Koll's Mark states that:

During your turn, you may sacrifice 2 wounds to make 1 additional Magic attack. You may do this up to 2 times per turn.

Am I correct in assuming that you can use this to make an attack (or attacks) even if your hero does a run action for the turn?

Yes. There is no stipulation on which action the hero declares. As long as the hero sacrifices his wounds, he can make the attack(s). Don't let the "additional" word in there confuse you. Even if you made zero attacks that turn, if you made one more because you sacrificed wounds, then you made an "additional" attack.

-shnar

Hi,

My question would be : why did they put the word additional ?

For me it need to have a prior attack, otherwise it doesn't make sens ?

Does FFG made FAQ/errata for this ?

br.

mikaeru said:

Did you even read Shnar's response before posting? Seriously, he just answered this exact question. Even if you have zero attacks due to declaring a Run action, spending the wounds will get you an additional attack (for a total of 1.) If you were required to declare an action that gave you a natural attack, it would say so on the card. It doesn't.

mikaeru said:

Perhaps because the attack is additional to your normal attacks?

It does make sense without any attacks. Sorry, but you just aren't using the english language correctly for it not to make sense. Additional is an exact synonym for 'extra' in this case - it literally means 'added on'. Additional to zero is still additional. Additional to 2 is still additional.

There is no errata and I very much doubt there ever will be an errata (unless it is to depower the skill, which is very very strong) because it makes perfect sense exactly the way it is and is almost certainly intended to be exactly that way. There are a number of other skills that trigger off other attacks and they are worded very differently.

Yeah Mikaeru, as we said to you on BGG forums aditional just means aditional, if you want to change that and all the players agree go for it, but that will be a house rule.

I agree, additional doesn't mean that you needed to be making attacks already.

Of course, if one were looking for justification to prevent a hero using this skill during a Run action, you could fall back on the sloppily-worded description of the action, which had the same problem as the original Battle action but wasn't fixed when Battle was:

• Battle used to say "cannot move" but now says "receives no movement points" (in the printed version; the PDF is older than dirt).
• Run still says "cannot attack" (IIRC).

Even if you were going to enforce strict RAW, though, that doesn't stop a hero from using the skill during a Ready action or while stunned, even if he makes no other attacks that turn.

mikaeru, my OL for that campaign didn't want to accept the answers on Board Game Geek arguying that it wasn't the Official Forum!!!

We have done so far 3 Dungeons (7 Dungeon Levels) and I had Koll's Mark from the beginning!!! Although I told him from the beginning that I could run and attack with Koll's Mark, he denied me this right!!!

He should get a penalty or we should get a bonus for that! Don't you think?

Thanks!

mikaeru, my OL for that campaign didn't want to accept the answers on Board Game Geek arguying that it wasn't the Official Forum!!!

We have done so far 3 Dungeons (7 Dungeon Levels) and I had Koll's Mark from the beginning!!! Although I told him from the beginning that I could run and attack with Koll's Mark, he denied me this right!!!

He should get a penalty or we should get a bonus for that! Don't you think?

Hum Sorry! It is my first post today on this forum...

It is not possible to a post after Publishing?

Hum Sorry! It is my first post today on this forum...

It is not possible to DELETE a post after Publishing?

retienne said:

Nope, not that I'm aware of. You can edit a post for about 5 minutes after posting it, but no deletion.

mikaeru said:

You are correct about the usage of that word. Additional means "supplementary" or "extra", and it strongly implies - if not outright states - that you're starting with something .

However, the rules really aren't rigorous about using exact language. Many wordings are ambiguous, and quite a few terms are overloaded (used in different parts of the rules with different meanings).

mahkra said:

It does not imply anything of the sort. It can be more of something you already have, but does not imply in any way that you already have some of the same thing you are getting 'added on'.
In the case of a run action, you have 2X+n MP, 0 orders and 0 attacks. Anything you get after that, be it attacks, MP or orders will be additional .

Corbon said:

Actually, it really does. Look it up in a dictionary. Or even better, try the thesaurus.

You can't put additional money in your wallet when it's empty. However, you could certainly add money to an empty wallet. Additional does not just mean you're adding something - it means you're adding something to something .

Saying "additional" conversationally implies that your sentence would be misleading if you omitted the word, since otherwise including it would violate the maxim of quantity . But it does not entail that you already had some, and in this specific case, is almost certainly included because the speaker is uncertain whether you previously had some or not, and wished to make it clear that your number of attacks is being increased, not replaced.

