The Solbiter relic. When you get two surges it says that you "duble the damage dealt by this attack" What happens when you get 4 or more surges ?

Playing a game now and really need an answer !!!

Good question, I do not know. I also run into problems with "stacking" the effects brought about by surges on the item cards....like if eac surge is a peirce of 4, so 4 surges is a peirce of 16? and if the cards say "Pierce 4" on it already, it would realy have a peirce of 20?

as an Overlord, i would say you only get to use that power once, not 2 or three times per attack....how does that sound?

Hawknight said:

Yes it would.

I believe you can stack soulbiter's ability multiple times.

It can be seen from three points of view:

1- Each two surges you get a x2 bonus, so 2 surges x2 damage, 4 surges x4 damage, 6 surges X6 damage, etc., mathematically: total damage = D*S (if S<=2 then total damage= D)

2- Each two surges you double the damage recursively, so 2 surges x2, 4 surges x4, 3 surges x8, etc., mathematically: total damage= D*(2^(S/2) )

3- Each two surges you add the base damage, so, 2 surges x2, 4 surges x3, 6 surges x4, etc., mathematically: total damage= D*(S+2)/2

I think that second option is excesive as it's potential and not linear. On the other hand the first has a little improvement in the increment (+2/2surges in spite of +1 initially) as you get 4 or more surges and the third option has the same increment (+1/2surges) for 2,4,6, etc. surges. Get as you wish. XD.

Yes you can stack habilities multiple times paying the cost, of course

Relics are most powerful items in the game. So you can use all it's abilities as normal items.

I agree with nr 1. We are playing with that now and it works well.

Well, I was trying to copy a quote from the FAQ, but this forum apparently cannot handle that without corrupting the post and scattering my input across all creation, so I'll merely tell you that the FAQ says that weapon abilities that require you to spend surges are designed to stack, and you can look it up if you want.

As written, if you can roll 6 surges with the Soulbiter, you deal 8x damage (three doublings). You can argue that they actually intended something more restricted, and I'm generally the first to admit that the Descent authors are really bad at careful wording of their rules, but in this case there's so little text that I can't find even a hint of another intention, so anything else you use is really just an arbitrary house rule. And considering that the magic artifact weapon causes instant death with 3 surges, you can't even argue that an exponential increase in damage is too powerful, because precedent says they're willing to take damage to infinity with fewer surges than it takes to get into questionable behavior with the Soulbiter. So I'd ust let it stand.

This makes sense, I will tell my heores you simply add the damage over again, using method 3 described by Tedenant when we finally get to a quest using soulbiter that is....

The one and only said:

All things considered, you're dealing enough damage with one doubling to pretty much not have to worry about the stacking rule. However, I would go with this reading:

An attack is specifically the number of wounds rolled on the dice, plus any extra damage given by abilities and skills. Therefore, I would not double a doubled attack (four surges = x4, six surges = x8) but would rather add an additional total for each pair of surges rollled (two surges = x2, four surges = x3, six surges = x4). Looking only at the post and not at the card, this makes the most sense to me, an avid OVERLORD. I would not let a hero do x8 damage with one hit, and would do everything possible to cancel the x2.

we finished the quest now and the Heros were allowed to stack the surges and double the base wound each time. This worked out fine, after all it is a relic.

The one and only said:

If that is the quest from the base game, the surge-spending ability isn't even available until all the seals have been activated, and Soulbiter inflicts wounds equal to 1/4 the max (not current) health of whoever is carrying Soulbiter every turn that said character does not kill an enemy with Soulbiter.

Doubling the damage for every two surges seems perfectly legitimate for a relic with such drawbacks. Furthermore since the card says that you may spend two surges to "duble[sic] the damage dealt by this attack ", I don't see how it can be legitimately viewed in any other way:

Damage / Surges Spent

5 / 0

Spend two surges to "duble[sic] the damage dealt by this attack"

10 / 2

Spend two surges to "duble[sic] the damage dealt by this attack"

The one and only said:

Double the damage (2x damage). Then double the damage (4x damage). Then (6 surges) double the damage (8x damage). Then...

The one and only said:

It stacks.

2 surges -> x2 damage
4 surges -> 2x2 = x4 damage
6 surges -> 2^3 = 2x2x2 = x8 damage

It gets pretty wild there forward. I mean like monsters explode into small bits kinda wild.