Hey all,

After the spoil of Obi-Wan today, a question about timing for defeating a character and excess damage just became more relevant.

Right now, we have Second Chance which heals 5, making it difficult to deal excess damage to still kill the character. However, Obi-Wan opens the opportunity for a Willpower loop to essentially make him an immortal Guardian, provided it works the way I think it does.

So, here's my current understanding: damage is dealt up to the character's threshold with all excess damage ignored/wasted. THEN, before he is defeated, Obi-Wan's power kicks in to let you play Willpower for free to transfer 1 damage from him to an opponent's exhausted character. He is then still alive with 1 health remaining. Rinse and repeat indefinitely as long as the opponent has an exhausted character. Is this correct?

There are more conditions that need to be met for this to make Obi-Wan immortal. He needs to be exhausted to transfer damage from him to another character, there needs to be an exhausted character to transfer damage to, you need a resource to pop Willpower ( don't think you get to play Willpower for free, do you?), etc.

He'll be a tough nut to crack but he will not be immortal.

4 minutes ago, KalEl814 said:

There are more conditions that need to be met for this to make Obi-Wan immortal. He needs to be exhausted to transfer damage from him to another character, there needs to be an exhausted character to transfer damage to, you need a resource to pop Willpower ( don't think you get to play Willpower for free, do you?), etc.

He'll be a tough nut to crack but he will not be immortal.

Obi-Wan does let you play it for free.

3 minutes ago, netherspirit1982 said:

Obi-Wan does let you play it for free.

I completely misread the card. I apologize. :|

Removing damage from Obi-wan with whatever you play with his ability will not save him from being defeated.

The condition has already been met, unless there is a replacement effect negating the defeated condition, what you do with his ability is not going to prevent him from being defeated.

Thanks, ScottieATF, that makes sense and is a very elegant way to get around that problem.

For however little it's worth in this context, there are "recover" effects in Imperial Assault that DO prevent figures from being defeated after a damage equal to their health has been dealt.

FFG is really killing it with the ambiguously worded text. I mean really, you could just trigger his ability while he's at full health, right? It's before he's been defeated, after all.

@KalEl814

There may be something similar to that in SoR, who knows, but I reread Second Chance and I think ScottieATF is correct, because unlike Obi-Wan, it says heal 5 damage and INSTEAD of defeating the character, discard the upgrade. Unfortunately Willpower won't have the same effect. But would be fun for Obi to get a final ping in before dying!

2 minutes ago, AeroEng42 said:

@KalEl814

There may be something similar to that in SoR, who knows, but I reread Second Chance and I think ScottieATF is correct, because unlike Obi-Wan, it says heal 5 damage and INSTEAD of defeating the character, discard the upgrade. Unfortunately Willpower won't have the same effect. But would be fun for Obi to get a final ping in before dying!

Oh yeah, agreed. Not suggesting IA has any bearing here, just that FFG isn't necessarily opposed to the concept in their games generally.

7 minutes ago, uhhsam said:

FFG is really killing it with the ambiguously worded text. I mean really, you could just trigger his ability while he's at full health, right? It's before he's been defeated, after all.

It is only abiguous outside of the confines of the rules of this game.

Furelli

1 hour ago, uhhsam said:

FFG is really killing it with the ambiguously worded text. I mean really, you could just trigger his ability while he's at full health, right? It's before he's been defeated, after all.

You're kidding here right? Are you also saying that you can use Dooku's ability whenever you want as its before he takes damage afterall.

I'd suggest a reread of triggering conditions.

1 hour ago, AeroEng42 said:

@KalEl814

But would be fun for Obi to get a final ping in before dying!

He does get to do that. You can play Willpower, move the damage, and then Kenobi is defeated. And since the damage is done before Kenobi is defeated, if that damage wins you the game, you win!

Scottie is correct. The trigger condition does need to be met, so yes, Obi gets defeated. The card goes onto the stack however Before he is defeated. So if there was a way to move damage from Obi to another character before he is defeated, then yes, the damage gets moved, then Obi is defeated.

The reason it doesn't work here however is Guardian happens Before the character activates. So Obi is defeated before he is even exhausted, therefore willpower can not be used on him. It could be used on one of your other exhausted characters.

So I've thought about this some more and I'm not sure that Obi-Wan would be defeated in the scenario that the OP laid out.

