Hi folks,

does anybody have an idea how to handle the ghost ability of the shades introduced in ToI, if combined with the shadowcloak ability that a figure would gain on a space with a tree or a giant mushroom? It makes them invulnerable, doesn't it?

Heinous Henk said:

I thought they were as well but no they are not invulnerable.

I always have to pull out the ability rules whenever someone asks this otherwise I get myself into trouble.

Ghost: Figures with the Ghost ability cannot be attacked by adjacent figures using a melee attack. A figure with the Reach ability can attack a figure that has the Ghost ability using a melee attack, as long as both figures are not adjacent and the Ghost figure is within range of the Reach figure.

So Ghost only makes you immune to melee attacks from adjacent figures, it says nothing about magic or ranged.

Shadowcloak: A figure with the Shadowcloak ability is only affected by attacks made by adjacent figures. The figure does not suffer any wounds or effects from attacks originating farther than one space away.

Shadowcloak prevents attacks made from distance, be they melee with Reach, magic or ranged attacks.

Combine the two and you get:

Immune to melee from adjacent and figures with Reach.

Vulnerable to magic and ranged from adjacent figures but not ones more than one space away.

If this is not a prime example of the lack of logic in Descent, I don't know what is. Now magic I could be fine with, but ranged attacks?

Shade: "I'm a Ghostly Shade.....wooooohoooooo...I'm in a tree so you have to be next to me to hit me but I'm Ghostly so you can't strike me....wooohooo"

Kirga: "Oh okay (walks up to the Shade)....I stick you in the side with an arrow."

Shade: " WTF I'm a SHADE!"

Descent mechanics always seem to have a certain aspect of unfortunate naming: the mechanics work fine unless you start thinking of them in terms of their actual names .

While not invulnerable, this makes several encounters unwinnable for the OL if Zyla is in the party. My ogre is completely blocked while Zyla stands in a tree with two other heroes behind her. If only regular leaders could run away to avoid a party victory. I think Zyla needs reworked completely.

I've noticed that less broken hero combos seem to get fixed than broken OL things. Do you think it's a product of 4 times as many people playing heroes and complaining about the OL?

Yeah! I wounder about this ghost/ tree thing myself till I read it 4 time and really thought about it. As a OL player I see myself not wanting an Uber combos come from the heros or the OL. One thing that may work is giving the OL deck some cards that say " target next attk is now a (range) or (melee) or(magic) attack for one turn. You could have 2 or each type in the Ol deck, the same could be done for hero feat cards. Melee card could have attk now ranged for one turn or magic for one turn. "Inner Chi". with that said it starts to break up to attack types more which alot of players are looking for but it make to universal hero less important so that good with the bad. But it would help the OL out in a bunch of situations (sp) Didn'y think of Zyla, ouch!!!!

Even with those cards, outdoor encounters sans ranged/magic monsters are instant wins for a party with Zyla. You might get a turn or two prior to them blockading you in a corridor to try to gain some conquest, but there's no way you can do a "party death" or prevent them from being able to collect on the victory spoils.

Even if you manage to get rid of all the other heros, if all you have is melee (several encounters feature melee leaders with no reinforcements or melee reinforcements), you are toast, eventually. "I can sit in this tree forever".

The worst situation is as I described above - a two by two monster blockaded by Zyla and two heroes behind her. Normally you could pass right through Zyla, but those two other worthless idiots make her invincible.

pinkymadigan said:

I have not played with Zyla what are the hero trickes for her and how do they work. I would like to know so that I can try and find a solution to it. (AS the OL player) My group I'm always the OL player. Thanks for any feed back.

Zyla has the Ghost and Fly abilities, which essentially make her immune to about half the monsters in the game. Add to that the fact that she's only worth one conquest to the overlord, and it's pretty nuts.

