If you have ideas for the FAQ that haven't shown up yet, please check out the google group first.
You don't have to be a member to read the threads.

Everything from the google group will eventually be moved here, we are just doing it a few threads at a time to prevent swamping people with too much to comment on. So if your issue is already on the google group but not here, then please be patient and comment when it does get a thread here.

If you have an issue or idea that hasn't been mentioned on the google group, then please place suggestions here, in this thread. Any new suggestions can be looked at and if found suitable a new thread can be created for that suggestion.

Ideally you should have already posted issues in the regular forum or BGG, before coming here, to check that they are in fact an issue that doesn't have a clear rules explanation or easy general agreement. We don't really want to clog up this sub-forum with 'issues' that already do have clear answers.

Thanks.

Good to see things are moving for the new FAQ version. I'll gladly contribute.

My first question will be about leaving an Island level with the ship.

Q: When the heroes flee from an Island level by leaving the map with the ship, do the heroes get back to their home port, or do they remain on the Island location?

A1: They get back to their home port. The Island location is marked as explored. The game week ends.

A2: They remain on the Island location, which is marked as explored. The game week ends.

Comments: When fleeing a dungeon through glyphs, the heroes get back to their home port. When fleeing an encounter by leaving the map with the ship, the heroes are able to sail on. The rules do not say what happens to heroes who leave an Island level with their ship.

My second question will be about the "damage ignoring armor" problem.

Q: Does "damage ignoring armor" only ignore the numerical value of the damaged figure's armor, or does it also ignore the special abilities of any equipped armor?

A1: It only ignores the numerical value of the damaged figure's armor.

A2: It both ignores the numerical value of the damaged figure's armor and the special abilities of any armor it has equipped.

Comments: There is a large forum consensus that such damage only ignores the numerical value of the armors, not their special abilities (like rolling dice to reduce damage from various cloaks). However, it would be nice to have a FAQ answer cover this, otherwise new players will come up with this (justified) question until the end of times. And who knows - maybe we were all wrong?

Q. The condition for turning the reinforcement marker in RtL is "new dungeon level". In SoB the condition is "new dungeon level or area".

Are these intended to be different?

Answers:

A1: Yes it works diferent in SoB and the marker can be flipped when a new area its revealed only in SoB campaigns.

A2: No, use the SoB rules for both RtL and SoB, that means in both campaignsthe marker can be flipped back when a new area its revealed.

A3: No,It was a mistake to add that to SoB use the RtL rules, that means you can flip back the marker only every new level.

3 questions. They're simple (fortunately), but I didn't see them in the google group or the FAQ. They are all basically RtL questions, although the first one COULD conceivably be more general in the face of custom heroes and such.

Q : Are the Fatigue tokens shipped with the game meant to be a limiting component? I.e. If you have an RtL party with 5 fatigue all around that already has Skilled and Tiger Tattoo, then NO ONE can buy Secret Master fatigue training because there are no fatigue tokens left in the box? (I think I've seen Corbon say that it IS supposed to be limiting, but I don't know what backs up this claim, as the FAQ is certainly silent)

A1: Yes, the tokens are limiting.

A2: No they are not. Use something else if they run out.

Q: If the Overlord uses the 'Focused' upgrade to send a Power card (such as DOOM!) to the Graveyard, do Lieutenants who 'have' that power still place the card in play during their battles and when fortifying nearby dungeons?

A1: No they do not; the card is out of play forever!

A2: They still get the benefit of the card, it is simply no longer in the Overlord deck.

Q: The current FAQ states that 'Heroes are never immune to a final Avatar's attack.' Does this mean that Heroes cannot be immune to ANY aspect of the Avatar's attack (e.g. is a hero with Ironskin immune to the Sorcerer King's Sorcery ability? Is a hero with Ox Tattoo immune to the Spider Queen's Web ability on her attack?)?

A1: Heroes can be immune to abilities of Avatars; they just cannot nullify the attack dice themselves.

A2: A hero can never be immune to ANY aspect of an Avatar's attack.

The_Immortal said:

Some good extra questions all round.

