Spell Clarifications - Tempest

[Bareheaded Warrior]

This spell creates a small whirlwind that envelops one monster/Hero of your choice. That monster/Hero will then miss its next turn.

Does the use of the phrase ‘miss its next turn’ as opposed to other spells like Sleep which state that the victim "cannot move, attack, or defend itself” imply there is a difference between the two spell effects, and if so what is the difference, can a victim of the tempest be attacked whilst under the influence?

If you are isolated by the localised whirlwind to such as extent that you cannot do anything on your next turn, move, attack, use ranged weapons, cast spells, drink potions etc which is implied by phrase ‘miss your next turn’, i.e., you cannot do anything that can usually be done on your turn, then can you be attacked / cast at / fired at by a ranged weapon or are you and your square completely isolated for that ‘round/turn’ and if so how long does it last, from the moment the caster casts the spell until the casters next turn?

[lestodante]

it just mean the victim will not able to do anything on their turn and skip it. If attacked they can defend.

[wallydubbs]

I'm relatively certain that the monster cannot move, attack, or cast spells while under the effects of Tempest. Nor will an Ice Gremlin be able to steal an item.
The monster, however, may still defend against an attack, be it physical or magical.

The difference with Sleep is that Tempest only lasts for 1 turn while Sleep may or may not last longer, depending on the monster's mind point rolls. Sleep also negates the monster's ability to defend, which is why this spell is your best friend when up against a Giant Wolf.

[Kurgan]

Sleep prevents you from defending yourself, potentially forever (if you never roll enough to escape before dying). Tempest's losing a turn is simply that... miss a turn. It doesn't prevent you from being able to defend.

Sleep is a VERY POWERFUL tool against big monsters with low mind points (and if you luck out, it can be effective on other types too). Tempest is useful too, but there is no avoiding it. I use it to keep a monster from moving in and attacking, basically.

And there are Chaos versions too to use against the Heroes/Mercs.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Almost certainly my own fault for not phrasing my initial question properly.

I get what the Tempest spell does on paper but if you think of HeroQuest (and many other games) as having a whole “turn” or “round” that consists of individual turns for each figure on the board in sequence, starting with the Heroes … Hero A, Hero B, and so on, then Zargon’s bit which comprises of an individual turn for each monster on the board, Monster A, Monster B and so on, then that whole or complete turn or round basically represents a period of time during which potentially a lot of things happen involving a lot of individuals all mixed together (but for the sake of our sanity and rule simplification we handle it through individual sequenced turns)

If you consider the Tempest spell and more specifically the “miss its next turn” piece in this context then it feels odd, out of place, to me compared to other similar spells in particular and the rules in general, almost like it has been dropped in from a simpler game with more of a “player 1 takes a turn, player 2 takes a turn, player 3 misses his turn, player 1 takes a turn and so on” kind of structure.

If, for example, on Zargon’s turn a Spell Casting Monster casts this spell on the Wizard, it takes effect immediately (presumably?) enveloping the Wizard in a personalised whirlwind rendering him unable to move, attack, cast spells, search, drink a potion? open a door? and yet he can still defend against my next monster when it attacks him, how can it attack him if he is surrounding by a whirlwind, how can he defend, why does he need to, could that monster if suitably armed attack the Wizard with a ranged weapon? What chance does a quarrel have of hitting someone surrounded by a whirlwind? If my crossbow attack results in him losing his last BP, can he use a healing potion or cast a spell to save himself, after all it isn’t his turn so why would he miss it? Once I as Zargon have finished my turn then can the Barbarian move next to the Wizard and pass him an item or a potion or have the Wizard pass him an item?
I’m not expecting an answer to all those questions, just indicating that the way it is written feels like it dates from early in the game’s development and wasn’t ever revisited to reflect other changes that made the game and turn sequence richer, like the interactions between figures, such as passing items and the special save rules introduced in the US version.

Perhaps something like the following would be an improvement in clarity.

“This spell creates a small whirlwind that envelops one figure of your choice. The spell takes effect immediately and lasts until the start of the caster’s next turn. Whilst under the effects of the spell the victim is completely isolated and cannot perform any actions or interactions, including movement, neither can they be affected by the actions or interactions of others.”

This also has the unintended but interesting option of a caster using this spell as a form of last-ditch defence, if surrounded by monsters and running out of BP, a caster could use this on themselves to isolate them for a turn in the hope that the other Heroes can clear the decks in the meantime and the same is true for a Dread caster.

[Kurgan]

You can homebrew whatever you like of course, but a turn consists of moving and/or performing an action, which this excludes for one round, period. Drinking a potion can be done anytime, even on Zargon's turn (where you call that a "free action" or not, it doesn't use up an action and so can be done even when actions are prevented in situations like this). The "last minute save" can be done anytime as well (per other discussions of most likely implication of the rules) to prevent permanent death. A hero that is in sleep can still revive with a potion upon death when dealt a killing blow under the effects of the spell (and presumably as well do the same thing with an unused healing spell he might have since this is an exception to the rule about doing actions on your turn anyway).

Just because a character loses their turn, they don't also explicitly lose their ability to defend when attacked, as they would under a Sleep spell. It's explicitly different.

It's magic... maybe the magic stops certain activities but not others? You could reason it doesn't give you the freedom of movement to lunge at your opponent or fire off a bolt but it let's you put up your arm(s) in defense to a blow. It just does. Unless you as the GM decide to change it.

