OK this has been addressed before, but I have a hard time remembering the conclusion from Mike/Vic, so if someone can help me gather here all the ruling in a single place. This is a set of questions related to the "first exploration on your turn".
First let's remind the obvious: 1) you cannot explore out of your own exploration step and 2) If you play a card/power that let you explore BEFORE the "free" first exploration of your turn, you forfeit that free explore.
Now let's suppose character A encounters a typical barrier/task, fail to deafeat it, and the barrier is of the type that stays with the location and that "each character encounter that card as the first exploration of his turn.
1) If A (or any character coming after and failing to defeat the barrier on his first exploration) has a mean to reexplore on his turn (blessing, ally...), can he keeps exploring the following cards of the location deck, leaving the task here?
2) If a character has a mean to examine the top card of this location from another location deck, is the barrier considered the top card or is it the next card? Same question if a character has a mean to encounter the top card of this location from another location deck.
3) If a character has a power that can be used "instead of the first exploration of his turn" (like heaking powers from clerics), can he still use that power? If so and if he can then reexplore (blessing, ally...), does he then encounter the barrier or the "next" top card on the location deck?
I may miss some others tricky situations. feel free to add to the list.
RULES: FACEUP CARDS
Sometimes a card is left faceup on the top of the location deck (for example, most barriers with the Task trait work this way). The card is still in the deck, but it can only be shuffled into the deck when the condition that caused it to be left faceup on the deck has been resolved. If such a card tells you that you must encounter it on your first exploration on a turn, then you must encounter it the first time you explore that turn. After that exploration, ignore it for the purpose of additional explorations that turn; however, it still counts as the top card of the deck for any other purpose. If multiple cards are left faceup on the same deck, you may place them in any order and encounter them in that order.
1. Yes. It is only encountered as your first exploration. After that you can explore the cards below it.
2. Yes, the faceup card is the top card of the location deck. Spyglass will let you look at 1 card behind a faceup card (assuming there is only 1 faceup card on top), but will not let you rearrange the order of the cards. Any power that let you encounter the top card of another location deck would have to let you encounter the faceup card. So if your power only let you encounter boons and the faceup card was a barrier, you couldn't use it.
3. You can use your power (like Oloch's heal) but then when you explore the faceup card gets encountered first. See the FAQ.
Thanks Hawk.