9. Healing skills in Advanced Campaigns

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

Background:
There are two heroes, Ispher and Red Scorpion, who have special abilities that entail round by round healing properties. In the Advanced Camapigns these heroes are allowed to heal to full capacity each time the party returns to the overland map - effectively they have limitless 'rounds' at this time.

There are also skills which confer similar abilities.
A hero with Earth Pact may heal at twice the rate of either Ispher of Red Scorpion if he does not move.
A hero with Ran's Mark may heal any or all *other heroes* up to the limit of his wounds if given the time and space.

So how do these skills interact with the party-map-board dynamic in the Advanced campaigns?

Question:
Q. Do the skills Earth Pact and Ran's Mark have any effect when the party ends a dungeon or encounter in Advanced Campaigns?
A1. No, these skills do not have any affect outside of a dungeon or encounter.
A2. A hero with Earth Pact is instantly healed to full wounds whenever the party returns to the Advanced Campaign map. A hero with Ran's Mark may use Ran's Mark as many times as he wants to heal other all heroes (and take wounds himself) whenever the party returns to the Advanced Campaign map. He may also combine this effect with drinking any number of healing potions to increase his wounds and the number of other wounds he may heal.
A3. Some other combination?

Corbon said:

Question:
Q. Do the skills Earth Pact and Ran's Mark have any effect when the party ends a dungeon or encounter in Advanced Campaigns?
A1. No, these skills do not have any affect outside of a dungeon or encounter.
A2. A hero with Earth Pact is instantly healed to full wounds whenever the party returns to the Advanced Campaign map. A hero with Ran's Mark may use Ran's Mark as many times as he wants to heal other all heroes (and take wounds himself) whenever the party returns to the Advanced Campaign map. He may also combine this effect with drinking any number of healing potions to increase his wounds and the number of other wounds he may heal.
A3. Some other combination?

All good answers. Personally I'd be inclined to think it's A2 (by the same reasoning as RS and Ispher.) Unless Ran'a Mark explicitly denies the hero from killing himself to heal others, I wouldn't waste healing potions to use the ability, personally. Just caclulate how many wounds you can heal while cycling your own health value, and stop when the collective number of wounds to be healed on other heroes is less than another cycle (so you have full wounds and the rest of the party is 90% healed.)

I guess that begs the question of what happens if a hero dies on the Overland map, but outside of any encounter or dungeon. I'm not sure if there's any other way to do it, so the rules may not even address the possibility. My guess would be the hero dies, gets resurrected and then rejoins the party, like the dead party members after an encounter that ended in Party Fled. At least that's the basis of my idea about not wasting healing potions.

I seem to recall a similar question about the Red Plate of Kellos, a gold armor from ToI that heals you upon the successful completion of a Rest order.

Antistone said:

I seem to recall a similar question about the Red Plate of Kellos, a gold armor from ToI that heals you upon the successful completion of a Rest order.

Indeed, I think it was me who brought it up but had since forgotten - it definitely needs to be added in to the question, thanks.

Revision: Added Red Plate of Kellos

Background:
There are two heroes, Ispher and Red Scorpion, who have special abilities that entail round by round healing properties. In the Advanced Camapigns these heroes are allowed to heal to full capacity each time the party returns to the overland map - effectively they have limitless 'rounds' at this time.

There are also skills and a Treasure which confer similar abilities.
A hero with Earth Pact may heal at twice the rate of either Ispher of Red Scorpion if he does not move.
A hero with Ran's Mark may heal any or all *other heroes* up to the limit of his wounds if given the time and space.
A hero with Red Plate of Kellos recovers wounds simply by 'resting'.

So how do these skills interact with the party-map-board dynamic in the Advanced campaigns?