It wouldn't do any good to say it stops the hero from doing something until the turn of the person who goes right after him. "Lose a turn" means the next time it's his turn, he doesn't get to move or do an action, until the NEXT time it comes around to his turn. That's the intention anyway.

If you want it to be an ine-escapable (but temporary) version of Sleep, that would certainly make it a lot more powerful against monsters and when used against the heroes.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I wasn't suggesting that because a character loses their turn they therefore lose their ability to defend, I was suggesting that if a character was isolated by a whirlwind then they couldn't be attacked and wouldn't therefore have any need to defend but I agree that is interpretive.

[Daedalus]

This spell creates a small whirlwind that envelops one monster/Hero of your choice. That monster/Hero will then miss its next turn.

Does the use of the phrase ‘miss its next turn’ as opposed to other spells like Sleep which state that the victim "cannot move, attack, or defend itself” imply there is a difference between the two spell effects, and if so what is the difference, can a victim of the tempest be attacked whilst under the influence?

If you are isolated by the localised whirlwind to such as extent that you cannot do anything on your next turn, move, attack, use ranged weapons, cast spells, drink potions etc which is implied by phrase ‘miss your next turn’, i.e., you cannot do anything that can usually be done on your turn, then can you be attacked / cast at / fired at by a ranged weapon or are you and your square completely isolated for that ‘round/turn’ and if so how long does it last, from the moment the caster casts the spell until the casters next turn?

(Speaking from the NA pulpit.) I like to think of Tempest as a personal curse of wind that aggressively buffets the victim off balance. As such, he loses the ability to intentionally take action. The collateral effect also could be considered to somewhat adversely affect an opponent's attack through the winds, but this conveniently equates to what the victim would have thrown up as its active dodging and parrying were Tempest not preventing it.

This net-neutrality towards non-targeted combatants disarms the effect throughout others' turns. Because of this hand-waving (no pun intended), I have no problem imagining the spell lasting from the spellcaster's turn to just before his next turn, something I also like to think of as a simultaneous turn for all participants.

Since the target will "miss its next turn", I would think the Tempest spell effect would preclude a spellcaster from saving himself from death with a healing spell. That exception depends on the spellcaster not having performed an action on his turn, but that isn't possible as the turn was skipped. (He never had a turn.) In terms of all turns occurring in a simultaneous combat, this also wouldn't work. On the other hand, I'd allow the drinking a Healing Potion to save a Hero from death as that rule includes "immediately" and doesn't mention any turn.

Drinking a potion for any other reason is also allowed by Tempest since it may be done at any time, even another's turn which wasn't skipped. However, a Hero under Tempest couldn't give an item to another Hero as that must be done on his turn. Whether another Hero could receive an item from another Hero (normally automatic) under Tempest is debatable, in my opinion; picking up an item must be done on a Hero's turn, and it could be judged that the buffeting wind requires this sort of agency--it's Zargon's call.

[Kurgan]

Since saving yourself from death can be done "off turn" Tempest wouldn't prevent a death save. Now yes, you could argue the whole thing is moot if we are talking about the EU rules because there are absolutely, positively NO death saves under those rules (except Dark Company which sorta does... but it's really just a weakened version of the Elixir of Life from the NA GS except they come back with only 1 BP left... but the Elixir is really after they are already dead).

Many argue back and forth that actually really you should be saying that since it talks in the general rulebook about not having already done an action on their turn then death saves can ONLY be done on the turn of the hero that died, and so if he dies (which he would do the vast majority of the time) on Zargon's turn, he can't do it... well unless you have a healing potion. But then why bother mentioning the spells at all? First Light's wording (and how they talked about Jungles of Delthrak with the various death save options) seems to me that at least Avalon Hill's intention today is that a death save can take place anytime that hero reaches death, not just on the dying hero's own turn. Otherwise the only time a death save would even matter for a spell would be if you just wandered into a trap before taking your action (meaning you're already down to your last BP anyway for most traps). It's much more common that a hero would die from a monster attack on Zargon's turn. Yes, if they die from searching for Treasure and getting a Wandering Monster, that means no action... so you better have a potion then!

Does death cancel the effects of a spell? Again this really only matters under the NA/remake rules. I think generally that's the assumption. So a sleeping hero who is killed while asleep is "awake" again when he revives. At the point of death he's allowed to quaff a potion, it doesn't say this is prevented... only he can't move, attack, or defend himself (but drinking a potion is a free action... and it doesn't say "no action" so a healing spell to save himself is also not off the table by the card's wording). A character in Tempest loses a turn, but even if you say he's still spinning around when he does, using a potion can be done off turn and being passed a potion occurs on the turn of the one passing ... not the one receiving so that wouldn't be prevented either. So then it's just Zargon's call whether the no-longer-dead-but-alive hero needs to roll to break the sleep spell next turn.

When Tempest says "his/its turn" it means the turn that Zargon/Morcar would give that particular miniature/monster. I wouldn't take it as the Evil Wizard's entire turn, because then why bother mentioning the specific monster? So I think it's very simple. Again, you want it to work some other way, you're perfectly free to change it. I think a monster that is spinning in place could still hold his arm or shield out to block a blow, and you could also hack at him in his spinning state... of course imagination can justify most anything after the fact! As for passing him an item, I'd allow it... it could make for a funny moment as people imagine the spinning hero reaching out and grabbing the bottle from his friend.