There is no clarifying on this question in Rulebook and in FAQ either.

What does "dealing" damage exactly mean?

Is it equal to assigning? Or damage dealt means that after a battle, damage tokens are put (applied!) on a unit/capital card?

Imagine a situation: Chosen of Tzeentch, with Sadistic Mutation attached to him, is attacking Kingdom which is not defended by anyone. An attacked player has a support which cancels one damage assigned to the capital. My ChOfTz is assigning one damage to Kingdom which is cancelled.

Have I dealt this damage or not? ie may I assign an additional damage token concerning the Sadistic Mutation attached to the Chaos unit?

Page 7 of the FAQ -
A unit is considered to deal damage in combat as long as it has contributed at least one damage to the pool of damage that will be assigned to the opponent during combat, and at least one damage is applied to an opponent’s unit or capital during the Apply Damage step.

For example, Sadistic Mutation states “Forced: After the attached unit deals damage in combat, deal 1 damage to one target unit or capital.” This means that the attached unit must add at least 1 damage to the combat damage pool, and at least 1 damage from the combat damage pool must be applied to an opponent’s unit or capital before this forced effect can trigger."

If no damage is successfully applied during that combat then damage was never dealt and SM will not trigger.

I must have overseen that thing in the FAQ. Sorry 'bout it

Sorry to drag this up again, but I could not see a forum topic that answers my related question - at what point have I 'dealt' damage (thinking in relation to a Shrine of Nurgle, for example)? Thanks.

For the Shrine of Nurgle specifically, it was errataed in the official FAQ and now only triggers on damage dealt in combat, i.e. in the last step of combat in the battlefield phase.

So doing damage via counterstrike or via non-combat means like a Nurgle Sorceror or Nurgle's Pestilence does not activate the Shrine - only actually dealing damage in combat will corrupt the opposing unit if you have a Shrine in play.

I spent a while writing up a summary of all the official rulings here - hopefully that will head other questions you may have off at the pass too.

Perhapse my question is more stupid than you give it credit for, but you have not answered it

My question is simply at what point is damage considered 'dealt' (I just used the shrine as an example of an effect that triggers when damage is 'dealt'). Is it 'dealt' when damage is assigned (step 4), or when damage is applied (step 5) or somewhere in between - so, at what point in combat does the shrine's ability trigger?

Thanks.

When damage is applied it has been successfully considered dealt. If you have eight units, and 20 power gets assigned, but for some fashion only a single point gets through, all units that contributed a power to the total, are considered to have dealt damage. If you need an analogy think multiple soldiers, units, fire teams, are engaged in clearing out a building in a warzone. Only one piece of munition is fired and scores a hit in the process of clearing out the building, but all participants in that combat are jointly considered to have successfully accomplished the objective. Not a perfect analogy, but it does get the idea across that combat is done in mass and all units share in the success or failure of an attack or defense.

Clamatius said:

I think this is slightly incorrect. Shrine to Nurgle is limited to Combat Damage. My recollection is that counterstrike is considered combat damage so it would trigger the shrine effect. Do not have access to rulebook right now to check but that is my recollection.

Ok, so, if it is 'dealt' at the assign step (step 4) then the ability of the shrine kicks in before step 5, yes?

So, at the end of step 4 all the units that have damage tokens 'assigned' to them become corrupted by the shrine (regardless of wether that damage is cancelled by toughness in step 5)?

Presumably, then, Valkia could transfer any pre-existing damage on her (ie. damage that was on her BEFORE the current combat) to those units that have now been corrupted by the shrine at the end of step 4?

Example:

Valkia has a damage token on her.

Combat is declared and attackers and defenders are chosen (steps 1-3), Valkia is in that combat.

3 damage is assigned to Valkia which would be enough to kill her (step 4), but before damage is applied the Shrine kicks in and corrupts the enemy unit that Valkia just assigned damage to - so Valkia transfers her 1 damage token already on her to an enemy unit (still step 4).

Now damage is applied and Valkia takes the 3 damage and lives (step 5).

Is this correct?

Now, presumably, because damage has already been assinged when the shrine kicks in, the ability of Melekh the Changer would not cause additional damage?

Thanks, again.

alakazam

Look carefully again at the Langauge from the FAQ. I copied what Dormouse put up at the top of the thread:

Page 7 of the FAQ -
A unit is considered to deal damage in combat as long as it has contributed at least one damage to the pool of damage that will be assigned to the opponent during combat, and at least one damage is applied to an opponent’s unit or capital during the Apply Damage step.

So damage is considered dealt when:

1. The unit contributed at least one damage to the pool to be assigned.

AND

2. At least one damage from the pool is subsequently applied.

So in your example Valkia could not move the damage at the point you indicated.

RexGator said:

I'll update the Shrine entry in the rulings summary accordingly.

Thanks for the clarification, Rexgator.

The rulebook (and even the FAQ) are written so obtusely that it is almost unfathomable to the starting player.

You think they would have learned from Magic: The Gathering to be precise in their application of terms...

