Dear Community,

I got Descent JitD around christmas. Me and my friends played the first quest, everyone was excited about the game! Despite most things being crystal clear, there were instances where we could not interpet the rules to complete satisfaction. Hence a list of questions concerning situations that left us miffed at what to do precisely! Any insight from you more experienced players is greatly welcomed.

Apologies if some questions should come across as obvious. If two sides question the rule printed, I just want to be safe rather then sorry!

1) Are heroes allowed to trade gold? We can find no direct mention of this anywhere.

2) Can you activate special abilities on heroes' items multiple times? E.g. a weapon has Pierce 2 for 1 surge, hero rolls 3 surges, can he accumulate the ability, making it Pierce 6?

3) How do you treat sold treasures? Do you make a discard pile or do you put them back in the general stock? The first seems fairer for heroes since they wont have a chance to draw the same 'useless' card again. The OL let them randomly draw from the appropriate treasure stack, so we didnt play drawing the first one, you could draw, reflecting the choice you have when shopping.

4) Can you cancel pierce damage with shields? We got a little discussion over this due to the text on shields and the description at the Pierce ability. We figured you can.

5) Do you keep getting bounty for killing an Undying master monster several times in a row? So it is the same monster who rises from the dead because the overlord meets the dice requirement.

6) Command ability: the description leaves us confused whether the command ability gives the possessor of the ability the bonus as well? And the three tiles range, do you start the count at the spot where the one with command ability stands? Thus effectively everything two spaces away from the 'Commander' receives the bonus or is it three spaces away? We felt three spaces in every direction would make it pretty powerful, esp for heroes.

7) When a monster with the Sweep ability hits several targets of which one has the Fear ability, does he miss everyone or just the one with Fear if not overcoming this ability?

8) Quickshot, the heroes pissed their pants when facing Manticores. Does quickshot let the monster move and attack twice? Or must the abide to heroes' turn rules, thus move and attack or choose to just attack twice?

9) Are you allowed when hitting someone with a Knockback to let the knockback end on a pit? Thus letting the target drop in a pit? To us it sounds perfectly plausible.

10) Do monster abilities cancel each other out? E.g. the hellhound has pierce and the breath attack. Does the pierce only count if he does a normal range attack or does it affect his breath attack as well?

That's it! I hope someone can give us a few pointers. Thank you in advance for the assistance.

Kind regards

Maurits Pruysen

1) Are heroes allowed to trade gold? We can find no direct mention of this anywhere.

From memory I cannot remember this as it's been so long since I've played JiTD

2) Can you activate special abilities on heroes' items multiple times? E.g. a weapon has Pierce 2 for 1 surge, hero rolls 3 surges, can he accumulate the ability, making it Pierce 6?

Yes, It's in the rules stating as such, (can't remember where) and is very annoying vs my big monsters

3) How do you treat sold treasures? Do you make a discard pile or do you put them back in the general stock? The first seems fairer for heroes since they wont have a chance to draw the same 'useless' card again. The OL let them randomly draw from the appropriate treasure stack, so we didnt play drawing the first one, you could draw, reflecting the choice you have when shopping.

I place them face up on the bottom of the stack, when they get through the deck I just shuffle em up.

4) Can you cancel pierce damage with shields? We got a little discussion over this due to the text on shields and the description at the Pierce ability. We figured you can.

Unless the shield says +# armour on it does not count towards peirce, but can be used to block the damage that get's through the peirce.

Ie. Hero has base 2 armour, is wearing a +1 armour, and is wearing a shield that can be tapped ton cancel 2 wounds, he gets attacked for 5 damage Peirce 2. The peirce 2 goes through his natural armour, his armour blocks 1 point of damage, he taps the sheild to block 2 more, and takes 2 wounds.

5) Do you keep getting bounty for killing an Undying master monster several times in a row? So it is the same monster who rises from the dead because the overlord meets the dice requirement.

