We just finished our first game last night and really enjoyed playing Descent. A few questions however did come out of our session that I either didn't understand from the FAQ or didn't find in the forum. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

1) In the FAQ it says that a hero can only drink 1 potion (of any type) per turn, does this mean they can only drink 1 potion per turn or as many as they want of 1 type of potion?

2) Can the giant in quest 1 move through the pit in the final room? The rules say that Large creatures ignore pits, but then the FAQ says that you should use the front half of the monster. I'm wondering if the giant should suffer any damage or movement penalty when moving through a pit that covers its front half. In either case, I'm assuming that the giant is allowed to jump over the pit?

2a) Concerning Large Monsters we assumed that ruble always blocks movement, ie large monsters can't move through any square that has a ruble marker.

4) Is bog the rat affected by Gust of Wind (limit heroes LoS to 5 squares)? We said yes, because the rules state that bog has LoS like a hero, was this correct?

Thanks, we're looking forward to meeting Narthak's brothers!

1.One potion total

2. Yes it can. The FAQ wording was for terrain which damages a figure, and introduced so that large figs dont get hurt twice by the same damaging piece of terrain.

3. Correct

4. Boggs is not affected by Gust of Wind. This has been ruled officially somewhere, but I'm not sure where.

Regarding Quest 2 - A word of warning. Quest 1 is a great introduction to the game. Quest 2 teaches the heroes a specific lesson. They are faced with a big tough foe with lots of armour and they only have rubbish equipment.

SPOILER:

They cant win this level if they try to take out the giant. They need to learn that against heroes with lots of armour, choosing the battle action may result in 2 useless attacks. They either need to aim, or alternatively, choose the "ready" action, have one attack but use all their fatigue to add lots of black dice, and then place a rest order.

The way to win this level is to act as soon as the giant is revealed. Have one character simply rush into the room and activate the glyph (probably dying in the process). However, this means they can then come back in the giants room and grab the treasure. If they dont do this and allow the giant to move, he can block the corridor and slow the entire game down for the heroes, allowing the OL to keep gaining threat and spawning more.

Thanks for the clarification and warning!

Paul Grogan said:

Can someone verify 2 and 4...especially 4...

I remember the front of the large fig mattered for when entering muddy terrain or such. not pits.

#4 has been a long going argument. The official word was something posted about 2 message boardas ago and is on the Descent Wiki and is attributed to MikeZ as the source.

Boggs is immune to Gust of Wind because he is A) a familiar and B) "nocturnal". I've always been an vocal opponent of the ruling, but until it changes I've been following it.

Regarding #2, the new FAQ entry is extremely poorly worded, to the point where it is difficult to tell what it is supposed to mean.

Large Monsters and Terrain
When large monsters move, they can sometimes find themselves moving across hazardous terrain (lava, scything blades) twice as often as other figures. Further, it can often be confusing whether or not beneficial terrain (trees, elevated terrain) should affect a creature only partly standing on it. Use the following guidelines to arbitrate these instances.
When a large monster moves, it suffers the negative effects only of whatever terrain its “front” half enters. For example, if a spider were to move from four clear squares to a mud square, it would suffer a movement penalty.
If that same spider were to then move its “front” (i.e. leading) half off the mud into clear terrain, it would not suffer a movement penalty even though its “back” (i.e. trailing) half has just moved onto the mud.
A figure receives the benefits of a terrain feature if any part of its base is on that terrain feature. For example, if half of a spider’s base is on a table, the spider is considered to be elevated.

Since it says "suffers the negative effects only of whatever terrain its 'front' half enters," I suspect this was only meant to modify terrain that previously affected large figures if any part of the figure overlapped it (all of their examples are of this type), rather than terrain that previously only affected large figures if every space of the figure touched it (pits, ice).

I also suspect that all that stuff about "front" and "back" "halves" is intended to mean that they suffer the effects when they enter a hazardous square, but do not suffer the effects for terrain that they already occupied before the movement. This means that "front half" could actually be a part of the figure as small as 1/3 of it (pivoting dragon) or as large as the entire thing (sidestepping hellhound), but they apparently expect you to use creative definitions of the word "half" for the large monster movement rules anyway, and neither "front" nor "back" has any meaning at all in a game with no facing, so I think it's a reasonable guess at intent, and it seems to be a logical and non-exploitable rule (unlike certain other possible interpretations of that text).

Have I mentioned that Descent suffers from some notable cases of agonizingly badly-written rules?

Big Remy said:

I dunno, it makes sense to me. In addition, Gust of Wind says it's a gust of wind that blows out the Heroes' torches. As funny as it is to picture Boggs having a torch strapped to his back, it probably wouldn't be very practicle. And the smell of scorched rat when the torch burns too low would discourage most adventurers from trying that more than once.

Tom

Antistone said:

The worst part of this 'clarification' is that mud is one of those terrain types ><.

