Warpriest Class Deck Preview

...Now, can we PLEASE get a magus class deck? ...

Hi Cyrad,

Just food for thoughts coming from my too long carrier as a RPG GM. You can sguffle the game many times, at the start of D&D there was, and at the end there is still, 4 major basic "pure" roles (Fight, Sneak, Chazam and Cure).
Whether you call them subclasses (Druid, Ranger...), additional classes (Bard, Monk,...), base classes (Summoner...), hybrid classes (Shaman...) or others, all the others are just mixes and variations. In RP terms, everyone can have his own preferences, but in game play terms they serve one purpose : to make it a fun game whatever the number of players.

I used to tell my players this: you can select whatever character you want but at the end of the day there are two kinds of groups/parties:
- Either everyone is pretty much alike (let's play a thieves' guild)
- Or let's cover the 4 basic roles

Now if you have exactly 4 players around the table it's easy
- Let the first one select her tank (fighter, paladin, ranger, barbarian,...)
- Let the second select her Chazam (mage, wizard, sorcerer, witch...)
And so on

If you have more than 4 (we are currently 10 players around our GM), then spread them somehow equaly on the 4 basic roles and push them a bit to select different classes so that they don't steal one another's fun (need 3 tanks: better to have 1 paladin + 1 ranger + 1 monk than 3 rangers).
Il you have less than 4, then rather than selecting pure Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Rogue, you need at least one mixed class that somehow covers two roles.

So bottom line, for GP we needed variant classes to deal with larger or smaller groups. Then came two things:
- Some writers writing D&D stories with a single hero (let's say a dark elf magus with two scimitar and a cat) - so that hero needed to be at the same time fighter, mage, rogue and jack-of-all-pointy-ears
- The digital age and 7 years old puppies playing alone online RPG and wanting to be able to use any loot that any spawn would drop (yes I can talk digital although I am a old digital-grumpy GM)
And that pushes the RPG game to create variants classes for large groups can-do-everything classes for very small ones. Fine, we needed them.

And it's pretty much also true for PACG: many people play solo or 2-3 players so they need magus-of-all-trades characters.

But since I'm an old grumpy GM playing large groups I will make a little prayer: First ensure that the very basic pure classes are updated to be all they can be. Because that the spirit of the game. The day the magus becomes more fun than the wizard (or the cavalier more fun than the fighter or paladin - or the hunter more fun than the ran ger), something will be broken. Then we will if needed add Slayer, Arcanist, Mentalist, Vigilante and other Magus...

IMHO.

I'm not really sure what's your point, frencois. To me, the issue raised is mostly about supporting the characters to be legally played and having options, not making them better than other classes.

There are some tropes that have many options and some tropes that don't have that many options.
For example, the holy warrior trope is part of the cleric, paladin, inquisitor and war priest deck to varying degrees. In particular, you could swap their class decks and they would still be somewhat playable (just like the reward characters that get to use another class deck).

However, the magic swordman trope is more or less just seltyiel, and then you need the SnS base set to legally play him in a home game while you can't play him in organized play. Furthermore, there is not even a classdeck that comes close to work with him in form of a reward.

I could see adowyn being rewarded with the ranger deck, but both seltyiel and crowe don't really have any options at the moment. Wanting more support for these characters is justified, imho, since it is kind of unsatisfying that those two are the only unsupported characters before the hiatus.

zeroth_hour2 wrote:

I like versatile characters, so the OMGKillStuff characters can get boring for me.

I see the Fighter, Barbarian, Gunslinger, Warpriest (for example) as class decks belonging to that role. All of those class deck have side things they can do a little of, but their main purpose is to make the bad guys go away. I can see how some people didn't like them, or think that having too many of them is boring.

But it's still a role and a useful one at that.

I dunno if I would put the warpriest in that role. Oloch, perhaps, but I think Uliah and Amli are more support.

I'm thinking less about the characters and more about the class deck composition itself. The class deck is mostly combat enhancers, strength enhancers and wisdom enhancers. There's a smattering of other types of things like light scouting, some mounts for movement, cures, etc. but most of the deck is those. I could see some problems with annoying barriers in solo, though wisdom is used in a lot of those.

I'll see if I can try it out tomorrow at the game day.

I've always counted Power Feats starting with Hand Size, so that would be Power Feat 3 for me, but it seems that another Character at your Location would take one damage (instead of possible greater damager for failing a check to defeat a bane with the Monster type), and then Oloch has a chance to fight it. That could be quite useful against difficult Henchmen and Villains. I like it!

