New ideas for the FAQ

By Corbon, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark FAQ Update Discussions

Posted at

Parathion said:

Before posting questions here you should either thoroughly read the rules and the FAQ and/or start a discussion thread in the main forum to check if you overlooked something.

The answers to your questions are in the rules (first question: Yes. Home Port has no requirement to be in a seaside city. Heros have to travel on foot from there.) and in the FAQ (second question: No.).

Your remark is plain harassment. sad.gif

I know well enough what it takes to propose questions here. I was the first to answer this thread, to congratulate Corbon for starting it and to ask a question, which got included in the list of questions submitted to the new FAQ. Usually, I am knowledgeable enough in Descent rules (of which some are open to interpretation, hence the need for a new FAQ). I admit that I have missed the FAQ answer to the Dallak teleport, though.

I do however think that the Dallak-as-a-home-port question is legitimate. The rules don't forbid it, but making a home port of a city that doesn't have a port is... Strange.

Before the previous FAQ, the rules did not forbid a lieutenant teleport to Dallak either, and FFG decided to forbid it any way for the simple reason that it didn't make sense to have sea battles in the middle of the continent. Maybe they will also rule to forbid having Dallak as a home port because it doesn't make sense to have a home port without a port, who knows? lengua.gif

Posted at

Harassment? That one you will need to explain.

If you would like a rule change or addition (for whatever reason), then you should rephrase your question. The answer to the question as it is right now is clearly in the rules and it does not need to be asked.

Posted at

gran_orco said:


Ispher said:


For these reasons, I propose to add the question of whether a cannon can be fired multiple times a round or not to the FAQ.

Me too. Can you do the question in the faq proposal section?

Following the request of gran_orco on the main page thread, I propose the following question to be added to the FAQ:

Q: Can cannons be fired multiple times a turn?

A1: No. The fatigue tokens placed on cannons after they are fired (rulebook p. 26: " Whether a cannon attack hits or not, place a fatigue token on the cannon like a ship’s station that has been manned. Remove fatigue tokens from cannons at the same time they are removed from ship’s stations ") work like the fatigue tokens placed on ship stations, i.e. they prevent the cannons to be fired more than once per round.

A2: Yes. The fatigue tokens placed on cannons after they are fired only serve to indicate that the cannons stay on the "hot side" the round after they have been fired.

Posted at

The question discussed here could be asked as well: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=4&efcid=1&efidt=362546

Q. Do creatures with the Fly ability also gain Soar in an Island level of a SoB campaign? Do creatures with the Soar ability get to use it in such a level?

A1. Yes, they do, since there is nothing to restrict their movement in the air above an island.

A2. No, they don´t. An Island level is still part of a dungeon, so all rules pertaining to dungeons still apply.

Posted at

Is there any idea of adding these questions to the final FAQ document? When could we see the next faq?

Posted at

Apologies to all for 'disappearing' for the last two weeks or so. I'm on holiday in NZ and our plans have been much disrupted by the Christchurch earthquake. We weren't there at the time but it is my home town and we were due to stay there for 10 days or so during the last two weeks visiting family and friends. No one I know is among the dead so far but my grandparents, whom we were to stay with, have had their house badly damaged and did not have any power, water or sewerage during the whole time we would have been staying with them. They still only have power. We stayed at my uncle's farm 120km out of the city and made day trips in and out to see family.
Due to 4hrs+ travel time per day (with a 1 yr old stuck in a car seat) and a less accessible internet connection than expected where we stayed there just wasn't the time, energy, focus or accessability to continue working on this project during the holiday as I had hoped.

We are returning home over the weekend and I have started work on the draft final FAQ document already.

Last year the final FAQ process seemed to take around 2-3 weeks in late march IIRC (I wasn't involved), and the final FAQ is dated 31 March. So I am guessing FFG will want to keep that schedule, though I don't know what the latest contact details are.

What I am doing (when time allows) at the moment is cut and pasting the 'final' version from threads where I did a 'final' repost and then editing the final post in accordance with any comments that followed.
I would have preferred to keep redoing 'final' reposts in the thread but there needs to be a cutoff point within the threads and time and resources seem to me to be saying we are past that now and trying to move forward. That does not mean that new ideas or ideas that don't yet have a thread will get missed, just that I am moving forward on the older threads now. Sorry that it won't be quite as transparent a process as I tried to keep it.

More later...

Posted at

......Oh my God.......

