Hello all,

I am fairly new to the game, and as such have some questions that I am trying to work my way through by reading forums and articles. Recently we started venturing into more and more card combos around here, experimenting with things like "Ruthlessness" or "Ion Cannon" and here is where my question comes from.

Ruthlessness states that" ship suffers 1 damage" and Ion Cannon states that "the defender suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token".

When that language is used on cards (suffers x damage) is that damage avoidable in any way? Is that considered and equivalent to getting a hit result on a red dice? Or does the damage added in this way bypass shields and all defenses and goes directly onto the hull as a damage card?

My thinking now is that if that is a weapon effect, the regular ways to cancel it out apply (so evade tokens and dice, droids, special abilities still work), but if that is an effect outside of the shooting/defending mechanics than the damage is unavoidable?

Please let me know if I am completely off the base here.

Thank you all and glad to be around here

From the rules reference, page 9, "Damage":

When a ship suffers a damage or critical damage, it
loses one shield token. If it does not have any shield
tokens to lose, it is dealt one Damage card instead.
For normal damage, the Damage card is dealt
facedown; for critical damage, the Damage card is
dealt faceup and the text on the card immediately
resolves.

Normally, an attack hits if there are any <hit> or <crit> results left uncanceled by <evade> results. Some cards, like Ion Cannon, ask you to first determine if the attack hit, after which you cancel all the original damage and apply a different effect. In the case of an Ion Cannon, you assign the ship one Ion Token and it suffers one damage. Unless an effect says that you must be "dealt a damage card", damage always affects shields first, and then hull.

There are a few cards (like Chewbacca crew) that allow you to cancel a damage card as it is being dealt.

If it "deals one damage" it's as if you were hit by an attack.

So an attack where you roll 2 hits and the defender rolls one evade, the attack then "deals one damage" to the defender.

However, if something like Proton Bombs hits a ship, it says "deal a damage card," which is different than dealing a damage. This would give the defender a damage card, regardless of shields.

In OP, you specifically ask if this damage is avoidable. It is not. The Ion Cannon, for instance, states "deal 1 damage and blahblahblah." This cannot be canceled, as it is already after the attack. For example:

B-wing fires Ion Cannon at Lamda Shuttle

B-wing rolls 2 hits

Lambda rolls 1 evade

Cancel all dice results, as per Ion Cannon

Deal 1 damage and Ion token

Alternatively,

B-wing fires, and rolls 1 hit

Shuttle rolls one evade

Attack does not hit.

Since the attack does not hit, the "deal 1 damage" statement never happens

Hope it helps!

Ruthlessness applies damage that cannot be avoided. Your shield take that damage before your hull.

Ion Cannon is a secondary weapon used for attack. Damage is avoided if you roll enough evades or otherwise cancel all hits from the dice rolls.

There are other forms of damage that can't be avoided, like being within range 1 of a seismic charge when it detonates.

One designation is that damage dealt by bombs, Ruthlessness, and other effects are not considered "attacks" like a primary or secondary weapon provides, and thus damage from those means will not remove certain upgrades like Stealth Device.

Long story short, if a thing says it "deals damage" then shields will stop it.

If a thing says it "deals a damage card" then the card is placed directly on the ship and ignores shields.

BTW: your questions are basically the first ones everyone has once they get past the very basic rules of the game. You're in very good company asking!

Long story short, if a thing says it "deals damage" then shields will stop it.

If a thing says it "deals a damage card" then the card is placed directly on the ship and ignores shields.

I believe the actual phrase used is "suffer damage". So for instance, with the Ion example, it reads "if this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. then cancel all dice results." This means essentially that the number of hits that get past evades doesn't matter. Also, all normal damage dealt in this game by primary weapons, most secondary weapons, and collisions with asteroids is considered damage that is "suffered" (and thus applies to shields first).

As stated, "deal a damage card" is not "suffer damage" and is therefor not negated by shields. Proton Bombs and Advanced Homing Missiles are two examples of cards that "deal a faceup damage card", and therefor bypass shields. There are other effects that deal a face up damage card, such as two Huge ships colliding, but those are not considered attacks.

OP, some of your other examples were from Ruthlessness and Ions. No, the damage cannot be avoided in any way, because they both happen as the result of a failure to evade. You don't get to evade them because you already failed to do so.

Unless something directly tells you to deal cards instead of damage a Shield token will be removed before cards are dealt. Some people may consider that "avoiding damage" yet others do not.

If something tells you to suffer damage it is just like having uncancelled dice left AFTER the compare results step of an attack. This is after a defense roll would have been made and after all modifications would have been taken so those can't do anything to it.

I am terribly sorry for my long absence and lack of comments after I posted my question. I appreciate all the responses very much - I think that I have a better idea on how to read those cards now