Surges and Damage

By Varasin, in Imperial Assault Rules Questions

When making an attack and the dice roll only comes up with surges and enough accuracy for ranged characters, can a surge be applied to add damage? And if so can the Blast ability and Stun ability also be applied to the damage from a surge?

You can spend surges to activate abilities.

If the character attacking has the ability to buy damage with a surge he can do it once for each instance on the card.

For example:
Force pike - http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/imperial-assault/core-set-previews/preview-3/force-pike.png

has reach (for free no surges needed)

Surge: +1 damage
Surge: +1 damage
Surge: Stun

So - in this instance if you rolled 3 surges you could activate all of these for +2 damage and stun.

Outside of this the only thing you can do with surges that you do not require the text on a card or hero sheet to do is recover 1 point of strain.
I hope this helps. Just remember you can only activate each strain ability once per attack - this is why the force pike has two options for buying +1 damage :)

Outside of this the only thing you can do with surges that you do not require the text on a card or hero sheet to do is recover 1 point of strain.

I hope this helps. Just remember you can only activate each strain ability once per attack - this is why the force pike has two options for buying +1 damage :)

Using a surge to recover one strain, if you have no strain you recover one health instead.

Also remember you can only use surges if you have the accuracy to reach your target. Unlike conditions, you don't need to actually damage your target to spend your surges (but you can spend your surges to damage your target)

So in this case, if you only rolled surges, but no damage and had no surge abilities that add damage, yuo'd be out of luck. Without damage, conditions like stun are also out.

Also remember you can only use surges if you have the accuracy to reach your target.

This is not true. If it were, you would never be able to spend surges to increase your accuracy.

Source: "Steps of an Attack" RRG, Page 5

Step 5: Spend Surges

Step 6: Check Accuracy

Edited by Fizz

Thanks for the replies.

Also remember you can only use surges if you have the accuracy to reach your target.

You can also use surges if you miss your target (not enough accuracy or a miss in the white die) for example you can still use surges to focus, or recover, or remove 1 strain

Also remember you can only use surges if you have the accuracy to reach your target.

You can also use surges if you miss your target (not enough accuracy or a miss in the white die) for example you can still use surges to focus, or recover, or remove 1 strain

I believe you do need to inflict damage to become focused, but it is true with recovering straing, or using surge abilities to recover damage

yes, focus needs at least 1 damage, sorry on that. my mind was on other things at the same time xD

Outside of this the only thing you can do with surges that you do not require the text on a card or hero sheet to do is recover 1 point of strain.

I hope this helps. Just remember you can only activate each strain ability once per attack - this is why the force pike has two options for buying +1 damage :)

Using a surge to recover one strain, if you have no strain you recover one health instead.

True - this is under the Strain rules not the surge rules: Page 23 "Strain in a campaign"