Condemnation and Orb of Delirium

I have a question concerning the interaction between these 2 cards.  Technically it applies to Periapt of Woe as well, but let's focus on these 2 for now.  Condemnation has DR 1, and Orb of Delirium says "Whenever a villain relic other than this card would be dealt damage, redirect that damage to this card."

Question 1) What happens when someone tries to deal 1 damage to Condemnation?  By the original targetting, Condemnation wouldn't actually be dealt damage, so I assume redirection doesn't occur?

Question 2) What happens when someone tries to deal 2 damage to Condemnation?  By my understanding of how damage reduction and redirection occur, it should be something like this:  2 damage targets Condemnation, because it would be dealt to Condemnation, it is reduced to 1.  Because damage would be dealt to a relic other than Orb of Delirium, it is redirected.  Because it is no longer targetting Condemnation, it is no longer reduced by 1.  Net result, Orb of Delirium takes 2 damage.  Correct?

 

I think I know the answers to both (as stated above), but it seems a little weird that it's either 0 or 2, with no possibility for 1.

(Btw, just in case anyone is curious, this isn't really for "targetted" damage.  For that I would obviously just choose to deal Orb of Delirium the damage to avoid the DR, but for effects that deal damage to all targets, I still need to know.)

Hmm.. I would have to agree with that.  If damage to be dealt is zero, then there is no damage being dealt, and if there is no damage being dealt, damage cannot be redirected.  I would also assume that it would mean if a card was being dealt damage but is immune to the type of damage, then that damage could not be redirected as there would be no damage to redirect.

For question 2, that is definately correct.  Damage reduction for a specific target goes away if the damage is redirected to a different target.

For question 1, I have always played that effects which trigger when something "Would be dealt damage" don't stop when damage is reduced to or below zero.  Certainly if something is immune to damage, I would still allow effects to redirect it.  (For example Baron Blade with a mobile defense platform and a elemental redistributor).  So I don't see why damage reduced to zero would be different.

I realize this seems slightly inconsistent with the ruling that effects which trigger when something "is dealt damage" require HP to actually be reduced, but I feel like treating the two triggers differently works best.  For one thing, ruling the other way will require more tracking of the order that cards entered play, plus questions like what is the order of play precedence for Legacy and Wraith's base powers.

I disagree. Once again we're dealing with the ambiguity of 'to deal damage'. In this case, I believe the intention is that 'to deal damage' means to initiate an attack, as opposed to damage actually occuring.

I think I'm making the same argument that another poster in this thread has made already, but (A) I'm not entirely sure, and (B) I want to underscore that the ambiguity of 'to deal' causes confusion.

 
Agreed
 

I believe the intention is that 'to deal damage' means to initiate an attack, as opposed to damage actually occuring.

On what do you base that belief, when we've seen it stated that damage occurring = damage being dealt?

 

You're right. That's what I get for posting at 4 in the morning.

We've repeatedly seen the ruling that a target "is dealt damage" only when HP is reduced.  I don't know of any ruling that we need to put the same constraint on effects for when something "would deal damage".

As I said, it seems intuitive that the same ruling should apply, but I think it actually creates alot of problems if you do.  When talking about what would happen, how far in the future do you look?

Let's say you have the orb at 1 HP, condemnation at full HP, and Haka is attacking condemnation with his basic power and Punish the weak out.  Resolving the orb's text, Haka would do 0 damage to condemnation so by your logic no redirection occurs.  When resolving punish the weak's text, Haka would have his damage redirected to the non-hero target with the lowest HP, so that suggests it is increased.  So does Haka do 2 damage to condemnation?

I think it makes much more sense to just say that a target "would be dealt damage" just means that it is currently targeted with damage.

 

PUNISH THE WEAK:

WHENEVER HAKA WOULD DAMAGE THE NON-HERO TARGET WITH THE LOWEST HP, INCREASE THAT DAMAGE BY 1.

WHENEVER HAKA WOULD DAMAGE ANY OTHER TARGET, REDUCE THAT DAMAGE BY 1.

POWER: DESTROY THIS CARD.

 

Punish the weak doesn't redirect. If there were two different cards that could both be triggered by damage that would be dealt, they would be resolved in the order they came into play, so if the first one did a redirect, than the new target and new amount/type of damage would need to be determined before than considering any 'whever damage dealt' triggers.

I know it doesn't redirect, but it does trigger when damage would be dealt, the same as orb of delerium.  My point was that if you actually need to look ahead to see whether HP would be reduced, it isn't clear.

Orb of delerium redirects if something would deal damage to another relic.  But in my scenario Haka would deal 0 damage to Condemnation without the orb's ability.

Punish the weak increases damage by one if Haka would deal damage to the non-hero target with the lowest HP.  In my scenario he would deal 2 damage to the orb (a villain target with 1 HP) without punish the weak's ability.

Ah, I see what dypaca is getting at. Since SAVAGE MANA triggers 'WHENEVER ...' and the ORB OF DELIRIUM triggers 'WHENEVER ...' the question becomes how does one determine which one to use first if the application of one can affect the other.

