Picking up multiple dropped objects following death or toad-ification in Talisman (4th ed.)

Question

As I understand it, if a player is turned into a Toad they instantly drop all their followers, objects and gold on their current space. Similarly if a character dies.

If a player lands on that space, do they have their choice of a single item (f/o/g) to pick up, or can they can they pick up multiple things, say, a follower and 2 gold pieces?

Moreover, do they have to encounter the space first, or the cards? Sometimes a card may be helpful for handling the encounter, so the order is important.

There is a short description in the rules section called "Encountering a space - other spaces" but it is not clear to me what the ordering of events is, or whether "any f/o/g may be taken" means any amount, or any single thing.

Answer 1

The Talisman app allows you to encounter all of cards/gold on a space, so if a player dies or is turned into a toad you get to go through ALL of their items and pick what you want to keep. However, you still go in encounter order, so you have to fight monsters first. The space works the same as if a player had purposefully left item(s) behind if they drew better objects and couldn't carry more.

This all is from how the app plays, but I'd hope that they got the rules right! :)

Answer 2

Cards on a space are encountered in order based first on the encounter number (that number in the bottom-right corner of the card) and then in the order they were drawn if multiple cards share the same encounter number. In the context of object cards, they (usually) all have the same Encounter Number, that number being 5. After all cards on a space are encountered, if the space has any effect other than "draw X cards" (e.g. the Tavern), you encounter the space.

It makes no difference whether the card was placed there as a result of a card draw, a character being killed, or any other game effect, you encounter it the same.

Note that if multiple enemies of the same type (Strength or Craft) have the same encounter number, their strength (or craft) values are combined and you fight them simultaneously in a single Battle or Psychic Combat when you encounter them. Generally, only strength enemies get encounter number 2 and Craft enemies get encounter number 3, with some special-case enemies getting encounter number 1.

If you encounter a Character, you do not encounter the space or any cards on it.