Hello there!

I've recently been introduced to Descent and have played three sessions so far and the only disadvantage so far is that the guy who bought the game and hosts the sessions lives more than a hundred kilometers away from my place - so no regular Descent-empowered Dungeon Delving for me

However, comlex games tend to arise questions, and Descent is no exception.

1. According to the FAQ, leap-attacking monsters can be hit by interrupt attacks ( Guard order etc.). What happens to the leaping creature if that interrupt attack has Knockback ?
2. Usually, you get an effect marker from a special attack if that attack deals at least 1 damage, before applying armor. Does the target get the marker if the attack's damage is entirely negated by a shield (since shields "prevent" damage, if used)?
3. Road to Legend; treasures in chests. It says that if any treasures is rolled, they are drawn from the corresponding deck as normal. Well, if "normal" refers to vanilla Descent, then does that mean one draw per hero? Or is it only one draw for the entire party; with "normal" referring to any other rules concerning treasure draws?
4. Road to Legend; "Fire and Ice" dungeon. Is the red-colored area at the entrance supposed to be lava or just one of these "don't place monsters here"-zones?

Well, that's all for now. Hope I can figure the rest out by myself. And the FAQ. And the forums. And so on

Thanks in advance;

Darastin

1) Jesus...um I would have to say that Knockback would take effect and you fling the Leaping monkey across the dungeon?

2) Yes, because shields cancel WOUNDS, not DAMAGE. DAMAGE is what the attack does before armor is taken into account, WOUNDS is the result of subtracting armor from damage.

3) To best of my knowledge you get one treasure per blank.

4) Don't have the book, but I'm pretty sure its just the "don't place monsters there" area.

Darastin said:

Here's my take on this:

1) The interrupt attack is resolved completely first. So the damage and knockback is applied before the start of the leap attack. After that has happened, the Overlord my then redo the leap attack from the new location.

2. Yes. Basically, the idea is: As long as the attack hits (no X and has range) the target gets one effect marker. Remember how you calculate the hits: Check for misses, then range, then add up damage and spend surges, compare to the targets armor, then use any special abilities (aka shield, Cloak of Mists, etc).

3. That's one treasure per blank. Just remember that the Heroes aren't getting 100 gold per player per enhancement. (Besides, the Heroes are going to burn through the decks anyway.)

4. That there is your standard "Don't place monsters here" zones. That would be a LOT of lava otherwise.

Dont know about knockback + leap. Thats a good question.

Grappe for example doesnt work on leapers, iirc from the FAQ.

Either way, if you allow knockback to interrupt leap, I dont see why the OL should be able to use the blood ape again for another leap attack. It already declared its attack, but ended up on another space.

Knockback + Leap... that was coming from the fact that the interrupt attacks take place BEFORE the monster actually makes the attack. In the FAQ:

"Since Guard attacks and the like take place before the Leaping creature attacks..."

Depending on how you want to play it, the knockback would still occur from the starting square of the monster, and then the OL can either make his new attack (my take) or just make the attack that was started (another way) and just reduce the distance moved by the knockback (if the attack is still legal), the monster still will be able to make the Leap.

Thanks for the answers!

Some additions:

On question #1:

I dont' think that it makes sense to apply the interrupt attack to the leap-attacker's starting position. That position might be out of range or even out of sight; the monster might be knocked into a pit or other obstacle that's way out of reach for knockback and if it jumped over several heoes and the second one hit it, then the damage to the first one would be cancelled ans so on.

It seems logical to treat the leap attack as a series of individual attacks along the creatures jump-path (with only one attack roll to keep things simple and reasonably fast); however, in the case of knockback that will result in the creature jumping a few spaces, then being knocked aside and then still having some movement left. Hmmm... what happens to that movement?

On question #2:

But why doesn't it just say "if the attack hits..."? Or is it actually possible to hit for zero damage (blue die plus yellow die, perhaps)?

