I'm a relative newcomer to this game. I've introduced the game to my core group of friends and over the past month or so we've managed to blast through the first few quests in JitD. I liked it so much that I went out and got the 3 other expansions (the like for the game plus an lucky super-duper sale prompted me to purchase the other 3 - no ToI yet).

Question the first: concerning Line of Sight (and I'm sure I'll have a few more over the course of the next few months). In the main manual, the example shows Silhouette and two rows of diagonal Lines of Sight in red running off two the left, parallel to each other. The first line is a direct lead-out from her character and this makes sense to me. However, the second line, to the left of the character which then runs diagonally to the upper left, doesn't make sense. I thought Line of Sight was a single line (i.e. a one-square's width)? Can anyone clarify? I'm tempted to just have Line of Site radiate from the character's core which basically equates to 8 Lines of 360 degree site for 1 movement square and then rapidly dimishes as it expands past 2 movement squares.

Second Question: Blast. In the JitD manual is shows Valadir (?) next to an ogre. The text states that Valadir can target the first two squares of the ogre (the front two - shown in shaded red) but not the back two squares. ??? I'm lost here. Since no other characters could be on any of the squares occupied by the ogre how is this relevent? Isn't blast damage calculated against a complete character? Or am I missing something here and it's only a portion of the character that this blast affects?

Finally, as an Overlord, when I have 8 cards in my playable hand and it's my turn I read as follows: pick up X number of threat (X being of course the number of heroes) and draw two more Overlord Cards. Discard any 2 cards of available 10 Overlord cards to keep the deck at a constant 8 cards. Pick up the number of threat associated with the discarded cards??? It's the last part that I'm unsure of. Can I gain threat on discarded cards once I've reached 8 cards?

I'm probably just not seeing the forest through the cliche here but if someone could enlighten me I'd appreciate it.

Wow, really having a hard time with the new editor and dealing with quoting someone.

Agreed. Light gray against dark grey doesn't seem to work out as well as advertised.

Slightly less dark grey against dark grey ALSO doesn't work out well for seeing. You almost have to select the text you want to read just to see it

Big Remy said:

But the bolt template is 2 or 3 squares across. Sorry for coming off as dense but it appears that the example in the JitD manual is incorrect as it shows two parallel lines of sight and only one seems to draw a straight line from the centre of Silhouette. The other emanates off to her immediate left and runs parallel to the apparent correct one.

Big Remy said:

I'm not sure if that did answer my question. Now I'm even more confused. If blast targets spaces and not necessarily complete monster (i.e. monsters that take up more than a single space) how do you calculate its effects? To put it more succinctly, the Giant takes up four spaces, but according to these rules, my hero can only see the two out of the four spaces that the giant occupies. Therefore, does this mean that my blast and its calculated damage only affects half of the giant? This doesn't seem to follow according to the rules of combat but according to the diagram in the manual this appears to be the case.

I'll get this eventually, just have to get past the Homeric 'D'oh' moment.

Blast must target a Monster AND a single space.

How far/where the Blast goes is dependant on the quare it targets.

Thus a model on the far side of said Ogre from the hero would only be within the Blast if it where Blast 2 or higher. A model to the Ogre's side may be hit by a Blast 1 attack, depending on which square of the Ogre you target.

If a figure happens to be in a space that is targetted by a successful attack, that figure takes the full damage of the attack (it's defined in the attack rules in the base game rulebook), unless it's specifically exempt (sweep does not affect friendly figures, etc). Thus, bolt, breath, and blast hurt everything they touch for full damage.

For question #1:

" Question the first: concerning Line of Sight (and I'm sure I'll have a few more over the course of the next few months). In the main manual, the example shows Silhouette and two rows of diagonal Lines of Sight in red running off two the left, parallel to each other. The first line is a direct lead-out from her character and this makes sense to me. However, the second line, to the left of the character which then runs diagonally to the upper left, doesn't make sense. I thought Line of Sight was a single line (i.e. a one-square's width)? Can anyone clarify? I'm tempted to just have Line of Site radiate from the character's core which basically equates to 8 Lines of 360 degree site for 1 movement square and then rapidly dimishes as it expands past 2 movement squares."

Line of Sight works thie way: If you can draw a straight line from the center of your own square to the center of the target square, you have Line of Sight. If you look back at the picture, you will see that Sillhouette can draw a straight line from the center of her square to the center of all of the red squares.

For Question #2:

" Second Question: Blast. In the JitD manual is shows Valadir (?) next to an ogre. The text states that Valadir can target the first two squares of the ogre (the front two - shown in shaded red) but not the back two squares. ??? I'm lost here. Since no other characters could be on any of the squares occupied by the ogre how is this relevent? Isn't blast damage calculated against a complete character? Or am I missing something here and it's only a portion of the character that this blast affects?

Whenever you make an attack, you target a specific square. If the weapon has the Blast X ability, it will also target all spaces that are X spaces away and are not blocked by obstacles.

Suppose Valadir has a weapon with Blast 1. Also pretend that there is a beastman standing directly behind the ogre. Valadir wants to hit both the Ogre and the beastman, but he doesn't want to hit himself. If he could target the back end of the ogre, he could hit the ogre and Blast 1 would also hit the beastman. However, he can't do this because he doesn't have Line of Sight to the back end of the Ogre. Therefore, unless he was able to somehow get Blast 2, the beastman is safe. Also, Valadir will hit himself if he targets the front end of the Ogre. So you see that this rule can affect things quite a bit, and is very important.

For Question #3:

"Finally, as an Overlord, when I have 8 cards in my playable hand and it's my turn I read as follows: pick up X number of threat (X being of course the number of heroes) and draw two more Overlord Cards. Discard any 2 cards of available 10 Overlord cards to keep the deck at a constant 8 cards. Pick up the number of threat associated with the discarded cards??? It's the last part that I'm unsure of. Can I gain threat on discarded cards once I've reached 8 cards?"

The Descent rulebook, on page 9, says:

The overlord player collects one threat token for every
hero, and then draws two cards from the top of the overlord
deck. The overlord player may then discard one or
more cards from his hand to collect extra threat tokens.
The overlord player must discard down to eight cards or
less after drawing his two cards for the turn. He may
choose to discard additional cards and always collects
threat tokens for each card he discards. [emphasis mine]

Lindelos said:

Should have clarified. Stand the template up on its edge and use it like a ruler. Joram, Thundercles and others gave you a much better answer to the Blast issue.

even if your blast hits 1 out of six spaces a dragon occupies, the dragon still takes full damage for the effect as if you hit the whole thing