In RtL, Riverwatch's Great Market says: "...The Market always fills up completely unless there aren't enough cards in the deck to do so."

How does this work exactly? Does that mean I draw the initial five (5) treasure cards, then if I buy two (2) of them, 2 more will automatically replace them?

jwdenzel said:

To the best of my knowledge, the first part of that sentence that you didn't include is the answer:

"When drawing Market items, replace treasure caches with another card. The Market always fills up completely unless there aren't enough cards left in the deck to do so."

You normally don't replace pulled treasure cache cards when pulling the Market. For example, in Tamalir when you pull the 2 Market cards from the Copper Deck, if they are both treasure cache cards, then you are S.O.L. for the week and there's nothing in the Market. That doesn't happen in Riverwatch. If you pull 5 cards, 3 of them are treasure caches, you discard them and pull 3 more and keep repeating until you have 5 Treasures. The second part means, I think , that you don't reshuffle the deck that week if you run out of cards.

Agreed, this is how I interpret it also.

Thanks for the replies. But I'm not so sure. In the RtL setup rules, it says to remove all treasure cache cards from the game before you even start. Why then, would they even be a possibility later on?

The way I understand it and our group plays it is that if you purchase one of the items in the market it is replaced by another... so there are always 5 items as long as you don't run through the deck...

jwdenzel said:

The setup rules only include the removal of treasure cache cards regarding invulnerability potions, the remaining caches remain in the treasure decks

MaHaPaTe said:

A different way of looking at it, but the majority of people I know play it the other way. Otherwise you could sit there in town at the same market visit and between selling and buying treasure go through the whole deck and find exactly you want since the Treasure Cache cards would get discarded.

Big Remy said:

That's right... but thats still a lost of 150 coins per item. If my party wants to throw there money out of their pockets this way and not saving it to be able to buy upgrades, skills etc. i wouldn't be that sad

The text of the town reads... the market ALWAYS fills up..... i think buying an item falls under the meaning of always

But however... it's like many other issues on Descent (espacially RtL) which aren't that clear... so find a way to handle it your party and yourself is happy with and everythings fine and you can go on having a fun time playing.

MaHaPaTe said:

The text of the town reads... the market ALWAYS fills up..... i think buying an item falls under the meaning of always

But however... it's like many other issues on Descent (espacially RtL) which aren't that clear... so find a way to handle it your party and yourself is happy with and everythings fine and you can go on having a fun time playing.

I don't think buying an item falls under the meaning of always... Because the 'always' is part of a conditional set of circumstances - the drawing of cards. Cards are only drawn the first time a hero visits the market that week, before the hero can shop. Treasure cards are drawn in number equal to the market rating. Treasure Caches are discarded (representing a market shortage. At this stage the drawing cards part stops.

However, Riverwatch's special says that the market always fills up, so during the draw phase, when Caches are discarded, they are replaced, 'filling up' the market. The market has now filled up, regardless of Treasure Caches, fulfilling the special ability.

Now heroes can buy at the market, for the remainder of the week, but there is no more drawing of cards. The market can't further 'fill up' at Riverwatch after something is bought because there is no mechanism for it to do so - the card drawing phase has past (that only happens the first time a hero goes to market, and before the hero buys anything).

When the first hero visits a given Market in a given game week, a number of cards equal to the city’s Market rating are drawn from the treasure deck that corresponds to the current campaign level. “Treasure Cache” cards are discarded (and are not replaced, instead representing a market shortage that week). At this stage Riverwatch can fill up.

(new paragraph)All heroes who visit that Market that week may purchase items from among the drawn cards. Only from the drawn cards. Even if Riverwatch further 'filled up' at this stage, the replacement cards wouldn't be part of the set of ' the drawn cards ' and could not be bought.

But I do agree. Whether you think its clear or not, as long as everyone is happy, its all good.

Okay... what you say makes sense!

I never really tought about it. We did always replace the treasure cache with a new item (Think we just overread this rule) so my interpretation of it was the only that made sense for us... (reagarding our 'false' play).

I'll present this new won knowledge to my party... but I see them crying like my little sister already, so I think we keep playing it that way. (Its okay... I've won the first two campaigns) so they can have it that way. But with the new feat cards (we're now in early cooper and play with then the first time) it's already much tougher... but they still don't stand a chance... hopefully

Ah, I see now. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Now I need to go put all those treasure cache's back in the deck!