Rules question concerning failed tasks with terror effects and dice rolling procedure during a turn:

By MrBallast, in Elder Sign

Hi folks,

Have played this game about four times now with 2 different investigators and a different Ancient One each time and a couple of issues/rules questions came up:

During play, it seems like you have lots of options on how to use/roll the dice. Spells, re-rolls, focusing/assisting on failures, etc. I'm just not sure how all this is precisely managed. When using a dice-related spell, you cast it before rolling(that much is clear). Question is, can it be cast before any of the active player's rolls(such as before using a re-roll or even after failure/focusing)? Additionally, does one HAVE to set aside a dice for the spell if none of the results are wanted?

The use of the different dice options seems a bit confusing too, at least to me. Let's say I have an adventure card that requires 3 terror symbols to complete its only task. On my initial roll of the 6 green dice I get a single terror symbol. I decide to set that aside(not focusing) and use a re-roll for the remaining 5 dice. On that roll, I get 1 more terror(not enough). Question is, can I focus the terror from the failed roll(while keeping the 1 set-aside from the re-roll) and hope for the 3rd terror on the other 4 dice? If not, it seems like my options would be to use a re-roll again for the 5 dice, or just fail and keep dropping a dice for each failure.

The other topical question I had was concerning the adventure cards that have terror effects. Most of them are straight forward except for one. I for get the name of the specific adventure, but its terror effect is to discard any terror dice. Let's say I roll a failed task and have no re-rolls to prevent the failure. On a previous roll i had completed a terror-related task. So, when the failed task/roll occurs that includes 2 terror symbols among the dice, would I lose those 2 dice in addition to losing 1 for failure? Also, do you lose/discard any terror dice you have used to complete tasks on the same adventure card? This part is unclear one or the other or both?

Thanks in advance for any feedback or insights.

When they say "set aside" for a fail, they mean that you are not to use it. So in your example where you roll one terror and you don't focus, you now have 5 dice to roll and you don't have any terror saved up. What you would want to do is throw one die away, keep the one terror, and roll with 4 dice to try to get the remaining two. If you got one terror on that roll and you have no other way to save a die state, you roll again with only three dice and still just that one terror from focus.

I am slightly confused by your use of the term "re-roll," since I can't tell whether you're applying it to rolls of the dice beyond the first or the use of effects (like clues) to re-roll dice, or both, but I shall attempt to answer your questions about spells anyway: spells must be cast before a particular roll of the dice, not including re-rolls caused by clues or other effects (like Anna Kaslow). And yes, you must place a die on a spell you just cast even if you don't want to.

Thanks for the responses guys. Just to clarify about "re-rolls". In my examples, the re-rolls I was referring to were with clue tokens. Rolling 6 green dice, getting 1 terror. Then setting that 1 terror aside(non-failure) and using the clue token to re-roll the remaining 5 to add to the one previously rolled hoping for the other 2 terror symbols. I assumed that possible due to the rules stating that one could re-roll any of the dice.

MrBallast said:

Thanks for the responses guys. Just to clarify about "re-rolls". In my examples, the re-rolls I was referring to were with clue tokens. Rolling 6 green dice, getting 1 terror. Then setting that 1 terror aside(non-failure) and using the clue token to re-roll the remaining 5 to add to the one previously rolled hoping for the other 2 terror symbols. I assumed that possible due to the rules stating that one could re-roll any of the dice.

Yes, that is correct. I must have missed the part where you mentioned a clue token. If you roll 6 dice, get one terror, you can use a clue token to reroll and keep that terror, but still roll with 5 dice.

Regarding spells, based on he rules, i think you can cast it before any roll of the dice BUT you must place a die from that roll onto the spell card, even if none of them are really wanted.