Need help with ruling for villain of side quest. Possible spoilers

[HeWhoLaffs 15]

As I stated in the topic title, there are possible spoilers, but I could use your help.  So tonight we were on a side quest, can't remember the name, and we finally came across the main villain, a Changeling by the name of Gharik.  His main special feature was that for every other Changeling on the map, which there were 3 of them, that it would take an additional +2 range in order to actually hit him.  So until you start taking out his other Changelings, it would take +6 extra range in order to hit him.

 

My question is, does this still affect melee characters adjacent to him?  I couldn't find anything in the rulebook that gave a clear indication. It only states that in order to do a melee attack, that you have to be adjacent, and not that it's considered to be range 0 or anything like that.  In the list of 5 things you must check when attacking, step 3 is check range, but it only talks about when making ranged attacks, not melee attacks.  So are we supposed to assume melee attacks are at range 0, and I would still have to achieve a range of 6 in order to hit the adjacent villain as long as all three other Changelings are alive?

 

Half of us saw it one way, half the other, so we decided to flip a coin.  The result was us having to have melee characters meet the range requirements of +2 range per each other Changeling still on the board.  Normally this might not be a huge issue, as you could just spend some time killing the Changelings first, but we actually ran into Deadly Peril, telling us that we only had two rounds left to win the game, and this was before we had even opened the final door and saw what we had to overcome.  So we had to make every action count.

 

Luckily we pulled it off, but I would like to know for the future if this is how it was supposed to be played, or do melee characters adjacent to the minion/master/villain never have to check range?  Any info would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[kraisto 273]

Yep, melee attacks ( they count as 0 range) are affected by the range penalty / stealthy skill.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/837051/verifying-stealthy-monster-ability

Edited July 8, 2016 by kraisto

[maxam 815]

Yup. Also in the official Descent FAQ, page 4.

[HeWhoLaffs 15]

Thanks guys.  We might have been able to find the answer on our own if the villain's unique ability was actually called "stealthy" but I'm guessing because it was tied into how many other Changelings were on the map, they named it something else, causing us to not know where to look for the answer.  And having never come across a stealthy bad guy yet, we were unaware this ability existed.  Again, thanks for the info.