Hi,

Question about these 2 abilities :

Rage : After an attack targeting you is resolved, if you suffered 3 or more damage, you become Focused.

Failsafe : Exhaust this card when an Imperial figure suffers damage equal to its Health [...]

English is not my native language, so I have doubts about the meaning of "suffers". Does it mean :

- "if you receive X damage"

or

- "if you have X damage token on you" ?

If the first one, then I believe Failsafe might never trigger. For example I have a Nexu with 4 damage on it, to trigger Failsafe my Nexu must receive 6 damage in a single attack (because he has 6 HP).

If the second one, then every time Gaarkhan (with already 3 damage) is attacked and is dealt no damage (or X damage), he becomes Focused ?

OK I think I've found my answer by reading Oppression (Subversive Tactics) :

" When a Hero who has suffered 2 or more Strain declares an attack [...]"

That would be the second interpretation of my first post. So Gaarkhan with 3 or more damage would always be focused when attacked, regardless damage dealt... Weel, we played it wrong, as the Imperial player tried to deal 1 or 2 damage to him to avoid Focusing him.

I think you were playing it right.

Rage: for gaarkaan to get rage, he needed to get 3 or more damage inside of a single attack (see rules reference guide about the 7 steps that involve an attack). An attack has a starting and ending time period (those 7 steps) and the part about when gaarkaan suffered his damage is dependent upon that time period--the 3 or more damage for focus had to happen during a single attack. So if gaarkaan gets 2 damage on 1 attack from a storm trooper and then 2 damage from 1 attack from a different storm trooper, gaarkaan does not become focused.

While on the second faisafe to trigger, it's total damage without the condition of that damage being confined to a single attack.


Where you did play it wrong is that you used a non-imperial figure to try to trigger that card.

The card specifies that it's an imperial figure that suffers that damage.

Good call...

My bad on that.

As OP said, English isn't his native tongue, so his question is phrased a little oddly and I think maybe you misunderstood it.

I don't think he was asking whether he could use "Failsafe" after Gaarkhan takes damage, because of course Gaarkhan is not an Imperial figure so he doesn't even qualify.

What he meant was, what is the technical meaning of the term "to suffer X damage" when it appears as a condition for an ability? Does it requrie that the figure must suffer at least X damage in a single event in order to satisfy the condition? Or does it only require that the figure must have at least X damage tokens, no matter when he received them?

In the first interpretation ("suffer X damage" means "suffer X damage in a single event"), Gaarkhan's Rage makes sense (he gets Focus only when 3+ damage is inflicted at a single time, so three hits for 1 damage each would not focus him) whereas Failsafe doesn't make nearly as much sense (it would only work when the figure was one-shotted).

In the second interpretation ("suffer X damage" means "has X damage tokens accumulated so far"), Rage is a lot more potent (any attack against Gaarkhan gives him Focus, if he has 3 damage on his card afterward), but Failsafe makes more sense (it can trigger whenever an Imperial figure would otherwise be defeated, no matter if it was in a single shot or a series of hits).

Seems to me I did understand his question and answered it like you did.

I put in the fail safe part as I thought he incorrectly used failsafe and I was pointing that out. I was wrong valdrain noted on who can use it.

I guess I'm just not sure we've really resolved the ambiguity. These two abilities can each trigger when a figure "suffers X damage" (where X=3, or X=health, doesn't matter), and yet the intuitive meaning of "suffers X damage" is inconsistent for the two cases.

In one case it's sort of kind of implied that the X damage must be suffered all at once during that particular attack against Gaarkhan, but the card doesn't explicitly say that. In the other case it's sort of kind of implied that the X damage may have been suffered in any number of earlier attacks, but the card doesn't explicitly say that either. They both just say "suffers X damage", so it seems reasonable to argue that they should work the same way.

That brings us back to the issue that if they have to work the same way, then one of them is going to work a little strangely no matter which interpretation you choose.

I think these 2 cards can have different resolutions the way they are worded. While Rage isn't explicit in its wording, when you take the sentence as a whole, it does implicitly state that the damage is 3 or more during that attack. If you just re-arrange the 2 statements to say: "If you suffered 3 or more [damage], after an attack targeting you is resolved, you become focused", the meaning doesn't change. An attack is required, that attack must cause 3 or more damage.

Failsafe, however, does lend itself to several interpretations. But, when taken as a whole I think this card does explain itself very well. The fact that it mentions being defeated, means that you have to be defeated for this card to be useful. This could have just as easily been written by leaving that part out and we wouldn't be having this conversation. But since it is in there, and you only get defeated "when an Imperial figure suffers [damage] equal to it's health", and that this is call "failsafe", you can be sure that it is only useful when you should have died.

I guess I'm just not sure we've really resolved the ambiguity. These two abilities can each trigger when a figure "suffers X damage" (where X=3, or X=health, doesn't matter), and yet the intuitive meaning of "suffers X damage" is inconsistent for the two cases.

In one case it's sort of kind of implied that the X damage must be suffered all at once during that particular attack against Gaarkhan, but the card doesn't explicitly say that. In the other case it's sort of kind of implied that the X damage may have been suffered in any number of earlier attacks, but the card doesn't explicitly say that either. They both just say "suffers X damage", so it seems reasonable to argue that they should work the same way.

That brings us back to the issue that if they have to work the same way, then one of them is going to work a little strangely no matter which interpretation you choose.

I see it as clear.

In the first case, the card specifies when the damage needs to occur for rage (damage after an attack targeting you). That is a singular attack. So the card does say it has to happen in one attack for gaarkaan to get focus.

In the second case, no singular attack is required to trigger it. The figure just need damage totaling it's health to trigger.