Frequently Asked Questions about Star Wars Destiny

I’ve noticed that a lot of new players have come to the forums asking for help on a few of the rules that are either vague or hard to find in the official rules reference, so I’m going to try to put things here so that people can see them easily. A lot of these are core concepts that I didn’t understand when I started the game, or problems that I myself had because I played Star Wars X-Wing for a while before Destiny. I hope this is helpful to everybody, and if it proves popular, I’ll try to update it with any new things that people want to add.

One great place to start is the official rules reference:
https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/38/a7/38a7c28b-8a85-4426-9fc2-d8fac35eb8bb/swd_rules_reference_15.pdf

Also, it seems to have faded into obscurity, but there was a “community FAQ” that wasn’t used much but does exist on these forums. There’s a lot of very helpful stuff there. You can find it here:

Please let me know if you think of something that should be added to this! I’d really like to help clear these kind of things up for new players, because I know from personal experience that this game can be very frustrating if you don’t know the rules, and the official rules are not very well organized and seem to gloss over some very important aspects of the game.

What should I buy? I’ve heard of “rotation”, but I don’t know what that means in Destiny and I don’t want to buy the wrong thing. Also, this game looks really expensive. How do I get into it cheaply?
Any starter sets are a great place to start. The starter decks are not usually 30 character points and 30 cards, so it is unlikely that you will be able to build a complete deck with one, but you will get a good start. Every starter deck has different good cards in it, so it’s important to make sure that you get one that will suit your playing style. There are now three formats: one using all the cards, one using only the cards from the last two calendar years, and one using only the cards from the current calendar year (basically - some things may fall in different years). If you want to play all the formats, you’ll want to buy cards from newer sets. For more on how rotation works, check out this article: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/11/8/swd-what-lies-ahead When buying packs, try to buy from as many sets as possible so that you minimize duplicates. Trying to play this like an LCG is a bad idea. If you are a collector, a completionist, or someone with a lot of extra money, you can try to collect a full set of everything, but that is not going to be a great strategy in the long run. One good way to play is to buy a few packs and be ready to trade for things you want. Perhaps an even better strategy is to find what you want and then purchase it individually online. An excellent price guide and list of sellers can be found here: http://www.thechancecube.com/card-price-watch/

What do modifiers do? When can I resolve them?
Anytime a die face has a (+) symbol on it, it is a modifier. Modifiers can only ever be resolved along with another die that has the same symbol on it. When a card says to “resolve a die”, you cannot resolve a modifier die unless the card lets you resolve multiple dice and you have a normal die showing the same symbol as a modifier die.

What’s up with Guardian?
Characters that have the Guardian keyword may trigger that ability when they activate. The ability does the following: choose an opponent’s dice showing damage. Remove that die. Then deal damage to this character equal to the value showing on the die. This does not count as resolving the die (the reminder text was misprinted on most Awakenings cards), and the damage dealt is just generic damage, and doesn’t count as melee, ranged, or any other specific kind of damage.

People keep referring to “nerfs” and saying that my cards don’t work how they’re printed. What’s up with that?
When a card or a combo gets out of hand, instead of adding it to a banlist, the Destiny developers use an errata to change what it’s supposed to say on the card. It’s up to all the players to keep track of errata and know if their cards have been affected by an errata. All the errata can be found in the official Destiny Rules Reference (usually towards the back, just before the FAQ).

Can anything block damage if a card says it’s “unblockable”?
No. There is no card or ability in the entire game that counters unblockable damage.

When a card says to “deal damage to an opponent’s characters, distributed as they wish,” can I deal the damage to a character in excess of his or her health to get rid of the damage?
No. This kind of damage is dealt one at a time, so as soon as a character would be defeated by it, the character is removed and the rest of the damage must go elsewhere. Note that certain abilities may counter this, for example, Magnaguard (EaW 3) is not removed immediately when defeated, and thus may have excess damage assigned to it.

An opponent has an ability that forces me to play a card. What do I do if I can’t do all the things it says to do?
You must do as much as you can. First, pay the cost of the card. Then, starting at the top of the card text, follow the instructions on the card until you get to the part you can’t do. Then discard the card. If you can’t afford the cost of the card, simply pay all of your available resources then discard the card.

An opponent has a whole bunch of dice showing damage and resolves them against my character, who has a built-in card that can be used to block any damage he or she takes (like Force Illusion (SoR 135)). Can I block all the damage?
Each die is resolved separately, so you can only block one die worth of damage. Note that modifiers add to dice, so you can also block them. For example, if your opponent has (1), (2), and (+2) melee damage dice showing, you can ask them to pair the modifier with one of the unmodified dice (let’s assume they pair it with the (1) melee die) and then block all three damage that comes from the die and the modifier die, but not the two damage that come from the other die.