So this is a question I've analyzed the rulebook and multiple message boards for, but can't find an absolute answer.
From Wrath of Righteous rules,
Weapons and many other cards that can be used during combat generally tell you what skill to use when you attempt a combat check; if you aren’t playing one of those cards, you must use your Strength or Melee skill.
Because most of our combat cards (weapons and spells) say "Your check", which I understand is the hard and fast rule, we aren't allowed to use them on our friend's check. Most forum post talking about this emphasis the "Your check" part, making it seem like:
A. The assisting player is intending to use the weapon themselves, as opposed to lending it to a friend, indicating that they are intending to assist allies in the same location.
B. Despite not being able to use weapons, due to "Your check" being stated, you are still able to assist in a combat check with via your default melee or strength.
This is driving me nuts on figuring this out because so many people online are contradicting each other. In my own research, the only things I've found in the rule book that are remotely related are these two rules:
No One Else Can Take Your Turn for You. Whenever you encounter a card or make a check, you—and only you—must resolve it. No other character can evade it, defeat it, acquire it, close it, decide what to do with it, or fail at doing any of those things... If Seelah encounters a Cambion, Alain can’t attempt the check to defeat it.
This is an important golden rule of the game, but my issue comes from the fact it's an assist. Only the initializer can play cards that say "Your Check" and is the only player that will take damage from losing. That makes sense; an assisting player isn't taking the turn for them.
"Weapons and many other cards that can be used during combat generally tell you what skill to use when you attempt a combat check;"
This is the only thing I'm finding about combat checks. It indicates to me that there isn't anything special I'm missing in the rule book that states combat check has different properties than any other check, such as concepts like assisting.
Additionally the concept behind "Ranged Assist Weapons" adds more to my confusion; If it turns out archers are the only ones that can assist in combat, and they can assist while in the same building or on the opposite side of the map, why can't other combatants assist when they are in the same building? It seems like they have the "at any location" ability to make them more "ranged".
Please, anyone, help me lay this to rest.
I don't understand your question. Assist how?
Currently, if you are not the person that encountered, you can only make one check to defeat if the monster has two. The original player must still make one.
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Some melee characters, like Valeros, help characters at their location. You cannot add to someone else's check without a power to do so.
You can't assist another character making any kind of check unless a power (on your character card or a card you are playing) says you can.
So, as you've realized, many of the ranged weapons say they can add to combat checks attempted at other locations.
A Longsowrd, for example, has no such power to assist anyone.
Likewise, if your character doesn't have a power that says you can add to someone else's to a check, you just can't add to a check.
So, if Enora encounters a monster, Crowe can't just through his Strength or Melee skill into the mix. He'd need a card that said "add your Strength or Melee skill to a combat check attempted by another character at your location."
There are many other ways to assist with checks. Blessings are generally pretty versatile, not caring about the location of the character attempting a check and often adding 1 die regardless of the type of check.
Similarly, there are some allies that you can play to add to check. The Grizzled Mercenary, for example, can add to Combat checks at your location.
Some weapons, like the Allying Dart +1, can also help with combat checks at your location.
But you have to have a card that says you can help.
No you can't because it's nowhere written you can.
And for one additional obvious reason : because it's written nowhere that you can ADD or MODIFY anything to someone else check, there is no way you could decide how to "assist" anyway.
Major rule from Not-this-Mike : never assume things. if it's not written, it's not.
So my group experienced the following stages of incorrect play:
1.Using weapons to assist locally, and using range weapons from anywhere which included spells. (I was not a part of the group and the person who ran this group was kind of an idiot)
2. Using weapons and spells to assist locally, but using ranged weapons properly.
3. Not using weapons, but using our "punch" (melee/strength) to assist locally.
My group has played "Stage 1" style for so long, that assisting was ingrained in our system, and the lack of specific clarification in the rules sold this idea to us that we just couldn't find it in the rules.
So, I'm kind of curious, are you just supposed to lose a lot of fights? Because, if we didn't play with assisting, I think we would have multiple dead characters in the first 2 missions. I believe we've been playing properly, where you have to use blessing, discard weapon abilities, and other dice buffs before you roll.
Also, thematically and balance-wise, why doesn't assisting in combat exist without a convoluted ability?
Thematically, the only situation that it doesn't make sense is "assisting when everyone receives an enemy to fight." Otherwise, I don't think the characters are "too busy exploring the location" to not help them intervene in a brawl, while "Mr. Sniper McDwarf" can snipe the dude from an underground cave.