McManus , IMO your question is sufficiently covered by existing rules and isn't necessary, but I'm not the sole arbiter of such things. What do others think?

Ispher , I think the armour question is unnecessary - there is only one way you can grammatical construe the wording and it is backed up by long precedent now. Again, what do others think?
(I think the fleeing question is definitely worth a thread)

The_Immortal , all good thread-worthy questions I think. I was actually wondering, for the above question, shouldn't Lts get the same priviledges? A number of Lts, for example, have no possible capability for killing Zyla as both they and all their minions are melee only (especially in SoB where there are no treachery boosts). Should we extend the above question to Lts as well?
The answer might simply be 'don't buy that Lt then' but even that seriously reduces an OL's options for winning the game.

Corbon said:

Actually, I wouldn't mind having this one clarified, either. Up until I read this question, I had been operating on the assumption that the marker DID flip every time a new Area was revealed, and that this simply worked out once per level most of the time since 99% of dungeon levels only have one area. The weird thing is I've been operating on this understanding since I started playing RtL, which was long before SoB was released.

Looking through the rules now I can find no support for my (apparently mistaken) interpretation, and I'm really wondering how I got there in the first place. I wouldn't mind an official answer on this, perhaps there's some obscure reference in an example for RtL that gave me the idea, and they forgot to elaborate on it in the black and white.

I agree the rules as written are fairly clear, but I have a nagging feeling McManus may be on to something worth asking here. My vote would be to include it.

Corbon said:

This one I agree is unnecessary. Those of us who have been around these forums since the dawn of time (two forum software iterations ago!) should remember back when Kevin himself stepped in to clarify this question. All grammatical debates aside, the consensus of the forum is definitely correct, because Kevin told us so himself once upon a time.

I suppose I can't fault newer members for wanting it written down somewhere official, though. With all the twisty rulings that come out of this game, it's hard to accept things on faith.

I'd still like clarification on Secret Training.

From the RTL rules:

Secret Training
When the party takes a game week Recuperate/Train action at a Secret Master Area, a hero can increase either his maximum wounds by four, or his maximum fatigue by two (see “Secret Training” on page 23). This may be done only once at each campaign level, and each hero may increase either his wounds or his fatigue – but not both – at each campaign level. At Copper level, a wound or fatigue upgrade costs 500 coins and 20 XP. At Silver level,
this training costs 750 coins and 25 XP. Finally, at Gold level, it costs 1,000 coins and 30 XP. Once the appropriate cost is paid, the hero player takes the wound or fatigue upgrade token that corresponds to the current campaign level.

and

Secret Master Areas
The Secret Master Areas, Shika’s Tree and Olmric’s Hut, are the homes of two of the greatest legends of the last age, and heroes who seek them out can learn invaluable capabilities from them. If the hero party ends their game-week movement in a Secret Master Area, nothing happens immediately. However, if the heroes choose a Recuperate/Train action while at a Secret Master Area, they have the option to improve their maximum wounds or maximum fatigue. See “Secret Training” on page 23 for detailed information. Heroes can also opt to learn skills or improve their traits at Secret Master Areas, in similar fashion to training at a city’s Training Ground . See “Hero Upgrades” on page 23. Rumors cannot be located at Secret Master Areas, nor can lieutenants enter or fortify them.

Most specifically my issue is with the wording in Bold. It can be read in two different ways.

Which of these two interpretations is intended in this paragraph.

A.) The Heroes may choose one of three options when choosing a Train/Recuperate action at a Secret Master Area. They may partake of Secret Training, they may partake of Skill upgrades, or they may partake of Trait upgrades.

B.) When choosing a Train/Recuperate action at a Secret Master Area the heroes may partake of Secret Training in addition being able to partake of a Skill upgrage or Trait upgrade.

I can read this paragraph either way and while my group has come to a consensus based on the forum discussions and our discussions I still feel that this needs to be clarified as the two options can create very different results.

dragon76 said:

My personal vote on this one is definitely no. IMO this one is all about munchkins twisting words to powergame (not talking about you personally Dragonfan - it sounds like you are fighting your players on this one) rather than genuine rules enquiries - but that is very definitely a personal opinion only.
Other's thoughts please?

