Variant Rules for Moving Between Towns

Dr. Rudolf von Richten wrote:I actually think he is correct; i.e. only your starting and ending space are 'safe'. I see movement as one continuous thing, not a series of separate 'steps'. But I can offer no more than (my) common sense to back this up.

You have a point. But consider the Streets full of monsters. If you plan on getting to point B from point A in one turn, you have to stop at each space on the way to perform a Sneak Check. And in that case, your movement is very much a series of steps. But a summoned Shantak should be able to fly you over all that, bypassing every monster on the way.

I'm not arguing fluff wise I'm arguing rule wise. Even in your example I still see movement as one move even when evading as you only stop if you botch the check otherwise you continue your move slooowly and silently around the monsters. Also if it was meant to be autoevading everything they could/would have formulated it differently without putting emphasis on starting and end locations.
The only person in the game who can auto-evade everything with a shantak is the little girl with the elder sign, and I must say it really is awesome but please don't abuse shantaks like this they are people like you and me

Maybe someone else could convince me otherwise but I very seriously doubt that except if its an official thing or really really good examples that leave me dumbstruck hehe.

The Wes

just to put my 2 cents in if you look at the examples in the Arkham horror rules it shows movement as a series of steps. I might just see it this way because i try to teach other people the game and i break it down step by step, but heres my "evidene"
IE: movement point one: Move from woods to Uptown streets wich contain a Dhole
movement point two: pass a sneak check to attempt to leave uptown streets and procede to
southside streets.
that example is in the Arkham horror rule book and with the shantak card clearly saying "leave" you can essentially instantly evade all monster in your path. I think it makes mores sense that you can instantly evade, its not like the shantak flies you out of the woods and drops you next to a dhole just so you can evade it.

I think I may have to be on the side of the Shantak-Super-Movement here. Don't get me wrong, I hate admitting that something makes things easier, but this may be such a case.

On page 7 of the Revised Edition of the Arkham Horror handbook it breaks movement down into a series of four steps. Each step describes a bit of movement.

Amanda Sharpe starts her turn in the Graveyard, in Rivertown. Her Speed is currently 4, which gives her 4 movement points for the turn. She dedcides that she wants to move to Administration, so her move breaks down like this:
1) 1 movement point to move from the Graveyard to the street area of Rivertown.
2) 1 movement point to move from the street area of Rivertown to the street area of French Hill.
3) 1 movement point to move from the street area of French Hill to the street area of Miskatonic U.
4) 1 movement point to move from the street area of Miskatonic U. to Administration.

Amanda's little jaunt clearly shows that each movement point is independently spent to move from one site to another. Further evidence is shown on page six:

Locations and street areas that contain monster markers may affect an investigator's movement. Each time an investigator attempts to leave a location or street area occupied by one or more monster markers, the investigator must either fight or evade each of the monsters there...

Following the reasoning previously stated by Ceareal2K this would mean that we could ignore any monsters that did not exist on the space we started our journey on or the space we finish at. Obviously, this is not the case. As such, I think it's pretty clear that ye olde Shantak can fly us all hell-west-and-crooked without fear of beasties.

Sorry to say for me this is no prove at all.
I'm under the impression that the example you've given is only to illustrate the various things that can happen during movement and not to show that every movement step is taken separately in means of entering and leaving spaces. The only thing that this example bestows on me is the possibility to use movement points not spent due to the fact I got held up by a monster by not acing the evade check so previously allocated movement points to reach a destination would still be available for use imo.
When putting an example in a rulebook of course you have to break down a movement into a series of steps to further illustrate it...also if more than one action occurs like having to evade something there's just no other way than to first mention the movement and then talk about the evade check even if it's part of the same turn/movement.
I'm going to contact Kevin directly about this because I want to know what the deal is. I really hope you are wrong because not only would it be stupid rule and especially formulation wise but also simply too good imo. They could have simply written "Movement Phase: Allows you to automatically pass all evade checks during the movement phase". Or something like that instead they put their emphasis on starting and end locations this instills the idea in me that they intended it to be used the way I described instead of evading everything.

The Wes

You make evade checks whenever you try to leave a space with a monster or end your movement in a space with a monster. Shantak lets you ignore both so when you cast that spell you never have to make evade checks. It seems pretty clear to me.

The thing about the Shantak is there is no evade check, not simply an auto-pass. While this may seem a superficial difference, the fact that no check is even made may have some effect on other cards (such as perhaps future monsters that punish you for evading them, or some such nonsense).

Victimizer:

LOL! Great pic! Really sums it up!

As for the Shantak thingy, I believe the *intent* of the card would be to grant the possibility of avoiding encounters all along the path you take. However, the wording in the card strictly restricts that to start and end spaces. As for what version you prefer, depends on whether you prefer fluff consistency or stricter adherence to text. Since I believe no official clarification exists [and if you belong to the second group, you probably think none is required], both are reasonable approaches.

Unustheuntouchable wrote:The thing about the Shantak is there is no evade check, not simply an auto-pass. While this may seem a superficial difference, the fact that no check is even made may have some effect on other cards (such as perhaps future monsters that punish you for evading them, or some such nonsense).

Hee. Some such nonsense = Elusive Monsters!

Not superficial at all, anymore. Elusive monsters are unaffected by the Shantak's travel. They don't say "all Evade Checks" because they don't want people exploiting a Shantak to find those new creatures.

Cereal2K, let us know what Kevin says when he answers. We all don't want to be playing incorrectly either, if we've been wrong so far.

Sure will can't wait for the answer

I could also give an example "fluff" wise why you could still only evade starting and end spaces but honestly right now it's just too hot outside for me to care, hehe.

The moment of truth awaits.

The Wes

jgt7771 wrote:you may leave or end your movement in spaces containing monsters without encountering the monsters this turn.

Lets split the sentence up.

1) you may leave spaces containing monsters without encountering the monsters this turn.
2) you may end your movement in spaces containing monsters without encountering the monsters this turn.

1) How do you come to the conclusion that "spaces" is only the one you start in?
2) easy as pie, no problems here.