FAQ Move Action Ruling - Seriously?

By any2cards, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

On Page 2 of the FAQ, under Movement, it states the following:

"When a figure performs a move action, that figure receives a number of movement points equal to his Speed. A figure can interrupt its move action to perform an additional move action, which gives that figure additional movement points."

We had been playing that a move action could not be interrupted by another move action, due to the abuse of what can happen when a larger than 1 square monster moves. Assume you have a long straight hallway (such as some found in the Interlude, etc.). Assume a 2x3 Shadow Dragon begins at one end of the hallway. If a move action could NOT be interrupted by another move action, the Shadow Dragon could double move, and end up as far as 9 spaces from its starting square.

Under the new FAQ ruling, and assuming you can only interrupt the move action one single time, it can now end up 12 spaces from its starting square. If you argue that you could use Move Action 1 to move 1 square, blow out, interrupt with Move Action 2 to move 1 square, go back to Move Action 1 to move an addional square, etc., etc., I think you could end up back on a map for Descent 1, half way across the world.

This is absolutely absurd.

Once you interrupt MA1, you have to complete MA2 before you resume MA1; AFAIK, you can't toggle between the two as you seem to be describing.

Page 7: "The hero may interrupt his movement with another action and then complete his movement after the other action is resolved."

Assuming you are allowed to pick a new "shrink" square each time you stop, you can effectively move 12 squares. People are assuming that the LMs were purposely given low movement points because of these potential "free" moves. The dragons can move 5 squares with a single move. Some people are suggesting that you can't change your "shrink" square once movement starts, to eliminate the bonus squares you might otherwise gain.

any2cards said:

On Page 2 of the FAQ, under Movement, it states the following:

"When a figure performs a move action, that figure receives a number of movement points equal to his Speed. A figure can interrupt its move action to perform an additional move action, which gives that figure additional movement points."

We had been playing that a move action could not be interrupted by another move action, due to the abuse of what can happen when a larger than 1 square monster moves. Assume you have a long straight hallway (such as some found in the Interlude, etc.). Assume a 2x3 Shadow Dragon begins at one end of the hallway. If a move action could NOT be interrupted by another move action, the Shadow Dragon could double move, and end up as far as 9 spaces from its starting square.

Under the new FAQ ruling, and assuming you can only interrupt the move action one single time, it can now end up 12 spaces from its starting square. If you argue that you could use Move Action 1 to move 1 square, blow out, interrupt with Move Action 2 to move 1 square, go back to Move Action 1 to move an addional square, etc., etc., I think you could end up back on a map for Descent 1, half way across the world.

This is absolutely absurd.

Your movement totals seems a little off to me, but I don't have figures and tiles in front of me, so I can't really comment on that yet.

However, there is nothing - nothing - in the phrase "When a figure performs a move action, that figure receives a number of movement points equal to his Speed. A figure can interrupt its move action to perform an additional move action, which gives that figure additional movement points." that suggests you can pop back and forth 1 movement at a time, as the creatures in question only has two actions to use (possibly 3/4 with Dash and/or Frenzy).

I will also comment that Jain Fairwood can theoretically move 20 squares in a single turn, and make an attack on top of that (using her Heroic Feat, taking her second action as move, and burning 5 fatigue). True, she can only do that once, but from expeirence I can tell you that she only needs to do it once.

So this ruling regarding movement does not bother me in the slightest.

@Triu, @KristoffStark …

I actually agree with both of you (i.e. one movement action, when interrupted with another, needs to be completed - no toggling). Nevertheless, this still allows a monster figure which in theory only moves 3 spaces (so a double move would be 6), to effectively move 12 spaces. Now add in a dash card, and it truly becomes absurd.

Unfortunately, this is what you get when large monster movement works by shrinking to a single square and then exploding out again. Nothing in the rules prevents you from picking the exploding out square. nor your orientation.

Having said that, I can understand the simplification of large monster movement rules, and I can see that without them, it could be extremely difficult to use them within the relatively small maps of D2e.

