Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

Wizard p20 / ITL p117: "Defending is effective only against non-missile spells and attacks"

So if I defend with one dagger I reduce the chance to be hit by thrown and special spells (including the occult zap of the Staff special spell), correct?

What if I have two daggers and the Two Weapons talent? Is there any extra benefit against thrown and special spells?

Also do I need a weapons talent to use the defend option or can I just pick up any old stick and defend with that? (Before or after casting Staff on the stick?)

Insert line here about a Master Fencer parrying a Death spell to increase the chance that the four hexes away wizard will fumble out the full cost of the spell.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

Are we sure that's not an error? Perhaps "spells" should be errata-ed to "attacks".

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

Suspect that's supposed to be "Missile spells and attacks", as missile spells are the spell type that most resembles an attack.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

In solo play, where I try to learn how the rules work - I decided that Defending is not effective against missile or thrown spells. I know that seems weird, but it is just the way I see it in my mind. Dodging, may work against Missile and Thrown Spells

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

Except further down in the paragraph it says..."defending is used against physical attacks from adjacent hexes."

That seems to rule out spells entirely as they are not "physical attacks".

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

It has never occurred to me to let people use Defend against thrown spells.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

Why else would you combine Dagger Mastery and Staff V?

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

I let people dodge missile spells, but not defend against other spells.

We always used the rules as a framework, but applied our own logic (bias?) when deciding how things actually worked. It worked out fine for us, but we mostly played as an RGP, rather than a board game.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

The "spells and" part is clearly a mistake. As TippetsTX pointed out, the last sentence of the same paragraph makes that clear.

i.e. Defend would not help against the casting of any spells. Nor, of course, would Two Weapons.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

Best to reserve spell parry to the Staff and let Muggles suffer for their poor life choices then.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

This is how I read the rules (and spells mentioned under Defend definitely does not fit the rest of the rules).

DODGE works against:
- missile spells (and no other spells)
- missile weapon attacks
- thrown weapon attacks

DEFEND works against only melee physical attacks from a front hex. These include:
- adjacent melee attack
- pole arm jab
- pike attack
- whip attack
- hammertouch spell punch (this is just an enhanced melee attack)

Thrown spells cannot be dodged or defended. Rules say intervening bodies do not block it, so you are not going to block it with your sword and shield.

I don't see how DEFEND would work against staff occult attack, although before that was a thing we used DEFEND against staffs. Would DODGE help against a two hex ranged staff occult attack?

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

I agree with everything Axly said. With regaard to the question about occult staff attack, I'd let DODGE and DEFEND benefit against it.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

I too agree with almost everything Axly wrote, but would note:

* There is no diagram for what front hexes are beyond one-hex, unless you use the whole region that you can do ranged attacks into (which has a map error on one hex in Legacy).

* Hammertouch is cast on the person gaining the spell's effect, which is then used by that person doing physical attacks, which of course then can be Defended against, but the spell itself, like all other spells, can't be physically Defended against.

* Seems to me Legacy rules just kinda didn't think about how occult staff attacks need to be defined as an attack type or else there's no way to know how they interact with other rules such as Defend and Dodge. Seems to me like Dodge should work. And since the occult attacks have so many bonus abilities already, I'd tend to allow Defend to work as well - I don't think they need to be immune to any more rules than they already are.

Re: Does Two Weapons help against Thrown Spells?
 

No it doesn't.