Chainmail; Am I missing something?

By schmoo34, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

The act I shop has a chainmail that has two effects.

1) Cannot equip runes

2) It reduces movement to 4

Obviously I shortened it but you got the gist.

It costs 150 GP.

Why on earth would someone buy this? Am I missing something overtly obvious here? It seems to me that it provides no net benefit.

Did you happen to notice the added grey defense die on the bottom right of the card? So instead of rolling 1 gray die (about 97% of the heros will roll gray except for 2 that roll black or brown) you will get 2 gray defense dice. Leather armor does similar by giving you +1 hit point and 1 brown defense die.

Ok, so after posting it, I looked at it one more time and noticed a grey defense die on the right.

That obviously is the "net benefit" but I'm still stuck with understanding this. Does that mean the hero gets an additional grey die (so Grisban would now get to roll TWO grey dice for defense)? Or does it simply mean you can roll grey instead of brown…which if I recall correctly, every hero gets to do grey already so I'm leaning towards it giving you a bonus die.

Am I interpreting this correctly?

Coldmoonrising said:

Did you happen to notice the added grey defense die on the bottom right of the card? Leather armor does similar by giving you +1 hit point and 1 brown defense die.

No! I had not…but I realized it as you were posting your response. Apologies…so it gives a bonus grey die for defense was my followup question but judging from your answer, I believe that is the correct interpretation.

You might notice I edited my first response, please refer to my further explanation there. I didn't intend to come across snarky (if I did).

schmoo34 said:

Ok, so after posting it, I looked at it one more time and noticed a grey defense die on the right.

That obviously is the "net benefit" but I'm still stuck with understanding this. Does that mean the hero gets an additional grey die (so Grisban would now get to roll TWO grey dice for defense)? Or does it simply mean you can roll grey instead of brown…which if I recall correctly, every hero gets to do grey already so I'm leaning towards it giving you a bonus die.

Am I interpreting this correctly?

You get to roll an additional Grey die when rolling defense if you have it equipped.

Page 11 of the rules:

Dice Icons: This area lists the dice associated with the
item. If the item is a weapon, these dice are used when
attacking with the weapon. If the item is Armor, they are
added to the player’s defense pool.

It provides an extra dice for defense. Doesn't it?

I think thats the reason why someone should buy it.