Actually they are precise in their use of terms, it is just those terms are, predictably, not Magic terms. The differences between the basic rulebook and the FAQ are not from lack of precise terms so much as from explaining those terms or changing some aspect (almost always to simplify) of a rule.

Dealt damage is spelled out and is a precise term. Asswign damage is spelled out and is a precise term. Apply damage is spelled out and is a precise term. If we want to say it simply dealt damage is damage that has been specifically applied... but to be more precise we have to show that a unit is considered to have dealt damage if it contributed power to the damage pool and at least one damage from the pool was assigned and successfully applied.

I beg to differ - it is not clear what these terms mean. If you put a term on a card (like 'dealt damage') ten there should, ideally, be a glossary with those terms and what they mean - there is not. It takes a convoluted FAQ entry that still does not make it clear to new players, imo.

With all due respect, it might make perfect sense to you if you have been playing for a long time - but we have had only one game and we are stuggling to see how things fit together...

I used 'Magic' as an example of a game that also had a lot of trouble in its definition of terms (until it added an extensive glossary - still not perfect, but it went a long way... at least the last time I played, which was a good many years ago, granted) - I do not expect them to use the same terms, simply define, in pain English, the terms they do use.

Anyway, I thank you for your time in making this aspect slightly clearer to me.

Sorry mate, but the terms are defined in the rules, (as is evidenced by the rapid answers with direct quotations to most of the posts in this forum). A Glossary while convenient when you have a 40 page rulebook becomes a waste of paper and encourages people not to read the rule book in its entirety when the rule book is 20 pages, much of which is graphical representations or flat-out play examples.

You'll notice most of the rules questions here can be solved by one simple read of the proper section of the rulebook or FAQ.

dormouse said:

I think it's a stretch to say the terms in this game are "clearly defined." We have four different terms for "put damage on a unit": assign, apply, deal, and take. Let alone redirect and move. They did a good job of defining "assign" and "apply" in the rulebook, but then they started tossing in all these other words that they didn't define. FFG even changed their minds about what "deal" means (first "assign," now "assign and immediately apply"). They are trying to use non-technical terms in a technical sense, which is exactly why a glossary is a good idea. There have been dozens of rulings made that were in no way discernable from the rulebook as written. The rulebook is fine for getting players started, but it is far from comprehensive, and is quickly becoming obsolete. It's just not possible to write a rulebook for a CCG that has enough examples and plain language for your first game and also handles all of the complex situations that arise once you know the system. More than a glossary, we need a technical rules document.

Um... What do you think the FAQ is?

And for the record deal and take were properly interpreted by the majority of regular posters on these boards, so saying that it couldn't be done is simply not true.

But let's move away from this and get to something that really matters... have you sent in your thoughts/request to James and the other people at FFG? not you may want to consider the likelihood of achieving your stated wish by posting here versus actually telling the people in charge what you want and why it is a good idea.

I was posting here because a player was voicing his frustrations and you were telling him he didn't know how to read and everybody else was with the program. I agree with the OP that deal/take/assign/apply concepts are confusing and could be helped by consistent wording on cards, clearly defined game terms, and technical rules that make timing issues explicit.

Just look at the strategy article from today: FFG doesn't even know how to interpret the damage sequence. The strat article has you sacrificing the Flagellants between assign and apply to cancel the "next 2 damage assigned to your capital"... which would, I hope we can all agree, already be assigned when you are in the post-assign action window. I had already e-mailed a question to James about Blessings of Valaya being played in this same window, because I didn't think *it* was clear enough, and it even uses the word "dealt" instead of "apply." My reasoning was that deal = assign + apply, so you could argue that BoV would have to be played before Assign.

I don't mean to rag on you; I appreciate the effort you put into helping people with rules questions. I just don't think it does anybody any good to insist that FFG has hammered out all of the kinks when they are pretty clearly making a lot of this up as they go.

pancerek said:

This is what the original poster posted. All of these questions are dealt with in the rulebook and FAQ. Sadistic Mutation is even in the provided example. He missed it and said as much. It was Alakazam who started harping on things.

There are a lot of things being hammered out still, and there will always be things being hammered out. That is the nature of these types of games. I've yet to see a developer that can keep all the rulings straight in their heads for these games. I haven't checked out the strategy article, but it does sound like there was a pretty big mistake in the timing used in it. If so, I'm sure that the writer (I assume it was James, but sometimes these things are written by other employees, and even players) is thankful for pointing out the error, and hopefully it will be edited/corrected with the right timing, or the article replaced. I'll need to read the article for myself and see what the problem is of course. Perhaps there is a subtlety to the timing we are missing. Let us know what his reply is.

After having read the article and gone through the FAQ and Rulebook it looks like their action may be played in response to the assigning damage. The wording I have problems with is "next" and "assigned" which does imply that two damage assigned after the unit is sacrificed is canceled. If it didn't have te word next it would clearly remove two points of assigned damage as it was attempted to be applied in the damage cancellation section of the Apply damage step. If the word Assigned had been applied then I think the logical conclusion would be that the same.

