My question concerns two different situations:

• Certain threats allow you to summon another player and add their Cunning/Willpower/Strength value to your battle against the threat.
• Likewise certain cards allow you to double your Cunning/Willpower/Strength value for one battle.

Now, the answers might be different for each of these but I'm curious whether people considered this addition, or double up, as of the basic attribute only or whether it includes all other battle bonuses from Assets etc.?

I've only just played the game ones and I do not have a copy myself at this stage, but it struck me as a bit off and I have now been reading through the digital rules in the absence of a FAQ, but I'm none the wiser. Am I missing something or is it self-evident whether to do one or the other?

Cremate said:

I wouldn't call it clear at all, or maybe would be better to say I'd call it clear, but in the opposite. Both the Power cards and the Threat cards use the term "X value", whereas Wargear provides a bonus to your battle score, which is the last one in: value + roll + modifiers. Pulling in another character boosts your "X value", which can be doubled by a Power card, nothing suggests you have two different "X values", one that's your basic attribute value and one that you get added to it (but for some reason can't be part of the doubled value).

That said, we rarely bother calling in another character to help. Either one is beating the enemy by themselves (for 2 levels) or else has a weak shot even with help and why provide benefits for another character?

Personally I think it is unbalanced to include the gear, especially in the second situation. It seems to me that the game pushes you heavily toward mini-maxing your character. Add a double up effect and one round of the final combat becomes trivial.

At the same time I acknowledge that the rules, as far as I could spot, are not very clear on the subject. I find it logic, for sake of balance, not to include all the Assets, but then that's based on my balance preferences.

Okay, time to flip-flop. That's what I get for not checking the full wording on the cards. Ghazghkull Thraka came up in the Lonesome Gamer series and a zoom showed that you add the other character "x value" to your battle score, meaning that works like the combat test bonus Wargear/Assets.

Doubling your Attribute's value in battle means doubling the starting value printed on your character's card.

Though we have been playing incorrectly up till now, which is a strange oversight on our part as the same is true in Talisman: value means starting/printed stat, not your total.

By your view, increasing attributes makes no difference in your success or failure rate of skill tests:

"To resolve a skill test, a player makes a skill roll by rolling one die. The results are added to his corresponding attribute value and any modifiers that apply to create a skill score." (p. 14)

Ít makes most sense to me that the developers intended those various cards to read as "the current value of the relevant attribute wheel", but it is not entirely clear and might be nice to see cleared up in an errata.

If they're actually meant to be read as the starting value, then they truly need an errata, because that if that's the intention then it is rather well hidden.

If they meant starting attribute value = attribute value, boosting attributes would have no purpose. Combat and skill tests you add your attribute value to your roll, so why bother boosting it, if you're going to only add your starting value even if current attribute is 12?

Hmm, okay.I stand corrected.

On a related note, and this is mighty strange, where does it say that a player can't lose an attribute, if it would bring him below his starting value?

I could've sworn I read it someplace in the rulebook, but now I can't find it.

The relevant page (6) in the rulebook only says that you ignore any attribute loss if you're already at 1.

Character Anatomy box on page 7, the last bit (#10).

Don't get all the confusion over this, the only reason I said it was clear is because if you read combat they say to add your attribute value and you don't include values from things like wargear, relics, or ally's until the determine battle score step making me think there's a stated difference between attribute value (what's showing on your wheel) as opposed to total battle score (which is the total combined thing from stats and all assets.