Defending against the Orc's Bane

[Daedalus]

Moving on to the BQP rules for defending. Not being able to roll defense dice against the second attack doesn't mean that you cannot defend against it. Take the following example (using the Orc's Bane attacking the same orc twice.)

Hero's first attack

Orc's defensive roll

Hero's second attack


Results
After 1st attack the orc has taken no damage and has 1 in reserve for any additional attacks made by that hero. After the 2nd attack the orc still has taken no damage, but has no in reserve (Just in case the hero can magically attack a third time somehow).

I had never considered conserving defense dice was possible.
From p.14 of the NA Instruction Booklet, How a Monster Defends:

A defending monster rolls the
number if Defend dice shown in
the Monster Chart on the Information
Screen. Each black shield rolled by the
defending monster blocks 1 hit from the
attacking Hero.

No mention of just blocking a single attack. I agree--unused black shields from defending Orc Bane's first attack can carry over for the second attack. I suppose this would also apply to casting a Genie spell and using a Genie spell scroll in the same turn as well. One defense against a Hero with two attacks, right? Or should spells with Attack Dice be treated differently?

[chaoticprime]

No. Dice rolls are always compared. You would have to have an option to "not defend". You must roll defense (or at least consider it rolled) regardless of the attack roll's results.

Attacking an orc with the broadsword would still be more effective, statistically.

[Redav]

I agree--unused black shields from defending Orc Bane's first attack can carry over for the second attack.

Why? If that's your house rule then that's fine but the original rules don't say that. Logically speaking, if you attack and it prepared the perfect defence but you borked your attack then when you attack again, it has to defend again because its last defence means nothing.

Besides, both sets of original rules state that you only roll in defence if the target is hit.

No. Dice rolls are always compared. You would have to have an option to "not defend". You must roll defense (or at least consider it rolled) regardless of the attack roll's results.

Agreed.

[JasonMCM]

I agree--unused black shields from defending Orc Bane's first attack can carry over for the second attack.

Why? If that's your house rule then that's fine but the original rules don't say that. Logically speaking, if you attack and it prepared the perfect defence but you borked your attack then when you attack again, it has to defend again because its last defence means nothing.

Besides, both sets of original rules state that you only roll in defence if the target is hit.

What Deadalus and I were talking about only applies if you are using the multiple attack rules presented in the Barbarian Quest Pack.

In all honesty the more I use that rule the less I like it, and I think I, personaly, am going to move back to the 1 defense roll per 1 attack roll original rules side of the "how do you handle multiple attacks?" question.

[Redav]

What Deadalus and I were talking about only applies if you are using the multiple attack rules presented in the Barbarian Quest Pack.

Yup, rido. In the early quests I'm also a bit against making it easier for the heroes because get it easy as it is but I get the feeling that say the BQP is a bit tough.

[JasonMCM]

So I think we have agreed to disagree on what exactly the Orc's Bane really means.
I have made up a new card that shows how I currently think it should work.


I'm going to open a separate post about the layout of the card so don't comment on that here. Just on topic things.

[knightkrawler]

This is my wording:

Orc's Bane
This 1-handed metal weapon lets you add 2 CD to your Base Attack.
After attacking a monster whose corresponding Monster Card includes the word "Orc" in its title, you may attack that monster a second time.
This weapon cannot be damaged by any spell effect.

It's about the second sentence. The detail in the ones before and after has to do with my redacting style, which serves the purpose to eliminate all interpretation of rules from my ruleset, which will be slightly altered in some and heavily in several respects.

[JasonMCM]

Isn't it wonderful that we can get such different interpretations from the same card.

[Redav]

It is. Just shows the lack of play testing for the game. That said, I wonder if people pushed the limits of interpretations when it was published as much as now?

[JasonMCM]

Considering that it looks like the Europe version was a giant play test for the NA version...

Though I have to say, I'm playing through the dark company Play by Post with mostly European rules and am rather surprised at how Bad Ass the heroes are. You never could split the party like we are doing and live in a NA quest.