Hello everyone! I’m glad to see such a treasure trove (gold-level, really) of rules and answers here.

Nevertheless, I have a big question about spending fatigue for movement that’s been really bothering me.

1) The base rule book says “At any time during a hero player’s turn, he may spend 1 fatigue to gain 1 MP” (p16). Yet it also says “A hero can’t do anything except refresh before he declares his action” (p8). The second rule would suggest that you can only spend fatigue after you’ve declared your action and before you end your turn. So you couldn’t, for example, spend 5 fatigue at the start of your turn to move 5 spaces, then equip that healing treasure that must equip during your equip items step and immediately recovers all your fatigue? Or spend a fatigue before recovering one from Battle Cry, etc.? Surely this is an oversight and fatigue can truly be spent at any time on your turn?

2) Also, movement points don’t go away until end of turn, so they can be “stored”? I know you don’t have to spent your speed points, so I assume you can, if you were at max fatigue for example, spend 1 fatigue to do nothing (just to get 1 movement point “floating”), then attack and kill a monster, then recover that 1 fatigue with Vampiric Blood, then spend that floating 1 movement point to move 1 square?

Thanks a lot!

--prof joe

I've always understood that to mean that stuff you can do "during your turn" can only be done after you declare your action. It's a bit misleading, but not that complicated.

Yes, you can spend fatigue to gain movement points without instantly spending the movement points.

Thanks Antistone. Just to clarify, so you believe that fatigue can only be spent after one declares an action?

Thanks!

prof. joe

ProfJoe said:

1. One rule is specific in the action, but general in the timing. They other is general in the action but specific in the timing. Since specific usually trumps general, as a timing issue the second rule trumps the first.
You may not do anything (including spend fatigue or move) except refresh (and do 'start of turn' stuff) before declaring your action.
Even if the first rule trumped the second, you still wouldn't be able to use the fatigue to move with, just to store the MP. That would be effectively like allowing an extra fatigue potion to be drunk (but better). A hero could start with full fatigue and a Rest action, spend all the fatigue for MP, activate the rest and restore his fatigue, spend it all again except one for a fatigue potion and then spend it all again!

2. Yes. As a point of fact you get 0, X or 2X MP at when you declare your order, so you are by default 'storing' them already. It is also necessary to 'store' MP or else you could not use fatigue to do multi-MP movement actions (like climbing out of a pit or opening a door).

3. Yes.

Antistone said:

Where do the rules say this? Aren't they actually completely silent on when MP-gained-via-fatigue must be spent?

One "natural" assumption would be that without any instruction otherwise, the MP can be spent whenever you want.

Another "natural" assumption would be that since the game has no way to record MP-via-fatigue (you don't get MP tokens to spend later in your turn, for example), the MP must be spent immediately.

Both of these are just assumptions, though. Is there actually something in the rules I'm completely forgetting?

mahkra said:

By that logic, the MP you get from declaring a Run or Advance would have to be spent immediately, too. You don't get MP tokens for those MP either. So you'd have to do everything you need MPs for before, say, making an attack. And that's not even considering the subject of how one can spend more than 1 MP "immediately" if they can only be spent 1 or 2 at a time on different actions. Other rules (mostly skills) have highlighted that "immediately" means the thing must happen with no intervening actions, but how can you move to the second space without first moving to the first?

The rules are very clear that you can attack before, after or during your movement (ie: your spending of MP for the turn.) It follows, therefore, that you are not required to spend MP immediately upon gaining them. It's true that the game does not have a memory of MPs, but all that really means is they can't be stored across turns. If you don't spend them by the end of your turn, they are lost. This is equally true of MP gained by Declared Action and MP gained by Fatigue. The player is assumed to be intelligent enough that they can remember how many MPs they have until their turn ends.

If you want play rules lawyer and try to reach a different conclusion, be my guest. I'm just glad I don't sit at your table.

Aren't they actually completely silent on when MP-gained-via-fatigue must be spent?

They dont specify it directly, but it is said:

-At any time during a hero’s turn, he may spend one fatigue to gain one movement point [...]. Movement points gained in this manner are spent just like normal movement points.

together with:

- A figure may make attacks at any point during its movement . For example, a figure with a speed of 4 may move 2 spaces, attack, and then move another 2 spaces.

it's clear in my opinion. And as Steve-O said, there is no such thing as MP-Tokens at all.

