RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Hi there!
Okay so you have recharging a little wrong. You can only recharge a card if the card says you can. Look at the spells for the easiest examples... if you have the Arcane skill, you can attempt an Arcane X check to recharge it after playing it.
For armors, if the card says you can recharge it to reduce damage, you don't need to do any kind of check, just recharge it and subtract that number from the damage you would take.
If a card does not have a power listed that allows you to recharge it, then you may have to discard or even bury it.
You are correct that you do not automatically take damage when you fail against a barrier, unlike a monster. Normally barriers will have their own specific consequences listed as "if undefeated".
Hope this helps!
Tyler
Each paragraph on a card is a separate power. If the card says "Reveal this card to reduce combat damage to you by 1, or bury this card to reduce all damage dealt to you to 0." and then another paragraph says "At the end of your turn, if you are proficient with light armors you may recharge this card when you reset your hand." then they are two different abilities. If you bury the armor to reduce all damage to 0, the card is buried at that point. It is no longer in your hand to recharge at the end of your turn. Unless otherwise specified, whenever you are instructed to reveal, display, recharge, discard, bury, or banish a card that card must come from your hand. If it isn't in your hand, you cannot do those things to that card absent some power that specifically states otherwise.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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In general, recharging cards is a desirable and good thing. Most characters function well when their hand is in constant flow - it lets you get at your best cards more often. The reason magic armors allow a recharge at hand reset is to help enable this flow - you are losing the protection of the armor, but you get to replace it with a different card.
There are, however, times when you don't want to recharge things. Some powers let you fish around in your discard pile, so keeping a selection of things to retrieve is helpful.
Most armors do three basic things:
reveal or recharge for a small amount of damage mitigation
banish or bury to reduce damage to 0
sometimes, are able to recharge at hand reset
You can't do any of these things if the armor isn't in your hand. So if you bury, banish, or discard the armor you can't recharge it. Unless another power contradicts that - there are powers that mess with most basic rules.
OP, for your barrier question. Normally you don't take damage from failing a check against a barrier directly, but many barriers have game text that deals damage if the barrier is undefeated.
Theoretically, you could have a barrier with no text at all that would simply shuffle back into the deck if undefeated, wasting your explore. That would be kind of boring and a little confusing so I doubt we'll ever see such a barrier.
Each paragraph on a card is a separate power. If the card says "Reveal this card to reduce combat damage to you by 1, or bury this card to reduce all damage dealt to you to 0." and then another paragraph says "At the end of your turn, if you are proficient with light armors you may recharge this card when you reset your hand." then they are two different abilities. If you bury the armor to reduce all damage to 0, the card is buried at that point. It is no longer in your hand to recharge at the end of your turn. Unless otherwise specified, whenever you are instructed to reveal, display, recharge, discard, bury, or banish a card that card must come from your hand. If it isn't in your hand, you cannot do those things to that card absent some power that specifically states otherwise.
That being said, there is occasionally a power in separate paragraph on some cards like spells that lets you change what happens to a card you're about to discard. The paragraph on spell cards that says "After playing this card..." usually forces you to banish the card (if your character is not a spellcaster of an appropriate type) or gives you a chance to recharge the card (if s/he is). Some items with the Magic trait do this too.
Each paragraph on a card is a separate power. If the card says "Reveal this card to reduce combat damage to you by 1, or bury this card to reduce all damage dealt to you to 0." and then another paragraph says "At the end of your turn, if you are proficient with light armors you may recharge this card when you reset your hand." then they are two different abilities. If you bury the armor to reduce all damage to 0, the card is buried at that point. It is no longer in your hand to recharge at the end of your turn. Unless otherwise specified, whenever you are instructed to reveal, display, recharge, discard, bury, or banish a card that card must come from your hand. If it isn't in your hand, you cannot do those things to that card absent some power that specifically states otherwise.That being said, there is occasionally a power in separate paragraph on some cards like spells that lets you change what happens to a card you're about to discard. The paragraph on spell cards that says "After playing this card..." usually forces you to banish the card (if your character is not a spellcaster of an appropriate type) or gives you a chance to recharge the card (if s/he is). Some items with the Magic trait do this too.
Correct, what I said above wasn't quite right. The full rule from the rulebook is below, to alleviate any confusion:
Each power on a card is presented as a complete paragraph. When a card has multiple powers, you must choose one of them, and you must do everything that power says when possible. If a power says it may be used when something happens, you may use it every time that happens. Otherwise, a specific card’s power may only be used once per check or step. (Any paragraph in the power section of a boon that doesn’t involve playing the card for a particular effect is not itself a power—it’s a mandatory action you must take when you play the card.)
Theoretically, you could have a barrier with no text at all that would simply shuffle back into the deck if undefeated, wasting your explore. That would be kind of boring and a little confusing so I doubt we'll ever see such a barrier.
True, there are no barriers that are just blank. But there are barriers that have no specific penalty when undefeated, eg. Monster in the Closet.
Also, we haven't seen a monster with no text.