Yesterday, we began a brand new campaign, and right from the get go, we ran into an issue which is going to repeat itself over and over throughout the campaign.

It created quite the heated discussion, and I would like to get some thoughts from the rest of participants of this forum.

First, in the Rules, on page 8, under Additional Movement, you find the following:

"A hero may suffer fatigue to receive additional movement points during his turn. For each fatigue suffered, the hero receives one movement point. If the hero already has fatigue equal to his Stamina, he may not suffer any more fatigue to receive additional movement points."

Further, on page 13, under Fatigue and Stamina, you find the following:

"Heroes voluntarily suffer fatigue in order to USE SKILLS OR MOVE ADDITIONAL SPACES." Also in that paragraph "When USING SKILLS OR MOVING, a hero may only suffer fatigue up to an amount equal to his Stamina". All emphasis is mine.

Now the issue:

Karnon has a Hero Ability which reads "Each time a monster attacks you, after rolling dice, you may suffer 1 fatigue to cancel 1 surge rolled on the attack". His Heroic Feat which reads "Action: Choose a minion monster adjacent to you and roll the blue attack die. If you roll and X, you miss. Otherwise that monster is defeated. Regardless of the outcome, you suffer 1 fatigue."

The heroes have utilized Karnon's Hero Ability essentially an inifinite amount of times, even suffering fatigue in excess of his stamina. They feel they can do this because his Hero Ability is not a skill (they state that skills are the skill cards within each class), and it is not moving. So, essentially what happens is that the OL can never attack Karnon and utilize surges (either through those rolled via dice or those added through OL cards), because Karnon just keeps eliminating them by using his Hero Ability.

The OL does not agree with this process. His opinion is that although it says Hero Ability, it really is a skill, and the game did not intend to allow Karnon to utilize an unlimited amount of fatigue to keep using this ability. Now, I know that eventually he will take sufficient damage to kill him, but they basically save up health potions and/or use their Healer to prevent this from happening.

Should this be permitted?

Further, the OL feels that if Karnon's fatigue suffered is equal to his Stamina, he shouldn't be allowed to use his Heroic Feat, as it requires him to suffer a fatigue, which shouldn't be allowed if he has reached his Stamina limit. Once again, the heroes disagree, as this is not a skill or moving, and feel that it should be allowed.

Now, one thing that may sway this argument, is that they happen to also have the hero Jain Fairwood in play. Her Hero Ability says "When you suffer any amount of hearts from an attack, you may choose to suffer some or all of that amount as fatigue instead; YOU CANNOT SUFFER FATIGUE IN EXCESS OF YOUR STAMINA" (Once again, the emphasis is mine).

The heroes argue that if Karnon should not be able to do what they are doing, his card would have said the same thing (in terms of not suffering fatiuge in excess of his stamina).

If anyone out there has played Karnon, or run into this issue with similar circumstances, how did you rule? How would you rule in our particular siutation?

If I live to be 105 years old, I still will not understand why some people can't understand the concept that MAXIMUM Stamina is an UPPER LIMIT.

Of course, in this game it's an upper limit with a caveat; if you are FORCED to suffer fatigue in excess of your Stamina, you suffer an equal number of wounds instead. I suppose if the hero player is willing to suffer wounds to continue using Karnon's ability when he's capped on fatigue, I wouldn't argue too much about the meaning of the word "forced," however, I personally don't think that any effect the hero chooses to activate is a "forced" sufferance of fatigue.

In the end, all I can say is that I feel for you, my friend. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes at that table.

Steve-O said:

It's funny. I play games to have fun. Don't get me wrong, I am as competitive as the next guy, but what I do not do myself, nor do I enjoy, is endlessly debating the nuances of various words, their interpretation, what FFG's intent was, etc. If I wanted to be a lawyer, than I would have become one.

I am the OL in this quest. I allowed them to play First Blood and A Fat Goblin with the way they interpreted things. I actually won the Fat Goblin. Nevertheless, the more I thought about this, the more I think their interpretation is seriously wrong.