€: very strange quoting in this forum ...

Wow, calm down, Steve-O. I wasn't trying to offend.

Steve-O said:

Are remarks like this really necessary? I'm just trying to discuss ideas here.

I'm not trying to "play rules-lawyer." It never occurred to me - or anyone else in my group - that MP-via-fatigue could be saved to spend later in your turn, and I was genuinely surprised when I first learned that everyone on the forums played that way.

Steve-O said:

I'm pretty sure the rules never actually say this. The JitD book says "The player may choose not to use all of the figure's available movement points." But it never tells us what happens to those leftover MP. You're assuming that unused MP are lost at the end of the hero's turn. (I think it's a reasonable assumption, but it's still an assumption.)

I orignally assumed that MP-via-fatigue must be spent immediately. Others assumed MP-via-fatigue could be saved. Unless I've missed something, the rules never actually tell us when those MP are to be used. (As extraterrestrial pointed out, the rules do tell us how MP-via-fatigue can be spent. But my point is that the rules don't tell us when they can be spent. In general, when rules of a game tell you something happens but don't say when, that usually means it happens immediately.)

And I only mentioned the idea that "the game doesn't record it" because it's a concept I've seen on the forums before.

(regarding cycling the OL deck - 2 full cycles, or just draw the last card twice?)
Corbon said:

(regarding a custom hero ability that affects spawned monsters)
Corbon said:

(regarding a re-roll on an area effect attack)
Corbon said:

I know there are exceptions to the "Descent has no memory state" concept, but really not very many. I mean, even something as basic as which hero has taken a turn already is actually recorded with a token.

mahkra said:

I would say it's more than an assumption . You are right there is no "proove" but there are "evidences" (No Token for MP, " A hero receives a number of movement points based on his speed and the action he takes on his turn " while speed is declared as the unchangable number at your charactersheet.)

mahkra said:

MP can be used at any time in your turn and in any order + MP-via-fatigue are MP = They can be temporary stored.

I see your point and i think there is some small room for interpretation. And to be honest, the impacts on the game are very little. But probably debating is too much fun

Btw: I'm reading in this forum since one week and i must say I'm stunned how tremendous difficult it is to create a distinct and coherent rulebook for such a game. Always fascinating how other people find glitches and white spaces in this game. And how complex a Descent-meeting can evolve when such questions occur while playing ...

extraterrestrial said:

Even if you read that as overwriting a character's leftover MP with a new value, that would mean the hero doesn't actually lose those leftover MP until the start of his next turn. In most cases, end of turn vs. start of next turn doesn't matter, since heroes cannot use MP between those points in time. But what about Tahlia? She's allowed to spend MP during a guard interrupt. Could she use leftover MP to move more than 3 spaces?

Corbon said:

A few items allow you to spend fatigue before declaring your action, though: the good ol' Ghost Armor comes to mind, with which you can spend fatigue to prevent the damage from a Bleed token for instance. But this is a case of a specific card rule prevailing over a general rule, I guess.

Mahkra, I still don't see why you think there would be any difference between MP-from-action and MP-from-fatigue. In neither case do the rules put any explicit restrictions on how or when they can be spent. If it's reasonable to assume you can save them in one case, how could such an assumption possibly be unreasonable in the other case? Granted that the rules are often not as explicit as we would like, why should we make up different implied rules for similar cases?

If you want to argue for an interpretation of the rules with extra complexity and special cases, the burden of proof is on you. Occam's razor.

Antistone said:

In a way, it's less complex for fatigue-MP to be spent immediately, as it's one less item to track by memory. And a starting pool of MP which only decreases throughout your turn is simpler than a pool of MP which decreases, replenishes, decreases, replenishes, etc. That Occam's Razor argument can go either way, depending on how you look at things.

Antistone said:

When you declare an action, you start with some pool of MP. That part of the rules doesn't say anything at all about spending MP, just that you get them. (The language is actually terrible - "you may move X spaces this turn" - but the idea is that you start with some pool of MP.)