Question:
Q. Do the skills Earth Pact and Ran's Mark and Treasure Red Plate of Kellos have any effect when the party ends a dungeon or encounter in Advanced Campaigns?
A1. No, these skills and this treasure do not have any affect outside of a dungeon or encounter.
A2. A hero with Earth Pact is instantly healed to full wounds whenever the party returns to the Advanced Campaign map. A hero with Ran's Mark may use Ran's Mark as many times as he wants to heal other all heroes (and take wounds himself) whenever the party returns to the Advanced Campaign map. He may also combine this effect with drinking any number of healing potions to increase his wounds and the number of other wounds he may heal. A hero with the Red Plate of Kellos may/may not
(one) also recover all his wounds when returning to the campaign map. The Red Plate of Kellos may/may not (one) also pass the Red plate of Kellos to other party members. This means that effectively the entire party can recover all wounds at the end of each battle (last sentence if inappropriate) .
A3. Some other combination?

Comments: Any more revisions or comments before adding it to the FAQ proposal document?

I vote to remove this question from the list.

The rules are clear. And there is no balance problem. And I don't think this is really asked that frequently. The entire proposal is based on wishful thinking. The RAW may infer (to some people) that there are limitless dungeon rounds in a campaign week, but that inference isn't a rule, so there's no contradiction, and no problem.

-pw

I would like to get the answer to this, and I don't think the rule is as clear as pw states. Maybe I'm just too new. At any rate, the A2 answer above makes a lot of sense to me, and yes, I do generally operate on the default assumption (unless I'm given a specific reason to believe otherwise) that the difference between tactical time (in encounters and dungeons) and strategic time (the overworld map) is sufficiently large that the party can take any number of tactical-time actions in strategic time before the next tactical scenario arises. That seems to be to common operating assumption underlying Red Scorpion and Ispher's special abilities and the Party Recovery rules.

Yeah I'm curious to see how they respond to this as well. I hope they give an actual ruling for the "rule" rather than the specific cards though. There are quite a number of various heroes, skills, or items this could apply to and to list them would be rather tricky, not to mention obsolete if another expansion was released. Aurim is a hero I've always wondered about in this regard, his card says he can change one potion per turn, and the rules state that players may freely exchange items between dungeons. Does this mean that Aurim can change an unlimited number of potions to be whatever he wants them to be and give them back to the party in a game week? So hopefully they give a ruling, rather than answer about specific cards.

Kartigan said:

Yeah I'm curious to see how they respond to this as well. I hope they give an actual ruling for the "rule" rather than the specific cards though. There are quite a number of various heroes, skills, or items this could apply to and to list them would be rather tricky, not to mention obsolete if another expansion was released. Aurim is a hero I've always wondered about in this regard, his card says he can change one potion per turn, and the rules state that players may freely exchange items between dungeons. Does this mean that Aurim can change an unlimited number of potions to be whatever he wants them to be and give them back to the party in a game week? So hopefully they give a ruling, rather than answer about specific cards.

You might like to go back and read Aurim's card again and reappraise your thoughts.
Particularly the last sentence.
cool.gif

sonrojado.gif Hah, that's what I get for talking about cards without looking at them to confirm I'm remembering them correctly first....... I suppose there would then be a question about whether the game week is "During his Turn" or not, but honestly, I don't know that whether or not he changes all the party's potions around each week is that huge of a deal, especially since he tends to be a hero not chosen often (unless you really need a runner).

i know the faq has already been submitted, but anyway...

Red Scorpion and Ispher's abilities specifically state at the begining of their turn, in regards to Aurim (and Sahla), then yes it can be ruled he specificly could do this.

The point on Earth Pact is moot since it was already removed via faq for RtL and removed in the rulebook for SoB. otherwise, yes, it would heal them.

Ran's Mark is an action that specificly states "during your turn," as the above heroes do, so it can be ruled that a player can use this skill.

Red Plate of Kellos specificly states "If you recover fatigue by resting, you may also recover 3 wounds." Since you cannot use a Ready:Rest during overland game time, you cannot use this to heal in this instance.

Likewise, this brings up using the "equip and burn items" like Jinn's Lamp, which heals all adjacent heroes for 8 and restores their fatigue to max. which i also allow using, since you can equip during overland actions.

now cards like Brin's mark, and Koll's mark become questionable because they are "during your turn" skills the same as ran's that create order and attack actions, which normally can't be performed outside of the dungeon/encounter/island.