For that Golembane Warhammer +2, does it mean to say "For your combat check, reveal this card to roll your Strength or Melee die..." instead of "For your combat check, reveal this card to use your Strength or Melee skill..."?

Added to FAQ.

Apologies for the threadomancy (I guess I play Darago too much...)

One of our group is intending to play Oloch and was hoping for some clarification on his first power. The rules indicate it happens after damage, but it does seem possibly intended to take effect before, as it is very rarely going to see use as it stands.

Oloch can (after a feat) give the magic trait to those at his location, so characters won't be failing for lack of that very often.

And after taking damage from a combat check a character is usually either hand-wiped - so can't discard for Oloch's power - or very keen to hang on to the cards they have left. Taking another 'damage' to allow Oloch to try the fight seems counter-productive - unless its a henchman / villain (and we tend to 'overkill' those rolls, as I suspect most people do.)

We got the feeling this power was supposed to be similar to Raz, but we might well be wrong.

I'd be very grateful if Vic or someone could let us know how the power was supposed to work. Thanks very much.

Apologies for the threadomancy (I guess I play Darago too much...)

One of our group is intending to play Oloch and was hoping for some clarification on his first power. The rules indicate it happens after damage, but it does seem possibly intended to take effect before, as it is very rarely going to see use as it stands.

Oloch can (after a feat) give the magic trait to those at his location, so characters won't be failing for lack of that very often.

And after taking damage from a combat check a character is usually either hand-wiped - so can't discard for Oloch's power - or very keen to hang on to the cards they have left. Taking another 'damage' to allow Oloch to try the fight seems counter-productive - unless its a henchman / villain (and we tend to 'overkill' those rolls, as I suspect most people do.)

We got the feeling this power was supposed to be similar to Raz, but we might well be wrong.

I'd be very grateful if Vic or someone could let us know how the power was supposed to work. Thanks very much.

It is after damage and after any After You Act effects. Oloch's power is used when the monster would be declared as not defeated, which is during the Resolve the Encounter step. See my post on page 1 for a more detailed explanation.

It is after damage and after any After You Act effects. Oloch's power is used when the monster would be declared as not defeated, which is during the Resolve the Encounter step. See my post on page 1 for a more detailed explanation.

Richard's post seems to indicate he understands how it works RAW; I think he's interested if that matches the intent of the power (and I have to admit some curiosity too, even if I'm not getting the Class deck).

It is after damage and after any After You Act effects. Oloch's power is used when the monster would be declared as not defeated, which is during the Resolve the Encounter step. See my post on page 1 for a more detailed explanation.

I follow this explanation and it makes sense.

This thread makes me question that logic, however.

In that example, we appear to be evaluating "would be defeated" while we are performing the combat check, and not at the end of the encounter, because we reroll the dice on the check.

It's true that the updated version may remove the "would be defeated" language, however.

I'm still curious about this, if it hasn't been cleared up elsewhere. I read skizzerz's explanation on p 1, but it seems to me that Oloch's power is not used in Resolve the Encounter, it's used in "Attempt the Check." Mummy's Mask Rulebook is the one I have at hand, and it says under "Attempting a check" on p 12:

"Attempt the roll: *snip irrelevant parts* If the result is greater than or equal to the difficulty of the check, you succeed. If the result is lower than the difficulty, you fail." So before you leave the Attempt the Check phase of encountering a card you've determined success or failure, long before Resolve the Encounter. Therefore, your trigger window for "would fail" is here, because if you move past this you HAVE failed.

The action item in "Attempting a Check" after "Attempt the Roll" is "Take Damage, If Necessary." Which begins with "If you fail a check to defeat a monster, it deals an amount of damage...". But since you fail to defeat a monster the moment you fail a check to defeat a monster, "would fail" is determined before this step, you never get here, and Oloch's first power rescues you from damage.

If Oloch said "would fail to banish a monster" I'd agree that would occur in Resolve the Encounter. If Oloch said "another character at your location fails to defeat a monster" I could see agreeing that you'd take damage, although I'd say it would in that case bypass After You Act. But success or defeat is determined at a different step than the consequences of that defeat, and the word "would" means to me you never complete the step that would otherwise definitively assign failure.

I still stand by what I said earlier. If it was meant to happen during the roll, it would say "would fail a check to defeat" (emphasis mine). Failing a check to defeat does not mean that you failed to defeat the monster, it is theoretically possible to fail a check to defeat a monster but still have them end up being defeated after all is said and done. Similarly, it is possible to succeed at all checks to defeat a monster but have them end up undefeated (take the Ghost for example, which is undefeated unless your check to defeat has the Magic trait).