Now that you have declared some action, you look at the rules about movement and attacking, and you learn that you can attack before or after spending MP, or you can even spend some MP -> attack -> spend more MP. This fits perfectly with the idea that you have some pool of MP to spend throughout your turn.

Now, when you spend fatigue for more MP, what happens? The rule says that you get MP and that you can spend them the same way you spend normal MP. Okay, great, makes sense. Almost.

Let's look at what the rule doesn't say. It doesn't say you get MP and those are added to the pool of MP you already have. So are they part of the pool you already have, or are they just 'bonus MP' to spend right away?

So I guess, in one sentence, here's what makes me wonder about MP-via-fatigue:
The rule says we get MP and can spend them, rather than saying we get MP to add to our pre-existing pool.

Does that make sense?

mahkra said:

No, it doesn't make sense. The "pool" language is something that you made up and isn't in the rules, so of course the rules don't say they get added to the "pool". But it says you get movement points and that they're spent in the same way as the movement points you get from your action. That's precisely what we would expect them to say if the movement points get "added to the pool", in your terminology.

Everything in the rules about moving should apply equally to MP gained from either source, unless you can find something in those rules that restricts their scope.

mahkra said:

First of all, no, it's not one less item to track by memory. You already track the number of movement points in your "pool", as you put it. If anything, it's one more item to track, albeit briefly.

A pool that can increase is perhaps marginally more complex than one that only decreases (then again, the pool "increases" when you declare your action, so perhaps not), but it's certainly no more complicated than a separate "bonus MP" (as you put it) total that can increase and decrease. "Simplicity" for Occam's Razor is defined as introducing fewer assumptions and postulating fewer entities, not as having fewer possible interactions or being described in fewer words.

Your interpretation requires a separate "kind" of movement points with separate rules governing how they are spent, and it requires an assumption that movement points received from actions are of one kind and movement points received from fatigue are another kind, without anything in the rules to indicate which kind they are in either case. That's definitely more complicated.

Antistone said:

Yes, I made up the "pool" language , but the concept certainly exists. And the rule is not what we would expect if MP are "added to the pool". If they're "added to the pool", we would expect the rules to say that the MP can be spent in the same way as normal MP, at any point in your turn. The rules only actually say half of that.

Antistone said:

It's not a separate "kind" of MP. Imagine you have money in the bank, and you're allowed to take money out of the bank at an ATM and spend it on things. You also might find money on the street, which you can likewise spend on things. If you're not allowed to deposit money into your bank account at the ATM, that doesn't make it a different "kind" of money. It just means that money that started in the bank can be saved, but money that you found on the street cannot.

Movement points gained from fatigue are "spent just like normal movement points." Normal movement points are spent at any time during your turn. How can there be any doubt that movement points from fatigue are spent at any time also? Doing otherwise would not be "spent just like" it would be "spent just like... except in this instance."

How and when are different things. I understand why you're reading it that way, but I'd hardly say it's written as well as it should be if that's really what it means.

mahkra said:

No, we wouldn't. Actions don't state that the movement points they give you may be spent "at any point in your turn," that's something inferred from the general rules for movement points. Therefore, it applies equally to movement points received from actions, fatigue, skills, items, and anything else in the entire game unless it says otherwise.

That's like complaining that the fatigue rules don't state that spending fatigue allows you to move before or after attacking, or can be used to perform movement actions, or that actions cost the same amount of MP whether you got them from an action or from fatigue, or that fatigue MPs can't be spent if you're webbed or grappled. Those are all general rules that apply to all movement points, not specifically to movement points gained from actions.

In order to justify a difference, you'd need to point out some rule that explicitly treats movement points gained in one way differently from movement points gained the other way. Otherwise you're just making stuff up out of whole cloth, on a par with someone who claims that he can choose to do infinity damage to any figure on the board at any time he wants because they rules don't say he can't .

mahkra said:

Now you're arguing semantics. You still are introducing an entirely new distinction of "money in bank" versus "money in hand" instead of just having "money" and treating all of it the same way. Whether you call that a different "kind" of money, or money in a different "place", or a different "mode" of existence, or any other word makes no practical difference. (I also have no idea why you would assume that "money in hand" can't be saved, but that's just an issue with your analogy.)