I know IA is a completely different game. But the wording on Final Blast is similar to the working of Obi-Wan's ability:

In IA, it was ruled that if Final Blast is played and the attack that it grants recovers health for the attacking figure (through surge abilities or something), the figure is NOT defeated and would stay on the board.

Again, different game, but I'm going to submit the rules query anyway. I could see how someone could claim it makes sense that if damage is moved from Obi-Wan BEFORE he is defeated, by the end of his ability triggering and Willpower being played, he would no longer have damage equal to his health, and therefore not end up being defeated.

On Tue Feb 07 2017 at 9:44 PM, uhhsam said:

FFG is really killing it with the ambiguously worded text. I mean really, you could just trigger his ability while he's at full health, right? It's before he's been defeated, after all.

"Before" has a specific section in the rules. Its not ambiguous, just a lot of people want to split hairs and be utter jebends by arguing fairly straightforward concepts by trying to twist words or whinge that certain words aren't defined in the rules.

In this case, "before" IS defined in the rules so I honestly don't get why there's confusion if not because people are deliberately being bellwhackers.

REPLACEMENT EFFECTS p17:
A replacement effect uses the word “instead” somewhere in its text. If a replacement effect resolves, the original effect is considered to have not resolved, and no abilities can be triggered off of it. Abilities can be triggered off of the replacement effect.

Second Chance is a replacement effect, so the original effect is not considered to have resolved, were Obi-Wan a Yellow Character he would be feeling better.

Willpower isn't a replacement effect, so ScottieATF has it right, you resolve the queue and when you get to the end Obi-Wan is still defeated.

21 hours ago, KalEl814 said:

So I've thought about this some more and I'm not sure that Obi-Wan would be defeated in the scenario that the OP laid out.

I know IA is a completely different game. But the wording on Final Blast is similar to the working of Obi-Wan's ability:

In IA, it was ruled that if Final Blast is played and the attack that it grants recovers health for the attacking figure (through surge abilities or something), the figure is NOT defeated and would stay on the board.

Again, different game, but I'm going to submit the rules query anyway. I could see how someone could claim it makes sense that if damage is moved from Obi-Wan BEFORE he is defeated, by the end of his ability triggering and Willpower being played, he would no longer have damage equal to his health, and therefore not end up being defeated.

Completely different game and has absolutely no bearing on Destiny.

Obi-Wan would still be defeated.

57 minutes ago, rowdyoctopus said:

Completely different game and has absolutely no bearing on Destiny.

Obi-Wan would still be defeated.

Absolutely agreed, I just had to ask for my own sanity.

To be fair, FFG recycles so many rules, game mechanics and art work from all their games it isn't crazy to sometimes try to compare them.

In this case, the condition which triggers the Before effect must be met. Since this card isn't out yet, hopefully the FQA will be updated to make it very clear what is Obi Wans fate. (Spoiler: he dies, Anie, how could you)

30 minutes ago, Mep said:

To be fair, FFG recycles so many rules, game mechanics and art work from all their games it isn't crazy to sometimes try to compare them.

In this case, the condition which triggers the Before effect must be met. Since this card isn't out yet, hopefully the FQA will be updated to make it very clear what is Obi Wans fate. (Spoiler: he dies, Anie, how could you)

Think the rules are pretty clear here. He dies.

He does. My guess is the clarification will say something about character defeats enter the queue (currently they do not). So a damage dice gets resolved, deals lethal damage to Obi, his defeat enters the queue, the before effect triggers, so will power can be played, moving one damage from Obi to another exhausted character, then his defeat gets resolved. Although it technically gets resolved with 1 hp left. This has no baring on the game. The only thing that saves him is a replacement effect, which should that happen, wouldn't trigger his ability anyways, so not relevant.

Though I do see some people using will power again and again until their resources run out to keep zombie Obi going. This is why it will hit the FQA.

19 hours ago, Mep said:

The only thing that saves him is a replacement effect, which should that happen, wouldn't trigger his ability anyways, so not relevant.

If the replacement is a before trigger like Second Chance, you'd get to decide the order they resolve, correct? Have his ability resolve, play a card, then the replacement effect resolves, replacing his defeat.

Well, the rule is very clear on replacement effects and additional triggers. Obi is either defeated, and his ability kicks in or you can stop the defeat (and not trigger his ability) for the replacement effect.