Still … it just kind of irks me …

Actually, this is about the worst possible answer to this question that I can imagine. They say that you can interrupt a movement action to perform another move action, but then they also say that you shouldn't distinguish between the two of them and that something that causes you to "end your move action" will take away all your remaining movement points from both actions - which sounds like they want to treat the two move actions as combining into one action, except they never actually say that, and they specifically do NOT address the issue of large figures expanding/shrinking that was (I think) the main motivation for asking this question in the first place.

And then they go on to say that you DO need to explicitly state which spaces are moved with fatigue, which is just unnecessarily complicated (move actions combine their total MPs, but fatigue movement does not? by the gods, why? ), and creates a bunch of problematic corner-cases (what if I want to move into water using 1 movement point from my move action and 1 from fatigue?). Plus, they never actually tell us why we need to specify which spaces are moved with fatigue. I assume they think it's relevant for some overlord trap card, and I don't have the cards handy, but I seriously doubt the cards themselves are specific enough to make it clear how they interact with this ruling.

Moreover, even though they tell us to specify which spaces are moved with fatigue, they just said that "if a card instructs you to end your move action…that figure loses all unspent movement points". By a completely strict reading, this answer says that if you have unspent movement points that you acquired by suffering fatigue and you performed 2 move actions, then a card that ends your move action also causes you to lose the movement points from fatigue (but doesn't address the case of unspent fatigue MPs if you only performed one move action).

It's clear that the people writing the FAQ are not reading the original discussion threads that prompted the questions, nor thinking very deeply about all the implications.

Antistone said:

And then they go on to say that you DO need to explicitly state which spaces are moved with fatigue, which is just unnecessarily complicated (move actions combine their total MPs, but fatigue movement does not? by the gods, why? ), and creates a bunch of problematic corner-cases (what if I want to move into water using 1 movement point from my move action and 1 from fatigue?). Plus, they never actually tell us why we need to specify which spaces are moved with fatigue. I assume they think it's relevant for some overlord trap card, and I don't have the cards handy, but I seriously doubt the cards themselves are specific enough to make it clear how they interact with this ruling.

Easy. You can gain movement points from Fatigue without engaging in a move action. There are OL cards that are only activatable while a hero is moving during a move action as opposed to some others that can be triggered by the hero entering and empty space . In the former case, how you gaining the movement point is significant.

Likewise, the rules for moving with fatigue (if I'm not mistaken, and I don't have the rules handy) are written in a way that suggest to me that said movement points must be used as they are being gained. So you can't just say "I'm taking a double move, and burning fatigue, so I end up here," you have to specify when you are moving by which means. Assuming that I'm remembering correctly, this would also deal with your concern about losing all movement points. It wouldn't include points from Fatigue, since they are taken as you suffer the fatigue.

KristoffStark said:

Easy. You can gain movement points from Fatigue without engaging in a move action. There are OL cards that are only activatable while a hero is moving during a move action as opposed to some others that can be triggered by the hero entering and empty space . In the former case, how you gaining the movement point is significant.

You seem to be implying that if I interrupt my movement action to move a space with fatigue that the trap can't be played. But if I've started a move action, and haven't yet completed that move action, then wouldn't that be "during a move action"? Unless the card says "when moving using movement points gained from a move action" or something like that, this seems like it is at least arguable.

KristoffStark said:

Likewise, the rules for moving with fatigue (if I'm not mistaken, and I don't have the rules handy) are written in a way that suggest to me that said movement points must be used as they are being gained.

I've had this discussion several times and the rules don't suggest that to me.

Though I actually asked about this specifically in the FAQ thread (bottom of the second page). Interestingly, though this FAQ answers seven of my questions from that post (20% of the questions in the FAQ!) it doesn't answer this question or three others that I asked in the very same post. I'm really curious how they decided which to include.

