Necromancer

By Cabello, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Silly auto correct. Replace "tinfoil" with "to flip"

Steve-O said:

As for the idea that this passage is referencing some other part of the rulebook, perhaps it is referencing the Hero Turn Summary on page 7. Specifically, this part:

"4. Flip Activation Card: After a hero player has finished performing his
actions, that hero player flips his Activation card facedown to indicate
that his turn is over.
After the player flips his Activation card, another hero begins his turn.
After all heroes’ Activation cards are facedown (showing the overlord
turn summary), proceed to the overlord turn …"

That contradicts letting your familiar activate after your hero has activated in a normal (not knocked out) turn. In a way this supports Antistone by demonstrating that the rules need interpreting on which sentences are literal and which are rough guidelines with exceptions.

I'm sorry for being ignorant, but where in the rules does it say that it activates after the hero? The section on Familiars is pretty clear, it may be activated at any time DURING the controlling hero's turn.

And my point still stands about stand-up. There's no reason why anyone would state to indicate your turn is over when it really isn't. Not a single logical in game reason for that. Besides, by allowing a player to take an action after stand-up it takes all the bite out of being defeated. Compare it to something like the stunned condition its basically a stun in which you heal from (yeah yeah yeah but you're so hurt, boo hooCleric stands up and uses his heal, no big deal). It makes being defeated almost a complete non-issue, but by making defeated heroes spend their whole turn shaking the bats out of their belfry(and thus making it a bit more troublesome than stunned) it makes players value their heroes health more as losing o0ne action is not that bad but s whole turn can cost them the game.

WittyDroog said:

I'm sorry for being ignorant, but where in the rules does it say that it activates after the hero? The section on Familiars is pretty clear, it may be activated at any time DURING the controlling hero's turn.

Exactly. But either before or after your actions .

The rule Terah quoted says to flip your activation card to indicate your turn is over after performing your actions. The familiar rules state that familiars can be activated during your turn but after your actions. See the parallel?

WittyDroog said:

And my point still stands about stand-up. There's no reason why anyone would state to indicate your turn is over when it really isn't. Not a single logical in game reason for that.

There is also no logical reason to instruct the player to indicate their turn is over instead of instructing them to end their turn if you really mean the latter.

"That depends on what your definition of 'is' is" That's how I feel this argument is going. But here, let's try and break this down.

Page 10: Stand Up

"When a hero is knocked out, he can only perform a stand up action"

Okay, so far so good, it's like the Stunned condition saying that while you have the Stunned card you can only perform a Special action to remove the Stunned card.

"In addition, this action may onle be performed by a hero that is knocked out."

Seemed silly to me why this had to be said, but it prevents people from abusing the healing properties of it

"To to stand up, the player rolls two red power dice, recovers damage equal to the [HEART] rolled, recovers fatigue equal to the [sURGE] rolled, replaces his hero token with his hero figure, and then flips his Activation card facedown to indicate his turn is over (he may not perform an additional action) ."

Crystal clear to me. Your turn is done for all intents and purposes. You can't perform any additional action, and your card is flipped. There may have been a more concise way to say this ("Your turn is over"), but this clearly defines that your card is flipped and you can't perform any other action. To claim that FFG intentionally meant that your turn is not over despite the rather ham-fisted wording is preposterous, perhaps the reason they outlined it so is because someone on this forum might have said "Well it says my turn is over, but they didn't say I lose my second action" or something else incredibly rule-abusive.

As for the familiar going before or after, The Necromancer's turn is done so in practise it doesn't matter WHEN the Reanimate actually moves during the turn because the end result is exactly the same (in fact it's more advantageous to first move the Reanimate over the hero token so when you stand up you are placed on an adjecent square, as the Reanimate specifically counts as a figure), but if we want to be SUPER DUPER TECHNICAL as it seems some people are, because all that motion in the Stand-Up action is under the same breath (commas, not periods), your turn would be done after the Stand-Up and therefore you could not move your familiar. So move it before you Stand-Up.

WittyDroog said:

To claim that FFG intentionally meant that your turn is not over despite the rather ham-fisted wording is preposterous,

I have never claimed that. Read my earlier posts.