Personally I find that being completely immune to the following monsters constitutes a far more powerful ability than any other character in the game:

Kobolds
Blood Apes
Ferrox
Beastmen
Deep Elves
Golems
Wendigos
Razorwings

Add Trolls, Ogres, and Giants to that list if she's in a tree.

Add to that the fact that (unless I'm mistaken) the Beastman Lord in RtL can't touch her either, which makes the avatar's keep an auto-win for the heroes.

Personally I think any ability that makes entire encounters unable to harm a hero (another example is something that gives immunity to web when facing the spider queen) is too much.

Thoughts?

Osaka said:

Actually, add ogres in all the time unless you're playing the Titan and your ogres have reach and she's not in a tree.

Additionally, if she has grapple from a bear tattoo, you can pretty much add them all in regardless.

PBnJ - the basic idea is to get whichever 2x2 monster with melee in the encounter on one side of you like this

oo

oo

ab

Zo

mm

mm

oo

where o = empty space,

a and b are any two heroes,

Z is Zyla,

and m is your ogre or whatnot

Your monster (who in the last encounter for me was the leader) can't attack Zyla due to ghost. To make up for ghost, Zyla is supposed to be able to be moved through, however, two heroes sitting behind her make this impossible.

So essentially you are handcuffed with nothing to do, unless you happen to have the ability to reinforce the encounter, which at least a few with these situations are missing, so (don't quote me on the number) anywhere from 3-6 of these encounters are completely unwinnable for the OL.

While it has been brought up that the OL is handicapped against Zyla in the final battle if they have the beastman or titan, there are workarounds (such as not picking the titan or beastman) but you really shouldn't have to limit yourself (on either end, really) for the last battle to be fun. I think it should be climactic, not "meh".

EDIT:

I just looked through the encounters, the following are POTENTIALLY unwinnable (terrain, upgrades, skills, etc. pending) if Zyla is in the party.

Hammer Brothers(must have reach for ogres to win, and no grapple on Zyla)

Two Headed Giant(grapple = most likely unwinnable)

White Wraiths(grapple = potentially unwinnable)

Silent as the Grave(I can't think of how you could win this, she's melee, no reinforcements, no upgrades to help...)

Tall in Spirit(Same, just a bunch of kobolds - no reach available)

Savage Beasts(unwinnable)

Troll Bridge(grapple = potentially unwinnable)

The Sentinals(grapple = most likely unwinnable)

It should also be noted that "The Wyrm Turns" could be pretty hellish for the heroes if there are usable trees, however, they have the option of fleeing.

Osaka said:

Unless I'm mistaken, Wendigos have Reach, and Blood Apes should be able to harm her with Leap attacks.

You should also probably state for the record that monsters are allowed to move through Zyla as long as they don't end their turn in her space.

pinkymadigan said:

WOW!!!!

With the gaints/ titan I belive that the reach sweep would take care of the two heros in the back but I can see the uber effects Zyla has.

HOLY CRAP!!!! As an OL the best you could hope for is to slow her down with some of the OL cards. Floor traps don't work for thats out. Area effects are out too. SO is their any word on fixing this.?

Yeah, actually, there's nothing stopping even an ogre from moving onto Zyla, attacking a hero behind her, and then moving backwards off of her, as far as I know. If you place the other heroes two spaces behind Zyla, then a monster needs Reach (or speed 4+) to accomplish this, but that means that the only standard monster that's totally helpless is an ogre.

Giving Zyla grapple lets her do a lot more. However, it may be worth someone doing an analysis to see what are the worst abuses Zyla can commit if you don't allow her to get grapple.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that you can't attack while occupying the same space as another figure... Or am I just out of it?

As for the encounters that Xylia is "immune" to, it would include any that have no magic/ranged monsters (I don't have the books/cards handy to look through for my own list). Any encounter including a critter with reach would just require her to sit in a tree shooting the monsters into submission. Since there's no conquest to be gained by the overlord if the heroes waste time (no OL deck to exhaust in an outdoor encounter) Xylia can basically wait around indefinitely.

