Hero ability states:
“During each round in which you do not perform an attack, you gain 1 additional brown die to your defense pool.”

Rulebook states:
“The defending player – any player controlling a figure affected by the attack – creates his defense pool by gathering all the defense dice listed on his Hero sheet (in addition to any dice provided by equipment and card effects) or Monster card and rolls them for his defense roll. If an ability allows a player to add dice to this roll, he does so before the roll.” P.12 section 2, Roll Dice.

The way I see it, there are two ways to interpret this.

1, during each round in which you do not perform an attack with Jonas the Kind, you add 1 brown defense die to your defense pool. Meaning, after 3 rounds not attacking you would have 3 brown dice extra, on every defense roll, permanently for that encounter (as rules lawyer, I would say this).

2, during each round in which you do not perform an attack with Jonas the Kind, you add 1 brown defense die to your defense pool. Meaning, you can use that extra die only in the following overlords turn on every defense roll, after which the die “vanishes” (this is what my friend thought it meant).

Meaning:
I thinks it’s 1, so let’s assume that. The way we’ve been playing (4 heroes), each encounter lasts only around 6-10 turns. And having a hero not attacking is a tremendous loss. So I assumed it would result in permanent (during that encounter) extra dice for Jonas as compensation for not attacking. My friend thought Jonas would become overpowered with all these extra dice. But what is a brown die? Three times 0, two times 1 and one time 2 shields, which results in something between 0.5 and 0.6 shields per roll. Which doesn’t seem too bad to me, assuming the lack of attacking is such a great loss.

JohnMill said:

I think it's 2. It's the same as the Disciple ability in my eyes. There's only one brown dice for a start, giving an ability that would potentially have you roll it 5 times, multiple times in a turn… I can't see them doing that.

Sausageman said:

First:
With "the Desciple ability" you are referring to the ability "Armor of Faith"? which states:
"Each time you use Prayer of Healing on a hero, that hero adds 1 additional brown die to his defense pool until the start of your next turn. Place a hero token belonging to that hero on this card as a reminder"

There it specifically states until the start of your next turn . And the rulebook states:
"Players are not limited to the number of dice included in the game. If more dice are needed for a roll, the player simply rolls all the dice he can, records the result, and rerolls any other dice needed." P.11 section Core rules, The Dice.

Second:
Jonas the Kind is a hero from the 1st Edition, rewritten to fit into the 2nd Edition. Only they did this after they brought out the core set. I doubt they thought about these heroes when they included the amount of dice in the game. They based that on the 8 heroes included in the core set.

I think they haven't thought this hero through or it's just a typo and it should have said until the start of your next turn on the card.

i think they meant #2, but it is poorly worded so I can see your argument for #1. there are few mechanisms that require you to keep track of things that happened in the previous turn, much less 10 tours ago. And yes having a hero roll 10 brown dice would be overpowered. He can still move, search, use healing skills, etc and still get his buff, so not attacking with him isn't that huge of a loss.

The way I read it, it says "during each round" meaning that once the round is over so is the additional die. If the word "during" went there I might think #1.

X

It's #1 without a shadow of a doubt. The prefix During indicates that when that round is over (i.e. usually when the Overlord has had his turn) then the ability no longer applies. It's certainly not worded well and does leave room for some ambiguity. But consider the following two statements:

During each round in which you do not perform an attack, you gain 1 additional brown die to your defense pool.

For each round you do not perform an attack, you gain 1 additional brown die to your defense pool.

They look almost exactly the same, but the meaning of the sentences is entirely different.

Trying to be a rules lawyer with a Fantasy Flight Games product like Descent isn't going to win you any friends quickly. Try and think what the spirit and intention of that ability is, rather than what you would like it to be.

Rageweaver said:

Sure you didnt mean #2? Your argument suggests you think #2 is correct (extra die only lasts until end of round)

Send your question to FFG, they do reply to rules questions. But you might just as well play 2 already, because that's what they'll answer.

JohnMill said:

Yes, I meant Armor of Faith. And it specifically states 'until your next turn' because there isn't an 'until your next attack' trigger. Otherwise it would be permanent.

As for the need to roll extra dice, I know you CAN roll a dice multiple times. But I HIGHLY doubt FFG would would engineer a situation where you might need to roll the brown dice 25 times in a round (due to multiple attacks on a Jonas that's not attacked for several rounds). This was the point I was making.

JohnMill said:

I don't agree with this either. First off, the 2nd edition Jonas is COMPLETELY different to his first edition counterpart (who would make a monster surrender when reduced to exactly 1 life point). Secondly, it was pretty obvious that the 1st edition heroes were worked on at the same time, roughly, as there were several previews of 'Conversion Kit Heroes' before the base game came out, and only two, maybe three weeks between their releases.

Until the start of your next turn would have done the job IMO, however, I don't believe they have built in an escalating defense mechanism for him, so personally feel the statement is unnecessary.

I'm prepared to put my hands up and say I was wrong if/when you get an official answer contrary to this btw…

Official reply:

Your second interpretation is correct. Jonas only receives 1 brown defense die regardless of how many rounds he has not attacked.

Thanks,

Adam Sadler
Managing Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games

Thanks.

JohnMill said:

Thanks for the update.