No, you only get bounty when he dies and stays dead. Yes it's the same monster.

6) Command ability: the description leaves us confused whether the command ability gives the possessor of the ability the bonus as well? And the three tiles range, do you start the count at the spot where the one with command ability stands? Thus effectively everything two spaces away from the 'Commander' receives the bonus or is it three spaces away? We felt three spaces in every direction would make it pretty powerful, esp for heroes.

Command is extremmly powerful, especially for Beastmen, and yes it's three spaces out from the Commander.

7) When a monster with the Sweep ability hits several targets of which one has the Fear ability, does he miss everyone or just the one with Fear if not overcoming this ability?

The whole attack misses ala one person has dodge if person with dodge forces reroll, the reroll affects everyone.

8) Quickshot, the heroes pissed their pants when facing Manticores. Does quickshot let the monster move and attack twice? Or must the abide to heroes' turn rules, thus move and attack or choose to just attack twice?

Allows you to attack twice, but can use the attacks at any point they want during their activation, ie attack once move then attack again, attack twice then move, move then attack twice. (wait till they see a Raged Quickshotter )

9) Are you allowed when hitting someone with a Knockback to let the knockback end on a pit? Thus letting the target drop in a pit? To us it sounds perfectly plausible.

You can knoc kpeople back into pits (it's in the eratta) but They do not take fall damage.

10) Do monster abilities cancel each other out? E.g. the hellhound has pierce and the breath attack. Does the pierce only count if he does a normal range attack or does it affect his breath attack as well?

His breath attack has Peirce.

Thanks for the quick Response dribbler!

Quite helpful, only thing that keeps me puzzled is the Fear ability. So if a Monster can hit 4 heroes, one hero has the fear ability, the monster has no surge to overcome it on his dice, he misses everyone?! That makes sense, however if it should make sense, then one hero dodging should mean only that hero not getting hit either ;-D

Btw, does the Commander gain the bonus as well? Usually with those sort of abilities, the one possessing it only radiates it, so it benefits others and not himself. But the desc is confusing that it seems to imply that the Commander gets the bonus as well.

A figure with Command is within three spaces of itslf and so gains the bonus.

And I can confirm that in Vanilla descent, you can't trade money, only items.

1) Are heroes allowed to trade gold? We can find no direct mention of this anywhere.

It doesn't explicitly say it anywhere I can find in the JitD rulebook, but in the FAQ its says that Heroes can not trade gold.

Q: Can a hero give any type of item to an adjacent hero, or just weapons and potions?
A: A hero may give any item to an adjacent hero at the cost of one movement point. A hero may never give money to another hero.

2) Can you activate special abilities on heroes' items multiple times? E.g. a weapon has Pierce 2 for 1 surge, hero rolls 3 surges, can he accumulate the ability, making it Pierce 6?

Yes, though there are a few special abilities on weapons only are given once. Knockback for example.

3) How do you treat sold treasures? Do you make a discard pile or do you put them back in the general stock? The first seems fairer for heroes since they wont have a chance to draw the same 'useless' card again. The OL let them randomly draw from the appropriate treasure stack, so we didnt play drawing the first one, you could draw, reflecting the choice you have when shopping.

They go right back onto the treasure deck if they are sold. I typically let the Heroes grab a Treasure at random, and not off the top of the deck.

4) Can you cancel pierce damage with shields? We got a little discussion over this due to the text on shields and the description at the Pierce ability. We figured you can.

Pierce in and of itself does not give damage. Pierce reduces the armor rating of the Hero. So a Hero with 4 armor (2 natural and 2 from chainmail) is hit with an attack that has Pierce 2, he now has 2 armor for the purpose of figuring out how many wounds he takes. If he was hit with an attack that does 6 with Pierce 2, the Pierce reduces his armor from 4 to 2, and he would take 4 wounds (6 damage - 2 armor = 4 wounds) The shield can then be used to cancel 1 (or more depending on the shield) wounds, so he would only take 3. Pierce is frequently misunderstood as causing direct damage, and it does not do that.

