From the RtL rules, pg. 14:

The Reinforce ability (a common ability on many Incident
cards) allows the overlord to place a new monster (or monsters)
of the listed type off the board, but next to one of the exit
spaces of the map (see “Exit Pieces” on page 32). ... On the overlord’s next turn, he may move the
reinforcements onto the map as though they were one space
away from the exit spaces they were placed next to .

Someone in the German forum claims that all purchased reinforcements in a given turn have to be placed near one specific exit (space). And since spawns in Lt. encounters are treated as reinforcements in all aspects, the spawned monsters would have to be placed near one specific exit as well. Both sets of monsters could not be split to be placed near several exit spaces.

I am not convinced and used to split the monsters among all exits as I desired.

How do other people play this or read the rules?

Parathion said:

I don't think he has anything concrete to back his interpretation.
Yes, spawns must be placed "next to one of the exit spaces", but I see no indication at all that the entire spawn is treated as one individual reinforcement rather than N individual reinforcements (where N is number of figures from the spawn card).
The nearest thing we have to extrapolate from is how spawns are treated in gungeons, where although all figures come from the same card they are each placed individually according to preference and can be (often must be) widely scattered.

Another small clues is that the quoted text above indicates "exit space s " - inferring that more than one space is possible even if it does not directly reference a spawn 'clutch' of figures directly.

In other words, your claimant is, IMO, pulling smoke from his unmentionables.
Of course, it could easily be a translation issue.

Corbon said:

I concur.

I think the English rules are fairly clear in the idea that monsters may be split amongst several exits when reinforcing. Perhaps the German rules were mistranslated, or perhaps the direct literal translation has slightly different connotations in German, but I don't believe that restricting all monsters to a single exit space is a reasonable interpretation of the rule. Both linguistically and in terms of game balance. If all the monsters were required to be spawned by one exit, it would be far too easy for a single hero with a decent area effect attack to mop them up as soon as they were on the board. Even in the best of circumstances, monsters are not generally known for their longevity.

Corbon said:

One could argue that the fact that it describes the reinforcement as "a new monster (or monsters)" implies that multiple monsters can be a single reinforcement in at least some cases.

Corbon said:

Unfortunately, there's another possible explanation for that - assuming that some exit is at least 2 spaces wide, even a single off-board reinforcement monster can be next to multiple exit spaces, even if there is only a single magical space that all of them must be next to.

I think it's possible to read those rules as implying that all the reinforcements on a given turn need to be bunched together. That might even be the only technically correct reading. It does say "place a new monster (or monster s )...next to one of the exit spaces", and I don't immediately see another technically satisfactory interpretation of that combination of phrases.

But it's also very similar to the wording of the Hordes of the Things power card, which also, when read strictly, requires the monsters to be bunched together. And that was FAQ'd to say that they could be placed separately (p.7; someone writing the question had a ridiculous misunderstanding, but the wording of the answer is very good). It is my suspicion that both are employing exactly the same sloppy wording, quite possibly even written by the same person using the same thought process. Thus, if this were ever addressed in a FAQ, I'd be surprised if they didn't tell you that monsters can be placed separately.

Parathion said:

We play that the OL may split his reinforcements. We never thought about the problem you raised. However, a good argument against is that the game plays better if the OL has the option to split. Having the possibility to attack (and to be attacked, from the point of view of the heroes) from various fronts makes the encounters a little more interesting than if the OL has to bunch all his reinforcements together.

When in doubt, we take the rule interpretation that makes the game better.

Antistone said:

Can be, not must be. But that is talking about normal reinforcements. Normal reinforcments can be bought singly or in multiples, as desired. There is no way you could claim that if I buy one reinfrocement and place it, then decide to buy another reinforcement that the above wording forces me to place it next to the same exit space. Maybe you could claim that if I bought two together I must place them at teh same space, bt that is only one possible reading without any backup giving it preference over another possible reading.
What we are interested in is whether a single spawn card counts as one reinforcement or as N reinforcements. Even if the worst reading ove is taken, it still only matters if a spawn card is defined as being a single reinforcement rather than N reinforcements.

GLOAQ
Can spawned monsters in outdoor encounters be activated the same turn or are they treated as reinforcements?
They are treated as reinforcements in all respects. The normal limit of one spawn card per turn still applies. They do not get to move until the next turn

I see nothing to indicate either way.

Given that spawns are normal aable to be spread all over a dungeon, it is very strange to claim, out two pssible options, that they must 'spawn' together.

Smoke out of his unmentionables.

Just to be clear: it is your assertion that the overlord IS constrained to place all monsters of a single reinforcement next to a single space, but that there is no limit to the number of separate reinforcements that can be purchased in a single turn, and even monsters that all come from a single action can count as separate reinforcements, and therefore this rule has NO impact on gameplay under any conceivable circumstances?

