Hey Guys.. This question has either been asked several times, or it's just me and my playmates being ''confussed''

a) When having a crossbow and a sword equipped (filling up the two hand icon rule); Making a melee attack, does crossbow attack as well? Meaning, could you use both weapons in a melee attack?

b) Regarding Ranged Attacks. Are they giving the off-hand bonus of a melee weapon?

Probably mention in the manual, but the freaking thing does not come with an index.. Frustrating Indeed!

Many Thanks,

SC

There's a PDF version of the Descent support page, which helps with searching, but it's out of date, so not entirely reliable.

There's a note on page 10 that limits heroes to attacking with one weapon at a time:

" Important: Even if a hero has more than one weapon equipped when he attacks, he must still choose only one weapon with which to attack. Thus, a hero who has two swords equipped may roll the dice for one of those weapons. The only exception to this rule is for weapons with the “Off-hand” ability (see “Wielding Two Weapons,” page 19)."

And Off-Hand Bonuses only work when using two Melee weapons:

"If a hero has two one-handed Melee weapons equipped at once, he may gain the benefits of an Off-Hand Bonus. The weapon the hero does not use to attack adds its off-hand bonus to attacks with the other weapon." (p.19)

So a hero with a Sword and a Crossbow can choose which weapon to use, but the other weapon provides no benefit to that attack (not even an Off-Hand Bonus, because the Crossbow isn't a Melee weapon). Therefore, buying both a Sword and a Crossbow is generally a bad idea. The versatility for attacking at different ranges isn't worth the item's cost or the inventory slot, especially since most heroes are also inherently better at one attack type than others.

Generally the only reason to buy a second weapon in Descent is for an Off-Hand Bonus, and the only decent off-hand weapons are the Dagger and the Morningstar (from ToI expansion).

+1 to Stoney.

Mixing attack types is generally not worthwhile. There's no penalty to making ranged attacks at adjacent targets and there aren't any monsters that are immune to specific attack types (that I can think of - maybe the odd weird boss, but in general I wouldn't worry about it.) So it's not like you *need* the variety for anything. Trying to train up more than one Trait for your hero is not the best way to spend money either, so in general one picks the best attack type they naturally have and go from there.

It helps to have one hero that's good in each type in the party (the Melee mainly because Melee heroes tend to be good tanks) but there's little reason for a single hero to worry about more than one attack type.

Actually there are occasions that I find melee heroes get trapped by web from afar and cannot move, then the spiders stay away and continue their attacks from afar. If teammates are not nearby, then the melee guy is in trouble. This is when mixing range has its advantages because the melee guy can then immediately swap into a ranged weapon and take out the spiders.

I've seen several instances of a hero with 2 melee and 1 ranged die carrying a crossbow for those times when he just can't quite make it to the enemy. In vanilla dungeons B G Bl is usually enough to kill many monsters. I'm not saying every hero should carry a second weapon type.

I definitely agree that trying to train multiple traits is a bad idea.

James McMurray said:

How do you figure?

BGP averages about 4 damage per hit from melee range (less from farther away). In a 4-hero game, that's enough to kill: kobolds, and normal skeletons. If it came down to it, doing an Advance so you can swing your Axe once generates more average kills than Battling with a Crossbow from a distance in almost all cases (for a 2 melee/1 ranged trait hero with no relevant skills).

Sure, you can spend fatigue to try to get extra damage if you're near the threshold...but if you had fatigue to spend, you also could've spent it to move closer.

It seems pretty hard justify firing a Crossbow as a melee hero even if you already have one on hand . But for the price of a crossbow, you can get 3 vitality potions. Those help quite a bit in "those times when you he can't quite make it to the enemy."

Wanderer999 said:

When are there ever no teammates nearby?

I mean, sure, carrying a backup Crossbow means that, on a turn that a master bane spider gets the advantage of you and you fail your roll to break free, you can probably make one (weak) attack with a Guard order instead of Dodging or Resting. I'll try to contain my excitement.

While Antistone is figuring out how to maintain his excitement I would like to say thanks guys

This changes our whole gameplay experience! It makes it harder, which again makes it more strategic; I like it!!

Quest # 2 is up tonight and it's already getting "darker"

SC

Antistone:

1) Not everyone plays 4 characters.

2) A hero with ranged dice is likely to have ranged skills, possibly upping his range or damage.