Antistone is right that the FAQ answer sucks. Can someone please tell me how to play Pit Trap and Trip Wire now? Fine, I get the double move thingy, after thinking a bit about it, it's not that crucial since the only reason heroes would have to start another move action during an ongoing would be to avoid Pit Trap (start a new move action before you've moved full speed on your first) but that can now be somewhat countered by Trip Wire (although you won't get the full 2xMP ever because there's no reason for heroes to declare two move actions right from the start, but rather they wait until they've gone MP-1 or whatever)

So fine, that won't be much of a problem. However, the stupid fatigue move does my head in when it comes to Pit Trap+Core rules+FAQ answer. is fatigue move never pooled? Meaning you spend them one by one and is always "separated" from your original move action MP?? Let me give you some examples of different interpretations, hero has 4 move in all scenarios:

Scenario 1: Player declares he does a 3 square fatigue move. When do I play pit trap and stun him? First square because fatigue is gained and spent one by one? Third square? If I reduce his MP with 1 on the first square, he reaches 2 squares in total but still spends the three fatigue?

Scenario 2: Hero declares a move action and spends a fatigue at the same time to gain an additional MP. Does he have a total of 5 now or 4+1? FAQ seems to thing 4+1. I don't really see why you would have to declare which squares are moved with fatigue though according to the FAQ. If he does 2+1+2 I can only stun him on the 5th square anyways, correct? Maybe it has some effect on another card? I can't Trip Wire him during his fatigue move maybe?

Seems like it's easy to avoid the stun is my conclusion. Spend one fatigue, move double your movement and stop. easy.

Bah, this was ranty.. sorry. But if someone could lay down the law on Pit Trap, Trip Wire, the core rules and the new FAQ movement I'd be super grateful! Cheers.

any2cards said:

@Triu, @KristoffStark …

I actually agree with both of you (i.e. one movement action, when interrupted with another, needs to be completed - no toggling). Nevertheless, this still allows a monster figure which in theory only moves 3 spaces (so a double move would be 6), to effectively move 12 spaces. Now add in a dash card, and it truly becomes absurd.

Unfortunately, this is what you get when large monster movement works by shrinking to a single square and then exploding out again. Nothing in the rules prevents you from picking the exploding out square. nor your orientation.

Having said that, I can understand the simplification of large monster movement rules, and I can see that without them, it could be extremely difficult to use them within the relatively small maps of D2e.

Still … it just kind of irks me …

"When a figure performs a move action, that figure receives a number of movement points equal to his Speed. A figure can interrupt its move action to perform an additional move action, which gives that figure additional movement points." FAQ

"When a hero player performs a move action, he receives a number of MOVEMENT POINTS equal to his hero's Speed." pg 8

"A hero may also decide to perform two move actions consecutively, in which case the hero receives movement points equal to twice his Speed." pg 8

I have been playing that when a hero or monster interrupts a move action with another move action, he simply adds the movement points to his 'movement point pool' and continues moving. No contracting and re-expanding for large monsters, so no gamey extra movement. The FAQ clarifies this for me when it states that an additional move action interrupting another move action gives additional movement points. If the large monster interrupts its movement with another action (one that does not add points to a pool), then I re-expand the large monster.

I also agree with the other people who have large monsters continue moving from the same space after interrupting their movement with another action to avoid too much extra free movement. I was hoping they would address that more directly in the FAQ, but I'm sure they will update it in the future.

Butaman551, that's exactly how we've been playing it too so far. Very clean, easy, and simple that way.

Kerrin2 said:

Butaman551, that's exactly how we've been playing it too so far. Very clean, easy, and simple that way.

You (and others) may be playing it this way, but your decision to do so is more a homebrew rule, than actually following the rules. When you interrupt a move action to do ANYTHING, a figure must reexpand from the shruken done single space character back to its original size. It must do so in an area that can encompass its entire figure (in other words only in empty spaces).

So, despite the fact that you are just getting additional movement points when you interrupt a move action with another move action, the moment you do the interrupting, you MUST re-expand and then re-shrink, and can only do so in a legal area.

"When a figure performs a move action, that figure receives a number of movement points equal to his Speed. A figure can interrupt its move action to perform an additional move action, which gives that figure additional movement points." FAQ

"When a hero player performs a move action, he receives a number of MOVEMENT POINTS equal to his hero's Speed." pg 8

"A hero may also decide to perform two move actions consecutively, in which case the hero receives movement points equal to twice his Speed." pg 8

I think it's not far fetched to interpret from from these sentences that, when a figure interrupts its move action with another move action, it should be handled in the same manner as consecutive movement…. (e.g: you just receive twice the movement points overall). With no shrinking/expanding shenannigans in between. Thematically, you just never stopped moving (as is the case if you stopped to perform some other action).