But since you fail to defeat a monster the moment you fail a check to defeat a monster...

This is incorrect. Just think about monsters that have more than one check: if you fail the first check, you don't just call it undefeated—you take damage, then face the second check. You succeed or fail a check during that check, but the cards you encounter are not acquired or defeated until you resolve the encounter (unless some effect tells you otherwise).

As currently worded, Oloch does not save your buddy from damage. But I will verify whether or not that matches design intent.

The word "fail" does not appear in the description of the "Resolve the Encounter" step. You have to infer a colloquial use to mean "not succeeding at all checks" or "monster remains undefeated." The check is the thing that you succeed or fail, according to the text.

I mean, you're Vic, so you win, but that example doesn't help me. You know that you will not defeat a THEN monster the moment you fail the first check to defeat. This does not mean you skip the "Attempt the next check, if needed" step, because THEN = needed, it just means you're checking if you take an additional beating with no possible check result that would result in a monster defeat at that point. To my mind, "would fail" identifies the trigger as a moment where failure would otherwise be indicated, but in this case you do something else instead of fail. I believe you could delete "would" from the card (and change "fail" to "fails" 'cuz grammar) in your interpretation and the consequences for the character would remain the same, which doesn't sit right with me.

Alternatively, something about "monster would be undefeated" would precisely identify both the step the effect happens at and what happens in edge cases (Ghost, Mammy Graul).

The word "fail" does not appear in the description of the "Resolve the Encounter" step. You have to infer a colloquial use to mean "not succeeding at all checks" or "monster remains undefeated."

Though some words are strictly defined in the rulebook, the game uses plenty of language defined only by standard English usage. In this case, though, just look a bit higher in the rulebook: Attempt the Check says "If you fail to defeat a bane, it is usually considered undefeated, and it is shuffled back into the location deck." So "fail[ing] to defeat a bane" is indeed used in the rules in connection with resolving the encounter, not attempting the check.

That said, the intent of this power *is* actually to be usable after failing a check to defeat a monster. Added to FAQ.

I do now see that under Attempting a Check (MM right column, p 10 - in MM it's not in Attempt the Check above Resolve the Encounter, both of which are the left column for those following along at home, but I don't know if this layout has changed from version to version).

My reading of Attempting a Check's intro is that the designer's RAI is in the original RAW, as it implies that the "fail to defeat" flag is set during the Attempt the check step (rather than during Resolve the Encounter). It also says "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" and therefore Oloch says "they would have failed to defeat the monster, and they would have taken damage. However, they didn't fail (instead they evaded and I encountered it), so they didn't suffer any of the effects that come after failing (including damage)."

Regardless of how the original RAW was parsed, happy to have the RAI clarified and FAQed.

Though if we take the "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" line seriously you would want to edit the FAQ entry, as it says "Oloch's first power says it can be used 'when another character at your location would fail to defeat a monster,' which is after damage has been dealt..." If that's incorrect you don't want to establish FAQ precedent that would confuse players about the timing of other steps or triggers.

Have we in fact established that "failing a check to defeat a monster" refers to the exact same thing as "failing to defeat a monster"? (I obviously mean, besides the Golden Rule exception of "when a card in play says otherwise.")

No, they are not the same. Failing a check to defeat means you failed a roll. That trigger happens in between the Attempt the Roll and the Take Damage, If Necessary steps of a check. Failing to defeat happens during the Resolve the Encounter step of an encounter (usually), when the state of the encounter is actually determined. Failing to defeat means the end state wound up such that the monster is not defeated (which may mean it is undefeated or it is neither defeated nor undefeated).

You need only look two posts above yours for official confirmation of the fact the two terms are different things.

That directly contradicts "if you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" from the rulebook (MM p 10, last line before Faceup Cards Green box).

You can't (normally) have failed to defeat a monster before you roll. We know when you're dealt damage, in the Take Damage, If Necessary step, which according to the first line of this post happens after failure to defeat a monster is established. Therefore, the only step where "fail to defeat a monster" can be established is during Attempt the roll - anything else is too early or too late.

We also know, with as much or more colloquial justification as deciding that a monster resolves as undefeated = "failed to defeat", that for a bane to be banished it requires success on all the checks to defeat it. The first failed check means that, during resolve the encounter, it will not be banished. So the first failed check is the moment you know.

