Hi,

we had an interesting situation come up in one of our last sessions.

A monster wanted to move onto an activated glyph to melee attack a hero adjacent to the glyph, with the intention to leave the glyph after the attack as the rules demand (definitely allowed so far).

Yet the hero had the Bear Tattoo that gave him the Grapple ability, preventing the monster from moving after coming adjacent to him - the glyph would now be blocked for all non-flying/non-acrobatic heros.

Would that situation prevent the OL from making the move onto the glyph in the first place? Why? If it is not the only glyph in the dungeon, the way in or out would not be completely blocked (which the OL is not allowed to do), just much longer in most cases.

Could the hero with Grapple intentionally let the monster go? On what basis? All abilities are active by default, the only exception being Breath - are abilities granted by Skills also active by default?

i would say, the monster can't stop it's movement on an activated glyph.

FAQ, page 5

Q: Can a monster end its movement on or be spawned on
to a glyph of transport?
A: Monsters can end their movement on or be spawned
on to unactivated glyphs, but cannot end their movement
on or be spawned on to activated glyphs. If a monster is
on an activated glyph, the overlord must move it off the
glyph on his next turn, if possible. Monsters can always
move through or attack into spaces containing glyphs.

Yes, but the monster´s intention was not to end its movement on the glyph, but interrupt it for its attack, then move away and end its movement elsewhere. Am I misreading the rules here?

for my understanding, you end your movement on the glyph, attack, and then continue the movement....and you're not allowed ton end your movement on a activated glyph.

"Ending your movement" has been clarified by KW as such: No movement afterwards.

So, a monster or hero, who "moves, attacks, moves" only ends his movement at the very end of that sequence.

As written, the ruling simply says the OL has to move the critter off the glyph only IF ABLE. Which is not the case when the poor critter gets grappled. The grappling hero has to move away to let the critter go, and the next turn, the OL is compelled to leave the glyph.

ok, then you could use the following rule:

"...If a monster is on an activated glyph, the overlord must move it off the
glyph on his next turn, if possible . "

ok,the monster can't move because of the grapple....so, the glyph is blocked, until the monster (or the hero) is killed. is hard for the heroes but it's the way the rules say it.

There are a number of effects in Descent that allow a figure to enter a space, but not end its movement there. It has been my impression that this means you can only enter the space if you can reasonably expect to move off in the same turn, not if you merely want to move off. I wouldn't let a monster spend its last movement point to move onto an active glyph, I wouldn't allow them to spend their second-to-last to move onto a glyph surrounded by mud (unless they could fly or something), and I wouldn't allow them to move onto a glyph if there was some special quest rule preventing the monster from leaving (unless the rule also specifically allowed them to). All of these are situations where the OL knows when he walks onto the glyph that he will be unable to leave, so whether he "wants" or "intends" to leave is purely hypothetical--what the OL actually expects and plans to do (unless he's made a mistake) is to walk onto the glyph and stay there, which is not allowed.

Contrariwise, if the monster tries to walk over the glyph, but a hero uses a guard order to make an interrupt attack and webs the monster on the glyph, then that's fine. The hero chose to interrupt with a special, optional effect; the overlord could clearly have moved off of the glyph if the hero hadn't thrown a wrench in the works, so it's not his fault the monster is stuck on the glyph.

Grapple is a weird one, because the overlord knows that the grapple effect is in place and will definitely paralyze his monster, but he can also theoretically walk onto a glyph, be grappled, and still walk off on the same turn (for example, by killing the grappling hero). So the OL knows that he might be stuck there, and he could theoretically try to get himself stuck there, but he could also try to get himself free and continue moving.

Hard question. I would consider letting the hero choose whether to keep the monster there or let him go as a compromise, but that's definitely not RAW.

I think the rules are quite clear on this - now that I realized the two little words "if possible". Thanks for pointing that out.