It seems to be in spirit of the rules and is a viable interpretation, within "reasonable doubt" of the rules as written.

Rules text isn't always perfectly unambiguous and some interpretation is almost always necessary (e.g: if you interpret the last sentence too literally, you could reasonably argue that that the hero should receive mp equal to twice his speed WHEN he decided to make the second, consecutive, move action (in addition to the MP from the move actions, for an overall of 4x speed MP). I don't think anyone believes that is intended meaning. Interpretation is always necessary.

After rereading Page 8, the FAQ and all of your posts, I would go like this:

Move Action: "A Hero or Monster using a move Action receive Movement Points to spend equal to its Speed." That is all there is to a move action.

in addition check FAQ this question:

Q: If a figure interrupts a move action to perform another action, does the
figure have to be in an empty space?

A: Yes, a figure must be in an empty space when ending or interrupting its
movement.

I would rephrase it like this: While you may move through friendly figures, you may on that space with another friendly figure, only spend movement points to move to another space.

So, while moving you may move through friendly figures, BUT when you are to announce the second move action, you must stand on a legal empty space, or if you want to do another action, too.

So for big monster, I would suggest you announce 2 move action before you even spend a movement point and shrink it.

Now I would be interested in what the "Dash" card exactly states, but sadly my copy of Descent 2D has not arrived yet.

No idea if that helped you guys, but both Questions in the FAQ combined made sense to me. Always remembering Page 8: " Monsters follow the same movement rules as heroes when moving…"

Antistone said:

KristoffStark said:

Easy. You can gain movement points from Fatigue without engaging in a move action. There are OL cards that are only activatable while a hero is moving during a move action as opposed to some others that can be triggered by the hero entering and empty space . In the former case, how you gaining the movement point is significant.

You seem to be implying that if I interrupt my movement action to move a space with fatigue that the trap can't be played. But if I've started a move action, and haven't yet completed that move action, then wouldn't that be "during a move action"? Unless the card says "when moving using movement points gained from a move action" or something like that, this seems like it is at least arguable.

That is exactly what I am implying, that when you interrupt a move action to do something, that something else (whatever it may be) is what is happening. The move action then resumes occurring. You're suggesting that if I begin a move action, and interrupt it to attack, then this attack takes place during both an Attack action, and a Move action? That makes no sense to me. It admit that I'm speaking as much from my perceived spirit of the rules as the letter of them, but I really don't think any two events should be considered to be occurring simultaneously.

The only part of the "MOVE" action, that is actually an action, is generating movement points. Physically moving you miniature from one space to another space, is not an action. You can stop moving form space to space at any time to do just about anything. BUT, the only thing that will allow you to put the model back on the board (and expand if its a large monster) is using an action. Anything that is NOT an action, is done while the model is shrunk.

I think I know what's irking me about the Pit Trap card.. "If he has no movement points to lose ( suc h as if he suffered fatigue to move ) he is stunned".

Why would they write the bold part?? It makes it all so much more confusing..! My understanding is that you can spend f.ex. three fatigue right away and gain three MP and not be stunned on square 1 or 2? All MP is pooled and added to the pool when you declare the extra move action/fatigue spending (which could be in the middle of an ongoing move action). Correct?

KristoffStark said:


You're suggesting that if I begin a move action, and interrupt it to attack, then this attack takes place during both an Attack action, and a Move action? That makes no sense to me. It admit that I'm speaking as much from my perceived spirit of the rules as the letter of them, but I really don't think any two events should be considered to be occurring simultaneously.

Yes, that's what I'm suggesting. It clearly isn't happening before the move action or after the move action, so what option is there besides "during"?

I'm not saying that it's part of the move action. But if it happens after the beginning of the move action and before the end of the move action, then definitionally there's some chronological overlap, right? I don't see what the alternative is.