I see no necessary rationale for saying "Resolve the Encounter is when failure to defeat the monster is decided" over saying "Resolve the Encounter is when the final consequences of failure to defeat are resolved, the encounter ends, and the monster loses its memory."

"Two posts above mine" isn't specific. If you mean Vic's quote starting with "If you fail to defeat a bane" it contains the word "usually" which means "more clarification will be provided elsewhere." More importantly, there's no rule of common sense that says a consequence of a state determined in an earlier step cannot be assessed in a later step. There IS a rule of common sense that says a consequence of a state cannot be assessed before that state is determined, and, again, "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage." For you to be correct, damage would be assigned in the Resolve the Encounter step.

That directly contradicts "if you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" from the rulebook (MM p 10, last line before Faceup Cards Green box).

You can't (normally) have failed to defeat a monster before you roll. We know when you're dealt damage, in the Take Damage, If Necessary step, which according to the first line of this post happens after failure to defeat a monster is established. Therefore, the only step where "fail to defeat a monster" can be established is during Attempt the roll - anything else is too early or too late.

"If you fail a check to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage." I think you missed that key phrase. Look at the encountering a card sequence:

Encountering a Card
Apply any effects that happen when you encounter a card.
Apply any evasion effects.
Apply any effects that happen before you act.
Attempt the check.
Attempt the next check, if needed.
Apply any effects that happen after you act.
Resolve the encounter.

When you get to "Attempt the check" you go to that sequence..

Attempting a Check
Determine which skill you’re using.
Determine the difficulty.
Play cards and use powers that affect the check (optional).
Assemble your dice.
Attempt the roll.
Take damage if you fail a check to defeat a monster.

And when you finish attempting that check, you go back to "encountering a card" and pick up in "attempt the next check, if needed."

You take damage if you fail a check to defeat a monster. But the monster isn't declared "defeated" until you get to the "resolve the encounter" step, which is when you check that you succeeded at all the checks to defeat the bane.

So, there is a difference between failing the "check to defeat" and "failing to defeat".

We also know, with as much or more colloquial justification as deciding that a monster resolves as undefeated = "failed to defeat", that for a bane to be banished it requires success on all the checks to defeat it. The first failed check means that, during resolve the encounter, it will not be banished. So the first failed check is the moment you know.

True, you probably do know. But the game itself hasn't yet declared the monster undefeated. Sure, you can see that will be the outcome, but it hasn't happened yet. You might even be 100% sure there is no other possibility, but it still hasn't technically happened yet. And the reason it works that way is the game is designed to have things that happen "when a bane is (un)defeated" to happen when you resolve the encounter. And it is designed to have things that happen "when you succeed at a check to defeat a bane" or "when you fail a check to defeat a bane" happen when you are attempting the check.

That directly contradicts "if you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" from the rulebook (MM p 10, last line before Faceup Cards Green box).

You can't (normally) have failed to defeat a monster before you roll. We know when you're dealt damage, in the Take Damage, If Necessary step, which according to the first line of this post happens after failure to defeat a monster is established. Therefore, the only step where "fail to defeat a monster" can be established is during Attempt the roll - anything else is too early or too late.

We also know, with as much or more colloquial justification as deciding that a monster resolves as undefeated = "failed to defeat", that for a bane to be banished it requires success on all the checks to defeat it. The first failed check means that, during resolve the encounter, it will not be banished. So the first failed check is the moment you know.

I see no necessary rationale for saying "Resolve the Encounter is when failure to defeat the monster is decided" over saying "Resolve the Encounter is when the final consequences of failure to defeat are resolved, the encounter ends, and the monster loses its memory."

"Two posts above mine" isn't specific. If you mean Vic's quote starting with "If you fail to defeat a bane" it contains the word "usually" which means "more clarification will be provided elsewhere." More importantly, there's no rule of common sense that says a consequence of a state determined in an earlier step cannot be assessed in a later step. There IS a rule of common sense that says a consequence of a state cannot be assessed before that state is determined, and, again, "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage." For you to be correct, damage would be assigned in the Resolve the Encounter step.

Your quote (on p10), in full, says the following

Each bane card has a section called Check to Defeat. This section indicates the skills that can be used in checks against the bane and the difficulty of the checks. If you succeed in defeating the bane, it is usually banished. If you fail to defeat a bane, it is usually considered undefeated, and it is shuffled back into the location deck. If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage (see Take Damage, If Necessary on page 12).

