A couple of questions:

1. If a hero with leadership is the first to move in the Heroes' turn, and transfers a rest order to another hero, does the rest order restore all fatigue to that other hero when she 'activates' in this same Hero turn? We play that as a yes, but this is pretty useful - are we correct?

2. Can a hero with grapple move while grappling? dragging monsters along with him and potentially collecting more along the way? (sounds like a rolling maul in rugby)

3. What effect does grapple have on a monster with a 2, 4 or 6 square base? Is a dragon really supposed to be pinned down by a puny human?

steverey said:

1: After the Overlords turn, the "upkeep" phase starts where heroes untap their items/powers, reset orders, roll for bleed etc. All that happens before the 1st hero takes a turn. So you aren't allowed to play Leadership the way you are doing it, since the rest order would stay in effect all the way during that heroes turn. So if the hero recieving "Rest" plays a different order, it cancels the previous rest order.

2: Any monster moving into adjacent squares to a hero with grapple (or hero moving near monster with grapple) is unable to use movement points. So if the hero with grapple moves out or range of the monsters, they are no longer adjacent in their turn, and can act normally.

3: According to the rules yes, but I would like to make a houserule here. I was playing Overlord and experienced a group of heroes who sent their tank up with grapple to lock the named dragon in map 5, while the rest stayed out of sight and waited... Sucked. Imo grapple should only work on monsters that occopy 1 square. Anything else would be too large to succesfully hold.

Sithany said:

Where did you read that rule exactly? JitD page 7 shows that the game consists of a series of hero turns, followed by the overlords turn. There is no 'upkeep' phase.

On #1, Paul's right, Sithany is wrong. Each hero has a separate "start of turn," and a hero with Leadership can place a Rest order on another hero so that they recover fatigue before the overlord's next turn. There was even a clarification that Leadership could do this in the aborted FAQ (they said the document got corrupted and we're supposed to get a replacement this week, so that ruling could conceivably change, but I see no reason to expect that it would).

Sithany's correct on the other two, though. Grapple stops adjacent monsters from spending movement points; the figure with Grapple is perfectly free to move, but they can't drag anyone with them, and being large provides no protection against being grappled.

Thanks to you all. On the matter of grappling large creatures, I might make a house rule requiring all the base squares of the monster to be adjacent to a grappler - so a 4 or 6 square monster would require 2 well positioned grapplers to hold them and the space to do it. This to me has a similar feel to the way large monsters treat terrain obstacles - my read of that is the monster isn't affected negatively unless all of it is affected - so a 4 square monster can pass over a 1 square pit or a 1x2 square pit without effect, but a 2x2 pit is a different matter.

As far as I know, the only way a hero can get the Grapple ability is with a single skill card, so unless you have some other house rule making it more common, that effectively makes 2x2 and larger monsters immune to Grapple.

If you're looking for more options, I'll mention that the mod I'm working on uses an ability called Entrap, which is sort of a weakened version of Grapple. If you're adjacent to an enemy with Entrap, then to leave your current space costs 1 additional movement point per rank of Entrap (cumulative from multiple adjacent enemies), but large figures can ignore 1 rank of Entrap for each space they occupy beyond the first (as with Knockback). This means that Entrap 5 works as well as Grapple against a skeleton or a hellhound, but it won't completely stop an ogre and it does nothing to a dragon.

Ooh give entrap to kobolds please!! I'm imagining Lilliputians and Gulliver.

I'm imagining that there will be generated heroes out there with the grapple ability in addition to whoever gets the skill card - bummer if it's the same dude.

Another question, posed as a scenario:

Hero A has finished his turn with a guard order and zero fatigue and no potions in full view of a door to another area. Hero B moves to a chest and opens it. The OL plays the Alarm card and the other area door opens and the heroes' turn ends - i.e. Hero B's turn ends immediately and Hero C gets no turn at all.

The OL reveals a master manticore immediately on the other side of the door in addition to everything else in the new area.