Mrbob0069 said:

The only part of the "MOVE" action, that is actually an action, is generating movement points. Physically moving you miniature from one space to another space, is not an action. You can stop moving form space to space at any time to do just about anything. BUT, the only thing that will allow you to put the model back on the board (and expand if its a large monster) is using an action. Anything that is NOT an action, is done while the model is shrunk.

That is an interesting set of rules you just made up, and they might work reasonably well, but none of them are the official published rules for Descent 2e.

If your move action ended before you actually spent any of the movement points, then you couldn't "interrupt" the action to do something else, nor could something force you to "end your move action" while you're moving.

uppTagg said:

I think I know what's irking me about the Pit Trap card.. "If he has no movement points to lose ( suc h as if he suffered fatigue to move ) he is stunned".

Why would they write the bold part?? It makes it all so much more confusing..! My understanding is that you can spend f.ex. three fatigue right away and gain three MP and not be stunned on square 1 or 2? All MP is pooled and added to the pool when you declare the extra move action/fatigue spending (which could be in the middle of an ongoing move action). Correct?

I thought about this too. Timing is everything; this is my take on it.

You take a move action and get X MP. The Overlord can hit you with the trap at any time, but you are only stunned on the Xth move. If you have gone X-1 squares and put 2 fatigue on your sheet to buy MP, you then have 3 MP left. OL can't stun you in the next two squares, but could on the last one. If you just buy 1 MP at the start of your turn, and move 1 square … BAM! You can't declare after the trap lands that you were planning to buy more MP to avoid it. You have to pay the fatigue cost before you get the MP, so the OL will always know how many MP you have remaining. I think this is why they stated in the FAQ that you have to declare when you are spending fatigue for MP during a move … the tendency is to use the MP first, and pay the cost when you are done.

Another question then….

"If a card instructs you to end your move action and that figure performed two move actions, then both actions end and that figure loses all unspent movement points." from the FAQ

Pit Trap : Play this card when a hero enters an empty space. If he fails, he suffers one heart and loses one movement point. If he has no movement points to lose (such as if he suffered fatigue to move), he is Stunned.

Tripwire : Play this card when a hero enters an empty space during a move action. If he fails, he must end his move action (he can still suffer fatigue to move further, or perform a second move action if this was his first action).

So if I understand this correctly, I declare two move actions consecutively and the after moving one space, the OL drops a Tripwire on me. I get the space I moved into, but lose everything else. Pit Trap would only cost me one movement point out of the total, unless played on the last space of the double move, in which case I would be stunned.

But if I declare two moves and interrupt it with 2 spaces of Fatigue Movement and the OL drops Pit Trap on the second space of Fatigue Movement, would I get stunned? The card does single out fatigue movement. On the other hand, I still have movement points left in my pool, so would I just lose one point from the pool and a heart of damage and keep going?

Given the existence of Tripwire, I don't know why anyone would announce a double move. Since you can interrupt a Move Action, move as close to X-1 squares as you safely can (avoiding Pit Trap's stun), start a second MA at that point and resume movement. At worst you will lose the second MA. There may be something I'm overlooking, but so far that seems the safest bet.

Based on the wording, as long as you have MP in your "pool" you just lose 1 MP to Pit Trap. If you are worried about PT -- and can afford it -- always buy N+1 MP with fatigue, move N squares to attack range, double attack, and then use the last MP if you want. You have to decide if it's better to spend 1 extra fatigue, or risk losing an action to Stun.

Page 8: "For each fatigue suffered, the hero receives one movement point.
. . .
During his turn, before or after resolving an action or during a move action, a hero may suffer fatigue to gain movement points."

Triu said:

Given the existence of Tripwire, I don't know why anyone would announce a double move. Since you can interrupt a Move Action, move as close to X-1 squares as you safely can (avoiding Pit Trap's stun), start a second MA at that point and resume movement. At worst you will lose the second MA. There may be something I'm overlooking, but so far that seems the safest bet.

