So we played a game last night and I drew Nara the Fang who has yet to see a game of Runebound.

Nara's abilty is:

Before Combat: You may take to Fatigue to make a melee attack.

I picked up a "mace of Kellos" early on so now I can activate it after a successful melee attack to +2 dmg (4 in total). Which was pretty sweet and I had been Uping Nara's Body atrribute maily and tied in wit a black dagger (+2 combat rolls) he was at +10 early on in the game which ment he was putting down any yellow encounter down before the combat phase had started.

Then a "White Blade" pops up:

Before Combat: Activate to make a melee attack. If your hero succeeds, inflict 3 dmg.

So question: Can I combo the "white blade" and "mace of Kellos" so that if I make a successful melee attack I inflict 5 dmg! Then I follow up with Nara's abilty to inflict an addition 2 dmg for a total of 7dmg before any comabt phase as started? By this point I had dumped the "black dagger" for the "white blade" and was at body 16 any way so even with a double 1 on the dice im at 18 melee.

I think I can, that how I read it, just some of my play group with a bit hmmmmm about it as I was knocking down blue encounters and saying should I even bother roling dice and just take it to speed up the game.

Neffer said:

Hi,

you missed the limitation on card activation. See Rulebook page 6:

You may activate a single card during your
movement step and a single card during your
market step. During the adventure step, you may
activate a single card “Before Combat” and a single
card during each round of combat

Both Mace of Kellos and White Blade are "Activate to Use" Items; in Before Combat, you may use either the Mace or the Blade, not both. There's no problem in making two Before Combat Melee attacks, since one comes from Nara's ability and the other from the White Blade.

This means that your maximum damage potential Before Combat is 5, if you attack with the White Blade and use Nara's Special Ability. If you want to activate the Mace of Kellos and do 4 damage Before Combat you cannot use the White Blade, so it is generally not advisable as the Mace may be used later.

The_Warlock said:

That said, 5 dmg during Before Combat isn't nothing snuff at.

The_Warlock:

Thanks for the reply!

I found the rule on page 9 under card activation not page 6? diffrent rule book? or typo maybe ^^

"a single card during a combat round"

So I couldn't say defend a ranged attack, fail the roll and then reduce the dmg by activating a piece of armour and then in the melee phase activate the mace of Kellos!

That would be a big game change for us, Although it will make the game harder which I like the idea of =D

Dam:

O yeah 5 dmg is still nothing to snuff at, tie that in with a Sheild of Light (activate: cancel 2 dmg and inflict 1 dmg) for a nice combo that I cant think of any Blue would survive 1 round and with minimal to no dmage to you (apart from fatigue for Nara BC ability)

Neffer said:

Maybe. I'm quoting the online English Rulebook that's available for download from FFG site, but pages may vary from one translation to the other

Neffer said:

Exactly, if you use an Armour in Ranged Phase (most of them are Activate to Use) you can't use the Mace of Kellos in Melee, not in the same round. That's why the Rage Blade costs 12 Gold and the Mace of Kellos only 6 (IIRC).

Neffer said:

That's true. Before Combat damage is extraordinary good, mostly because you take no damage if you fail the attack roll.

But I have to correct myself: you can't use the Mace of Kellos in Before Combat, because the text shows " Melee :". This means that it can be used only in the Melee phase of Combat and this rules out Before Combat.

Neffer said:

You got that slightly wrong

you can defend a ranged attack on a failed ranged combat roll with an armor activation and then attack with the mace of Kellos later by activating it in the next combat round

The rulebook combat states that each combat round consists of four phases: Escape, Range, Melee and Magic then the next combat round begins and so on.

As quoted below: This rule is on my page 6 of my rulebook.

The_Warlock said: