Hello everyone,

I have a question regarding Blast: what happens if an attack which normally targets/affects multiple figures also gain Blast? Can the same figure be affected by the attack twice?

As an example, let's say Tarha the Widow uses her heroic feat, which allows her to attack two different figures in LOS (iirc, the attack targets both figures) in order to attack two adjacent figures, and the attack gains Blast via an equipped weapon.
What would happen?

"Blast attacks affect both enemy and friendly

It would still lead to 2 defense rolls, since both monsters are targets for the Ultimate ability, after that, both are affected once by blast.

Or is it written somewhere, that each figure can be harmed only once by single attack roll?

Rulebook, page 13:

"On a Blast attack, all spaces adjacent to the targeted space are also affected by the attack. The attacker rolls his attack pool once and applies the
result to each affected figure, but each affected figure individually rolls its defense pool separately. Only the target space needs to be in range and in
line of sight of the attacker. Blast attacks affect both enemy and friendly figures, and a figure can only be affected by Blast once per attack."

Let's break this down one step at a time:

"On a Blast attack, all spaces adjacent to the targeted space are also affected by the attack."

So, if an attack targets two or more spaces, logically every space adjacent to a target space would be affected. Note that there is no "overlap" if a given space is adjacent to two or more target spaces. The space will certainly be affected as it is adjacent, but a space is either affected by the attack or it's not. There is no "affected twice."

"The attacker rolls his attack pool once and applies the result to each affected figure, but each affected figure individually rolls its defense pool separately."

An affected figure is a figure standing in one (or more) affected spaces, naturally. So each figure in an affected space will roll it's defense pool - once. As above, there is no "affected twice" and therefore no figure is rolling defense more than once for this single attack.

"Only the target space needs to be in range and in line of sight of the attacker."

This part isn't really relevant to this thread.

"Blast attacks affect both enemy and friendly figures, and a figure can only be affected by Blast once per attack."

A figure is only affected once per attack. Really, this was probably meant to refer to Large monsters which might occupy more than one affected space, but I think it also makes sense to go the other way, in cases where Blast might be seen to "overlap" itself, as in this case.

Speaking in general, an attack is a single thing that happens. The attacker rolls attack dice once and each affected figure rolls defense dice once, and the results are calculated. If a defender was expected to roll defense dice twice, then one might also ask if the attacker has to roll the attack dice twice for figures who are "affected twice." If so, then there wold be the question of how surges are spent on each roll, and so on. This sort of thing can quickly get confusing regarding who rolled what and when. Having one attack roll and one defense roll keeps things simple, and that was FFG's goal with 2E - streamlining.

I would agree with Steve-O's conclusion. Widow Tarha's Feat allows her to affect two different monsters with a single attack, and Blast allows an attack to affect all adjacent squares. I don't think there's any way a single attack can affect any given unit twice, even if Blast is applied to adjacent units during the same attack.

A more complex question I have is, "Is it possible for Blast to propogate at all with Widow Tarha's Feat?" Widow Tarha's Feat says,

Perform an attack. This attack affects 2 different units in your line of sight.

However, Blast rules state that

On a Blast attack, all spaces adjacent to the targeted space are also affected by the attack.

So does Widow Tarha's Feat target any spaces? It almost sounds as if her Feat is a direct-affect and wouldn't be eligible for a Blast. Or do both of the Feat's affected units fall on targeted spaces, and as such are both able to be Blasted?

This problem arised in our last gaming session. I had "Lightning strike" rune equipped and used my heroic feat to atack two monsters adjacent to each other, the atack was a blast, and so in accordance with Tarha's heroic feat we decided the situation following way: Blast from monster A affected monster B, blast from monster B affected monster A. So both monsters received damage twice (overlord of course was not agree with this decision, but it seemed logical to us.).

IcePhoenix said:

This is a valid question, you may want to ask FFG for an official ruling on it. The rules do make a fairly clear (and generally consistent) distinction between the words "target" and "affect" when it comes to attacks. It could be that they intended this as a counter-balance - the attack affects 2 figures at the cost of not targeting either of them, thereby reducing the number of auxiliary effects (such as Blast) that might come in to play. Of course, it's also possible that the proof-readers just missed that one - it has been known to happen.

The use of the term "units" (where the D2E rules generally use the term "figure") would suggest to me that someone was asleep at the wheel and the attack should indeed target the 2 figures. But as I said, you may want to ask FFG for an official ruling.