Attack Die

By quartersmostly, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

When an ability or skill refers to re-rolling an attack die , Battle Vision for example, does that only refer to the blue die or any dice in the attack pool?

Battle Vision: Each hero within two spaces of he hero with the insight token may suffer 2 fatigue to reroll 1 attack die once on each attack.

The attack pool consists of attack dice (blue dice) and power dice (red, yellow and/or green dice). Battle Vision only allows you to reroll one attack (blue) die, not any dice.

I have always assumed the blue die is the only attack die in the game, the others are power dice (red, yellow and green); however, then I read Tetherys' Ability and Feat and get more confused hahahaha

I mean, either her Ability and Feat are wrongly written, or the conceptualization of attack dice is wrong, causing more interpretation problems.

Why would an attack die (or dice, as her ability says) be added after declaring the target? Shouldn't it say: " If any power dice are added... "?

Or even more confusing, her feat says "Use after you roll attack dice to choose..." Does this means you should roll then 3 different attacks (blue die) for every target? Note it doesn't say:" 1 attack roll is made... " as Leoric of the Book's Feat says.

Just saying, I'm not pretending to answer your question, but to add more to it hehehe :ph34r: I'll wait and see the comunity's opinion on this one ^_^

Edited by Volkren

In the base game rules under the attack subheading it states

1. Declare Weapon and Target: The attacking players chooses which of his equipped weapons to use for this attack and declares the target of the attack (a space containing an enemy figure). The player then complies his attack dice into a pool.

This makes it sound like all dice rolled for an attack are attack dice.

Also Battle Vision allows you to specifically reroll one attack die. If it was only intend for the blue die when do you ever roll more than one?

This is a fine example of misleading text in Descent. For me, all of them are attack dices, with specific names. And the text of the skill says: reroll 1 attack die (you always roll one blue die, I not remember other case when you roll more than one blue die). And why the skill description not says: reroll THE attack die ?

Edited by kraisto

This is a fine example of misleading text in Descent. For me, all of them are attack dices, with specefic names. And the text of the skill says: reroll 1 attack die (you always roll one blue die, I not remember other case when you roll more than one blue die). And why the skill description not says: reroll THE attack die ?

I know rigth, it doesn't make sense to talk about "attack dice " you always roll 1. Otherwise Widow Tarha's Ability wouldn't differenciate between Attack and Power dice.

I have always played that Battle Vision only allows you to reroll the blue die, nothing more.

What bugs me about Tetherys' abilities is that she is from an expansion and Tarha is from the base game. The conceptualization of "attack and power" dice was already conceive. Nevertheless, I haven't found any big problem with that, I was just curious of what others think about it.

In the base game rules under the attack subheading it states

1. Declare Weapon and Target: The attacking players chooses which of his equipped weapons to use for this attack and declares the target of the attack (a space containing an enemy figure). The player then complies his attack dice into a pool.

This makes it sound like all dice rolled for an attack are attack dice.

Also Battle Vision allows you to specifically reroll one attack die. If it was only intend for the blue die when do you ever roll more than one?

Now that I read this carefully, Does this mean then that Tetherys rolls her attack die, even before declaring the weapon she is using for the attack?

Sorry to divert the topic :unsure: , if you want me to create another post I can do it without a problem, I just think these questions are corelated.

Tetherys is another good example so I think it fits the topic.

With Tetherys my interpretation would be that you chose your weapon and roll all the dice that go with that weapon. Then select a target. If the target allows you to roll additional dice you then roll those. With that interpretation I would also allow the Battle Vision skill to reroll any die in the attack pool not just the "attack die".

The way I see it (and I may be totally wrong):

Descent is an ever expanding board game with new expansions coming out all the time, and the base game rules were constructed with this in mind. They deliberately worded a lot of rules vaguely, so that they would have the freedom to expand.

Take Widow Tarha's ability. They could have worded it "you may reroll one blue/red/yellow die" which might have been more exact, but they didn't. They chose the vague "attack/power die" expression, and this way when they had the freedom of introducing the green power die in the expansions without having to errata Tarha.

I have a feeling that they were planning to introduce a new type of attack die (high damage but with 2 misses would be my guess), but that plan either got scrapped or got pushed into the future, and that's why they originally chose to differentiate between attack dice and power dice rather than reffering to them by color.

At least that's my two cents.

