Red Reaver's "when encountered" power (frightened)

[wkover]

The Red Reaver has this power:

When encountered, each character who is not marked with the scourge Honor-Tested suffers the scourge Frightened and summons and encounters the story bane Collapse.

Let's say the encountering character isn't Honor-Tested and becomes Frightened. Does the Frightened scourge now also trigger, and that character immediately takes 1d4-1 metal damage before encountering the Collapse and fighting the Reaver?

Or will the Frightened scourge only trigger the next time that character encounters a monster?

This might be a RAW vs. RAI issue. We had a long discussion about it, then eventually gave up. :)

(In previous playthroughs of Crimson Throne, everyone was Honor-Tested when the villain was encountered. Not this time...)

[Matsu Kurisu]

Urk...... I can see it go both ways.
My leaning is no damage as you are having no more interaction with the Monster you are now moving onto the Collapse barrier

[Jenceslav]

Um, I think the timing is the key issue here.
Red Reaver causes the Frightened scourge when encountered.
Frightened says "when you encounter a monster", but that phase has already happened with Red Reaver or more precisely, is still in progress. For me, that alone means the damage from Frightened does not trigger this time. You can't trigger some more "When encountered powers" when you already are in that step. However, if the person encountering the Red Reaver fails to defeat it and somebody else (Frightened) avenges, boooom. Mental damage from being Frightened occurs (it is a new encounter, after all) - and Collapse is here again for all the cowards not tested by honour.

The Collapse is barrier, so Frightened does not trigger for that at all.

This might be my Magic: the Gathering experience talking :)

[skizzerz]

That is your MtG experience talking. PACG explicitly doesn’t have a stack, so any new “when encountered” effects that pop up during that step of the encounter take effect immediately. So yes, Frightened happens right away.

Timing wise this is similar to moving at the start/end of turn to or from a location with a start/end of turn effect.

[Matsu Kurisu]

The issue is does the frightened cause immediate damage in this case (due to red reaver monster still being resolved) or not
That is the confusion

[wkover]

Ok, thanks.

It sounds like the "when encountered" Frightened scourge applies to the Reaver itself, since it's all part of the same "when encountered" step.

We got lucky and rolled zero for the unpreventable mental damage, but it could have definitely wrecked the scenario for us.

Praise the dice gods.

[skizzerz]

Matsu Kurisu wrote:

The issue is does the frightened cause immediate damage in this case (due to red reaver monster still being resolved) or not

That is the confusion

Yes, the damage happens right away. That is what I was saying in my previous post. You’re not finished with a step of an encounter or step of a turn until you resolve all effects that happen during that step (in an order of your choosing). Resolving some effect may create new effects you also need to resolve or remove effects so that you no longer need to resolve them.

[Matsu Kurisu]

Great! Thanks for explaining