just a little question: i was playing runebound as Mad Carthos and i was fighting an enemy who takes damage in a certain attriibute ( mind, body or spirit) and i was wondering if i can use Mad Carthos befor combat ability of taking a heart, making a magic test (spirit 14) and if success giving the challeng 2 hearts. Does this affect enemys that only take certain attributial damage, for instance the time i did fight that paritcular enemy he only took damage from mind value, and my mind value sucked and i decided that i cant use the before combat ability and ended up dying

If your referring to the particular blue challenge that I think you are, I don't think you can "technically" harm him with a before combat ability, as his rules are pretty clear that he is only harmed in the range phase. However, having been brutalized by that particular card once or twice myself, I'm of the opinion that before combat abilities should be allowed against him simply to give non-range heroes a fighting chance. It also doesn't help that the challenge is very hard to escape from.

So... long story short... no, I don't think before combat challenges can be used, but I sure wish they could be.

Judd

Warbringer25 said:

Would you please mention the Challenge card you're talking about? If users can read the text they can get the full picture.

As a general Rule, "Before Combat" is not considered a combat Phase like Ranged, Melee and Magic Phases. I think you're allowed to do Before Combat Damage to a Challenge that gets damage only in the Ranged Combat Phase.

Don't forget that Before Combat Abilities are not to be treated as normal attacks; you often make combat rolls, but you're not attacking the Challenge with a R/M/M attack. Otherwise, if you should fail, you should also take the damage listed on the Challenge card, but it's not the case. You don't get damage because according to game rules you're not attacking, you're using a "Before Combat" ability instead.

The_Warlock said:

Maybe you're right, bit I guess it depends on the exact text on the card. If it says that the Challenge cannot take damage from a form of attack you're certainly right, damage from "before combat" abilities is not affected. But if it says that the Challenge doesn't take damage from a kind of source (not attack roll, but generically a source, i. e. "is nott affected by melee damage") I think that restriction would apply.

I completely understand why this is causing confusion
And I think both arguments are valid. It's just one of those rules that isn't clear enough.

In this particular case I think The_Warlock is correct. I think the card is saying it can't take any kind of 'combat damage' other than ranged... even though it isn't explicitly saying this.