Ye Olde Inn

Posted: **December 9th, 2015, 10:23 pm**

Bareheaded Warrior wrote:
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!

Did you not see the table? 17% survival rate vs 15% survival rate. An orc will survive an orc's bane attack when a battle would have killed it one in fifty times! And it can be used with a shield, and you can play that it can attack two orcs.

Bareheaded Warrior wrote: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?

A talisman that allows the elf to use a spell set, a random one so it's different to the standard elf and artefacts for the other two, maybe a count black shields as skulls talisman for the barbarian and a count black shields as white shields talisman for the dwarf.

Posted: **December 10th, 2015, 12:54 am**

I think that with a tiny reformulation it really is a good weapon now.
I was controlling the calculation as i was convinced it is less than 5% better than a 3-dice-weapon until now, but he's right, against orcs it is close-to a battle axe.

Roll to attack adjacent targets.
If you attack only Orcs or Goblins, you get one additional attack action for this turn.

Artifact

* Allowing you to attack all of these mass-greenskins double, not only Orcs (I think Tolkien is the only real source for Orcs and Goblins, and you're right, for him they're the same)
* Be compatible with Heroic Brew by not stating "two actions" but instead "one additional"
* Allowing you to move before, inbetween or after the two attacks
* Allowing the wizard to use the weapon by simply not having this symbol:

Like this, i like this!

Posted: **December 10th, 2015, 1:18 pm**

Wait a min... Doesn't the Orc get to defend against both attacks? Surely the difference would be more than 2%.

Posted: **December 10th, 2015, 1:39 pm**

mitchiemasha wrote:Wait a min... Doesn't the Orc get to defend against both attacks? Surely the difference would be more than 2%.

Why would it be? A lot of the power of the Battle Axe gets squandered in the dealing of overkill Body damage. So although the Orc does get to defend both times, he has to survive on both counts or he's still dead. The math behind the logic says that if the Orc has a 41% chance of surviving one attack with a shortsword or Orc's Bane, he has a 41% x 41% = 17% chance of surviving two such attacks.

Now, if you played with the Frozen Horror rule of "figures only defend once per attacker per turn", the Orc's survival rate would diminish to 41% x 25% = 10%.

Posted: **December 10th, 2015, 1:48 pm**

The double attack with no defense on second attack is a quest note that pertains to the Frozen Horror's Yeti only.
Orcs Bane does not have this added feature.

Posted: **December 11th, 2015, 1:00 pm**

I'm not sure how that works. If you have 41% of surviving the first roll... You have equally 41% of surviving the second roll. Your chances don't decrease with the second roll if the conditions stay the same.

Posted: **December 11th, 2015, 1:38 pm**

Yes....but if you flip a coin you have a 50% chance of heads or tails.

If you flip the coin twice you have a 25% chance of heads both times (50% x 50%).

So:

41% chance of surviving 1 attack (50% chance of 1 head).

41% x 41% = 17% chance of surviving 2 attacks, you must survive both the first and second attacks (50% x 50% = 25% chance of getting 2 heads, back to back).

Math is fun, wish I was better at it. Used to be great at differential equations and the like, never met a stats problem I could properly understand though!

Posted: **December 11th, 2015, 2:27 pm**

It's because there's only a one in six chance of rolling a black shield but 50% of rolling a skull.

Also the orc doesn't actually get a two extra defence dice, they only get it if they survive the first attack so it's equivalent to one extra defense dice.

So I think the odds of orc's bane killing an orc are the same as a battle axe killing a zombie.

Posted: **December 11th, 2015, 3:29 pm**

How do these numbers stack up against my Champion Orks? (Defend on White Shields.)
And my Warlord Orc? (Defends on all shields.)

Posted: **December 11th, 2015, 4:11 pm**

Here's the full table of everything:

In case you don't want to read all that, basically the Orc's Bane is less effective against custom Orcs with better defense than the standard "two white dice", but usually lies between the Broadsword and the Battle Axe in terms of effectiveness at slaying one monster. It also carries two strategic advantages: the ability to use a shield alongside it and the ability to attack a second Orc if you slay one with your first blow.

Ye Olde Inn

Improving Orc's Bane

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