BTW, my numbering is getting a wee bit out from the google group, for various reasons, so I'll probably borrow a couple of questions from this thread during my next 'release' just to make keeping track easier. 'Which' I introduce will not be a commentary on which are FAQ worthy questions or not and will later be introduced, just me grabbing a couple of clear ones earlier than planned because I think they are 'obvious' candidates for FAQing and don't need more input.

Corbon said:

I think we have resolved it in our current campaign so that it will not crop up again. However there are future campaigns to think of and I'd really like a definitive answer as the wording of the above relevant paragraph is unfortunately vague. I firmly believe it is an A.) or B.) or C.) option as I can't envision anything else being intended. However, I also have to admit that taken sentence by sentence the paragraph can be read either way.

As can be seen by the varied opinions on this thread :

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=4&efcid=1&efidt=310617

I really feel that it should be clarified.

dragon76 said:

I agree that the Secret Training passage you quoted is vague at best and is a good candidate for FAQage. My personal answer would be A) from the possible answers you provide.

Steve-O said:

I would guess your impression may be related to a house rule I saw suggested on the forums around the time Road to Legend came out (which I think may have originally come from Kevin Wilson) that the reinforcement marker could be used in a vanilla game, refreshing each time a new area was revealed.

This is related to the Crystal of Tivaal thread (which reminded me of the issue), but is arguably a separate question, and at a minimum has wider implications:

There's a famous FAQ ruling concerning the timing of "start of turn" effects:

" Q: What is the proper timing of events that occur “at the beginning of a player’s turn”?
A: When multiple events may occur “at the beginning of a player’s turn,” such as a hero affected by multiple different status effects like Burn and Bleed, that player may decide in which order to resolve them. The player must resolve all “start of turn” effects before proceeding with the rest of his turn."

OK, actually, there's two separate issues related to this ruling. First, the one related to the Crystal:

Question 1: The hero player turn sequence described on page 8 of the rulebook has three steps: Refresh Cards, Equip Items, and Take an Action. Are any of these steps (in particular, the first two) considered to occur "at the beginning of a player's turn"? If so, is it possible to do "step 2" before doing "step 1", or before other "start of turn" effects? (For example, equipping the Ghost Armor before rolling for Burn tokens so that it can be used to cancel any resulting wounds.)

Corollary : This ties into the Crystal of Tivaal question because one of the interpretations (specifically, the one endorsed in the GLoAQ) is that they are used "at the start of your turn" but "after Step Two: Equip Items". If that is still "at the start of your turn", then according to the FAQ, you should be able to choose the order. So one of the following must be true:

• The FAQ answer in question should apply only to the timing of events that say NOTHING about their own timing EXCEPT "start of turn". Thus, "Step One" and "Step Two" still need to occur in order a specific order, and something that occurs "After Step Two" also needs to occur in a specific order.
• The Crystal of Tivaal (and similar items) should not be "start of turn" effects, and should be amended to say something to the effect of "Discard on your turn after resolving all 'start of turn' effects but before declaring your action..."
• The ruling on the Crystal of Tivaal in the GLoAQ is entirely wrong and needs to be reversed: you use it during your turn, and "after equipping items" is a clumsy allusion to the rule "A hero is not allowed to do anything except refresh and equip before he declares the action he is taking." (p.8)

Question 2: Can this ruling be extended to apply to other situations where two effects occur in response to the same trigger - for example, when using an Iron Shield, a Tunic, and Corbin's ability all to reduce wounds suffered from a single attack? If so, does "that player" refer to the player whose turn it is (e.g. the attacker), or to the player affected by those effects (e.g. the defender)? If it cannot be extended, how do we resolve the timing in other situations?

Extending this FAQ answer is popular, but I've seen people extend it both interpreting it as "the affected player chooses" and "the active player chooses", which of course lead to wildly different outcomes. And in any case, this game has so many triggered effects flying around that NOT having a general ruling on how to resolve simultaneous triggers is just stupid.

A possible new one, brought up from another thread.