Balance-wise, grouping up to assist doesn't seem overpowered, because it absolutely makes sense to split up. The central mechanic of "cornering the villain" favors teams that are covering more ground to temp-close more locations. There are benefits for characters to go to areas they specialize in, such as to receive specific boons or succeed at close checks; a character that isn't specialized will waste boons and turns, especially if they fail the "after henchmen kill" close check. The benefit of "closing an area faster" from having multiple characters in the same area isn't the best benefit under normal circumstances. Also, there are more cards that cause damage and summon monsters for everyone in the location, than there are cards that give everyone boons. With only a few "at your location" abilities, the game easily favors teams that split up, meaning the trade-off is already there.
I'm not here to argue to the developers about it; they will always have more experience than 99% of the people that play the game. However, I would like to know if there is a fatal flaw in my thought process that made be believe assisting was a rule.
The fatal flaw in your thought process is that there is a difference between a power that determines the type of check and a power that affects a check. You can only do the latter if it is not your check. Most weapons only do the former.
Here's an old post by me that explains the steps of a check in more detail. The only time you can help out on someone else's check is in step 3: Play cards and use powers that affect the check. If you still have questions after reading through that, please let us know and I'm sure someone will be happy to help explain it in further detail :)
(Note: that post is slightly wrong when it's talking about traits; in the Kyra and Shamira example her Divine skill is not replacing the fact the check is Charisma, so the check would still have the Charisma trait -- this is because the power does not use the word "instead" to indicate replacement. It's a minor detail and unrelated to your confusion, but I wanted to bring it up so you know it's incorrect.).
Mike Selinker talks about bringing in assumptions from other types of games into this game; he's talking about Merisiel's power when alone, which we shorten to Sneak Attack but isn't labeled as such in the card game. I bring up this post because you used the word "thematically", which can mean anything you want it to mean. I could have entirely different assumptions about what is "supposed" to happen than you, but this isn't an RPG; so if theme contradicts rules, the rules win out.
Also, thematically and balance-wise, why doesn't assisting in combat exist without a convoluted ability?
There's a lot of people on this forum who have been able to win without this "assisting" ability, so I think there's a gap here.
I wonder why you're losing a lot of fights; which Adventure Path are you playing, Rise of the Runelords, Skulls and Shackles or Wrath of the Righteous?
Also, what are you normally encountering (like, non-villains and henchmen) that's giving you so much trouble that you have to resort to multiple blessings, items and other enhancements per fight? Which characters are you using?
It's hard to pinpoint your issue without more information, I think.
So, I'm kind of curious, are you just supposed to lose a lot of fights? Because, if we didn't play with assisting, I think we would have multiple dead characters in the first 2 missions. I believe we've been playing properly, where you have to use blessing, discard weapon abilities, and other dice buffs before you roll.
No, you should be winning the majority of your fights. Consider a character with a d10 Strength and the Melee: Strength +2 skill (d10+2 is the most common array; d8+3 and d12+1 are mathematically equivalent) using a longsword, which is a basic weapon any character with weapons can start with.
The average combat difficulty for a base set monster from the Skull and Shackles set (S&S is in the middle between RotR and WotR in terms of combat check difficulties) is 9.72. So for a typical combat check, our generic melee character wielding a longsword would need to roll a 10 or greater on 1d10+1d8+2, which has a probability of 59/80, or 73.75%.
That you say you feel your group would lose most of your fights without expending additional resources and needing to get the "assistance" from other characters makes me think your group is doing something fundamentally wrong when it comes to combat checks, either by incorrectly increasing the difficulty of checks or not including all your dice and static modifiers.
The fatal flaw in your thought process is that there is a difference between a power that determines the type of check and a power that affects a check. You can only do the latter if it is not your check. Most weapons only do the former.What? This sounds wrong. Very wrong. Like you could not use powers that affect your own check. And instead of type you meant skill since a few powers that affect a check add traits to a check and therefore influence the type.
The wording was perhaps a bit wonky. I was trying to say if it is not your check, you cannot play any cards that determine the skill you're using (because it's not your check) -- aka most weapons. You can therefore only play cards and use powers that affect the check in other ways, such as blessings. The linked post is accurate outside of the one note I made to the best of my knowledge.
Sorry cowfish but what exactly do you mean by "assist"?
What you can do to help your fellow players is:
Use specific powers which say things like "add ... to a check", or "add ... to a check at your location" if you're at the same location and so on. The most common case being blessings. Note that when you use a blessing you add one more of the dice the person making the check is using, the skills of the person who owns the blessing don't matter.
What you can't do is:
Add your own strength, melee, dexterity or any other skill to someone else's check just because you're at the same location.
The first is enough to pass checks with high probability most of the time.
