a couple of monster questions..

[jjdodger]

Please excuse me if i missed it, but, i didnt see it in the rules, or on here yet.

question 1) when removing the highest level monster for a given color, if it has "extra" treasure, what happens to the treasure? specific example is the octohedron, who can pick up treasure lying on the floor.

Question 2) when playing a card that moves monsters towards a munchkin, and there are doors and walls in the way, would a monster move the oposite direction of the munchkin, as thats the only way to get "closer"?

those are the only questions so far!

Thanks

Jeff

[D-Man]

I can take the question on the Octohedron. When he takes your weapon he keeps it till its dead. If it moves to another room he takes it with him.

Dennis

[MunchkinMan]

1) You don't remove the highest Level Monster of a given color, you remove the highest Level Monster in the dungeon, and ONLY if no bases are left. If you're in a 3-player game, with red, green and blue players, and only one base left (blue), and rolled any other color than blue, you'd still have to use the blue base (and the blue player wouldn't get a DxM). If you rolled red, you wouldn't discard the highest level red Monster, you'd use the last remaining blue base. If all the bases were used and you rolled red, you'd still pick the highest Level Monster, not the highest Level red Monster, and use its base.

All the Octahedron is doing is moving the dropped Treasure token with it. Leave the token (and the Treasure) in the room where the Octahedron was when it was removed (assuming it really is the highest Level Monster on the board when the lack of bases situation crops up).

2) The cards that do that have the phrase "so long as they can do so legally." I'd infer from that if it can't get closer by one room due to link-based movement restrictions, it doesn't move.

[MIB2826]

Originally Posted by MunchkinMan

2) The cards that do that have the phrase "so long as they can do so legally." I'd infer from that if it can't get closer by one room due to link-based movement restrictions, it doesn't move.

I would agree with that.

But what would you do in this case?
Suppose a Munchkin is in the first room of a series of three and the monster is in the third of the three. No other rooms are on the same 'line', which means that if the monster moves away from the munchkin, it leaves the Dungeon it moves into the dark and enters the dungeon in the first room.

Thus by moving away it can get closer to the Munchkin then by moving towards the Munchkin.

I see these situations:
- The monster can move towards the munchkin (to room 2) and it can move away from the munchkin (to room 1)
This is the tough one. I would allow it to move away from the munchkin and go to room 1.

- The monster can move towards the munchkin (to room 2) but it can't move away from the munchkin.
I would allow it to move towards the munchkin and go to room 2.

- The monster can't move towards the munchkin but it can move away from the munchkin (to room 1)
I would allow it to move away from the munchkin and go to room 1.

- The monster can't move towards the munchkin and it can't move away from the munchkin.
This is the easiest: The monster doesn't move.

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by MIB2826

Suppose a Munchkin is in the first room of a series of three and the monster is in the third of the three. No other rooms are on the same 'line', which means that if the monster moves away from the munchkin, it leaves the Dungeon it moves into the dark and enters the dungeon in the first room.

Thus by moving away it can get closer to the Munchkin then by moving towards the Munchkin.

I don't think the monsters are supposed to be that smart. :)

If you don't mind, I'd like to make this a little more concrete - what say we take the illustration on page 14 as a baseline, and for convenience treat all the depicted monsters as plain monsters with no special movement rules? Given that layout and modifying your examples just a little....

Originally Posted by MIB2826

- The monster can move towards the munchkin and it can move away from the munchkin.
This is the tough one. I would allow it to move away from the munchkin.

To simulate that, say the player's on tile 5 and the chosen monster is the Lame Goblin. Moving away puts the Lame Goblin in tile 5 with the player, and moving towards puts it in tile 7. I would say the Goblin goes to tile 7, because monsters are dumb.

Originally Posted by MIB2826

- The monster can move towards the munchkin but it can't move away from the munchkin.
I would allow it to move towards the munchkin.

So, something like the player replacing the Horror on tile 12 and the chosen monster being the Fungus? Yeah, I'd move the Fungus to tile 11, but I could see an argument for tile 5 on the grounds that the shortest map-bound route from 9 to 12 is 9-5-6-7-8-12.) If the same thing were to happen again, that wall would cause a problem, which neatly coincides with your next case.

Originally Posted by MIB2826

- The monster can't move towards the munchkin but it can move away from the munchkin.
I would allow it to move away from the munchkin.