The point is, you're multiplying hypotheses; assuming that two things that are identical in every way we can detect actually behave differently. That's EXACLTY what Occam's Razor forbids, because it's impossible to disprove. The rulebook can't possibly explicitly state every hypothetical imaginary rule that doesn't exist.

There are tons of badly-written things in the rulebook that you would be completely justified in complaining about. This isn't one of them.

Antistone said:
The point is, you're multiplying hypotheses; assuming that two things that are identical in every way we can detect actually behave differently.

On the contrary, you're assuming that because we're told two things are identical in some ways, they're identical in all ways. But anyway...

<shrug>

I'll agree to disagree with you. And feel free to continue thinking I'm totally wrong.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to change the way they interpret this rule; what I'm really wondering (and what I originally asked about, just out of curiosity) is if there's something else in the rules that clarifies this issue further. Based on the fact that nobody has done anything except tell me I'm reading this one line incorrectly, I'll assume that means that there aren't any other relevant rulings that I'm simply forgetting about.

Even if this issue were clarified in the FAQ (which it won't be, as apparently the only people who have ever interpreted it this way are in my group), I think we'd continue to play the same way. It just seems really lame to us that a hero could "use" all his "stamina" (fatigue) without actually doing anything, then drink a potion, then "use" more of his "stamina" - and have all of that spent at once. So he could spend twice his maximum "stamina" on one swing of a sword. (Yeah, I know, thematic reasoning is for losers. But I think the gameplay is better this way, too.)

mahkra said:

I don't know what you're trying to say. If you mean "identical in some ways" as being different from "identical in every way we can detect," then you should point out some way in which they are demonstrably different, like I've been asking you to for several posts. If you didn't mean to imply a difference, then what you said isn't "on the contrary," it's another way to describe the same disagreement, and your description still involves me following the near-universally-accepted wisdom of Occam's Razor and you being arbitrarily contrary.

mahkra said:

No, he couldn't. Because adding power dice to an attack costs fatigue , not movement points .

On the other hand, your interpretation means that a hero cannot spend fatigue to re-equip, open/close a door, open a chest, or jump over a pit. Because all of those require multiple movement points, and there's no way to convert multiple fatigue "at once" (the rules only allow you to "spend one fatigue to gain one movement point" - you can do it as many times as you want, but if you have to spend each movement point at the moment you get it...).

mahkra said:

I won't be preparing anything to put in the FAQ for this, not because yours is the only group who thinks that way, but because there is no legitimate reason to suspect that it could be this way and plenty to clearly see it could not. Frankly, your arguments/points have been consistently shown to be incorrect - you don't seem to be abe to see - it which could be sheer stubborness but is more likely 'mid-argument blind spot'.
Or possibly it is that you are making some incorrect assumptions that stop you thinking any further in that direction? Certainly your 'lame' example is completely wrong, as Antistone covered already.

Do you seriously think that a hero with 5 fatigue can declare a Battle, move 4 spaces and drink a potion, then move 2 more spaces, attack, move 3 more spaces (total 9 spaces and a potion) and attack again (all fairly straight forward) yet the same hero cannot declare a battle and then enter an adjacent tree space by spending 2 fatigue?
That is the result of what you are claiming...

At any time during a hero’s turn, he may spend one fatigue to gain one movement point , even if he is currently taking the battle action. This may be done as often as the hero desires. Movement points gained in this manner are spent just like normal movement points.

1. Nowhere (nor anywhere else) is there any suggestion that the MP must be spent immediately, just that it is 'gained'.
2. This is the same as when an action is declared (well, gained vs received, but they mean the same thing in this context). MP are 'gained/received' (never mind the screwed up action explanations on pg8, check the movement rules on pg9).
3. MP are implicitly 'stored' when you gain them during your action declaration, as they can be spent before and/or after an attack and you also gain them in one large lump and spend them in lots of smaller lumps.
4. Fatigue is spent one at a time , each one gaining one MP .
5. MP from fatigue are not differentiated in any way from MP gained in any other manner. There is nothing, anywhere, to suggest they are differentiated. Their manner of acquisition is different, but once acquired all MP are implicitly identical, since they have the same name, and we have nothing to say they are in any way different. Since they are identical, and we are not told differently, once acquired they must implicitly go into the generic 'pool' of MP. Once in that pool there is no difference between them and any other MP.
6. From 3, above, and 5, above, MP gained from fatigue must be store-able. This only affects movement and movement actions, not attacks.

