How do you handle Fear vs Courage

[The Admiral]

Yeh, but not if first Courage and then Fear take effect.

I would still handle it the same. I see courage as +2 on the base. Whenever that base comes into effect. I have however never actually encountered this situation, either way, in my 25+ years of HQ.

[knightkrawler]

I don't get it.
So you have 3 attack dice and are cast Courage on. You now have 5 attack dice.
Now you are cast Fear on, which tells you you have 1 attack die. Not -2, but 1 as an absolute number.

In other words, as opposed to "Courage", "Fear" doesn't care what your modifiers are. It takes all your modified attack dice to 1.
Still depends on the order in which you are affected.

[The Admiral]

I don't agree. Fear reduces you to 1 attack dice. Courage is a +2 on your attack dice, hence 3. It is just how I see it. Courage doesn't care what your base dice are, it just adds 2 to whatever they are.

[cynthialee]

see all this debate when all you really need is a Game Masters ruling and stick with it

hence my take...they cancel each other out

[Goblin-King]

There's no cancelling each other as a given, but a cumulation of effect.
It depends on the order of the spells being cast:
a - first Fear, then Courage - 3 Attack Dice
b - first Courage, then Fear - 1 Attack die, which in this case means Fear does cancel out Courage

I do not see how rules would work any other way.
A spell is cast and takes effect as per its wording, then another is cast and takes effect as per its wording.

If Courage is broken before Fear, Fear still has effect: 1 Attack die.
If Fear is broken before Courage, Courage still takes effect: your "regular" Attack dice + 2.

This is exactly what I was gonna say
Spells goes on the stack.

[The Admiral]

see all this debate when all you really need is a Game Masters ruling and stick with it

hence my take...they cancel each other out

Totally agree. I either play solo, where I am the GM, or I play with my Brother, where the GM is me!

[Daedalus]

I did some searching but didn't find anything concrete abut a ruling between these two. The YeOlde Inn's FAQ provides a suggestion but that's all it is, a suggestion. It's up to Zargon how these two spells resolve when conflicting with each other. . . .

Can you link this FAQ? The Inn's FAQ button is for site usage, as far as I know.

I also agree with KK's assessment, which I reached after reading the OP and checking p.7 of the Instruction Booklet:

Attack Dice
They reflect the fighting power of the
Hero's weapon. During the Quest, the
Hero's attack strength will continually
be changed by events (spells, combat, etc.).

'. . . continually be changed by events. . ." causes me to think the order of spells cast matters when judging their effects.

[Decipher]

KnightKrawler and The Admiral are both right, it just depends on the order the spells are stacked.

[knightkrawler]

KnightKrawler and The Admiral are both right, it just depends on the order the spells are stacked.

But The Admiral argues that the order doesn't matter and the result of both spells being cast always has the same effect.
I argue that there's two different accumulated effects dependent on the order in which the spells are cast.
We can't possibly both be right.

[Decipher]

I don't agree. Fear reduces you to 1 attack dice. Courage is a +2 on your attack dice, hence 3. It is just how I see it. Courage doesn't care what your base dice are, it just adds 2 to whatever they are.

This is correct.

I don't get it.
So you have 3 attack dice and are cast Courage on. You now have 5 attack dice.
Now you are cast Fear on, which tells you you have 1 attack die. Not -2, but 1 as an absolute number.

In other words, as opposed to "Courage", "Fear" doesn't care what your modifiers are. It takes all your modified attack dice to 1.
Still depends on the order in which you are affected.

This is also correct. It simply depends on which is cast first. As to the argument that these two spells automatically cancel each other out for whatever reason, just because, is way beyond my logic and makes no sense.