hiya!

got more questions

1. there's this golden chest weapon, probably called Staff of Knowledge with the special ability to make the OL discard a threat token by 2 charges thrown. question is ... can the player shoot at empty spaces to keep the OL threat tokenless?

2. OL card Trap Mastery - gives the OL -1 threat token cost on every trap and +2 damage for every trap card. every trap card gives heroes a chance to avoid damage. what if player manages to throw the right icon do they still get the 2 damage? the pit trap reads if player throws empty hero avoids falling in thus no damage but the other trap where the ceiling falls on the hero the player has to throw charges to reduce the damage -- also what about the other traps which don't deal direct damage? curse of the monkey god comes to mind... plz clarity

3. curse of the monkey god -- can the heroes use their fatigue to buy extra movement? card reads - heroes in monkey form get to move 5 spaces so i would assume not - also .. can they use the teleport icons in the first place to run off to town? can they activate newly discovered teleport icons? pick up stuff from the ground?

as always - thank you for your help

chaosisgod said:

1. No.
FAQ pg6
Q: Can heroes attack an empty square? For example, could a blast effect be centered in an empty square or could a hero fire his Staff of Knowledge off into a corner to burn the overlord’s threat?
A: Yes. However, if after spending surges there are no valid targets in the area of the attack (hero or monster), the entire attack is canceled without effect. This means that if the blast is not large enough, the attack fails, and the Staff of Knowledge must actually hit something to use its ability.

2. If they avid the effects of the trap card entirely (throw a blank for a pit for example) they avoid the damage - the trap missed them. If they automatically suffer the effects of the trap (moved as OL desires by crushing block for example) but may throw dice to avoid the damage part on an individual damage basis, then they suffer the extra 2 damage (and don't get extra dice to avoid the extra damage).
Traps which do not deal damage do not get damage benefits from Trapmaster (they still get cost discounts).
FAQ pg10
Q: Does Trapmaster add wounds to attacks resulting from traps like Dark Charm and Mimic, which activate creatures instead of dealing wounds?
A: No.
Be wary of Scything Blades, which does actually mandate damage on the card (and thus benefit from trapmaster) though it may not appear so at first reading.

3. Yes.
FAQ pg5
Q: A hero who has been Transformed by either Curse of the Monkey God or Dance of the Monkey God may move up to five spaces and may not take any movement actions. Can that hero take other actions, such as receiving an order token or declaring a Run action? What about a hero
who is both Stunned and Transformed?
A: A Transformed hero may not declare any action. He may still use any skills that are appropriate (e.g., Acrobatic, Telekinesis) and may spend fatigue for extra movement points. A Transformed hero who is stunned may only move (i.e., he must choose the “only move” option for being stunned, not the “only attack” option), ...

Get the FAQ!

chaosisgod said:

No. An attack must hit a target figure in order for surges to be spent. Surges can be spent to help the attack hit (ie: boosting range or AoE to make the connection) but if, when all is said and done, the attack doesn't hit at least one figure, the entire thing is null and void. No other special abilities work.

Now, if there are no monsters in range to hit, you CAN attack other heroes, and you can do your best to minimize damage dealt if you like, but a figure must be hit or the threat reduction won't work. Remember the OL has the option of spending two surges to GAIN 1 threat on ANY monster attack he makes, but he can't attack empty spaces to gain threat for the same reason.

chaosisgod said:

Traps that don't deal damage get no benefit from the +2 damage provided by Trapmaster. This includes Dark Charm, incidentally. DC does not do any damage itself and the attack it allows you to make with a hero does not get +2 damage because that attack is not itself a trap card.

If a trap allows the hero to roll to avoid it entirely (like pit trap) that roll is not affected by Trapmaster. If the hero falls in he will suffer +2 damage on top of the normal amount, but if he saves, he takes nothing. Some traps allow the hero to roll X dice and reduces the damage dealt by some amount for every given result that is rolled. There are no extra dice provided to account for bonus damage from Trapmaster. So, for example, a trap that deals 6 damage, reduced by 2 for every surge rolled on 3 black dice, will deal 8 damage with Trapmaster in play. The hero still only rolls three black dice. He will be taking 2 damage no matter how well he rolls.

chaosisgod said:

Corbon covered this one better than I was going to. =P

Steve-O said:

We`ve never practiced this for a monster attacking another monster(effectivly meaning OL will not gain curses if he uses a monster to attack another monster). The reason for this is purely because we never read the text regarding OL monster attacks properly. Nor have we allowed the heroes to use staff of knowledge to attack another hero to drain curses from the OL(houserule).

How is this first part working(monster attacking monster for curse-regen) out for other groups? We just ended our second RtL campaign and this news could lead to easier curses for the OL in our campaign starting next week.

More precisely, a monster´s attack must hit a hero to generate threat, according to the FAQ, so the whole point is moot.

Q: Under what circumstances can the overlord receive
threat for rolling surges on an attack roll?
A: The overlord may spend two surges on each attack roll
to gain one threat. He may do this on any attack that hits a
hero. This represents a change from previous FAQ rulings
on this subject.

You are probably confusing it with the Staff of Knowledge, which must hit something to make use of its ability.

Q: Can heroes attack an empty square? For example,
could a blast effect be centered in an empty square or
could a hero fire his Staff of Knowledge off into a corner
to burn the overlord’s threat?
A: Yes. However, if after spending surges there are no
valid targets in the area of the attack (hero or monster), the
entire attack is canceled without effect. This means that
if the blast is not large enough, the attack fails, and the
Staff of Knowledge must actually hit something to use its
ability.

Parathion said:

Good to know. Our group has never been the sort to try and twist the rules for something like this anyway, so you're quite right I was inferring that monsters could attack other monsters. The entire debate is purely theoretical for us because none of us, as OL, would seriously try to attack another monster (or empty space) - that would ruin the fun.

Likewise our heroes don't generally waste time attacking other heroes for any reason, even if they can. The only time one hero has ever hit another in our games was to wake them up during an outdoor ambush encounter in RtL.

The way we have been playing it is this. Monsters can attack monsters and kill them (if the OL wants to kill someone that is blocking LOS or standing infront of breath weapon and it definetely not game breaking). Heroes can attack heroes freely (there is a limit on how much you can limit the damage done so you can easily pass damage so it is fine by anyone) the only ruling is that in gold level CT's that come from suicide attacks of the heroes can be denied by the OL so that the heroes can't force a final fight that way (not that we would even do that but it sounds a nice home rule).

Steve-O said:

You mean your heroes dont attack each other with knockbackweapons/skills to give extra move to one or two of them? In our last campaign Trenloe the "Slow" had "Knight", "Waterpact" and shopstaff, meaning he quite often awoke the heroes in amushencounters and positioned them, and also in dungeons he could help another hero moving up to 9 spaces. *Aragorn + Gimli + Helms Deep*. None of us(to my knowledge) consider it cheating, unrealistic, unfair etc.

We`ve just added AoD to our RtL campaign, and heroes are looking forward to get knockbackweapons.