SemanticDM said:

I wish I could find the thread, but there's a problem where Boggs is treated like a Hero for the purposes of LOS. I'm fine with the whole "he's a familiar and therefore immune to effects" but nocturnal? I mean c'mon, rats can't see in complete darkness they need some light and the primarily use their whiskers in situations like those :-)

Yes, I am a scientist.

Wibble said:

Crap, you're right. Actually, upon re-reading the rules, so is lava , to my great surprise. My profuse apologies.

In that case, I guess the most plausible reading is that this rule makes large monsters more vulnerable to pits, mud, lava, and...ice? Even though the ice rules were written after this FAQ ruling?

OK, I give up, this FAQ ruling is just unsalvagable crap. Do whatever you want.

I thought there was something in the rules or the FAQ about large monsters only being affected by Pits if their whole base is in the pit?

Big Remy said:

There is, it's in the original rules. But the rules also say exactly the same thing about mud and lava, and this FAQ ruling specifically mentions those as being examples of where the new rule applies.

Antistone said:

So clearly the FAQ ruling covers covers all terrain (both hazardous and beneficial, and including 'trap' terrain like dartfields). Whats the difficulty here?

The pits, lava, mud etc base rules have obviously been changed by the FAQ. Its poor writing, but still pretty clear really. Except perhaps for Fog, which is just nonsensical in the same way as having 1/6 of a base in a tree can be nonsensical. It least its simple and easy to figure out.

When moving, count only the leading edge. When not moving count any part of the base.

Maybe I am missing something?

I think the rule about mud not affecting large monsters was simply forgotten when that FAQ entry was written, and that the intent was simply to not have large monsters penalized multiple times when moving through obstructive terrain. I apply the FAQ ruling for things like trees and tables, but do not allow it to overwrite earlier rules (which are quite clear) such as those for pits and mud.

Corbon said:

The difficulty is threefold. First, the stated reason for the FAQ ruling was to reduce the frequency with which large monsters suffer the ill effects of hazardous terrain, so any outcome that results in increasing the frequency with which they suffer is highly suspect.

Secondly, ice works just like pits, mud, and lava originally worked, but it was created after this FAQ ruling. If the intent was to change all the terrain that worked that way to work in a new way, the ToI rules should have incorporated the change into the rules for ice. The fact that they didn't means one of three things:

1. The ToI rules-writers screwed up, and should have changed ice.
2. The FAQ writers screwed up, and this ruling was never meant to apply to pits, mud, or lava.
3. The FAQ was intended to change pits, mud, and lava to a new way of working, but ice was intended to use the old way of working that pits, mud, and lava used to use, in which case the writers need to be shot for deliberately making things far more complicated and confusing than necessary.

All of these explanations involve the rules-writers doing bad things.

Thirdly, this implies that large monsters can be inside of pits (with all the relevant effects, like LoS adjustment, immunity to rolling boulders and crushing walls, etc.) that are actually smaller than they are. Additionally, that whether the monster is in the pit or not cannot be determined by looking only at the monster's current position, but has to be determined based on how the monster moved into its current position. And that's simply unacceptable, not just because it's stupid and will pointlessly screw up lots of existing quests, but because it will lead to interminable arguments at the table over whether an ogre is actually in a pit or not when no one remembers exactly how it moved last turn.

So the simplest explanation for this menagerie of fail is that the people writing the FAQ to change how mud and lava work didn't bother to check how they originally worked, and therefore that they might or might not decide that this is still a good idea once they realize their mistake. See, even the most plausible guess at authorial intent doesn't actually tell us how the rule should currently work. Fun, eh?

In conclusion, this rule is botched. A reasonably good guess can be made as to how scything blades and dart fields should work, but the rest is anyone's guess. My recommendation would be to ignore this ruling (at least for purposes of obstacles) until they fix it.

I always had a bit of discomfort with the mental image of a giant tiptoe-ing along with his arms out balancing and his body in that sort of sideways-sway-to-counterbalance one does as he avoids three spaces of mud by standing only on the fourth space. Mama will be mad if he tracks mud across the carpet when he gets home...

Consequently I found the FAQ wording under discussion something of a relief.

Even front(leading spaces)-half-only pits was basically a toe-stubb (it is only one damage) so that was fine.

However its the LOS issues that really kill this FAQ answer. Pits, Fog etc. It's a benefit to the Giant is it can't be seen by the heroic archer because it has wedged its foot in a pit like a worker stepping in a bucket - so the FAQ ruling would therefore apply - 4 square giant can hide in a one square pit.

I agree, its a total botch.

I also agree, much as some might like to avoid casting aspersions on authors, that it appears to be due to sloppy work checking background information by the writers.

Its not an easy job, but heck, it would be so much more interesting than my own (if almost certainly much worse paid ).

Corbon said:

Actually, being in a pit doesn't make it any harder for other figures to get LoS to you, it just restricts your own LoS. It does let you hide from the rolling boulder or crushing wall passing overhead, though, and the fog example still seems to apply.

Antistone said:

Err, yeah, thats our own little house rule coming back to bite us.