The new FAQ has an update on leap. You can no longer interupt a leap attack in mid leap. You can use a guard, or trap before the leap (ie the originating space) of after the leap. They also clarified that leap uses up all remaining movement points. I would assume that with a hero, they could still use fatigue to do something like opening or closing a door, but it would have to be fatigue based as no regular movement points would be left after the leap was done. Additionaly, leap no longer lets you get out of a grapple, you can grapple a leaper before or after the leap, but not in mid leap. Overall this reduces the ability to react to leap to before the start of the leap or afterwords, not in the middle of the leap. Anything that could affect the leaper now has an effect (no more getting out of grapples by leaping over the grappler).

As far as AOE spells and leap interacting, my first thought is they should not be compatible. If you leap you get one attack on each figure over which you leap. The blast, or breath, etc would not then continue. That being said I can sort of see an argument for having the AOE take effect sort of like a broom sweep. The attack would then sweep an area to each side of the leap. This would be a thematic argument however, and I am usually leary about allowing anything like this. Think of it like this. The hero leaps while using a breath rune, the attack starts from the position that the hero started on, is oriented along the path of the leap and moves with the leap. at the far end the breath continues from where the hero landed. Each monster in the area would only get attacked once however.

Brian

Antistone said:

I don't really see that as a special ruling though. If you're not using the weapon, but it's equipped, you get to add the Off-Hand bonus. Weilding two 2H weapons gives you no bonus. It's the same for that new guy in ToI who can wield a 2H weapon in 1 hand. If he's wielding 2 2H weapons, he gets no off-hand bonus. But if he wields 1 2H Weapon and 1 1H Weapon, he can use the Off-Hand bonus.

So, if you had 4 hands, the only real unbalancing factor would be multiple shields. If he had 4 Shields and Taunt, would seem a bit rediculous but rather powerful. Some people think having 2 shields is overpowering, and that the rule really should be you can only wield one shield at a time.

But otherwise, no rule changes would be needed. If you wielded a 2H and 2 1H weapons, you get both 1H Off-Hand bonuses.

-shnar

That's exactly the reason that you'd need to explicitly state the rules: you assume that the rule generalizes in a particular way that makes sense to you, but there's no reason that it has to. In fact, based on a strict reading, it doesn't:

"If a hero has two one-handed Melee weapons equipped at once, he may gain the benefits of an Off-Hand Bonus. The weapon the hero does not use to attack adds its off-hand bonus to attacks with the other weapon." (JitD Rules p. 19, emphasis added)

You can argue that this rule was written under the assumption that you could never wield more than 2 melee weapons and that you couldn't wield two of them unless they were both one-handed, and that is undoubtedly true, but by RAW, you can't gain an off-hand bonus when using a two-handed weapon (even if you're also using a one-hander), and you can't claim more than one off-hand bonus (no matter how many weapons you have).

And if you're going to go with what you think is reasonable rather than by a strict reading of the rules-as-written, then why shouldn't two-handed weapons grant an off-hand bonus? Because the person writing the card didn't write one down? He obviously would've assumed it could never be in a position to grant one, just as the person writing the rulebook assumed it could never be in a position to receive one. If you're going to change one, why not the other?

(Of course, there's a sound practical reason for not adding off-hand bonuses to two-handed weapons: it would take a lot more work than changing the other thing. Unless you just arbitrarily declare them all to be +1 damage or something.)

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that Laughin Buldar's ability specifically says that he can wield a single two-handed melee weapon in one hand, which means that he can't equip two at once (the second one would require 2 hands, as normal). It's possible I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall making a special note of that when I read his ability.

I love reading about new characters, but I think this one is too strong:

12 / 2 / 2 / 5, with 4 arms. Some sort of Octopus guy I take it?

Laughin Buldar is a 16 / 3 / 1 / 4, and he effectively has 3 "hands", w the limit of 2 total items (a 2-hander and a 1-hander).

So this new guy essentially allows a Laughin to use a primary 2-hander and two secondaries. A typical secondary for Laughin gives him +2 damage (+1 damage and +1 surge, usually netting +2 damage, and a bit more later as the primary weapon gets better).

Laughin Buldar is already one of the best characters (imo) in that he starts the game w +2 damage on an Axe / Morning Star combo. This new guy starts w +4 damage, and the option to ditch a few weapons for a few shields. True there is only 1 Morning Star in the deck, so his second off-hand weapon has to be something slightly weaker, but he'll at least get +3 damage, w some other benefit.

What are the downsides to him?

Well he's got 4 fewer HP, 1 fewer Fatigue, and then 1 more Armor and 1 more Speed. Those are pretty much a wash, being up 2 traits and down 2 traits.

That makes him basically equal to Laughin, but w/o the hand restrictions of max 2 items totalling 3 hands, and he actually gets a 4th hand to boot. It's just way too powered up.

The 4 hands would be a really cool character, but then his stats have to be substantially worse than Laughin, to make up the difference. So being an Octopus type creature, I'd say give him 1 Armor, and "Cannot wear armor" (where you gonna find armor that fits a guy w 4 arms anyways?). That keeps him out of Chain Mail, and he's more balanced then. Then his taking of 2 shields could be useful, and not terribly unbalanced. Once he takes 2 shields, his armor is only a 3, till he gets some upgraded shields or Ambidextrous.

Cool idea tho...

-mike

What I'm thinking now is that his ability would be that he's able to use the off-hand bonus of unequipped items...

So that would imply the following:

• In order to make effective use of your hero ability, you must be at constant risk of having your backpack overflow, forcing you to discard items and lose them forever.
• Unless you get the bag of holding, in which case you could plausibly have dozens of off-hand bonuses added to your attack at all times.

IMO, that pushes the hero towards playing in an area where the existing rules don't work very well, and makes his effectiveness highly dependent on treasure draws, wealth density of the quest, and which expansions you happen to have. And I think all of those are Bad Things.