nondeskript's page

The discussion over here about what can and cannot be played during an encounter sparked a thought in my head. Since this is somewhat different than that (and has NOTHING to do with the OT on the thread of Balazar) I figured I should make it a new post. Here is the hypothetical:

There are two locations:
Location #1: You get -4 on all Combat checks
Location #2: You get +4 on all Combat checks

Damiel and Valeros are in Location #1 and it is Valeros's turn. Valeros explores and runs into a Scary Red Dragon with a Combat 30 check to defeat. We get to the "Play cards and use powers that affect the check" step of the encounter and Damiel recharges his Potion of Flying to move Valeros from Location #1 to Location #2.

Is this legal? My heart says, no you can't move during an encounter. But I can't actually find any rule that this is breaking, including the proposed sidebar from the previously linked thread. It will definitely directly affect the check, since Valeros gets a net +8 on his check.

If it is legal, would it be legal if Location #1 still gave a penalty but Location #2 didn't give a bonus?

Ok so this has been bugging me since the Class Deck character sheets came out. I want to see if I understand correctly who can attempt to Recharge which types of spells when played vs who must Banish any spell they play. Some are really obvious, but a few are more complicated. Is this correct:

Can Recharge Arcane only
------------------------
Ezren [RotR]
Seoni [RotR]
Seltyiel [S&S]
Feiya [S&S]
Amaryllis [CD]
Qualzar [CD]
Seoni [CD]
Valendron [CD]
Darago [CD]
Ezren [CD]
Melindra [CD]
Radillo [CD]

Can Recharge Divine only
------------------------
Harsk [RotR]*1
Kyra [RotR]
Lini [RotR]
Seelah [RotR]
Alahazra [S&S]*2
Lini [S&S]
Oloch [S&S]
Heggal [CD]
Kyra [CD]
Tarlin [CD]
Zarlova [CD]*4
Arabundi [CD]
Harsk [CD]*1
Lesath [CD]*1

Can Recharge Arcane & Divine spells
-----------------------------------
Lem [RotR]
Alahazra [S&S]*2
Lem [S&S]
Bekah [CD]
Lem [CD]
Meliski [CD]
Siwar [CD]
Zarlova [CD]*4

Must Banish all spells
----------------------
Amiri [RotR]
Harsk [RotR]*1
Merisiel [RotR]
Sajan [RotR]
Valeros [RotR]
Damiel [S&S]*3
Jirelle [S&S]
Lirianne [S&S]
Merisiel [S&S]
Ranzak [S&S]
Valeros [S&S]
Flenta [CD]*5
Tontelizi [CD]
Valeros [CD]
Vika [CD]
Agna [CD]
Harsk [CD]*1
Wrathack [CD]
Lesath [CD]*1
Merisiel [CD]
Olenjack [CD]
Wu Shen [CD]

*1 Harsk [RotR], Harsk [CD] & Lesth [CD] can take a power that allows them to Recharge Divine spells.

[] You gain the skill Divine: Wisdom +1.

[] You gain the skill Survival([] and Divine): Wisdom +2.

[] You gain the skill Perception ([] and Divine): Wisdom +2.

*2 Alahazra [S&S] can take a power that allows her to sometimes recharge Arcane spells if she takes the Tempest role.

[] When you play a spell that has the Attack trait, you gain the skill Arcane: Charisma +2 until the end of the encounter.

*3 Damiel has the following powers:

When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical trait, recharge it instead.

When you play a spell that does not have the Attack trait, you gain the skills Arcane and Divine equal to your Craft skill until the end of the step.

So if there is ever a Spell card with the Alchemical trait, he would not have to banish it, but that seems unlikely.

*4 Zarlova [CD] can take a power that allows her to recharge Arcane spells if she takes the Theurge role.

[] You gain the skill Arcane: Intelligence +2

*5 Flenta has the following power:

[] For your combat check that has the Attack trait, you may use the skill Arcane: Intelligence +2

The power sounds like it could give her a recharge, but I don't think it would for basically the same reasons Damiel's doesn't. Additionally it doesn't actually give her the skill, it just lets her use the skill, so it doesn't meet the requirements for not Banishing.

