Here was the situation. Opponent had Protectrix ("Reap: Fully heal one friendly creature. If you do, that creature cannot receive damage this turn.") Opponent also had another creature ready. That creature had no damage markers on it. Opponent reaped with Protectrix--then claimed he was healing that other creature, and since after healing it it had no damage, this counted as "fully healing" that creature. He then used that other creature to attack one of my creatures, and did not allow for his creature to take any damage.

Opponent's assumption was that you can heal any creature, damaged or not.

My assumption instead would be that you can only heal a damaged creature, and that Protectrix could not be used to protect that creature from damage in that situation.

What say you!?

I am sorry to bump this but this rule question has become a subject of somewhat lively debate at both the Reddit forum and the BGG forum, as well as in more than one game I have now participated in!

Is this the right place to ask for an official ruling?

I can only give an opinion but I agree that to 'heal' requires something to heal. Just an opinion though..

That doesn't sound right to me, but, I pretty much suck when it comes to rules interpretations.

It seems that they can go ahead and target an undamaged creature, because it doesn't specifically say fully heal a "damaged"friendly creature but since they didn't fully heal anything they would not get the damage protection.

The clause to get the damage protection doesn't check if the creature is at full health. I read it as the action of fully healing the creature has to have taken place for the damage protection to kick in.

Again I'm probably horribly wrong in this

Do as much as you can. If there is no damage, there is no healing. He can play the card, but no effect.

if it had an amber symbol he could get an amber for doing it

Best place for official rules answers and the place where such questions stand the best chance of seeing the rules clarified are: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules/

5 hours ago, Amanal said:

Best place for official rules answers and the place where such questions stand the best chance of seeing the rules clarified are: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules/

Except that's only for released games, so we'll have to wait a bit, I guess.

In my opinion you wouldn't heal something that isn't damaged, the sentence "if you do" also points in that direction although doesn't clarify much. If it were triggering of of fully healed creatures it would probably have said "reap: Fully heal one friendly creature. That creature cannot receive damage this turn. "

but that's just my opinion, you'll have to ask once the game is released (or find it in an FAQ at that time).

Just now, Palpster said:

In my opinion you wouldn't heal something that isn't damaged...

I see nothing in the rulebook to either refute this or support this, so I am going to wait until the FAQ comes out.

I think it must be hurt.

Otherwise it would have read "and give" instead of the conditional " if you do"

9 hours ago, Palpster said:

Except that's only for released games, so we'll have to wait a bit, I guess.

In my opinion you wouldn't heal something that isn't damaged, the sentence "if you do" also points in that direction although doesn't clarify much. If it were triggering of of fully healed creatures it would probably have said "reap: Fully heal one friendly creature. That creature cannot receive damage this turn. "

but that's just my opinion, you'll have to ask once the game is released (or find it in an FAQ at that time).

Nope. KeyForge is in the dropdown, and it goes right to the FFG Lead Designer's email. We've gotten responses from him on questions already on the discord.

But yeah, because there is a card worded "if you do" that loudly suggests that it has to be damaged to be considered healed.

2 hours ago, Inksplat said:

Nope. KeyForge is in the dropdown, and it goes right to the FFG Lead Designer's email. We've gotten responses from him on questions already on the discord.

But yeah, because there is a card worded "if you do" that loudly suggests that it has to be damaged to be considered healed.

Wow, I even looked through the dropdown, but still missed it ☺️

I have an answer from Dr. Garfield. It's not the answer I wanted, but its the answer we need.

---
The intent is that you can heal a fully healed creature. I can't promise that is how the rules will end up because a change on that would be ok with me if there were some internal consistency issue or clarity issue that pushed it in a different way.

In fact, just last night I used a protectrix twice in exactly that way.
---

Wow. I am very surprised to hear Garfield say that. It seems really counterintuitive and broken to me.

Oh well! The superarchon has spoken.