Yeah, I did read your post.

Antistone said:

The rules don't actually say to end your turn after standing up, they say to flip your card to indicate that your turn is over. It's not worded as if they were adding a special rule that says you must end your turn, but as if the author thought that some other rule written elsewhere would already make that a required thing and he is just reminding you of it.

If you understand the intention and agree that it's laid out clearly or at least clearly enough that anyone with any amount of deductive reasoning could infer the meaning then why are you arguing it and claiming that it needs an errata in the first place?

And just to get this out of the way:

Page 7, Hero Turn Summary

"4. Flip Activation Card. After a hero player has finished performing his actions, that hero player flips his Activation card facedown to indicate that his turn is over"

Clear as crystal, same wording as in Stand-Up, there's no missing rule that the authors forgot to reference.

"After the player flips his Activation card, another hero begins his turn."

Once you flip over that card it is no longer your turn, end of story.

Again, read my earlier posts:

Antistone said:

Combined with the rules in at least 3 entirely separate places that say it's the only action you can do, with no mention of ending your turn or non-actions, my theory is that the person writing that passage just plumb forgot that there exist non-action things you can do on your turn, and therefore gave no thought at all to whether they are legal. It is therefore my contention that there is no intent for us to infer, and we just need to wait for an erratum.

Well I'll refer you to my post just above yours, as you were probably replying while I was writing it.

WittyDroog said:

"To to stand up, the player rolls two red power dice, recovers damage equal to the [HEART] rolled, recovers fatigue equal to the [sURGE] rolled, replaces his hero token with his hero figure, and then flips his Activation card facedown to indicate his turn is over (he may not perform an additional action)."

Crystal clear to me. Your turn is done for all intents and purposes. You can't perform any additional action, and your card is flipped. There may have been a more concise way to say this ("Your turn is over"), but this clearly defines that your card is flipped and you can't perform any other action. To claim that FFG intentionally meant that your turn is not over despite the rather ham-fisted wording is preposterous, perhaps the reason they outlined it so is because someone on this forum might have said "Well it says my turn is over, but they didn't say I lose my second action" or something else incredibly rule-abusive.

…but if we want to be SUPER DUPER TECHNICAL as it seems some people are, because all that motion in the Stand-Up action is under the same breath (commas, not periods), your turn would be done after the Stand-Up and therefore you could not move your familiar. So move it before you Stand-Up.

The same phrasing is used in the Hero Turn Summary and we know it's wrong there. Unfortunately we can't read thise rules like they are strict and correct. The FAQ will be glorious.

What do you mean "We know it's wrong there"?

It says a hero "indicates his turn is over" after his actions, technically leaving no time for a familiar to activate. We know this is wrong because a familiar can activate after their hero's actions.

WittyDroog said:

What do you mean "We know it's wrong there"?

No offense, but are you reading the other posts in this thread? Because it sure doesn't look like you're tracking any of the arguments that have been made so far in this discussion, even after people have specifically replied to you and explained them in greater detail. I don't think you've raised a single new and relevant point anywhere in your last five posts, at least.

Don't worry WittyDroog and don't go back to read about sandwiches. No one besides the game designer and his posse has any special knowledge or understanding of the rules that you don't have. Until there is an errata that says otherwise the guy's turn ends when he flips his card. Now it seems to me that you can activate a familiar without using an action before your hero stands up which ends his turn. Problem solved. Just don't try to activate after you stand up. Now, I think this means that you can't burn fatigue to move even though it does not require an action because to move and to have fatigue to move with you have to stand up at which point your turn is over. This is a more than reasonable way to play until someone comes out and says: stand up is all you can do on your turn, again and in bold italics.

Just ignore Antistone. That guy has a serious social disorder.

Antistone said:

No offense, but are you reading the other posts in this thread? Because it sure doesn't look like you're tracking any of the arguments that have been made so far in this discussion, even after people have specifically replied to you and explained them in greater detail. I don't think you've raised a single new and relevant point anywhere in your last five posts, at least.