I have to assume that if the way the card is shown to work in the article is correct, and that the wording is absolutely correct, then because it is a cancel it is being used in response, and creates some sort of specialized LIFO action chain. That is a bit unsatisfying, mostly because it changes the way I've envisioned the game and its cause and effect sequencing. It should be noted that if this is true and the way it has always been, it hasn't been clearly stated before in a fashion I was able to grok, but my assumptions are a product of my own mind. Nothing immediately comes to mind that would invalidate this potentially "new" understanding of the game, from previous writings, rulings, or clarifications.

Also those who called for a glossary, there is an entire section where terms are clarified/defined for this game in the FAQ. Surprisingly enough (and by that I mean not at all) Dealing damage (the present tense of the verb in question) is covered.

dormouse said:

Sorry, I meant to refer to alakazam's post rather than the OP.

dormouse said:

This is exactly what I'm talking about. We should not have to reverse-engineer the game rules by reading strategy posts!

I agree that the strategy article does seem to be interpreting the action window following "assign" to be happening "in response." But this should not be news! Why would they just hold that information and only tell people who ask rules questions? It's a pretty fundamental timing issue. If the strategy article is canon, it would seem to mean that the way people have been playing cards like Seduced By Darkness is 'incorrect.' Again, the kind of thing that should be made explicit. For the record, the people who write the strategy articles (if they are unsigned) are generally marketing people, but should be working in concert with the design team.

dormouse said:

It was a good heading, but a bad entry. It only deals with the question of when cards are considered to have dealt damage in combat, not how exactly dealing is different from applying. The "non-combat damage" section comes closer to being helpful, though this isn't a phrase they use on any cards, so I'm not sure why they've chosen to create the concept. It also would've been nice if they could've gotten this proto-glossary section in alphabetical order (they tried, at least).

I see what they were going for with the "deal" idea. They wanted to avoid using the word "assign" or "apply" in all situations because the player taking damage is assigning the damage in combat, and the damage is then automatically applied, so a unit/player "generating" that damage wouldn't seem to be doing either of those things. Out of combat, the player "generating" the damage *is* often assigning it, so with cards like Flames of Tzeentch it seems like they could have stuck with assign/apply, but they already had "deal" floating around at that point, I guess. It just becomes confusing because "dealing" damage then comprises two phases, and a bunch of effects can be played in between them. If these effects reference "dealt" damage (Blessings of Valaya, e.g.) it becomes unclear how those effects work.

It isn't so much about reverse engineering as it is about operating from an assumptive base. If all previous rules, rulings, and FAQ are in accordance with what appears to be the "new" method of handling things in the strategy article then there is only so much "blame" that can be placed on FFG. If you and I are having an hour long conversation about someone named Alex whose fault is it that we both assume the other person meant the same person we did, only to find out are they not only different people, but not even of the same sex? Our assumptions sometimes blind us to other possibilities. You can see this al lot when it comes to rule clarifications, people make assumptions about designer intent, and changing things, when in fact it was always that way, and the wording was perfectly representative of the designers intent, but their assumption of thier way being the correct way won't let them admit that they were in error. That of course does not absolve FFG from having written a rule/card in a way that allows for multiple interpretations, but they can be just as guilty of assuming one interpretation, and that because they know how it is supposed to work from the beginning, they write it in a way that conforms to that knowledge, not necessarily one which takes into account other interpretations of the text.

So far they are doing a pretty good job in my book. Traditional CCG's usuually seem to have about 14-15 cards in a block release that cause various problems with previous cards, or players interpretations of their text, or rules, so far we are about one per Chapter Pack (that requires actual confirmation/clarification/errata from Nate/James) and about 6 or so in the Core Set... over all I'd say it is on par with the industry average, below a great number of games, and above games that have been around for more than five years. Frustrating still... but acceptable in my book.

I guess it depends on what you're used to, but it seems to me like they're missing some fairly obvious stuff. There are several examples of cards that are doing exactly the same thing, but were worded in different ways for no discernable reason. And the fact that they've kind of just been developing the timing rules in a piecemeal fashion is a little off-putting, given how often they matter. I also don't really like their system of disseminating rulings with rare FAQ updates, and then leaving the player community to organize everything else. Maybe if they spent a little less time jazzing up the FAQ document with pretty pictures, they might be able to maintain a simple text document that got answers out in a timely fashion.

I'm not about to quit the game over it. I'm not even really that upset about it; I just think that there is room for improvment, and if it doesn't happen, it is going to be a barrier to entry for some players. CCGs are already hard to get into as you get farther from their launch, but if you have an underlying lack of clarity in addition to increased complexity from a growing ruleset and cardpool, then you've got a double whammy.

dormouse said:

Please, there is no need to be derogatory towards me. I was asking the community a question and did not really understand the responses and asked for clarification - I believe I was nothing but polite to yourself and others; I simply disagreed with your assertion that the rules were clear.

If you did not want to help me then you should not have responded, but I thank you that you did as my particular query is clearer for your efforts.

Note: I am willing to accept the posibility that 'harping on' might have a slightly different nuance where you are from than here in England - if that is the case then I accept that you did not mean to be rude.