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The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era

214 questions players ask about The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era. Pick one for the answer. See also the full rulebook.

Updated 2026-11-04.

Setup, Components & General
Adventurer Rules
Game Phases, Quests & Campaign
Battle Rules
Enemies & Keywords
Delves, Caches & Skyshards
Special Encounters & Card Rulings

Setup, Components & General

Do the difficulty levels only change healing and recovery?
How do I include the Valenwood expansion in setup?
How many days does each session last in a campaign?
When a side quest and a conflict card give conflicting instructions, which one applies?
Can players look ahead at towns in the gazetteer before visiting them?
Are there any extra sleeves in the Deluxe character binder, and how are the 12 item slots used?
On Expert difficulty, must you discard an item if you skip the Adventurer's Rest step?
When a new session starts with a different guild quest, do you switch your guild card?
In Dead to Roots, is the companion Bodean treated as an adventurer, and does he stay with the party after day 1?
Can one player control two adventurers in the same campaign?
How do I build the encounter and delve decks for each province?
When you start Session 2 with a quest from a different guild, do you keep the old guild card and ability?
How is a campaign structured, and do you reset characters between sessions?
What is the difference between session 1 and session 2, and what happens after session 1 ends?
What is Deslandra's faction stack in the Cyrodiil endgame, and where do enemies that cannot be placed go?
Which endgame do you play after a Session 2 quest step that says to proceed to the Session 2 endgame?
Where does a session 2 quest start, and which step do you use?

Adventurer Rules

Must a first-time character start with a damage-dealing skill line?
What are the lighter green square tokens in the Valenwood expansion for?
If my Magicka is zero, can I still use a magic battle form action on a hex or enemy?
Can you engage, move, then engage again (taking fatigue) in one turn?
When you train a new skill line in town, do you get its dice immediately?
If a dungeon has no entrance tile, does the High Elf ability still heal the adventurer for 3 HP?
Can you reduce Light Armor's Concentration die several times before one engage to add extra enemy combat dice?

Game Phases, Quests & Campaign

Is the day 6 deadline for the Dark Brotherhood early delve a hard limit?
How does the Cyrodiil battlefront token make a faction dominant?
Which faction is dominant when a Cyrodiil campaign starts?
Does the Skyshard XP count toward the party XP dial, and is it bonus XP?
If the adventurer turns end early because of an effect, do companion turns still happen?
When in the day do overland NPCs move, before or after setting the next day's weather?
Does the Peaceful Encounter 'For Whom The Toll Sells' give its XP immediately?

Battle Rules

How much XP should the party aim for before the end-of-session battle?
Is an adventurer defeated when normal HP runs out but bonus HP remains?
When a Two-Handed wrecking blow die resolves, where does its fatigue go relative to the die itself?
Where does the rulebook's reference to 'Adventurers Rest' for recovering drained dice actually point?
When a drained die is recovered, does it go back to the cooldown track or to a skill slot?
At end of battle, do overfatigue dice left in active slots go to the cooldown track or back to supply?
Does Dodge reduce damage from dice you roll but choose not to resolve?

Enemies & Keywords

Do the adventurers always act before enemies in battle?
Do enemies move to maximize the number of targets they can attack?
When a companion with Rally is defeated, does a replacement enemy deploy?
Can an enemy with Rush attack after its second move?
If an enemy would get the same numbered skill twice, for example from a quest modification, do the levels add together?
Can you roll a Shield Discipline die in an engage when there is no enemy adjacent to target?
Does an Elusive enemy take damage from an adventurer who explored into its hex and then deployed next to it?

Delves, Caches & Skyshards

How do delve enemies scale with the party's strength?
How does overfatigue damage work during delve fatigue rounds?
When a quest says to initiate a delve given below, how is that delve set up?
Can an enemy be placed on a hex that already holds a cache chip?
Can one die satisfy both the key digit and another digit in a lockpick roll?
Does Elemental Rage's cache explosion get around Elusive?
In the Black Marsh endgame clash, when you lock-pick and draw a delve card, do you resolve that card's effects?