Dude, I have looked through this thread and guess what? Beyond a single post by Terah (which bears no evidence), you are the ONLY person debating me. And the evidence you bring to bear is contradicting and flat out false.

You make a claim that indicating your turn is over is not the same thing as actually saying your turn is over (and then you make a poor analogy to making a sandwich), I tell you that you're wrong and that the rule is pretty **** clear to which you retort "I never claimed that" as if I can't look back a page to see that's EXACTLY what you claimed.

You make the claim that the familiar rules state that it can be activated during your turn but only after the players actions and yet, right there clear as day on page 17 under Familiars:

"A hero player may activate each familiar his hero controls once during his hero turn ( either before or after resolving all of his hero's actions )"

I mean how am I supposed to argue with you when you go into this irrational strict nature over symatics and yet you can't get the basic rules straight. I'm not alone in the audience of people who read something like "flips the activation card over to indicate his turn ends" and think "Oh, that must mean my turn is over because I can think critically".

Social problem is right.

Let me put why I think Antistone could be right all together into a single post.

(page 7)
Flip Activation Card: After a hero player has finished performing his actions, that hero player flips his Activation card facedown to indicate that his turn is over .
After the player flips his Activation card, another hero begins his turn.

(page 17)
A hero player may activate each familiar his hero controls once during his hero turn (either before or after resolving all of his hero’s actions).

These two rules contradict each other. Page 17 says I can activate my familiar after my actions but p7 says my turn is over and another hero's turn has already started.

Is p7 right, p17 wrong and you cannot activate your familiar after your actions? Maybe but it seems unlikely to me and I've never seen anyone suggest this. So let's consider the only alternative. What if p17 is an exception to p7, an exception that p7 omits to mention? Well the stand-up rules on p10 use the exact same phrase to end your turn as used on p7, maybe they omit the exact same exception.

(Page 10)
To stand up, the player rolls two red power dice…[snipped]… and then flips his Activation card facedown to indicate his turn is over (he may not perform an additional action).

Terah said:

Let me put why I think Antistone could be right all together into a single post.

(page 7)
Flip Activation Card: After a hero player has finished performing his actions, that hero player flips his Activation card facedown to indicate that his turn is over .
After the player flips his Activation card, another hero begins his turn.

(page 17)
A hero player may activate each familiar his hero controls once during his hero turn (either before or after resolving all of his hero’s actions).

These two rules contradict each other. Page 17 says I can activate my familiar after my actions but p7 says my turn is over and another hero's turn has already started.

Is p7 right, p17 wrong and you cannot activate your familiar after your actions? Maybe but it seems unlikely to me and I've never seen anyone suggest this. So let's consider the only alternative. What if p17 is an exception to p7, an exception that p7 omits to mention? Well the stand-up rules on p10 use the exact same phrase to end your turn as used on p7, maybe they omit the exact same exception.

(Page 10)
To stand up, the player rolls two red power dice…[snipped]… and then flips his Activation card facedown to indicate his turn is over (he may not perform an additional action).

If you're taking page 7 to mean that after the hero player uses up his second "Action" his turn is immediately done, that would mean you can only perform "free" actions like using items and skills before making the second action. Furthermore it would mean that Rest would never actually recover your fatigue, since that happens at the end of your turn, and thus if nothing can happen between performing your second action, and turning your card over meaning your turn is now completed, nothing that says "end of your turn" could ever happen.

Since I don't see any reason why a stamina potion or other item could be used between the hero's second action and the end of his turn, it makes sense that a familiar could be activated during that same period.

As for page 7 and page 17 being contradictory because they both say something happens "after performing all actions", that seems like a clear case of the golden rule where a card or other rule is intended to override something in the basic rules. It's the same for basically anything that happens at the "end of your turn" even though nothing the basic rules doesn't have to necessarily have a step saying "carry out any actions or effects that occur at the end of your turn".

As for using Stand Up, the terminology is exactly the same as page 7, the only difference is normally you choose when you are finished all your actions (including free actions, familiar activation, etc.) and turn the card over. Stand Up forces you to do so immediately after standing up, which doesn't leave any room for the player to choose to do anything else.

That's my take anyway, the ambiguity between actions and "Actions" is definitely at the root of all this and I can definitely see some of it going either way.

What I can't see is how one would assume that because it says "indicate his turn is over", that it might not really be over because it was just "indicated", that's just completely ridiculous. If you're going to take it that way, then any time you put a wound on your hero card to indicate you have taken a wound, or put an item card next to your hero to indicate the hero has equipped that item, then you could just be "pretending" because all you did was "indicate" that it happened.

The action confusion is totally on FFG for not picking different clearer terms, but if you're told to flip your hero card over to indicate your turn is over, YOUR TURN IS OVER.

Wow. I can't believe 3 pages over something so simple. Both page 7 and page 17 are correct. Page 7 is what happens for every typical player. But, just like a card thats text overrides a rule in the book, or an errata overrides a rule or a new expansion set overrides a rule, the just happened to include it in the same rule book.

Where everyone else has to flip the card to end their turn, the Necromancer get to insert "activate your animate" after all your actions are taken and before your card is flipped. Why is this such a big deal?

wootersl said:

Wow. I can't believe 3 pages over something so simple. Both page 7 and page 17 are correct. Page 7 is what happens for every typical player. But, just like a card thats text overrides a rule in the book, or an errata overrides a rule or a new expansion set overrides a rule, the just happened to include it in the same rule book.

Where everyone else has to flip the card to end their turn, the Necromancer get to insert "activate your animate" after all your actions are taken and before your card is flipped. Why is this such a big deal?

I applaud you.

wootersl said:

Wow. I can't believe 3 pages over something so simple. Both page 7 and page 17 are correct. Page 7 is what happens for every typical player. But, just like a card thats text overrides a rule in the book, or an errata overrides a rule or a new expansion set overrides a rule, the just happened to include it in the same rule book.

Where everyone else has to flip the card to end their turn, the Necromancer get to insert "activate your animate" after all your actions are taken and before your card is flipped. Why is this such a big deal?

One might also think of one's re-animated monster as a separate entity from the hero. I think that many of us are envisioning the Necromancer working some magic every time the re-animate moves, thus requiring some kind of (lowercase "a") action on his part. Is there something wrong with ending your turn and THEN starting the re-animate's turn before any of the other heroes' turns?

When we first played we missed that part of the rules and actually went further than that and let the Reanimate take its turn at any point during the hero's turn, completely separated from the Necromancer's turn. Chances are we'll probably keep playing that way anyway since it doesn't really make any difference.

I think the main reason for doing it before or after the Necromancer's turn is so that you can still easily keep track of whether it has been activated yet this turn, since it doesn't have its own hero card to turn over. I don't think it'd actually be a problem, but if it was you could always just "exhaust" the Reanimate card as a reminder.

wootersl said:

Where everyone else has to flip the card to end their turn, the Necromancer get to insert "activate your animate" after all your actions are taken and before your card is flipped. Why is this such a big deal?

Please just a little more indulgence. Let me refocus away from Standing-Up to just spending your two actions normally. Many people, not including me, are saying a hero cannot spend fatigue straight after his second action because his turn ends immediately.

Can the Necromancer spend fatigue immediately after his second action?

Can any hero spend fatigue immediately after his second action?

@Terah: Even if you couldn't it would not matter. You can spend the fatigue for points while you are moving. You don't have to wait till after.

Terah said:

Please just a little more indulgence. Let me refocus away from Standing-Up to just spending your two actions normally. Many people, not including me, are saying a hero cannot spend fatigue straight after his second action because his turn ends immediately.

That's definitely not true (according to my understanding of the rules.)

Flipping over your activation card to end your turn is a completely separate step of the Hero Turn sequence than taking your actions for the turn, so there's definitely room in between taking your second action and flipping the card for you to do other things, like spend fatigue or activate a familiar.

In the specific case of the Stand Up action, flipping over your card is stated as part and parcel of resolving the action, so in that specific case you can't do anything else because ending your turn is literally part of the action. However, to the best of my knowledge, no other action calls for the hero to flip his activation card within the action's resolution text.