Basic Question Regarding Environment Damage from a New Player

Other Games SotM Game Engine
1

Hey guys, I just picked this game up days ago out of curiousity and have fallen in love with the concept and just ordered everything.  Before I make this a core game for my family and start teaching the wife and kids I have started to learn everything about each of the characters I have and the overall gameplay.  Then I plan to do a few test games with just myself before rolling it out. 

 

I came across something that slightly confused me.  I think I know the answer but want to clarify.  In the core game I noticed many characters simply have generic abilities that let you focus on everyone such as Tempest who says as his main power: "Squall- Tempest deals all nonhero targets 1 projectile damage."  This wording of all nonhero target X damage is repeated a great deal in the initial game where in later expansions I notice they start changing it to more of something like do 1 damage to one target or two targets or so on.  However in the wording of many in the starting game like tempest since it is left generic like do 1 projectile damage to all nonhero targets, I take it to mean that if I use that power I would attack everyone in play that is not a hero meaning the main villian and any of his cards in play AS WELL as any environment cards in play with HP that could be a target all at once.  Am I correct in reading this that way?  Would I be able to attack everything down at once with the same damage of in this case one projectile as long as they were not a hero card?  Once again I thank anyone for their help as this is probably a basic question but I wanted to be sure.

2

it hits all non hero targets, you are correct. You cannot choose to hit just one or two of them, however - you hit them all at once. It is, as we say, Area of Effect damage being able to hit everything on the board. Great for minion villains :) 

 

 

3

Yes, Tempest's Squall will deal all Villain and Environment targets 1 projectile damage. Some villains even deal damage to all non-villain targets, which would hit all hero targets and environment targets as well.

4

Thanks guys, that is precisely as I believed it to be.  Some of the wording in the rule book pertaining to the environments not necessarily being targets but some containing HP made me a little confused so I was not entirely sure but I was fairly positive I had this right.  The first practice game I tried only allowing those moves to hurt the villian made the game near impossible as I found the environment cards kicking my butt so the second time around I had the AOE attack everything but the heroes and found it made a huge difference, just wanted to be certain for the future though.  Thanks

5

Basically, anything with hp is a target - that is the definition for it. Any card in the environment deck is an environment card, but it's only n environment target if it has hp. The same goes for villain decks and hero decks (though there are only two hero decks which contain hero targets other than the hero themselves unless you're playing in a certain environment and one particular card comes up).

If something says to hit "all non-hero targets", it hits everything with hp that isn't in a deck belonging to a hero. There are times when this may be a bad thing, as you might not want to kill a particular target, but with "all non-hero target" damage (like Squall), you have no way to avoid hitting any applicable target. You can, however, always choose the order in which you hit everything - if one target is granting others soak, you can do an all-target AE blast and choose to hit that one first - if this kills it, the remaining targets won't have that target's protection any more, so will take full damage.

If something says "Deal one target X damage. Deal a second target X damage", you can't choose the same target twice - it specifies a second target so you have to hit something else (many of Ab'Zero's nukes are like this). The same goes for "Deal (up to) X targets Y damage" - you have to choose X number of different targets. Most (if not all) such effects specify "up to X targets", so if there aren't enough targets to hit, or there's a target you want to avoid hitting, you can stop hitting stuff.

If something says "Deal one target X damage. Deal one target X damage.", you can apply both hits of damage to same target, as there is nothing to say you have to hit a different target.

Sometimes it can be beneficial to hit a hero target (eg Ab'Zero with fire/cold damage when he has his modules out), so if your attack says you can hit a "target" rather than specifically a "non-hero target", bear in mind that you could attack your friends, if for some reason you wanted to. Or even yourself (Ab'Zero again - most of his cards involve him having to hit himself and with the ones that don't force you to do so, you might end up wanting to anyway). Some cards doo force you to hit heroes anyway (Haka's card, Rampage). And some cards just make you hit everything (eg Nightmist's card, Oblivion). Obviously, in these cases, heroes who can redirect or reduce damage aimed at them are useful - attacking a Driving Mantis-armed Mr Fixer with a multi-hit attack so he can redirect it onto something you already hit is perfectly legal, for example :).

Some cards deal damage based on a number of other cards in play - for example, Ra's card, Scorched Earth, is a one-shot that deals damage to all non-hero targets based on the number of environment cards in play (note that even if this number is zero, he can still deal damage if he has any kind of damage buff, as zero plus one equals one). If there are environment targets in play and you choose to nuke those first, if your blast kills any of them your damage will go down on subsequent targets, as there are now less environment cards in play.

Oh, welcome to the forum btw :).

6

Something to note - while you must damage every allowed target which is in play at the time, you choose the order in which they are damaged, which can make a difference. 

For instance, The Chairman has a Thug minion called Crooked Cop who says "Reduce damage to The Chairman, The Operative, and Underbosses by 1".  Thusly, if the Crooked Cop has 1 HP left, you can have the first hit from Squall kill it, and then it no longer reduces damage to the other villain targets, so they will each lose 1 HP as well.

If you don't want to damage one of them, however (when flipped, the Chairman has a very nasty retaliation ability, so you might not want to pick a fight with him if you're only dealing 1 damage), you cant "ping" that target first, while the Corrupt Cop is still in play; the Cop will reduce that damage instance to 0, so the target's HP won't change, (and it's therefore not considered to have been "damaged", so the retaliation won't happen), and then you move on to address the next target.

You have to "ping" them all, but whether damage actually happens will depend on the cards in play at the time, and as I say, you choose the order in which each one gets "pinged"...you just can't finish resolving the effect until you've "pinged" everything which you validly could.

7

Already covered that in my second paragraph, though not in as much detail ;).

8

I am all about expanding on details that others have touched lightly on.