I am a bit unsure about that.
Let say I deal 5 damage to a 3 HP target, did I dealt 5 or 3 damage ?
If I did 5 damage and they are prevented I did 0 damage, if they are reduced by 2 I did 3 damage, if the target is immune I did ?
It is even worse with AB and his transformation of damage, are thoses cold damage transformed dealt or not ? If so, what amount ?
Let me see if I can answer these...
If you deal five damage to something with 3hp, I'd say you still did five damage - some cards refer to stuff happening "if X would be reduced to 0hp or fewer" - the only way you could be reduced to fewer than 0hp is if you got hit by any amount of overkill (ie more damage than you have hp remaining).
If you deal five damage and it's prevented, you did zero damage because, well, because it was prevented ;). If it was reduced by two then yes, you will have dealt three damage. If they are immune, then you dealt the damage, but their hp didn't go down. You still dealt the damage.
I presume by AB you mean AZ (Absolute Zero). If you're referring to his Nulpoint Calibration Unit module, which converts cold damage to healing when he gets hit by it, I'd say the damage is still dealt, but then the module goes "Hmm, you have been hit by cold damage...I convert that to healing...ping!". Or something.
If I'm wrong about any of these, i'm sure some of the more experienced folks will hop in and correct me :).
I agree w/ Ameena on all counts.
BUT, I think there are really two questions here hiding as one -- how much damage was dealt and how much damage was taken.
Deal 5 damage to a 3 HP target: 5 dealt, 5 taken
Deal 5 damage to an immune target: 5 dealt, 0 taken
Deal 5 damage, reduced by 2: 3 dealt, 3 taken
Deal 5 damage that are transformed to healing: 5 dealt, 0 taken
Yeah, that is all the trouble : are Damage Dealt even when they are not taken by the target ? Because there is a valid argument that you dealt no damage to a target that is immune because he took none.
That is why I found the notion of Damage Dealt ambivalent, and semantically unsatisfying.
And AZ card text say " he regain that many HP instead", the instead seems to mean that the damage were never dealt.
for the purposes of AZ, i feel he falls apart if he isnt delt the damage when he heals.
And damage delt to immune targets is still delt, they just have Perfect Soak
And these both stem from teh fact that it is far more fun to have AZ start throwing around a ton of damage and healing himself,a nd to be able to become immune to damage but still redirect it, or use damage delt to an immune enemy to pull off other stunts.
Because setting up craazy combos like that is part of what makes the game fun, and as ive said elsethread - its coop, so don't get too hung up on the exact way something should be done, fake it or fudge it if its more interesting and fun!
If you deal damage to a target who's immune to that damage, you've still dealt the damage- it's just that the target's hp didn't go down as a result. It'd be like punching someone on the chest when they're wearing a metal chestplate - you still punched them on the chest. It just didn't hurt them because the armour protected them (and you probably broke your fist doing so ;)).
Same with Ab' Zero - say you chuck five points of cold damage at him. You've dealt five cold damage. But when it hits him, his NCU then converts it to healing. You still dealt five damage - it just ended up healing him instead of harming him.
Christopher has stated that damage dealt = hp reduced. If the target is immune, no damage was dealt. That's the ruling I've got in my Clarifications doc, and while I've seen people on these forums have a philosophical problem with that, I've never seen Christopher take it back or modify it.
If there are more shades to this, I'd love to get something official, because mostly what we do is talk about how we think it should work rather than how it does.
Hum, that's what I thought too Spiff. BTW kudos on your game aids, really well done and helpfull.
I would also loved to have an official position on thoses questions.
And the Absolute Zero card specifically say that he get healed "INSTEAD" of being dealt damage, so for me it is clear than the damage aren't considered dealt.
I know it is a cooperative game, but I just like rules and playing as stricly by them as possible. For me rules provide balance and balance provide fun.
I can't argue with that. Fun is the most important factor!
But as this is coop, 'balance' is less of an issue, because its not one actual live person getting the better of another, actual live person through some quirk of the rules or inbalance in the game. It is a bunch of people against an automated deck - the deck is not going to have its feelings hurt when the balance is in the player favor 
What my point is, play by the rules, most certainly. Keep the structure intact and by all means, debate all the little points therein - just don't let following the rules to the letter of the law become so intense that the game is not fun anymore! 
What I learned from other cooperative and solo games (Ambush, Arkham Horror, B17, Pandemie,...) is that if you dont follow the rules then the game 'break' as it became too easy and fail to provide the challenge it should have. Solo/coop game are usually harder to win than standard game and thus the balance is usually set toward the opposition.
The trick is that when every people win together it is hard to be fair for the system and not cheapen the experience by misplaying some of the most constraining rules (cards order and player order being the main point of contention in SotM, IMDNSHO). Damage allocation is also somewhere you can tweak the systema to your advantage.
The bad thing is that the bad guy cant do that, he is dead set on the rules, cards orders, damage allocation and all that. It is only fair to try to play by the same rules.
I also like to know the more precisely how the designer think the game should be played, to be the most true to their design.
Hmm, I could have sworn that Christopher posted an example somewhere of playing AZ, and he mentioned that you could select AZ as one of initial targets for Thermal Shockwave to get a bigger bang on the end. Now, he could have just been absent minded, and I don't have the example at hand, but that's what I remember. I generally agree that damage dealt = 0 for immune target, but I thought the damage -> healing of AZ was somehow special with regards to "damage dealt".