I try not to get involved in these debates, but thought I'd chip in to say that we've always assumed that movement points from fatigue needed to be spent at once. In effect, I suppose we spend fatigue in substitution for spending a movement point. Glancing at the arguments, I can now see that this is clearly not the case by RAW but I don't expect we'll change how we play, partly for ease, partly as fatigue is already abuseable enough as it is. In effect, I can't see many cases where it'd make a difference.

Anyway point of post is not intended to debate the point, but just to point out that Makhra's not a lone nut-case on this one and I expect there are quite a few groups who also play this way intuitively. While not the most pressing addition to the FAQ, I don't think it would be an unreasonable clarification.

As Corbon put it, is the only, possible way of logical assumpting (with reasonable arguments).

Mahkra you dont have any valid arguments whatsoever...

inle_badger said:

Thanks for the additional comment.

Like I said, I'm not preparing anything for the FAQ because the rules are clear here , not because it's a lone nutcase (with apologies to Mahkra ) vs 'the rest'.
Everything you say here backs up that stance IMO. I agree that it might not be an unreasonable clarification. I prefer to keep to required clarifications though - things where there is a genuine possibility of misinterpretation (as opposed to doing something slightly different because you picked it up slightly wrong the first time and never reexamined it) or no actual clear direction of what to do in the rules. AFAIAC FFG staff time for the FAQ is a precious resource that we can't afford to waste on this sort of thing. However, I'd hope (hope springs eternal and all that!) that after the next FAQ change we might actually have a tidied and coherent enough ruleset (if you could call it that) that we do have the opportunity to 'waste' time on this sort of thing in the future.

I'm guessing, by your substitution comment, that you don't play a strict 'at once' rule - you would spend 2 fatigue to open a door, for example?
I suspect Mahkra's group also play fatigue as a substitution for MP exactly as you described (I would be shocked if he really insisted on not being able to enter a tree space with fatigue) so thanks also for a nice little piece of simplified explanation there.

For the most part there is not a lot of difference between playing a substitution rule and the strict RAW rule. It generally means that a hero can be slightly more efficient if using RAW. For example, if coming to a door when out of MP and with 2 fatigue left, spend both fatigue for MP, drink a fatigue potion with 1 MP (temporarily 'storing' the other) then spend one more fatigue to open the door (total saving, 1 fatigue, and only because of the exact placement situation of the door - one space either way and it would all be the same...). For the most part it is a minor detail - it can help a little more when you have very expensive actions to do - like 3MP at a time for using a ship station in SoB or 5MP for Thorn's Teleport.
Generally I would be surprised if we ever actually use the difference between these two rules more than once per session (not playing with Thorn in any current campaign).

Corbon said:

I know this forum well and considered my words very carefully before opening my mouth.

Corbon said:

I think the time it would make significant difference would be regarding any ability which regains fatigue mid turn. Vampiric Blood is the one that is floating around my head at the moment, but I'm sure there are plenty more.

Take the not unlikely combo of Landrec the Wise with full fatigue, Vampiric Blood and a Blast rune declaring a battle action. As I now understand it, he could spend five fatigue to gain five movement points, make some sufficiently devastating Blasts to regain full fatigue and only then spend his movement points to move away while sitting pretty with full fatigue.

In the suitably contrived, but not wholly unreasonable circumstances of facing large numbers of monsters at the start of his turn, he could

Spend 5 fatigue for movement

Kill 5 monsters (regain fatigue)

Spend 5 fatigue for movement

Kill 5 monsters (regain fatigue)

Spend 5 fatigue for movement

Move 19 spaces using fatigue alone, quaffing a potion on the way.

I'd have no trouble with him moving this distance if able to attack and replenish his fatigue along the way, but storing movement points up like this just really doesn't sit comfortably with me. But I suppose that will just be our house-rule. Anyway, enough of a tangent from the main debate...