Posted at

Update : Some extras added that haven't got threads. I'm now working directly in the main document, though if time allows I'll cut and past to new threads for checking

101. Ispher: Island flee #14
102. Ispher: Damage ignores armour #39
103. McManus: Reinforcement Marker in new dungeon levels #48
104. Immortal: Fatigue tokens limiting? #21
105. immortal: Focused out power cards #26
106. Immortal: Immunity to Avatars #27
107. Dragon76: Secret Training 3 options? #25
108. Antistone: Start of Turn clarifications #43
109. Antistone: Extended ruling to all situations - sort of covered by 43 above?
110. Corbon: Fog #40
111. Antistone: Familiars in Pits (or make it bigger)
112. Antistone: Daze + Bash #13
113. Parathion: Transport Gem timing #41
114. Gran Orco: Threat from Dark Charmed attack #42
115. Gran Orco: One Fist attack #43
116. Feat timing review - or is that 109?
#44. What is a figure
#45. Dar Hilzernod Reinforcing
117. Parathion: Non combat encounters that do wounds and wound prevention items - IMO NN
118. Parathion: selection of rumour and encounter stuff - IMO only Wandering Merchant is worthy
120. Parathion: Cannons and fatigue markers #46 - includes multiple firing
121. Parathion: Ascension - comets and wounds = 0 #47
Parathion: Riposting a Swoop #51
Gran Orco (mod): Lunge #52 includes Counterattack
Ispher: Dallak #53
Parathion: Soar on islands #54

Feel free to comment in support or against those without #s.

Two areas that I could really use some help with:
#13 Daze is still a bit of a mess - it seems there are lots of combined questions that need sorting into something coherent.
#30 Large monsters and terrain. Antistone did a big post in this thread with some much better ideas about going back to original principles than my OP question/change proposal. I personally think we would be better going with his suggestion, but it needs a bit of formatting and editing to fit within the background:Q&As/Suggested Errata:Commentary format

Posted at

What is about changing any rules of SOB to adjust the difficulty? Maybe about lieutenants fleeing. angel.gif

Posted at

SoB starting location:

The SoB rulebook states to place the hero partyhome port marker in Gafford at the campaign start.

The starting plot cards state that the heros have found the Revenge in Garrett .

This keeps confusing players where to actually start the campaign.

While the current rules are clear enough, I noticed that the skills available in Garrett are similar to those available in Tamalir in RtL, so I wouldn´t be too surprised if the rulebook is in error.

I didn´t check any implications of the starting location on their relation to OL keepsLt. starting locations, though.

Q. The SoB rulesthe SoB plot cards name different cities as starting locations for the campaign. What is the correct starting location for the hero partyhome port marker in SoB?

A1. The rules are in errorshould read: "Place the hero party marker in Garrett, the location on the map where the heroes begin the Advanced Campaign. Place the Home Port marker on Garrett as well. Until the heroes visit another city, Garrett is where they will return when using glyphs to visit town."

A2. The rules are correct. The plot card text is in errorshould state "Gafford" as well / the heros took the Revenge out for a spin before actually starting the campaign (choose one).

Posted at

The forum software obviously started to remove the words "a n d" / "o r", which is why my last posting is a bit odd to read. Weird.

Posted at

Restock action in ACs:

It is somewhat unclear for a hero´s turn what exactly is replaced by the Glyph / Restock action in an Advanced Campaign.

The current FAQ entry says that the hero "just restocks", which leaves some room for interpretation.

A hero turn consists of (DJitD, pg. 8):

Step 1: Refresh cards
Step 2: Equip items
Step 3: Take an action

Step 2 includes the use of healing items like Crystal of Tival (or rather it is done after step 2 but prior to step 3, according to the GLoAQ/FAQ answer).

In addition, there may be some start-of-turn effects that have to be resolved in a hero´s turn, like Burn / Bleed status markers, removal of a Stun marker, + probably some dungeon specific start-of-turn effects.

It even may affect the hero´s decision what to do in his turn if some of the steps / effects are resolved, e.g. a hero would choose to restock if he takes several wounds from Burn tokens, but would continue in the dungeon if he rolls a lot of surges + the Burn tokens are removed with no effect.

So the timing of when the hero has to decide to glyph out + restock can make a difference as well.

Q1. What exactly is in a hero´s turn who decides to Restock in an AC?

A1-1. All steps except Step 3 are mandatory for a hero´s turn, regardless of what he does in his turn. The Restock action replaces Step 3 only.

A1-2. The Restock action replaces the entire turn of the hero, none of the steps 1 to 3 are carried out, even start-of-turn-effects are not resolved.

A1-3. The Restock action replaces the entire turn of the hero, none of the steps 1 to 3 are carried out, but all start-of-turn-effects / all non-dungeon specific start of turn effects (choose one) are still resolved as usual.

A1-4. Some other combination?

Q2. When does a hero actually have to decide his course of action if he has the option to Restock in an AC?

A2-1. This decision is the first thing a hero has to do in his turn. The hero cannot wait to see how e.g. the status tokens resolve first.

A2-2. The hero can resolve all start-of-turn effects (according to the selected answer to Q1.) first before he decides whether to Restock o r take a normal action.

Posted at

I know this thread is supposed to be finished but I don't know where else to post it. Several months ago, this post appeared in this thread:

Ispher said:

One of the most important questions of this new FAQ, of which a whole expansion depends, should be:

How is (or: how to make) Sea of Blood winnable (with more than a single digit percentage probability) for heroes against a competent OL who plays to win?