Can a guard action be resolved as a half action of movement instead of an attack? Hero B could then use the guard action to interrupt the manticore's attack and run to the nearby glyph leaving the other stunned mullets to their fate, OR to run into the newly revealed area BEFORE the overlord spawns to reduce lines of sight in an amazingly selfless act that's bound to get him killed - and lets face it, exhausting himself like that... he probably deserves it.

Is this a correct interpretation of the rules? Strict interpretation of the base rules says that the guard allows an interrupt 'attack' only, but that it can take place at ANY time in the overlord's turn, which would include prior to activation of any monsters, thus allowing it to go off before the spawn card is played.

Also, since he's moving, does the OL get an opportunity to play a room trap like crushing block on him?

There is a hero named Tahlia in the Altar of Despair expansion who has the special ability to move her speed when she discards a Guard order to make an interrupt attack.

With that one exception, no, it is not possible to use a Guard order to move. Is there anything in the rules that suggests otherwise to you?

And I've always allowed heroes to use their Guard orders before the OL spawns (even before he collects threat and draws cards) if they want. I think that's the most plausible and direct reading of the rules, though some people may be inclined to disagree.

I must have read a discussion of Tahlia with regard to the guard order - which influenced my thinking about what anyone could do with one.

Still, for Tahlia then, can the OL play a room trap on her while she is moving during her interrupt attack? or is a trap card only allowed to be played during a hero's turn?

They're actually called Trap (Space) cards, not "room traps," but I can't find any restriction that would prevent the overlord from playing one on Tahlia while she moves. I believe there was official word that traps can be played in response to a hero's movement when knocked back by an attack, so playing when it's not the hero's turn is presumably allowed.

Note, however, that Tahlia's movement is part of the use of the guard order, and she discards it before moving, even if she moves before making the interrupt attack, so damaging her while she's moving would not remove the order or prevent her from attacking (unless you killed her, or prevented her from reaching a position to attack from, of course).

Antistone said:

Yup!

I believe Guard can be resolved "at any point in the Overlord's turn".

Also- Heroes may only spend movement points on THEIR turns. (No using fatique with a Guard Order)

As for Grapple, we've house-ruled the following: at the start of its turn, any grappled monster throws a numer of black dice equal to the number of squares they occupy after the first (e.g. 1 dice for a Hell Hound, 3 dice for a Demon, 5 dice for a Dragon). If any dice shows up with a blank, that creature can spend movement points freely that turn.

Antistone said:

Interesting, I had not thought of using Tahlia for spawn-blocking via the 3-space move.

First off, in order to work at all, she would have to actually attack something, right? "When Tahlia discards a Guard order to make an interrupt attack, she may move a number of spaces up to her speed before or after attacking." So the movement is optional, but there has to be some sort of valid attack involved.

If she can attack something legally with the Guard order, then we move on to if she can do this during the "at the start of the OL turn" phase... I would take it that since the OL could play a poltergeist "at the start of his turn" to move say a poorly positioned monster out of the way, or move the heroes to where they're out of view of a key spawn spot, then the heroes could do the same, i.e. use a guard to move forward on the OL turn. I see no reason to disallow this.

Note it's not really a big deal, since if Tahlia wanted to block that spawn line, she could just have moved there on her turn and take an advance instead of the Guard. The main difference is she gets an extra attack out of it, but the drawback is if there is nothing to attack, she cant use the Guard at all, so there's a tradeoff.

Last, looking at the Overlord Player's Turn summary, it is 3 steps. 1 - Collect Threat and Draw. 2 - Spawn Monsters (and play other start of turn cards). 3 - Activate Monsters. A Guard order says it may interrupt the OL at any point during his turn, I think that pretty clearly includes all 3 steps, since it says at any point.

So I would say... if there is a valid attack, then yes she can use a Guard order... if there is no valid attack, then no. Even if the OL takes an "at the start of his turn" action like poltergeist, dark charm, or a spawn, a hero could interrupt those. I would say Tahlia cannot use her interrupt JUST to move, she has to legally attack something.

That's my take at least...

