Aquamancer damage reduction


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


May Lini's ability to recharge a card to reduce various damage types by one ( or two) be triggered multiple times to reduce a large hit of damage ?


Lini's Aquamancer role has the power

Aquamancer wrote:
□ Recharge a card to reduce Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Fire damage dealt to you by 1 (□ 2).

We have the rules

Wrath Rulebook p.10 wrote:
Encountering A Card...Each player may activate any power no more than once during each step...
Wrath Rulebook p.9 wrote:
If a power says it may be used when something happens, you may use it every time that happens.

If Lini takes 2d4 Acid damage from failing to defeat a barrier, and rolls 8 for the damage, she can only recharge one card to reduce the damage, because she can only activate the power once. However, if she fails to defeat the Magic Ray Fusillade, which deals Fire damage three times and Cold damage once, she could recharge a card for each instance of damage.


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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
elcoderdude wrote:
If Lini takes 2d4 Acid damage from failing to defeat a barrier, and rolls 8 for the damage, she can only recharge one card to reduce the damage, because she can only activate the power once. However, if she fails to defeat the Magic Ray Fusillade, which deals Fire damage three times and Cold damage once, she could recharge a card for each instance of damage.

Agreed on the first part, disagree on the second. Lini's power is not worded "When you are dealt Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Fire damage damage, recharge a card to reduce that damage by 1", it simply is a power that you activate to reduce the damage. If all of that damage is being dealt in the same check or step of the encounter, the power can still only be activated once even though the damage instances are separate. It's the same thing as only being able to play one armor during a step even if you are dealt multiple damage instances.


Pretty much what I was thinking too Skiz.


I disagree.
I'm not familiar with the Fusillade, but it sounds like you're saying all of the multiple 'hits' add up to one damage instance.

The "activate a power no more than once during each step" rule seems to contradict the "use it every time that happens" rule.

There's some henchman or villain that does 1d4-1 Ranged damage three times before you act. Working from memory, apologies.
Does Shadow Merisiel only reduce one of those? Add it all up and reduce it to zero at the end?
Similarly, does someone with a heavy armor that reveals to reduce damage get to use it three times? Once as a reveal and once as a bury/banish? Or just once at the end of the three rolls?
And if it's all supposed to be lumped together, why isn't it 3d4-3 with no iteration?

ps
To be extra annoying, the rewording of Lini's text parses to the same meaning. That is, putting the words in different order changes nothing.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Iceman wrote:

I disagree.

I'm not familiar with the Fusillade, but it sounds like you're saying all of the multiple 'hits' add up to one damage instance.

The "activate a power no more than once during each step" rule seems to contradict the "use it every time that happens" rule.

There's some henchman or villain that does 1d4-1 Ranged damage three times before you act. Working from memory, apologies.
Does Shadow Merisiel only reduce one of those? Add it all up and reduce it to zero at the end?
Similarly, does someone with a heavy armor that reveals to reduce damage get to use it three times? Once as a reveal and once as a bury/banish? Or just once at the end of the three rolls?
And if it's all supposed to be lumped together, why isn't it 3d4-3 with no iteration?

ps
To be extra annoying, the rewording of Lini's text parses to the same meaning. That is, putting the words in different order changes nothing.

It is multiple damage instances in a single step of the encounter. You can play no more than one card of each type during a single step of an encounter, and cannot activate the same power more than once during a single step of the encounter.

You can play an armor to reduce one of those instances, but then you cannot play any more armors on the other instances (unless the armor says you can play another armor on the check/step). Lini's power can be used to reduce one instance of the damage, but it cannot be used on all of them. A power worded "When X happens, do Y" however would activate on each instance because the rulebook tells us it does.


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So 'when' is a keyword now?

That is, the rule referring to 'when something happens' doesn't really mean that the power has to use that specific 'when' phrasing?


Here is a link to a similar question I raised about the Poison Spike Pit Trap.

Vic's response was:

VIc wrote:


Yes, you can play an armor during the "before you act" step, and then another armor (or even the same armor) during the "attempt the check" step, and also during the "after you act" step.

But Poison Spiked Pit Trap is dealing damage twice during the same step, so if you want to use armor to stop each of those, you'll need to have something that lets you break the "no more than one card of any given type on a step" rule.

So Fusillade is dealing damage three times during the same step. Lini's power can only be activated once during that step, so she reduces the over damage by 1. If, as skizzerz said, her power was a trigger power, then it would fire for each of the three damage sources.


Iceman wrote:

So 'when' is a keyword now?

That is, the rule referring to 'when something happens' doesn't really mean that the power has to use that specific 'when' phrasing?

Not exactly a keyword. The rule is making a distinction between powers that say "[You may] do a thing" and powers which say "When a thing happens, you may do a thing". Comparing the two directly, Lini's power is clearly phrased as the first category not the second, and not using the word "when" is certainly a good clue.

However I think the following would still be in the second category for instance:
"If you would take damage, you may recharge a card to reduce it by one"
though I would encourage them to use a phrase like "whenever you take damage" instead to make it clearer.

Similarly I think this would still be in the first category:
"Recharge a card to reduce damage to by one. Only use this power when you take damage from a barrier"
even though it technically uses the word "when".

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