So been looking at Frodo´s ability to convert damage done to him into threat and a question that pops to mind is:

Even though Frodo only has 2 hit points does he still technically take all damage from an undefended attack? Fx Chieftain Ufthak with 1 token giving him an attack of 5. Would that attack count as giving him 5 damage and thus raising the players threat by 5 or does it count as him taking his remaining hit points as damage thus raising threat by 1 or 2?

Good question. The text says:"After Frodo Baggins is damaged, cancel the damage and instead raise your threat by the amount of damage he would have been dealt."

If we take this literally, and look at the example in the box on page 18 of the manual, it would mean the total damage could well go far past the hero's health.

"[…] the result is the number of damage tokens he must deal to the defender (6). Since the Silverlode Archer only has 1 hit point, it is immediately destroyed."

So "damage dealt" seems to be the total attack of the enemy after all modifiers. At least that's how I've been playing it so far.

Then again there is the hill troll monster which states that any excess damage beyond the characters hit points is dealt as threat instead.

Though this doesn´t specifically exclude that characters can take damage beyond their current hit points it does point in the direction that they do not.

Seems like this would be nice to have clarified, both for the sake of the Frodo hero but also for the sake of future phrasing like: "Response: prevent 2 points of lifeloss" (just made that last one up to state an example)

I disagree. The wording of the Hill Troll makes it very clear that characters always take the full amount of damage, even if that exceeds their health. HT reads "damage that is dealt beyond the remaining hit points of the character damaged in the attack" (signifying that such damage is possible) is assigned as threat.

In the Chieftan Ufthak example, Frodo would take 5 damage, cancel it, and then raise his threat by 5. If he were defending against a Hill Troll, he would take 6 damage, cancel it, raise his threat by 6, and then since NO damage was dealt beyond Frodo's hit points, the Hill Troll's text wouldn't trigger.

radiskull said:

Strongly agree.

I agree with radiskull as well. I think the wording on the cards is pretty clear.

radiskull said:

100% True

Stumbled on this today.

Wouldn't your threat only go up by 4 if Frodo were *defending* against a Hill Troll? Frodo has defense of 2.

FallenTurtles said:

If you took the two damage and killed Frodo the excess damage (4) beyond his hitpoints would be taken as threat.

If you use Frodo's ability and cancel the damage then your threat would increase by 6 and Frodo would take no damage.

In both cases Frodo takes 6 damage. In the first example the excess four is converted to threat by HT. In the second example all 6 damage is cancelled by Frodo's ability and converted to threat.

Beast Rabban said:

No, FallenTurtles is correct. If Frodo is defending the Hill Troll, you're only going to be getting 4 threat (because he has 2 defense). If Frodo is receiving damage from an UNDEFENDED Hill Troll, then your threat will be going up by 6.

DavFlamerock said:

Apologies I was thinking 2 HP and forgetting that the damage was reduced by defence (not sure what I was thinking) You are both (FallenTurtles and DavFlamerock) correct the damage is reduced by 2 from defence only the 4 damage above that would need to be converted to threat to save Frodo.

So the options are:

a) kill Frodo and convert the excess two damage to threat from HT ability (6 - 2Def - 2HP = 2), or

b) Use Frodo's ability to cancel the excess damage above defence (6 - 2 Def = 4) and convert it to threat, or

c) take an undefended attack from HT allocate the damage to Frodo and convert it to 6 threat.

So you can take it as an increase of 2, 4 or 6 threat assuming there are no increases from Shadow Cards.

What a versatile little minx!

And I thought that his ability is of little use. My line of argumentation was:

The ability says 'after he was dealt damage' so if the damage dealt was more than his life points he would be killed and could not convert damage to threat.

Are you guys sure that it's not like that?

Ser Folly said:

no- its a response action, so immediatly after damage is dealt- you cancel it and raise threat

This needs to be clarified in the FAQ, but "cancel" abilities are the only things that can actually interrupt the game flow and happen before the triggering event. Frodo won't be killed by damage unless you've already used his cancel ability that phase.

radiskull said:

So I understand correctly, that I have to deal with that reaction as in the MtG stack (Last in first out)?

Ser Folly said:

I generally feel that assuming games have a stack is a mistake, unless they explicitly define one. The assumption of a stack will get you into all types of rules errors. You can have a cancel ability without the stack and all that it entails.

Not really - think of it as "cancel" effects have the power to remove characters from a terminal state (that is, having lethal damage on them) before they actually hit the discard pile.

(Yes, that is functionally equivalent to the LIFO concept of a stack, but introducing a "stack" into this game leads to so much incorrect play by new players that I'm hesitant to even use the word.)