Rulings/TimingandDamageEnhancers

Date asked: September 21, 2006
Rule set: Second Edition
Rules area: What step in the combat order are damage enhancers applied?

Posted by Ambisinister

This came up while I was posting on the Exalted forums about why you can't use Essence Gathering Temper after activating Adamant Skin Technique. No issue there, it doesn't work. But it got me to thinking: AST resolves in step 7 when raw damage is calculated. After all other factors, it reduces raw damage to zero. Nice and clean. Now let's look at Fire and Stones Strike, which adds damage dice post soak. When exactly does that happen? My guess would be step 8 or step 10. If that's the case, then you have a scenario that goes like this:

Joe Melee belts Jim Soak Monster with his Daiklave of Stabbing. Joe Melee generates a raw damage pool of 85 dice, Jim doesn't sweat it, he's got AST, which he activates dropping Joe's raw damage to zero. Step 8 comes around, and Joe's raw damage of zero is compared to Jim's soak of 25. Joe will be rolling zero dice for damage...but wait! He's using FaSS! He purchases five dice of damage and gets to roll them in step 10.

In addition, where do damage success adders, such as Life Severing Blow, fit into the equation? It seems like they'd come into play at step 10, which would also allow them to bypass AST.

A perfect soak charm, complete with the flaws of invulnerability, has just been beaten. Is this how that works?If

The following rules may help in resolving this:

• Exalted Second Edition, pg. 207:Adamant Skin Technique charm text: "Type: Reflexive (step 7)" and "The solar invokes this charm immediately before the damage of a physical attack or similar effect is rolled. This charm is a perfect defense against the raw damage of the attack, reducing it to zero after all other effects."
• Exalted Second Edition Storyteller's Companion, pg. 24:Life Severing Blow charm text: "The Sidereal may increase her Marial Arts Damage by one health level per 2 motes (to a maximum of [essence])."
• Exalted Second Edition, pg. 190: Fire and Stones Strike charm text: "If the attack hits, this charm adds one die to the post soak damage for each mote spent."
• Exalted Second Edition, pg. 149: Step 8: Apply Hardness and Soak text: "If an attack does not have a raw damage greater than the victim's Hardness, the att is utterly ineffective and automatically fails to inflict damage." and on pg. 150 "If (raw damage-defender's soak) is less than the minimum damage of the attack, the final damage equals minimum damage. In the unlikely event that final damage exceeds the the original raw damage (such as a weak attack delivered by a high essence being), the attack has a maximum damage of its raw damage."

Resolution

None yet.

Discussion

I don't really know what to make of this. AST claims that it is a perfect soak against "raw damage" not rolled or post-soak damage. Likewise, it is not proof against damage successes. I think the intent of the charm is that it is supposed to stop damage, but it looks like you can squiggle around that by exloiting timing. Then there are phrases like: "If an attack does not have a raw damage greater than the victim's Hardness, the att is utterly ineffective and automatically fails to inflict damage." Does that mean if it doesn't beat hardness you stop right there, the attack will inflict no damage, end of story. Or what about "In the unlikely event that final damage exceeds the the original raw damage (such as a weak attack delivered by a high essence being), the attack has a maximum damage of its raw damage." If raw damage equals zero, then maximum damage equals zero. Does that mean it can't be boosted with die adders or success adders at this stage because they would be in excess of the maximum damage? What do you guys think? -Ambisinister

Hmm. Interesting situation. I personally would go with the method that empowers AST. Thus, if the exalt declares its use, all damage is negated from that attack, move on to the next one. nikink

I would also say that AST wins, and it can be clarified by simply removing the word "raw" from the description of the charm's effects. In that case, it would be a perfect defense against "the damage of an attack" and would apply "after all other effects". While you may have to activate the charm in Step 7, the effects of the charm are explicitly last - even in the canonical version. Getting rid of the 'raw' just simplifies things a bit. -- GreenLantern

You can probably rationalize this most easily by saying that if Step 7 reduces the damage to zero, then that attack is over and, therefore, there is no step 8, 9 or 10. As a side note, having AST as step 7 seems loopy. It's a charm that essentially gives you infinite hardness. Why wouldn't it resolve in Step 8? -- Wordman

Unless the damage booster charm notes being used in a specific step offensive charms by default have to be declared in step 1 - Malikai

Going by the book, AST is no longer what we call "Perfect". This is likely an oversight (not the only one either) and I would simply house-rule it. I don't think Wordman's method is good, as simply declaring the rest of the steps non-existant would negate counter-attacks. - TonyC

AST notes it occurs after all other effects. The problem with the "steps of resolution" is that they just say when you declare stuff...not when the effect HAPPENS. (Frex, you declare excellencies to supplement the attack in step 1, but they don't do anything until step 3...). Thus, I'm not even sure you can say EGT doesn't work with AST (I'd allow it. EGT is should be useable by people other than twilights). -FlowsLikeBits

All results are applied in step 10 anyway, so the result would read something like, "AST overrides damage." As for EGT, you could use it with anything (technically), but if there's no rolled damage, it's useless. 2 * 0 = 0, after all, and EGT rolls "two dice for each damage die rolled." On the other hand, this is the same kind of nit-picking technicality that could allow Fire And Stones Strike to damage through AST, and allow the First Melee Excellency to raise your Parry DV after it's been rendered inapplicable and thus 0. It is clear to me that while these are valid interpretations of the rules, they will never see the light of day in a game I'm playing or running just because of that. If I want perfection to be vulnerable, sure, I'll allow FaSS to work that way. Maybe it would be an appropriate resolution for a stunt I like. What I won't do is let technical wording difficulty ruin the fun for anybody actually playing the game. Just remember, the steps of resolution are less important than what is cool and makes sense in play. - IanPrice