Wind Pact question

By Toscadero, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Wind Pact states that when a new area is revealed that the player with Wind Pact can look at the Overlords hand and discard one card. My question is that when starting some dungeons there is a "Start Area" with a Glyph and about four steps to a closed door. On the other side of the door is "Area One". Does Wind Pact allow you to look and discard in both the "Start Area" and "Area One" or only "Area One" once it is revealed?

In the rumor dungeon last night we had a "Start Area", "Area One" and "Area Two" so the player looked at the Overlord hand three times for that level.

Thanks.

Toscadero said:

Wind Pact states that when a new area is revealed that the player with Wind Pact can look at the Overlords hand and discard one card. My question is that when starting some dungeons there is a "Start Area" with a Glyph and about four steps to a closed door. On the other side of the door is "Area One". Does Wind Pact allow you to look and discard in both the "Start Area" and "Area One" or only "Area One" once it is revealed?

In the rumor dungeon last night we had a "Start Area", "Area One" and "Area Two" so the player looked at the Overlord hand three times for that level.

Thanks.

Is the start area a new area?
Yes.

Just because it has a different designation ('start' instead of a number) doesn't stop it being a new area.

Thank you for the clarification.

Corbon said:

Toscadero said:

Wind Pact states that when a new area is revealed that the player with Wind Pact can look at the Overlords hand and discard one card. My question is that when starting some dungeons there is a "Start Area" with a Glyph and about four steps to a closed door. On the other side of the door is "Area One". Does Wind Pact allow you to look and discard in both the "Start Area" and "Area One" or only "Area One" once it is revealed?

In the rumor dungeon last night we had a "Start Area", "Area One" and "Area Two" so the player looked at the Overlord hand three times for that level.

Thanks.

Corbon said:

Is the start area a new area?
Yes.

Just because it has a different designation ('start' instead of a number) doesn't stop it being a new area.

Does the OL have cards when the start area is revealed though? I'm looking through the PDF and cannot for the life of me find the step where the OL draws his starting hand but I thought it occured after the starting area was populated. If the area is revealed while the OL has no cards then he has nothing to show to the player with Wind Pact does he?

"A step is missing from the “Game Setup” rules on page 6
of the rule book: The overlord player should start with 3
overlord cards and 0 threat tokens."

Be sure to read this link, lots of small stuff missing from the orginal printings. fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/descent/faq/descent-v-1-3.pdf

tundrra said:

"A step is missing from the “Game Setup” rules on page 6
of the rule book: The overlord player should start with 3
overlord cards and 0 threat tokens."

Be sure to read this link, lots of small stuff missing from the orginal printings. fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/descent/faq/descent-v-1-3.pdf

It certainly mentions the missing step, however the FAQ entry doesn't tell us where that particular step occurs.

Okay, so pulled my rules booklet.

5B. Put Starting Pieces on the Board

Finally, the overlord player places any monster figures, doors, or markers indicated in the start area of the quest. If a chest is indicated, the overlord draws a random chest marker from the appropriate pile, looks at its back, and then places it face up in the indicated space on the board. Finally, the overlord player draws three cards from the overlord deck. Play now begins with the hero players' first turn.

IMO this indicates that the area is revealed prior to the OL having any cards in hand.

I believe that was the conclusion reached the last time that issue was discussed (the overlord has no cards when the start area of a vanilla quest is revealed). However, the word "rumor" in the original post suggests to me that he was actually asking for purposes of an advanced campaign, which has different rules.

It was in fact the third level of a rumor dungeon so I did have cards in my hand at that time.

In a related question, from the past two posts, how does this work work for the first level of a Road to Legends dungeon. Do I pull my three cards before or after revealing the opening area?

Toscadero said:

It was in fact the third level of a rumor dungeon so I did have cards in my hand at that time.

In a related question, from the past two posts, how does this work work for the first level of a Road to Legends dungeon. Do I pull my three cards before or after revealing the opening area?

