Can heroes use Fatigue to roll Gold Dice in the Copper Campaign? Are you restricted to the number of permanent upgrades by campaign level or does the campaign level restrict all power dice upgrades?

JD

Interesting. It's clear you can only upgrade three of your trait dice to silver and none to gold. But from the rules on p. 24 it seems to me that if you had enough fatigue, you certainly could roll 5 gold dice during the copper level.

However, I don't think you could start your attack and spend fatigue to add/upgrade power dice and then interrupt that attack to spend a MP to drink a vitality potion. I kind of remember that an 'action' must be complete before another one starts (but that could be a rule from a myriad of other games).

Even so, IMO it's usually better to add more black dice than upgrade. Only upgrade when at the max. That way, it's not an 'all-or-nothing' scenario -- sure, you're less likely to get the big surge, but you're also less likely to crap out (YMMV, I'm more risk-averse). In addition, three 1/h are better than one 3/hhh as the 1/h can be split between range and damage, but the 3/hhh has to all be used the same way.

You are allowed to spend fatigue to upgrade dice before rolling the initial attack, regardless of the campaign level. So if you normally roll a Red, Green, and 2 Black you can spend 4 fatigue to turn that into Red, Green, and 2 Gold. If you roll that and still need more damage/surges, you could spend 3 more fatigue to add a black for 1, and upgrade it twice to a gold.

In general, I would recommend bringing yourself up to four black dice with fatigue first, and then start upgrading them to silver/gold. That way you leave yourself an open space on in the dice maximum (you can still add one to the attack after rolling with fatigue) to do that little extra you might need.

Macronx said:

You are correct that you may not drink a potion in the middle of an attack. The best way to artificially boost your attack is a power potion prior to beginning the attack, then spend your fatigue during the attack.

The limits on how high dice can be upgraded per campaign level apply only to permanent upgrades. You can use fatigue to boost as many dice as you like as high as you like, provided you have enough fatigue.

It's quite easy to roll 5 gold dice in Copper with fatigue, a power potion, and a few upgrades:

4 black dice (1 die upgraded hero) drinks a power potion and spends 6 fatigue (a 4 fatigue hero +2 fatigue upgrade).

And of course there are other variations, but it's definately not impossible and happens quite often on the big baddies.

-shnar

****... that's insane!
Basically kills a lieutenant in Copper on 1 decent hit?

Hrmm, useing an Axe: 5x3 =15, red + green = another 7, so 22 Damage maximum in coppwer with copper weaps, not useing skills n +items of course.

Nope, kills none on one hit.. but now theres more than 1 hero on the table. :-p

Though i'm pretty sure i read somethign about a "maximum dice in a campaign level" limit somewhere. Will need to search around fot it though. Our group limited the maximum dice(and upgrades) to the same of the maximum training per campaign step.

Had plenty reasons: 1: i thought i read bout it somewhere. ;-) 2: it gives the dungeon level leaders a chance to survive the first blow.

I would make a personal call on it.

I played with the upgrade restrictions for each level. It is more then enough for the heroes just being able to upgrade their original dice right away. And can only agree that it is hard to get more then one black dice up to gold. But just play as you figure would be the best, everything is mostly open to interpretation... Other then the firm rules heheh

Looked again, and could find no hard ruleing on it. *blushes*

Yet i guess we'll stay with the "power trait upgrade limit2 applying to the fatiguebought powerupgrades per swing still, and be it only to prevent our OL from crying as he might when little copper Zyla would hammer his named giant to death in one blow.

Sinso said:

The rules are pretty clear.
The passage in question is on page 23.
Second, trait upgrades are limited based on the current campaign level. In a Copper campaign...

Trait upgrades are not the same as power dice upgrades. There is no limit on power dice upgrades (which come from fatigue or power potions). There are limits on trait upgrades (which come from training).

Limiting power dice upgrades would be a house rule. One that might make sense later in a campaign, but that could cripple a party early on. Some Bosses (and Lts) are so tough that the only way you can hurt them is to use a lot of upgraded dice. Once you have silver/gold weapons that becomes less of an issue unless the bosses are max upgraded as well.

And if your boss is not an upgraded type by late silver then you should expect to see it die in one blow and not whinge about it...

You're right Corbon, and my writign left me in error, i indeed could not find a RAW for a dice-upgrade-by-fatigue-limit. So it is a houserule my group uses.

And you're right too in the other point,, in late silver i expect the heroes (me with their team atm, handed the overlord to a less optimizing player), to kill a not silver named in a single blow.

Even with our houserule we should be able to, rolling 3 gold and 2 silver aint that much less power than the usual RAW, which would allow us to upgrade to the maximum of 5 gold.

The main diffrence seems to be in the copper level, where my little Zyla is now topped at 3 silver two black, by houserules, where, even in copper, i could reach 3 gold and two silver without those houserules, and probably kill any not upgraded named with an axe.

