WARNING: SPOILERS!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE TITAN'S KEEP!!!

So, the final battle will be happening soon. Our group has ruled that the OL can look at the final keep before he reaches it (I'm not sure it's specified otherwise, but whatever). I took a look at it and I have a question about the special rule for the battle. It says something to the effect of "At the start of the overlord's turn, the Titan stomps the ground and all heroes who have an order placed lose that order."

That's fine for aim, dodge, and rest. But what about guard? The rules for guard specify that the hero can interrupt the OL's turn at any time to use it. If they literally can interrupt his turn at any time, then they could interrupt before the Titan stomps the ground, and they get to use their guard order anyway. Is this how you would say it works? Even if that's what the rules say, it seems contrary to the purpose of the special rule.

I don't know what my group is going to say. I can't exactly ask them about it before they fall victim to it, but I wanted to get a good consensus here before we enter this pivotal battle. Thanks!

I would rule in favor of the titan.

I would say that the Overlord gets his threat and overlord cards and similar things (like the titans special ability) before the heores gets an interrupt attack. I don´t have specific sentence in the rulebook to back it up though. It´s only gutfeeling and what I believe is the intention of the titans keep.

The rules say that a guard order can be used to interrupt the overlord at any time, so my group has always played that you can interrupt before the overlord draws cards or collects threat if you want. Of course, if you want to attack so early in the overlord's turn, it's usually not much different from making an attack on your turn with an Advance or Battle instead of a Ready.

...that Titan's ability sounds kind of silly on general principles. The heroes get surprised by it exactly once, and after that it's very close to just saying that the heroes can't use orders. Which seems like it removes variety and depth from the game without actually disadvantaging the heroes very much. And if the initial surprise has any significant effect on balance, then the game is either unfair to the heroes on the first game or too easy on them every other game for the rest of time. I'm not really sure what the goal of including such an ability could be...

The point of the ability is for example that the Heroes cannot Telekinese the Titan into a distant corner every turn, for if they cannot Rest, they are bound to run out of fatigue. Tadaa (fanafare).

It's woefully impractical for some reason for the entire party, collectively, to have enough vitality potions for one hero to drink one each round of the fight? Or to restore fatigue with the gauntlets of power? Or various other skills and hero abilities? If you hand-pick your heroes, skills, and equipment, it's definitely possible to have a hero that can restore at least 4 fatigue every turn, indefinitely, without resting or using consumables.

And someone seriously thought that this would be simpler and more effective than, say, declaring the Titan immune (or resistant) to Telekinesis?

That sounds rather implausible, and if correct, rather stupid. But I haven't played RtL, so I suppose I shouldn't rush to judgment.

Well, any OL should crush the Gauntlets anyway

Still, I'd welcome more imaginative Avatar battles.

I say forget the special abilities in the battles - let the OL continue to play cards and keep other monsters/powers in play. Seems silly to end an epic game in such a "meh" way- 4 vs 1, 2-3 rounds of slaughtering the avatar...

Xandria said:

I think you're kind of missing the point.

Nah, I get it, the gauntlets are but the cherry on the sundae of fail.

The Titan's ability is at least something, still. Also, I wish to point out that the overland game is meant to keep the heroes from getting crucial skills and the best combos. Then, in the keep, the heroes no longer can purchase potions, if I am correct. You try to deplete their resources as well as you can. If you do a good job, it might actually be possible to deplete the Heroes' fatigue by denying them the Rest Order; also, it is more difficult to grapple the titan with a dodging tank with two shields.

Leadership on character 1.

Telekinesis on character 2.

Right now, that's a totally legal way to avoid the Titan's trick and have full fatigue for telekinesis for a long time. If "character 1" is Varikas, well, all I can say is I hope those braziers can do some significant damage.

Antistone Said:

"And someone seriously thought that this would be simpler and more effective than, say, declaring the Titan immune (or resistant) to Telekinesis?

That sounds rather implausible, and if correct, rather stupid. But I haven't played RtL, so I suppose I shouldn't rush to judgment."

I didn't really get the impression that any of the Avatar fights even took Telekinesis into account...did you?

I strongly dislike the fact that it's the OLs turn right away, but they start you in a position where you have to run to hit anyone. Terrible design.

First of all, no hero has Telekinesis (since day 1 of our first RtL game we've houseruled that no one can get it, ever). So, that's not a concern.

Second of all, this order-cancelling ability matters a GREAT deal for our game. One of the heroes is Gray Ker with Unmoveable. This means, unless he is stunned, every turn he declares a battle and then switches it to whatever other order he wants. However, since he declared a battle he gets +1 armor and a free guard order. So for us it's not a situation of "well guard is the same as an extra normal attack". Instead, he just gets a third attack every turn.

So, let's swing the discussion away from final battle balance and back to whether the guard order can be used before all orders must be discarded.

Anyone else have any input?

I actually would say that it effects Guard orders and here's my reasoning which may or may not be correct.

Take a look at this line in the JitD rulebook:

"Whenever there is a question of timing, such as whether an event card can be triggered before a hero can take an action , etc., the event card always receives precedence as long as the overlord player declares his intent to play the event card in a timely fashion."