Based on the wording, as long as you have MP in your "pool" you just lose 1 MP to Pit Trap. If you are worried about PT -- and can afford it -- always buy N+1 MP with fatigue, move N squares to attack range, double attack, and then use the last MP if you want. You have to decide if it's better to spend 1 extra fatigue, or risk losing an action to Stun.

Page 8: "For each fatigue suffered, the hero receives one movement point.
. . .
During his turn, before or after resolving an action or during a move action, a hero may suffer fatigue to gain movement points."

We seem to have come to the exact same conslusion on how movement works! Sweet!

uppTagg said:

I think I know what's irking me about the Pit Trap card.. "If he has no movement points to lose ( suc h as if he suffered fatigue to move ) he is stunned".

Why would they write the bold part?? It makes it all so much more confusing..! My understanding is that you can spend f.ex. three fatigue right away and gain three MP and not be stunned on square 1 or 2? All MP is pooled and added to the pool when you declare the extra move action/fatigue spending (which could be in the middle of an ongoing move action). Correct?

As I previously stated in this thread, I was under the impression that fatigue movement was taken on at a time as you spend the fatigue, making that part of Pit Trap useful.

KristoffStark said:

As I previously stated in this thread, I was under the impression that fatigue movement was taken on at a time as you spend the fatigue, making that part of Pit Trap useful.

I haven't seen anything in the rules to confirm that, other than the very ambiguous statement on the trap itself. According to the rulebook you "suffer fatigue to gain movement points" (plural). There is no statement that you must use each MP immediately , but that word appears six times in the FAQ so they seem to have a habit of leaving it out . The stun on the trap comes in to play at the end of a string of movement, action or fatigue, when you cannot otherwise lose 1 MP.

Rule book, page 8., First sentence under MOVE states.

"When a hero performs a move action, he receives a number of MOVEMENT POINTS equal to his hero's speed."

That sentence ends in a period, and does not say "in addition to" or indicate in any way the action does anything else. Everything after that point discusses what you can do with those MOVEMENT POINTS.

The first sentence of the 3rd paragraph under the same heading of MOVE reads;

"A hero performing a move action may interrupt his movement to perform another ACTION, such as attacking, and continue the rest of his movement after resolving the other action."

It's important to note that you can ONLY interrupt movement to perform an ACTION. (side note: I do understand that this sentence implies that the movement is part of the action. But it's only an implication, and not a rule. Very poor writing…)

The 3rd sentence on page 16 under the heading LARGE MONSTERS reads;

"When the monster ends (or interrupts) its movement, the overlord player places the large monster figure so that one the spaces of its base occupies includes the space where the monster ended its movement."

The important part is underlined. As I said before, the only time the monster is placed back on the board is in these 2 instances. Since a model only has 2 actions (or more if dash/frenzy was used), and one of those actions is used to generate the initial pool of movement points; tLarge monsters should only be interupting their movemnts once per turn, unless the OL played those extra action cards

So rules not made up! =P

All sentences end in a period; that does not preclude a later sentence from amending what was stated. The rule about interrupting a Move action is meant to introduce an exception to the previous rule:

Page 7: "Unless noted otherwise, an action must be resolved completely before the hero performs his next action."

You keep inserting the word "only" where it does not occur in the rules. You may infer that *only* actions can interrupt, but it is not explicit. Your example from page 16 talks about the OL interrupting a monster's movement. It does not use the word "only" and does not explicitly exclude other game effects.

Game effects are often triggered by movement, which has repeatedly raised questions about whether a figure has to be placed on the board while resolving them. I haven't looked through all of the cards, but a search of the Errata & FAQ turned up this use of the word "interrupt":

Page 1: "Class card, Knight, “Guard”: This card should read, “When a monster moves into an empty space adjacent to you, exhaust this card to interrupt that monster's activation and perform an attack with a Melee weapon. After this attack is resolved, if the monster was not defeated, it may continue its activation.”"

There is some ambiguity there since it says you are interrupting the activation, not specifically the movement. FFG should have included a Large Monster move token to be used when "shrinking" a monster [iMO], and made it clear when to switch between the figure and the token (similar to the use of a token when a hero is knocked out).