[1 black base, 5 by powerpot, 7 by fatigue, so 13 "grades" of dice total. (Found "Skilled" as initial skilldraw ].

So, we agree: in the RAW there is no official limitation.

And every group needs their own little houserules to maximize their fun with the game.

Sinso said:

Sorry, I think my point was that it is a really backward (as in around the wrong way) house rule.

It hurts the heroes most during bronze when they are weakest and least during gold when they are strongest.

It costs a hero resources to upgrade their dice (as opposed to upgrading their traits, which cost different resources) and a relatively large expenditure of resources to get a lot of dice upgrades. So what is the problem with them doing so?

Even 5 gold dice with an axe will only average about 18 damage (not including Xs) and most non-upgraded bosses (except skeletons) will survive that (albeit not by much) by the time they get their wound and armour increases. Of course, expending so many resources on a single attack probably means it will be Aimed, so it may well do more like 20 damage and kill most tier 1 bosses.
To get an amount of dice to kill even a Tier 1, un-upgraded boss in one attack means spending a Power pot and a bunch of fatigue even for the heavy hitters with good Bronze equipment.
But we digress. Thats the wrong end of the scale to be looking at.

What happens to your poor little Zyla when she comes up against a tough boss, even un-upgraded. Say a Boss Giant with +12W and +1 Armour.
With 2 silver and three black maximum dice she can at most do only 7 damage to the giant in one attack and is likely, even with that many dice upgrades to do only 4-5 damage per attack.
That's not too bad.
However make it a soaring Boss Demon where she needs a minimum 2 surges and 5 range with a magic/ranged weapon and she is likely to do a maximum of 1-2 damage per hit, if that, with a good bronze weapon. She basically can't scratch him with the house rule even if she has the resources to expend to try. Without the house rule she at least has a chance to hurt him if she expends the appropriate (large amount of) resources.
A real bugger if everyone else has attacked and the demon has just a few wounds left but she can't contribute even a little!

Still, whatever works for your group is all good.

I think it is really a disparity in game attitude.. my group seems a little unique, imagining itself stopping the farmwork and taking up fathers rusty sword to venture out and slay evil. That said attitude may however change once we did play more than two dungeons in our first campain.

I actually do think they will run home if they ever meet said demon while still being in coppergrade. And feel good and lucky if we escape with the overlord not gainign to much conquest.

Though, as i love math games, and hate "soaring":

Zyla takes down the old Shopbow she brought to hunt deers. Runs besides the demon, as the beast only ventures slowly.

The next round she aims and fires, rolling a yellow and a blue, and possibly reaching the beast, if it is reached she burns her many fatigue to reach the maximum dice.

With optimals rolls the yellow and blue brought her arrow right into the juicy demonflesh, and actually might deliver those two surges needed.

With that the remaining dice could turn to damage purely, speaking of pure luck, theres 6 damage from silver and two from black dice.. together with the shop bows piercing 1

She not only scratches the evil beast, but robs him of wooping 4 damage. Woah what a lucky shot!

And i think we'd indeed run for it. With a single demon, Mezden comes to mind, escape should be easily doable.

Apart from that i just hope there is no green overland encounter containing soearign Demons dragons or even Manticors..

Naivity of a little "Farm-"Fairy?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

We actually downed a 18 Ho 5 armor Ogre, and a standard giant so far.

Though, still, you're right, it even pronounces that already ugly powercurve even a little more. Yet, atm, we like it, and all is fine.

[silly rule question in addition: "Soar: Monsters with Fly automatically gain soar." So Zyla can't fly up and just whack the **** out of the Demon. But what bout a necromancyed Razorwing? Does eh still gain no melee attack on the demon even thoug they soar alongside of each other? ]

Heroes can never have Soar, according to the RAW (although there is nice typo in that part).

Sinso said:

No melee attack.

Soar
This ability is only used during outdoor encounters. Any figure with Soar is considered to be flying above the ground, and the range both to and from it is increased by four spaces. A soaring monster cannot normally be the target of a melee attack . However, monsters with Soar can choose to swoop down before attacking. If they do so, the extra range is negated until after the attack goes off, at which point the monster flies back up. Heroes may use interrupt attacks (even melee attacks, if in range) to attack a monster while it is swooping.
Note that all monsters with the Flying ability also automatically have the Soar ability.

Two apparently adjacent soaring monsters actual are at range 9 to each other. Both range to and from a soaring monster is increased by 4.
I call this the 'dogfighting' effect and/or the 'fragility' effect. They are either so busy dogding each other and working for position that actually hitting each other is near impossible, or they are both relatively fragile while flying high and can;t resist a melee 'collision' that could be suicidal even if it succeeds.
Really it is just a product of the simple but un-intuitive rules. I actually like this though. The image of two razorwings 'grappling' each other while maintaining their altitude doesn't add up as much for me as the image of them easily avoiding the others blows as neither can afford to overcommit and both are extremely agile in a 3D space.