Black Plague: New Player Questions.

[BKThomson]

Ok, I'll get it out of the way New Player with a few questions/clarifications on the game.

I've done a run through of the ) quest just to see if I have a rudimentary grasp of the rules but a couple situations came up that I would like to check on.

1) Searching: When I draw an equipment card I'm trying to determine if there is a free action as I describe the situations below or if after the Search I need to spend an Action Point to equip / use the item.

1. If it is a Weapon Card I can automatically place it in either available hand locations and not move it directly to the backpack?
2. If it is an Armor Card I can automatically place it in the Armor location and not move it directly to the backpack a which I could switch out an existing armor for the new one?
3. If it is a Backpack card does it automatically go into the backpack and I cannot use it immediately (IE, Water - give 1 experience point and then discard). To use it I would need to spend an Action Point from the Backpack?

2) Combat: I'm using Silas with a bow and an open hand. During a search I collected a sword. If I equip the sword in my other hand I can choose between which weapon I can attack with against the zombies. Based on what I read dual weapons is based on same weapon but nothing I saw in the rules about situation when the weapons in hand are different.


Also if there is a better FAQ out there I can reference instead of annoying all you I'd be happy to look that over.
3) Leveling: Once again during my search (Action #1) I acquire Apples, which give me three experience points, when consumed. I'm at Blue Level just two experience points shy of yellow. For my next action (Action #2) I 'eat' the apples. Now I'm one experience point into the Yellow. At what point does the new level come into play after my turn or during my turn? So in the example I provided I would have two Action Points remaining to me. (1 left over from my starting three actions and an additional 1 for the move to yellow?)

 

[Wyrmypops]

1) When you draw an equipment card it allows you to shuffle around your inventory for free.
You can place that new weapon in either hand, or if it's not as good as what you have it can go in the backpack if you so choose and in the same motion can take something out of your backpack to put in hand. If the weapon is one that character can equip on their body slot it can go there if you want.
A drawn armour card can go directly in the body slot, or straight to the backpack (if its not as good as currently equipped armour). If you already have better poor armour or that character's displayed weapon icon equipped the free shuffle a search gives you allows you to rearrange the whole inventory - very useful if the armour would dislodge a weapon from the body slot, as you could plonk that weapon in hand and move what's in-hand to the backpack and vice versa.
A backpack card can be used immediately, if you have space. You wouldn't need to spend an additional action to discard the water for the exp' point, just need to have available space to own it briefly. It's rarely worth holding on to, but might be if you're sitting at 6 exp' and other characters are lagging behind and don't want to tip the exp into yellow making the spawns more difficult. Could use a trade action, or they could, so they could take and use the exp' giving water. Or you could just use it later when the others have caught up a bit.

2) Having a sword in one hand and a bow in the other gives you the choice to either make a ranged attack, or a melee attack. Normally the choice is clear, if you're at range from zombies or in the same zone as them. But when you have a ranged weapon that can fire at range0 that means the same zone as you. Silas in the same zone as a zombie could use the sword for its 2dice hitting on a 4+, or a shortbow with it's 3+ which Silas gets a +1 to hit with. You don't get to dual wield them, they're different weapons.
Dual wielding does require they be the same weapon type, and have that crossed sword icon in the top left of the card denoting they're dual wieldable. So can't dual wield great swords as they don't have the icon - unless you have the swordmaster or ambidextrous talent, then you could dual wield two weapons of the same type that don't have the icon, like greatswords.
Daggers are different. You could sport any weapon in one hand and a dagger in the other, you attack with the main weapon and the ability the dagger has gives the main weapon an additional dice. If you had two daggers, you'd be dual wielding, so get the dice from both cards, and also the daggers special ability from both cards, dagger1 giving dagger2 an extra dice, and dagger2 giving dagger1 an extra dice for a total of 4 dice. That kind of situation occurs more in the expansions where you get other weapons that combine special rules on the weapon cards, like the scimitar/curved dagger and Norse sword/Norse shield combos.

3) When you gain experience and tick over into a new bracket and learn a new skill, such as yellow bracket and picking up the extra action skill, that is available straight away.

I think there are some errata/faq things up on the zombicide site, but forums are good for questions. If it was a chore to answer then folk wouldn't do it.

 

[BKThomson]

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate the time you took to answer the questions.