In Watcher in the Water there is a location called Perilous Swamp that says "No more than 1 progress token can be placed on Perilous Swamp each round." What does this mean if Perilous Swamp is the active location. Let's say I quest and beat the threat in the staging area by 5. Do I only put down 1 progress token on Perilous Swamp and the rest are lost. Do the remaining 4 token's go onto the quest? Thoughts?

Wraith428

The rest is lost, because as long as there is an active location, you can't place progress tokens on the quest card. However, after you place the second progress token on the swamp, you can place the remaining ones on the quest card as usual.

Interesting interpretation of the rules - I am quite surprised there hasn't been more debate about this.

What about Legolas? How does he effect this card?

Nowhere in the core rules does it state that you cannot place progress tokens on to a quest card should a card effect facilitate it.

Legolas clearly states that you place additional progress tokens onto the quest card in the event of enemy death. Perilous Swap only states:

"No more than 1 progress token can be placed on Perilous Swamp each round" it mentions nothing about being unable to place progress tokens on quests cards, nor does it use the word cannot . So sure, only 1 token gets placed on the Swamp, but the remaining token heads onto the quest card.

In the game we played we ruled that the effect from Legolas would place overflowing progress tokens onto the quest card for several reasons:

1. The Golden Rule means that Legolas over-rides the rules text in the rule book and even the errata regarding Legolas' ability allows for this effect. The conditions of the swamp are met, yet there are remaining tokens from Legolas' card effect, which should arguably spill onto the quest.

2. The card fails to use the word cannot , meaning the effect is not necessarily absolute and other card effects can bypass its wording to get tokens onto the quest card (Legolas' being about the only known example at present).

Struggling with this thematically? Legolas was reknown for being fleet of foot, having amazing vision and being incredible in combat, why shouldn't his prowess give his fellowship the edge when pushing through a dangerous swamp, especially in the event of him killing off a foe threatening the fellowship - surely this can be construed as being progress in their quest? It's also possible that Legolas outflanks the swamp and helps the group stuck in the mire to get out quicker…

I would be interested to hear other interpretations of this ruling, but I fail to see anywhere where it states that progress tokens are lost beyond the third paragraph of the core rules pg. 15, and arguably the Golden Rule allows for my interpretation above.

Klaen said:

Wow, good obeservations.

Next to the Legolas/Blade of Gondolin issue, I think it should be resolved like leptokurt said - in the 2nd round, only 1 token needs to be placed upon the swamp for it to be explored, and additional tokens are directly put on the quest card (p. 14 of the rules).

I think the errata explicitely states that Legolas has to lace his progress tokens on the active location. There is no " bypassing any active location " possible as it's not written on Legolas' card, hence Perilious Swamp has to be served first, and Perilious Swamp alone. If Klaen's interpretation of the rules would be correct, a player could choose between active location and quest card everytime he uses Legolas' ability.

Hm, I look at this issue in another way…

Legolas hasn't been errata'd. FAQ 1.00 only clarifies when to apply the Golden Rule: Only if there is a direct contradiction. If there is a solution in which rules and card texts are both observed, then that solution has priority.

Klaen is not talking about giving players the opportunity to choose between active location / quest. He is talking about putting 1 token on the location and the rest (in Legolas' case, 1) on the quest, so nothing to choose.

I think his solution satisifies all rules and card effects. We don't need to talk about the 1 progress token that is placed upon the location, that's obviously allowed, since the game effect of the Swamp doesn't apply for this one, so it's basically the old situation.
But the rest of the progress should go upon the quest, because it complies with all the rules and the card texts:

* Legolas' effect originally instructs you to put the token(s) on the quest card. Obviously complies.
* The rule book wants you to bypass the tokens to the Swamp. But this is not possible because of the Swamp's text. So here we have a situation for the Golden Rule: card text is superior to rule text. Accordingly, the bypassing-rule of the core set rulebook must be ignored.
* By putting the rest of the tokens upon the quest card, the Swamp's effect is observed, too: Not more than 1 progress is placed upon it. (If it had been worded as "Cancel all progress except 1", then things would be different, of course.)

I'm not so sure about this. You made me think, and going back to the rulesbook, because this is a good question.

In the rulebook, page 14, under Step 3: Quest resolution, you can read the following: "Note that if there is an active location, progress tokens are placed on that location until it is explored , and the remainder are then placed on the current quest.", my bold.

So, yes, you put 1 progress token on the Perilous Swamp, but the remaining ones shouldn't go to the quest card, yet not being able to put them on the active location because of its restriction, it still is not explored , so I would say that the remaining tokens are lost.

I mean, according with this rulesbook phrase I reproduced above, progress tokens are placed on the active location until it is explored, not until you cannot put any more tokens on it. If it was worded like that last, I would have agreed with you, but as it is, I think that there is no option to bypass tokens to the quest card.

Greetings.

Interesting Robert - I must admit I did miss the text in on page 14, I had a suspicion I had read it somewhere but couldn't find it under the Travel step rules.

That does seems a fairly absolute rule, although again the Golden Rule does come into play.

Just to clarify - no I certainly wasn't suggesting you would have a choice of where you put your tokens re: Legolas and Blade of Gondolin in the event of an active location being present - we have always played it that an active location has to be explored before counters from either of the above cards head onto the quest card.

Perilous Swamp did pause our game for a good 5 minutes whilst we discussed the rules interpretations, and more than anything it was the lack of the use of the word cannot on the swamp that lent to us feeling that the Blade and Legolas' effect would flow over to the quest.

It would be good to hear from the Dev's and see what their intention was with this card, whether they intended it to be a 2-turn road block as a location, or whether it could be circum-navigated by card effects like the Blade of Gondolin and Legolas.

I guess my final thought on this is that the errata does state "unless the ability specifically states to bypass the location" in regards to Legolas' ability. Arguably his ability in context of Perilous Swamp does not specifically state it bypasses active locations, but the circumstances the swamp present are quite unique. In the past when the developers have intended the active location to be impregnable to player card effects they have used the word cannot - I just thought it interesting that this word was not used in the instance of this card, and hence my interpretation.

Klaen said:

I see your intention and perhaps I was phrasing poorly what I was up to. What i meant was that you can't choose to bypass an active alocation, but that the active location has to be explored first before placing progress tokens on the quest card. If I'm not wrong the only one who can do this is Longbeard Elder.

leptokurt said:

My reading is that Longbeard Elder works the same way as Legolas - his tokens will go on the active location, not the quest card, if there is an active location. They both have the same wording ("place progress tokens on the current quest").

jjeagle said:

I stand corrected!