More Rules Questions

By Paul Grogan, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Does anyone know the answer to these?

If not, I'll add them to the ever-growing list of unanswered questions....

1. Andira Runehand has the Sunburst rune. In the following text, O / X are empty space, M are the monsters, and A is Andira

XM
OM
AO

Andira targets space X with the blast attack, which is perfectly legal. This attack will hit both monsters. Does she get Pierce 2 against the monster adjacent to her, because the attack didnt really come from there? We ruled that it did, but thought I would ask.

2. Do trees count as obstacles? We asked this because of the skill card Precision which allows you to ignore one obstacle and wondered if it applied to trees.

3. There is a Power card Sloth from Altar of Despair. "The heroes lose 1 conquest point each time a hero uses a glyph of returning to move to town". How does this work in RtL?

4. Ispher in RtL. Does the text in the RtL rulebook completely replace the character ability, or is it in addition to? It seems odd if it replaces the ability and I'm probably going to rule that the extra text in the RtL book is just further explaining that outside combat, so many rounds pass that they can heal to full.

5. Daze - Can a figure affected by Daze choose to remove the primary dice for the attack in order to ensure they do not miss?

Thanks all.

Good questions. I'll only reply to those I think I can answer reliably:

Paul Grogan said:

3. There is a Power card Sloth from Altar of Despair. "The heroes lose 1 conquest point each time a hero uses a glyph of returning to move to town". How does this work in RtL?

The general rule is: Whenever the heroes would lose conquest in vanilla descent, the overlord gains it instead in RtL. So in this case, the overlord would gain 1 conquest each time the heroes use a glyph to go to Tamalir.

Paul Grogan said:

4. Ispher in RtL. Does the text in the RtL rulebook completely replace the character ability, or is it in addition to? It seems odd if it replaces the ability and I'm probably going to rule that the extra text in the RtL book is just further explaining that outside combat, so many rounds pass that they can heal to full.

It's clearly in addition. Note that most of the "hero changes" text is not worded as if to replace the actual text on the cards.

1. I'd need to see Andira's character sheet and the exact wording of her ability. But my guess is that the adjacent beastman takes Pierce 2 but the other one does not.

2. I would say yes.

4. What does it say exactly? Ispher heals to full anytime the heroes are on the overland map. IE not in an encounter or a dungeon.

5. No, I think it says that you start by removing black die. Then green or yellow. Then Red / White / Blue.

1) Not sure, I want to say no because she attacked the space and not the monster, the monster was just caught in the Blast. I'd have to look at her card again.

2) As far as I know they do because they block LOS (I think)

3) Not positive, offhand I would say the OL gets 1 CT each time instead of the Heroes losing. Follows the precident set by the OL getting CT for killing Heroes.

4) To the best of my knowledge, its adds to.

5) Again, AFAIK you can't.

Paul Grogan said:

5. Daze - Can a figure affected by Daze choose to remove the primary dice for the attack in order to ensure they do not miss?

I found the following rule in RtL:

"Each time a figure attacks while it has one or more daze tokens
on it, it loses one die (either yellow, black, or green) from its
attack for each daze token on it."

So no, you can't not roll the primary die. It raises the question though whether you have to remove silver and gold dice if necessary, because it only says "black". I think the part in brackets should really read "(either yellow, green or power dice)".

Yeah! So really good questions to debate! gran_risa.gif

1. At first I thought that the adjacent Beastman would have a Pierce of 2 applied against him, but not the other. Then I read her card: "When Andira Runehand makes a Magic attack against an adjacent enemy, she gains Pierce 2."

Two thing struck me about this. a) it's not clear if the attack has to target the enemy or simply affect the enemy b) she gains the Pierce 2 ability.

This makes me think that neither would be affected by Pierce (if the attack has to target an adjacent enemy) or both of them would have Pierce applied against them (if the attack only has to affect an adjacent enemy). It gets back to whether targeting the adjacent enemy is the triggering condition (which I suspect is the case, but I'm not willing to make any bets). I think this question needs to be bumped upstairs for an official response.

