Heroes Erkenbrand and both ents have an ability which deals damage. The Shirt prevents dealt damage and it's not written that the damage has to be from an attack.
So, is there an official ruling on this? Otherwise Treebeard is a solid 7/8/3/5, Quickbeam can ready roughly twice as much, Erkenbrand gets as good as the un-erata'd Burning Brand was!
5 minutes ago, Flrbb said:Heroes Erkenbrand and both ents have an ability which deals damage. The Shirt prevents dealt damage and it's not written that the damage has to be from an attack.
So, is there an official ruling on this? Otherwise Treebeard is a solid 7/8/3/5, Quickbeam can ready roughly twice as much, Erkenbrand gets as good as the un-erata'd Burning Brand was!
I ask this very question to Calab some time ago.
Damaging Erkenbrand is part of the cost to trigger his response. If you negate that damage then you won't be able to trigger it. I'm assuming the same holds true to any ally/hero with an effect that triggers when you damage it.
I would assume that if you reroute the damage, that's an issue too? Such as song of mocking or vigilant guard?
Now of course you could take the damage, trigger the positive effect, then immediately heal the damage. But anything preventing the damage from being taken in the first place prevents the positive effect from triggering.
I never saw much difference between using an Honour Guard to cancel the damage and a Warden of Healing to heal it up afterwards, but whatever.
3 minutes ago, Amicus Draconis said:I never saw much difference between using an Honour Guard to cancel the damage and a Warden of Healing to heal it up afterwards, but whatever.
Besides the relevant stuff above about paying costs and such, the usual difference is that if a 1-HP character is about to take a damage, a Warden will not be able to save it, but an Honour Guard can. Or a multi-HP character 1 point of damage from death about to take damage without an intervening action window, e.g., direct-damage shadow effect.
3 hours ago, sappidus said:Besides the relevant stuff above about paying costs and such, the usual difference is that if a 1-HP character is about to take a damage, a Warden will not be able to save it, but an Honour Guard can. Or a multi-HP character 1 point of damage from death about to take damage without an intervening action window, e.g., direct-damage shadow effect.
Yeah, I know that. I meant, why can I not prevent damage from Erkenbrand with Honour Guard, but can heal it afterwards, if I want to cancel a Shadow Effect. In the end, the result will be the same.
The result is only the same if you have more than 1 hp left.
. . . and if you plan on triggering Erkenbrand’s ability.
While we are at the topic: Does the combo of Arwen/Glorfindel/Éowyn/Protector of Lórien/Imladris Caregiver/Khaliel/Elven Spear/Song of Healing and Silver Harp work? The harp returns the discarded card back to hand as a response, so there is not much difference to the response of Honour Guard or Raven-winged Helmet.
Has there been a ruling about Mithril Shirt and Archery? I know, that Archery must be assigned point by point, so I cannot dump 10 points of damage on a single ally. So is there anything preventing me from hard countering Archery with the shirt? The Mithril Shirt does not have a limit after all.
Certainly combos with Silver Harp will work -- Silver Harp doesn't prevent the discard, merely return the card after it has already been discarded. The cost was paid.
Here's a link to a thread with a ruling that applies to Mithril/archery combo:
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/121857-archery-and-frodo/
Since archery is assigned simultaneously, but can't be assigned past remaining hp to any particular character, it is limited to preventing 1 archery damage.
Soooo, simultaneously but one by one. Nice. :D
28 minutes ago, Flrbb said:Soooo, simultaneously but one by one. Nice.
Where is this "one by one" coming from again? I don't remember such a ruling, nor do the original rules seem to make reference to such a practice.
Assigned one by one but dealt simultaneously, so (for example) if you have three Silvan Refugees in play, you can spread three archery points amongst them. Thread here has that example in ruling by Caleb, though the words "one by one" are not used by him:
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/121857-archery-and-frodo/
8 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:Assigned one by one but dealt simultaneously, so (for example) if you have three Silvan Refugees in play, you can spread three archery points amongst them. Thread here has that example in ruling by Caleb, though the words "one by one" are not used by him:
Are you referring to the sentence that has players divvying up archery damage until there is none left to assign?
Correct. Limited by hp would be a better description than "one by one", but mechanically it makes no different whether you assign the damage in discrete chunks greater than one, or exactly one point at a time. Either way you end up in the same place, and then the damage is actually applied simultaneously.
Ah, I see now.
I guess I always took that ruling to be more presenting a model of how a table usually performs archery—"we have 7 archery to manage… I'll take 4 on Gimli, you can take 1 on Bilbo… How much do we have left? OK, I'll take 2 on Erestor."—rather than an ironclad statement that the damage points are literally assigned sequentially "one by one" (then actually placed simultaneously). Perhaps I am underreading it, though.
Edited by sappidusYeah, I think "one by one" is probably a terrible way to describe it, even when literally done that way, because it might confuse people into thinking the damage is *taken* one by one, which isn't the case at all. (Though if it were, Mithril Shirt would be *way* more awesome.)
5 hours ago, Amicus Draconis said:Has there been a ruling about Mithril Shirt and Archery? I know, that Archery must be assigned point by point, so I cannot dump 10 points of damage on a single ally. So is there anything preventing me from hard countering Archery with the shirt? The Mithril Shirt does not have a limit after all.
The above discussion has covered the basic case, but this ruling that adds in the wrinkle of a Vigilant Guard also on the Mithril Shirt'ed hero should probably be mentioned:
As I editorialized then, have fun while you can. (Or, if we never get another FAQ, have fun forever…)