For harmony, I will probably allow things to proceed as they have been, but your higlighting of the word FORCE/FORCED is interesting. Perhaps I should "lawyer" them back with it. Heh.

We all know this is abuse of the rules. However, what I would counter with if they are going to be douches is that NOWHERE in the rules is the Heroic Ability classified as anything other than an ability and technically can't be used by any hero based on the hero turn summary. Defense rests.

Also, for what it is worth, we play that fatigue caps on Offense and removes health on Defense if it has reached its max.

I've understood that the hero abilities are abilities than can only be used once per turn. At least it makes much more sense, I think.

I haven't played that much though yet, and I dont remember rulebook saying much at all about this.

any2cards said:

I generally agree with your sentiment here. I would rather have fun playing a game than spend all my time arguing about what the rules mean. I don't even really care if I win, at the end of the day. But this thing about the idea that you can spend over the maximum limit of your attributes just because SOME parts of the rules explicitly say you can't and others don't will never make sense to me. It's a maximum. Period. I can't play with people who argue pedantic things like that.

Flatusjae said:

There's definitely no "once per turn" limit of Hero Abilities. (Unless the ability itself says so.)

Heroic Feats can only be used once per ENCOUNTER, after which point you flip over the hero sheet to indicate it has been used. Is that what you meant?

Steve-O said:

Yea I was speaking about the ability, not the feat. How to use Heroic Feats was very clear in the rule book But I just assumed that you can only use the ability once per turn, just… because. It felt natural, for me. I'm afraid that those abilities will turn out to be too powerfull in the long run. But like I said, I haven't played much at all yet!

Here are a couple of clearer statements to back you up, any2cards:

See page 7, insert, "Hero Sheet Anatomy" - "A figure's Health is the amount of damage it can suffer before being defeated, while Stamina represents the maximum amount of fatigue it may suffer."

Also, page 15, "Knocked out" - "Heroes cannot suffer fatigue past their Stamina value, nor damage past their health value -- even when knocked out."

-----

Seriously, though - there has to be a line when it comes to rules lawyering. If someone in my crew argued B.S. like that on a regular basis, we would stop playing with them. It only wrecks the game for everyone else.

Hero play can voluntarily suffer fatigue up to an amount equal to his Stamina. If any other game effect forces a hero to suffer fatigue in excess of his Stamina, he instead suffers damage equal to the excess fatigue that would have been suffered.

As for me if game effect have wording "suffer 1 fatigue" in the end, then you can use that ability even knowing that it will hurt you (Runemaster's Runic Knowledge skill's attack ability). If anything on hero sheet, skill card or item wording "you may suffer 1 fatigue" then this effect cannot be used because this is voluntarily. And it is how we playing it.

Flatusjae said:

However, some hero abilities should be thought of as 'knacks' or innate prowess a hero has, rather than an ability a hero is using (such as the 'if the hero scores more range than needed, do more damage' ability, for example). It doesn't make sense that they 'forget' how to do this… But to each their own.

With regards to the original poster, I always look at it as 'spend' vs 'inflict'. Anything positive that I'm doing for myself is 'spent' fatigue, and therefore I cannot spend more than I have (i.e. up to my stamina cap). However, negative effects INFLICT fatigue, and that CAN force you to go in excess of your stamina (which manifests as damage).

I'm pretty sure this is how it works, but even if it's not, it's how we play.

Clearly Karnon cannot suffer a fatigue to his inherent ability if he is at his maximum fatigue. The rule about taking hearts if you are at your maximum fatigue isn't an alternative way to pay fatigue costs. You simply cannot choose to suffer a fatigue when you reach your maximum. This isn't limited to gaining movement points or using class skills. Conversely, Karnon's heroic feat doesn't stipulate that you must spend a fatigue to activate it, but instead suffer a fatigue as an effect of the feat. This would indicate that you can in fact use it if you are at your maximum fatigue and that you would indeed suffer a heart in that case. As far as heroic feats are concerned I believe thematically it makes sense that they can be done even at the hero's lowest point.

palatinus said:

I have been told by someone at FFG that the key word within the statement about Fatigue and Stamina is "forced". If a game effect FORCES you to use fatigue beyond your limit than you suffer hearts (damage).

