Hi all,

Apologies if this has been brought up before, I did a search and couldnt find much on this topic.

I have a new player who just joined us as an Ironbreaker. He went for all out tanky stuff and during the combat encounter I found it extremely hard to even hit him with monsters. Working it out, with the amount of misfortune die he can add to a monsters dice pool, it will be rare that any monster will actually hit! He makes use of a saga and lots of active defences.

With regards to active defences, how many can be used in a round of combat? E.g. if a snotling attacks him and he uses parry, can he use block when the goblin attacks him? or is he limited to one per round? Does anyone have any reference to rules on this as I cant seem to find any at all.

Thanks in advance.

He can use any number of active defenses in a round and even use multiple active defenses against the same attack, so can parry-block or dodge-block for example. That will of course use the active defenses up quicker, leaving him more vulnerable in the next round, but it's possible.

From page 2 of the FAQ: "Any number of immediate use actions/responses can be activated
when an appropriate triggering act occurs. For example, a PC could
attempt to apply Dodge, Parry, and Block all against the same
incoming melee attack."

Wowzers ok

This makes tanks extremely effective. Next time I plan a combat encounter I will bear this in mind with regards to the monsters I use.

Huntraxen said:

This has been discussed a few times, and think carefully before simply introducing tougher monsters that can hit the tank, at the expense of making them too tough for the rest of the party...

There are a few threads that discuss this and have some good ideas on how to deal with it, such as having a big bad go against the tank (which is only natural) while its minions pick on the rest of the PCs, or pick monsters that go for the tanks weakness (probably ones that cause stress and his mental characteristics, so fear attacks and the like...)

A tank is a tank for a reason and should be hard to hit in "normal" combat, so you need to look at his weak spots, rather than trying to nulify his strength because that could upset the balance for the rest of the party...

Yea thanks for these tips. However, what happens if ur tank is an Ironbreaker with the Saga that taunts monsters to him (I think it is Grungi) if engaged with the targeted ally. I mean this card is insane. My Ironbreaker player added 5-6 black dice to the pool, how the hell is the monster even supposed to try and hit?

Your player can't possibly use all active defenses against all attacks. If he uses them all at the time same, then he can only use them once every other turn (for 3 to 6 misfortune dices, depending his skill trainings). If he uses systematically all his active defenses each time they recharge, fool around with him a bit. Start by using basic attack or some "not that good" action card and keep the most powerfull actions for the turn after he used up all his active defenses. Maybe then he will be more carefull and keep the active defenses only against the most powerfull actions, making him more vulnerable against lesser attacks.

Again, like other posters said, there's plenty of ways to "bypass" those defenses. Ranged attacks can only benefit from block and dodge, so use them on the following round he activated those defenses. Magical attacks can only benefit from Dodge and some bypass Soak, doing direct damage. You can use actions that add recharge tokens to delay use of those active defenses. Use Fear against him or other actions that give him stress or fatigue. You could try to outmanoeuvre him with the ennemies taking wounds for extra manoeuvres and move away from him under cover (to avoid other players's ranged attacks), forcing him to take extra fatigue to chase them. Steely gaze action card can help against his Saga of Grungni since it makes the target move away (Saga of Gungni only works with allies in the same engagement). Then again, you can challenge him with things other than combat : crossing a deep river with strong current could be hell for the heavy Ironbreaker in full plate!

Be carefull though not to overcome your player's strenghts too much or he'll start to feel cheated ("What good is my character since every ennemy knows how to bypass my strong defenses?"). You have to make him shine where he's at his best, and that's in combat.

Hi,

Sorry if I am wrong, but I think you might be mis-applying the Recharge rules.

All the Active defences have a recharge of 2, to use one card more than once per turn would use 2 Fatigue each extra use.

So throw multiple attackers at him, get all his Defence cards on recharge.

Like Fresnel said, you'll need multiple monsters ganging up on the IronBreaker. Several of them pounding on him within one round, he'll only be able to use defenses against one of them or spread them out. Come the second round he'll have to go without defences. I also go all out and equip monsters with weapons so I can get critical wounds on the ironbreaker, since those still cause damage.

Fresnel said:

Wait... I don't know about this rule, where's that come from?

Recharge 2 only means that you can only use it once every other turn (since you put 2 counter on it, remove 1 at the end of the current round, and another a the end of the next round). What's that thing about gaining fatigue to use more than one card in a turn?

You can remove recharge tokens by spending a Fatigue (or Stress) at any time - I believe, although I am away from my books at the moment.

