Last night during our game we had 2 questions pop up that I wanted to get clarification on please. Any official response would be greatly appreciated as well (Please amado!).

1) When spending Hope pts are you limited to only being able to spend one at a time?

I informed my Loremaster last night that I was pretty sure I read somewhere in the game you can only spend one pt of Hope at a time for a single roll but when we looked through the books last night to try to confirm that we could not locate it anywhere. It definitely seems logical to us that this should be the rule.

2) When in Defensive Stance and using the Protect Companion task in combat, when the attack is made do you use the original target of the attack's TN to be hit or the character who is trying to defend that character's TN?

The Loremaster of our game read the rule thinking it should be the TN of the original target of the attack but to me it seems like it is saying it should be the TN of the character trying to protect that companion since it says "the attacks is resolved normally, as if the attack was originally aimed at the DEFENDING character."

Not official, but:

Limited to 1 point of Hope per roll, as per page 26 Adventurer's Book, second column, first paragraph.

I'm with you on this one, use the defending character's TN (including the base 12 from being in Defensive Stance)

John

Greetings

Not that this is official but ...

1. I searched all the references to Hope in the AB and LB and could only find references to spending 'a point of Hope' - not conclusive but indicative I think.

2. I'd agree with your interpretation as the protecting character is spending Hope to put himself in the way so using his own TN from his defensive stance is the logical interpretation. He is also the only 'defender' as the protected character is in open or forward stance.

Regards

Edward

I am in no way an official source, but I am pretty familiar with the rules.

1. Is the question can you spend multiple points of Hope to gain your bonus more than once for a cumulative benefit?
I would say no. On p. 26 of the AB it states "When a player fails at a roll, he may spend one point of Hope to receive a bonus equal to the Attribute score that is considered most pertinent for the action. Apply the favoured Attribute rating if the character is making use of a favoured skill, or the basic value otherwise.".

2. I don't see how this is anyway ambiguous. You have already quoted the appropriate rule from p. 163 AB.

It is somewhat ambiguous, templar72, because some of the people in my group read "defending character" as the original target of the attack because that character is also defending himself. I read it as the character in defensive stance who is trying to defend the original target of the attack.

Here's the conclusive part -

AB p26:

"It is only possible to spend one point of Hope on
a single die roll (it is not possible to spend more points to
get multiple bonuses)."

In my first run-through "Marsh Bell," we decided that "defending character" has to refer to the character spending Hope to interpose him or herself. So there's another data-point for you.