Liquid Fire

[Thorsten the Traveller]

Liquid Fire:
..."discard to cause all strikes from all attacks of a non-Dragon, non-Nazgul, non-Balrog creature keyed to a site to fail (resulting bodychecks for the creature are modified by -2)."

The roll is thus modified by -2, right? so you pour liquid fire on a creature and it becomes actually harder to kill?
Is this correct, and if so, why is it like this? Foul Trophies for example, you discard it, loose no mp's, and the creature's body gets -2, instead of the body check. They changed Sacrifice of Form to +3 to the body check. Liquid Fire seems an odd duck compared with these.

We've discussed this so often in our games, usually we let it slide, but not so now.

[Bandobras Took]

That analysis seems correct.

As to why, my guess would be that the card is more easily playable -- and as an item, more easily recyclable -- than events which modify body.

Besides, real men use Adunaphel Unleashed.

[Thorsten the Traveller]

yeah but which other resource actually increases the body of a creature you're fighting? (or to this effect).
if it was balancing mechanism, they might as well have omitted anything about bc's. That's why it's more logical it is an oversight/mistake, imo.
seems ripe for a house rule adjustment.

besides, an Unleashed Adunaphel uses real men, rather

[miguel]

Foul Trophies has much more limited use and you still need to actually face a strike. And it increases the prowess (so why could another resource not increase an attack's body).

Sac of Form works only against one attack, and the card's actual cost is much higher than just playing it because the Wizzie leaves, and normally you don't play it multiple times.

Liquid Fire seems fine and well balanced as is. You don't actually have to face any of the strikes and it works on multi-attack creatures. If the body checks were modified by +2 LF would become a near-automatic Nameless Thing slayer which is just too strong IMO.

[Thorsten the Traveller]

Not so, comparing with Sacrifice
It's not more easily playable, cause as item the timing and playability restrictions are greater than SacForm. or even Foul Trophies in some ways (as that can be played during other phases).
You also loose an mp, and an item at that, and while you have the item you can be corrupted by it.
Next, the range of attacks Liquid Fire can be used on is limited, it must be a creature, and it must be keyed to a site. That's a serious limitation. Also no Dragon, no Nazgul.
SacForm also yields extra benefits (besides killing a creature), and White Wizard possibility.

Then, multiple attacks, so how many creatures keyed to a site with multiple attacks are there? 3, 2 of which don't have body. So you mean to tell me LF was designed to not kill Nameless or to give Assassins a chance to survive? Unlikely.

As I said, for balance they need simply not have bothered about the bc's. That would be a better houserule then. Rolling 6x7 is a pretty slim chance (about 4%). Discarding a LF only to get Nameless Mouthed on you again is pretty annoying. Obviously virtual autokill Nameless (chance 87%, so not autokill at all) would be too good. But making it virtually impossible to defeat let's say a Maia attack (chance less than 1%) is also nonsense. You're better off with general cancellers then, which is a shame, cause it's a cool item which now only gets played for points.

nb. chances of not defeating Nameless with body 4 is also 66 percent.

[miguel]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. But your house, your houserules.