One thing I noticed while writing this, Alahazra's power doesn't work on Arcane+Attack specifically, but any Arcane if you play an Attack spell. So if you used a Divine Attack spell, you would then not have to banish any Arcane spell you legally play before the end of the encounter, even though it doesn't have Attack (such as Arcane Armor).

Also I am REALLY unsure about Damiel... Having the skill "until the end of the step" vs needing to have the skill "After playing the card"... Where does the step end vs playing the card ends? And if his power doesn't let him avoid banishing and attempt a recharge (with a d4 because by the time he got the the recharge he definitely wouldn't have the Arcane or Divine skill anymore), what is the point? How many non-Attack Spell cards use your Arcane/Divine skill? I couldn't find any in the base set or Deck 1.

I was trying to understand the exact timing of recharging spells since it matters more now with characters who temporarily get Arcane or Divine skills and went to the play example to see how it worked there and I think the "players" only attempt to recharge one of the three Spell cards that were played.

During Lily's First Turn:
Alahazra plays Fear to evade the Buccaneer (no recharge attempted)
Seltyiel plays Force Missile to defeat the Buccaneer (recharged succesfully)

During Amber's First Turn:
Alahazra plays Inflict to defeat Jemma Redclaw (no recharge attempted)

Perhaps Alahazra was blind and just couldn't read the Recharge text ;)
Of course it could also have been a strategy to later swap out Fear & Inflict for other Divine cards with Alahazra's power...

Ok another question about OP that I'm not clear on from the rules:

If I give a card to another player during play, that card is effectively in their deck for the remainder of the session. At the end of the session, what happens to that card? Does it go back to my deck? Or does it get banished to my Class Deck box, since it is no longer in my deck at the end of the session? I know if I had to banish it I wouldn't be able to take it back, and the normal deck building rules where players can freely swap cards after a scenario don't apply so I'm thinking that the rules for handling cards that were acquired during gameplay would apply. But it wasn't "acquired" so I could see just having it returned to my deck at the end.

I've been reading the class deck character sheets and while I really like Flenta from a flavor perspective and want to play her outside of OP I am thinking she'll have some serious issues in higher levels of OP. Maybe I'm wrong, but here is what I'm seeing:

After you play a spell that has the arcane trait for its power, draw a random spell from the box that does not have an adventure deck number and has the Arcane trait and recharge it.

Ok, I dig this. She's got an unlimited supply of scrolls but as you use them you'll get weaker ones. Plus:

For your combat check that has the Attack trait, you may use the skill Arcane: Intelligence +2

So, once you take that power, when she's casting acid arrow or whatever she's starting with a d8 +2, up to a +5 with skill feats. Still not Wizard power levels but totally usable. And if you go Arcane Pretender:

You may recharge a spell (...) to add 1 plus its adventure deck number, if any, to your combat (...) check

So without casting you can score a +1 - +7 just by recharging. Cool. But here is my problem with all this:

After upgrading your deck, when rebuilding the rest of your character deck, choose extra cards, if needed, from your Class Deck. First, choose cards with the Basic trait and the B set indicator; then choose cards without the Basic trait with the B set indicator, if you don't have enough Basic cards.

And the only B spells in her deck are Call Weapon and Strength. So that is what you are starting with. And even if you get a better spell as a reward, if you ever cast it you're dropping back to those spells in the next adventure. Assuming Call Weapon isn't an Attack spell, this negated a lot of the usefulness of two of her powers, since you won't get the arcane die until you've burned off your starting spells and even then it's luck of the draw and since they don't have a deck number the Arcane Pretender power is just a +1 which rarely ever was enough in ROTR to matter.

In regular games, the wizard/sorcerer/bard/etc can pass better spells to her between adventures which makes her powers more useful. But once your in decks 5 and 6 of OP, I can't imagine these powers making any real difference...

On a related note, she can get up to 5 spells. Are there 5 B spells in her deck? I wouldn't think there are but I won't have the Class Decks till next month. There are no rules for what to do if there aren't enough B cards, but I assume we can just move up to the 1s or 2s, which improves her outlook slightly.

Looking forward to somebody telling me how I'm wrong here :-)

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