Question about GUARD monster kills, and pierce ability

By keimosabe, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I apologize in advance if these have been answered somewhere before but I could not find them.

Guard is basically "overwatch" and in the manual it states that "The overlord character must allow for an interrupt attack at and time..." and that the guard order "stays with a hero until removed by..." (we know what removes it). So my question is this: "while in guard, can the "guarded" character make as MANY interrupts as he can (only 1 per target) during the overlord's turn or does he only get ONE PERIOD and he must decide carefully when to use it.

Honestly, we can see it being played both ways and each wasy has benefits/ minuses for each side. But we figure the creators had a certain way in mind for it to be played and we wanted to keep with the spirit of the game.

Secondly, concerning the PIERCE ability... When we play and take into account the ARMOR FACTOR of a character, to us, it's just like extra hit points you have to get rid of before you actually do damage to the character's health. Thus, a character with an armor factor of 3 and 3 health will ONLY take damage on 4 or more damage rolls (first three are negated by the armor). So when a monster has PIERCE 3, is that an AUTOMATIC 3 HITS EVEN BEFORE THE DIE ARE ROLLED because for every point of pierce, you IGNORE that number of armor points.

Same character above with 3 ARMOR and 3 HEALTH, if a monster with PIERCE 3 ability attacks him successfully and gets 4 hits, is that now the 4 hits PLUS the PIERCE 3 hits for a grand total of 7 hits on the defending character? And if the defending character only has an ARMOR CLASS of say 2? Does the PIERCE 3 ability AUTOMATICALLY get one hit of HEALTH? Just a little confused on how that actually works.

And lastly, on MONSTER KILLS... say a character attacks a monster and because of the dice rolls, monster's AC, etc., he DOESN'T KILL the monster but knocks him all the way down to 1 health, IF ANOTHE RCHARACTER ROLLS AGAINST THE SAME MONSTER, does he only have to hit it for the remaining health (we know he still has to get past the monster's armor class as well but let's assume he does) or does he have to roll for EVERYTHING the monster had to begin with because the first attack was unsuccessful?

We assumed the former and just used health tokens on the monster to let everyone know what he had left, but we weren't sure how it worked.

Love this game and thanks in advance for the answers guys.

keimosabe said:

I apologize in advance if these have been answered somewhere before but I could not find them.

Guard is basically "overwatch" and in the manual it states that "The overlord character must allow for an interrupt attack at and time..." and that the guard order "stays with a hero until removed by..." (we know what removes it). So my question is this: "while in guard, can the "guarded" character make as MANY interrupts as he can (only 1 per target) during the overlord's turn or does he only get ONE PERIOD and he must decide carefully when to use it.

Honestly, we can see it being played both ways and each wasy has benefits/ minuses for each side. But we figure the creators had a certain way in mind for it to be played and we wanted to keep with the spirit of the game.

Secondly, concerning the PIERCE ability... When we play and take into account the ARMOR FACTOR of a character, to us, it's just like extra hit points you have to get rid of before you actually do damage to the character's health. Thus, a character with an armor factor of 3 and 3 health will ONLY take damage on 4 or more damage rolls (first three are negated by the armor). So when a monster has PIERCE 3, is that an AUTOMATIC 3 HITS EVEN BEFORE THE DIE ARE ROLLED because for every point of pierce, you IGNORE that number of armor points.

Same character above with 3 ARMOR and 3 HEALTH, if a monster with PIERCE 3 ability attacks him successfully and gets 4 hits, is that now the 4 hits PLUS the PIERCE 3 hits for a grand total of 7 hits on the defending character? And if the defending character only has an ARMOR CLASS of say 2? Does the PIERCE 3 ability AUTOMATICALLY get one hit of HEALTH? Just a little confused on how that actually works.

And lastly, on MONSTER KILLS... say a character attacks a monster and because of the dice rolls, monster's AC, etc., he DOESN'T KILL the monster but knocks him all the way down to 1 health, IF ANOTHE RCHARACTER ROLLS AGAINST THE SAME MONSTER, does he only have to hit it for the remaining health (we know he still has to get past the monster's armor class as well but let's assume he does) or does he have to roll for EVERYTHING the monster had to begin with because the first attack was unsuccessful?