This paragraph is a summary of the steps of an encounter. For the particular sentence you are quoting, it refers you to page 12, which says the following:

Take Damage, If Necessary. If you fail a check to defeat a monster, it deals an amount of damage to you equal to the difference between the difficulty to defeat the monster and your check result.

Note how that says a check to defeat a monster. The summary paragraph referred us to the specific rule, which clarifies that we mean checks to defeat. Furthermore, note how it does not say anything about the bane being considered defeated or undefeated at this point. We see on page 10 under Resolve the Encounter the first time the rules mention the overall state of a bane should you proceed through the encounter (in other words, if you didn't evade it), saying it is undefeated if you did not succeed at all checks to defeat or that it is neither defeated nor undefeated if you are forced to end your turn during an encounter. From that text we can therefore imply that it is defeated if you succeeded at all checks to defeat.

The important takeaway here though is that you don't know if it is defeated or not until you get to Resolve the Encounter. You may succeed at all checks to defeat, but the After You Act says it is undefeated. Alternatively, you may fail a check to defeat, but the After You Act says it is defeated. From this, we can see that failing a check to defeat is not the same as failing to defeat, even discounting when those particular effects happen.

Vic explicitly said in that "two posts" above 'So "fail[ing] to defeat a bane" is indeed used in the rules in connection with resolving the encounter, not attempting the check.' -- it does not get any more explicit that that. Fail to defeat = resolve the encounter. Fail a check to defeat = attempting the check.

Other notes:
1. undefeated ≠ fail to defeat. Fail to defeat means that it is not defeated. This is not equivalent to undefeated, as a bane may be neither defeated nor undefeated (say, if it is evaded). If it is in the neither defeated nor undefeated state, you still failed to defeat it.

2. An earlier post argued that removing a "would" wouldn't matter. In this particular case, that is true, but "would" is a magic word in PACG (even though it still just uses its English definition and is not precisely defined in the rulebook). Would means that the power has the ability to replace or negate what triggered it, implying that the trigger happens just before the event, rather than immediately after. "When you would defeat a bane" happens when the bane is declared defeated, but happens before the "being defeated" is set in stone. As a result, that power could change the state of the bane to something else, for example "When you would defeat a bane, succeed at a Combat 10 check or the bane is undefeated." If you remove "would", the trigger happens after the thing is set in stone, it no longer has the opportunity to modify what happened.

@ my debate partners in general
I think you're making a mistake in treating the question of whether you defeat or fail to defeat a monster as if they are determined at the same time. They are not. You have to get to Resolve the Encounter to determine success, because the rules require all checks to be passed. That is not when the rules say failure is determined. Simplest case - THEN monsters.

THEN monsters are like an AND gate - Only if A is 1 and B is 1 is C 1, if either A or B are 0 then C is 0. Or, in common sense language - if you know everything has to go right in order for you to succeed, you can know you've failed before you know you've succeeded.

The first opportunity to set the success state is at Resolve. The first moment to set the failure state is at Attempt. In order to go back and change "would fail" into anything else, you have to go back to the first time that state was set (which could be the any of the checks required, or as determined by the Golden Rule).

@ Hawkmoon, skizzerz has quoted it in full where it says "Fail to defeat a monster" in "attempting a check," so it's confirmed by non-me people that I didn't simply omit words. I think your other objection is fully addressed by the Golden Rule - whatever a card says takes priority over the rulebook, but doesn't change the normal order of things.

@ Skizzerz - Again, your interpretation requires inserting words into "Resolve the Encounter" that aren't there, and ignoring a sentence under Attempting a Check. The full mechanics of a summary introduction can be fleshed out in the subsequent steps, but in no normal reading of a text would you assume that the clarification reverses anything from the summary. It says one thing in one place, and it says the other thing in another place, referring to the same sub-step and treating them as (nearly) identical statements (Nearly in that if you failed your check to defeat a monster, you can activate any "would" powers that trigger off failing your check, such as a luckstone, at which point your check would be changed from "fail" to "succeed." If none of the cards in play "would" to undo that, you've failed to defeat the monster, and then and only then would Oloch be able to help). Either you are wrong or the sentence "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" is wrong. Maybe, as Oloch's power did, that sentence also needs "a check" added to it after fail, but that's not the RAW. Otherwise, nothing you say explains away why, according to your ruling and the "if you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" and you only know whether you've failed to defeat a monster in Resolve, you don't wait to take damage during Resolve the Encounter.

Vic has full authority to issue a ruling at any time that will change the way the game is played. If his intent was to have rulebook describing the situation he has been arguing for here, I would argue the RAW diverges from RAI.

