Shields say that you can play another armor in addition to the shield when taking damage.
Does this refer to the 2nd armors trait or type?
If it refers to the type, a second shield could be played, if it refers to the trait it could not be played.
All the other armor types have armor listed as a trait, but shields do not.
Yeah, you would.
I don't think it needs to be fixed necessarily. Shields are typically worse than body armor, and if you have a hand full of shields, you probably aren't able to do that much damage or exploration. The game doesn't have to make sense :)
With the appropriate proficiency, yes, you can play more than one shield at a time. Actually doing that in the game, though, is only *slightly* more strategically wise than it is in real life.
What about playing multiple daggers in succession on the same check?
Dagger's text:
"When playing another weapon, you may discard this card to add 1d4 to a combat check."
Does "another" here mean "exactly one other" or "at least one other" ?
Merisiel certainly backs the notion of throwing multiple daggers at one time...
As do I! Thanks for the response, Vic!
With the appropriate proficiency, yes, you can play more than one shield at a time. Actually doing that in the game, though, is only *slightly* more strategically wise than it is in real life.
That is my favorite Vic Wertz quote of all time.
With the appropriate proficiency, yes, you can play more than one shield at a time. Actually doing that in the game, though, is only *slightly* more strategically wise than it is in real life.That is my favorite Vic Wertz quote of all time.
There was another thing you mentioned was your favorite recently... something about a BGG thread... but I can't seem to remember.
Like a token of remembrance?
Like a token of remembrance?
I don't remember anything about that.
With the appropriate proficiency, yes, you can play more than one shield at a time. Actually doing that in the game, though, is only *slightly* more strategically wise than it is in real life.
This has probably already been clarified but I'm going to ask anyway. When you reveal the magic shield and have the light armors proficiency, can't you keep revealing the magic shield to infinity? Does "another armor" imply a different armor card? If so, then wouldn't it make more sense to display the magic shield (putting it back in your hand when the check resolves) to get it's benefit thus avoiding any confusion? Seems to me it might be a better way of going about this so it's easier to keep track of which armors have already been counted.
There is an FAQ entry that covers this. Each particular card can only be activated once per check or step. So you can play 2 different shields on the same check, but not the same one twice.
I've actually had this come up at one point, where I was playing Kyra and she had two shields and an elven breastplate in her hand, and she (not all that surprisingly) failed her combat check (stupid not having a weapon and pulling a villain!). It basically let me walk away unscathed (after all of that reveal action, I had to discard one of the shields for a point of damage).
You can reuse the same armor (including shields of course) (providing you just revealed it and kept it in your hand of course) at each step of an encounter.
So yes the same armor can be use ONCE in the before you act part of the encounter, ONCE for the damage resulting from the check itself and ONCE for the after you act step.
But within a step you can use it only ONCE.
So if the before you act is "1d4 then 1d4 then 1d4" then you must decide immediately after each roll if you use you armor to reduce the roll you just made, and if you do you won't be able to reuse for the next rolls.
Which may be fun if for example you have:
"1d4 poison damage then 1d4 fire then 1d4 combat damage" and an armor saying "reveal to reduce combat damage by 1 or banish to reduce all damage to 0", and you roll 3 on the poison damage. What do you do? Take the damage knowing the armor may save you from 4 fire damage or can stay and reduce 1 combat?
See this comment from Vic about armor.
The "on this check" part with shields is something I've wondered about. If you should be able to play multiple shields for BYA damage "another armor on this step" would be more accurate wording.
As the shield power is worded now it does not allow you to use a shield and any other armor outside of a check that results directly in damage.
That pretty much answers your own question no?
I only learned about this distinction regarding discarding multiple weapon cards today (12/17/2016). This should be FAQ'd or used in an illustration of sample game play to help new players for the following reason.
"Playing" a card is described as follows:
Anyone can play a card whenever the card allows it. Playing a card means activating that card’s power by revealing, displaying, discarding, recharging, burying, or banishing that card.
So all cards are being "played" if you do *anything* with them, and the rules call out only one card of each type may be played per check.
Then the game has cards like Arcane Armor which specifically go out of their way to state:
You may play this card even if you have played another spell on this check.
This would lead some people (like me) to believe multiple weapon discards aren't allowed because there are specific examples where multiple cards are allowed because some cards call it out. At most, I might have considered a sword and one dagger discard; but once you accept the wording as written, several becomes okay.
Hi Autoduelist. Don't undestand the weapon "distinction" you are talking about. As far as I know, weapons work like any other cards - following the rules you quoted. I. e., unless a power tells you otherwise (like the examples you gave: daggers, shields, arcane armor...), you cannot play 2 during the same step. And anyway you cannot play two powers that start with "For your combat check..." during the same combat check.
This said, a question from a non native english speaker like me be:
If you play a spell, then another spell that has the Arcane Armor type text allowing to play "if you played another spell", can I use a third one with the same text? The way I see it, "another spall" is singular so you can only play 2. But is it true?
The actual quote is:
Playing a card means using a power on that card by performing an action with that card that is specified by the card itself (see Boons, page 23). Choosing to activate a power on a displayed card also counts as playing it.
The rules also call out that cards can overrule the rulebook. So a card that says it can be used on the same check as other card of the same type isn't surprising.
I pretty much covered it on BGG.
The short version is that a lot of the game's rules are covered on the cards, which means learning to play the game correctly is partially dependent on people encountering specific cards, and then arriving at the correct rules interpretation of those cards. This basically means players teach each other, and if they learn something incorrectly, they're teaching others to do it wrong too, which creates a low level of forum churn of people asking identical or similar questions. As someone who tests and/or designs things for a living, this seems very wrong to me because it means there's room for improvement. I provided my suggestions on the BGG thread.
Whether this is a big problem or not depends on whether the product line's focus at this point is on established players or growing the player base with new players. If it's the latter (new players), it's a more important problem to address.
Good thoughts there, Neil. You are grappling with the core questions of an exceptions-based game design in a mature product line. Some of this is "You just have to deal with it," and other parts of it is "We can't make you have to deal with it." We talk about this stuff literally every work day.
Thanks Mike.
I think the best solution I can come up with is teaching people how to analyze cards better, since that's how they encounter the game. The rulebook does a great job summarizing how to setup and teardown scenarios, build a character deck, and go through a game turn; but analyzing cards requires going through all those different sections to find relevant information.
You can see this in the replies people get to rules questions, with quotations flying around "Golden rule!", "One card per check", "Your check", etc.
Maybe an important rules summary of how to use or analyze Banes and Boons would be the way to go. For example
Boons
- May only play one card of each type for a check: Weapon, Spell, Item, Ally, Blessing.
- Each player may contribute one card of each type for a check.
- It makes a difference whether a card may be played on "a check" or "your check". A card that says "your check" can't support somebody else's check.
- You are "playing" a card if you reveal, display, discard, recharge, bury, or use it in any fashion.
[More to come as I am working on this.]
The beauty is that this wouldn't take up too much additional room in the rulebook, so it could be official. Or you could just include a URL link to the New Player guide Hawkmoon does. I would definitely get his input on a project like this, because he's played the game more than I have; so if it's more useful to include it in his project, I will do that.
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I agree that it's great to teach people to analyze cards better but it's also important for people to know and understand their powers, and the powers of cards in their hand. Honestly, I don't think your summary is needed since it isn't always 100% true and the rulebook already has the rules in it.
The reason for forums like this is to support the game where the rulebook or guild guide fails to answer people's questions.