Just finished my third game yesterday, and I think we mostly have the hang of things now. We lost the first game, won the second comfortably but with the "skip the first Explore phase" handicap, and won our third game, our first not using the tutorial rules, without even flipping the blight card (mostly due to a very, very hungry Ocean).
I have just a couple of questions.
For Ocean's Pount Ships to Splinters innate power, does it cause 3 (1+2) or 4 (1+1+2) fear when maxed out?
Dissolve the Bonds of Kinship's threshold effect has all invaders deal their damage to each other. Unless the invaders have a health bonus or a damage penalty, doesn't this just always kill them all? This seems both overpowered and strangely-worded.
For Ocean's Pound Ships to Splinters, you activate each threshold you have the elements for, unless one of them says "instead" (which none of them do for this innate), so 4 fear.
For Dissolve the Bonds of Kinship, the invaders get separated into two groups: explorers and towns/cities. So towns/cities would deal damage to explorers, and explorers would deal damage to towns/cities. For example, if you had 2 cities, then 1 city would be converted to 2 explorers. Then the remaining city would do 3 damage to explorers (destroying all of them) and the 2 explorers would deal 2 damage to the city, not quite destroying it.
It does 4 Fear. Also, the "+" there is just a reminder.
Explorers deal damage to Towns and Cities, and Towns and Cities deal damage to Explorers. This doesn't usually kill everyone.
It doesn’t affect your question, but it’s also worth noting that Dissolve the Bonds of Kinship in the latest printings has a missing Explorer symbol. See this list of errata. (An errata pack is coming.)
I actually looked up the answer to my second question and got excited when I saw the errata, only to find that it didn't answer my question. Thanks, that explains a lot.
And, of course, if I'd bothered to look at all the spirits, I'd have seen Dreams, which makes the answer to the fear question obvious.
I'm aware of the errata pack--hoping I can get it as part of the Kickstarter.
A general point to keep in mind here is that in Spirit Island, damage happens simultaneously - unlike Sentinels, where the damage from towns/cities could wipe out all explores if it went first. Basically, all damage from all sources on a given power/ability/phase is dealt, and then, only after all the damage is done with, do you go through removing all the things with <=0 HP.
That’s not usually true, unless there’s some keyword like “each other” or “simultaneously” as on this power. The most important example is the Ravage phase, where the Invaders deal damage first, then the surviving Dahan.
I would say that the difference is that in Spirit Island, damage can be simultaneous, while in Sentinels it is never simultaneous.