-mike

poobaloo said:

Kevin Wilson has said (and you can go look at the Gathered List of Answered Questions thread Reply #25 for his response) that there is no requirement for a valid attack to happen in order for someone to use their Guard order, especially Tahlia. She can spend the Guard to gian movement points up to her speed without making the attack.

Additionally, attacking an empty space is perfectly legal, so it would be very rare that this would be an issue for her even without that ruling.

Big Remy said:

Interesting. Then that should be FAQ'd.

If someone said something a while back in response to an ad hoc question, and a FAQ came out last week which is newer, and that change didnt make it in, then it's not a rule, right? For whatever reason, they chose not to include that. Unless they did? Obviously "anything KW ever said" is not enforceable in a gaming format, for if you do, you'd have no basis on which to say "these are the rules we are going to play by today".

Especially in the case where a FAQ has come out after the old Q&A. Otherwise you could point back to a Q&A from 5 years ago to get misc faulty rules. I'd say an older Q&A is moot once the latest FAQ comes out, as the FAQ officially changes all they felt needed changing.

As it stands on the card and current FAQ, the Guard seems to require an attack.

Yeah, but Kevin's point is, there's nothing stopping you from just attacking the air. He has FAQ'd though, for balance reasons, you don't gain any special effects if your attack doesn't have the potential for damaging something (so the OL couldn't just have a kobold in the corner attacking air in hopes of generating Threat for the OL, or other such abilities). And thus, no need to put anything in the FAQ. It's already in the rules.

When you attack, you're attacking a square on the board. There's no requirement that a creature has to be on that square...

-shnar

poobaloo said:

We've gotten into this argument before so I'm not going to rehash it but if you are not willing to accept an email written by the designer of the game in response to a question sent in by a player then are you playing a great number of things the way the designers never intended. That entire Gathered List of Answered Questions is exactly that, a compiled list of questions people sent in.

It probably didn't make it into the FAQ because its on that list and the vast majority of us use that as a FAQ appendix if you will. Unless something in the newer version of the FAQ specifically overrides a ruling on that list, there is no basis for saying the email response from the designer isn't valid.

It is exactly for this reason that I've been trying to get FFG to make the Descent FAQ an online living document that can be easily updated.

That being said, and choosing to ignore the response from the designer, you are correct that in the full sense of the RAW yes you are required to make an attack when using a Guard. And as shnar so wonderfully points out, you always attack a square and not a figure by the RAW. So there is nothing to stop you from taking a Guard action and attacking an empty square. So by extension, there is no basis for saying that Tahlia can't use her Guard order without having a valid target since she can always attack an empty square.

shnar said:

Exactly, they did go to the extent to say that a Dark Priest actually has to make a valid attack on a targetable creature. It cant just attack air. This seems to be contrary to that in Tahlia's case. I get they are different, but just like a DP cant say "ok I'm attacking a blank space" to roll for threat, so should Tahlia not be able to say "ok I'm attacking an empty space" to use her Guard. The purpose of Guard is to make an "interrupt attack". To move w/o attacking is both against the rules, and contrary to the fact that a Priest has to actually attack something to use its ability.

Big Remy said:

I think it'll suffice to say, whatever the designer of the game intended to make a rule, he made a rule in the latest FAQ. Otherwise you'd have to pour over every Q&A, every GenCon speech, every answer that got sent privately to an inquirer. Given you cant do that, and still play a game, you have to rely on a set of rules. Those rules are generally the RAW, plus any FAQ. If you wish to adopt suggestions from KW that differ, then you should be sure to HR those first, to be sure all players are ok w the changes, as they are not the rules, but possible changes that did not make the FAQ.

For example, if you were to pack up your Descent box, and take it to a house of 3 ppl who have not played before, and you try to spring a Tahlia Guard-Move on an unexpecting overlord, and they say no the card says right here you have to attack, are you seriously going to go pour over some Q&A session from KW, and claim a rule as a result? Obviously not. The rules are the rules, anything else is an HR. I'm not saying there's anything wrong w that, but this thread was about the actual rule clarificaiton and not suggested playings by the owner or otherwise.

