Hi all,

Our little party is plugging it's way through the basic set (and the heroes are loosing every game, but that's another topic all together) and a question has come up regarding the Master Spider's Web ability.

If the spider hits a hero and does 1 damage, in which of these cases will the hero gain a web token?

1. If he has 3 points of armor (let's say 1 natural and 2 from chainmail).

2. If he has no armor, but exhausts his shield to prevent the 1 damage.

3. If he has no armor, no shield, no nothing!

The rules say that if a point of damage is done before armor reduces the damage then the web sticks, but if what we wanna know is if the shield preventing that 1 point stops the webbing.

(presumably the same ruling for other effects that kick-in on a hit like the stun)

Thanks all!

Web and similar abilities work as long as the attack generates any damage, even if that damage is blocked.

Shields, in particular, cancel wounds, which is the health reduction caused by damage that gets through your armor. Though this terminology isn't used terribly consistently.

Generally the only way to avoid the web token is if you can prevent the attack from hitting at all; rolling an X, having insufficient range, or not having enough surges to overcome Fear will all cause the attack to miss entirely. It's possible to roll a zero-damage attack with certain dice combinations, but I believe all of the monsters that normally have Web or similar abilities are guaranteed to generate at least 1 damage if they hit at all.

Thanks for the info.

Thus, in summary, in all three of the situations you list, the hero will gain a Web token.

Another way of putting it is:

ANY of the special abilities that state "____ attacks that inflict at least one damage on the target cause a ____ token to be placed on the target."

means that the target gets a ___ token (like web or burn) placed on them as long as they get hit by an attack, EVEN IF they take no wounds at all after resolving armor and shields and other abilities that decrease wounds.

Terragen said:

Sorry, but that is wrong.
The attacks still need to cause at least one damage.

Blue, Yellow and Black dice all have faces with 0 damage and can hit successfully for 0 damage. A 0 damage hit does not place ____ tokens.

All you have to do is understand the difference (including timing) between wounds and damage and play the cards exactly as written.

Abilities and effects that reduce wounds (Shields and Ghost Armour for example) have no effect upon whether damage is taken or not - they are affecting wounds , which are not damage and come after damage in sequence. It is entirely possible, indeed, frequent, to cause damage without causing wounds or to do damage and then have wounds reduced to zero.

Okay I cannot find an edit button to fix my description. I mean to say "if the attack causes at least one wound and does not miss, even if that wound is canceled by armor or other wound-prevention."

I was only trying to point out that there are several abilities that all operate in the same manner. And that all such abilities operate in the same fashion.

Terragen said:

Not to keep harping on you, but I know Corbon will catch this: exchange the word "wound" for "damage" in your sentence and it would be closer to correct.

Everyone repeat this with me: Damage DOES NOT equal wounds.

Big Remy said:

Indeed. Terragen's last effort is still wrong - and completely missed the point it seems.
The RAW has it as clear and simple as you could ask for. Paraphrasing really is pointless.
After inflicting at least 1 damage (before applying armor) to a figure with a XXX attack, place a XXX token next to that figure.
The attack cannot miss (if it misses it inflicts no damage by definition) and must inflict at least one damage . They even add in the (actually unnecessary) " (before applying armour) " reminder for extra-special super-duper clarity.

Some (most, all?) of the expansion abilities are worded slightly differently as they use a more verbose and descriptive passage of writing. They also make it clear that the token is placed at the end of the attack (well, after wounds have been resolved) even though whether or not to place the token is resolved much earlier in the attack sequence. Mostly it does not matter much when the token is placed but for Frost it makes a big difference.

RAW might be very clear, but not all new players have a firm grasp of the rules. So paraphrasing is not at all pointless if it helps new player understand or find rules they have missed. Yes, giving an incorrect example will not help much but thats not the same thing.

Honn said:

ok, I was wrong. I always took paraphrasing to include making something shorter and more succinct, but it does not.

The RAW for this passage is very simple and succinct.
People who get this passage wrong do not do it for lack of clarity in the rules, they get it wrong because they misuse or misunderstand some basic terminology. They need to have the terminology explained, not the rule.