Under the current rules, Lieutenants seem to raze cities (or bindings) too easily and too soon to allow the campaign to last until the final battle. This is so because:

a) When fleeing, Lieutenants don't go away like they did in RtL, as they can come back the very following turn.

b) Lieutenants spawn at various places instead of a single place like in RtL, so heroes cannot protect part of the map like they could in RtL.

c) Like in RtL, it is almost impossible to kill a Lieutenant against a competent OL, as they can be placed very far from the ship, then flee on their first turn.

d) When chasing Lieutenants, heroes stop making the campaign progress after a while (when Islands have been explored), as they don't earn Conquest anymore. This gives the OL even more time to siege and roll for razes with the Lieutenants that are not currently chased. The "solution" to this could be to stop chasing Lieutenants and enter dungeons, but with unhindered sieging, the OL also seems to have the upper hand.

Proposed solutions (ideas are of course welcome):

A. No Lieutenant can be spawned before the Silver Age.

B. Razes happen on a blank, not on a surge.

C. It becomes progressively harder to raze cities: after 2 cities razed, the OL needs 2 surges (not necessarily in a row) to raze a city; after 4 cities razed, he needs 3. Or: one more surge for each city razed (1 for the 1st, 2 for the 2nd, 3 for the third, etc.).

D. Lieutenants cannot flee.

E. When fleeing, Lieutenants return to the OL's Keep. If it is landlocked, they need 1 week to get to the nearest city.

F. When fleeing, Lieutenants are removed from the map. They may return to their spawning location when the OL rolls a power enhancement (surge?) at the beginning of a week.

G. Sieges are broken whenever heroes successfully sail through the map.

H. ...

This should really, really be addressed in the FAQ, so that a party has good chances to enjoy a SoB campaign until the end .

Now, I just got the Spanish version of Sea of Blood for Christmas and, when reading, I found that one of these proposed solutions (E to be exact) had been used. According to the Spanish instruction manual, when a Lieutenant flees, it goes to the OL's Keep. Nothing is said about having to abandon a land-located keep though. So it is the same as in RtL. Now, I know the translatoros may have just copied and paste the paragraph from RtL, but I guess that's is the closer we can get to an oficial way to solve this balance issue.

Thanks for reading.

Posted at

Galvancito1 said:

I know this thread is supposed to be finished but I don't know where else to post it. Several months ago, this post appeared in this thread:

Ispher said:

One of the most important questions of this new FAQ, of which a whole expansion depends, should be:

How is (or: how to make) Sea of Blood winnable (with more than a single digit percentage probability) for heroes against a competent OL who plays to win?

Under the current rules, Lieutenants seem to raze cities (or bindings) too easily and too soon to allow the campaign to last until the final battle. This is so because:

a) When fleeing, Lieutenants don't go away like they did in RtL, as they can come back the very following turn.

b) Lieutenants spawn at various places instead of a single place like in RtL, so heroes cannot protect part of the map like they could in RtL.

c) Like in RtL, it is almost impossible to kill a Lieutenant against a competent OL, as they can be placed very far from the ship, then flee on their first turn.

d) When chasing Lieutenants, heroes stop making the campaign progress after a while (when Islands have been explored), as they don't earn Conquest anymore. This gives the OL even more time to siege and roll for razes with the Lieutenants that are not currently chased. The "solution" to this could be to stop chasing Lieutenants and enter dungeons, but with unhindered sieging, the OL also seems to have the upper hand.

Proposed solutions (ideas are of course welcome):

A. No Lieutenant can be spawned before the Silver Age.

B. Razes happen on a blank, not on a surge.

C. It becomes progressively harder to raze cities: after 2 cities razed, the OL needs 2 surges (not necessarily in a row) to raze a city; after 4 cities razed, he needs 3. Or: one more surge for each city razed (1 for the 1st, 2 for the 2nd, 3 for the third, etc.).

D. Lieutenants cannot flee.

E. When fleeing, Lieutenants return to the OL's Keep. If it is landlocked, they need 1 week to get to the nearest city.

F. When fleeing, Lieutenants are removed from the map. They may return to their spawning location when the OL rolls a power enhancement (surge?) at the beginning of a week.

G. Sieges are broken whenever heroes successfully sail through the map.

H. ...

This should really, really be addressed in the FAQ, so that a party has good chances to enjoy a SoB campaign until the end .

Now, I just got the Spanish version of Sea of Blood for Christmas and, when reading, I found that one of these proposed solutions (E to be exact) had been used. According to the Spanish instruction manual, when a Lieutenant flees, it goes to the OL's Keep. Nothing is said about having to abandon a land-located keep though. So it is the same as in RtL. Now, I know the translatoros may have just copied and paste the paragraph from RtL, but I guess that's is the closer we can get to an oficial way to solve this balance issue.

Thanks for reading.

To be honest I expect it is either a translation error or a cut and paste from RtL. I wouldn;t take it as representing anything official. As I understand it FFG is not directly involved in foreign language translations.
Certainly the german translation is riddled with errors.