2. Trees are listed under "Obstacles and Props" on page 27 of RtL.

2. The question of trees as obstacles came up in our RtL game today. The trees in Encounters have Shadowcloak, or at least the characters who move into the same space as a tree has Shadowcloak. Because of this, I ruled that a character with Precision couldn't shoot through the tree. If you can't attack into a tree space unless you're adjacent to it, there should be no way to shoot through at an enemy figure on the opposite side when determining LOS for a range attack. I'd like to hear some other opinions.

eggsmel said:

2. The question of trees as obstacles came up in our RtL game today. The trees in Encounters have Shadowcloak, or at least the characters who move into the same space as a tree has Shadowcloak. Because of this, I ruled that a character with Precision couldn't shoot through the tree. If you can't attack into a tree space unless you're adjacent to it, there should be no way to shoot through at an enemy figure on the opposite side when determining LOS for a range attack. I'd like to hear some other opinions.

This has been covered in threads before, though finding anything is impossible with the rubbish forum software FFG have inflicted upon us...

Shadowcloak and LOS do not have any interaction or relation. There should be no 'connection' made between them when figuring out rules. As an aside, when making rules 'judgements' it is important to recheck the actual rules wordings and not use your own commonplace paraphrases.

You can RAW attack a tree space from further away. It is just that any figure in that space won't be affected. For example, a blast attack targeting a tree space can hit figures on either side of the tree who are not in the tree.

Characters with Precision can shoot through trees.

If you need thematics* look at it this way. Characters in the tree space can duck behind the trunk when they see a distant attack coming, so they cannot be affected. However a Precise archer can target the figure further away from the tree whom the archer can just see through gaps in the foliage. The poor target has even less time than usual to react against the attack...

*bearing in mind that thematics are a bad way of adjudicating anything as there is always an opposing thematic argument you haven't thought of that is just as good not better than the one you are using.

Rednek said:

1. At first I thought that the adjacent Beastman would have a Pierce of 2 applied against him, but not the other. Then I read her card: "When Andira Runehand makes a Magic attack against an adjacent enemy, she gains Pierce 2."

Two thing struck me about this. a) it's not clear if the attack has to target the enemy or simply affect the enemy b) she gains the Pierce 2 ability.

This makes me think that neither would be affected by Pierce (if the attack has to target an adjacent enemy) or both of them would have Pierce applied against them (if the attack only has to affect an adjacent enemy). It gets back to whether targeting the adjacent enemy is the triggering condition (which I suspect is the case, but I'm not willing to make any bets). I think this question needs to be bumped upstairs for an official response.

Since an attack is always declared against a space, and not a model, I would vote that only the adjacent monster gets pierce 2 applied to him. The working is such that you're right -- technically SHE gains Pierce 2, so the whole attack would be affected, but while I truly hate the intent-guessing game, I don't think that was what they had planned with her. In cases like that, a breath rune with her would become all-powerful! :-) But I agree. This is definitely an issue that could use some clarification.

As for Uthoroc's comment about Daze and silver-gold... the RtL book does say that anything affecting black power dice will also affect silver and gold, so despite the fact that they didn't update the ability description to match, I think the general rule takes precedence here and they are affected.

Osaka said:

Since an attack is always declared against a space, and not a model, I would vote that only the adjacent monster gets pierce 2 applied to him. The working is such that you're right -- technically SHE gains Pierce 2, so the whole attack would be affected, but while I truly hate the intent-guessing game, I don't think that was what they had planned with her. In cases like that, a breath rune with her would become all-powerful! :-) But I agree. This is definitely an issue that could use some clarification.

As for Uthoroc's comment about Daze and silver-gold... the RtL book does say that anything affecting black power dice will also affect silver and gold, so despite the fact that they didn't update the ability description to match, I think the general rule takes precedence here and they are affected.

Err what??? So don't play the game. She gains pierce. Its that simple. No clarification is needed.
(For those who still need clarification, since She has pierce, everybody affected by her attack gets affected by the pierce.)
And no, Pierce 2 on a breathe rune (only applicable if the first space of the template covers a figure) is hardly all-powerful IMO.

I agree about the silver/gold though.