Finer points of game mechanics you discovered the hard way

There are all sorts of cards which you may never see or use in your first play through. These cards may be rare, appear only on high level items, or might be things like elf skills and your go to party has never had any elves in it.

So when you encounter these cards used against you in PvP the first time, you might do some really stupid things. Here are some of my "I had a stupid"moments for other people to learn from and/or laugh at. Feel free to share you own so that I or other people may do the same.

Impenetrable Nimbus Prevents all damage for 1 turn. However it is important to remember that the invulnerability falls of on the next turn after all the damage effects take place... I once dumped a number of burn effects and some lava terrain on an opponent expecting them to die at the begging of the next round. All I got for my effort was a lot of wasted cards.

Elvish Insight I went through the single player campaign without using any elves so I never used this nor had it used against me. Somehow it never occurred to me that this skill would be treated like every other spell and trigger blocking. Imagine my surprise when my warrior who ran forward with a few block cards at the ready suddenly found himself defenseless while my opponent drew another attack card. (Also of note the block did mean my opponent could not see how naked my warrior was since his hand was still hidden. That didn't stop the beat down though)

Dimensional Traveller I don't even know what I was thinking here. But as you play, remember the turn effect order of operations. Dropping a single square of lava under someone with Dimensional Traveller is rarely going to go well. The movement on traveller happens before the terrain damage... If you are going to try and hit someone with Traveller or Slippery with terrain effects, you better blanket the area they are in, or leave their "safe" destination unsafe for other reasons, like being next to your melee dps.

 

Three things that I didn't find out until I started playing MP...

Putting Lava (or Smoke) over difficult terrain allows full movement.

Playing a cantrip allows you to pass first, which will give you first move in the next turn.

Enemies will try and block beneficial spells you cast on them.

 

Didn't realize that there was an attachment limit or that positive and negative attachments shared the same pool. Do you happen to know what that limit is?

And playing off the bash note. Winds Of War is incredibly versatile. It's not just for messing with your opponents. Get your own characters off of negative terrain with it too for a measly 1 damage. Or one of my more inspired plays, split the spell between a friendly and an enemy and have that squishy character dancing up to 6 squares away from your melee character suddenly find them self neighbors to some pain.

 

Thanks Pengw1n. Also the attachment discussion reminded me of other stupidity on my part.

Firestorm a wonderful card for dealing with a lot of low HP weenies in the campaign. Especially with Firestarter also running.

But when you burn your own characters do not expect Holy Presence or Purge to help out. Sure it is all there on the card, "all enemy controlled cards", but since the enemy almost never puts positive attachments on you, it is easy to forget that this is very different from all negative attached cards.

 

Also, because it has that 1 damage amount, it can be powered up with Unholy Wellspring to deal decent damage to the enemy and place them where you want.

 

This one is obvious to vets, but I remember having trouble as a newbie...you don't have to Move if a card allows you to. Step attacks give you the OPTION to move, but not a requirement. For that matter, if you use a Step attack you don't have to attack. Sometimes you just want to take a step, and sometimes you want to hit something right next to you.

 

Yes and no, and since this is a finer points discussion here is another fine point on step attacks. To play a step attack, even if for just the attack, you must be "able to move".

You can as you point out decide to "move" to the square you started on and just attack.

You can be massively encumbered by something like Freeze, even to the point where you can't step anymore since the encumber is greater than the step so your "move" is in place. This still counts as "able to move".

But if you are hit by a halt effect like from Entangling Roots you are now "not able to move". You now cannot play a step attack period. Every Nimble Strike or Vicious Thrust is dead to you for as long as the halt is in effect even if your target is standing right next to you.

 

I didn't realize until I'd been playing for like 2days already that the guaranteed move card you draw every turn is based on your race entirely, I thought it was just any move card in your deck!

 

Path Of Knives also inflicts damage on forced movement such as from Force Bolt and Maze. I haven't been able to check whether or not it works with Whirlwind yet. Probably not, but if so it seems like it could be a killer combo.

 

I've thought it would be great fun (if not necessarily effective) to create a deck based on Path of Knives and forced movement. Winds of War is already ridiculously good, and Advanced TK is a favorite of mine also. Call the wizard "Cheese Grater".

 

It's worth noting that if you are "halted" you cannot use step attacks. Which is a huge difference compared to unable to move but able to make the actual attack. I lost a couple fights that way.

 

When I got my precious Booming Ring, and KEPT getting Path Of Knives items, you can bet your bottom Pizza slice that this is what I did. Minus the "cheese" name.

 

Is this still true? I haven't been able to target my own characters with Winds of War or Force Bolt, etc. Only with telekinesis.

 

Hey, thanks. That's very handy to know.

Another tip, since this is a tip thread: Ctrl+right click on an empty tile will give you the line-of-sight from that tile. You have to do this before you play your move card though.

 

Wow, the LoS check from any tile was already in the game? thanks for posting that, I had no idea

 

Hmm?