Please help me with clarification of the range of Command or Blessing. Rules state that Command and Blessing has a range of 3 squares. Let's say that the Figure that has this skill is in the following situations

F - figure with command or blessing
D - Door
X - Friendly figure affected by command
0 - empty space
Y - offboard space/square

1)
00D0X
0FD00

will the friendly figure get the bonus from the figure with command with the door closed? i.e. no LOS

2)
00000000
00000000
00YY00
0FYYX0

Will the friendly figure get the bonus as it is around the corner but you count an imaginary distance of 3 squares?

The hero, Kirga from the expansions also has a 5 square range to prevent spawning. Can we assume he follows the similar effect for command/blessing. If so, he has a very large area to prevent spawning. Very large area indeed. We had a situation where the hero traced through 4 off board squares to prevent me from spawning but in actual fact the area is more than 5 movement squares

Thanks

This was debated a while back, so I suggest looking back to see if you can find it.

The short of it is that there are two schools of thought out there:

1) Command/Kirga's ability is a radius effect that goes through walls, doors, empty spaces, etc etc

2) Command/Kirga's ability has to use on board squares, and in the case of Command is blocked by doors and walls. Kirga's is a bit different I think because if I remember right it says it ignores LOS.

I personally ascribe to the view that things like Command have to use on board squares to count out the distance and are blocked by doors and walls. I could be wrong about this, and I'm sure someone will tell me I am, so call it a house rule if you want.

And yes, Kirga's ability makes her extremely powerful. Combine her with Boggs the Rat and you can forget about spawning in an RtL more than once a level.

Command also states that it ignores LoS, unless I'm much mistaken.

And I seem to recall that discussion being a lot more complicated. I remember at least 4 theories:

1) Command projects a circle out to designated radius regardless of intervening spaces, going through doors, walls, off-board spaces, etc.

2) Command can't go through walls, but you can trace paths like the bolt/breath templates. This means that a space can't be affected unless you can trace a valid path to it without going through walls or ever getting more than 3 spaces away, but that path can be more than 3 spaces long (just as the Breath template never affects figures more than 4 spaces away, but you can trace a path more than 4 spaces long to hit figures around corners).

3) Command can't go through walls and projects around corners, but the path can't be more than 3 spaces long. This is how I've been playing, though I don't have any strong argument against #1 or #2.

4) There were several people arguing that you can't count range through off-board spaces and didn't say anything about walls, which would work like #3 except that you can go through walls as long as there's an on-board space on the other side. Though I don't recall anyone specifically endorsing that result after I pointed it out, and I have nothing flattering to say about this line of argumentation.

There was also a question regarding whether the effects were blocked by closed doors, but I don't think anyone argued that closed doors should behave any differently from walls under any interpretation.

One could also theoretically argue that

5) Command ignores rubble obstacles and the like, but you still need to be able to trace a straight path from the source to the target without passing through walls or closed doors--it doesn't curve around corners.

But I don't recall anyone actually endorsing that theory.

Does Command work through staircases?

The rules say that you can move from one staircase to the matching staircase and that you can attack through staircases "as if" the staircase spaces are adjacent (and it gives LoS rules). So by the letter of the rules, the only things that can go through staircases are movement, LoS, and attacks, because the staircase spaces aren't actually adjacent, you just pretend they are when attacking.

That means no Command, no Grapple, no Aura, etc. from a different floor.

Houseruling the staircase spaces to actually be adjacent would be an understandable choice, though.