Leadership vs Leadership

By sonofzeal, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

We appear to have two different Fighting skill cards called "Leadership", with extremely similar (but not the same) effects. Are they intended to be the same? Complicating matters is the errata and various FAQs, which don't specify which one they're referring to.

Can anyone sort this out for us?

The one that refers to half actions is the more recent printing that was included in Altar of Despair as an update. The other is old and should be thrown out (or whatever you prefer to do with useless extra cards.)

Does the errata then modify the AoD one, re-adding the limitations of the JitD one? As-written, the AoD one allows two attacks or moves, and seems to also allow placing the order on a different hero even if you're not paying the fatigue.

Finally - there's an FAQ about how the "place the order on another hero" only works if you pay the 1 fatigue. On the JitD!Leadership this seems reasonable, but on the AoD!Leadership the layout seems to imply that it's a separate ability. Which one is the FAQ talking about? Can someone with the AoD!Leadership take a single half action and place the order on someone else, without paying the fatigue?

Thanks!

No, to use any aspect of Leadership the hero has to spend one fatigue - this was clarified in the FAQ or GLoAQ.

Wait, if you read the manual you'll see that the new Leadership (the one in AoD) is a modification of the original so that it can "better interact with the prolonged actions". So I would use the AoD one in quests that allow prolonged actions and the original in all other quests. The FAQ does not indicate that the original card is wrong in the Card Revision section, does it? The 1 fatigue cost is (I suppose) due to the several combinations of half orders that the hero could use (in the original one there is only one posible combination).

I don't see any reason to change the card in quests that don't use prologed actions, as it would only add a cost to it without actually giving the heros anything in return.

Galvancito1 said:

I don't see any reason to change the card in quests that don't use prologed actions, as it would only add a cost to it without actually giving the heros anything in return.

If you want to switch back and forth between two different Leadership cards, that's your business. Personally, I think the game is big enough and messy enough without needing to keep track of which cards should be available for use on top of everything else. But if saving the whole 1 fatigue cost for your hero players is something you find worthwhile, go nuts.

As far as I'm concerned, the new leadership card is an errata to the old one. Yes, designed to interact better with half actions, but I also don't see anything that says you should ONLY use it in AoD's quests. The half action terminology has proven to simplify the lingo throughout the game, even in quests where the concentration half action isn't available (read: everything other than AoD.) For those reasons, and so I don't need to keep two copies of the same card floating around, I prefer to just use the new one.

If you want to know for sure wheter or not you should be using the new leadership outside AoD, you could always ask FFG via the rules questions link down at the bottom. Something tells me, though, if you're this hard set against accepting the new card into general play, that you probably won't like the answer they give you.

The main reason I have not to accept the change (other than in the AoD) is the fact that in the Card Revision the new text does not appear. Any other card that has been modified appears with a couple of exceptions:

-The explosive chest card and the divine retribution card do not appear, but the only change made to them has been asked and answer.

-The acrobat one does not appear, but it doesn't have any effect unless you buy the expansion it appears on. Ok, ice from the ToI and certain obstacles from RtL may need the change, but I recall a question about that in the FAQ, and I wouldn't change anything in the original game either.

-The leadership card has been asked about, but the new text is not on the FAQ as neither is the change. When I first read it I hadn't bought the AoD and I was shoked that it mentioned the fatige point. My card didn't say anything about a fatige point. I looked back at the card and I couldn't find anything about a fatige point, but it seemed quite clear for whoever had asked the question in the FAQ. So I assume it only refers to the AoD version of it.

Since the new text does not appear on the Card Revision I suppose they don't consider it necessary to make any changes to it. I would accept a permanent change of the card if prolonged actions were something common, but they only appear in AoD quests. If feat cards allowed heroes to do prolonged actions to get certain objectives (which would actually be a great idea) I would change the card and forget about the original one.

Anyway, there are other cards that have to be changed for certain expansions only. Parry, for example, must be changed for the RtL only. I had bought RtL before buying AoD so I thought it was the same idea. Nothing in the book says that it is supposed to be used out of those quests. Think about it, must heroes playing a WoD quest need to pay a fatige point to use sush a specific card just because the players own the AoD expansion? It seems ridiculous to me, specially when the WoD had already made the necessary changes to 12 cards.

If I ask FFG to officialy answer about that they'll most probably not answer at all. The FAQ has not been updated since 2010, the 2nd Edition is getting all the publicity and some stores no loger have the first edition. I dare say FFG doesn't want to waste any effort on this edition anymore. In addition, different people seem to have been designing the last two expansions (the manual follows a different format and certain things are no longer called the same) so even if I do get an answer it may not reflect the original designers intention. Finally, the AoD is probably the most unbalanced expansion of Descent and it's not uncomon to house rule part of its features or not to use them at all (dark glyphs are the prime example). So why bothering asking?

From a former FAQ (source: descentinthedark.com):

FAQ

Leadership Skill card text: Does the "In addition, ..." part allow a hero to place an order on another hero when doing a normal Ready action without spending fatigue?

No. To use Leadership at all, you must spend 1 fatigue.

For ruling purposes, the new card replaces the old one. It is like Gauntlets of Power: the text on the card is not the same as the text of its most recent ruling.