[RPG] Confused about Actual Play Example in Numenera core book

In the Actual play example, pg. 352, right hand column in the middle:

DIANA – …"I'm going to hurl flame at the wounded bandit and use a level of Effort to increase the damage to 5.."

From page 53 "Bears a Halo of Fire": "Hurl Flame (2 intellect points….short range that deals 4 points of damage"

And, with effort applied to damage being +3 points that would make 7 points of damage, minus 1 point for the armor of the bandits. So shouldn't it be 6 points of damage, not 5 as Diana mentions?

Also, the next action by BRUCE (same page as above) He rolls a 10 on his bow shot. Did he somehow lower the target number (12 for a lvl 4 bandit) to get a hit on that roll?

I'm sure this was well edited so I must be missing something!

Best Answer

Page 22 states

Instead of applying Effort to reduce the difficulty of your attack, you can apply Effort to increase the amount of damage you inflict with an attack. For each level of Effort you apply in this way, you inflict 3 additional points of damage. This works for any kind of attack that inflicts damage...

and page 53 states, for "Shroud of Flame"

At your command, your entire body becomes shrouded in flames that last up to ten minutes. The fire doesn’t burn you, but it automatically inflicts 2 points of damage to anyone who tries to touch you or strike you with a melee attack. Flames from another source can still hurt you. While the shroud is active, you gain +2 points of Armor that protect only against damage from fire from another source. Enabler.

Looks like you found an errata in the manual, with the example using the action "Hurl Flame" but with the damage of "Shroud of Flame".

As for your second question, it looks like either a mistake or a silent decision by the GM to make the roll succeed. I'd say a mistake.