Edited by Winnetou19

In the base game rules under the attack subheading it states

1. Declare Weapon and Target: The attacking players chooses which of his equipped weapons to use for this attack and declares the target of the attack (a space containing an enemy figure). The player then complies his attack dice into a pool.

Umm, are you sure this is from the latest version of the rules? This is what I found:

"The attacking player creates his ATTACK POOL by gathering all the dice listed on his equipped weapon or Monster card, and then rolls them for his attack roll. If an ability allows a player to add dice to this pool, he must do so before the roll."

So to me:

Attack dice + power dice = attack pool

Yellow/red/green dice are part of the attack pool, but are not attack dice (as strange as that sounds)

I got it off the most recent version of the rules that you can download on this site. Page 9 second column about a third of the way down.

Tetherys is another good example so I think it fits the topic.

With Tetherys my interpretation would be that you chose your weapon and roll all the dice that go with that weapon. Then select a target. If the target allows you to roll additional dice you then roll those. With that interpretation I would also allow the Battle Vision skill to reroll any die in the attack pool not just the "attack die".

From your keeper of the rules Zaltyre:

"So, her hero ability is basically to preview her attack roll before choosing her target. This works best with ranged weapons, where she might be able to pull off a long shot, but might not- she can choose AFTER seeing how much range she's rolled whether she is shooting at the close target, or the far one.

There are skills (like the apothecary's "inky substance") that allow a hero to add an extra die to their attack roll before rolling dice (in the case of "inky substance" it's a green die.) Tetherys would roll her regular blue yellow (or whatever,) then pick her target, then if "inky substance" gets exhausted, she would roll the green at the same time the defender rolls, and add the green results to whatever she rolled on her blue yellow- then complete the attack as normal."

For Battle Vision, I really dont know how to interprete.

I got it off the most recent version of the rules that you can download on this site. Page 9 second column about a third of the way down.

Thanks, I found it.

What I quoted was from page 12, second column. The two seem to contradict each other. Weird.

I'm not sure they contradict each other. The part you quote just says gather the dice. It doesn't make a distinction between attack dice and power dice.

I'm not sure they contradict each other. The part you quote just says gather the dice. It doesn't make a distinction between attack dice and power dice.

But there is certainly a distinction:

"There are three different types of dice in the game: attack dice, power dice, and defense dice. Some types of dice come in different varieties (such as red and yellow power dice). Usually these dice are mixed and rolled together as a single pool of dice." p. 11, top of the second column.

Just above the part you qoute:

"Each step is detailed in a later section (see “Combat” on page 12):"

To me this means p.12 overrides p.9, which was just lazy/deliberitaly inexplicit wording on FFG's part.

Edited by Winnetou19

So if that is the case would your rule that Tetherys would only roll the blue die before declaring the target of her attack? I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong just challenging it because I don't feel either is clearly the right answer.

Come save us Zaltyre!

No, I'd say that you roll your attack pool, which may consist of attack and/or power dice, if that makes any sense. (the more we speak about it, the less sure I am about everything)

To make things clear, I'm not saying that this interpretation is correct by any means.

I'm waiting for Zaltyre too... ;)

No, I'd say that you roll your attack pool, which may consist of attack and/or power dice, if that makes any sense. (the more we speak about it, the less sure I am about everything)

To make things clear, I'm not saying that this interpretation is correct by any means.

I'm waiting for Zaltyre too... ;)

The "attack die" is very definitely just the blue die. The "attack pool" is the attack die and any/all power dice (red, yellow, green) you roll during the attack. There are many abilities (Victory Foretold, Inky Substance, Secret Formula, Feral Frenzy, Savagery, etc) which add dice to the attack pool before or after rolling dice. There are no abilities which add additional attack die*.

Tetherys' card is wrong (written incorrectly). I'm going to submit an official rules question and request that her hero ability be added to the errata in the next FAQ update.

The way I read it (and the way I've played it most recently, Tetherys makes a sick bounty hunter) is that Tetherys rolls her entire attack pool, then chooses her target. Then she has an ordinary roll dice step (but only rolls or rerolls based on other abilities that trigger at that time) and proceeds with her attack as normal. That is, I've gone ahead and replaced both instances of "attack dice" with "attack pool". Those terms are not interchangeable, but the current written form doesn't make any kind of sense to me (the first instance of "attack dice" has the wrong form of dice to be singular, and the second makes no sense at all).

*There IS a special quest rule in one of my Legacy of Timmorran quests which has a goblin rolling multiple blue die, but I don't think that really counts.