I'm going to bow out of this, we've given you arguments that align with the developer's expectations on how the game plays, backed up by not only the rulebook but quotes from official sources that indicates it is the way we are arguing. It is clear to me at this point that you have no interest in changing your opinion based on arguments presented to you or even official posts on the matter (as I quoted the part of the Vic post I was referring back to that explicitly said exactly what Hawkmoon and I were arguing).

If you want to play some other way, we can't stop you, it's your game after all. But know that playing it in that manner is a house rule, and you will run into all sorts of odd effects by violating the premise that a bane is not considered defeated or undefeated until the encounter is resolved.

And I feel my arguments are (better) backed up by the words in the rulebook, and further that my interpretation is consonant with (albeit not proven identical to) CD Oloch's designer.

If, rather than simply agreeing to disagree, we could agree that there is a sentence in the rule book that clearly locates "fail to defeat a monster" in the Attempt the Check step, and further agree that Vic's RAI is otherwise, then we could imagine one or more interventions that would prevent further rules misunderstandings among both players and designers. If there's no willingness to admit there's a problem, nothing will change.

Hmm... So, let me see if I understand what you are saying. Here is the "resolve the encounter" text.

Resolve the Encounter. If you succeed at all of the checks required to defeat a bane, banish it; if you don’t succeed, it is undefeated—shuffle the card back into its location deck. If you succeed at a check to acquire a boon, put it in your hand; otherwise, banish it. If you move during an encounter, any effects that would happen after that encounter do not happen. If you are forced to end your turn during an encounter, shuffle the encountered card back into the deck, or if it was summoned, banish it; it is neither defeated nor undefeated, and the encounter is over.

I think (and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm really just trying to understand clearly) you are saying that this section only tells you a bane is undefeated. It does NOT say "If you succeed at all of the checks required to defeat a bane it is defeated, banish it..." It just simply says to banish it. It tells you the conditions for it being undefeated, but doesn't use the term "defeated" in terms of the banes status.

Am I understand correctly? If so, then I think maybe that could be clearer and that there could be a statement in there that the bane is defeated. But I think Vic has made clear (both above and in other posts on the forums) that something isn't declared defeated until you resolve the encounter. Still, having it in the rules explicitly wouldn't be a bad thing.

As to whether simply knowing that it will be undefeated matters, I don't think the fact that you know you won't defeat it earlier really matters. Just because you know there is only 1 possible outcome doesn't mean that outcome exists the moment you know. It still has to actually happen.

I will number these to help refer to them later.

1. With apologies, you have SPORTSPUNCHED me, and I kinda get it but mostly not. If I follow, it sounds like what you're talking about in B-ball would be more analogous to "I've looked at the check to defeat and added up all the possible bonuses I could throw together, and no matter how well I roll the number will never beat the check." That's not what I'm talking about - until you attempt the check (unless Golden Rule... in fact, please just read "unless Golden Rule" whenever I say anything) you can't already have failed it, even if success is impossible by the arithmetic.

2. I do acknowledge the lack of a "defeated" state explicitly defined in Resolve, and I do believe that would make it clearer, but I'm willing to stipulate that the opposite of "undefeated" is "defeated." I do not deny that you total up success and failures from the "Attempt the Check" and "Attempt the Next Check, If Needed" steps to determine how the encounter resolves in the Resolve the Encounter step. If you have succeeded in all of them, you have defeated the monster for the purposes of Resolve step, an outcome that until now has had no consequences. If you fail any of them, it's undefeated for the purpose of the Resolve step, and you suffer its Resolve step consequences - however, these are not the first consequences you've suffered for failing to defeat it.

3. p 10, MM located under Attempting A Check: "If you succeed in defeating the bane, it is usually banished. If you fail to defeat a bane, it is usually considered undefeated, and it is shuffled back into the location deck. If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage (see Take Damage, If Necessary on page 12)."

The steps discussed here that wait until Resolve (banish or reshuffle) to... well... resolve... are qualified with "usually" (in spite of and redundant with the Golden rule, likely to account for the ubiquity of THEN effects) and are not discussed later in the step by step break down of Attempting a Check. However, the "Take Damage, If Necessary" step (which is referenced immediately following the unqualified statement "if you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" in the summary) is included in the Attempting a Check progression, right after the "Attempt the Roll" substep. The damage that you take upon "failing a check to defeat a monster" referenced in the substep and the damage you take for "failing to defeat a monster" in the summary introduction are explicitly the same thing. If the damage you took for failing to defeat a monster was separate, you'd take damage again in the Resolve step, and there are no rules for how to do that. But you don't, and so the game damages you one time, in a way that is defined as being both for "failing the check to defeat the monster" and for "failing to defeat a monster", right here, in this step. You could not possibly have succeeded yet, at this step, but you have tasted a consequence of failure already.