Fog rules
Block Movement? No
Block Line of Sight? Yes
Figures adjacent to a fog space have line of sight to that space. A figure in a fog space has line of sight to all adjacent spaces, but not to any other spaces.

The sentence in bold doesn't appear to make sense really. Figure adjacent to a space usually have LOS to that space anyway . Unless it assumes that obstacles that block LOS block LOS into their space, not just through their space (which leads to Trees breaking the game and the oddness of Razorwings (all flyers) being able to attack from a rubble space while not being visible to those they are attacking - victims are being clawed, yet can't see the claws!).

However, the word "only..." at the beginning, and it all makes sense, and matches the principle of the second sentence as well.

" Only figures adjacent to a fog space have line of sight to that space. ..."

I don't know if anyone especially cares, but there's some potential confusion regarding the line-of-sight rules for pits and the Blast ability:

Pits: Read strictly, pits restrict the line-of-sight of figures that are in them (to adjacent spaces and connected pit spaces), NOT all line-of-sight that originates from that square.

"While in a pit, a figure has no line of sight to any other spaces." (JitD p.17), errata'd with "Figures in a pit can see into the spaces adjacent to the pit." (FAQ p.2) I think there was also a clarification at some point that figures in a pit can see through any number of contiguous pit spaces, though I don't recall where I read that.

Thus, for example, large monsters can trace line-of-sight from a pit square they occupy without having the distance restricted by the pit as long as the entire monster is not "in" the pit (which is probably good). On the other hand, Boggs the Rat can trace line-of-sight out of a pit space just fine, since he isn't a figure.

This also matters when you explicitly trace line-of-sight for a square, rather than a figure, which to my knowledge currently only happens for the Blast ability.

Blast: A Blast attack, as you know, affects squares in a radius around the target square. However, "A space is only affected by the Blast attack if it has line of sight to the target space." (JitD p.22).

Notice, first, that this condition is based on the line-of-sight of the space , not of the figure , and second, that it is based on having line-of-sight from the potential victim (space) to the center of the blast, NOT the other way around.

If pits hindered line-of-sight out of their space , rather than merely of figures that are in them, then this reversal would mean that Blast extends out of pits but not into them, opposite normal line-of-sight. However, since pits (again, read strictly) only affect the line-of-sight of figures and not of spaces, and since I am not aware of any other case in the game where line-of-sight is asymmetrical, that appears to be rendered moot: Blast extends both in and out of pit spaces. Which may actually make a lot of thematic sense, if you assume that the blast can be centered in mid-air above a pit.

All of which has the final result that the rules, while individually rather weird and counter-intuitive, actually seem to produce rather acceptable results in the final analysis when followed to the letter. The reversal of line-of-sight for a Blast attack looks ready to bite us somewhere down the line, but technically doesn't matter as long as the line of sight rules for spaces are symmetric. And the thing where pits only restrict the line-of-sight of figures in them (and not of the spaces themselves), while posing yet another trap for future expansion, actually seems pretty reasonable if you don't want large figures that are only partially over pits to be hindered by them.

So perhaps we should avoid disturbing the precariously-balanced tower and just ask "Do familiars in pits (in particular: Boggs the Rat) have their line-of-sight restricted in the same way as figures?"

Or, if we want to be proactive and try to clarify these rules against future confusion, this probably requires a more involved discussion of options.

How do Daze tokens affect a figure with the Bash ability?

Antistone said:

Wow, I cannot believe this question has never come up before! What would be a good way to handle it until we can get an official answer?

The two obvious possibilities are that you choose Bash dice, then apply Daze (which effectively means that you can choose to take the Daze tokens off of your maximum power dice instead of your actual power dice), or that you apply Daze, then choose Bash dice (which means you have to give up your non-power dice, but never lose your power dice). In the latter case, there's a sub-issue of whether you can neutralize a Daze token with an effect like DOOM! that nominally grants you an extra die but doesn't normally help with Bash.

The first option is arguably most consistent with the ruling in the last FAQ on the interaction of Daze and power potions (which was that you apply the power potion first, thus ensuring that power potions wouldn't suddenly become useful for anything).