How is it broken? All it means is that you can just use the damage prevention on its own.

I'm with the naysayers on this one!

from page 10 of the rulebook:

"fully heal": remove all damage from the creature. Since you track damage with tokens and you remove the tokens it would stand to reason that you can't remove a token that is not on the card.

"if you do": the player must succesfully and completly resolve the text preceding the phrase (if you do).

so to translate the card: "Reap: Remove all damage tokens from a creature you control, if you have done that, then that creature can't have damage tokens placed on it this turn."

Apparently FFG has responded to someone in the Discord server saying the opposite of what Garfield said?

Hold the phone!

Shortly after getting the message back from Dr. Garfield (and I think it's important we pause here to acknowledge: He very specifically and carefully said FFG might end up officially ruling the other way and that would be binding) I got this email from FFG!

---

Hi Kris,

And so it begins...

when Garfield says the intent is one way, and FFG rules it another, that worries me.

BUT, as always, I'll wait for the FAQ for the final word on this. As a side note, I think the FAQ and card clarifications list will be huge for this game. There are a lot of card interactions that need clarifying.

26 minutes ago, Palpster said:

And so it begins...

when Garfield says the intent is one way, and FFG rules it another, that worries me.

BUT, as always, I'll wait for the FAQ for the final word on this. As a side note, I think the FAQ and card clarifications list will be huge for this game. There are a lot of card interactions that need clarifying.

Well he did say "he couldn't promise that's how the rule would end up." Plus the ability actually has 3 parts: the reap part (exaust gain one Aember wich always works), the remove damage part, and the can't put damage on this part (that only goes of if the 2nd part was actually used)

So far I've found the rulebook and definitions quite clear. You should try learning to play AOS Champions from the flyer that's supposed to be the rulebook. I'm still not quite sure what "highlighted" means.

3 hours ago, Palpster said:

And so it begins...

when Garfield says the intent is one way, and FFG rules it another, that worries me.

BUT, as always, I'll wait for the FAQ for the final word on this. As a side note, I think the FAQ and card clarifications list will be huge for this game. There are a lot of card interactions that need clarifying.

This doesn’t make much sense. Why would you “wait for a FAQ” when it’s the FAQ writer that ruled on it via official FFG rules-question form?

3 hours ago, Inksplat said:

This doesn’t make much sense. Why would you “wait for a FAQ” when it’s the FAQ writer that ruled on it via official FFG rules-question form?

I haven’t gotten an e-mail from the developers. The person claiming they have might have made it up (NOT saying they did, mind you! Just that they could have). Thing isn’t official until it’s in the FAQ or official rulings section on this forum.

1 minute ago, Palpster said:

I haven’t gotten an e-mail from the developers. The person claiming they have might have made it up (NOT saying they did, mind you! Just that they could have). Thing isn’t official until it’s in the FAQ or official rulings section on this forum.

Yeah, that sort of paranoia over a card game is not any less weird. But, you do you, bro. Just don't try and push a ruling opposite to what Brad has ruled because "its not official because I moved the goal posts" and I won't judge.

14 minutes ago, Inksplat said:

Yeah, that sort of paranoia over a card game is not any less weird. But, you do you, bro. Just don't try and push a ruling opposite to what Brad has ruled because "its not official because I moved the goal posts" and I won't judge.

It wouldn’t be the first time a ruling by mail has turned out different in final FAQ *shrug*

also, I would rule it the same way, my initial reaction was to be worried about a ruling that makes sense, but what wasn’t intended according to the designer.

2 minutes ago, Palpster said:

It wouldn’t be the first time a ruling by mail has turned out different in final FAQ *shrug*

That's a completely different issue than "he's lying!" and also wouldn't be solved if you yourself received the email, which you seemed to suggest if you had would make it official to you. So..yeah. Like I said, as long as you're not trying to argue a rule interpretation you have lots of evidence is wrong, then feel free to believe what you want, as its not hurting anybody.