In this circumstance - Fungus on 11 trying to reach player on 12 with wall in between - I would figure the Fungus moves to 7, because 11 and 12 are not considered adjacent. If tiles 3 and 7 were gone, making lateral movement impossible, I would say it does not move at all, even though moving "backwards" opens up a valid route.

Originally Posted by MIB2826

- The monster can't move towards the munchkin and it can't move away from the munchkin.
This is the easiest: The monster doesn't move.

Yeah. :) Consider, though, a normal-moving Shadow Nose on 2 trying to reach a player on 6; north is out and south is out, but 1 or 3 are both valid options. Despite the fact that only one link separates the two, tiles 2 and 6 are not adjacent; moving to 1 or 3 will both get the Shadow Nose "equally closer" to 6, so either would work. With tiles 1, 3, and 4 gone, though, the Nose would not move.

Lacking more specific guidance, I would say the simplest meta-rule would be that monsters prefer to stay on the explored board (what I called "map-bound" above) for such cards. That way, you don't have to calculate shortcuts through empty space or off the board. Yes, this does still leave a small problem with the Entrance - it's part of the map that behaves like a void - but I would resolve that by moving the monster through the Entrance, shortcut and all.

[morleydotes]

Yep, SJ Games Gone Wild.

Seems that we're making it tougher than is should be.

Wouldn't the player, who's turn it is to move the monsters make the call? It is his turn after all. Where he can legally move the monster and if it's to his advantage is how we've been allowing it.

Pat

[ArcadianRefugee]

Originally Posted by RevBob

I would say the simplest meta-rule would be that monsters prefer to stay on the explored board (what I called "map-bound" above) for such cards. That way, you don't have to calculate shortcuts through empty space or off the board. Yes, this does still leave a small problem with the Entrance - it's part of the map that behaves like a void - but I would resolve that by moving the monster through the Entrance, shortcut and all.

Actually, that's what the Entrance rule says to do -- any monster that moves into the Entrance must immediately leave again by the opposite door, and cannot move into the Entrance at all if the opposite door doesn’t lead into an explored room.

So if the card played moves all monsters one room closer to a Munchkin, a monster on the opposite side of the Entrance will actually move -2- rooms closer.

Originally Posted by morleydotes

Wouldn't the player, who's turn it is to move the monsters make the call? It is his turn after all. Where he can legally move the monster and if it's to his advantage is how we've been allowing it.

You don't get to move the monsters simply because it is your turn, iirc.

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by ArcadianRefugee

Actually, that's what the Entrance rule says to do -- any monster that moves into the Entrance must immediately leave again by the opposite door, and cannot move into the Entrance at all if the opposite door doesn’t lead into an explored room.

So if the card played moves all monsters one room closer to a Munchkin, a monster on the opposite side of the Entrance will actually move -2- rooms closer.

...all of which is why I said "shortcut and all" and referred to it as a small problem. I wouldn't have mentioned Entrance solutions at all, except for the sake of completeness.

[ArcadianRefugee]

Originally Posted by RevBob

...all of which is why I said "shortcut and all" and referred to it as a small problem. I wouldn't have mentioned Entrance solutions at all, except for the sake of completeness.

I was kinda agreeing with you, but missed a bit (I'm at work).

So, say the map is in a "T" shape, with three rooms adjacent to the Entrance. I'll label the rooms across the top 1, E, 2 and the stem room 3.

Say a Munchkin is in 3, and a monster is in 1. Were E any room other than the Entrance, "1 room closer" is kinda obvious -- the monster would simply move into E.

However since E -is- the entrance, the monster gets skipped over to room 2, effectively not getting closer at all.

Is that how it should be played (using the "move a monster" cards)? or should one actually look at the end result, and thus not move the monster in that direction (which may mean not at all)?

Curious.

[morleydotes]

Originally Posted by ArcadianRefugee

You don't get to move the monsters simply because it is your turn, iirc.

"The player who just finished his turn rolls the Monster Die. The color
rolled is the Monster Movement Color for the turn. The die must always
be rolled, even if there are no monsters to move, because of the . . ."

Logical deal is to let the player move them also. He should get to figure out the screwed up movement. But then we haven't run into a problem yet. If they can't move, they don't.

Pat