We assumed the former and just used health tokens on the monster to let everyone know what he had left, but we weren't sure how it worked.

Love this game and thanks in advance for the answers guys.

1. Guard is not overwatch. Read the rules carefully. Using the guard order is a one off thing that allows you to interrupt once only. There is no way this can be played any other way. But remember that the heroes can interrupt the overlords turn and make an attack. They do not have to attack a monster that is actually moving. So for example, if all the heroes go on guard and the overlord then chooses not to move anything, the heroes can still interrupt and take their attacks.

2. Pierce removes armour. Any excess pierce is lost. Pierce is NOT extra damage. If a monster deals 5 damage with Pierce 3 against a figure with no armour, it does 5 damage. The same hit against a figure with 3 armour is still 5 damage because the 3 pierce removes the 3 armour.

3. Monster kills. I honestly dont know how you could think that a hero has to kill a monster with 1 attack. I'm sure it says in the rules that you are supposed to track damage dealt. Otherwise, big monsters would be unkillable

As was already said, Pierce is NOT extra damage. It simply reduces the armor value of the target by that amount.
Pierce 3, Damage 7, Armor 4 = 6 damage
Pierce 3, Damage 7, Armor 0 = 7 damage

You don't have to kill the monster in one attack. Just keep track of the HP of damaged monsters using spare health tokens or whatever. If a 12 HP monster with 2 armor is hit for 12 damage, he's at 2 HP. The next attack will only need to do 4 damage to kill him (I'm ignoring pierce for this example).

Well yeah, that's what we have been doing with monsters... using the extra health tokens. And now I get it with pierce. It's simply dealing with the armor itself and is NOT an actual attack.

I understand what yer saying about "guard" now too. Like I say, from us reading it, the way it's written, we could have honestly taken it either way.

Thanks for the info guys. gran_risa.gif

keimosabe said:

the way it's written, we could have honestly taken it either way.

I'll have to disagree with this. In order to be able to make an interrupt attack, a hero has to have a guard order placed.

"A hero that has placed a guard order may make an interrupt attack.", and "a hero may use his guard order [...]".

"Has placed" could be interpreted as "has placed one in his last turn", but I think in the light of the rest of the rules and considering the rules for removing the order are so distinct it's fairly obvious that "placed" literally means "has one in place next to his hero".

On the other hand, as soon as you make an interrupt attack, you no longer have that guard order anymore, because it's removed whenever you make an interrupt attack:

"A guard order stays with a hero until removed by [...] 3) the hero uses the order to make an interrupt attack."

There would be no point to removing it if it could still be used after it's removed.

So, in conclusion, with some imagination it could indeed be read to allow multiple interrupt attack. But it requires a lot more imagination than reading it to only allow one.

Um...if you could have taken the guard either way, you should maybe read the rules more carefully. Your original post actually quoted the first part of a sentence from the rules that directly answers the question you were asking:

"A guard order stays with a hero until removed by one of the following events: 1) the hero takes one or more wounds, 2) the beginning of the hero’s next turn, or 3) the hero uses the order to make an interrupt attack ."

Thus, as soon as you make one interrupt attack, you no longer have a guard order. In fact, technically, you actually can make as many interrupt attacks as you want while you are guarding ...it's just not normally possible to continue guarding after making the first attack, so unless a special rule applies (such as the "Guardian" ability from the create-your-own-hero rules), you only get to make one attack.

Antistone said:

In fact, technically, you actually can make as many interrupt attacks as you want while you are guarding ...it's just not normally possible to continue guarding after making the first attack, so unless a special rule applies (such as the "Guardian" ability from the create-your-own-hero rules), you only get to make one attack.

Just to expand for the benefit of the OP: For example if you have Rapid Fire, Cleaving or Quick Casting these can grant you extra attacks when you resolve the Guard. But you don't get to Guard against Monster A, then later in the OL's turn Guard against Monster B.