hey all, happy new year and best wishes
we've been playing Runebound for quite some time and made it into a weekly entertainment, but recently encountered some difficulties in explaining these three cards. Specificaly the "must use their melee damage values in place of their (hand) values."
at first glance it seems pretty straightforward. if a hero card states 4/1 it is turned into a 1/1.
the question that got raised is "what about experience counters"
the hero in question was Mad Carthas, whose printed melee value is 3/1 and who had a +2 "hand" exp. counter, making his melee value 5/1, fighting the Knave of Blood.
so, one part of the group argued that only the hero's printed value is changed, since according to the rulebook we're talking about "counters" who add a "permanent bonus". in which case his melee value is 3/1
the other part of the group argues that since exp. counters increase his overall values, everything is replaced which would drop his melee value to 1/1.
similar question got raised with these cards as well
for example
a hero has mind 2/1 with 4 exp counters, body 3/1 with 3 exp counters and spirit 1/2 with no counters, and the duke of hate makes him use his magic values for all combat rolls.
does that mean that his combat rolls become 1/1 1/1 1/1 or 9/1, 7/1 1/1