And this is why there are so many questions... this is such a simple thing that I can't believe people are debating it. Look at the chart in the back of the rulebook.

"Green – Any player can take actions generally, or between the game steps stated in the rules."
"Action windows in which players are free to take actions are presented in green."

The very first part of the quest phase is green. You can take actions at any point here, including "between the game steps as stated in the rules."

"Free to take actions." "can take actions generally." "between the game steps stated in the rules." It's stated in 3 different ways and yet people still try to argue differently.

HilariousPete said:

This is really simple to figure out. Notice how some steps are red, with a green "Player Actions" section after them? That means you can't play anything during the step, but at the end of it you can. If that's what was intended, they would have done that here. They didn't though. They colored the whole step green, allowing the player to take actions. If the player could only take actions after a step resolved, why would we even need the chart?

If you have Necromancer's Pass in the Staging Area (text on card: Travel: The first player must discard 2 cards from his hand at random to travel here.) but you have no cards in hand, do you have to wait until you have at least 2 cards in hand to discard before you can travel there?

I'm guessing so (because that would be hard core). Just curious if there's been a ruling, as I can't find one anywhere.

[And the tragedy of this is that I had no cards in hand and Enchanted Stream as my active location - not allowed to draw cards. It took 2 extra turns to get enough cards to pay the toll, my staging area blew up, my carefully managed threat meter soared, and enemies came raining down. Absolutely brutal.]

Thanks!

juicebox said:

No need for a ruling, rulebook does well enough:

"Some location cards have travel effects, which are
denoted by a bold “Travel:” trigger on a card. Travel
effects are costs or restrictions that some or all players
must pay or meet in order to travel to that location. If
the players cannot fulfill the requirement of a location’s
travel effect, the players cannot travel to that location." (p. 23)

Svenn said:

For presenting a shorter overview, in addition to the rules texts from page 12 to page 22.

Svenn said:

Ah, after I understood this, a light went on. Ok, that's a good point :-) I thought the non-indented bars were green because they consist of several steps, and in between the players can play actions, and that's the sole reason for the non-indented ones being green. This is e.g. the case in the planning phase (play attachment /ally-> possible actions -> play next attachment -> actions -> ...) or with the green combat bars (choose enemy -> possible actions -> declare defender -> actions -> ...). But this is not everywhere the case, committing characters for a player only consists of a single thing. So I can deduce nothing out of intendation, I see that now... Yes, FFG would have made the "commit" step red and add another "Player actions" step if it should be treated like the "Resolve questing" and "Player actions" below.

I also thought that the turn sequence on p. 30 is only a short version / overview of p. 12-22 and adds no information to it. This is also wrong, e.g. I can't find the player action window in resource phase on page 12...

But still I'm not quite happy... What's the meaning of indentation? Is the "First player resolves attacks made by enemies against him" bar, which contains many separate steps, considered as a single action window, just because it's green? What's the purpose of the "or between the game steps" without "and before the first step", if it is meant as "between and before"?

Thanks Dam. Painful. x2

Why an extra step for player actions after committing?

If I can play actions before and during committing, why does "Gildor's Council" has a explicit text to be played before committing?

Is it also possible to play "Sneak Attack" to bring allies into play to quest? If it is possible, shouldn't it be named "Sneak Quest" or "Sneak Comit"?

stahlwolle said:

Because once you have committed and move on to the reveal step it will be too late, Gildor's council needs to be played before revealing in order to actually work,

stahlwolle said:

it is possible to use Sneak Attack to bring allies into play to quest, but I don't think it really matters what the card is called, perhaps just "Sneak" might have been more apt.

My first Warg:

I've searched and been unable to find confirmation about this particular scenario...

Defending against a Warg, I flipped up the shadow card, and it said "Deal X shadow cards to this attacker. X is the number of players in the game."

My first thought was, okay - at least the Warg isn't going back to the Staging Area.

Then (since I'm playing solo) I played 1 more shadow card (for X). The second card had no shadow effect.

So, because this second card had no effect, does the Warg now have to go back to the Staging Area? It would seem so, taking the card as literally as possible, but since the first card did have a shadow effect and it was all part of the same attack, I'm left wondering... thoughts on this?

Thanks.

juicebox said:

As shadow effect was resolved (dealt 1 more shadow cart), Warg doesn't return to the staging area and stays engaged with player.

LEGA said:

Fantastic! Thanks. Looks like I was being too hard on myself.

Appreciate your help LEGA.

I think there is no doubt you can play action in quest phase before you commit characters to the quest. On some cards game text mean that.

Than is a good question can we play action after or in between? I use to play: yes you can after and between. But then in second FAQ they explain all charachters commit to the quest in same time so there is no action in between???Ok i stop to do that.

So what about can we play action after commit characters to the quest before staging???

If we can play actions after, this change somethings and can allow you to play some combo which i stop to use. Anyway for now i play actions only before commit and again only after staging. but if i can play actions after commit characters to the quest, this make game even more easy with some combo.

