This stops the character using their defence value, but can you still count bonuses such as Dunedain Warning and Protector of Lorien. Sorry if it's been discussed before...

Dunedain Warning etc. just adds to the character's defense value. Since Despair doesn't tell you to ignore the printed defense value of a character, I'd say that the character has a net defense of 0.

I agree, if you have 3 dunedain warnings attached to a hero that has 2 defense (Beravor for example) and draw a Despair shadow effect, your total defense would be reduced to 0. You wouldn't still get the defensive bonuses from the Dunedain Warnings.

This is one reason why A Burning Brand is such an excellent choice for your defenders. Automatically cancelling shadow effects takes a great deal of burden off your shoulders.

Puzzle said:

I think BBarnd is to powerful. Only 1 card totally destroy whole game mechanic: shadow cards. Only 1 card, just cost 2 and you dont need to worry bout shadow cards anymore. I think this is to much!!!

Glaurung said:

I believe it balances with the fact that it only works with one sphere. I usually play with multiple players, and so far only one player has run Lore, and they rarely function as the combat player. The players who are defending against enemies rarely get the BBrand, thus they get the effects of shadow cards. We did get a Song of Wisdom and the BBrand on Aragon once, but that was just once.

Thanks for the replies. I guess it's good bye Bilbo in that circumstance! Unfortunately I had yet to draw Burning Brand. Burning Brand is a great card, and good that it is restricted to Lore characters - though I guess you could use Song of Wisdom to get it on others.

scottindeed said:

Yes you can. Song of wisdom gives the attached hero a Lore resource icon, which means that the hero now belongs to the Lore sphere as well as the original sphere it is from (p8 rule book).

BBrand is also an attachment, which makes it vulnerable to discard effects in some scenarios.