No idea if it is a valid approach, but I tend to consider "damage dealt by" and "damage dealt to" as two different things. "Damage dealt by Absolute Zero" means, for me, the damage that he "emmited", whatever could happen to it, while "damage dealt to Absolute Zero" would be the HPs AZ really lost. But I am not sure I do it consistently. Also, it means that if a card says "whenever a target does damage to you" works even if you are immune or reduce the damage, while "whenever you are dealt damage" means whenever you lose HPs.
In brief, I consider the damage you deal, and the damage the target is dealt, to be two different values.
That is probably a very common house rule, TheSoundOfTrees.
I completely agree Lkerensky - Breaking the rules certainly quickly leads to the game no longer being fun. I'm more refering to nitpicking - Like the Order of Cards rule - The way its written, you activate your cards in certain situations in the order they hit the table. Useful for the villian, so its always set in the same way, who doesnt have an intelligent persona behind it. could be really bad for the hero, who had a choice to play this card or that card, and because he made the wrong choice a certain combo wont work anymore. Thats no fun, because 5 turns ago you made the wrong choice.
Well, if you allow the Heroes to alter the order of play for the start of turn effect, it is only fair to allow it to Vilain too.
So this mean that the Reinforcement card of Great Warlord become an insta-win as you dont have the luxury of an extra turn to lower the minion count under 10. A few other effect become quite deadly too.
i can see where you are coming from that. I dissagree however - As villan cards are played in a specific order and there is zero choice in how you play those cards. They will come out one at a time from the deck, and only random chance has the ability to make them in any order. Even more than one card played a turn will still only come out in the order that the deck decrees. Even 'stacking' the deck, such as with many of Visionary cards, is only a psudo choice. At best stacking the deck simply is skipping a card in the preditermened order of the deck - and that order /is/ predetermined the moment you stop shuffling and set the deck down on the table.
Unlike heroes, whom have 4 cards in their hand to start with, and depending on how card draw is with your heroes (Leader tachyon ftw!) can be many many more. A mistake at turn 2 because you did not play your cards in the right order (or didnt have a choice and had to play a card in order to make some effect happen) that could ruin a combo 3 or 4 turns down the line? Not fun in my book, and really a big downer. Nothing I could do to prevent that happening in my /play area/ is not a feeling I enjoy. In fact it really ruins my enjoyment of the game were that to come up. Hence why we play with that modified rule. The villian has no feelings to hurt, he is not a person controlling it. If it were a PvP game, then I would most certainly not have that sort of house rule. However, the villian deck and the environment decks are both automated machines, and will continue to show a predetermined order of cards (even if we do not know what that order is) -- And note, the uncontrollability of the hero deck being is a different subject for me. thats what keeps the game interesting, not knowing what your going to get next. But in my play area, where these are the choices -I- get to make, if that suddenly is not in my control because I didnt play my cards in the right order several turns ago before a situation arose that it would actually matter... that is not cool. Not fun at all. To be denied a combo because I couldnt see the situation in the future and my Choice of play order was a poor one is unfun. Not a poor choice of what powers to use, causing more damage to the heroes or to me, or a poor choice of which card to skip in the Enviroment deck with a stacking power... those are just oops. Poor choice over something you have no control over in the future is not an oops.
Its not that it comes up often. In fact I honestly cannot think of any situation off the top of my head where play order of the Heroes card in their play area is important. The closest I can come right this second is Absolute Zero, perhaps? And maybe Visionary if she has Twist the Ether on her and the redirect damage cardon something else in her playfield (could that even be /possible?/) ... and even those both dont apply, really. AZ might, i dont recall his cards well enough. But the way he bounces damage around might indeed matter for card order, and if thats the case then he becomes entirely usless if you do not play your modules in the correct order... if thats even the case (and im not certain it is)
In fact I can't think of a single hero that has a ton of 'Start of Turn' or 'End of Turn' triggers (as I believe those are most likely the situations where Card Played oder will come into effect) that are not 'destroy this card' where it would come into play. The majority of hero cards I can think of are triggered abilities, and card order played means nothing in that situation because they trigger off whatever happens, not hapening simultaneously. And anyways, isn't there a ruling that when something happens simultaneously, Players get to choosethe effect? (Wrath of days vrs certain cards, for instance) - meaning start of the turn destruction effects (or end of the turn) would get to be chosen by the player anyways.
So honestly? I cannot think of a single situation where card order comes into play for a hero. So this may all be a moot point. Or im just missing it.
"So honestly? I cannot think of a single situation where card order comes into play for a hero. So this may all be a moot point. Or im just missing it."
http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/forum/topic/tempest-and-bblade-electrical-storm-elemental-subwave-inducer-vs-elemental-redistribution-2603
The reason why I started checking on cards play order.
Another example of how card order can be important: Unity Golems.
Let's imagne Voss has a genebound guard and two other minions. As long as the guard is alive, minions takes one less damage.
Unity has two platform and a raptor bot out. If they play in this order, they can at the best kill two cards from Voss : first platform only does 3 damage reduced to two, so can't kill the guard.
If the order is irrevelant and Unity can "activate" her golems in the order she wishes, all three minions are dead : raptor does 4 damage, enough to kill the guard, and then the platforms can each kill a minion.
ANother reason why I houseruled that hero cards play in the order hero choses, not in the order they entered the game.
An another reason I will always insist for them to be played with the same constraint as the Vilain cards :)
Or the next time you play Voss if he manage to get 10 minions you instantly lose :)
The villain deck is a machine, an algorythm, because it has to play itself. The hero decks are meant to be played by humans, and give you choices - there is no reason for hero cards to play themselves automatically without giving choice to the players. It's reason enough for me to be very precise with order for villains and environment, and give the choice to players for their heroes.
Being limited in what you can do because cards were not played in the optimal, but unpredictable, order is not a good thing to impose on players, in my opinion.