Harsk, Merisiel and Seelah are at the Warrens.
Seelah explores and encounters the barrier Skinsaw ritual.
1. How many monsters are placed on other locations due to the Warrens effect?
2. If Merisiel evades her Skinsaw Cultist, does this affect the number of monsters added?
Oh boy. So here is what I would think:
1. 3 monsters go on the other locations.
2. No. She still encountered it. She can evade it, but she still encountered it.
But I'd wait for others to weigh in and not just go with what I think. And in the meantime pray that Merisiel encounters the barrier so she can just evade the barrier all together.
Thanks
It can be a bit confusing. See this post for a more detailed explanation.
So while she can avoid everything that encountering a card involves by evading, she can avid encountering the card itself because that happened before she is allowed to evade. In fact, encountering the card is the sequence of her turn that allows her the option to evade.
If that isn't clear please post again. Maybe I or someone else could try a different way if explaining it. Thanks.
Effectively no. They both trigger the moment the card is encountered.
Technically, the "If" on the Shrine to Lamashtu connotes the idea of possibility: "You may or may not end up encountering a blessing, but if you do..." While the "When" on the Warrens connotes a definite, "You will eventually encounter a monster, and when you do..." But in terms of playing the game, the practical outworking of what do do is the same.
I'm not sure that the difference was intentional. If it was, the one reason it might have been possible to use "when" at the Warrens is that the henchman/villain will be a monster, so you will definitely encounter a monster at some point if you permanently close the location. While at the Shrine you could run into the henchman/villain and permanently close the location without ever encountering a blessing.
Of course, you might only temporarily close the Warrens, defeat the villain, and win the scenario, so there is really no definite way to know you will actually encounter a monster at the Warrens.
At the risk of more confusion, but with the intention of more help, for all the cards that say "Before the encounter..." you could add the words, "If not evaded" to help understand the card better.
So the Scout you could read as "If not evaded, before the encounter the scout deals 1d4-1 ranged combat damage"
Likewise you could add the same phrase to cards that save "After the encounter". So the Goblin Pyro would read as "If not evaded, after the encounter the Goblin Pyro deals 1 fire damage to you."
That is because "Before the encounter" and "After the encounter" are specifically defined steps in the game as defined by the rulebook.
And you can think of your turn in this order (italics are mine, not part of the rulebook):
Turn Overview
1. Advance the blessings deck.
2. Give a card to another character at the same location (optional).
3. Move to another location (optional).
4. Explore the top card of the location deck if you perform this step the card is encountered and you begin the Encounter a Card sequence noted as 4A-4F (optional).
4A. Evade the card and shuffle it back into the deck. It is neither defeated nor undefeated. Ignore Steps 4B-4F. Either restart step 4 if you can explore again or move immediately to step 5. (optional).
4B. Apply any effects that happen before the encounter, if needed.
4C. Attempt the check.
4D. Attempt the next check, if needed.
4E. Apply any effects that happen after the encounter, if needed.
4F. Resolve the encounter.
5. Try to close a location if it doesn't have any cards (optional).
6. Reset your hand by discarding any cards if you like, then discarding down to or drawing up to your hand size.
7. End your turn.
And note that when a barrier summons a monster for your character it usually tells you to "encounter" the monster. For instance Skinsaw Ritual says "summon and encounter a Skinsaw Cultist henchman". Note that the barrier card is instructing you to encounter the henchman/monster card. So you have to encounter it. Therefore the Skinsaw Cultist henchman is immediately considered encountered as soon as it is placed in front of Merisiel. She can evade it (and probably should) but she can't avoid encountering it because the barrier card told her she encountered it.
It also important to note that some of these "mass encounter" barriers state that "If any character does not defeat their henchman, this barrier is undefeated." So if Merisiel evades one of those summoned henchman, she did not defeat her henchman, so the barrier is undefeated. That is the subtle difference between the word "undefeated" as defined by the game and the words "not defeated". In other words, in this game "undefeated" and "not defeated" do not mean the exact same thing. In this game, "undefeated" is defined as when you attempted to defeat the bane and failed. "Not defeated" includes any time the bane was not defeated, whether an attempt was made or not. That is something that even some of us native English language speakers have failed to notice sometimes.