The OL upgrade card "Transport Gem" says: Place this card in the graveyard to move one of your lieutenants to any legal location on the Terrinoth map, one time. Any Quest Items that the lieutenant may have been carrying are left behind.

Q: When exactly is the OL allowed to play and execute this card, and what consequences does this have on the associated game mechanics (Lieutenant orders, Lieutenant reinforcing a nearby dungeon, Lieutenant being on a city with sufficient siege tokens to grant a raze roll at the start of the OL´s game week)?

A1. The OL may play this card at any point in the game, during his game week or during the heros´ game week. If the heros are currently in a dungeon on or near the new Lt. location, the OL may immediately receive and use the reinforcement brought by the Lieutenant (Power card or extra threat tokens).

A2. The OL may play this card at any point in the game, during his game week or during the heros´ game week. If the heros are currently in a dungeon on or near the new Lt. location, the OL does not receive the reinforcement normally brought by the Lieutenant, since this is normally applied only when the heros are entering a dungeon.

A3. The OL may play this card at any point in the game during which the hero party marker is on the overland map (heros´ game week or OL game week). Once the heros have entered a dungeon, the card cannot be played in their game week.

A4. The OL may play this card at any point in his own game week only, but even before checking for a raze roll. Lieutenant orders are not affected in any way by this card and can be issued as normal, including to the Transported Lieutenant.

A5. The OL may play this card when he issues a "Move" order to a Lieutenant, thus enhancing and replacing that order. The Transported Lieutenant may not be issued another order in the same game week, but he can attack a hero party on his new location as normal.

A6. The OL may play this card when he issues a "Move" order to a Lieutenant, thus enhancing and replacing that order. The Transported Lieutenant may not be issued another order in the same game week, and he may not attack a hero party on his new location.

A7. Something else?

Parathion said:

A good formulation for a question worthy of inclusion in the FAQ, to which I'd like to know the answer.

I would actually like a clearly defined rule regarding if a crushing block can be placed next to a pit. Mainly because this would effect other things as well, such a lava, mud, ice, Dart fields, and all over obstacles that hinder/cause wounds when entered.

The current FAQ ruling makes no sense.

I think we need a clarification of the distinction between "Ranged" and "ranged".

Does the former always refer to "Attack with a weapon that has "Ranged" printed on its card"?

Does the latter always encompass all non-melee attacks?

(In other words: Does the capital letter "R" reliably indicate the distinction?)

A few RtL location cards come to mind, as well as Tobin´s special ability, which are a bit ambiguous currently.

I guess there are more cases in the rules and on the cards, but I don´t know whether all of them need to be hunted down and clarified individually.

...is there any case where there's serious reason to think that "ranged" means anything other than the attack type? (Which is NOT the same as "Attack with a weapon that has 'Ranged' printed on its card"; monsters do not use weapons, and even restricted to heroes that definition could easily break in the face of expansions, such as anything that gave a hero the Morph ability.)

I can't recall any occasion when I've been tempted to interpret "ranged" as meaning anything else, but I haven't played with Tobin or RtL. Let's please not invent additional definitions for technical terms unnecessarily.

Parathion said:

In SoB, on all island levels is the scrub, which adds +2 to the total range of an attack. I would like to know if this includes all non-melee attacks, or specifically the Range attack type.

I think a general clarification on some Dungeon levels would be good too in regards to this "ranged" VS " Ranged "

Jonny WS said:

I did a check once, for a thread on BGG (about scrub IIRC) and the capitalisation or not in 'Ranged' was not a fully reliable indicator.

Scrub is fairly clear because they add on the clarification that melee is not affected. That would be already clear if they were using 'ranged attack' as being only those from Ranged Weapons, rather than both, so that fact that they needed to put in the melee exemption clearly shows that they were using 'ranged attack' to mean any attack that uses Range as a factor (ie both Ranged and Magic.

Scrub
When making a ranged attack into or through a scrub space, every scrub space that line of sight is traced through adds two range to the total distance instead of one. Melee attacks are not affected by scrub .

Yes, its poorly written, but it is obvious what is meant.