Ranged and Sentinel keywords are relatively common and pretty critical in Lord of the Rings LCG. They provide closely related activities and broadly speaking the rules that govern them are consistent across both keywords.
In this RYDKE post we’ll consider a couple of the technicalities involved in triggering the keywords and what that might mean to play situations.
Not triggered on your turn
The actions allowed by Sentinel or Ranged happen on the turn of the player that would normally be defending or attacking.
If Paul is player one and has a Sentinel defender he wants to use to protect Joe’s heroes then he has to wait until Joe’s turn to defend before he triggers the Sentinel defender. So if Paul’s facing down against a Dol Guldur Orc he’d need to deal with that attack before his Gondorian Spearman can defend against the Hill Troll threatening Joe.
Defending and Attacking Player
What this also means is that the player whose turn it is, is considered the “defending player”. In the example above Joe would be the defending player even if it is Paul’s Gondorian Spearman character that is taking the hit.
Any effects (for instance a shadow card that says ‘attacking creature makes another attack against defending player’) would resolve against Joe and not Paul.
So selfless he hands out defence and threat reduction… What a guy!
Doesn’t change how many defenders or attackers can be used
Unless some card effect says otherwise, a single attack is defended by a single defending character. You can’t have a normal defender AND a Sentinel defender against the Hill Troll’s attack, for instance.
Again unless some card effect says otherwise, the players’ attacks can combine as many heroes as are able to attack. Joe’s ready characters and Paul’s ready Ranged characters CAN combine to pummel the Hill Troll into the ground. You can ‘overcommit’ more attack power than is needed to kill the creature, for instance to trigger Legolas’ response.
Doesn’t change how damage is calculated
In that example, Paul’s Ranged characters act in the same attack window as Joe’s characters and the damage is placed in one go with the creature’s defence being compared to the combined attack power of Joe’s characters and Paul’s Ranged characters.
So, if Joe attacked with Aragorn and Paul Ranged attacked with Legolas, there would be a combined attack of 6 versus the Hill Trolls defence of 3 and 3 damage goes onto it.
If Scott (player 3) throws in their Ranged Haldir of Lorien, he would attack on Joe’s turn along with Legolas and Aragorn and their combined 8 damage would result in 5 damage being placed on the Hill Troll. (Anyone who’s journeyed along the Anduin knows this just isn’t quite enough to kill that damned thing…)
Throughout all of this, Joe remains the “attacking player”.
These two keywords form the bread and butter of combat within multiplayer Lord of the Rings and understanding how they work provides a good foundation to build on all aspects of multiplayer play.