured in our campaign, not sure how often it actually will happen. Legendary areas seems bigger and more likely to trigger this condition).

zealot12s group remove this rule for legendary areas, Corbons group eject heroes following the rule as written. What does other groups do? All input is welcome and will help us in deciding when we meet next monday.

We follow it as written. It's only ever came close to happening once, in the last level of the copper legendary dungeon. I can't remember if it actually happened or not.

We would have enforced (and accepted) the ejection rule, but in a full RtL campaign and one third of Sea of Blood campaign, a double reshuffle in a single level never happened.

The end combat was indeed extremely easy for us, even against 3 opponents (the Beastman Lord and his Shadow Clones), so I suggest you ask your heroes if they want to win very easily the cheap way, that is by conveniently ignoring a rule that would harm them, or if they'd rather win quite easily the just way, that is by respecting all the rules of the game.

Okay I'm a little confused on this point. Forgive me because I'm still somewhat new to the game. Does the OL draw 2 or 3 cards. I don't have the WoD with me atm, but I could swear that there was a rule change to draw 3 cards instead?

DescentNYC said:

2 cards per turn.
It is assumed that if he has gone through his deck once he now has Evil Genius in play as it is the single best card in the deck. Thus, the second time around he should be drawing 3 cards per turn instead of 2 cards per turn.

The overlord draws two (2) cards per turn, BUT he draws three (3) cards during game set-up, before the heroes' first turn.

Antistone said:

That's were I misunderstood. Thank you again