From the definition of Irreducible damage in the rules “However, if a target is immune to damage, or if an effect prevents damage to a target entirely, Irreducible damage cannot be dealt to that target.” From the earlier part of the definition, it’s clear that anything that uses the keyword “reduce” is ignored; got that. My question regards “prevents” effects. Take for example, Wraith’s Stealth. It “prevents the next 2 damage that would be dealt to the Wraith.” The part of the definition that bothers me is the word “entirely”.
If I’m reading it correctly. It means that if she’s used Stealth, and she would receive 1 or 2 Irreducible damage, she’s fine, and the “shield” disappears. However, if she’s only used it once, and she would receive 3 Irreducible damage, the “shield” has no effect at all because it wouldn’t prevent it “entirely”.
Or would it still “prevent” the first 2 damage, resulting in 1?
If it does nothing, does it still “pop” the shield?
When the rules state to prevent damage entirely, I think it literally means that. The card has to say in some effect as prevent the next damage (no numeric modifier here) or prevent all damage or prevent damage (possibly of a certain type). Basically something that would have the same effect as if it were to say immune.
Yesterday, Christopher told me that Wraith’s stealth will prevent the next two damage (effectively “reducing an irreducible”). Unless he can come and correct me real quick (maybe I misunderstood what he was telling me), then only when using the word “reduce” does “irreducible” take effect.
This came up in our game the other day. Stealth specifically says it =prevents= the next two damage, which I took to mean that it was not being reduced, it wasn’t hitting at all. I’d assume it was the same situation as if a character was immune to that type of damage.
I was there - JayMann speaks truth. (At least with regards to what Christopher said. ;)) So yeah, broccoli, you’d take 1 hp in the example you gave.
Now, we were in the middle of demos when it came up, so it’s not like Christopher had a great deal of time to think through the situation as he was focusing on teaching folks how to play, so don’t be surprised if this ends up going a different direction (such as with a change in the Enhanced Edition to make it concretely clear). No, I’m not speaking with any actual knowledge, just a recognition of reality. (Well, my own little version of it, anyway. 8))
I never ended up adding any of this to the clarifications PDF because it was all just our musings and not an official ruling. It’d be awesome to get the official word on what I think are the open questions:
Does an effect which “prevents” damage work on irreducible damage, and further, are only effects which say they “reduce” damage ineffective against irreducible damage?
Can you prevent part of an incoming irreducible damage, or if you can’t prevent it all the way down to zero then the prevention is useless (i.e. partially preventing irreducible damage is essentially irrelevant)?
Will Wraith’s Stealth effect be triggered even if the damage she takes isn’t of a kind she can prevent? This will be important if the ruling is that Stealth does not prevent irreducible damage.
Well, as mentioned earlier, 1 and 2 were directly answered. It DOES prevent irreducible damage, and it CAN prevent partial amounts of it. The 3 Plague Rat damage becomes 1, even though it’s irreducible.
Therefore, 3 is irrelevant, since it does prevent irreducible damage.
The card SHOULD say “The next time Wraith takes damage, prevent 2 of it, even if it’s irreducible.” It’s really the most concise way of putting it.