3) Who said anything about battling with a crossbow? I said there are times you can't reach a monster, so a ranged attack might kill it when a melle attack absolutely cannot. Saying "yeah, but you could have meleed it" completely ignore the fact that we're discussing times when you cannot.

Shades in Trees is a good reason to have a ranged weapon as a secondary weapon for a melee character...

-shnar

shnar said:

Perhaps, but at best, that only applies to advanced campaigns with the ToI expansion mixed in.

Based on my experiences with Shades in vanilla, I'm skeptical about how good a reason it is even under those conditions, but I haven't played the advanced campaign, so perhaps I'm wrong.

James McMurray said:

Generally, "how do you figure?" means that I want to hear your line of reasoning, not that I want a laundry list of every special case that I didn't explicitly analyze in my own explanation.

1) No, just the overwhelming majority do (judging from forum comments).

2) I believe only 5 out of 20 Subterfuge skills (with all vanilla expansions) boost the range, damage, or surges of a Crossbow, and a melee hero is likely to redraw them.

3) OK, so just to clarify here: you're not talking generally about typical heroes in typical combat situations, you're talking specifically about situations when:

• A hero with 2 melee and 1 ranged trait
• In a game with fewer than 4 heroes
• Who has a subterfuge skill that boosts crossbow attacks
• Cannot possibly close to melee range with any monster on the board, even with an Advance plus a vitality potion
• But can still get off a shot with a Crossbow
• Under circumstances where that is more productive than guarding, resting, shopping, running, or any of the other things you typically do on a turn when there are no monsters in range

Is that a fair summation? Because I'm fairly sure that I have NEVER seen that particular set of stars align in any game of Descent that I have ever played (not that I've been looking for it).

And if that's not what you're saying, maybe you should try making an organized statement explaining what situations you're actually considering when you say that a crossbow with 1 black die can "usually" kill "many" monsters.

3) OK, so just to clarify here: you're not talking generally about typical heroes in typical combat situations, you're talking specifically about situations when:

• A hero with 2 melee and 1 ranged trait
• In a game with fewer than 4 heroes
• Who has a subterfuge skill that boosts crossbow attacks
• Cannot possibly close to melee range with any monster on the board, even with an Advance plus a vitality potion
• But can still get off a shot with a Crossbow
• Under circumstances where that is more productive than guarding, resting, shopping, running, or any of the other things you typically do on a turn when there are no monsters in range

Is that a fair summation? Because I'm fairly sure that I have NEVER seen that particular set of stars align in any game of Descent that I have ever played (not that I've been looking for it).

No, it's not a fair summation, though its close. The third point (must have a subterfuge skill that boosts crossbows) is not necessary. It's helpful, but not required, as there are other things (power pots or fatigue for example) that can make up for the lack. The fourth point is also not always mandatory. Sometimes there's a specific monster you can kill, so just being able to kill something isn't enough.

Besides, given that you, by your own statements in the past, don't actually play Descent in favor over your own massively house-ruled version of it, I'm unsurprised that you haven't seen it happen. We're different people with different groups playing (at least recently) a different game, to expect that we have the same experiences seems somewhat short-sighted.

And if that's not what you're saying, maybe you should try making an organized statement explaining what situations you're actually considering when you say that a crossbow with 1 black die can "usually" kill "many" monsters.

Let's say there's a monster sitting on top of a chest and your runner needs to get there (or the chest just turned into a mimic and you have too few movement left to chase it down). Or there's a spider blocking line of sight to the boss and your mage could battle and win you the game if only you could get the thing out of the way. Being able to kill the monster is a good thing, being unable to kill it is bad. A hero with a crossbow has a chance. A hero with a sword has none.

Please don't take that as the only examples. If you're not imaginative enough to think of times when it's useful, that's your problem. I never said it was always a good idea, just that it sometimes is. Feel free to continuing arguing, as that's your style, but if what I've said so far hasn't gotten my point across, I see no reason to continue debating the matter.

Have fun!

Under conditions of web, u may not spend ANY movement points. This includes fatigue-converted MP. So u can never advance on the spider. U will need range. And I never ever play less than 4 heroes, but there are many times when people split up for short intervals to cover faster ground. This is afterall a race.

Instead of saying 'splitting up? then they deserve to be in trouble', a melee hero with a ranged attack can actually get out of a 'sticky' situation. And there are times when a melee hero draws a ranged weapon from chests, not buy it. Such weapons usually can cause quite a bit of damage, especially if they come with pierce. You don't really need that black power die in your ranged trait. Just a good ranged weapon.