We have an encounter with a soaring manticore(named). OL wants to move the monster to a space where another manticore is, attack from the same space and then move away.

Is this a legal move? Normaly any figure cannot attack from the space when there is another figure, but OL thinks this is legal since the monster is soaring/flying. Inputs are welcome.

I don't think that's legal, IIRC no one (hero or monster) can make an arrack from a space that contains another hero/monster. The soar is irrrelevent here. Logically it may be inconsistent but logical consistency isn't something that Descent is known for.

That move is not legal. Soar has precisely two effects: (1) All attacks, to or from, suffer +4 range (including melee attacks even though they normally don't calculate range.) and (2) it grants the ability to "swoop," which negates the range penalty - as well as all benefits of Fly - until the creature starts soaring again.

That's all. Everything else is exactly as if the creature weren't even flying. It still blocks movement, still blocks Line of Sight , etc.

Steve-O said:

Digitality said:

Well said. That's exactly the problem. People get into this game thinking it will be a role-playing game in board game form. They want it to be a role-playing game in board game form. (I know that's exactly what I was looking for when I first bought the game, many moons ago.)

But, in fact, the game was created as an effort to reclaim the mechanics they made for Doom: the Board Game using an IP they controlled (I don't know all the details, but I gather the Doom board game was killed by legal concerns between FFG and iD.) What this means is that the mechanics were originally designed to emulate a video game and have simply been retooled into a fantasy RPG-esque setting. Random spawns in dark corners, fast and furious violence, limited mobility around certain types of obstacle... It all makes sense if you think about the game like it were a video game instead of an RPG.

Those who are familiar with the Doom BG generally agree that the mechanics as presented there did a fantastic job of recreating the suspense, atmosphere and game play of Doom (3), but that game play is obviously much different from what one expects of a fantasy RPG. Hopefully, the 2e Descent mechanics will do a better job of emulating the style people expect of this setting. Speaking in general, I've always been impressed with how well FFG manages to capture the "flavour" of a particular setting in a new board game they've just released. The problem with Descent was that they were trying to retool an existing set of mechanics into an entirely different "flavour" of game. The game is perfectly playable, but the clash between expected game play and observed game play can be somewhat mind blowing to the newly initiated.

Yeah, I came a little late to Descent, just short of 2 years ago. I had the Starcraft board game which got me looking at FFG stuff. Saw the minis and a couple pics and was like "I so want this." I did a good bit of reading first and then I decided I really wanted it for what it was. My g/f and I are really into turned base tactics games, which is a fairly small genre in the video gaming world these days. We like to blame that lack of popularity on no multiplayer features in a market that's banking off of multiplayer replayability. Descent, however, has given us that versus option.

It was a great pick up and has gotten me to start running a biweekly game night at my place where we play a lot of the boardgames I've piled up over the years but rarely ever had reason to bring out. With me playing fewer and fewer video games these days unless they have multiplayer and my friends play (can't often justify 60$ for 10-20 hours game time when I used to pay 40$ for 30+ hours as a kid) this change has been great and gives everyone a reason to get together more often. I haven't really done tabletop in-person gaming since about 10 years ago when I played Mage Knight and played in like 2 D&D campaigns and a Vampire campaign.

I think it emulates the turn based tactics style quite well. I took some advice from another poster on BGG and expained it to my friends as being like Diablo in board game form then added to it as an FF tactics type of playstyle. Giving it the video game comparison really helps with expectations. Only one guy in our group of 8 hasn't taken a liking to Descent, but that's because he much prefers conquest style every man for himself games.