As stated in the rules, one can't draw cards unless it's the end of said person's turn.
So with Harsk's ability to recharge when other players are having combat checks, there is a possibility where he could start his turn with no cards. With no more cards left on hand, Harsk is at any point not afraid to encounter banes since he suffers no damage even if the rolls are all 1s.
At this point, if Harsk gets to defeat a bane, that's no fear encounter! I know if he fails to defeat it, nothing happens except for the blessing deck having 1 blessing lesser. Is this at any point even acceptable?
Even Valeros with a STR buff can clubber any monster with his bare hands provided all the remaining characters use a blessing or two. Still! Having to encounter a bane with no side effect is kind of a sneaky move.
Any thoughts?
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Some banes deal with resources besides your hand - cultists will discard the top card of the blessing deck if you fail, and I know that there are a couple cards that will get rid of the top card of your deck. Also if you happen to come across the villain and fail to defeat it, you could lose a lot of cards from the blessing deck. You certainly have less to fear, but there are some things out there that can really hurt the whole party if you explore with nothing in your hand.
I guess the only good thing that can come out is that you won't die.
The rest is really dependent on what care is explored.
Four words: Good luck with that.
There's several reasons why exploring with no cards in hand is pretty iffy.
For example, if you encounter the Villain - sure you can't take any more damage (barring any special abilities on the Villain card) but depending on the state of the game the Villain might run away to another location. This could cause you to effectively lose several turns having to completely empty your location to close it if the Villain does not go back to the same location.
Even running into a henchman in this situation could mess up your game. Maybe you find a henchman early in a deck which normally would be great but because you can't defeat it, it gets reshuffled. Then if it ends up near the bottom of the deck, you effectively cost the team a bunch of turns by not just waiting until you had a decent hand to explore.
Also, you have no cards to help you with rolls to acquire boons either. You might miss out on something useful because your innate roll to acquire it is not that great.
Finally, there are several banes that do other things beyond just hand damage to you. Like the barrier that does damage to everyone at your location - sure *you* can't take anymore damage but if there's someone else there, they might have some cards they don't want to lose. Also there's at least one "horde" type barrier that doesn't go away unless all of the monsters are defeated. So, you could just blow off your fight but if you fail because you have no cards - everyone else still has to fight a monster and other people might need to play cards to succeed. But then since you failed, the barrier goes back in and everyone will end up having to fight something all over again if it comes up again.
I think it was H4ppy who suggested that if you are supposed to take damage and you have no cards in your hand, you bury the top card from your deck. I play that way as there should be *some* penalty, and it does make you think about what you're doing.
Penalty of playing with no cards is you have no cards.
Agree with Mike, outside of the general store? Good luck
My group was doing it wrong, but when we started playing we took any damage dealt from the deck instead of our hands. That makes exploring with no hand way too risky. It's fortunate/unfortunate we stopped doing that.
I'm not really sure why people get so crazy about this, still, like it's some huge exploit that needs to be secured/punished. At best this is one "free" explore every few turns, at the cost -- if you're someone like Lem or Harsk and actively recharging cards to effect this situation -- of never having anything in your hand to actually use. And other people in the thread have pointed out there are non-insignificant risks with a few cards. I wouldn't worry too much about cultists, but running into a villain you can't beat and losing five blessings seems like a big enough risk/reward for the occasional free shot at a boon or free scout at a bane you probably won't beat.
This is really only semi-useful in a game with fewer characters, With 6 characters, one single wasted turn can sometimes be the difference between success and failure.
No cards in hand mean you're likely to fail your encounter check, especially in the later chapters. While losing to a bane may not deal you damage in this case, its far from risk free.
* You could encounter a villain and fail, losing more turns.
* You could find a henchmen and then see him shuffled back in to the deck (possibly to the bottom), either way costing you more explores.
* You could encounter a great boon but not have any support cards to make acquiring it possible, thereby losing your chance to get it.
* There are (or could be in the future) cards that affect things other than your hand (blessing deck, your deck, decks of characters at your location, etc.). What if there was a card that said "if you fail this check, bury the decks of every character at your location."? Would you still think this is an exploit?
* If you're relying on others to play blessing for your cardless checks, you're asking them to waste valuable cards to cover your poor planning. Unless its a super important check, why should they do that?
For Harsk, the good news is that he has a good chance of making the Dex/Acro 7 check to avoid Skullripper damage coming off the top of his deck.
Sometimes you know there is a safe location for exploring when you don't have any cards. Good use for a closed General Store.
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Even Valeros with a STR buff can clubber any monster with his bare hands provided all the remaining characters use a blessing or two.
That's a pretty expensive combat check right there...and it may not even be an accurate assessment of monsters late in the adventure path. As others have stated, and for all the reasons they stated (esp. Captain B), this really isn't a recipe for success. You might get lucky with this a few times...but this will eventually come back to bite you.
Harsk is really the only character I ever try this with intentionally, because he usually knows what the top card in the deck is from his look power the previous turn. Because of this I occasionally run him down to zero cards if it is a boon I don't want or a bane that is relatively safe.
Usually though, I don't like recharging his last weapon anyway since if he doesn't draw another one when he resets his hand, it can make life difficult for future turns.
Still, sometimes if the game is getting away we need to take some risks so have to explore after a hand got exploded by explosive runes. It happens.
Wouldn't recommend it as an planned strategy though.
I think it all boils down to strategy. To explore blindly with no cards (or even a hand of "useless" cards for combat) is pretty silly unless you've found yourself in a situation where it's all-or-nothing, such as when there's only a couple turns left and your hoping for good luck. I've seen too many cards encountered that damage everyone at the location, summon something for everyone to fight, regardless or location, etc.
Now, if you know you've cleared a deck of banes, or you've examined the deck in some way and know what's coming and can handle it, then sure, go ahead.