5) Do you keep getting bounty for killing an Undying master monster several times in a row? So it is the same monster who rises from the dead because the overlord meets the dice requirement.

To my best understanding of the rules you do not get it repeatedly. You get the bounty only after the Undying monster stays dead. From the description for Undying:

"An Undying figure must stay dead in order for effects that take place when it is “killed” to actually occur."

Getting the 50 gold bounty is a result of actually killing the monsters. Undying monsters are not actually dead until they fail their Undying roll.

6) Command ability: the description leaves us confused whether the command ability gives the possessor of the ability the bonus as well? And the three tiles range, do you start the count at the spot where the one with command ability stands? Thus effectively everything two spaces away from the 'Commander' receives the bonus or is it three spaces away? We felt three spaces in every direction would make it pretty powerful, esp for heroes.

Yes, the Hero with the skill gets the bonus. The effect is three spaces away from the Hero/monsters space and his space does not count. And yes, it is powerful which is why Master Beastmen are a nightmare.

7) When a monster with the Sweep ability hits several targets of which one has the Fear ability, does he miss everyone or just the one with Fear if not overcoming this ability?

I'm not entirely positive, but I would say it completely misses because the rules for Fear say the attack automatically misses if the attacker can't spend the surges. This fits in line with the precedent set by Dodge, where if even one Hero dodges the attack that hits multiple Heroes and the re-roll is a miss, it misses all of them.

8) Quickshot, the heroes pissed their pants when facing Manticores. Does quickshot let the monster move and attack twice? Or must the abide to heroes' turn rules, thus move and attack or choose to just attack twice?

To the best of my knowledge, a monster with Quickshot can move and attack twice, or choose to attack, move and then attack again.

9) Are you allowed when hitting someone with a Knockback to let the knockback end on a pit? Thus letting the target drop in a pit? To us it sounds perfectly plausible.

Absolutely, and the most definitely take the damage from falling into the pit. This is clarified in the FAQ statement regarding what happens if you kill a master monster by an indirect means, like being knocked into a pit . If you do this to a Master Monster and the damage from falling in the pit kills them, no one gets the money for the kill.

10) Do monster abilities cancel each other out? E.g. the hellhound has pierce and the breath attack. Does the pierce only count if he does a normal range attack or does it affect his breath attack as well?

Monsters get the bonus/effects of all abilities on their card. For Hellhounds, they get pierce regardless if they do a ranged or Breathe attack.

Many thanks for such elaborate answers!

Seems we picked the right answer for most questions, but its better to be sure! We def played Command wrong.

Cheers for clearing up the fogginess!

No problem. Descent has a fairly steep learning curve to it.

Hello Maurits,

To me all above is clear, but just one thing: Command:

Following the rules, command indeed also benefits the commander, but ...

comparing with other creatures the difference between beastmen and master-beastmen is bigger, because master-beastmen also got damage+2 versus +1 for beastmen. This makes a difference of damage +2, which is not found at other figures, such as Hell Hounds (pierce3 -> 4), Skeletons (pierce 1->2) and Sorcerers (sorcery 3->4). I wonder wether the extra damage of master-beastmen should state 1 like normal beastmen.

Greetings/groeten,

Freek

Dribbler said:

The way I play it is that Shield comes before piercing. Shields AREN'T part of your armor stat - they deflect part of a blow, which implies they don't get pierced...In my opinion. However, I think the lack of clear rules about it are because it doesn't actually matter when you exert the shield. I just find my way a bit tidier

Almeric said:

Well...not to be a nit picker but it does matter when you exert the shield with the RAW. Shields cancel wounds, which come after the armor has been deducted from the damage. True, Shield are not part of the armor stat but the way their cards are written are pretty clear as to when they take effect. If you play it this way, the shield becomes much less useful IMO.