The fact that common sense (and my aforementioned AND gate, which may have been as helpful to you as a basketball analogy was to me) also tells us that, since later we can't have been found to defeat the monster for the purposes of its Resolve step consequences (meaning stipulated under #2 above) if any of our checks failed, we have failed to defeat the monster at a failed check is corroborative evidence.

If you have a "would fail to defeat a monster" trigger, there are certainly consequences for failing to do so assessed in the Resolve step. However, the damage you took under Attempting a Check is defined in the summary as a consequence of "if you fail to defeat a monster." For "would" to work its magic, you have to go backwards in time until just before any of the consequences of failing to defeat the monster have happened. That's right before "Take Damage, if Necessary."

This is why I think looking at "success or failure to defeat the monster" as only occuring at Resolve is misguided. The first consequences of success are only felt in Resolve, and thus you only check (colloquially) for success then. The first consequences of failure happen in Attempt, and to un-fail you have to look there for the intervention point.

If this doesn't adequately portray my position, I don't think I'm capable of doing so.

EDITED; For clarity, like, a bunch of times

Hmm... So, let me see if I understand what you are saying. Here is the "resolve the encounter" text.

An example from basketball if that matters: Show

** spoiler omitted **...

This is an example of the Hawkmoon artificial intelligence thinking that humans like sports, so this will be a great example. What the program fails to understand is that we are all nerds, and sportsball is foreign to us. :-P

Just noticed this - thanks to all involved, especially Vic

We have a very happy Oloch player at our table now.

I'm in a big hurry, so I don't have time to be rigorous, but:

-- It's long been an understanding on this forum that the status of an encountered bane is not determined to be defeated or undefeated until the Resolve the Encounter step. The rulebook should be clearer about this, but that's been the understanding. (Yes, I know I question this above.)

-- I think the phrase "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" is historical, and was originally written to distinguish between monsters and barriers. I think it is rules-lawyering to say this means that the rulebook is saying that when you fail a check is when you fail to defeat the monster.

-- That being said, I'm puzzled by skizzerz's earlier assertion that you can fail a check to defeat a monster and the monster can still end up defeated in the Resolve The Encounter step. I can't think of how that is ever the case.

-- That being said, I'm puzzled by skizzerz's earlier assertion that you can fail a check to defeat a monster and the monster can still end up defeated in the Resolve The Encounter step. I can't think of how that is ever the case.

I cannot think of anything that currently does this, but the lack of example does not mean that the situation is impossible. I brought it up as a means of showing that failing to defeat and failing a check to defeat are indeed distinct and separate from each other.

A card can have a power that makes it auto-defeat, but still requires the check and assesses damage.

There is a bane in Season of the Goblins that, though it does not have multiple checks to perfectly satisfy the requirement, includes the following line:
After you act, banish this barrier; it is defeated.

I will say that I firmly but without hostility reject the (typically pejorative) label "rules lawyer" as overly relevant in a game whose tips specifically say "cards do what they say" and "cards don't do what they don't say." I know it doesn't actually say "the rules mean what they say," but if they don't then even the "Things to Keep in Mind" might all be lies! Even if the term could have meaning, reading "if you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage at this specific time" to mean that being dealt damage at that specific time by a monster is a consequence of your failure to defeat it wouldn't qualify at any table I've ever been at. YMMV.

And the rules as forum consensus (RAFC), while indeed being the collective experience of people who've seen many official rulings (which are themselves typically places where RAI diverge from RAW, and thus much more likely than not to understand edge cases), didn't make it into my brand-new Mummy's Mask RAW. Or prevent a gap between RAI and RAFC for CD Oloch, without a couple episodes of threadomancy. And then how bummed would Reanimator Mother Myrtle and Polymancer Balthazar have been?

-- That being said, I'm puzzled by skizzerz's earlier assertion that you can fail a check to defeat a monster and the monster can still end up defeated in the Resolve The Encounter step. I can't think of how that is ever the case.

Actually, it was your question that made me think of two words: Death Touch.

So, we really always played that spell that it auto-defeats weaker enemies, no rolling required, but what the spell *really* says (more or less) is:

"For your combat check, discard this card to use your Arcane skill +3d6+3. If the bane is a monster and has AD# 4 or less, it is defeated."

