On the weekend, I had a friend over and we both made characters and then fought each other with them. In doing so, and in going over some of the cards/rules with him, a few more questions were raised.

-The Troll Slayer career ability gives bonuses to natural defence and soak, and prevents the character from wearing armor as long as he is in a Slayer career. If he completes the Troll Slayer career and takes the dedication bonus to keep the ability, but then transitions into a non-slayer career, he's clearly allowed to wear armor again. But if he is wearing armor, does he also get the benefit of the natural defence and soak bonus?

-The Made of Iron talent allows the user to reduce Fatigue (and Stress? I can't remember now...) whenever he suffers 2 or more at one time. What counts as "at one time" and what counts as "suffering"? Could he, for example, do 2 extra manoeuvers in a turn and use this talent to reduce the fatigue cost?

-Do characters have a natural defence rating, or does a defence score generally only come from armor?

-Is there any benefit or penalty to wielding 2 weapons at once?

A Troll Slayer shouldn't transition to any other career. He should die in battle. If you're allowing the player to veer off the slayer path, then you're on your own.

If it makes it easier to understand "at one time" means from a single source. Failing a Terror 2 (or higher) willpower check, for example, would allow him to use his Made of Iron talent. Accumulating stress or fatigue from doing extra maneuvers or stance changes would not qualify.

Characters don't have a natural defence rating. Defence scores come from somewhere explicit, be it a talent card, equipment, special ability or career specialty. There's no innate defence rating. The only "innate" thing is the toughness bonus for soak.

The benefit of two weapons is that you're wielding two weapons, so you can use cards like Double Strike to their full effect. The cost of it is that you're wielding two weapons, so you can't use Block for example (which requires you wield a shield). There's no rule that kicks in just because a character is holding two weapons. They don't suffer a penalty to their die rolls (unless the GM deems it necessary) and are only restricted from doing things per the GM's discretion. It should be noted though that the damage rating of the two weapons does not add up, you use one weapon's damage rating only, unless stated otherwise.

fnord3125 said:

In the fluff / flavor text of the setting, Troll Slayer is a one-way career. You either die gloriously in battle, or become a Giant Slayer. You never retire or otherwise change careers, except to go after things bigger than a troll. So the game assumes your question won't come up.

While I would entertain the notion of Troll Slayers have "sideline careers" as was discussed in another thread ( www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp ), I'd require they stay armor-less while doing so. The whole point of the slayer career is that you have a death wish, after all. There should be no "take-backs".

fnord3125 said:

Lexicanum interprets "at one time" a little differently than I have/do. My instinct would be to let Made Of Iron apply to multiple manoeuvers, since at best it's giving you 1 extra manoeuvre per turn and you're still taking fatigue. There's a relatively short list of things that give 2 fatigue at a go, if you use the previously offered definition. I tend to think that would make it a very poor talent, much weaker than "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead".

(P.S.: It only affect Fatigue, not Stress.)

fnord3125 said:

Armor and shields both give Defence Rating, and there's a few ways to get the odd point or two temporarily. Otherwise, though, in general, unarmored characters have no Defence Rating.

Note however that any card that says "Vs Target Defence" generally has 1 Challenge/Purple Die in addition to any difficulty listed on the card. This is per page 58 of the rulebook.

fnord3125 said:

This has come up before, and is discussed at length in the following thread:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

The short version, however, is just as Lexicanum explained. The main benefit is for Double Strike (which is a little broken, but that's a whole other can of worms... I guess www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp is as good as any other discussion of that topic, should you be interested.)

Lexicanum said:

fnord3125 said:

Well, the Troll Slayer specialty card starts out with:

"While in a Slayer career..."

Troll slayers can take on other careers. Just because you take another career does not mean your no longer a slayer, your just doing something different at the time. The game is all about abstraction, you don't literally stick faithfully to a career as majority of the careers would make no sense when you think about it in an adventure setting. You don't magically lose what you used to be if you switch careers as well, your just doing something different with your life when jumping to careers.

Even in the novels troll slayers have been shown to do other things in their life. They don't spend every hour of their lives running at Trolls, they take on other tasks and jobs. Their ultimate goal and dedication is their slayer death, but they can do other things.

Troll slayers are special. If a troll slayer becomes a rat catcher for instance (like Gotrek became a sewer jack), then he will still be a slayer, unable to wear armor. He will get the benefits from this new careers advances and if he buys the dedication bonus he can get the career special. But at no time will he change his career card. It will continue to be the slayer card and all that other career does is allowing him diverse advancement. Once a slayer, always a slayer...

That's how I rule it, but there are no specific rules in the core books. But I find my way fits best with lore.

Okay, rules perspective of this...

The Rules say a character has one career at any given time, only one. If you take Troll-Slayer through 10 advancements, and buy the dedication, you get to keep the career ability. The career ability says, while in a slayer career, gain bounus X. If the Troll slayer takes a new path and grabs the student career because he wants to learn to read and write, and pick up new languages to sling insults in, he no longer gains the benefit of the Troll-Slayer career talent, because he is no longer in a slayer career. After he picks up those new languages if he wants to jump back into the slaying field, and transits over to Giant-Slayer, he once again can use the benefit of the career ability he spent the dedication advancment for.

So, If a Troll-Slayer with dedication bounus moves to a new career that doesn't have the slayer trait, then he does not get the "naked" defense bounus.

BCA said:

^^^^ This. BCA is absolutely correct.

I'm not at home (and actually, even if I were, it would do no good as my books for the game are there but not my cards) so can someone give me the verbatim text of the Troll-Slayer card? I could have sworn the "while in a Slayer career" bit was attached to the restriction about not wearing armor, but not to the natural defence and soak, which was what that lead to this question in the first place. If the card had been clear that the bonus was only while a Slayer (of some sort) I wouldn't have needed to ask.