To my reading of things, the Titan's ability is equivalent to an Event card that they OL has in play. Discarding a Guard token, even though it says a Hero may use his Guard order at any point in the OL's turn, is still a Hero action , right? The Guard order is the result of the Hero taking a Ready Action (exception being Leadership I guess).

So if that's the case, I would argue that the Titan's ability happens immediately upon the start of the OL's turn and takes precedence over a Hero taking an action such as a Guard action.

Couple that with the the notion (and sadly I'm stuck playing the intent game here) of why they would make Guard effectively immune to the Titan's ability, I'd say if its not the correct reading of the RAW I'd houserule it for the game.

Big Remy said:

Good find in the rule book. I think that settles it, unless anyone objects. Thanks!

I'm sure someone will

Big Remy said:

Uh, no.

First of all, you've taken a rule that says that cards get interrupt priority and applied it to an ability. I have no idea why that makes sense to you. Based on context, I think the most reasonable reading of that rule is that interrupt effects (like cards) get priority over regular effects (like refreshing cards and re-equipping at the start of your turn). That's worded badly for that interpretation, but it's worded badly for any interpretation I can think of (including yours), and bad wording is hardly exceptional in the Descent rulebook.

But even if we make the enormous leap required to say that this rule applies to the Titan's ability, there are already specific official examples that allow Guard orders to pre-empt overlord cards, including cards that could cause the Guard order to be lost, as in the case of Dark Charm (FAQ p. 5). The rule you quoted is older and less specific than the FAQ ruling, so the FAQ ruling trumps it. So if anything, making an analogy to an overlord card suggests that the Guard order can go first, not the reverse.

Thundercles said:

I haven't even looked at any of the Avatar fights. I was responding to the suggestion that Xandria made in the previous post:

Xandria said:

SkittlesAreYum said:

Grey Ker loses his bonus the second he switches his battle. He still only gets the benefits of one declaration a turn, he just gets to decide to change what he declared if a dice roll doesn't go his way or the OL plays a trap or something that would normally mess up his plan.

Additionally- I've always played that text events are not interruptable (it's not even part of the avatar's activation, it just happens). The player's can't interrupt it if it's not something I haven't chosen to do. Besides, the intent is very clear IMO. Discard all orders.

Antistone said:

Gee, I seem to recall saying something about this may not be correct...hrmmmm....and that it was speculation....

But that's fine, your reasoning makes some sense and its really not worth arguing over.

pinkymadigan said:

Really? I didn't see anything to indicate his combo is not legal. I believe Unmovable only requires you to declare a battle action, which he does. If he then switches it to run/advance, I don't see why he would lose the Unmovable bonus.

At any rate, it probably doesn't matter for the final battle because he's a ranged character in a small room. He's going to be doing battle actions anyway.

1.13 Q: " ...Grey Ker player noticed that there is nothing in the text that hindered him from this: He declares "ready" action. Moves 4 spaces and gives himself a guard order. Then he changes his action to "advanced" and now he have granted himself a "free" attack. This way Grey Ker has a built-in "Leadership" (only for himself). My gutfeeling is that this was not the way he was made to work. Or is he?"

* A: The common sense reading on Grey Ker is the right one. He is intended to be able to switch declared actions on the fly, but at the end of his turn he must still be able to point to a specific action and say, "That's the one I did." So, moving, shooting, and placing an order would be illegal, because there isn't an action that lets you do that unless you have the Leadership skill.
Grey Ker isn't super powerful in the specialization field, but he's a rather flexible character. He's great for opening doors, since he can react to what's behind them, and he's also terrific for being the first one into obviously trapped corridors and such. He's also far more able to react to the overlord's card play than other heroes, which is nice in and of itself. I can't count the number of times I've ruined a hero's carefully laid plans with a pit trap or crushing block, when Grey Ker would've been able to change his action and spoil my trap.
* Related Rulebook Paragraphs: ??
* Source: Kevin W, http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1159359557/0

He has to be able to say "that's the one I did".

pinkymadigan said:

Sorry for the badly-formatted post, the forum has once again arbitrarily decided to corrupt the quote tags and I am unable to repair them.

Interesting on the Grey Ker front, since he's clearly contradicting his own post. You can't look back on your turn and say "that's the one I did" if you did something that triggers something else. I suppose this ruling was eventually put in due to things where a bonus was retroactively taken away...

As for the Titan, there is nothing that could convince me that the intent could be anything other than to stop guards short of the quest's designer coming here and saying that a guard can still trigger first.

The avatars are generally considered the weakest part of the RtL game, and I have a feeling that they really weren't supposed to be.

And as for what Remy was getting at- he was getting at your attitude. You generally stomp all over peoples opinions here with a pretty pompous superiority complex that is pretty disgusting.

There's a lot of the time where people are stating opinions here, and you generally spit all over their ideas if you play a bit differently. Sometimes you are clearly right, but everyone has the right to post and not be made to feel like dirt for messing up a rule now and then.

*KABOOOOOM*

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