So im my opinion this is not clear in the rules or maybe i miss something????

Rules: "In the quest phase, the players attempt to make progress on the current stage of their quest. This phase is broken into three steps: 1) commit characters, 2) staging, and 3) quest resolution. Players have the opportunity to take actions and play event cards at the end of each step." (p.14)

According to this rule we can play actions after committing characters and before staging.

We are going around and around in circles with this. Page 14 says you can play stuff at the end of each step. The timing chart says you can play actions generally.

If you can't play actions before committing characters to a quest, Gildor's Council and We Do Not Sleep are unplayable. To me, that settles the issue entirely.

Svenn said:

If the diagram adds information to the rules, this so called rulebook is a piece of... a collection of papers with words on it. I only know those diagram as a summary, short version. Normally those diagram/summaries/short version don't add rules, that would be bad written rule book and the designers and author even don't know there own game.

I am debating, because the rules doesn't say clearly you can play before committing. That is the only point. In the german forum the users don't play actions before committing. There was a debate about to play "Gandalf" with "Sneak Attack" before committing, they all said, it is impossible, because of page 14. We need a clarification from official side.

The chart is there specifically for questions like this. The only place action windows are really defined is in the chart.

From the Rulebook:

"Actions are always optional, and can be triggered by their controller during any action window in the game sequence."

"Actions without a specified phase can be triggered during any action window throughout the round. (See the “Turn Sequence” chart on pages 30-31.)"

During any action window. Used twice in the description of actions. Not "after any action window." It even specifically points players to the chart for reference as to where the action windows are, because they are not listed anywhere else. There are 2 brief mentions of when to play actions elsewhere in the book (one in the quest phase as you mentioned and one in the combat phase). If we were to go by that though and ignore the chart then the only time you could ever play actions is during the quest phase and the combat phases and only after each step. Even the planning phase makes no mention of ever playing events or actions.

I see no problem with a chart detailing this. Trying to describe each and every action window in the text would be wordy and very difficult to follow. The chart does a perfect job at laying the entire thing out in a very easy, readable format.

stahlwolle said:

So how do the German Forum users suggest that We Do Not Sleep is played if they don't allow cards to be played before commiting?

As Radiskull, myself and others have said, if you can't play actions before commiting characters then We Do Not Sleep becomes useless - if we assume that FFG would not produce an intentionally useless card, then it is impossible that cards cannot be played before commiting, and what is left, however improbable (that cards CAN be played before committing characters) must be the truth!

pumpkin said:

Dont forget about Gildors Counsel??? There is even explain : play before commit characters to the quest.

pumpkin said:

Nothing against my fellow German LotR-LCG-players, but I have the impression that the discussions on the German Publishers board are less sophisticated than here and often leave an odd impression to me (like people saying: "I know there is a English errata but I play it exactly like it's written on the German card" and other funny stuff).

All of you were right, I read again the passage about actions and I even got an answer from Nate French, who says the same.

I'm reading this unofficial FAQ: www.kaybee.org/kirk/LoTR_LCG_Cards_and_FAQs.pdf and got few new questions:

1. Victory X: Is this cards don't discard to discard pile but put in other "Victory discard pile" and never reshuffle?

2. Sentinel: If I use my sentinel character to defend other player who will gain response on effects like shadow and e.g. Hill Troll or Marsh Adder (e.g. Shadow card is Ungoliant's Spawn, who must raise his threat level?)? Me or other player?

3. Quick Strike: Is it right : "If you use Quick Strike to have one of your own Ranged characters attack an enemy engaged with another player, your other Ranged characters can also join the attack."? According to FAQ other characters can't join this attack.

4. Wolf Rider: If Wolf Rider appears as Shadow effect and was killed during the combat phase, where it should be discarded: to the top of encounter deck (as Shadow effect reads) or to encounter discard pile (according to rules as defeated)?

5. Dol Guldur Orcs: Chosen character must belong to the first player or it could be any character in game (committed to a quest)? As I understand to any players' character.

6. Driven by Shadow: Can Driven by Shadow shadow effect discard Caught in Web? According the FAQ we can't because we don't control it.

7. Goblin Sniper: What if there the only enemies are 2 Goblin Snipers in the staging area?

LEGA said:

The rule has been reversed from FAQ 1.1 to 1.2. Other players cannot join the attack anymore.

One more question:

2 players' game. Journey down the Anduin 3B. I'm the first player and engaged with Hill Troll and my threat level is 49. Hill Troll attacks me and excessive damage = 4, I raise my threat level by 4 and it become 53. I'm eliminated. Next round second player defeats all enemies (including my Troll). We won. Question: what threat level I should put into "Final threat Level" of quest for me? 50, 53 or 54?

is that faq still egtting updated? it is no longter linked on lortlcg.com

booored said:

Click Search and it'll become visible. I think yes because there are new comments from off FAQ 1.2.