I think it's strange that there are no Magic weapon treasures in this expansion. My guess is that it is because there are a pile of rune treasures in the base game and few ranged weapons. I also found it strange that some of the ranged weapons use sorcery.

Magic weapons are twice as common as either melee or ranged in the base game; Well of Darkness evens things out.

Sorcery means +1 to damage or range. It's a reasonable mechanic for a ranged weapon to have, and I, for one, would be seriously annoyed if they defined a new ability that did exactly the same thing just for thematic reasons. Enchanted swords and bows aren't exactly uncommon fantasy material, either.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with ranged weapons using Sorcery. It just means the weapon is enchanted to have a higher degree of accuracy than normal physics would allow, represented mechanically by extra range (if you need it) or extra damage (if you don't need range) because the projectile "always flies true."

This actually dates back to as early as the original set...

When a player has Wild Talent(grants Sorcery 1), but is a melee character (3 power dice in melee trait) and is wielding a melee weapon (maybe a dagger or axe) then you get the exact same situation. A person using melee weapon, but with sorcery. With a little imagination, you are possibly wielding a flaming axe or a dagger of lightning.

There are even monsters that can bolster up their ranged- or melee-attacks with sorcery (e.g. the chaos beast).

Graf said:

Sorcery as an ability is not tied to any type of attack. As long as a monster (or hero) has the Sorcery ability, he may use it with whatever attack type(s) he has at his disposal. Most monsters only have one attack type, of course. In the case of Melee attacks range is never calculated, so choosing to add +1 range would be equivalent to saying "I don't want to use this ability with my attack", but it's theoretically still good for +1 damage.

Edit; in the case of heroes, he would have to have Sorcery from a skill, since Sorcery on a weapon can obviously only be used with that weapon.

Thanks guys. I'm not trying to nitpick anything, I just don't have anyone around here experienced in the game to bounce these random thoughts off of, and I enjoy discussing Descent.

Ziggy03 said:

No prob, Bob. That's what we're here for. =)