I had a theory in my head that one must apply type of attack changes, amount of attack changes, and redirects in that order, but that theory assumed that the only thing which is triggered is redirects, so didn't accommodate this sitution. I've updated my theory, therefore, to be that one must apply static type changes, static amount changes, and then any triggered changes. Within any of those three, one would use card played order, which brings us back to what dypaca wrote earlier:

>

For one thing, ruling the other way will require more tracking of the order that cards entered play, plus questions like what is the order of play precedence for Legacy and Wraith's base powers.

So, I think I finally grok what everyone else has already perhaps understood about the tradeoff of allowing attacks at zero or below to cause a trigger versus tracking card played order.

But to move on, dypaca has also raised the question of the order of preference of Legacy and The Wraith's base powers. I'm imaginging a situation where The Wraith has previously used her STEALTH power to 'REDUCE THE NEXT DAMAGE THAT WOULD BE DEALT TO THE WRAITH BY 2', is then given a plus one modifier by Legacy's GALVANIZE power, and is then forced to attack herself for 2 points of damage (perhaps she is Infected or something). The nominal question, I suppose, becomes does STEALTH reduce the attack from 2 to 0 such that the attack is terminated before GALVANIZE can kick in and raise the attack back to one, or are the adjustments done in the opposite order and The Wraith actually takes a point of damage.

I think, though, that this is the wrong way to look at this. Since there are no triggers involved, all of the increases and reductions need to be applied at once. Order doesn't actually matter.

 

 

Well here we do have some official rulings.  First, having the current damage total at zero does not stop you from applying other static modifiers (Which I think is another argument for still applying triggered modifiers):

http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/forum/topic/when-x0

Also, order of play does matter even for static damage modifiers:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/10246144#10246144

So I guess whether you assume "would be dealt damage" means non-zero or not, there is still a question of what order you apply things like Galvanize in, because heroes damage themselves sometimes and several hero cards specifically trigger on minimum or maximum amounts of damage.

I'll note that in my games I do apply effects in logical groups (modifiers based on source/target/type, then modifiers based on damage amount, then redirection/prevention).  However, as seen in the second thread I linked to, that is not the official way to play.

Concerning that last situation, I may confront Christopher about it a couple weeks from now (assuming he doesn't pop up), but, one card is a simple static modifier, while the other is a triggered modifier at the time damage would be dealt.  In such case, no matter the order of cards played, the damage taken -1 would always be applied before checking for 5 or more damage dealt.  If ruled otherwise, then it is in direct conflict with the Imbued Fire ruling made a year ago.

I'm assuming the Imbued Fire ruling you refer to is here:

http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/forum/topic/imbue-fire-cramped-quarters-combat

Although the initial ruling says there is no order, further down he aknowledges that order of play should be considered when resolving interaction with other card abilities.

What I get out of that thread is that the first effect of Imbued Fire ("Increase all fire damage by 1") is applying an effect to fire damage.  (As opposed to saying "Whenever a target would be dealt fire damage, increase that damage by 1").  So if a villain target was dealing damage and it is affected by Twist the Ether and Imbued Fire, then the order of those cards doesn't matter because Imbued Fire effects fire damage, and only fire damage, whether Twist the Ether is resolved first or second.

The Fortitude/Superhuman Durability ruling (which I also found here: http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/forum/topic/same-or-different) is one card changing damage amount and another card conditionally triggering on damage amount.  Order of play does matter, because one card will eliminate the condition for the other card if it is applied first.

It's worth noting that the ruling with Superhuman Durability is always on how it interacts with damage reduction.  I've always been curious what the official ruling would be if a card played after Superhuman Durability increased damage to 5 or more.  In my mind this is slightly different because the card is creating Superhuman Durability's trigger condition instead of eliminating the trigger condition before Superhuman Durability can resolve.

Huh. So much for the theory in my head.

New theory:

> First, determine damage type in card order. Then, determine everything else (static increases and decreases; triggered increases, decreases and redirects) in card order.

If a redirect is triggered, go back to the beginning, but with a new target.

In the case of GALVANIZE vs STEALTH, since the card order of heroes and the villain are tied, perhaps order would be up to the players.

 

So, that's my new theory, but I dislike it. My intuition is still that all of the triggers should happen after all of the statics, despite the official rulings. What happens for instance, in the following scenario:

>  Condemnation is played. Then Orb of Delirium is played. Then Mr. Fixer plays a style that gives him an increase of one to damage. If Mr. Fixer uses his base power, STRIKE, to target Condemnation, what happens?

 

Well I still maintain that the Orb effect doesn't care if damage is reduced to zero, so I would say that Mr Fixer does 2 damage to Orb of Delirium.

Reactions after damage is dealt need HP to be reduced, because zero or negative or immunity blocked damage has no effect and thus no reactions.  But so long as there isn't an official ruling to the contrary, I think effects which alter damage that "would be dealt" shouldn't need to look ahead and determine what the final effect of that damage would be, precisely because it would create strange situations like this.

 

Agreed!

And I'm resurrecting this thread because we ran into this [1] situation last night and played it exactly this way without stopping to think much about it. I have apparently internalized this idea of a zero amount attack being redirectable.

 

[1] Well, almost exactly. It was Nightmist attacking, not Mr. Fixer. Oblivion for the win!