On page 23 of the base game rulebook, under "Pierce" section, it states: Shields are not affected by the pierce ability.

Just wanna mention:

You answer No.7 by refering to dodge. But you could also refer to stealth: Thats a skill where only the stealther isnt affected by the attack if it missed due to the stealth ability, while the other targets still get hit.

Dreepa said:

I agree. If many figures are affected by one attack, then (after any reroll) apply that result to all of them. If one results in a miss, then the attack misses only to that figure. That's to say: Mad Kartos has a rune that gives him the "fear" ability. A giant attaks the whole group of heroes with sweep, but he gets no surges so he hits all the other heroes, but is afraid of Kartos and doesn't aim correctly at him (who escapes).

Galvancito1 said:

I don't think that works for Fear. Fear says: If the attacker cannot spend enough surges to overcome the Fear ability, the attack automatically misses. It says the attack misses, not it misses just the Hero with Fear. If Dodge causes the entire attack to miss because 1 out of the 4 Heroes hit by it are Dodging, then Fear should apply the exact same way. Stealth works differently only because the rules specifically state that only the player with Stealth gets missed. So unless it states it, Fear can cause an entire attack to miss with Reach/Sweep.

Big Remy said:

I thought it would matter when you exerted the shield under certain circumstances, but I crunched a number of examples and have yet to find one where the final wounds tally is different depending on when you exert your shield. If I tell you there's 8 damage coming your way, you know how much your armor is going to soak, so you can make the decision to exert your shield at any time.

Almeric said:

It potentially matters because several abilities apply special effects if an attack inflicts at least one damage "before the effects of armor." If shields are earlier in the process, then it might be possible to prevent yourself from being burned, webbed, knocked back, etc. by negating all of the damage with shields.

It could also change how the attack is resolved when other things can modify the wounds received, such as the cloak of deception. The heroes get a concrete advantage by using their shield after applying the special effect of the cloak, rather than before.

Antistone said:

Don't have the cards to hand but don't Shields prevent wounds , not damage?

In which case the timing is specific because wounds are what the hero receives after Total Damage has had Armour applied to it.

Thus shields can be applied after the effects of the Clkoaks have already been applied and shields cannot prevent such things as Burn, Web, Knockback etc from taking effect.

Wounds and Damage are different things and should not be confused.

Almeric said:

Like several people pointed out, it can make a difference on attacks that give status effect tokens.

Corbon said:

The way Almeric is using shields could prevent status effects was the point of argument.

Big Remy said:

Yes, and my point addresses this.

If a shield prevents wounds, not damage, then it can't be used to prevent damage in order to avoid status effects.

Corbon said:

Yeah I read it again later and I just misunderstood, my apologies.

I don't know, I'm still not feeling it....avoiding burn or web tokens by hiding behind your shield actually makes a good deal of sense to me.

Almeric said:

If you don't like it, make a houserule. The RAW are clear, assuming that the premise (shields prevent wounds, not damage) is correct.

Not everything in Descent always makes sense. Sometimes its because the rules are a certain way to avoid (further) complications, sometimes its because things just aren't being looked at in the 'right' way...

For example (looking at things the 'wrong' way), given a single web token is large enough to prevent a giant from moving, I don't think a piddling little shield is going to 'block' it and prevent it from affecting the shield wielder.

For example (rules a certain way to avoid complications), mid-dungeon healing at a temple does not remove effect tokens - so those temple acolytes can slap bandages and creams on your heroes burns, but they don't actually put the fires out! Its a lot weird, but otherwise there would need to be a whole set of complicated rules about which tokens could be removed and what it would take to remove each type of token etc. Given how completely FFG managed to screw up what are obstacles and what are props (directly contradictory FAQ entries), and what defines a square as being 'empty', it is perhaps wiser to leave things simple, but a bit strange, than add in more complicated rules...

Note: I used 'wrong/right' in inverted commas because I really mean 'different'.