reduce yo 0 wounds and being killed

[AoS]

Is this the same timing? I'll give you an example:

Viktoria of blood hit izamu and reduce him at 0 wounds, (killing him?).

When victoria kills, she can do a healing flip, but when izamu is reduced to 0 wounds he make an attack and he is sacrificed.

I can't find a good definition of "being killed" in the rulebook.

If "reduce to 0 wounds" and "being killed" happens at the same time, victoria would use her hability first.

When is a model killed?

[Furio]

I know you really want this to be the case but it is not.

 

I'll back up AoS here, he's just asking a question that somebody I know posted up in an unofficial Spanish language Malifaux forum.

[benjoewoo]

Unfortunately the next FAQ update is just under a month away, assuming it comes out at the beginning of August. That being said, any official rulings would probably be up to the local TO? There's no official clarification by someone from Wyrd and there's a policy against extrapolation from the FAQ, so I guess we'll wait and see come August?

[Fetid Strumpet]

And you are assuming this is a big enough issue to make into the FAQ. To me this isn't worthy of including because of how clear it is, and barring that, how many other things break if this interpretation is followed. As a TO I would never allow this interpretation and I don't know any TO who would.

Wyrd doesn't put every contentious rules issue into the FAQ, thankfully. So it's possible this might never make it in.

That said if you can convince your group that this interpretation works, good for you. If you find a TO who allows it, also good for you.

A more relevant question for those who agree with AoS' interpretation, who will be at Gen Con is how will Rancor rule it, as I believe he is officiating the events there, as that will occur before a new FAQ is released.

[benjoewoo]

I agree with the above post--not sure if my post was still too convoluted to read, but I agree that the issue is easily solved and in the same way that you've indicated, fetid. That and TOs would have ultimate ruling until an FAQ entry was made.

 

AoS' post does highlight an issue, namely that one of the most important statuses of a model just isn't given a very thorough treatment: whether and when a model is killed. The issue has come up in multiple threads, and so far there's basically one FAQ entry people can look to but not extrapolate from for arguably similar situations.

 

There isn't an unambiguous clarification either for the general concept, so a more basic version of AoS' issue should be addressed in a FAQ, just not in this context. It's not intellectual dishonesty or playing devil's advocate--there is no "killed" or related term section in the index. You have to go to page 51 of the rules manual to the Damage and Wounds section to find out when a model is killed. Sacrifice does have an entry in the index, and shows on page 60 with a two sentence explanation that does not make a large distinction.

 

If there weren't multiple threads discussing off shoots of the FAQ entry, then the light explanation would be enough. But, there is and I don't think they're all trolling, so maybe give a little more clarification?

[EnternalVoid]

Dear lord this threat is a mess.  I was not going to put anything at first but after a minor bout of guilt I thought I might as well throw up something that might help.  I will start off by saying I am under the belief that Izamu will not count as killed as he does not reach that point.  I believe that being reduced to 0 does not automatically Trigger 'Killed'.  So when you apply the damage the moment you fill in that last dot you trigger a Warrior's Death.  Warrior's Death gives you a melee action and immediately afterwards he is sacrificed.  Now that I stated my thoughts I will go into why I feel that way.

 

First some evidence that being Reduced to 0 Wounds might not immediately trigger "Killed" and instead the very act of being Reduced to 0 is an event that can trigger abilities and triggers and Killed is an event that takes place after the point of being reduced to 0.  To this I will refer to Collette's trigger "Death Defying".  It starts out by saying on the trigger "When this model is reduced to 0 Wounds", the exact same wording as Izamu's Warrior's Death.  In Colette's case nothing in her trigger says she is not killed as result of this trigger, merely that she heals based on how many wounds the friendly model has left.  If the act of being reduced to 0 wounds automatically counted as killed then it would not matter if Colette healed as the very moment she was reduced to 0 wounds she would still be considered killed.  And Killed per the core books is "Immediately removed from the game as killed", it would mean there is no stopping it.  The rules already make it clear that you can count as being killed regardless of having more than 0 wounds as per triggers like Bloody Exhibition or abilities like Governor's Influence.  To me this clearly means that being reduced to 0 wounds can cause events such at triggers and abilities before the model is counted as killed just as events can cause you to be killed even if you are not reduced to 0 wounds.