Antistone said:

No. I'm claiming the OL is not constrained - the wording isn't definitive, and in such cases I generally tend to go with the 'looser' application unless additional evidence can be brought to bear.

I'm also pointing out, that if you claim the OL is constrained (as apparently does some guy on the german forum) to place all monsters of a single reinforcement next to a single space, we still don't have anything to say that a spawn can counts as a single reinforcement instead of multiple reinforcements from a single card. (And no matter how you treat group reinforcements, single reinforcements don't have to all come in from the same space).
And adding as evidence against, that normal spawns are usually placed as individual, not a group. So treating them as a group would be a departure from normal rules and deserve additional text to state so.

Corbon said:

You think that the wording isn't definitive even if the monsters count as a single reinforcement? I'll grant that the wording is likely to be wrong, but I'm not sure what possibility you're suggesting that would prevent the wording "place...monsters...next to one of the exit spaces" from being definitive. Can you clarify?

Corbon said:

Surely that "monster (or monsters)" quote counts as evidence that some group of multiple monsters counts as a single reinforcement? You seem to be arguing that multiple monsters would never appear as a "single reinforcement".

Antistone said:

allows the overlord to place a new monster (or monsters) of the listed type off the board, but next to one of the exit spaces of the map

Partly because the sentence is 1 monster, next to one of the exit spaces. The option for more than one monster is an addition, not part of the basic sentence structure.
But mostly because it should read 'one exit space'.
'One of the exit spaces' is also fine language, but leads to unnecessary uncertainty. It can be read, casually (which is the style of the writing) that the 'one' is applicable due to the main sentence structure referring to a singular monster. The 'spaces' means that more than one optional exit space exists and with plural monsters being only sloppily added in could easily have not been fixed.
In other words, due to the generally crap writing in Descent, and the nature of the specific sloppiness in this sentence, I think there is plenty of doubt that multiple monsters who count as one reinforcement are forced to enter the same space.
This doubt is then accentuated by the uncertainty with spawns, and the fact that insisting on the harshest reading would change the nature of spawns even more than usual.
Just to cap it off, there are spawn cards (Kobold Treachery spawn) which have more figures coming in than spaces which can be reached from one starting location.

Too much evidence against, and the little evidence for is compromised.

Antistone said:

They can - you can choose to buy your normal reinforcements as a group, or choose to buy them one at a time (ie, pay 6 for 2x skeletons, or pay 3 for 1x skeleton twice).
I just don't see anything to indicate that a spawn card must be treated as a collectively group for placing purposes, when they certainly are not treaed that way normally.

Frankly it makes very little difference most of the time, except for a few spawn card options which is screws over, for no apparent reason.

Corbon said:

I'm not very familiar with the RtL rules, but are you saying that they created an extra rule to buy them as a group (rather than one at a time), increasing the complexity of the rules, entirely so that you could choose to prevent yourself from placing them separately, or perhaps for no reason at all? Really? They went to the trouble of writing in an extra option that no rational player would ever consider taking under any conceivable circumstances?

Do you have even the slightest bit of text evidence to suggest that they deliberately created the option of either buying a bunch of monsters as a single reinforcement or as separate reinforcements, at the same time, for the same cost? Because it sounds much more plausible to me that they intended all monsters purchased on the same turn to be covered collectively under the "monster (or monsters)" sentence.

I still don't think that they intended for all monsters part of "one reinforcement" to be placed together, but if they did, your argument that the restriction is trivially circumventable in 100% of all possible cases strikes me as pretty ridiculous.

Antistone said:

No, I think that they didn't deliberately creat any rule about groups of monsters reinforcing. I think they wrote a rule about how to reinforce, then realised that because it only talked about individual monsters some mook would interpret it that you couldn't reinforce multiple monsters in the same turn. So they hastily added a '(or monsters)' to the sentence and didn't tidy up afterwards.
That explains the awkwardness in the second sentence, which would better read (even casually) differently if multiple monsters were being intended to be being discussed.
If one claims that the Descent writing team deliberately created a minor rule, and the other claims that they accidentally created a rule badly and failed to tidy it up, I know who I'm going to believe...

Unfortunately they aren't very good a technical writing, nor editing, so some mook then took it to mean that all reinforcements must come in from the same spot, contrary to everything else about monsters appearing in Descent.

And lets face it, more often than not the OL doesn't particularly care whether the monsters come in from space A or space B since both entail exactly the same movement option anyway. It is only when reinforcing large groups together that it really starts to matter. (Space C and space D might be very differnt though).