I'm not the authority on all this, but I'm pretty sure that is a reasonable explanation of things. I really hope that is more help and not more confusion. I'm sorry if I've done more harm than good.
...
4. Explore the top card of the location deck if you perform this step the card is encountered and you begin the Encounter a Card sequence noted as 4A-4F (optional).
4A. Evade the card and shuffle it back into the deck. It is neither defeated nor undefeated. Ignore Steps 4B-4F. Either restart step 4 if you can explore again or move immediately to step 5. (optional).
4B. Apply any effects that happen before the encounter, if needed.
4C. Attempt the check.
4D. Attempt the next check, if needed.
4E. Apply any effects that happen after the encounter, if needed.
4F. Resolve the encounter.
...
This breakdown of a turn sequence really illustrates why the usage of the phrases "before the encounter" and "after the encounter" is both inaccurate and illogical.
An encounter begins as soon as step 4 is executed. Effects that happen "before the encounter" would, by definition, have to take place *before* step 4. In essence, Step 4B is saying, "Apply any effects that happen before step 4." But if those effects happen during step 4B, which clearly comes *after* step 4, they can never take place *before* step 4.
Similarly, the encounter ends as soon as step 4F is complete. Any effects that happen "after the encounter" would necessarily have to take place *after* step 4F. Yet they actually happen in step 4E, which is clearly *before* step 4F.
They could remedy this logical inconsistency by defining step 4B to be called "the initial phase of the encounter", or the "pre-check phase", or something along those lines. E.g. "Before the encounter, all characters at this location take one unavoidable fire damage" would become "During the initial phase, all characters at this location take one unavoidable fire damage."
Similarly, step 4E could be called the "final phase of the encounter" or the "post-check phase". I'm sure someone more creative than me can come up with better terms than those, but at least it would remove the logical inconsistency.
Mike stated that they intentionally avoided the phrases "before the check" and "after the check" and I'm assuming it may be because:
1. Some cards will have "Before the encounter" and "After the encounter" effects without having a check.
2. "Before the check" and "After the check" would indicated doing those things twice on cards that had multiple checks.
While your suggestion of adding the word "phase" would take care of the second of those problems, it wouldn't take care of the first. Plus "phase" is a somewhat awkward and unwieldy word that isn't overly common in usage. (Of course the same could be said about "engage" which I suggested as a possibility elsewhere.) Encounter and explore are slightly more common and already in use in the game's terminology, hence the inclination to use them to capture the effect of these cards.
Given the fact the game is already published, and the introduction of entirely new terminology to the mechanics would be problematic, the easiest answer might simply be to add the words, "If not evaded" to the before the encounter and after then encounter effects in future publications. Of course that takes up card space. And there very well could be a host of other problems that phrase would introduce. As it is, a close reading of the rules does indicate what should happen. But people don't always give the rules a close reading.
I can easily see why this was a tough decision to make in the design. I now envision the team debating for weeks and weeks over these two sets of three "simple" words.
Mike stated that they intentionally avoided the phrases "before the check" and "after the check" and I'm assuming it may be because:
1. Some cards will have "Before the encounter" and "After the encounter" effects without having a check.
2. "Before the check" and "After the check" would indicated doing those things twice on cards that had multiple checks.While your suggestion of adding the word "phase" would take care of the second of those problems, it wouldn't take care of the first.
Sure it would. "Pre-check phase" may not work in this case, but "Initial phase" makes no reference to there being a check or not.
Plus "phase" is a somewhat awkward and unwieldy word that isn't overly common in usage. (Of course the same could be said about "engage" which I suggested as a possibility elsewhere.)
I admit my terminology may not be ideal, and I acknowledge it could be improved upon. I'm just trying to fix what I see as a blatant logical error in the rules (one that your "engagement" terminology did not fix. "Before the engagement effects" in your sequence still happens after the engagement begins). Yes, I agree that the rules as written CAN be interpreted in a logically consistent manner with the understanding that "before the encounter" actually means something slightly different than what the words literally say. I think it's caused a lot of confusion for players, in general, though.