Using a hero ability or a heroic feat is a CHOICE by the hero. They are never FORCED to use it. As such, even Karnon cannot use his Heroic Ability if he has already reached his stamina limit.

any2cards said:

I understand that point, but for me, it's the wording on Karnon's ability which doesn't say "suffer a fatigue to . . .". The ability isn't checking his stamina before it activates. He's not paying the stamina to use the ability. Taking the stamina is a side effect rather than a cost here and this appears to be intentional because of the wording.

palatinus said:

Doesn't matter. It is still expressly stated on page 7, on the Hero Sheet Anatomy that Stamina "represents the maximum amount of fatigue it may suffer."

Whether it's cost, or a side effect, a maximum is a maximum and cannot be surpassed.

KristoffStark said:

If this were true, then effects that force a hero to suffer fatigue over their card limit would have no effect. Which we know is NOT true, because fatigue forced to be suffered in excess of the stat limit is converted into wounds.

The only thing that's clear is what's printed in the rules:

Heroes voluntarily suffer fatigue in order to use skills or move
additional spaces. To suffer fatigue, the player takes the number of fatigue
tokens equal to the cost and places them on his Hero sheet. When using
skills or moving, a hero may only suffer fatigue up to an amount equal
to his Stamina. If any other game effect forces a hero to suffer fatigue in
excess of his Stamina, he instead suffers damage equal to the excess fatigue
that would have been suffered.

Hero Abilities (and Heroic Feats) are not skills. Nor are they movement. So, by the rules, the limit on suffering fatigue to use them does not normally apply. Any answer that says otherwise is contradicting the rules, based on assumptions of that player on how they think the game should work, rather than how the rules say the game works.

Why should heroes be allowed to voluntarily take an action that would cause wounds? One reason is that hero Abilities and heroic feats are actions that are, well, heroic in nature. They rise above normal skills, which are limited by the physical weakness of mortals. So hero abilities/feats can, in effect, be pushed beyond normal mortal means, and rise into heroic actions.

Also, because the rules say so.

palatinus said:

This is Karnon's ability text according to the original poster:

"you may suffer 1 fatigue to cancel 1 surge"

So either the original post has it wrong (I'm at work so I can't check), or yes it does quite clearly say "suffer a fatigue to". It also says "you may" which makes it very clear that it's a choice to do so and thus subject to the rule that the hero cannot choose to suffer fatigue beyond his stamina.

Edit : After reading kingbobb's post above, I have to agree that the rules seem to apply the limit only to skills and movement. I personally believe as someone stated above that the keyword "forced" shows intent that any hero choice should be limited by maximum stamina, but it definitely needs FAQ clarification.

kingbobb said:

I will concede that perhaps the maximum is not the absolute I was making it out to be.

Will also concede that I am making an assumption based on what I think the designers had in mind. However, I feel compelled to point out that so are you.

You have made the assumption that the designers intentionally left a loophole in the game, wherein the gaining of Fatigue via Hero Abilities and Heroic Feats is not addressed. You have then interpreted this as permission.
I would like to suggest that perhaps the rules do not explicitly mention such a thing because none of the Heroes included in the base game that these rules were written for can accomplish such a thing. The Hero in question is from an expansion, a conversion of older figures.

You have also interpreted the clause "if any other game effect forces a hero…" to include the voluntary activation of a Hero Ability or Heroic Feat, something not expressly stated, or made clear.

The fact is that your comment about "Why should Heroes be allowed to voluntarily take an action that would cause woulds? …" and the answer you suggest is just as much an "assumption of that player on how they think the game should work" as anything I have said.

The rules do not say that you can do this. The rules fail to say that you can't. There is a difference.

If you are going to quibble over this please clarify where in the Hero Turn Summary it lists "Use your Heroic Ability". Technically (and since we are splitting hairs in this thread) no hero ability can be played as it is not explicitly stated anywhere what exactly the ability is catagprized as. So, if you can't agree on where fatigue ends then just eliminate the use of heroic abilities since they suffer from the same verbiage clarity issue.

