Hello.

I have a question that have bothered me for some time now.

What will happen if as a result of an encounter card or gate card an elusive monster will appear?

A. Do I just ignore elusive special ability and begin the fight as normal ?

B. Do I have to pass sneak check to start combat, because monster will not attack on its own ?

I haven't heard that monsters lose the Elusive quality if they appear in the Encounters phase. I suppose you could think of it as, instead of a monster jumping out at you, you see a dark shadow move out of the corner of your eye.

Well you would not ignore any other mosnter ability, eg Ambush.

I would say it was your good luck, take it while you can!

Or why not just return it to the cup and redraw a monster.

Here are a few fun things, to the best of my recollection:

1. If an elusive monster appears, you have to pass an evade check to fight it. Otherwise you can opt to just ignore it and return it to the cup (as though you had evaded a normal monster). Note that Elusive only affects your ability to initiate combat: if you enter combat with an elusive monster, you still have to pass an evade check to flee.
2. If you're playing with Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and an Elusive monster surprises you, the combat immediately ends because you cannot make the Evade check to initiate combat.
3. If the monster happens to be a Werewolf, you immediately lose 2 stamina, regardless of if you wish to initiate combat or if you were surprised.

Wait a minute, but doesn't the wording of the encounter matter in this case? Some encounters will say that a monster appears. Others will state that a monster attacks you. If an elusive monster attacks you, doesn't this bypass its obligatory evade check to initiate combat?

No, because all "a monster appears!" encounters are identical. Occasionally the wording gets changed for variety's sake, but it's just artistic license.

Tibs said:

"Werewolf moves as a fast monster. If it enters an area containing any investigators, each investigator in that area loses 2 Stamina."

I think your interpretation of "enters" could be debated, but what the hell, it's a cool effect.

I think the Shadowy Figure mask should steal all the clue tokens of the investigator it encountered.

I included this rule in my Nyarlathotep variant(which I should make into a herald).

I used to think that Werewolf only attacked you when it moved. ColtsFan persuaded me otherwise.

At first, the Werewolf stamina thing seems like a cheap shot: but it actually makes the incentive greater to actually try to defeat him so that he doesn't keep popping up during encounters.

zealot12 said:

Brutal! Although, we all know that poor Nyar needs a boost. And, the Shadowy Figure is still a pretty uncommon draw.

Tibs said:

The Shady Mask - Herald of Nyarly

A Clueless Fate: treat all Cultists as Shadowy Figure(s). Investigators encountering a Shadowy Figure must pass a Horror check modified by the number of clues they have, discarding a clue token for each failure. (Good morning, Patrice ::laughing:

Tibs: not unless you draw masks on every moster surge, and all monsters in encounters are masks.(part of my variant)

Tibs said:

Fine with me. Out of curiosity, do you remember his reasoning?

Well, I thought my reasoning to him was pretty tight:

Werewolf is a green-border monster, implying that it executes a special movement. Its special movement says that it moves as a red-bordered (fast) monster, and deals stamina damage to anyone it runs into. I figured that the fact that the monster was green and not red implied that its stamina ability was applied only to its movement.

Of course, on the other hand, this may not necessarily be a good argument: if the Werewolf wasn't green bordered, the players might not think to flip it over when it moves, and could disregard the stamina ability entirely.

I don't remember what he said on the matter, but when a monster "appears" at you, only later to vanish rather than stay on the board, it's implied that the monster was not hiding in the location, so it must have entered, and found you. If this is true then the Werewolf was on the prowl and mauled you, only later to disappear back into the mists.

Tibs said:

Hmm, I don't know about that. If the monster didn't move to the location from the street (or from the sky), to me it implies that it was lurking in the location, and didn't enter it from outside.

Yeah, there's a lot of places in the Woods for a werewolf to be lurking around indefinitely. Somewhat fewer at the Roadhouse, but hey...There could be all kinds of tiny, unstable gates and rifts that we don't know about. (I'm just taking it for granted that the werewolf doesn't attack when he spawns from a rift...)

Its a simple mechanical issue not a thematic one. The token was not at the site before, it is now, it entered the area. Since its damage is triggered by entering an area with an investigator it makes sense.

avec said:

Yeah, well but since it wasn't on the board before, and now it's attacking you, it must have entered from somewhere. But in any case "a monster appears!" means that a monster is coming after you, and when the Werewolf comes after you he deals stamina damage.

It sounds like you're saying that "appears" (as in, appears on the board) is the same as "enters" (as in, enters a location). I'm not convinced. "Enters" implies that an item has traveled from Point A to Point B. "Appears" implies that the item has simply revealed itself. You could argue that the monster "travels" from the monster bag to the location. But the monster bag doesn't exist in the context of the board and it certainly isn't connected to specific locations on the board.

I don't care all that much, but it's interesting to talk about the rationale behind the rules. In this case, I don't find the rationale convincing (yet).

I suppose you could consider the monster cup associated with LiTaS that even makes sense thematically.

Oh yeah, monster "cup," not bag. Not that I've ever seen a cup that would work. Maybe there's a ten gallon tea cup out there somewhere.

I'm not sure how LiTaS helps clarify things. If all monsters in the cup are considered to be in LiTaS, then wouldn't an investigator in LiTaS have to fight every monster in the cup? I'm guessing you don't mean that the monsters in the cup are literally in LiTaS, but I'm not sure how else to interpret what you're saying.

I was just trying to come up with a way of phrasing it that could help clarify. I personally don't understand the disconnect seen with "appears" and "enters" mechanically they are identical. The monster was not there before and is now.

Veet said:

I don't know of any rule that implies this.

If we think about it strictly in terms of mechanics, the difference between "appears" and "enters" might be the difference between placing a monster on the board and moving a monster on the board. I have not heard that those two types of activities are identical.

Veet said:

By the same logic, a clue token would "enter" the Science Building when it is placed there at the beginning of the game. But it doesn't make any sense for a clue token to enter a location, because clue tokens do not move. And neither do monsters that appear in the encounters phase.

But what happens when a clue appears at the same site as an investigator? They interact with it in the same way they would during the move phase. But these are still completely different things.