On question #3:

Well, "one treasure per blank" isn't exactly helping - does "treasure" mean "one item per hero" (as in vanilla Descent) or "one item for the party"? One item per hero seems quite a lot (for the advanced campaign); but OTOH that would make the much-debated Crushing Blow actually fully playable (gets rid of critical items without allowing for a complete denial of treasure).

On question #4:

Can't say I didn't already suspect that Now let's see if the OL player accepts it - he insists in the red area being lava, but also complains that so much lava doesn't make sense...

Thanks again;

Darastin

P.S.: Noticed some typos in my first posting. Does this board have an edit feature somewhere?

3), one item for the party. And 4), generally, every expansion is meant to be playable without any of the others. Since RtL doesn't come with lava props itself, it's entirely safe to conclude that there won't be any in its maps. Sadly enough, really.

For 1), I agree, that's pretty unclear O_O

Darastin said:

He better accept it since it says clearly in the rulebook that the red shaded area is where you can't spawn monsters. No where does it say that is lava, plus it doesn't show it having the lava tile. He's got no grounds to stand on here. There is only one dungeon level (its a Rumor) that has lava in it, and its printed on the tile.

I was thinking about the Leap and Knockback thing.

Wouldn't the Knockback space have to start at the space where the Blood Ape is Leaping past when the Guard action is a Melee attack? Otherwise, your Hero wouldn't be adjacent to the Blood Ape to actually have the Guard activate and the attack hit if the Blood Ape starts his Leap like 4 spaces away.

Aye, that'd probably be the way that makes most sense. Imagining the whole thing is quite hilarious, really.

*leap* *poof* *hurl* *scream*

Heroes that would have been attacked later during the leap would then of course not be attacked at all. That'd make a guy with guard and a weapon with knockback in front of the group a quite effective counter for leap attacks!

Darastin said:

We've been doing this a bit differently, to keep it simple and leave movement and attacks separate:

1. First the ape makes his leap movement. The hero can decide to interrupt before it starts, in which case the ape is on the space he started on. If it gets knocked back, the leap is cancelled, Overlord can use the rest of the movement as he sees fit, possible doing a new leap.

2. Then comes the attack targeting all the heroes leaped over. The ape is on the space it landed on. If the hero interrupts now, he makes his/her attack before the ape. If the ape is killed, the attack is cancelled. If not, even if the ape is knocked backed, the leap's attack is done normally - the movement part of the ape was executed after all.

Annoyingly, the FAQ entry that says that figures making leap attacks are "subject" to Guard orders doesn't actually specify anything about how to resolve them, except that if the figure is killed by the attack, it doesn't get to make it's leap attack. It doesn't actually say whether you can make a guard attack at any point during the leap, or only when it occupies its starting or ending position, or only before it begins the attack. The decisions for what things leap ignores and what it doesn't also don't appear to have any particular rhyme or reason to them.

However, the way the rules are worded, it appears that the leaping movement and attack are separate; the attack is an optional step at the end of the leap, and if the figure doesn't choose to make an attack, it can continue moving. So I think the most straightforward ruling would be to say that you can make a guard attack at any point during the leap movement, and if you make a successful attack with Knockback , you can move the target from that point as normal. If the attack doesn't kill it, the leaper then has the following options:

• It can end its movement and make one attack roll affecting every enemy figure it passed through during its leap (that's exactly what leap attacks normally do). This doesn't affect spaces that it would have moved through had it not been knocked back, and it doesn't affect spaces that it was knocked through (since, as per the Knockback rules, it doesn't technically move through those spaces), but it affects every enemy it leaped through before the interrupt.
• It can end its leap, but choose not to attack, allowing it to continue its turn. It may spend any remaining movement, starting another leap if it wishes, and may still make one attack (normal or leap), since it hasn't attacked yet (plus any extra attacks it's entitled to due to effects like Quickshot or a Rage card).
• Arguably, it can continue its leap from the point to which it was knocked back--it must continue moving in the same direction it was moving before the attack, continues to pay one movement point for each two spaces, and must end its movement in an empty space, as normal. It may then make a single attack affecting every enemy figure that it move through during its leap, including both the figures it moved through before it was interrupted and the figures it moved through afterwards.

