I tried to find if these questions have been asked before, but for some reason the "Search the forums" link isn't a link. I looked through forty forum pages before calling it quits and just asking.

Just played my first Descent game and two questions came up. First, the Guard order. By strict reading of the rules text, it seems like you can move or attack and then place a Guard order, getting an attack during the Overlord's turn as well. If so, why would anyone ever Advance or Battle? With Advance you get one move and one attack, with Guard you get one move and one attack but you get to make the second attack with more information. Same thing with Battle vs Guard, same number of attacks but Guard is strictly better. Is this the case?

I know there are skills/abilities that trigger off advancing and/or battling, but apart from that I can't see any reason not to use Guard pretty much all the time.

My second question requires some visual aid. The rulebook states that it costs 3 movement points to jump over a pit. For a small figure this means they move two spaces (the pit space and the one beyond) at a cost of 3. Fine. How does it work for larger creatures? Imagine the following:

O=empty space

P=Pit space

G=Giant

OO

OO

PP

GG

GG

If the Giant jumps to the other side so the board looks like this:

GG

GG

PP

OO

OO

It moved 3 spaces at a cost of 3, making the pit barely even a nuisance. Is this right?

Also, a hero (H) put herself in the equation in the following way:

OH

OO

PP

GG

GG

Now, the giant cannot jump over the pit at all and cannot attack the hero because even with Reach he cannot touch her. Is he a sitting duck for any hero with a bow or a rune? Can the giant jump over, pushing the hero out of the way somehow?

errrr...I usualy play it that he walks over the pit cause of his size, but in general when terrain is an issue with large units only the front part of the unit is considered, so only the front would jump and the back side would still be in the pit, but he won't take damage. (this is in the FAQ to avoid large units taking more damage then needed from lava, and being slowed down over excesivly from mud....even though there is no talk about pits in the FAQ)

Priceguy said:

Pretty much spot on. My heroes hardly ever advance or battle. The 'ready' order is used about 75% of the time, with the heroes either attacking or moving, and then going on guard.

If guard was reworded to say that the interrupt can only be taken at a time a monster does something, and that the interrupt can only be used against the activating monster then ok, but the rules are not that, so you are pretty much correct.

The only time I can think it would be useful is if the heroes really need to kill something that turn. i.e If the OL has an effect which says "At the start of the turn if 4 beastmen are alive", then the heroes might need the battle action. Also, in RtL when fighting a Lt, if you kill him everything else runs away, so battling to get the kill in could be useful.

Priceguy said:

I can awnser the first one I guess, and yes you are correct to asume that you can either make one attack or move your normal spaces + place a readied action when calling a ready action at the begining of your turn. Also you are correct to assume that the gaurd order is a very powerfull Hero ability, one that every Hero has. In cases with Hero's like Silhouette, where the hero can spend fatigue to switch out the readied order at anytime, it becomes even better because you can start with one readied action (dodge) and after all your dodges are over with (or just before you think your going to die) you can swap that dodge out for the gaurd order and still make an attack on the overlords turn. Couple that with a skill card like Leadership or Rapid Fire and you have one able bodied Hero that can hold the whole front line single handed. This was all to the best of my knowledge following the Original rule set(I start new partys off that way, it's easier in the long run).

Now I'll take a shot at the next bit you asked about the pits and the giant. (still asuming only the original rule set is aplied)

From reading your examples this is what I pictured in my mind, so I'm posting it up.

Now as to the question of if the monster can jump the pit with only the base 3 movement points your talking about, no it can not because the Hero is indeed blocking it from doing so. I read the rules as saying that a monster can not end its movement on any other figure (excepting familliars). And also yes this will mean that even when the monster has the Reach ability, it can still not attack the hero if it using a melee attack. This situation happens alot for me as overlord, with the Hero's trying to just sit back and take 'pot shots' .... And because you can't move a Monster over the same space a Hero is in, you can't do anything about it even if you have a Charge event up your sleeve .