Unless otherwise mentioned in the RtL rules, nothing changes from vanilla. Since RtL doesn't say to do it differently, you should reveal the area and then draw your cards.

The "Start Area" in a non-RtL / SoB campaign is never revealed. The heros start there as part of the game setup. If you are saying wind pact should work during the game setup process then the OL should be able to play traps while the heros are still choosing starting locations, but that would be foolish. The game setup includes placing heros in the starting area, after which the game begins and hero abilities become active. Once the ability is active there is no new area revealed as they are in it already. However, an offical statement on this matter would be nice.

James McMurray said:

Toscadero said:

It was in fact the third level of a rumor dungeon so I did have cards in my hand at that time.

In a related question, from the past two posts, how does this work work for the first level of a Road to Legends dungeon. Do I pull my three cards before or after revealing the opening area?

Unless otherwise mentioned in the RtL rules, nothing changes from vanilla. Since RtL doesn't say to do it differently, you should reveal the area and then draw your cards.

If you apply that rule to Lieutenant encounters, the area would also be revealed before the OL draws any of his Treachery cards, so Wind Pact wouldn't work at all there. I find that highly doubtful. I don't know of any group that plays this way, in any case.

Maybe people here (also in the previous discussion) mistake the physical setting up of an area, the putting in place of the pieces, the revealing to the eyes of the players, with the revealing in game terms (to the eyes of the heroes on the board, so to say) that would happen when play starts. There is no "Now your Wind Pact resolves, but I have no cards in hand yet, ha!" because, per logical definition, nothing affecting play can happen before play starts .

CMoor213 said:

The "Start Area" in a non-RtL / SoB campaign is never revealed. The heros start there as part of the game setup. If you are saying wind pact should work during the game setup process then the OL should be able to play traps while the heros are still choosing starting locations, but that would be foolish. The game setup includes placing heros in the starting area, after which the game begins and hero abilities become active. Once the ability is active there is no new area revealed as they are in it already. However, an official statement on this matter would be nice.

DJitD pg13
Whenever a hero has line of sight to a previously unrevealed area of the map, it is immediately revealed by the overlord player.
The criteria for revelation is a hero having LOS. The heroes do not have LOS to the start area before they are placed there, even if the players can see what is there.

The OL can't play any traps when the heroes are placed because the triggering condition are not met - the triggering condition for space traps is the hero moving into the space - the hero is being placed in that space during setup, not moving there.

Hero abilities are clearly active during hero placement, or else familiars would not be placed.

And the OL definitely has cards during placement.
The missing step of collecting 3 cards is, according to the FAQ, supposed to be on pg6. That places it before OL step 5B on pg7, which means before the Glyph is placed. Although the heroes setup is on pg 6 it is supposed to be simultaneous - and/but clearly the heroes cannot place on or adjacent to the glyph before the glyph has been placed. Therefore drawing 3 cards is before placing heroes.

All of this is merely supporting evidence for the AC ruling which clearly states that Wind Pact does remove a card during encounters, which only have a start area.

I think there is very strong evidence that Wind Pact does work on the start area, though I can see why people think it is a grey area.

The start area is never unrevealed though, the heros start there. In a campaign it is unrevealed because there is a larger game going on, hence the ruling for Lt. fights. An offical statement on this would be nice though, as there are at least 4 other topics about the subject.

CMoor213 said:

The start area is never unrevealed though, the heros start there. In a campaign it is unrevealed because there is a larger game going on, hence the ruling for Lt. fights. An offical statement on this would be nice though, as there are at least 4 other topics about the subject.

A needed FAQ proposal, done through Corbon's, Parathion's and other people's hard work which I believed was supported by FFG, was sent to FFG 4 and a half months ago. We never heard about it since.

So unfortunately, you very probably won't get any such official statement because economically, this version of the game is dead for FFG.

All you'll get is the bitter squabbles in this forum. Make the most of it and choose the ruling that makes most sense to you.