Torin Negatia said:

i know the faq has already been submitted, but anyway...

Red Scorpion and Ispher's abilities specifically state at the begining of their turn, in regards to Aurim (and Sahla), then yes it can be ruled he specificly could do this.

Aurim and Sahla are irrelevant.

Red Scorpion and Ispher are explicitly allowed to use their healing special abilities (actually as though there were unlimited turns) by the RtL and SoB rules.

Torin Negatia said:

The point on Earth Pact is moot since it was already removed via faq for RtL and removed in the rulebook for SoB. otherwise, yes, it would heal them.

No, it is not removed for RtL. I think you might be thinking of Bear Tattoo. Earth Pact is trainable at Nerekhall and has not been removed by FAQ. As stated, it does not heal a hero at the end of a dungeon encounter, but given that RS and Ispher's abilities do, it would seem logical that it should .

Torin Negatia said:

Ran's Mark is an action that specificly states "during your turn," as the above heroes do, so it can be ruled that a player can use this skill.

Well, you would think so, much as Earth Pact, though it is much more abuse-able balance wise. But the fact is that as the rules stand, you can not use it. Ispher and Res Scorpion do not get 'turns' in which to use their abilities, though that is the effect. Their abilities simply work (slightly differently to normal) by rules fiat.

Torin Negatia said:

Red Plate of Kellos specificly states "If you recover fatigue by resting, you may also recover 3 wounds." Since you cannot use a Ready:Rest during overland game time, you cannot use this to heal in this instance.

We know, mechanically, that recovering fatigue on the OL map is not done by 'resting'. Yet that is surely how it is done 'under the cover' so to speak.

This stuff is basically just inconsistent. FFG could rule any way they like, but it is worth asking a question when there are inconsistencies of application found in the rules. IMO at least.

my bad, was thinking of bear tattoo. and i was just trying to list the things left out of the arguement that were not already mentioned. imo, i disagree with this whole train of thought alowing these effect. it creates an extreme unbalance towards the players, even if it is just during the overland portion of the map.

Torin Negatia said:

my bad, was thinking of bear tattoo. and i was just trying to list the things left out of the arguement that were not already mentioned. imo, i disagree with this whole train of thought alowing these effect. it creates an extreme unbalance towards the players, even if it is just during the overland portion of the map.

I agree that the Armour would not be helpful balance wise. But it is a fair issue of consistancy. I wpuld prefer they ruled against this.

SoB is such a mess that at the moment Ran's Mark being applicable is irrelevant balance wise, though I generally think it would be overpowering the skill to allow it's unrestricted use on the Map. But there would still be skills availabel that would be considerably more overpowered so it is not exactly game breaking, or even game changing.

Earth Pact though is a weak skill that no competent person in their right mind would current acquire in RtL. Allowing it to function on the campaign map similar to the way Ispher and Red Scorpion's special abilities function would actually actually make the skill worth thinking about and increase the variety of decent (not great, but acceptable) choices and options without fundamentally changing the balance in the game (there are still much better skills out there that the heroes could choose instead, overall).
Basically the point here is that improving the crap choices available does not significantly alter the balance of the game as crap choices won't be chosen anyway. But increasing some of the crap choices to moderate choices is good for the game as it introduces more variety and a wider style potential without increasing the actual power level that well be used.

i completely agree that it would be nice to have some better choices. I've even been thinking about allowing some of the banned skills back into my SoB game (RtL is the only thing i don't own) but i disagree with allowing this type of change for one simple reason: allowing some of the "weaker" skills to do would make some of the already strong skills become over balanced. if you only allow the weaker ones to do that, then ppl will just complain that the strongers skills are so similar that shey should be allowed to.

i'm hoping (as a player and OL) that FFG makes the ruling that these are simply additional abilities ONLY for Ispher and Red Scorpion so it doesn't throw the game completely off balance (or more off balance if you play SoB.)

i just removed the red plate out of our game, due to the fact, that other items that heal are taken out.