Reply: Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game:: Rules:: Re: Artemis Entreri Special Ability Question

by shnar

It's an unfortunate side effect of a vaguely/terse rulebook. The rulebook states:

When you have to “place a Monster,” this is shorthand for
draw a Monster Card and place the corresponding Monster
figure on the bone pile that’s on the Dungeon Tile you just
placed. If you already have the same Monster Card in play
in front of you, discard that Monster Card and draw again.
Note, however, that it’s okay to draw a Monster Card if
another player has the same Monster in play.

Pg 7 of Castle Ravenloft rulebook, bold added

So whenever you see that *exact* term, "place a Monster" then you know you are doing a draw a Monster Card during the Exploration phase. On Artemis Entreri's card, his special ability is:

Whenever you place a Monster, you can
place a Monster on any tile with an
unexplored edge.

Legend of Drizzt's Artemis Entreri's card, bold added

Notice how it's the exact same term? The Entreri card is referring to when the official "place a Monster" part of the Exploration Phase. It is not referring to any time that player happens to put a monster on the board.

Also, you have to remember that Artemis came with Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game, a game that came out about a year after Ravenloft did. So the quests in Ravenloft were not written with all the new special abilities in mind. If you intend to mix/match the components, then you should expect some awkward situations like this to arise and should just house-rule a solution to keep the game moving.

IMHO, the house-rule should be what makes sense. In this case, you uncover a room that's supposed to be brimming with monsters. But one monster just happens to be hanging way down some other hallway because he decided to take a bathroom break since he knew Entreri was coming into the dungeon? No, that's silly. Just put all the monsters in the room.

-shnar