Just played my first game and have a first questions....

[Hobgoblin Shogun]

Hope this is the right place. Direct me elsewhere if I am not.

I loved my first experience with this. But I have a few questions I'd like to ask.

-Cards can be played "at anytime", but likely not proactively? Similarly, can you only play cards on your turn? You couldn't play a Blessing of the Gods not on your turn to help someone else, if they were on your location or otherwise?

-Closing an area. You're exploring, exploring, then BAM. Henchman! You defeat it. Then the book says Banish the rest of the cards in that Area and take on the Villain. If there's no villain, then you can attempt to close the area. Then the guide says you can leave the cards there to further explore. ...but you already banished them. So what gives.

-How does the flow of battle go with a huge villain and the entire party? Would the rogue or cleric explore til they found it, then run away and wait for the Wiz or Ftr's turn to go solo it, since they get the highest Combat checks? Is the most cooperation that occurs when you give a card to a player?

-It seems like much of the acquisition of Ally and Items is for the future. You have your full hand. You explore. You see an Ally. You succeed the check. You take it. Then immediately have to discard it. Is this accurate? I read in the new online FAQ that once your turn ends, you cannot play more cards. So even playing a card just to get the benefit at the last second so you don't have to discard it isn't allowed.

-Armor can prevent "Combat Damage." Can it then *not* be used to prevent damage from, say, a Barrier?

-Have people begun posting about making characters? There are only Hard-and-Fast rules in the booklet, and I would really enjoy making more characters, or having official cards or paper to make my own. I've already attempted to make a balanced character, but some things, such as Hand Size or Skill bonuses are not balanced or addressed so I just did my best and leveled on the weaker side to be safe.

I'm sure there are others I am confused about, but that's what I have for now. Thank you so much!

[Magabeus]

Hi there, this certainly is a right place for asking questions. I will try to answer your questions except for the last one as I have not looked into that yet.

-Cards can be played "at anytime", but likely not proactively? Similarly, can you only play cards on your turn? You couldn't play a Blessing of the Gods not on your turn to help someone else, if they
were on your location or otherwise?

Blessings can be played anytime to help anyone with a check; even if your companion is not at your location, you may help him when he is trying a check at his turn. You may never explore if it is not your turn, not even with a blessing

-Closing an area. You're exploring, exploring, then BAM. Henchman! You defeat it. Then the book says Banish the rest of the cards in that Area and take on the Villain. If there's no villain, then you can attempt to close the area. Then the guide says you can leave the cards there to further explore. ...but you already banished them. So what gives.

Actually the book says something else: you may not take on the villain if he is also hiding in this area, but you must leave him as the only card in that location. There are locations (General Store if I remember correctly) where after closing the location and banishing all the cards, some cards are added to the location.

-How does the flow of battle go with a huge villain and the entire party? Would the rogue or cleric explore til they found it, then run away and wait for the Wiz or Ftr's turn to go solo it, since they get the highest Combat checks? Is the most cooperation that occurs when you give a card to a player?

Not really, anyone can contribute by playing a blessing and some characters can cast spells like strength to coooperate, or use powers to help (check out Harsk for this)

-It seems like much of the acquisition of Ally and Items is for the future. You have your full hand. You explore. You see an Ally. You succeed the check. You take it. Then immediately have to discard it. Is this accurate? I read in the new online FAQ that once your turn ends, you cannot play more cards. So even playing a card just to get the benefit at the last second so you don't have to discard it isn't allowed.

This is not accurate after "you take it". A lot of ally's can be used for an extra explore, so if your hand is over your hand size, why not use that power and explore again? Or you could use a blessing to explore again and reduce your hand size by that. It is correct that after you started the Reset your hand phase you may not play any cards

-Armor can prevent "Combat Damage." Can it then *not* be used to prevent damage from, say, a Barrier?
It can, but you must banish it to use this power

[mickcatron]

1) Blessing of the Gods CAN be played on other peoples turn.

2) The think you might be mixing a couple of situations in the next one, if you don't beat the henchmen, the cards stay. In the beginning senarios, you wouldn't have a villian and a henchman UNLESS the villian had escaped there.

3) Not exactly sure what you're asking here.

4) Many of the Allies allow you to explore again on your turn which is very useful. But, yes, you have to discard down, or draw up to your hand size at the end of your turn. It does help to have a good "pot" of extra cards when rebuilding your deck.

5) True, if it says "combat damage" then only combat damage... some items just say "damage"

6) There are some posts about creating characters, but the designers did mention that is probably the most difficult thing to design.

[Myriade]

Question 2: If you defeat the henchman
1- you check the remaining location to see if the villain is there
2- if yes, you Banish the rest of the cards and leave only the villain to be encountered during a later turn
3- if the villain is not there you can attemp to close the location
4- if you succeed, you follow the location card's "When closing" instructions and Banish the rest of the cards ( you might have to leave some cards as per the instructions)
5- if you choose not to close the location at that point, you leave the cards there and will have to encounter them and empty the deck before having another chance to close the location