Given the fact the game is already published, and the introduction of entirely new terminology to the mechanics would be problematic, the easiest answer might simply be to add the words, "If not evaded" to the before the encounter and after then encounter effects in future publications. Of course that takes up card space. And there very well could be a host of other problems that phrase would introduce. As it is, a close reading of the rules does indicate what should happen. But people don't always give the rules a close reading.
Yes, the game is already published, but it's still at least an issue worth considering and bringing attention to. Maybe it won't change anything about cards in the current AP, or even the next 2, or even any of them. But at the very least, it might warrant an entry in the FAQ.
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Technically, the rules tell you to "apply" any effects that happen before the encounter. They don't tell you when in relation to the encounter the effects actually happen. In other words, the temporal relationship isn't the same as the applied relationship. If the sun goes supernova, we'll have about eight minutes before that effects us. It could happen before I click submit on this post, but not effect me until after I've clicked submit.
If you want it to work thematically, then maybe:
Merisiel is sneaking around and notices (encounters) a scout, she decides to slip back into the shadows (evade), but the scout had been watching for trouble (he is a scout after all) and the moment he saw her he fired an arrow. But since she had already begun to slip away, the arrow misses (i.e. she evaded so she doesn't have to apply the effect that he was waiting to shoot at her before the encounter). She decides to try to find a different way to travel (hence the shuffling).
But if you feel you really need the relationship of occurrence to be the same as the relationship of application. Then this would work:
Encountering a Card
- Evade the card and do not engage it. (optional)
- Apply any effects that happen before the engagement, if needed.
- The card is engaged.
- Attempt the check.
- Attempt the next check, if needed.
- The card is no longer engaged
- Apply any effects that happen after the engagement, if needed.
- Resolve the encounter.
Though I don't really like the word "engage" itself. I just can't think of a better one to illustrate this idea. And there is also technically nothing in there telling you that if you evade/don't engage you don't need to attempt the check. But a list of the sequence of things can't be perfect. You'll have to read the rulebook to see exactly what the results of evading are.
My comment about adding phase not solving one of the problems was in relation to why your suggestion of "pre-check phase".
And my noting that the game was already published was to emphasized, that given the fact that future sets will be released and the apparent intention is to settle on a single set of rules for the game across all sets, at some point the core rules will have to become very simple and the exceptions will have to be specified by the cards in the set. So I was saying that instead of changing the rules, it may be better to just adjust future cards. Granted, if the issue of temporal relation is important enough, than this idea is worthless because you'll need to adjust the order of sequence. But at some point, to some extent you have to recognize what already exists and what the most effective method of remedying the problem will be. Do you change the rules? Or do you change how you put things on the cards?
And I'm not trying to start an argument with you. I agree that as written there is some confusion. I'm just saying, I don't think its an easy thing to figure out what perfect words to use, because maybe there no perfect words. That is the tricky thing about language.
Anyway, I appreciate you commenting and expressing your opinion. The best solution to any problem of considerable size is usually obtained via the input of multiple people.
While it's true that those of us on the forums have figured out these things and that you certainly can play the game with the attitude that "who cares if we're getting the exact rules right just as long as we're having fun", I think a lot of people would much prefer to know that they are playing the game right.
And to that end, trying to work on some of the more inconsistent aspects of the rules for possible future editions of the game, the rulebook, or even future games that will likely utilize the same general ruleset is a good thing that shouldn't be discouraged.
I also think that there are a lot of people who play these games but don't have the time or energy to check the forums for every rule question, so trying to make the rules as streamlined and consistent as possible would certainly be a benefit to that group, probably even more so than for any of us.
Chief Technical Officer
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"Before the Encounter" and "After the Encounter" will likely change in Skull & Shackles. It's not a simple thing, though, and we haven't yet come up with an answer that satisfies all of our needs. Until then, just realize that those words correspond to specific steps in the encounter.
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I also think that there are a lot of people who play these games but don't have the time or energy to check the forums for every rule question, so trying to make the rules as streamlined and consistent as possible would certainly be a benefit to that group, probably even more so than for any of us.
I tend to doubt that the group you're talking about cares very much about the matter at-hand.