The Titan's Elite Forces Questions

By SpaceHulk2, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Elite Forces
Your unnamed master monsters all roll one extra power die of the best type they normally roll (to a maximum of five power dice).

How does this work for monsters that already roll five power dice (Dark Priests)? Are any power dice over 5 considered lost, or is the Elite Forces considered upgrades? What about master monsters that do not roll any power dice Troll? I am guessing No power dice, No Elite Forces.


..and one more question. the wording: " of the best type they normally roll " Does the “ normally” mean that what is printed on the card? Let us take DOOM! for instance. If I have a Troll and Doom is in play the Troll is now rolling a black die, can I now use Elite Forces? I guess a better question is: Is there any situation where “normally” is different than what is printed on the Monster card?

spacehulk said:

Elite Forces
Your unnamed master monsters all roll one extra power die of the best type they normally roll (to a maximum of five power dice).

How does this work for monsters that already roll five power dice (Dark Priests)? Are any power dice over 5 considered lost, or is the Elite Forces considered upgrades? What about master monsters that do not roll any power dice Troll? I am guessing No power dice, No Elite Forces.


..and one more question. the wording: " of the best type they normally roll " Does the “ normally” mean that what is printed on the card? Let us take DOOM! for instance. If I have a Troll and Doom is in play the Troll is now rolling a black die, can I now use Elite Forces? I guess a better question is: Is there any situation where “normally” is different than what is printed on the Monster card?

Dark Priests add the extra dice then must one off if they are over 5. Technically. Unfortunately the FAQ answer that might cover this specified "effects that add black dice" rather than "effects that add power dice". It is not beyond the realms of reasonable-ness to assume that that FAQ answer is another minor blunder on FFG's part and assume that adding a silver dice is the same as adding two boosts, and adding a gold dice is the same as adding three boosts. But it is not RAW.
FAQ pg17
Q: When effects from “vanilla” Descent refer to black dice, how do they relate to silver and gold dice? Does Doom! still add black dice at gold campaign level? Can Trenloe the Strong and Lyssa reroll silver and gold dice?
A: For Road to Legend, when an effect refers to a black die, read it as referring to power dice in general. If an effect adds a black die to a roll (such as Doom! or a power potion), it instead adds one “boost” as if the subject had spent one fatigue to enhance its attack. For example, a copper level Master Beastman, which ordinarily rolls 1 black die, could roll either 2 black dice or 1 silver die with Doom! in play. Lyssa and Trenloe the Strong may reroll power dice of any color

Trolls have Bash
Bash always rolls black dice and chooses as many as you want up to 5. These dice cannot be upgraded in any way, and getting extras makes no difference since they can already choose to get the maximum, can never upgrade them and explicitly are allowed to roll none if they want.
RtL pg28
When making an attack with the Bash ability, a figure may roll up to five black power dice with the attack. ... The figure is never forced to roll any power dice when making a Bash attack, regardless of other effects.
FAQ pg12
Bash
Bash always rolls black power dice. These may not be upgraded in any way.

As for 'normally' it is my guess that that is what s printed on the card. I think a Silver Master Beastman, say, with Doom in play, could not upgrade his silver power dice to gold (with Doom) and claim that gold is his 'normal' best power dice.

For Dark Priests, It boils down to whether "Elite Forces" power dice can be considered upgrades or not. Since adding black dice can always be considered "add or upgrade" (in every instacne except bash).

I am guessing you are right with the normally but I want ot know if there are any instances where Normally is differnt than what is printed on the card.

As far as Trolls I wasn't considering bash so I didn't search for Bash erratta. I guess it does bring up a point though. Are monster abilities optional? I am gussing no.

spacehulk said:

For Dark Priests, It boils down to whether "Elite Forces" power dice can be considered upgrades or not. Since adding black dice can always be considered "add or upgrade" (in every instacne except bash).

I am guessing you are right with the normally but I want ot know if there are any instances where Normally is differnt than what is printed on the card.

As far as Trolls I wasn't considering bash so I didn't search for Bash erratta. I guess it does bring up a point though. Are monster abilities optional? I am gussing no.

I covered the Elite forces thing in my answer. Technically no, the Elite forces are not an upgrade, unless the best dice is black. Because only black dice are considered to be the equivalent of upgrades.
But it is entirely reasonable to play that all dice are considered upgrades and is likely an oversight by FFG - just a badly written answer.
So I gave you RAW and a hint thta it was reasonable to play differently. Nonetheless, quite definitely, RAW does not count silver or gold dice adds as 'upgrades'.

Abilities are not optional unless they say they are. Blast and breath for example have been errated (FAQ) to be optional. Bash has not.

The FAQ question you quoted was explicitly asking about effects from "vanilla" Descent. The answer doesn't explicitly echo that, but any effect that was originally written for RtL already had a chance to say that it gives "boosts" instead of dice, if they wanted it to.

Antistone said:

The FAQ question you quoted was explicitly asking about effects from "vanilla" Descent. The answer doesn't explicitly echo that, but any effect that was originally written for RtL already had a chance to say that it gives "boosts" instead of dice, if they wanted it to.

Quite true, I'd missed that.

On the other hand we know that FFG is not always that good at including rule changes in new books. When they made SoB they forgot to change all the things they fixed in the RtL FaQ, so they had to make a new FaQ entry stating that all the RtL FaQ questions are still valid in SoB.

So I would not use "they chose not to include it in the new book" as an argument, since its just as likely they plain forgot :P

Honn said:

On the other hand we know that FFG is not always that good at including rule changes in new books. When they made SoB they forgot to change all the things they fixed in the RtL FaQ, so they had to make a new FaQ entry stating that all the RtL FaQ questions are still valid in SoB.

So I would not use "they chose not to include it in the new book" as an argument, since its just as likely they plain forgot :P

Perhaps not, but "they chose not to include it in the same book" is pretty powerful. We are talking about a RtL effect being applied to RtL here...