Improving Orc's Bane

[Stoner81]

Wizards have no martial training since they have spent their entire lives studying all things arcane, hence why they can only use daggers and can't wear armour since it interferes with spell casting. Nice idea even though I personally wouldn't but that is one (of many) reasons why I love this game!

EDIT - Been having another think on this recently and I may allow it only because it is an Artefact and not just a regular weapon though not sure yet.

Stoner81.

[Gold Bearer]

I know some people have a problem with Orc's Bane being an underpowered weapon,

I don't get why people have a problem. As The Road Warrior pointed out, against orc's, it's quite good, because it's supposed to be. Clearly it's nothing more than a short sword against other monsters, because it's not supposed to be a massive upgrade. I think it's neat that there are a few weapons (Spirit Blade) that are more useful against specific targets. It makes the heroes think more about what weapons they use.

Completely agree. I like the idea of having lesser magic items. Besides, as Roadwarrior said, against the most common enemy it's almost as good as the best weapon in the game and it can be used with a shield so overall it's more effective than a battle axe against orcs, even with the less powerful rules interpretation. I always played that it could attack two different orcs and attack before and after moving.

[cynthialee]

it may be two attacks (on an Ork only) for a total of 4 dice, but the target gets to defend against each strike, so it is no where near as powerful as the Battle Ax

As for keeping the game magic limited...?
Why?
Does it take money, friendship or love away from anyone to be a little liberal with the magic items? It is a game and people want to have fun. I know my players got very frustrated looking at that pile of artifact cards and seeing very little of the toys it has within. Once I loosed up some and let them have more magic items, interest increased and I can actually get them to play on occasion instead of blowing me off and playing candy crush instead.

[Gold Bearer]

Lesser magic items, not less, as in weaker ones as well as stronger ones. Orc's Bane isn't as weak as seems though.

Shortsword	Broadsword	Battleaxe	Orcs Bane
41%	25%	15%	17%

And it can be used with a shield and it can be used to attack two orcs if you play it that way. Even if you don't, in general it's a lot more effective than a battle axe against orcs if it's used with a shield. If you play a lot of custom with quests with custom monsters than orcs will be less frequent and that will obviously make it a lot less effective but in the standard quests there's a ton of orcs. One simple way to make it more useful against undead is to add ethereal enemies that can only be harmed by magic.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

it may be two attacks (on an Ork only) for a total of 4 dice, but the target gets to defend against each strike, so it is no where near as powerful as the Battle Ax

Agreed, but we play it as "you get to roll 2 extra attack dice against Greenskins" rather than two attacks which makes it as powerful as the battleaxe but you still get to use a shield!

More importantly for me at the moment is the positioning of the discovery of Orc's Bane in the original quests. My group is due to attempt "The Lair of the Orc Warlord" a week this Saturday but I have just realised after reading the posts above that they won't find Orc's Bane for many more quests (by which time Greenskins will be the least of their opponents). In addition we are playing with no Wizard due to a lack on a fourth player (or fifth which ever way you look at it) and the Elf has rejected spells and is instead carrying a bow. Not a problem, little people can be stubborn, but the spell caster artefacts coming up in Melar's Maze and beyond won't be much use. Any suggestions, perhaps I could I hide Orcs' Bane in an earlier Quest perhaps in the hands of the Gargoyle in Melar's Maze and I can make the recovery of the Talisman the purpose of the quest for a reward but I'll still need a couple of new artefacts...any thoughts?

[The Road Warrior]

it may be two attacks (on an Ork only) for a total of 4 dice, but the target gets to defend against each strike, so it is no where near as powerful as the Battle Ax

Agreed, but we play it as "you get to roll 2 extra attack dice against Greenskins" rather than two attacks which makes it as powerful as the battleaxe but you still get to use a shield!

I was actually very surprised by how close an Orc's chances of surviving being attacked by a Battleaxe and surviving being attacked by Orcs Bane were. There is always a chance that my Maths is wrong, I make no claims to being an expert! But if I'm correct 2 extra attacks with Orcs Bane would reduce the Orc's survival rate to about 7%. This is significantly better that a battleaxe.

More importantly for me at the moment is the positioning of the discovery of Orc's Bane in the original quests. My group is due to attempt "The Lair of the Orc Warlord" a week this Saturday but I have just realised after reading the posts above that they won't find Orc's Bane for many more quests (by which time Greenskins will be the least of their opponents)... ...any thoughts?

Someone raised the point of Orcs Bane being used against Ulag or Grak and how that could damage those quests. I think if you are introducing Orcs Bane earlier then maybe give them an extra Body point. Other than that I can't really see any problem with giving them this artefact earlier. Especially as you only have 3 players

[Count Mohawk]

I was actually very surprised by how close an Orc's chances of surviving being attacked by a Battleaxe and surviving being attacked by Orcs Bane were. There is always a chance that my Maths is wrong, I make no claims to being an expert! But if I'm correct 2 extra attacks with Orcs Bane would reduce the Orc's survival rate to about 7%. This is significantly better that a battleaxe.

Your math is correct. An Orc will have about a 7% chance of surviving three attacks from Orc's Bane. However, Bareheaded Warrior is playing the sword as "roll 2 dice to attack, or 4 dice against Orcs" which is basically a Battle Axe, but one-handed.

Here's how Orc's Bane fares against stronger monsters, in percentage survival rates:

Monster	Shortsword	Broadsword	Battle Axe	Orc's Bane
Fimir - 3 Def (no damage | loses 1BP | dies (2+ BP))	48% | 38% | 14%	31% | 36% | 33%	20% | 29% | 51%	23% | 36% | 41%
Grak - 4 Def (no damage | loses 1 BP | loses 2 BP | dies (3+ BP))	54% | 34% | 12% | 0%	37% | 34% | 23% | 6%	25% | 30% | 28% | 17%	29% | 37% | 24% | 10%
Ulag - 5 Def (no damage | loses 1BP | dies (2+ BP))	60% | 30% | 10%	43% | 32% | 25%	29% | 29% | 42%	36% | 36% | 28%

[The Road Warrior]

i missread completely

Thanks for the stats and confirming my initial findings. I should probably have more confidence in my own ability to work these things out. I'm starting to find MathQuest quite interesting.

[clmckay]

Are some of the numbers flipped? The Fimir with OB for example. 1 BP should have a lower survival rate than 2 BP.

[Count Mohawk]

They're not flipped, just easily misunderstood. The percentages in each column show how likely the monster is to survive an attack from that weapon with X amount of BP remaining. So the Fimir, which has 2 Body Points, will survive a Broadsword attack with 2 BP left 31% of the time (that is, it takes no damage from the attack), and will survive a Broadsword attack with 1 BP left 36% of the time (that is, it takes 1 damage, but lives). I'm going to relabel the table real quick to make it more understandable.