Incidentally, Mahkra, I checked several definitions of "additional", and all of them make the meanings of the phrases "put additional money in your wallet" and "add money to your wallet" exactly the same.

mahkra said:

If I have 2 credit cards, a drivers licence, a Library card, 3 chain store membership cards, a dozen receipts and a picture of my family in my wallet (but no cash) if I get any additional cash I can put it in my wallet. The something doesn't have to be the same thing , as I already said.
You can have 3 oranges and acquire an additional 2 apples.
You can have a round of beers and some additional bar snacks.
You can have 2X+n MP and acquire an additional attack (or two).
You can even have 2 attacks + n MP and acquire 2 additional attacks.

Antistone covered the technical details.
A surprise, though not when you think about it, that a set of rules have been devised to describe this stuff. Thanks Antistone.

I'm not sure what dictionaries you've looked at (I assume you have, since you told me to) but none of the ones I've looked at have said anything different. In fact several imply, by having one of the descriptors as 'supplementary', that the 'additional' would be more likely to (though not exclusively) mean 'different to what you already have' than 'the same as what you already have'. You supplement your beers with nuts, not with more beers (well, you should, but one of the reasons I don't drink is because in my foolish culture most idiots do 'supplement' their beers with more beers, until they pass out).

<sigh>

It strongly implies, even if it doesn't entail . There's certainly a huge difference between "gain an X" and "gain an additional X".

Yay! Dictionary wars! They're the true symbol of a forum's conversational maturity.

P.S. - Corbon, I hadn't noticed your response earlier. I think you're confusing supplementary with com plementary.

I'll come in on the side of those who think "additional" implies existing attacks. Let me first state that I don't think the designers actually intended the ability not to be useable on a run action. I do, however, think it's poorly worded.

The definition of "additional" as "supplementary" is particularly telling- one has to supplement something - you can't supplement nothing.

Would any of the proponents of "additional" as not implying anything existing think it natural if I asked them if they'd like some additional cake, having previously not offered them any food? If I had a football team with no members, would I look for "additional" members?

One can (Corbon seemed to allude to this) use "additional" to add something similar to a group of broadly-similarly-categorised but not identical objects, but it would never, in normal speech, be used when referring to an empty category.

Words imply the conditions necessary to justify their use.

If I know that you currently have zero widgets, and I ask you if you would like additional widgets, then I have violated the maxim of quantity (including "additional" in the sentence conveyed no additional meaning). Therefore, if you hear me ask if you would like additional widgets, that implies that you already have some widgets, or that I don't realize that you currently have none.

There's an obvious reason why they might think that writing "additional" would be clearer (i.e. to distinguish a gain from a replacement), even if it's supposed to work on a Run action. Therefore, it doesn't necessarily imply anything else in this case , even if it does in other contexts.

I see no apparent reason why they would write "additional" instead of a clear restriction if the intention was to restrict its use to turns when you already make at least 1 attack. (It would also be the first effect in the entire game that is limited to turns where you are entitled to do something but doesn't require you to actually do that thing as the trigger, making it a subtle and unlikely restriction.)

In fact, I cannot think of any occasion in any context where I have ever heard the word "additional" intentionally used to mean "but only if you already had at least one". Neither implicature nor entailment is ordinarily used to express a conditional effect. It would be weird and confusing to write the effect "roll another black die if and only if you have already rolled exactly 2" as "roll your third black die", or to write "suffer 1 wound if and only if you have only 1 wound token remaining" as "lose your last wound."

The use of the word "additional" when you're adding to nothing indicates at most that the speaker is mistaken, not that the gain is intentionally conditional.

Antistone said:

As you say, the word does imply that there's already something present.

In the context of this game, I agree with your interpretation of the rule. All I've been saying is that the word is really being mis-used in the rule, since it strongly implies an incorrect reading.

I agree that the rule most likely would have been written differently if they actually intended it to be contingent upon already making an attack, but the wording chosen is certainly not a good way to say what they are really trying to say.

mahkra said:

I disagree. I have already explained why "additional" typically has the implication that it does and why it doesn't imply what you think in this case, and you have responded only by saying "strongly implies" over and over.

If I were going to be really careful and explicit, I might say "to make one attack (in addition to any other attacks you may make this turn)". Saying "to make one additional attack" means the same thing and is a lot shorter (which makes it easier to read, and brevity is very important in writing text for cards in many games, though not particularly in this specific case).

I might even say just "to make one attack", but then we'd have a few people arguing the other way that it replaces your normal number of attacks, reinforced by the ruling on the Rage card. And yes, that's stupid (especially considering the clause about doing it twice), but so is arguing that the current wording means that you can't use it unless you're already making an attack.

How would you word the skill?

"Gain one attack" is simpler and less misleading than "make one additional attack".