if a troll were to have dark power (monster rolls all 5 power dice on attack) cast on it, would it still miss on a blank? Because you aren't technically using the bash power...

You answered the question yourself. You are NOT using the Bash ability. Therefore, you dont suffer the bad side of the ability.

Paul Grogan said:

I'm not too sure about that. Trolls have Bash. They can't turn it off AFAICT*. They can choose how many black dice they roll but even if they choose zero, the Bash is still in operation. Getting black dice from elsewhere doesn't change this. Bash is still 'operational' - you can still choose to 'turn down' some of those black dice, but whether you do or not, any black dice roll a blank and the attack misses.

*I can't find anything that enables any figure to turn any ability 'off'. Some abilities are situational choices, such as making a Leap Attack (which specifically says ' may make a leap attack') but all abilities are always 'on'.

Corbon said:

That's really interesting. I went and looked as well and can't find anything that says you have a choice, only that you can choose to not use any power dice or vary the amount.

That being said, one could make an argument that it is optional based on the ruling that Blast and Breath attack are optional. Granted Bash is not an AoE, but previous to the FAQ clarification the way the rules were written do not allow for the attacker to not use the ability. I'm not advocating one or the other really, but I think its something that should be discussed.

I think it would be reasonable to allow it to not bash. But if it doesn't then you can't use the 2 surges = +5 damage ability, which is part of bash. So it really doesn't matter.

Big Remy said:

Ahh, Blast and Breath, I knew I was missing something.

However, it would be a really weak case for allowing not-Bash. "These other 2 abilities have a specific exemption that allows them to be 'turned off'. Therefore I can turn off any ability that I want to." Not!
In fact, the fact that breath and blast now have specific exemptions is a stronger argument for Bash not being allowed to be turned off. Obviousl;y, the rule is you can't turn off abilities - except for specific exemptions.

Corbon said:

Fair enough. And I guess the fact that with Bash you actually get to choose how many black dice you want to roll might also be an indicator that its on all the time. Chances of missing a Bash with only rolling 1 black die are fairly low, and gets higher as the dice increase.

Actually, I think you are right. I just went and looked at the dice progression in RtL for Trolls, and the always have listed on their card a Red, with some combo of Green and Yellow but never any Power Dice. If they were meant to be able to have a normal attack, one would think they would have some power dice listed.

So I guess you do always have to use Bash, its the varying amount of Power/Black dice that determines the low to high risk of the attack.

Is it specifically indicated somewhere that the dice are always black dice? My heroes thought it only made sense with two dooms in play to allow two upgrades - ie. one gold + 4 black or two silvers + 3 blacks or whatever. After all, I'm not certain that there is any order stated for when the upgrades are applied, and if I choose to just roll one power die with bash, we thought it made sense to apply the two upgrades to that die...

pinkymadigan said:

It got put into the latest FAQ:

Bash : Bash always rolls black power dice. These may not be upgraded in any way.

So much to remember. I always miss something.