You're in Tokyo, badly hurt, but your turn is next. Stay just a little longer and you'll collect two victory points. Then you can leave and recover. The reward is real; the escape needs another look.
In King of Tokyo, each player controls a monster, pursuing 20 victory points or victory as the last survivor. On your turn, you roll six dice, with up to two rerolls. Their final faces can earn points or energy for buying power cards, restore health with hearts, or damage opponents with claws. This explanation follows a three-player game without card exceptions.
Location changes those results. Inside Tokyo, your claws hit every monster outside, but your hearts cannot heal you. Outside, your claws hit the monster inside, and each heart can restore one health, up to ten. Tokyo also pays one point when you enter and two when you start your turn there.
The exit comes after the damage
Under the standard rules, setting aside card exceptions, you cannot simply leave on your turn. You may yield Tokyo after losing health to another monster's rolled claws. Take the damage first, then decide whether to leave. At zero health, you're eliminated; yielding cannot cancel a lethal hit.
If you stay after an attack, you have passed up that opportunity. Your turn doesn't reopen it. You need another qualifying attack, and enough health to survive it. The following invented sequence shows why that matters.
One position, two paths
Three players act in the order C, A, B, then C again. You are A. C has just attacked you, leaving you inside Tokyo with three health. B and C are outside with eight health each. Scores are low, and assume no relevant power-card effects or purchases throughout.
Your turn is next. For comparison, give yourself the same hypothetical final roll on either path: two hearts, one claw, one energy, a 1 and a 2. The unmatched numbers score nothing; the energy gives you one cube. Here is what changes.
- Stay now: you begin your turn inside and collect two points. The hearts cannot heal you, so you remain at three health. Your claw reduces both B and C to seven. You cannot choose to walk out afterward.
- B attacks next: suppose B's final dice include three claws. Those take your three remaining health. You are eliminated before you can yield. You reached your turn and collected the bonus, but never reached a survivable exit.
- Yield now instead: after C's original attack, you leave with three health. C must enter Tokyo and gains one point. On your turn outside, your two hearts restore you to five health. Your claw hits only C, reducing C to seven.
- C yields to your claw: you must enter the empty Tokyo during the entry step, after resolving your dice, and gain one point. You return with five health because you healed while outside. B's same three-claw attack now leaves you at two. You can survive it and yield; B must enter.
Recovery can happen before re-entry
Yielding did not guarantee a long holiday outside. Your own claw let C hand Tokyo straight back. Yet the brief interval outside allowed those hearts to work before entry. The same roll left you at three health on one path and five on the other.
C could also stay after your claw. Then you remain outside at five health, and B's three claws hit C instead of you. C's decision is another branch, not something your plan can command.
Nor does this prove that staying always loses. Change B's attack to one claw: if you stayed, you'd fall from three health to two and could then yield. The earlier lethal result depended on the imagined roll. This is a comparison of consequences, not a forecast.
Look past the bonus
Before staying, follow your plan through the next attack: when can you actually heal, which attack could let you leave, and would you survive its damage? If you yield, consider whether your own claws could put you back inside after healing.
No single health cutoff answers those questions for every position. Your next turn may bring two points while leaving your health untouched. A workable escape plan must also reach the attack after that reward.
Rules basis: the publisher-authored standard rulebook, hosted by 1jour-1jeu, especially pages 4–6. This example uses its 2016 rules without card exceptions. For broader strategy, Brian Henk's King of Tokyo Strategy Primer discusses player count and recovery costs.