So the question is that when an full fatigue hero (4/4 sweatdrops) is attacking a monster and he wants to use skills that require stamina (it would be 5/4, so impossible), is it possible to him to recover 1 stamina using "unused" surge ( in middle of attack to get required 3/4) in order to use that skill during that attack.

This situation is happening so often in our play and we couldn't find answer to this so we need a little help... (direct quote from rules would be nice or your best houserule)

What is the specific way to comprehend the word "unused" in fatigue recovery with surge. As OL I would say that surge is not "unused" if it is used before the whole attack is resolved. Other 4 players outvote me and in their opinion the word "unused" means "would not otherwise use" (so he can use the recovery effect anytime).

Having been in this situation a few times, it depends on the skill being used.

For something like the Knight's Advance skill, it says to activate it after a monster is defeated. Because the surges are spent at the time the skill is used, I can attack a monster while at full fatigue, spend a surge to recover fatigue and THEN use that particular skill after that. For the Berserker's Rage skill, I believe the card says the player has to use it when declaring an attack, meaning the player can't spend a surge to recover a fatigue and THEN rage to get the extra damage.

What skills are your party using that are causing this dilemma?

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What skills are your party using that are causing this dilemma?

It is often runemasters Runic Knowledge ( http://www.descentinthedark.com/2nd/category/classes/runemaster/ ) combined with several other exhaustable runemaster items and basic items that gives extra surges.

So when this runemaster is 4/4, he recovers that critical fatigue during attack with the dice, so he may use other surges to use Runic Knowledge.

Runic Sorcery is an action, shown by the little 'tap' icon at the beginning of its description and costs one fatigue. From what I can tell, when he chooses to use Runic Sorcery, he has to spend one fatigue first to activate the skill. That is the barrier to entry to use it; if he is at his maximum fatigue, he cannot use this skill.

Now looking at Runic Knowledge , which is a passive effect and allows the Runemaster to spend any one surge he rolls to suffer a fatigue and do 2 damage, and all of his surges must be spent at that time. The rules state that time conflicts work in favor of the active player, so he technically should be allowed to spend his surges in the order he so chooses.

Your Runemaster is not able to use both skills at full fatigue however, because he would have to use his first action to perform a standard attack, using whatever surges he rolls or generates to recover 1 fatigue, then uses another surge to use Runic Knowledge's effect to suffer 1 fatigue to do +2 damage, putting him back at full fatigue. He still has another action that could be used for Runic Sorcery, but he has no fatigue to use it.

I think the problem seems to be that heroes can only spend surges on an effect ONCE per attack. He can generate three surges in one attack, but cannot use all three of them to recover a fatigue for each one spent. The Lightning Strike Act II rune weapon has two surge abilities for +2 Damage proves this rule.

Did that help?

Lets say they want to use runic knowledge but are at full fatiuge. Lucky them, they roll two surges. Surges have to be spent all at once. I would rule that you can not gain and lose a fatiuge at the same time. In other words, they can not gain the fatiuge from the surge and then spend it on runic knowledge because they don't gain that fatiuge to spend till AFTER the attack resolves.

While you have fatigue equal to your stamina you cannot voluntarily spend fatigue.

While you have fatigue equal to your stamina and you would suffer any amount of fatigue, suffer health instead.

Even with surge ability to recover 1 fatigue, afaik, you cannot use any skill that require fatigue to spend with stamina full. Firstly you activate surge abilities, after that all that abilities take effect and for now it is too late to spend surges.

In case of Runic Knowledge, beauty of that skill is that you can use it even with stamina full and just suffer health instead. If you rolled 2 surges, use one to recover fatigue, second to activate Runic Knowledge (and at the time of resolving you should suffer but, as an active player, choose to resolve recover ability first. Doing so you will firstly regain 1 fatigue and after that suffer one.

P.S. Sorry for my english, but I hope I explained it clearly.

Now looking at Runic Knowledge , which is a passive effect and allows the Runemaster to spend any one surge he rolls to suffer a fatigue and do 2 damage, and all of his surges must be spent at that time. The rules state that time conflicts work in favor of the active player, so he technically should be allowed to spend his surges in the order he so chooses.

Because conflicts work in favor of the active player -> YES

Lets say they want to use runic knowledge but are at full fatiuge. Lucky them, they roll two surges. Surges have to be spent all at once. I would rule that you can not gain and lose a fatiuge at the same time. In other words, they can not gain the fatiuge from the surge and then spend it on runic knowledge because they don't gain that fatiuge to spend till AFTER the attack resolves.

