Just for clarification, can Ranged or Magic attacks be made against adjacent enemies?

Sure, why not? It's just a very short range (i.e. 1).

Also, only if you have a ranged or magic weapon.

In all seriousness, just clarifying that even if you have a ranged or magic character, the only unarmed attack is a melee attack.

Thanks. (Note to self, don't get a strong melee character.)

There is one item (or maybe a character ability or feat...cant remember which), where you get Pierce if making a magic attack against an adjacent model.

Yes, you can make ranged or magic attacks against adjacent targets. If you manage to roll a range of 0 (difficult but not necessarily impossible) then you will miss. Note that Melee attacks do not even evaluate range to target, so a melee attack will never miss due to rolling 0 range.

Fizz said:

That's Runehand Astarra (I think that's her name). Her special ability is effectively whenever she makes a magic attack to an enemy adjacent to her, she gains pierce 2. The idea is her hand is "piercing" the enemy's armor, making her attack that much more deadly.

-shnar

shnar said:

And she is completely kickass with the skill Spiritwalker (and to some degree,with Shadow Soul).

shnar said:

You're confusing Andira Runehand and Runewitch Astarra.

Antistone said:

Yeah, I knew it started with an "A" just couldn't remember which one

-shnar

In the base set, can you think of any reason to choose a character that specializes in melee combat? The only thing I see is getting the benefit of an "Off-Hand Bonus", which just doesn't seem nearly as good as being able to make ranged or magic attacks.

Runehand is also fun with Divine Retribution, as it makes the OL a bit nervous about killing her in the locations she likely will be.

comicthoughts said:

Melee heroes hit harder (and more consistently).

The red dice has better damage than the white dice or the blue dice.
Melee weapons also generally do a better job of surge conversion (into damage).

Many Range or Magic users cannot reliably kill even weak monsters like skeletons, beastmen or spiders with one shot. It is almost impossible not to kill them with one shot with a melee hero. An attack that damages a minor monster without killing it outright is basically equivalent to a miss because it is more or less useless in effect.

Further, most melees are ****** (more wounds) and/or tougher (better natural armour) than other heroes. They are also usually able to wear the heavier armours without suffering any penalties.

There are so many advantages for melee heroes, especially in vanilla descent, that some people even advocate taking almost entirely melee parties. Most people think they are mad of course - a balanced party is generally much stronger all round.

In addition to Corbon's points:

Melee weapons have better average damage than ranged/magic weapons, even ignoring surges or the red die; that is, they have more green dice or bonus damaging abilities more often. Yet another reason melee tends to do more damage.

At the shop level, melee weapons are also arbitrarily cheaper than ranged or magic weapons, allowing the hero to start with better armor and/or more potions, and have a higher maximum power than ranged or magic weapons, which gives the hero a better back-up plan in case he doesn't draw any good weapons. You can continue to use an Axe or Sword+offhand pretty much through the end of the game, if you have to; ranged or magic specialists will be hurting more if they can't draw a useful treasure.

Magic heroes also have the disadvantage that most of their weapons are runes (and thus incompatible with heavy armor) and virtually all are two-handed (versus about half being one-handed for Melee/Ranged). Ranged weapons, on the other hand tend to have the lowest damage and worst surge efficiency (lower damage than magic weapons, which are in turn lower damage than melee).

Regarding other stats that are correlated with melee traits:

You can predict a hero's conquest value from their attack type (or vice versa) with almost 100% accuracy. Melee = 4 conquest, ranged = 3 conquest, magic = 2 conquest.

Of all the 4-conquest heroes across all expansions, 1 has magic as his highest trait (with a secondary in melee), and ALL the others have melee as their highest trait. Conversely, there are only 2 heroes with melee as their highest trait that are worth only 3 conquest (both have better health than most 3-conquest heroes) and none worth 2 conquest. So if you want a 4-conquest hero (and the attendant health/armor benefits), you pretty much have to take a melee hero even if melee isn't inherently better. That's a convention rather than a rule, though, and I suspect it reflects an unconscious bias rather than a deliberate plan on the part of the designers.

EDIT: Sorry, there are three melee heroes worth 3 conquest with the Tomb of Ice expansion, not two. All still have better defenses than typical for a 3-conquest hero.

Additionally, melee heroes tend to have combat skills, which tend to be a bit better than subterfuge or wizardry skills (there's a lot of variance in all skill decks, though).

Regarding team balance:

The treasures you draw are random. A team with fewer attack types between them is more likely to draw a weapon that no one can use effectively, and more likely to have a hero with no effective upgraded weapon to use. So there's a sizable incentive to have some team balance even if the attack types aren't inherently equally good.

Antistone said:

I wonder why Runes can't use armor but Staffs can. I haven't cataloged, but are there good/high-powered staffs a magic user could use and still use good armor?

-shnar

The staves are pretty respectable, except for the Mage Staff in the shop...

Copper:
Staff of Punishment - WG, S: +1 damage or +1 range
Staff of the Grave - WG, SS: +3 damage or +3 range, ignores Undying , Cursed (AoD)
Screaming Eagle Staff - WY, SS: +1 damage, Breath (ToI)

Silver:
Staff of Fire - WGY, 2 free surges, S: +1 damage or +1 range

Gold:
Staff of Knowledge - WGYY, 2 free surges, S: +1 damage or +1 range, SS: discard 1 threat
Star of Kellos (1-hand) - WGGY, S: +1 damage or +1 range, monsters within 6 spaces lose Undying (ToI)

The other weapons (runes) each feature one of: Pierce, Stun, Blast, or Breath, though the Stun ones do so little damage below gold level (Word of Vaal) that you'd probably prefer a staff even if heavy armor weren't at issue. It'd be hard to argue that staves are the best magic weapons, but they compare reasonably well.

The main issue with getting heavy armor for a mage is that there are more rune weapons than non-rune weapons (though the ratio isn't as extreme with expansions as it was in the base game), so you normally can't count on getting a staff from a chest...and, of course, the Mage Staff can't reliably kill stuff unless you've got bonus damage somewhere, so starting with a staff doesn't work so well.

The other issue with putting mages in heavy armor is that there's a limited number of heavy armors to go around, and they provide a larger proportional benefit on heroes with high base armor, so the mages (who are almost all worth 2 conquest, as noted above) may end up with light armor by default.

As for why staves allow heavy armor, I suspect that the designers wanted some variety, and focused more on concepts than balance (as they apparently did with all the other content in the game), especially in the base game.

Note: Star of Kellos is a Rune, not a Staff.

YellowPebble said:

My mistake. I could've sworn that was not a rune; maybe the change in naming convention threw me. That would mean that expansions have only made staves more common (relative to runes) at copper level, not at silver or gold level.

Still probably deserves note in the "mages in armor" discussion for the ability to use a shield, though.

The picture is also very different to all the other runes, in that it shows the rune inscribed on an amulet of some sort. But yes, it is the only one-handed magic weapon in the game currently.