Can large monsters ignore water in outdoor encounters if they are only partially over the water? I read that water is an obstacle like rubble. Thanks.

Toscadero said:

No.
The water rules prevent entry.
Large monsters can ignore terrain effects 'when the enter (occupy)' terrain. If they can't enter, they never get to the stage of ignoring the effect.

Bloodsquids are not sizest.

I think he is refering to outdoor water (from SoB), which allows entry. The rules aren't very clear about it but I suppose that a monster whose base is partially in shallow or deep and partialy on a ship could ignore the effect of the water (but it would be moved when the ship does as if it was on the ship).

Galvancito1 said:

Outdoor water in SoB would be 'Water (deep)' or Water (shallow)'.

In RtL encounters a number of outdoor locations have water. This water is the same as in dungeons and is impassable.
As an aside its very aggravating too! I just had an ambush by a bunch of Nagas and an Ogre but the location was a Swollen Stream and only one monster was able to even get at the hero party due to the water. Naturally every hero rolled a surge, woke up, and they killed the one monster with ease before it could attack and cruised through the others at their leisure. Ambush totally destroyed by stupid location.

aren't big monsters such as spiders suppose to have acrobatic like ability to ensure not to been so annoyed by stuff like single water or stone tiles? I thought i read something like that somewhere...

and thematic at least spiders should be able to ignore such terrains...

Morthai said:

It's an interesting house rule to play with, but I've certainly never heard that form any official source.

Morthai said:

I don't see why being biger makes a monster more acrobatic. Thematicaly the monster is simply steping somewhere else to avoid hazards like lava, ice, mud or pits. But not steping on rubble doesn't automatically allow the monster to go through it. With dungeon water it's the same: it doesn't matter that you don't step on it (it's not even jumpable), as soon as you are over it the tentacles of the squids get you and you are eaten.

Large monsters are only affected by obstacles if all of their tiles are filled with that obstacle. E.g. a 4 tile bane spider is not affected by 3 tiles of water but it would be it all 4 tiles were water.

Electris said:

This is incorrect and has already been explained.
Corbon said:

Interesting since per the FAQ water is treated as an obstacle for Crushing Wall. I suppose the difference would be outdoor vs indoor then?

Thanks.

Sorry wrong reference - not FAQ but the basic rules.

Actually the more I read about water and large monsters in the rules the more convinced I am that large monsters can walk over water tiles as long as they arent completely covering only water tiles. The overlord could choose to use 1 land tile to be active out of 4 tiles where the 3 remaining are water. If all 4 were water then I could see it preventing entry of the larger monster.

From the Rules Book:

Large Monsters and Terrain
When large monsters move, they can sometimes find themselves moving across hazardous terrain (lava, scything blades) twice as often as other figures. Further, it can often be confusing whether or not beneficial terrain (trees, elevated terrain) should affect a creature only partly standing on it. Use the following guidelines to arbitrate these instances. The overlord may choose to have a monster affected by any terrain it partially occupies. A monster MUST be affected by any terrain it completely occupies. If the monster is completely occupying multiple terrains, the figure has to be affected by one of the terrains (Overlord's Choice).

Electris said:

Explaining once more...
That entry only works when the large monsters are able to occupy (enter) the terrain. Then, when they occupy , they can ignore the terrain effect. If the effect is that they are prevented from entering (therefore cannot occupy) then they cannot even get to the stage of ignoring the terrain. Basically instead of moving onto the space and then ignoring the effect, they 'bounce' at the edge of the space.

This is confirmed by the ruling that the Ancient Oaks impassable trees are passable for large creatures - it would not be needed if large creatures could ignore the trees anyway.

Ignoring your rude start,

Large monsters can occupy 2 tiles one with rubble and one without even though rubble blocks movement.

Electris said:

No, they can't. For the same reason they can't occupy water spaces - because they aren't allowed to enter such spaces in the first place. Once again, the ruling about ignoring terrain only applies to terrain they can enter (and therefore occupy.)

Electris said:

What is rude is that you just same the same thing again and again, without bringing anything new to the table, despite repeated explanations of why what you say doesn't work that way.

Rubble:
DJitD pg17
Rubble markers represent a type of obstacle that blocks both figure movement and line of sight.
(water has the same quote, it blocks movement).

These spaces effect is to block movement into them. Therefore their effect is to prevent occupation , since you are blocked from entering them.
The large monster rules say that a large monster can ignore the effects of any terrain that it occupies (etc etc).

So, how did it occupy the rubble (or water space)? It can't ignore the effect until it occupies the space. But the effect prevents it from occupying, so therefore they can't actually get to the stage of ignoring the effect.

It is like a locked chest with the key inside.
If you have the key, the lock is ignorable. But since you can't get to the key in the first place, the chest remains inaccessible to you.

Corbon I know you are one of the few who is able to make sense of the rules printed as they are (with few corrections) - but maybe there is also a misprint in the basic game, because ffg never thought of movementissues with large monsters and obstacles. In a thematic sense it would be more convincing if large monster would be able to simply climb over rubble and ignoring the little stones in the way and also to be of intelligence to avoid water by simply stepping over it. Therefore it might be a issue that with the term "occupy" they also ment entering spaces with obstacles.

In my games so far it is also more convieniece if you apply that rule thislike, or in certain scenarios large monsters would be trapped by the map itself or any played crushing block from the overlord.

Morthai said:

It is quite clear that FFG understand the rule to mean that large monsters cannot enter impassable terrain because they made a specific change to an outdoor encounter rule because Large monsters could not do anything on the map with impassable trees (whereas if they ignored the impassable trees unless all spaces were in trees then there would be no problem and no need for FG to change the rule and make those trees passable for large monsters only.).

Thematic arguments are entirely unconvincing. An opposite thematic argument can always be made. It does not make sense that a large monster can squeeze it's bulk through a narrow space to avoid impassable terrain - but it does make sense that it can step around the edges of, or over the top of, lesser problems like lava pools, mud, pits etc. In those cases there is still 'space' for the monsters bulk to physically go through (water has the feared bloodsquids).

Convenience is another issue. Large monsters have many disadvantages and few advantages.

Yes I had misinterpreted the large monster section of the general rules. Thank you all for the clarification.

Morthai said:

That may be your opinion. To me, it makes no thematic sense that a large creature would be able to "climb over" the rubble so easily if smaller creatures can't do the same. Large creatures only have less room to move around, so how could they fit where smaller creatures can't? Also, keep in mind that - barring a very few exceptions - all of the dungeons take place indoors, so there's a ceiling somewhere above the rubble that also needs to be contended with.

Likewise concerning water - if it was just a case of stepping over, smaller creatures would be able to jump it as easily as they jump pits of equal size. FFG has already given us a thematic scapegoat for water - it's those darned bloodsquids. They can grab large creatures just as easily as they do smaller ones, so in actual fact, the reason nobody crosses water spaces is not because they lack the intelligence to go around. it's because they have the intelligence to avoid being eaten by bloodsquids.

Descent as a whole has many rulings that defy common sense and thematic explanation. So much so that most experienced players don't even bother trying anymore. The situation of large monster movement is actually quite easy to explain thematically, the only problem is you can use thematic explanations to cover basically ANY ruling you might come up with, so these kinds of arguments sort of lose their weight.