The first is about Glyphs, one of my players asked if the starting glyph allowed for transport to town, since I have not seen anything in Vanilla or Advanced regarding this I've always assumed yes, though my players reacted with stunned surprise at this (I always figured it was a last resort retreat point for regrouping and emergency restock or healing). The answer is most likely yes, but does the start glyph allow movement to town in each dungeon level like any other normal glyph?

The second, do the villagers need to move thru the glyph to escape, or the portal, or are both an option? Part of this question pushed me to ask the first, and was in regards to whether the villagers could escape thru the starting glyph for that level.

Third, can the overlord open cell doors using monsters (from what's available on the spawn list options the overlord could kill four on their turn just by spawning all his start monsters in proximity to the two open areas near the north and south cells, open the door and instantly get the CT for killing them, or does the OL have to wait till a hero opens the cell first? (Note: I already added the notation about not being able to spawn inside the cells found in FAQ, and have made a permanent notation in the dungeon book regarding it, I'll likely own this game forever.)

Minor Edit...

musta deleted this while altering the questions to make sense...

Questions #2 & #3 are in regards to Dungeon Card #9: The Prison

1) Any glyph in the dungeon can be used to restock and/or flee the dungeon.

2) The villagers have to escape per a glyph (I think it is clearly stated on the dungeon card?). This would include the starting glyph in that level (really, there is no distinction between a starting glyph and any subsequently activated glyph).

3) The OL can open those doors as usual. Quick and clever players will prevent most spawning near most cell doors, though, and kill off most potential threats to the prisoners in their first turn.

Parathion said:

Except that IIRC the map is set up such that the OL can spawn inside the cells. We decided amongst ourselves that it probably wasn't meant to work that way and the OL didn't do it, but it's a legal move.

Except that that was explicitly excluded via the FAQ - congrats on your houserule gut feeling, though.

Hmm... thanx, makes sense, so this is kinda an OL bonus level allowing them to get four CT before the players get their second turn and can attempt to kill the OL's monsters, barring misses of course on the OL's part, nice to know. It appears not to matter whether you have to spawn in the cells or just out of them (yes I am aware of the FAQ preventing spawning inside the cell). All the OL has to do is get the 6 skeleton, 1 hell hound, one master hell hound combo for starting spawn, one skeleton hidden from range in the corner outside of each cell, with two skeletons safely back out of range attacks from the hero's first moves, and two hell hounds to flame the cells to back them? I'd open the door, shoot with the first skeleton, move it to block the players from attacking (though from the distance they'd have to run on the first turn to gain a chance of LoS preventing guard order), then proceed to shoot with the other two archers, adding to the damage to the villagers, then nicely wounded, dump a flame blast on them, repeat with mirrored cell... doesn't seem to me that those four villagers have a chance to survive if an OL didn't want them too beyond the first round of turns, and from the looks of it there isn't anything the players can do to stop it but pray for X's and alot of them, heh guess I'll keep that in mind. Even not being able to spawn inside the cells (which makes sense, it's a cell, no way in or out but the door, but seriously, who needs it, I mean other than obviously making sure the heroes have a chance to gain 2 CT themselves from the center cell). I figured since it was a prison, and until they were escaping you wouldn't feel a need to kill them, hence why the players have to free them, and in doing so allows you to treat them like heroes and attack them.

I guess in this case as well, if I open the cell doors and end my turn and a villager is alive it is considered activated for heroes to move as well? This would seem an obvious yes.

As OL of this game, thanx for the 4 free CT, it'll come in handy.

Parathion said:

Didn't realize that. It wasn't in the FAQ the last time we played. Nothing about villagers was, so we also had to maneuver around the fact that they weren't figures and so they actually blocked line of sight for spawning. It was an odd level to say the least.

IIRC the FAQ states that the cells are treated as unrevealed areas. Meaning the OL can not open these doors until the players do so first.

Redshift said:

Actually in this case the rule is very specific, "Treat the cells as unrevealed areas for the purposes of spawning" which I would take to mean monsters could open the doors since none of them are rune or require a key. It only states for the purposes of spawning, If it wasn't possible for monsters to open the doors there'd be no point to having the villagers, all the heroes would have to do is kill everything, make sure los is well blocked (very easy on this level, then have one player open each door and have all six villagers walk out. It might buy the OL one addtional turn of 4 threat tokens and an extra draw... that sounds seriously one sided to me.

Although I have an interesting question... can the OL play trap cards on the villagers?

Veritech said:

Just took a look at half a dozen trap cards to make sure but the general trigger conditions on trap cards are based on Hero actions. When a hero does this then trap! Since villagers are certainly not heroes it would seem you cannot directly trap them as their actions will not meet the trigger conditions.

Villagers are explicitly immune against traps - see RtL rules. No traps may be triggered by villagers, although they may be caught in an area-of-effect trap (to which they still are immune) triggered by a hero.