Had a player with Aura 4 that I jumped with a blood ape. The blood ape was affected by Auro twice: once in front of the player and once behind the player.

Question is how aura would be inflicted. As the Overlord, I thought he would take 4 damage from each space for a total of 8 damage. The player claimed that the Blood Ape took 8 damage from each space for a total of 16 wounds as the ape is two spaces long and each part of him passed through those two areas. I felt that he shouldn't take damage twice from the same area because while it was a different part of his body occupying the space as he moved through, he never actually left the space until his back half went by.

How should it work?

Toscadero said:

Neither of you were right, sort of.

Leaping monsters are not affected by Aura (unless they land in it) as they do not actually enter the aura space.
FAQ pg
Q: When making a Leap attack, is the leaping figure subject to Guard attacks produced by abilities such as Alertness, and Aura? If the figure is damaged by any of those effects, may it apply its Berserk ability to its attack roll (assuming it has Berserk)?
A: Yes on most counts. Leaping figures are immune to Aura , but otherwise subject to all the above noted effects. It may apply its Berserk ability if it takes damage during its leap. Note that if the figure is slain by any of these effects, then it may not make an attack roll at all. Guard
may only be activated before or after a Leap attack is performed, never during.

That apart, you were right, though not for the reason you quoted. It is not about what spaces were entered or stayed in (under that reasoning if you entered two aura spaces when using inclined movement you'd still take double damage), what matters is the rules for large monsters.

There is a longish and at times rather messy thread here discussing this.

In short, the rules are fairly clear that large monsters only suffer damaging effects (attacks, terrain, Aura etc) the same amount as small figures would.

Thanks for the clarification. Knowing that leaping figures are immune would have settled the whole argument for the night. And you were right about the thread being long and confusing. It did help.

Corbon said:

Based on a quick skim, it looks like that thread discusses what happens when a large figure takes a single step that causes it to enter two aura-affected squares simultaneously.

The situation described with the Blood Ape in this thread is when it takes a step that puts its "front half" into an aura square, then another step that puts its "back half" into the same aura square. That's a completely different situation, and it looks to me like the Blood Ape should take damage twice in such a situation - it's making a movement that puts it in an Aura space on each of those two steps.

The only way that occurs to me that you could attempt to argue otherwise is to use some iteration of the FAQ "large monsters and terrain" rules, which were always sloppy, vague, and confusing, were probably never meant to apply to Aura, and in the current version would probably mean that the large figure didn't take Aura damage on either step, as opposed to taking it on only one step.

Of course, I'm talking about normal movement now, since I think the FAQ adequately covers Leaping through Aura.

I've always gone by the previous FAQ's idea... that large monsters only take negitive effects like Aura when the front half enters the area. Seems to work great and keep it balanced.

Apart from the facts that...

• That rule was explicitly only about terrain, not Aura
• It's not clear which terrain it applies to (largely because "terrain" is not actually a defined game term), or how it could apply to "all terrain" (in particular: pits)
• It could be interpreted as meaning any of several different things
• Under the most plausible interpretation, the "front half" could be anything from one third to 100% of the monster, and isn't necessarily located in the front
• It contradicts expansion rules published after it
• The explanation for why the rule was instituted itself contains false information about the rules that previously existed

But sure, you could create a house rule for aura inspired by any of several possible interpretations of that completely botched rule, if you wanted.

*shrug* Rather a nice house rule that you can easily define with the group then go with the whole "OL gets to pick and choose what effects whatever"... unless you manage to have a piece of terrain large enough to cover the entire base.

But for Aura itself, the rule states that when a model moves into a space adjacent to the figure with Aura, that model takes 1 wound... not 1 wound per space. So I guess it depends on if you define the model somehow moves into each space at the same time causing only one trigger, or it triggers twice, or more.

Again, the question is about two moves that put different parts of the figure in the same Aura space, not about a single move that puts different parts of the figure simultaneously into multiple Aura spaces.