For active defences the only limit on using them twice in a turn is recharge (as far as I know). If you spend the Fatigue to remove the recharge tokens you can use the defence again. This is how I understand it anyhow.

Considering the heavy Fatigue cost I don't think I've seen a player use this option...

Ok, you've mistaken. It's spending FORTUNE to remove recharge counters, which is a much more rare ressource than fatigue!

I've yet to see a player spend a fortune point on reducing a recharge. Since you only have 3 at most, they always get spent on adding fortune dice to rolls and usually to offset additional Misfortune dice the GM has added. It actually has never occurred to me to burn 2 fortune points to completely recharge an active defense and use it again in the same round, but even then, a player could only do this for one active defense and then (normally) only once in an encounter. Still, if you use an active defense and get to go before any opponents in the next round, you could spend a fortune point to remove one recharge token and remove the remaining one at the end of your turn, thus being able to use it in two consecutive turns. For non-combat oriented characters, this may actually be a better use of a fortune point than adding a Fortune die to an attack roll.

Thanks for the correction.

However, it changes my attitude to the 'Fast' quality somewhat. I always thought the version given in the FAQ was a little too good, now I see that Recharge is a harder limit, it seems more so. But this is a discussion which needs it's own topic.

Come to think of it, if you're right, you could effectively use active defenses each round!

EDIT : I've check out in the book. Fast quality only applies to Attack Actions. So it doesn't work with active defenses.

SIDENOTE : This has also been errated. The Fast quality is now : 1 boon : Place one fewer recharge token on this action.

mac40k said:

In fact, you always only need to spend a single Fortune point to make it recharge on the next turn. You use it on the ennemy's turn, place 2 recharge token on it. At your next turn, you spend 1 Fortune and remove 1 recharge token on an active defense. That leaves 1 that will be removed at the end of your current turn.

Silverwave said:

I didn't mean to imply that Fast affected active defences- but I can see I wasn't clear. I was making a point about recharge in general - given that only Fortune dice (and the Fast quality) can remove them early.

Silverwave said:

Correct, but if you don't go first, you won't be able to use that active defense against any enemies that attack you before you get to go. If you were last to act, it wouldn't help nearly as much.

I see what you mean. If you act first, then get attacked, you won't be able to use the active defense until you next act. But really, initiative isn't linear, it is circular. You don't count a turn from the begining of initiative track 1 and end and the last initiative track. You have to see it from the time you act until the next time you act. So if you're attacked in a turn, wheter it is before or after you act, and your active defense is not recharging, you use it, then you won't be able to use it until the next time you act. I'm not sure if it's clear...

I agree that if you have an active defense recharging, short of blowing 2 fortune points on fully recharging it, you won't be able to use it again until after your next time to act. My point was only that since initiative order is not fixed, it might be possible to fully recharge an active defense for one fortune point before any subsequent attacks are directed at you, depending on where in the init order your turn falls from one round to the next fall with respect to the enemies.

Speaking of actives defenses... Am I the only one who think that : 1. there's too many of them 2. they're almost identical 3. some are better than others

Dodge is the best defense of the 3 since it require no ready equipment (parry needs a ready weapon, block needs a ready shield) and it can be use against melee, ranged and spells!

All of them gives the same bonus : 1 misfortune to the attacker, 2 if trained in a specific skill.

Why didn't we got only 1 defense that worked like Dodge (can be used against all attacks and needs no equipment) ?

That would have been easier and make less cards to mess with.

Silverwave said:

Because if you're carrying a weapon it's easier to avoid getting hit in combat than if you're not. And the same goes for having a shield.

Silverwave said:

Have a look at the Riposte and Counterblow cards.

A fighter with Improved Dodge, Parry and Block is very difficult to hit. With Riposte and Counterblow not hitting leads to more pain for the opponent. Combined with PCs using the Guarded Position Card and the number of extra challenge and misfortune gets to amusing levels.

monkeylite said:

True, and that could have beeen written down on the same card (is you carry a melee weapon, add 1 <b>). Again, if you have a shield, you gain 1 defense so it would be included per default.

Wait, so you're saying that rather than have 3 defensive actions which can be used on up to 3 separate attacks or combined in any fashion the player wishes, they should have just 1 defensive action that can only be used against a single attack, but provides a variable amount of benefit depending on how they are equipped? No thanks. I prefer the flexibility of the 3 separate defensive actions.

Make the single active defense usable once per round if you want to compensate a bit.

Yes, it's less versatile, but then I find it have too much options in this game anyway. Yes, you'll be somewhat less powerfull, but then again PCs are enought powerfull already IMHO.