Surges have to be spent all at once -> NO (without suffering damage)

In case of Runic Knowledge, beauty of that skill is that you can use it even with stamina full and just suffer health instead. If you rolled 2 surges, use one to recover fatigue, second to activate Runic Knowledge (and at the time of resolving you should suffer but, as an active player, choose to resolve recover ability first. Doing so you will firstly regain 1 fatigue and after that suffer one.

At the time of resolving you should suffer but as an active player, choose to resolve recover ability first -> YES

So the active player gets to decide in what order the attack is resolved (recovery first and then payment for actions) to gain advantage.

(Or 1 vote for fixed order + common sense.)

Now looking at Runic Knowledge , which is a passive effect and allows the Runemaster to spend any one surge he rolls to suffer a fatigue and do 2 damage, and all of his surges must be spent at that time. The rules state that time conflicts work in favor of the active player, so he technically should be allowed to spend his surges in the order he so chooses.

Because conflicts work in favor of the active player -> YES

Lets say they want to use runic knowledge but are at full fatiuge. Lucky them, they roll two surges. Surges have to be spent all at once. I would rule that you can not gain and lose a fatiuge at the same time. In other words, they can not gain the fatiuge from the surge and then spend it on runic knowledge because they don't gain that fatiuge to spend till AFTER the attack resolves.

Surges have to be spent all at once -> NO (without suffering damage)

I agree with the active player bit with time conflicts, but I don't believe this is a time conflict. I believe this is a conflict of when fatigue is recovered. The surge for the attack all resolve at once. The hit and the recovery of fatigue. You can't devy out the surges in waves. That would be like saying the attacking player can deal the damage of the rolled dice and an amazing roll of blocking. Letting that all pass before dealing surge damage so the monster can't block the remaining surges. It's broken. The damage as a whole need to be resolved and all abilities (conditions and surges) need to be collected when damage is dealt.

IF I am wrong, please show me in the rule book. It really seems over complicated if waves of surges can be resolved in this way.

Now, I agree with the comment about taking damage, therefore the attack can STILL go off like the hero would want at the expense of health. Since the surge ability says take a fatigue and attack adds hearts, and if the attacking player has no fatigue to suffer, they suffer the damage instead because it's not apart of the cost of the card to be played.

If you have to suffer fatigue (in Runic Knowledge case), then you can choose as an active player to firstly recover fatigue and after that suffer one. But if you have to spend fatigue to activate skill or ability, then you have nothing to spend, since fatigue recovery will occur at the end of combat, when you resolve everything and cannot use a skill or ability.

When using a surge to regain a fatigue, you don't regain it until the end of the combat round. Technically you cannot regain a fatigue and spend another one simultaneously with multiple surges. You cannot spend more than you have stamina wise as it states in the example on page 13 of the base rule book.

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I believe this is a conflict of when fatigue is recovered. The surge for the attack all resolve at once. The hit and the recovery of fatigue. You can't devy out the surges in waves.

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IF I am wrong, please show me in the rule book. It really seems over complicated if waves of surges can be resolved in this way.

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In the rulebook it does not clearly state when the fatigue recovery happens:

Rulebook page 13 section 4. Spending Surges example only says "Bla bla bla .... He decides to spend his remaining surge to recover one fatigue."

In page 14 section 4 "Tomble now has a chance to spend any surges rolled on the attack roll to trigger any abilities he might have."

I get a slight sense that all surges must be spent at same time, and they are executed simultaneously . So there are no mentions of "recovery phases" or "surge spending phases" as other posters claim.

So as a conclusion hero cannot use runic knowledge when ones fatigue is 4/4 because hero cannot willingly exceed his stamina even if one would recover needed fatigue simultaneously.

Any thoughts on that?

Unfortunately, most of the responses here are incorrect.

http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Descent_Second_Edition_Unofficial_FAQ#toc3

Q: Assuming hero took fatigue equal to his stamina. Can hero recover fatigue from surge and use it on another skill within the same attack?

A: Yes, a hero can recover fatigue with a surge and use that fatigue within the same attack if he has an applicable skill. (1)

For details in the rule book: Spend Surges (Combat step 4) comes BEFORE Deal Damage (Combat step 5). The wording of "unused" in the paragraph can be a bit confusing, but based on FFGs response, you can basically ignore it as the meaning doesn't change if you remove it. (Nowhere does it say that this use of a surge is resolved after the attack, that's just where most people tend to think of it since it wasn't used otherwise.) ALL surges are spent before dealing damage. You add range, conditions, hearts, regaining fatigue, etc. all in Step 4, in any order you choose.