If you incorporate KW's suggestions, that's fine, but then you need to have them printed out and debriefed to all players just which ones of them you're going to HR, before starting the game, otherwise the thousands of questions he and his team have likely answered over the years become thousands of probably conflicting arguments. We see things change from FAQ to FAQ, so surely we cannot rely on something he said in an unofficial forum - that is not even up any more other than for some guy who copied it and repasted it here - to be a binding rule.

-mike

poobaloo said:

No, they very specifically did not say that. They said that you can attack air, but that surges don't give you threat unless you damage a hero . You can still most definitely make attacks with other effects (such as damaging a monster, damaging a quest objective as in the Hold the Line quest, etc.) that fail to meet the requirement for generating threat.

You also are explicitly allowed to make an attack that might or might not end up affecting any targets at all, depending on the result of your roll. And there are cards (such as Sweeping Blow) that allow you to change what targets are potentially affected by an attack after declaring the attack.

Judging by RAW, there is no rule forbidding this.

Judging by precedent, we have numerous grounds for allowing it.

Judging by intent, we have a clear statement directly from the designer that it is supposed to be allowed.

If you want to argue in favor of a house rule changing it, you can go ahead, but everything remotely official clearly points towards this being completely legal. The fact that a clarification didn't make it into the official FAQ might be a reason to give it less weight, but it's not a reason to do the opposite.

poobaloo said:

Yes, moving during a Guard is against the rules. Tahlia is the exception to that rule!

And what you said about the FAQ is not exactly what they said. What they said was (bold is mine):

Q: Can heroes attack an empty square? For example, could a blast effect be centered in an empty square or could a hero fire his Staff of Knowledge off into a corner to burn the overlord’s threat?
A: Yes . However, if after spending surges there are no valid targets in the area of the attack (hero or monster), the entire attack is canceled without effect . This means that if the blast is not large enough, the attack fails , and the Staff of Knowledge must actually hit something to use its ability.

A Dark Priest can absolutely attack an empty square, but it will reap no benefit from doing so if there is not a target there. So no valid target, the attack misses and the OL gets no threat from the surges. The attack still happened!

And there is a difference between what they are talking about and Tahlia's situation. You are making a huge rules leap that is incorrect by saying that due to that FAQ entry Tahlia isn't allowed to attack an empty space. The FAQ ruling doesn't even say that, it says the attack misses without effect. Tahlia's ability is dependent on her activating a Guard order, not making a physical attack .

Kevin Wilson's valid and official ruling on this whole thing aside, there is still nothing preventing Tahlia from using her ability to move after activating her Guard order. The movement is dependent on her activating the order , not making a successful attack . All she has to do is activate the Guard, and attack a square . Again, you never attack figures directly you attack their square.

So again, no basis for saying so can't use her ability to gain movement if she doesn't have a valid target. If you need to have her attack an empty sqaure to use it, fine. But it still is a completely legal. If she attacks an empty square, its an automiss that has no bearing on the fact that she activated her Guard and can therefore move based on the wording of her ability.

Not to mention you can declare a battle action when you are right next to a master beastman because you want to make sure you don't miss or do just a little too little damage and still kill him with the first attack.

If I declare a battle action, I get two attacks. If I kill everything I can reach with my first attack, it doesn't nullify my battle action and allow me to now declare a rest or an advance or some such whatever. I get two attacks, and I can use my second attack to attack the air. The only stipulation is I cannot attack the air and spend the surges to gain a fatigue with my gauntlets of power or any other benefits certain items may grant.

Once again, anyone is always welcome to play how they want. If you and your group agree that Tahlia can only move/discard her guard if she can validly attack something...that's your call.

As an aside, I looked through the Gathered List of Answered Questions and I didn't see anything there that was in conflict with the current FAQ. So the premise of treating those official answers from the game designer as a FAQ admendment still doesn't have any problems for me. Especially since there are things on that list that have made it into the FAQ.