So, now that you've mentioned it - we *should* have been rolling those dice, and we *should* have been taking that damage, should the roll fails, but *then* the monster is defeated.

Interesting.

It looks like using Death Touch, you can fail the check, take damage, and still defeat the monster.

That argues against failing the check being the point where "fail to defeat" is evaluated.

Looking back over this debate -- it seems Ghostlee agrees the bane is not regarded as defeated or undefeated until the Resolve the Encounter step, but is arguing the point at which you fail to defeat a monster is when you fail the first check against a monster.

His(?) main support for this is the line "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage", which Ghostlee sees as reinforced by "If you fail a check to defeat a monster, it deals an amount of damage to you...."

I think Ghostlee has put his(assuming his) finger on an inaccuracy in the rulebook, which exists in the original Rise of the Runelords edition 1 rulebook: the first quoted line doesn't seem quite right.

It is failing a check against a monster that deals you damage, not failing to defeat a monster. Even if Ghostlee was right, when you fail two (or three etc) checks against a monster, you take damage on each check, although I wouldn't think you have "failed to defeat" the monster on each failed check.

As it happens, Vic has confirmed above that you don't fail to defeat the monster till you get to the Resolve the Encounter step. In this case, it is simply not true that you take damage when you fail to defeat the monster.

For us there never was a debate: failing a check, taking damage and defeating are 3 different things than happen to be related most of the times by default but nothing is certain since you always have to look for an exception written on some cards (characters, adventure, scenario, location, cards displayed, cards played during the check or during the take damage step or even when the monster "would" be (un)defeated).
That's why the paragraph on P.10 includes the word "usually".
USUALLY failing check means taking damage and undefeating.
But we all know that the prime directive of Captain Not-this-Mike of the USS Sharkfinder is to seek new ways to break the rules and boldly bring that game where no one has taken it before.
So if it is not a Golden Rule, assume all rules are or will be broken by a card.
And if it is a Golden Rule, assume it will take for once more than 00.3 seconds on the basketball clock to be decided by Hawk on whether it could be worthwhile breaking.
Bottom line there is always a place in the rules where terms like "usually" aren't used. This is where it tells you when exactly something happens (when you would fail a check, when you would take damage or when you would resolve as being defeated or undefeated). Forget all the rest.

Interesting.

It looks like using Death Touch, you can fail the check, take damage, and still defeat the monster.

That argues against failing the check being the point where "fail to defeat" is evaluated.

I'd argue it's a Golden Rule situation rather than a case that teaches us something about the basic rule.

Looking back over this debate -- it seems Ghostlee agrees the bane is not regarded as defeated or undefeated until the Resolve the Encounter step, but is arguing the point at which you fail to defeat a monster is when you fail the first check against a monster.

His(?) main support for this is the line "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage", which Ghostlee sees as reinforced by "If you fail a check to defeat a monster, it deals an amount of damage to you...."

"His" is correct, but thank you for not assuming.

And since the full line is "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage (see Take Damage, if Necessary on page 12)," I don't know how to NOT see them reinforcing each other - "failing to defeat a monster" and "failing the check to defeat a monster" point you to the exact same substep for consequences (the one by a page reference, the other by being the next step in the progression). The text treats them as identical, while never using the term "fail to defeat a monster" (or, for that matter, "defeat" at all) under Resolve the Encounter. You can readily infer it as a counterpart to "undefeated", but it's bad rule comprehension policy to ignore an explicit reference of the issue you're attempting to understand while inferring it where it is not.

As it happens, Vic has confirmed above that you don't fail to defeat the monster till you get to the Resolve the Encounter step. In this case, it is simply not true that you take damage when you fail to defeat the monster.

Oh, definitely. My first (I think?) response to Vic included the phrase "You're Vic, so you win." I'm not arguing that this is how the game is intended to be played by its designer, I'm arguing that it's the best way to make sense of the rules as written, and that therefore the written rules should change to better reflect designer intent, to the benefit of players and additional designers.

I mean, if you haven't already failed to defeat the monster by the time you've taken damage, is anyone *really* interested in arguing that "If you fail to defeat a monster, you are dealt damage" is anything but misleading?

----

@Frencois - I have trouble parsing some of your meaning so I'm not sure if I'm missing your point, but "usually" is not used in the damage line itself, and given that "usually" does appear in the lines immediately before the damage line the omission acquires the appearance of intentionality.