Now, to preempt the "You're wrong. Conditions happen after" (because I've heard it before), you may be interpreting what gets the condition when incorrectly. The ATTACK would gain the condition during the surge phase (just as an attack that always has it gains it when the attack is declared). During the Deal Damage phase, if any wounds were received, then the conditions from the attack are applied to the figure, but the ATTACK gained the condition earlier in the combat phase and may or may not apply it to the figure based on the defense roll.

While you have fatigue equal to your stamina you cannot voluntarily spend fatigue.

While you have fatigue equal to your stamina and you would suffer any amount of fatigue, suffer health instead.

Unfortunately, you have misquoted the rulebook to suit your own interpretation. (Though it may be possible that you are reading a translated copy that is different than the English version.) You've emphasized "spend" in reference to fatigue to make some kind of difference. The rulebook only mentions "spending" for movement points, surges, experience points, and gold. It always mentions "suffering" when referencing damage and fatigue. (There may be some cards that do otherwise, but my guess is that these would be unintentional.)

The important part of the rulebook is this (parentheses mine based on clarifications from FFG):

"When using skills (this also applies to any other ability) or moving (this currently only applies to suffering fatigue to gain movement points, and doesn't include moving into or out of effects such as Freezing and Web), a hero may only suffer fatigue up to an amount equal to his Stamina. If any other game effect forces a hero to suffer fatigue in excess of his Stamina, he instead suffers damage equal to the excess fatigue that would have been suffered."

So no, you can not suffer health to use Runic Knowledge.

As a side note, I may end up questioning the movement clarification, but until we get an official response, this is what has been passed down from on high.

I stand corrected, thanks for pointing that out. I will notify my game group when we play again.

Asked that question to FFG today and waiting for answer.

The rest for me is the same. You cannot voluntarily suffer fatigue if already suffered up to stamina. In case of Runic Knowledge you (your action) is just to activate surge ability of Runic Knowledge, the rest is a game effect which instruct you to suffer 1 fatigue. I think the reason it is made this way just to let Runemaster suffer damage if he has no fatigue left. Otherwise it could worded like "use when attacking with Magic weapon after dices are rolled. Your attack gains surge:+2 damage" and have a cost of 1 fatigue.

EDIT:

Runemaster's skill Runic Knowledge

While you have a Magic or Rune weapon equipped, each of your attacks gains : surge: Suffer 1 fatigue to gain +2 damage

Core Rule book, page 9.

Many skills also show a fatigue cost on the card. The hero must suffer this amount of fatigue in order to perform the listed on the card or trigger an ability that requires the player to “exhaust this card,” or “use this card".

When using a skill, a hero cannot suffer fatigue that would exceed his Stamina. If a hero has already suffered fatigue equal to his Stamina, or if the skill would cause him to suffer more fatigue than his Stamina allows, he cannot use the skill until he recovers enough fatigue.

Does Runic Knowledge has fatigue cost printed on it? No. Do you have to exhaust it? No. Do you have to use it? No. You just get it if using right weapon.

Core Rule book, page 13.

Heroes voluntarily suffer fatigue in order to use skills or move additional spaces. To suffer fatigue, the player takes the number of fatigue tokens equal to the cost and places them on his Hero sheet. When using skills or moving, a hero may only suffer fatigue up to an amount equal to his Stamina. If any other game effect forces a hero to suffer fatigue in excess of his Stamina, he instead suffers damage equal to the excess fatigue that would have been suffered.

Do you suffer fatigue to use skill? No, you suffer fatugie to use surge ability. Is surge ability is equal to skill or additional movement? No.

Conclusion.

Your attack gains listed surge ability while your weapon is Rune or Magic. For that ability you don't have to pay fatigue or exhaust skill card, it even does not have fatigue cost printed on it. When attacking you use surge on that ability and since this ability is not a skill or additional movement, it is an "other game effect" and if you have no fatigue left, you suffer damage instead.

And if FFG answer that you cannot use Runic Knowledge if you have no fatigue left, then it will mean that D2E rules are inconsistent and are need to be revised.

Period.

EDIT2:

Can Runemaster hero use Runic Knowledge surge ability if he has no fatigue to suffer and suffer 1 damage instead?

Yes he can.

Thanks,
Justin Kemppainen
Creative Content Developer
Fantasy Flight Games

I stand corrected. Though I feel that's pretty counter to a lot of the other FFG clarifications. I've got a few of those I'm keeping track of and may ask for further explanation there.

I stand corrected.

Only for your rule interpretation or your group house rule, by the original rule you are incorrect,