A similar question could be asked about what happens if you make an interrupt attack against a figure while it's jumping over an obstacle (like a pit)--can you target it in mid-jump, and what happens if the attack has Knockback ?

Darastin said:

Yes, that's correct. An attack that uses only blue, yellow, and/or power dice is capable of hitting for zero damage. However, this doesn't come up much--I don't think there are any monsters that apply status effects and are capable of hitting for zero damage, and the only weapon I can think of off-hand where it would be relevant is the Skullcracker from WoD.

Darastin said:

There's an edit button that appears at the top of your post, but only for a short time after you make the post--if you wait too long, it's gone.

Just to confuse things a bit more:

"A figure is limited to one Leap attack per turn, and the figure cannot move any further after making the attack."

Wibble said:

Yes, limited to one leap attack . But the attack at the end of the leap is specifically optional; there's nothing preventing you from leaping more than once if you only attack on the last leap.

Antistone said:

The attack roll is optional, but the leap skill allows a figure to make "leap attacks", not "leaps". I don't think there is any such thing as a "leap" that is not a "leap attack".

Wibble said:

"Leaps cannot pass through walls or closed doors, and must end on an empty space."

I suppose one could theoretically read "leaps" in that passage as short for "leap attacks," but that requires you to say that an action can be a "leap attack" even if there is no attack involved, and I can't find any place where the rules explicitly describe a leap with no attack at the end as a "leap attack."

Of course, this wouldn't be the first time that the Descent writers made up creative definitions of normal words and just assumed that everyone would know what they meant...but I'm not sure why they would make the attack at the end optional if your movement is ended either way, particularly since the attack is already prevented from harming allies.

On the other hand, the rules for leaping don't actually say that your movement points are consumed, just that you can leap a distance of up to twice your remaining movement, so if you can leap and then continue moving, a completely literal reading of the rules would allow you to travel an unlimited distance with repeated leaps... that probably isn't intended. But that loophole should probably be closed whether a "leap without attacking" ends your movement or not, lest it cause problems in some other special case in the future (such as a hero with leap taking movement actions afterwards or something).

Ultimately, this doesn't even need to be about leap; My sorcerer rounds the corner, declares a shot, then is interrupted by the mage who has the Water pact and a staff equipped. He hits, and throws me around the corner. Do I still get to resolve my attack? Can I change targets? Finish my move, THEN attack?

Really it's the same problem, because his declaration to inturrupt is legal, I believe. I don't think the leap/knockback combination is something the designers thought of, and hopefully someone will have added this to the list of unanswered questions for the next faq.

My take would be to make it as fitting with the "fluff" as possible:

The beast leaps; He hits each hero as he passes over. The second hero in line whacks him with their guard order, and sends them careening to the side, then momentum carries the critter the rest of the distance it would take by the original leap, possibly even leading into a pit and/or trap and/or lava. The blood ape has just reaped what the overlord has sewn by putting his critter in that situation.

Again, this is just the way I would handle it if I were writing the rules, as the rules as they are currently written are painfully unclear.

They don't seem to be that unclear for non-leap interrupt attacks. Since it's the hero player's choice when he wants to interrupt the sorcerer, and he can do so at any time during the Overlord's turn. So he can easily interrupt the sorcerer either before or after he makes the attack. But he may not do so during the attack (so not after dice have been rolled, if he had reasonably enough time to react during the sorcerer's move).

Leap is different in that melee interrupt attacks are technically only possible during the leap itself, of which the specifics don't really seem to be covered by the rules.

Osaka said:

From the gathered list of answered questions thread :

Q. Does the OL have to continue his same course of action when interrupted by a guard action?
A. The OL may change his mind after being interrupted. (…) the OL can change his mind after being interrupted, (…) treat it as though you did a little 'rewind' to right before he declared an attack. The OL, after being interrupted after declaring an attack, may choose to continue with the attack, change its target, or even not to make the attack at all. (Edited to keep the context of the answer)