Garrison Encounter Question

[Slandor]

When I set up Garrison for Battle at the dam I realized it says:
"If you encounter a monster other than a villain or henchman, each character at this location must summon and encounter this monster."

It neither says "instead", nor does it say "other character". So I think I played it wrong before.

With my new insight, it seems to me that garrison works like this:
1) encounter a monster
1a) summon and encounter it for each character, including the one who just explored.
2) resolve the original encounter

So does the exploring player have to fight twice (and only the second fight counts for defeated/undefeated encounter purposes)?

[Yoshua]

I don't have the card in front of me, but to me that says all characters at that location must beat the monster.

It may not say 'other' but that is how i read what you wrote.

[Hawkmoon269]

Hmm... That is interesting. I've always played it as if it said "each other character" as well. But you are right in that it says each character. The effect would then basically be you'd have to first fight a "mass encounter" barrier of that summoned monster, then you'd fight the original explored monster. So like you said the exploring character would have to fight twice. And now I see no reason not to read it that way. After all if I fought a monster that said "If undefeated, each character at this location is dealt 1 combat damage," I'd apply that to the encountering character and all the rest, so the encountering character would take damage for failing the check and for the undefeated status.

Thank goodness I literally just played Battle at the Dam for my second group before reading your post.

This is a case where we'll need some higher intervention to confirm you are right, but for now I'm playing with your new insight. After all it is what the card says.

[Mike Selinker]

We meant that each character at the location will fight the monster exactly once. Worth a clarification, maybe.

[Hawkmoon269]

Ah. Good to know. I think because it says "summoned" that also led to the confusion. Since the exploring character's monster isn't summoned, it made me think, "Well it says he has to encounter a summoned monster."

I think the interesting thing is all 3 of us read it the way you meant it, but then upon closer inspection two of us began to question it. So yeah, maybe worth a clarification.

This kind of effect would be interesting though. Because even alone you'd be encountering every monster twice, which would drain your resources.

[Mike Selinker]

We discussed this today, and think we may have a more general wording we can use that eliminates this problem. More soon.

[Slandor]

Thanks for the quick reply Mike.

[Vic Wertz]

The more general wording may have to wait for Skull & Shackles; the fix for this card will probably be to make it say "each other character".