Defending against the Orc's Bane

[gootchute]

Hello There.

Shouldn't the rules clarification that comes with the Rogue Heir of Elethorn character factor into this discussion?

[Kurgan]

Prior to the clarifications, we all assumed every attack gets a defense roll, period. The draft notes indicate the team was moving towards making multi-attacks against the same target be a big "combined roll" that the victim defends against once at the end.

The clarifications for the Frozen Horror via Into the Northlands and the Companion App indicate they were wanting to go with what laid out in the 1992 Frozen Horror which is that one of the two attacks is simply unblockable by the victim if the multi-attack is directed all against them, but the new intention was to let the target pick which of the attacks to roll defense against. This new way of understanding the multi-attack is how it was intended for the Rogue from the beginning... and that expansion clarified that they were using this to apply to ALL hero multi-attacks.

Hence, Orc's Bane, Heroic Brew, Elven Potion of Speed (called "Celerity" in Rise of the Dread Moon) and Potion of Battle Rage would all use those rules. Target picks which of the attacks to defend against, and the other one is unblockable (attacks that miss don't need to be rolled against).

[SirRick]

With the two attack rules as they are, this gives the heroes a little bit of room to possibly cheese the system. Let’s say you get to attack twice, and Zargon happens to try and defend the first attack. If the monster is still alive, the hero could take this opportunity to chug some Potions of Strength and/or a Potion of Icy Strength to really pile on the unblockable damage.

I might consider this cheap in some circumstances, but with the difficulty of FH and MotM you might need to rely on such tactics to one-shot troublesome monsters.

The rules as they are are a bit messy, but it is what makes the Rogue “good”. I once thought it might be optimal for the Rogue to simply carry a Battle Axe and strike with 5 dice almost every turn, but the multiple attack rules are good against weak monsters and strong ones alike (and possibly unblockable damage) so its hard to pass up.

[gootchute]

I wouldn't allow a hero can drink a potion between multiple attacks. If we are to use the app's implementation, as Kurgan suggests (and I agree), both attacks are rolled before the target decides which one to defend against. The way the Rogue rules are worded implies you DO NOT get to see both rolls, so I guess we really do not know what the actual rules are, unless we go with whatever is the most recent. Can we even determine that from an app?

For posterity here are the two rules we are talking about:

[SirRick]

The problem with rolling both attacks at once and choosing which one to defend against interferes with the attacker’s ability to attack multiple targets. It sounds like the second attack could potentially be wasted. A Polar Warbear may choose to attack a hero, and if it kills the hero on the first swing, naturally the bear would want to take its second attack on a different adjacent hero if possible. I don’t know if the app allows the unused attack to carry over to another target or not.

[Kurgan]

Yeah the second attack is wasted... the Polar Warbear is beating the dead body around like a rag doll. Zargon of course can decide to override this but he probably should announce it to the heroes ahead of time, since it is such a powerful and destructive thing!

As far as potions go, potions can be drunk AT ANY TIME (including as the hero is dying, on Zargon's turn) so to me that's not an issue, but another Zargon may decide to be a little more harsh on that and again, I recommend warning the heroes ahead of time because they may be more familiar with the "old" rule which is that potions can in fact be drunk anytime (this has nothing to do with the debate over whether an "unused healing spell" can be used off-turn to do a death save).

Would a hero trigger a potion to come back to life after the first attack, then the second attack kills him again? Perhaps. Otherwise he would want to let the second attack fail before reviving. Again that's Zargon's call to make as it's a very technical situation and not super clear what the intention was with those rules... similar to how some Zargons would allow a Hero to die within the grip of a Yeti's hug and then revive with a healing potion and be alive AND free of the hug, while others would say he "revives" still in the grip of the grip hold.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

These new "clarifications" are still confusing me, what would happen, for example, if a Hero with Orcs' Bane was adjacent to 2 Orcs, he would get 2 attacks that could be directed against the same Orc, or 1 attack on each Orc, so under the new rules he would have to declare how he is splitting his attacks before knowing the outcome (but could he roll first and then decide before anyone defends?), so he could no longer attack one Orc and if it survives attack it again, if it is killed then switch to the next one?

This means that the sensible option would always be to attack the same target twice (2 half dead Orcs still means 2 counter attacks at full strength) and risk wasting the second attack, so we might as well drop the whole "attack twice" mechanism and just add extra AD to a single attack.

I'm going to stick with the original 1 Attack = 1 Defend and the Polar Warbear (and potentially others) having the special ability to split his 8AD attack into 2 4AD attacks against the same or different targets, each attack being defended against as usual.

[Kurgan]

I should have realized I forgot that certain potions (while you can drink them "anytime" is always true) only boost an attack (or defense) if you drink them before you roll the dice. So whether Zargon allows the boost to the second attack (or only before the first attack) is up to him whether he allows it or not. Some potions impose that limitation on the card itself.

To keep things fair the players ought to declare ahead of time what the rules are going to be and say which targets you're hitting with the multi-attack and pause so that the other person can have an opportunity to use the potion if they wish (if that's allowed). Otherwise yeah, it could lead to some arguments. Multi-attacks by the monsters are going to be much more rare than multi-attacks by the heroes against monsters.

[wallydubbs]

In regards to Orc's Bane, Heroic Brew, Battle Rage, Celery, Orc Berserk, Polar Warbear, and any other double attack scenario, I just ignore the Hasbro rule and let to defendant defend twice. It's a lot more simplified and a lot more fair in my mind.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

If only we had an upvote feature on this forum, instead let me reward you