Just sayin'.

This discussion is why I have zero desire to get in my car and drive the short 6 miles to the FFG studio to meet other players and play games at their facility.

I appreciate everyone's input and analysis. I, for one, am going to side with the creators of the game when they say the key word is "forces" fatigue to be spent. As I have stated in the past, no one is ever forced to use a Heroic Feat or Hero Ability. As such, you cannot choose to spend fatigue past a clearly defined maximum.

I only skimmed the thread, but this was discussed at length back when the rulebook was first previewed, and my take is: anything that is not movement or skills allows you to suffer wounds in place of fatigue if your fatigue has already reached your stamina.

Some people are putting huge emphasis on the word "force", but that is frankly dumb, for two reasons:

First, it says "any OTHER game effect", which implies that movement and skills are already considered examples of being "forced" to spend fatigue. While coming up with a rigorous definition of forced vs. optional might be possible (though I haven't noticed anyone doing it), coming up with one that excludes Karnon's ability but includes movement and skills strikes me as highly implausible.

Second, that would be a totally insane way to write the rules. "Things in category one follows this rule, and things that are NOT in category two follow this other rule"? If they were trying to make a forced/optional distinction, then the first category wouldn't be "movement and skills", it would be "optional fatigue".

I can see no remotely reasonable argument that the person writing that rule was attempting to explain that optional fatigue was capped and forced fatigue converted to wounds. It's possible (though by no means certain) that movement and skills were singled-out for special treatment at the design stage because someone (mistakenly) believed that they would be the only self-inflicted cases, but by the time someone was actually typing that paragraph in the actual rulebook, the distinction they were making was very clearly "movement/skills" vs. "other stuff", NOT optional vs. forced.

Rico said:

The rulebook specifically discusses hero abilities on page 7, in the box labeled "Hero Sheet Anatomy". Whether or not they are listed in the turn summary has no bearing on anything that I can see; I certainly wouldn't expect them to be listed there, since different abilities are obviously intended to take effect at different points in the turn sequence.

But even if there were some theoretical grounds for saying that heroes can't use their abilities at all by RAW, the intent is clear-cut: hero abilities wouldn't exist in the first place if they weren't intended to be used under some circumstance. There is no remotely analogous argument to be made one way or the other regading the intent on the fatigue issue: the option to pay for an ability with resource X instead of resource Y is an entirely plausible core game mechanic and does not imply the irrelevance of any of the physical components or rules text that shipped with the game.

For what its worth, the rules are pretty clear about not being able to voluntarily choose an action which would exceed your fatigue maximum. If you are forced to take fatigue beyond your maximum, you take damage in lieu of it. I don't have the rulebook in front of me, but I believe it is in there at least twice.

Page 13: "Fatigue and Staminu"

"Heroes voluntarily suffer fatigue in order to use SKILLS or move spaces. ….. A hero may only suffer fatigue up to an amount equal to his STAMINA ."

Therefore, no "other card effects" may be used unless it is OL related or a result of being attacked. Any/all skills a hero possesses is capped by Stamina.

It is mentioned AGAIN on pg 8 under "additional movement". Optional fatigue is capped at stamina.

"Heroes voluntarily suffer fatigue in order to use skills or move additional spaces." (rulebook p. 13)

Factually, this statement is non-exhaustive, since Karnon's hero ability reads:

Each time a monster attacks you, after rolling dice, you may suffer 1 fatigue to cancel 1 surge rolled on the attack.

English might not be my native language, but I know for certain that "you may" implies a voluntary choice. Therefore, the rule writers must have forgotten to include hero abilities (and most probably feats, as they are closely related) in the top-mentioned rulebook excerpt, since they feature voluntary fatigue suffering.

Therefore, the rules statement "If any other game effect forces a hero to suffer fatigue in excess of his stamina, he instead suffers damage equal to the excess fatigue equal to the excess fatigue that would have been suffered" cannot include hero abilities (and most probably feats), as they factually have been forgotten in the top-mentioned rulebook excerpt.

Demonstration done. Case closed.