So, I received my Shadow of Nerekhall today, and we decided to begin a campaign with it. As luck would have it, one of the Shop II items that became available to the heroes was the Golden Mask.

The Golden Mask costs 75 gold, is a trinket with the trait Helmet, and states the following:

Each time you perform an attack, all X results are treated as blank results. Limit 1 Helmet equipped at a time.

Now, this particular playing group is pretty easy going, but we did end up with a spirited (not heated) debate about this.

I would read this to mean that if you have this item equipped, this hero can basically never miss with any of his/her attacks. The power die that has the X is simply considered blank - in other words, it has no hearts and no surges.

Granted, depending on what other dice you roll, having one die be a complete blank is not necessarily great, but to have to spend only 75 gold to effectively never miss on any attack is pretty **** powerful.

Just curious if others would interpret this in any other way.

Never miss a close combat. A miss for lack of range still would be possible.

Never miss a close combat. A miss for lack of range still would be possible.

True ... in this particular case it is being used by a Hero who is employing melee weapons, and has reach. Its pretty ugly for the Overlord (me). Lol

Just out of curiosity, what other way could you possibly read it?

Already made it to the second act? Using shop 2 items?

Already made it to the second act? Using shop 2 items?

We have a very sick group of individuals ... been playing the game for 38 straight hours now ...

Just out of curiosity, what other way could you possibly read it?

Well, for one, it does say that all X results are blank results. One member took the position that you could interpret this to mean that the complete roll (all dice included) are to be considered blank, so that the net effect would be no hearts and no surges for all dice. Then, the only damage you could do, or conditions, or, etc. would depend on what your other items and/or class cards could provide. Basically, it wouldn't be a miss, but the dice themselves would do nothing.

There were some other more creative interpretations, none of which I would agree with, but it my stupor at the moment (too many straight hours of playing), I can't seem to recall.

I think you can easily overcome that interpretation by pointing out that it doesn't make a lick of sense, and nothing on the card even vaguely suggests it :-)

Yeah it's like a less powerful version of the new Skirmisher ability. You can't miss but you do slightly less damage if you roll the X. I'm not sure if it's worth it compared to other trinkets (like ones that boost movement, stamina, or stats) since you can only have two but it seems pretty good. What makes the Skirmisher one so great is the increased chance for a surge on top of the inability to miss.

I was more amused by the fact that my group has had a house rule to this effect for months now. We feel like rolling the X makes the game less fun for everyone, so we just treat an X result as 0 hearts, 0 surges, and 0 range.

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I really, really, REALLY like that, zbmott. Do you require melee attacks to roll at least 1 range?

I really, really, REALLY like that, zbmott. Do you require melee attacks to roll at least 1 range?

FYI: Semi-Official response from FFG is that all Melee attacks (I'm assuming even with Reach) require 0 range (even though it's not anywhere in the rulebook or FAQ/Errata)