In general, being at the same location or not matters only at times when a power makes specific reference to whether or not you're at the same location.
It actually sounds like you've joined a group whose understanding of the rules is so far from correct that it's hard to disprove, since the rules just say what you can do, they can't be expected to specify everything you can't.
We actually played today, this time correctly. We have bad luck, but we mostly did better today.
As the half-orc inquisitor, my first roll: I had no weapon and was up against a corrupted soldier. I mitigated the lack of weapon with my 1d4 ability through recharging a divine, that 1d4 book against henchmen, and a 1d4 from a caravan guard. I rolled a 3/10, a 2/4, a 1/4, and a 2/4 giving me 8. All 4 dice rolled below their middle threshold. There's so much room for failure.
That was the worst of my experiences that day, though it was worse the day before. Us playing it wrong prevented some of our characters from dying. Our teammates assisting combat checks prevented our bad rolls from outright killing some of us, because apparently you have to explore. Even when we did assist each other, this way, we still had times where we lose battles.
My point is, that it didn't feel wrong or imbalanced that our friends assisting us. I don't think of extra dice as ways to get extremely powerful hits, but as a way to prevent things from going extremely wrong. We are thinking about house ruling it, but I personally would rather limit our assist to d4s for all characters.
Hi cowfish,
Don't misunderstand us : there are ways to assist others, but it's limited to those cards/powers that clearly say it's meant to be.
The most usual way to assist others is to play a Blessing.
Or to play spells like "Strength" or "Black Spot".
Or to play for example a ranged weapon that clearly say something like "discard to add dX to a combat check at another location"
But
A) you cannot help if your are not playing a card or a specific power on your character that says you can help
B) 90% of weapons and I guess 100% of attack spells cannot be played to help another character's combat
C) You are still limited to one card per type when helping (so you could play 1 blessing + 1 Strength spell to help but not 2 blessings unless something in a power gives you an exception to the main rule).
Just to clarify something.
...because apparently you have to explore...
That isn't accurate. You don't HAVE to explore. You MAY explore. (At least, 99.999999% of the time if you aren't Ranazk.) So, on your turn, the rules say that during your explore step you MAY explore. But they don't say you MUST explore. So, unless some card is in play that makes it a MUST, you can choose to simply not explore.
Also, while making assisting easier now might not seem too powerful, later on it will. It sounds like you are playing Wrath of the Righteous. Those first few scenarios are tough. See this blog post for more on that. But later one, when you've gotten other ways to assist or boost your own checks, any house-ruled assistance is going to make things very easy.
If you are thinking you might be playing wrong, I'd suggest looking for some of the videos on youtube of people playing. I'm not guaranteeing they are 100% correct, but they do at least help you see how others play and notice if you are missing something.
Cowfish,
What is your group consist of? What characters are you playing with and how many?
...You MAY explore. (At least, 99.999999% of the time if you aren't Ranzak.)...
Or Alahazar :-)
As the half-orc inquisitor, my first roll: I had no weapon and was up against a corrupted soldier. I mitigated the lack of weapon with my 1d4 ability through recharging a divine, that 1d4 book against henchmen, and a 1d4 from a caravan guard. I rolled a 3/10, a 2/4, a 1/4, and a 2/4 giving me 8. All 4 dice rolled below their middle threshold. There's so much room for failure.
Well, there's two things here:
You seem to imply that you started your turn at the Guardpost (otherwise you wouldn't start by facing a Corrupted Soldier), and that you started Imrijka by having no Weapon in her hand.
You don't have to start your turn at the Guardpost, which would make you fight a Corrupted Soldier. The location only triggers at the start of the turn, which means you can start your first turn somewhere else and move over there and explore during your first turn.
The second thing is that Imrijka has the Favored Card Type of Weapon or Blessing. You seem to imply that Imrijka didn't have a weapon in her opening hand. From the rulebook, page 7:
Each character card includes a hand size for that character. Draw that number of cards from your character deck. The character card also lists a favored card type; if more than one is listed, choose 1 type before drawing. If you didn’t draw at least 1 card of that type, discard that hand and draw again, repeating as needed until your hand contains at least 1 card of the specified type. If you discard enough cards that you can’t draw up to your full hand size, draw all the remaining cards, then shuffle your discard pile into your deck and draw the rest of your hand. Once you have a full hand that includes your favored card type, shuffle any discarded cards back into your character deck.
If you wanted to, you can guarantee that Imrijka starts with a weapon in her hand. Did you use the Favored Card Type rule?
Also, hawkmoon linked the post that has an FAQ that makes your life a bit easier, and you can use those houserules for your group.