Hello all.

During a game last night, the player to my left defeated the Vorpal Hunter (a card from the Dark Forest deck expansion). The reward for defeating him is his weapon, The Vorpal Blade. So, upon aquiring the blade, the player asked a question which I thought I'd relay here. Unfortunately, I can't recall the exact text of the card as I'm away from home currently, but it says something like " melee : activate to roll 2d10, if double zeros are rolled, you defeat your enemy."

How to you all interpret this? Does this roll take place during the melee phase or is it an extra roll that takes place beforehand?

I'll try to get the actual card text posted later.

Thanks!

-MD

If it says "melee" then that's the phase in which it is activated... though the mechanic doesn't really work according to where the notion of a vorpal sword originated.

My understanding of the vorpal sword is this:

1) In melee, you must declare that your hero is attacking.

2) You activate the vorpal sword.

3) You roll your 2 attack dice.

4) If you rolled greater than the enemies defense (but not double zeros) you hit and wound normally. If you rolled double zeros you kill your enemy instantly by snipping off their head with the vorpal sword.

Hope that helps,

Judd

That makes sense... though I'd still prefer most other weapons, I think.

Thanks to the both of you.

I agree with what you wrote - it's the ruling we used in the game.

JC, I'm going to check that link out, thanks for sharing!

I don't have the card in front of me, but by Carrol's prose in the Alice narrative, a better rendition of the Vorpal Sword would be to allow a second melee attack by activating and using that weapon. I'm wondering if the card's actual wording states this in some way; it would seem to make more sense.

Make your normal melee attack, then activate the V.S. for an immediate second attack. If the double zero comes up, then it's an instant kill. The "one, two" could be interpreted as two attacks instead of one during the melee phase.

Just a notion...

The whole issue of "verbal gospel" implied in this fictional weapons name could also have some implications, but not ones that would work in Runebound.

I would agree with the notion that you activate the vorpal blade to roll 2d10 again (separately from the actual Melee Attack.) If you get double zeroes, you instantly kill the target, otherwise nothing happens.

Also, based on the link provided to Lewis Caroll's work, I don't see what's so inappropriate about the mechanic of this weapon as compared to it's name. As far as I can see, "vorpal" is a nonsense word whose meaning is taken, from the context of the poem, to mean "sharp" or "deadly." A sword that has a chance to auto-kill the target would certainly seem to qualify. Unless you were trying to argue that the odds of such happening are too low.

Yes, the odds are a bit low at 1% considering a Hero can only carry two weapons. As said, don't have the card handy, and don't know how much it costs vs. what little it does.

By context I would take the weapon in question as sharp and deadly rather than the meaning of term itself. The same could be claimed about Excalibur (or rather Caledfwlch) in any of the various Arthurian cycles when it is seen used, but that isn't what that term means. "Nonce" words have always been the subject of much debate in lit. crit. circles.

Can someone please tell me which game module this card comes from?