I just played my first game with the new rules and a few things came up that made me question my understanding of the rules.

If you are base to base with an enemy, can you use any weapon to attack or counterattack? Many games force you into melee at this point so I question my reading of the rules.

If you are attacking an adjacent foe on the other side of a door must it be a melee attack only?

Does a mental duel (Von Heizinger's Patmos Amulet or Sha-na-ra for example) count as an attack? The wording on the items does not say specifically that the duels are attacks, but in the "Declare Target and Weapon" rules (page 21) it mentions "mental" as a possible prerequisite for an item to be a weapon. Just curious how this works.

This is one is kind of long and convoluted and I apologize in advance. In a character"s equipment pack there are often tokens that represent an ability as opposed to a piece of physical equipment. From my understanding you can only drop/give/pick up items with a black/yellow border. I also believe you are suppose to flip an ability token over if it is a one time use token after you use it. So, if you find an item and want to carry it you can only do so by dropping one of your black/yellow bordered items even if you have used tokens which are only abilities? If so, then ability tokens pretty much take up an equipment slot forever on that particular character? That just seems cruel.

If you win initiative, must you go first or can you force the other player to go instead?

Thanks in advance... I am sure more questions will arise. Btw, I really like the new rules and they seem very straight forward. So much so that I am probably reading too much into them and thus creating silly questions as those above.

Mike

Your questions are in bold

If you are base to base with an enemy, can you use any weapon to attack or counterattack? Many games force you into melee at this point so I question my reading of the rules.

Page 21 says to choose an adjacent target on the same path there is no weapon requirement. So you may use any weapon you wish.

If you are attacking an adjacent foe on the other side of a door must it be a melee attack only?

This is correct.

Does a mental duel (Von Heizinger's Patmos Amulet or Sha-na-ra for example) count as an attack? The wording on the items does not say specifically that the duels are attacks, but in the "Declare Target and Weapon" rules (page 21) it mentions "mental" as a possible prerequisite for an item to be a weapon. Just curious how this works.

Yes it is considered an attack. On page 21 there is an overview of attacks. Mental is one of them.

This is one is kind of long and convoluted and I apologize in advance. In a character"s equipment pack there are often tokens that represent an ability as opposed to a piece of physical equipment. From my understanding you can only drop/give/pick up items with a black/yellow border. I also believe you are suppose to flip an ability token over if it is a one time use token after you use it. So, if you find an item and want to carry it you can only do so by dropping one of your black/yellow bordered items even if you have used tokens which are only abilities? If so, then ability tokens pretty much take up an equipment slot forever on that particular character? That just seems cruel.

Some Abilities will say discard this token. Others are permanent such as INT bonuses or GO GO GO. The cap for 4 equipment slots is a way to balance characters. Once a equipment is discarded that slot is free.

If you win initiative, must you go first or can you force the other player to go instead?

page 10 - player with the highest roll has INT. INT is defined in the back of the book as first player. So if you win you go first.

Sorry for the long delay in response.