if you have the knight skill, can you apply the knight skill ready action on yourself. For example: make an attack, move, and set a guard on self (or do you have to set the ready order on someone else?)

Gath said:

You appear to be talking about Leadership (Knight is declare a battle action, pay 2 fatigue and get three attacks and 1/2 rd up movement).
The answer for Leadership would be yes, you can apply it too yourself.

However, you can never take the same action twice with leadership, so can't (for example) give yourself two different orders.

Which is in the FAQ (another long document to read, I know ). I honestly don't like that, so we've house-ruled to play the card as-written. The hero gets 3 half actions, no limitations on what 3 he uses except that one has to be an Order. He could Move+Move+Order, or Order+Order+Order if he wants. More often than not, he does a Move+Aim+Attack, but sometimes he'll do a Aim+Attack+Aim (for another hero).

-shnar

Wow, I don't think we've seen more than 2 aimed attacks by heroes in our entire time playing descent. A guard action is almost always a better option, since it takes care of the miss problem and gives you another attack if you didn't miss. I only say "almost always" because I can;t think of any times when aiming is better, but I'm sure that some corner cases must exist.

Are you serious?!? We aim *all the time*! ESPECIALLY right after drinking a Power Potion (especially in RtL). Last thing you need is a miss after drinking a power potion.

I used to think "Why aim? Just Guard and attack twice" since Aim is before attack but Guard is after, but after playing for a while, I quickly learned that Aim really is important and useful. Even wihtout power potions, sometimes rerolling one or two dice is more useful than rerolling all the dice.

-shnar

It's not rerolling all the dice, it's doubling your damage when you don't miss and rerolling all your dice when you do. But if it works for y'all, it's cool with me.

Thanks. I really was referring to leadership. just got mixed up.

shnar said:

Corbon has convinced me that aiming is probably useful sometimes in RtL. In vanilla, a second attack is almost always better than aiming. Even if you drink a power potion, even if the enemy has Stealth, even against high-armor targets, there's just not enough variance in the dice to make a reroll that useful. For example, if you're wielding an Axe from the shop with 3 black dice, an aim doesn't help you more (on average) than a second attack until your target has at least nine armor (when your max damage is 10). That's 3 more than the highest armor of any standard monster in vanilla, and more than even most named monsters, and you'll usually have something better than shop weapons for fighting the toughest monsters. And yes, that includes the benefits of rerolling an X.

Now, yes, it matters more for weapons with a surge:damage efficiency other than 1:1, and there exist weapons that are worse than the axe, but if the monster is so tough, why would you use a weapon worse than the best weapon you're guaranteed to have access to?

This has been discussed several times and lots of math done, and the conclusion is always the same: in vanilla, aiming is an incredibly awful idea almost all the time.

Damage isn't the only thing to consider though. Surges, as you point out, and Range too.

Anyways, in RtL when you've burned all your fatigue and drank that Power Potion to do max damage to the dungeon level and are rolling all Gold Dice (when you normally only roll blacks), aim is pretty important...

-shnar

you can aim the round before opening a door and then still guard after opening

Turric4n said:

Yes, but you lose the aim if you suffer any wounds or move before using it, so it only helps you if you can make an attack from your precise position into the next area without needing to move for distance/LOSnot a trivial condition to meet. It's also conditional on the overlord not playing a door trap or spawn card that messes you up (either Paralyzing Gas to end your turn, or anything that inflicts wounds and removes the order). And even if you manage to meet all of these conditions, it saves you maybe 20% of one attack (worse if you're attaking from a bad position to avoid losing the aim order) because a reroll is just not very good in any remotely typical situation (most of that 20% is from rerolling X's).

If you've got an extra half-action before opening a door, you could also Dodge or Guard against spawns, Rest to recover fatigue, or spend your extra MP optimizing the equipment distribution between heroes or moving to get better spawn coverage. It's extraordinarily rare that you really have nothing useful to do other than Aim.

The other tiny, marginal situation where Aim is better is if there is exactly one monster left on the board, you can kill it in one hit, and it has Stealth. You get more average hits per round by battling, but you've got a slightly greater chance of at least one hit against a Stealthy monster if you Aim. But if there's a second monster you could attack if you managed to get lucky with the first hit (or if you'd like the option to Dodge/Guard/Rest after killing it), or if there's any significant chance that the monster won't be killed by the first hit, then you're better off not Aiming.

aim and spiritwalker?

however most of the time when i prepare to open the next door, i dont go in there with only 1 or 2 heroes having mp left. the spawns are blocked most of the time so no guard or dodge is needed.

it is very situational and is the least used order, but aim can still have his moments.