How come there are no elevation markers on the 6 different maps?

I, for one, am not complaining as they're quite an eye sore, especially so on the Bizarro map , but get this:
HUH?

"Squares inside the boundary of this orange line are lofty terrain." Okay, clear enough.

"Characters occupying lofty terrain treat lofty terrain as elevated terrain and treat non-lofty elevated terrain as grounded terrain." Okay, basically, Grounded < Elevated < Lofty Terrain, got it.

But...

"Characters occupying elevated terrain treat lofty terrain as elevated terrain, as if they were grounded."

Now, I don't get this. I occupy normal elevated, so Lofty Terrain is now = normal elevated? But see the 2nd clause where "Grounded < Elevated < Lofty Terrain"...???

Someone help me out here...I honestly think this is one map where those elevation change markers are helpful and would probably have totally gotten rid of the "Lofty Terrain" special rules as it's basically...a 2nd tier of elevated terrain?

That's a vestigial thing, like an appendix. Proto-multi-elevation. Lofty is level three. Except they can shoot all the way down to the ground floor, which isn't how multi-elevation works?

I gotta say, I don't know elevation rules at all, so I probably shoulda kept my mouth shut.

Right, I agree with that, but apparently those occupying normal elevated considers Lofty Terrain to be level 2.

The "as if they were grounded" means the guy on elevated becomes grounded in relation to the guy in Lofty.

Gotcha, just realized that the "they" relates back to the first clause of "Characters occupying elevated terrain" not "lofty terrain".

Overread that one.

So, yep, those nifty elevation markers would've been quite helpful here. Were those maps made BEFORE the institution of said elevation markers and hit the press?

It's basically 1 < 2 < 3, not sure why they had to have that wordy special terrain description.

I believe you answered your own question there.

And yes, I think you guys are understanding it correctly now. Lofty terrain works as a higher elevation than printed elevated terrain.

Yeah, I figured as much.

Thanks for the chime-in to ensure that it's simply elevation #3.

It seems to me that Uberman's comment earlier that those on "lofty" can shoot all the way down to true grounded even if their line passes through elevated would be true, though. When you're on lofty terrain, both printed grounded and printed elevated terrain would appear as grounded terrain, so you could shoot across (printed) elevations the way the usual multiple elevation setup wouldn't allow...right?

That paragraph could have been phrased better, but you get the idea. I don't know if it applies since I haven't seen the map, but that's how I read the text you gave. I think that's awesome if it is how it works - really gives a sense of high ground!

Of course, I could also be wrong.

You are indeed correct. That is a difference between it and multiple elevation levels.

Sweet! That ought to make for some good fun - though I guess I'll need to see the maps to know for sure.

Thanks for the confirmation!

Thing is, for me, where does it say in the description of Lofty Terrain that it considers the next tier of elevated to be grounded for LOF?

I read it as someone occupying a square inside the red border (normal elevated) to be on level 2 and treating Lofty Terrain as level 3.

Not sure where and how Lofty Terrain states it ignores 2 when firing on 1 (grounded terrain).

Hence why I'm confused by this map.

edit: ahhhhh, after re-reading it, I'm starting to see it.

Figure A is on normal elevated.

He sees Figure B on Lofty Terrain? Figure A is now considered to be occupying "normal grounded terrain" and Figure B is considered to be occupying "normal elevated terrain" which would indeed allow those in Lofty Terrain squares to consider the squares inside the red borders as grounded, which allows them to fire across it and smack whoever's ACTUALLY grounded with ranged combat.

Okay, that was a mouthful, but I got it.

From the text you posted:

Squares inside the boundary of this orange line are lofty terrain. Characters occupying lofty terrain treat lofty terrain as elevated terrain and treat non-lofty elevated terrain as grounded terrain. Characters occupying elevated terrain treat lofty terrain as elevated terrain, as if they were grounded.

It says they treat non-lofty elevated terrain as grounded terrain. It doesn't say that's only when drawing a line of fire to something in that elevated terrain, so the characters on lofty terrain would treat regular elevated terrain as grounded terrain all the time, including to shoot past it. If they treat it as grounded terrain, won't block their line of fire.

That's just the start of the problem. The map key says characters ON lofty terrain treat it as elevated, which means a grounded character could simply walk across the boundary unimpeded.

Actually, no.

There are sets of stairs leading to Lofty Terrain on either the left or right sides of the map, which also serve as starting areas.

It sounds like the intent is that Lofty Terrain will always be above any level of Elevated Terrain. You could pair up that map with the mountain map from Hammer of Thor FF and a figure on Lofty terrain would be able to see over the mountain.

Because the figure on Lofty Terrain treats non-Lofty Elevated as Grounded, non-Lofty Elevated won't impede the line of fire.