Special Encounters & Card Rulings

In conflict HR-04 (Rooks to the Left, Midnight to the Right), do the two enemy sides attack each other?
In the Valenwood guild mission, which side of a recruited agent chip do you use?
When does Berserkers Medallion flip back over?
When a quest says to move onto a hex, do you have to stop there to kill the rats?
How does the new species from BM-06 treat the party and the other enemies?
Does Fort Warden's Covenant control test auto-succeed on day one?
Can dice other than Speech dice help a Social check?
When you gain an item and your ready slots are full, can you move an item to the backpack to make room?

Does Dark Exchange's HP transfer come out of bonus HP?

If you have bonus HP and lose all of your regular HP, are you defeated?

Can Light Armor's Annulment die be reduced several times to prevent several true damage?

If an effect forces you to exhaust a Heavy Armor die, can you put it in the cooldown track face up to gain its effect?

Does a companion summoned by the Warden's Novice side get removed at end of battle if you become a Master during that battle?

Can a Spellsword discard an item from the pack for Meticulous Disassembly, or only from the ready area?

Can you keep a Prodigy Light Armor die in an active slot through the end of battle?

For a Knight's Order's Edict bonus of +1 damage, what type is the extra damage if the engage deals true damage?

Can Counter Heist Sap be discarded as an item to pay 'The Eight Provide?' card costs?

Does Colossal count the starting combat skill dice, or only the dice trained with XP?

Can one adventurer absorb all the overfatigue dice to shield the rest of the party from fatigue rounds?

What happens when your cooldown track is full and a die must be placed in it?

What happens when a fatigue die must be placed but no overfatigue dice are left in the supply?

When must you choose to use a weapon or armor overtax ability?

How many items can an adventurer carry?

Does the order of character creation matter, such as choosing class before race?

What counts as Combat Skill Dice?

Which skill lines count as basic damage skill lines?

How does Authority's tenacity reduction count distance to the adventurer who receives tenacity?

Can a class ability that spends tenacity be used on an enemy's turn or another character's turn?

Can Power Surge or Fleet Phantom, which have no timing text, be used outside battle?

Can you move an item from your pack to a ready slot during a battle?

What counts as an enchantment for the Sorcerer's Master promotion, which needs players+2 active at once?

What do I need in order to train a higher-level skill die?

Do I get a free skill die when a trainer teaches me a new skill line?

Are pet items discarded at the end of a battle?

Can you untrain a lower-level skill die and still train higher-level dice in the same skill line?

Can the Dark Elf Dynamic ability recover fewer than four skill dice?

Can an item that adds enemy combat dice when you are stealthed apply if stealth is gained partway through the engage?

Can you gain a light fatigue to change battle form so that an innate class ability with a battle form requirement triggers on a later turn?

Do you need both level 1 dice to advance a skill die to level 2?

Can you use race and class abilities between your engage actions?

Does Voice of Rapture count status dice such as Honor the Dead S dice?

Can a character with only Magicka skills use combat dice in other battle forms?

Can you exhaust an active skill die without resolving its effect, and where does it go?

Which dice count as combat dice or combat skill dice?

Can you move a skill line token and its dice to another spot on your adventurer mat after placing them?

Does Galatite Sword work with Cleave?

What counts as combat dice for effects that refer to combat dice?

Do companions and summoned minions keep their HP or stay around between battles and sessions?

Is using an item an action, and when can an item with no stated timing be used?

Can you move an expended potion from a ready slot to your pack?

Are there separate Session 2 quests in Black Marsh, or do you continue the Outer Watch quest?

Can you retry a lost battle in the endgame or an end-of-session quest?

How many hexes does a quest's NPC token move during overland movement in Black Marsh?

Does the Charity of Champions quest give the clash XP plus the 2 XP from the quest step?

Where is the round structure or phase-order reference printed?

Can you save the game in the middle of a session or a day?