Edited by Zaltyre

In the base game rules under the attack subheading it states

1. Declare Weapon and Target: The attacking players chooses which of his equipped weapons to use for this attack and declares the target of the attack (a space containing an enemy figure). The player then complies his attack dice into a pool.

So is the section from the rules also poorly written? Should it say complies his attack and power dice into a pool?

In the base game rules under the attack subheading it states

1. Declare Weapon and Target: The attacking players chooses which of his equipped weapons to use for this attack and declares the target of the attack (a space containing an enemy figure). The player then complies his attack dice into a pool.

So is the section from the rules also poorly written? Should it say complies his attack and power dice into a pool?

I would say so, yes. Let me do a little research and get back to you.

We need better faq/errata asap .... :angry:

Tetherys' card is wrong (written incorrectly). I'm going to submit an official rules question and request that her hero ability be added to the errata in the next FAQ update.

Yeah, I though the same, I mean, it does not create a huge problem (not a huge one at least for me), but, I don't know, it bugs me that they made a huge mistake with her and didn't even notice.

The way I read it (and the way I've played it most recently, Tetherys makes a sick bounty hunter) is that Tetherys rolls her entire attack pool, then chooses her target. Then she has an ordinary roll dice step (but only rolls or rerolls based on other abilities that trigger at that time) and proceeds with her attack as normal. That is, I've gone ahead and replaced both instances of "attack dice" with "attack pool". Those terms are not interchangeable, but the current written form doesn't make any kind of sense to me (the first instance of "attack dice" has the wrong form of dice to be singular, and the second makes no sense at all).

I see, it is interesting because I've been playing her by rolling just the attack die, nothing more, any other die is roll during the corresponding step. Interesting...I will try it as you mentioned (her entire attack pool).

There IS a special quest rule in one of my Legacy of Timmorran quests which has a goblin rolling multiple blue die, but I don't think that really counts.

Mmhamm :huh: I will try that, sounds funny.

Alright, here goes. This is not an exhaustive list, but here are the cards I've found which support blue = attack, red/yellow/green = power (any2cards, THANK YOU for your chrome extension. It is much easier to not manually link everything to an image):

Overlord cards:

Fire Gems

Flurry

Secrets of the Flesh

Dark Resilience

Monsters:

Ariad (corrupted)

Queen Ariad (corrupted)

Dark Priest (Heal)

Flesh Moulder (Heal)

Beastman (Command)

Heroes:

Avric Albright (HF)

Rendiel (HF)

Brother Gherinn (HF)

Lyssa (HA)

Widow Tarha (HA)

Reynhart the Worthy (HA and HF)

Krutzbeck (HF)

Vyrah the Falconer (HF)

Shop cards:

Iron Claws

Glaive

Steel Greatsword

Rage Blade

Star of Kellos

There are a bunch of skills, some listed in my previous post, that all have the same wording. That is, in every case where it refers to just red, yellow, or green dice, it says "power dice". When it refers to just blue, it says "attack die". When it says "dice" or "attack pool", it is inclusive. In no case I listed above does it say "attack dice", or "attack die" and seem to include red, yellow, or green.

I have found two cases where "attack dice" is used:

Tetherys (HA)

Lindel (HF)

I believe both of these occurrences to be erroneous. Lindel's even has a correct use of the singular "attack die" later in his feat.

Lindel's HF currently reads:

"Perform an attack. After you roll attack dice, you may change the attack die to a different result of your choice."

It is my opinion that Lindel's HF should read:

"Perform an attack. After rolling dice, you may change the attack die to a different result of your choice."

Likewise, Tetherys' HA currently reads:

"Each time you perform an attack, you may roll your attack dice before you declare the target. If any attack dice are added after you declare the target, roll those dice during the Roll Dice step."

It should read (again, my opinion):

"Each time you perform an attack, you may roll your attack pool before you declare the target. If any power dice are added after you declare the target, roll those dice during the Roll Dice step."

EDIT: Bonus, if you don't want my opinion. Look at page 11 of the base game rulebook, right column. There is an illustration showing the blue die (labeled "attack die") and the red and yellow die (labeled as "power dice".)

Edited by Zaltyre

Are there any instances of cards referring to the attack pool. I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Are there any instances of cards referring to the attack pool. I can't think of one off the top of my head.

The large majority of cards use the proper text. Tetherys and Lindel seem to be exceptions.

Edited by Zaltyre