This may or may not be RAW, but its my interpretation of the RAW concerning that situation in the picture you posted above

Pits such as the one in the above picture do not prove an obstacle for Giants, any 4 square base creature or creatures with bases larger than 1 square for that matter. Here is why:

Page 16 of the JitD rulebook:

"Pit markers do not block line of sight, but if a hero or monster moves so that the figure is only occupying pit spaces , the figure falls into the pit. The figure immediately suffers one wound that cannot be reduced by armor. A figure in a pit may climb out for two movement points, and is then placed adjacent to the pit in any legal, empty space(s) the owner chooses."

So for a Giant, unless that pit is a 4 x 4 square pit area its not affected in any way by said pit. The Giant can walk right over the top of it, no need to jump.

The FAQ ruling that applies to hazardous terrain, in my interpretation of the RAW, does not apply to pits in any way. If it were a 4 x 4 pit that a Giant moved into, he would occupy all the spaces at some point, take the one wound, and then spend 2 MP to climb out. Even if only two of his spaces were out of the pit, he is not fully occupying the pit and by the definition in JitD he's not in the pit.

So in that picture above, the pit is really only a hinderance to the Heroes, and benefits the Giant. If the Giant was affected by the pit if any square of his base touched the pit space, he would never be able to move out of that room because he couldn't get past the pit without taking damage or suffering a move penalty.

In summary, walk that Giant right over the pit because it never falls into it.

Question #1: Guard orders

Guard orders are, in fact, quite useful. However, there are at least 4 general cases in which attacking during your turn can be preferable:

1. If you want to do something else after attacking. For example, if you want to make the attack from one position but then end your turn in another position (to get away from monsters, cover LoS to prevent spawning, etc.)
2. If the monster is physically blocking yourself or another hero. Sometimes you need to kill a monster right away so that you can clear a path to move through or get a clear shot at some other monster standing behind it.
3. If you're worried that the overlord is going to mess you up with a card. If the overlord can find a way to damage you before his turn (such as with a trap card), that can remove the guard order before you get a chance to use it; also, the overlord may draw cards or collect threat on his turn that gives him a new way to counter your attack (such as a dodge card). You can interrupt the overlord's turn before he draws cards, but then you don't really have any more information than if you attacked during your turn.
4. Information. Attacking earlier means you have less information when selecting your target, but it means that any heroes moving after you know the outcome of your attack, so if something unexpected happens (e.g. you roll an X), they can react appropriately (e.g. not standing next to the ogre you tried to kill).

I generally consider a guard order to be more valuable than an attack during your turn, and a Ready action also has the advantage that you can decide to place a different order than you were planning if something changes, but there do exist situations in which it's better to take the attack right away.

Question #2: large monsters and pits

OK, this is a little complicated. According to the rulebook, large monsters are not affected by pits unless they move such that every square they occupy is a pit space. So if a giant is crossing a pit that's only one space wide, he doesn't have to jump at all; if it's two spaces wide, there's only actually 1 space in which it's possible for the giant to fall in, so I think the most reasonable interpretation of the jumping rules would be to say that he can skip that one step with a jump for 3 movement. So in your example, the giant would have to spend 1 MP to get half-way over the pit, then 3 MP to jump two spaces forward (so he's stradling the other half of the pit), and then a fifth movement point to get all the way onto the other side.

However, that's conjecture--the rules aren't totally clear about how jumping works for large figures.

This is further complicated by a new ruling in the FAQ v1.4 which says that large creatures "only" experience the negative effects of terrain when their "front half" moves into it, not when their "back half" moves into it. There are many things wrong with this rule:

• The stated reason for this rule is to prevent large monsters from being affected by hazards twice as much as small figures, but some of the example hazards (lava, mud) previously worked the same way as pits, where large monsters weren't affected unless every space they occupied was a hazard, so in some of the actual example cases, the effect of this rule is opposite its stated intent.
• Since there's no explicit list of what terrains are affected, but lava and mud worked the same way as pits, the most straightforward reading of this rule is that it also applies to pits. But that means that large monsters can fall into small pits, and whether a monster is in a pit or not is a function of how it reached its current position, not just what position it's in right now, so you cannot tell by looking at the board whether a monster is in a pit or not.
• The "ice" obstacle introduces in the Tomb of Ice expansion also only affects large monsters if they move so that they are only touching ice squares. But , the ToI rules were printed after this version of the FAQ, so they should logically have included every modified rule from the FAQ. So now we can't tell whether the ToI rules are in error, the FAQ is in error, or some idiot designer thought that it would actually be a good idea to convert pits, mud, and lava over to new rules, but then create a new obstacle that uses the old, deprecated rules.
• "Front" and "back" are meaningless in a game with no facing rules, and not defined in this ruling, so how the new rule even works in the first place is anyone's guess. My personal guess is that they wanted large monsters to be affected by terrain when they first overlap it, but not to be further affected if they make a move that doesn't overlap any more of it, even if they're still touching the first part. In this case, they would also have to be using the word "half" to refer to a fraction of the figure that could be as small as 1/3 or as large as the entire thing , but that is still the most plausible and logical intention that I can invent to ascribe to them, especially since the rules for moving non-square figures (which are also atrociously badly written) seem to also butcher the word "half" (in a slightly different way).

So my current recommendation is to pretend that the new FAQ rules for large monsters don't even exist.

Antistone said:

Completely agree. The current FAQ was really just poorly put together in certain areas.

I much favor the old ruling, where all of a monster's base had to be touching an obstacle or terrain to get the benefit even though this means no Shadowcloak in trees for 4 base monsters, no table bonus for them either. Having one foot up on a table if its a spider shouldn't grant +1 damage/range.

The trouble was that there really weren't any general rules for large monster movement before: it used to be on a case by case basis. The generalized rules were requested because several cases were never defined. I personally use the generalized rules for all cases that don't have existing explicit definitions, such as the great majority of RtL props.

I dunno, basically all my friends do is battle actions. Half the time they move only using fatigue and potions.

Yea I can attest to that McRae, about 49% or more of the games I host end up with players doint the same thing untill they learn the error in that. I tell them that it's not a "hack n' slash festival" it's a party based adventure... eventually they get it. Use my favorite quest from the basic rules "Spoiled Brat" once or twice and they learn even faster is all I can suggest.

Thanks for the answers, everybody, even if the Guard answers were a bit disappointing. It's not that Guard is absurdly powerful, just that it's boring that it's the default action and it makes the overlord's turn slog a hell of a lot more. Instead of "This guy moves here, shoots at you" it's "This guy moves one step... another step... another step... another step... wants to shoot...".

McRae: That tactic sounds very easily defeatable. The overlord isn't the one in a hurry. Just keep drawing cards, collecting threat, spawning monsters and wait for the heroes to make a move.

Priceguy said:

To make things go faster, we always play the OL or players can rewind the turn before each attack. In your example, the OL would just say I'm moving to here and attacking X, and the player would say "OK I will guard you after you moved two spaces". There are potentially some issues with this (web, for example) but we haven't personally had any such problems.

McRae: That tactic sounds very easily defeatable. The overlord isn't the one in a hurry. Just keep drawing cards, collecting threat, spawning monsters and wait for the heroes to make a move.

If I understood him right, that strategy is NOT easily defeatable. Once the heroes get enough fatigue (gold level, or even silver) it's actually much FASTER. Each hero spends 10+ fatigue to move into position and battle. How many monsters do you think the OL has left on his turn? (Hint: not too many).

I love it when my players move and Guard all the time. Because except for the ones that have ranged/magic attacks I alwasy just activate my ranged attackers first. As long as I do one wound to them, the Guard order goes bye bye.

Big Remy said:

I hardly ever use a Guard order on a melee character unless I'm already adjacent to a monster, or in a bottleneck where no monster can get LoS to me without getting adjacent.

Then, you can activate your ranged monsters first all you want, I'll just interrupt you and attack the monster I was already next to.