Do adventurers keep their items between sessions?

In the Skyrim endgame, which enemy is deployed first when a skyshard is drawn, and is the enemy stack deployed in reverse order?

Can you rearrange your skill lines and stat tokens on your adventurer mat after character creation?

Can you untrain the Combat skill line, or only its dice?

Is the Black Marsh session 2 epilogue sentence pointing to the session 3 endgame a typo?

After completing a quest step, do you do the reward and end-of-day phases before starting the next step?

Does the party XP dial act as a shared XP pool that adventurers can spend from?

What happens to overfatigue during the Recovery step, and how is it removed?

Can you save more than 3 XP, and what happens to XP beyond that?

Does a traveling caravan count as an encounter, and does completing a town encounter count as a success?

How much XP goes on the party XP dial when two adventurers finish a quest?

Does triggering a delve exploration use up your action, and can you keep moving afterwards?

Do overfatigue dice in the cooldown track hurt you during the overland phase, and how are they removed?

What happens if an adventurer loses all health during a peaceful encounter?

Does bonus XP go on the XP dial?

In an endgame day that says to move on immediately, do you still do the end-of-day steps and Adventurer's Rest?

Do enemies or companions take damage in fatigue rounds, and what do adventurers take?

How much unspent XP can you save, and what happens to XP above 3 at the end of the Reward Phase?

Do you get XP after completing one clash of a multi-clash guild quest?

Can you stay at the same overland location, or come back to it, to trigger another encounter there?

How is the End of Session difficulty EP used during a delve?

Do I get XP for each Skyshard I find in a delve?

Is Arrow Barrage's added damage cumulative, and can it be split across different targets?

Can Bard's reroll or Light Armor's reroll be used on an Arrow Barrage die after it has already resolved once?

If a combat die is drained by another effect, does its damage trigger?

What makes a weapon count as being used for an engage, and does it need to match your battle form?

Does a defeated adventurer still get encounter rewards and heal during Adventurer's Rest?

Can you engage without rolling any skill dice?

When an engage roll adds fatigue or status dice to the cooldown track, do you resolve the die's effect before exhausting the die?

In what order do fatigue and the skill die go onto the cooldown track when a die is resolved?

Where does an overfatigue die go when it would leave the cooldown track during Recovery?

While in Magicka stance, can you roll dice from Stamina skill lines like Acrobatics?

Can Shield Discipline dice in the active slot be combined with Heroic Slash and Power Bash in one engage for large damage?

Can you engage, move, then engage again in the same turn?

Does Snipe's ignore-armor apply to the whole engage, and does it stack across several Snipe results?

Can you trigger a class ability in the middle of an engage, after rolling dice?

Do you have to choose a target to roll dice in an engage?

Can one engage hit more than one target, or can you switch targets partway through an engage?

Do combat dice count against the Stamina limit on how many dice you can roll?

When can you exhaust Shadow Cloak's ignore-defense effect during an engage?

Do active combat dice still work as defensive dice after I change battle form?

If you recover a Daze die right after receiving it, are you still dazed?

When you must take an Overfatigue die but none remain in the supply, what happens?

How much fatigue does each engage after the first cost, and does changing battle form cost extra?

What counts as sight for targeting, and does a unit in between block the target?

Do multiple Snipe dice in one engage stack their defense reduction?

Can dice that do not say target affect a unit other than your engage target?

Are Daze effect dice removed from the cooldown track at the end of the affected unit's turn?

If you end a turn in a battle form, must you start your next turn in that form, and what does switching cost?

Do Stealth and Elusive check adjacency at the start of the active unit's turn?

Can you move during the Start of Turn window to become adjacent to an Elusive enemy and then attack it?

Does Vinesnare's drain of a Combat skill die affect companions?

Does Siphon remove HP from adventurers and friendly units in range, and can it be stopped by Stealth or Bonus HP?

When an enemy with Rally spawns a new enemy after an ally is defeated, does the new enemy get to act that turn?