Regardless, in an outdoor encounter, if she's sitting in a tree in a corridor like PBnJ posted, most of the big critters wouldn't be able to pass her regardless because they'd get slowed on the tree (or am I missing some rules for trees and big monsters?)

Yep, that was the situation, sitting in a tree, my ogre (pinkymadigan's, not PBnJ's, but I see the avatar confusion) could not get over Zyla to attack the heroes, who were in fact two spaces behind (good point Antistone, I had forgotten that detail).

But even if he could, Zyla still would have been sitting there in a tree, completely immune to anything the ogre could do.

I just don't enjoy having encounters that are straight up defeat for the OL. Kinda makes getting a few conquest for eliminating the rest of the heroes a little less uplifting.

As far as I go, I'd be ready to tear up the Zyla character sheet and accidentally step on the miniature in my Cult boots - but a more elegant solution is available.

"Any Named monster treats Ghost as Stealth". Solved. Zyla is still useful, though suddenly unavailable to break many encounters.

I think that's an excellent way to handle things! I'll suggest that house rule to my group on Thursday when we meet, and fill you in on what their opinions are!

Other options would be:

1) Ghost+Tree = Ghost+Stealth

2) Only give her Ghost in dungeons

Those, of course, I'd add to your proposal.

Osaka said:

The Fly ability (and the Acrobat skill) allow you to move through other figures but not attack from their space. It wouldn't be totally implausible to guess that you're never supposed to be able to attack while sharing a space with another figure, since Zyla currently appears to be the only exception, but as far as I know there is no printed rule prohibiting it.

Don't know about trees reducing movement; still have no plans to actually play RtL. The most recent FAQ ruling (v1.4) about how large monsters interact with negative terrain effects is completely borked, though, so I imagine there's plenty of room for someone to argue about it, if they feel strongly.

To throw out another option, here's the new ability that replaces Ghost in the mod I'm working on:

Disruption: A figure with the Disruption ability is able to interfere with the attacks of opponents. This may be accomplished by batting away a weapon, shaking the ground, or shrouding the opponent in darkness, but the result is the same: any attack made by an adjacent opponent is automatically considered to be dodged (the owner of the disrupting figure chooses which dice to re-roll), even if the figure with Disruption was not targeted by that attack.

This changes it from a pure "screw melee" ability into more of a tactical positioning thing (while still making it a fairly effective defense against melee, especially if you drink an invisibility potion).

Antistone said:

Wait a minute! Monsters can move/attack and finish moving? Were is this at. I thought monster could only move then attack or attack then move not split it like heros. Boy as an OL I sure miss that one.

Rules for monster movement are on page 9. "A figure may make attacks at any point during its movement. For example, a figure with a speed of 4 may move 2 spaces, attack, and then move another 2 spaces." Monsters are unable to double-move (run) or double-attack (battle) like heroes, but they can still split movement points.

However, I may have been wrong about attacking while in another figure's space. "Figures may pass through spaces occupied by friendly figures during movement, but they cannot attack while in the same space as another figure and they must end their movement in an empty space. A hero treats all other heroes as friendly figures, while a monster treats all other monsters as friendly figures."

I seem to remember something from the old forums where there is a glitch in the rules that allows the Heroes to execute a Guard order and hit 2 monsters with the same melee attack while one monster is passing through the space of another monster.

Well, technically when you attack, you're declaring an attack against a space, and not the monster in the space. So yes, you can whack two monsters at once if the OL is silly enough to let you. ;-)

Solution 1: Move monster 1 away before moving monster 2 through his space,

Solution 2: Move monster 2 through a different space (not through monster 1)

Solution 3 (my favorite): Whack hero with monster 1 to take away his guard order!

Yeah, I had some players who for some reason would have the melee characters put up Guard orders in a room full of Skeletons. After the third time, I couldn't deal with it anymore and had to give them a dissertation on difference between Guard and Dodge in certain situations.