This came up today when we first got horribly eaten by many horrible giant spiders. There is probably an obvious answer to this, and I thought the gurus here on the boards could help out. I'm sure there's an obvious and clear answer to this.

When a character is damaged by an attack by a creature with Venom, they get poisoned. Fair enough. But what happens if the attack kills the defender outright. Is it still dealt a poison card or not?

The question revolves around the order of the application of damage and the triggering of the effect.

Is it:

1) Attack does X damage to the defending character

2) Since the attack does damage, the defending character is dealt a poison card

3) The damage is resolved, and kills the character

or is it:

1) Attack does X damage to the defending character

2) The damage is resolved and kills the character

3) The venom keyword is ignored since there is no valid target for it (target already dead)

This is important to us, especially our player who plays with the Gandalf hero who can play off the top of his deck. Thanks!

When a character has damage equal or greater to its hit points, it is immediately discarded. The core manual uses the language "immediate," which is the important part. The character will be discarded before you have to resolve the Venom keyword, so I would not deal a poison card.