What does the Fear status effect stop an adventurer or an enemy from doing?

Does a species enemy such as the Bull Mammoth attack other enemies, or only the party?

Does Volley's 4 damage go to the engage's target or to enemies adjacent to you, and can you use Volley with no target?

Does Maim reduce the black enemy combat dice that adventurers roll?

Does an enemy's target priority, such as lowest health, make it move past a unit it can already attack?

Does Undead Pursuit's Ayleid Spirit Hunter gain Ethereal and Rot even if she was never defeated?

If an enemy steals my item, do I get it back when I defeat that enemy?

Do companion abilities like Rally, Siphon and Necromancy trigger?

Does Shatter trigger when damage hits an enemy that is not my engage target?

Does Dodge prevent damage when a die deals damage to an adventurer instead of the dodging enemy?

Do all enemies in a dungeon move on the enemy turn, or only those that can see adventurers?

Do companions take true damage when the party suffers overfatigue damage after round 5?

If no hex lets an enemy reach a target, where does it move?

Does an enemy with a target in range still move toward a priority target?

How does an enemy choose its destination hex when moving?

What does an enemy do when no unoccupied path lets it reach a hex to attack an adventurer?

Can a light weapon attack an enemy that is not adjacent?

Can an adventurer move again after exploring, and does a newly placed enemy act right away?

Does enemy defense reduce damage from class abilities and passive effects, and does it apply once per engage?

When an adventurer has Maim, does it halve all damage or only Combat dice?

Do enemies still move toward their destination when no adventurer is in sight?

When a side quest Marauder with Rally is defeated, does Rally still trigger and what enemy does it spawn?

Do enemies still move if no adventurer is in their range and sight?

Can Rapid Maneuver deal its 2 damage to the same enemy more than once if you move back and forth through it?

Is enemy Defense applied again when a separate ability hits the same enemy in one turn?

Can a Volley die damage an adjacent enemy while my engage targets a non-adjacent enemy?

When two enemy skills or effects trigger at the same timing, who chooses the order?

What happens when a battle says to deploy or take as many enemies of a type as possible?

Black Market Economics GE-09: does the lockpicking bonus ignore a digit for each lock or for the whole clash?

When Cache damage hits monsters, do Rot and Elusive trigger or apply?

Do you still collect Sky Shards in a delve whose battle objective does not involve them?

Do you gain XP for Sky Shards in a delve that does not have an Uncover objective?

How many enemy levels are deployed in a delve tile when your EP is lower than the card's listed levels?

Does a Throne Room delve card with two Sky Shards trigger its shard effect once or once per shard?

Do you get XP for Sky Shards on top of the encounter XP for a successful Uncover delve combat?

Can you move off and back onto a cache to pick it up after destroying it under your character?

Do you gain a delve skyshard when its card is revealed, or only when you move onto its tile?

Can you explore at range and still move in the same turn during a delve?

Can a delve loop back around to the entrance tile?

Do you have to be on the entrance tile to retreat from a delve?

Do skyshards gained by enemies or companions count toward the three needed to fully explore a delve?

When is a delve fully explored, and can you keep exploring after gathering the required skyshards?

What is the difference between the Uncover and Survey delve objectives when retreating?

When do I gain skyshards in a Survey delve, and do I have to defeat the enemies first?

Do I have to defeat the enemies on a Vortex delve tile before I enter it?

Can I explore a delve tile for free when I move onto an exploration hex, or only at the start of my turn?

In the encounter where enemy defense equals the number of caches on the map, does defense drop as caches are removed?

Are enemies on an adjacent delve tile in sight of an adventurer?

How do you deploy enemies on a delve tile when calculating EP, including with end-of-session EP?

How many enemies do I deploy on a delve tile when my EP is higher than the enemies listed on the delve card?

In the Traveling Caravan encounter, must you pick one of the three options, and is flipping to Master a benefit?

Does Shoulder-Mounted Parasol's remove-fatigue effect let you use the fatigue to deal true damage in the Throne Room?