 

Now in the core rules has an important rule that might help line of thought, it is the Breaking the Rule section on page 28.  Where it says Models in Malifaux have many unique rules which override the core rules and to follow the special rule rather than the core rule.  I believe Warrior's Death and Colette's trigger override the core rule of "If the model is reduced to 0 or fewer Wounds it is immeditately removed from the game as killed" as they have an effect that triggers on being reduced to 0 wounds that would go into effect before being removed and thus counted as killed.

 

Now if this is true and Warrior's Death and Death Defying trigger before the model actually counts as Killed, you would resolve the entire effect before continuing with the interrupted moment.  So Warrior's Death would get its melee attack and after that be immediately sacrificed.  Then you would carry on with the original attack action.  It is at this point there is part of the argument and I will go into why I believe you would not count as having killed him.  First his ability resolved at being reduced to 0, before you even check to resolve if he has been killed, and he is counted as Sacrificed before you get to the part where you would count him as killed.  To this I will refer to the FAQ for a point.  Note this one is a little more of a stretch but it makes sense when you think about it.

 

On page one of the current FAQ there is a question "If a Model is killed by an Ability or Action, which Crew counts as having made the kill?"  Not this pretty much states that the model that took the action or owns the ability that caused the kill gets to count it.  But lets throw in Sacrifice.  "If a Model is Sacrificed by an Ability or Action, Which crew counts as having sacrificed the Model?" Now I know this question is not in the FAQ, but it does give us a frame work for resolving this question with the previous one.  It should work the same way, if my model causes your model to be sacrificed as a result of an action I would count as the one having done the sacrificing, and if one of my models has an ability that causes it to be sacrificed I would be the one causing the Sacrifice.  This is important in the Strategy Reckoning as you score based on the event you killed or sacrificed two or more enemy models during the turn.  You have to identify who actually sacrificed the models to score.  The actual wording for killed per say on page 46 is "If the model is reduced to 0 or fewer wounds it is immediately removed from the game as killed", but the model is already removed before you reach this point because the abilities have to trigger before it.  So it cannot be removed from the game as killed because it was already removed from the game as Sacrificed.

 

Now to me this means the whole event of Warrior's Death and Death Defying resolves like this;

1. Melee Attack action hits, damage if flipped.

2. Damage is applied, one wound dot is marked off for each damage.

    1. Warrior's Death and Death Defying trigger the moment you mark the last wound and are reduced to 0 and before anything else that

    triggers off being reduced to 0 wounds as it is a special rule against a core rule.  If multiple special rules trigger at being Reduced to 0

    wounds then you would resolve them based off the general timing rules.  In Colette's case she heals and thus no longer at the point she is

    at 0 wounds and is not killed.  Izamu carries out his attack and after it is resolved immediately sacrifices himself.  The player that Izamu is

    part of the crew of counts as having Sacrificed Izamu, it is his effect that removed him from the game thus that player counts it.  This is

    because of the Breaking the Rule section and this is resolved first.

3. If the model is still on the table and still reduced to 0 wounds you continue on with the rule and they are Immediately removed as killed.

 

 

Now I agree this is kind of messy and still debatable, but sadly that is why the the Breaking the Rule section on page 28 exists, because there does end up being some nasty rule interaction the more rules you put in a game.  And some of those are going to get tricky.  The argument that Izamu is going to count as killed before Warrior's Death I do not think is correct due to Colette's Trigger and the rule on page 28 about breaking Rules.  I also don't think he counts as killed after his ability because he is sacrificed during his ability and before you can "Immediately remove the model from the game as killed."  That said I can say this is rough and you are going to have some debate.  More so when you say you want an official clarification that you cannot apply the FAQ to this because someone can always come back and say they demand you get an official clarification before you use the ruling that was specifically for a certain master.  As other masters had summoning attacks and abilities those that oppose you can made the call that they should have made a General FAQ ruling rather than a specific one to a certain master.  It becomes a burden of proof issue.

 

Now I know this is how TOs have ruled this before *such as Adepticon not this year but the previous*.  I believe the exact statement when we were discussion it after a question on Companion activation was not to think to much into it and use common sense *Not the best answer but it was his answer and he was the law on final rulings*.  I also know this is how our Henchmen has rules it at our events.  And it is my thought pattern on it as well.  So my suggestion, decide it in your group, settle on that, any events that are run clear it with the TOs, don't argue with them if they don't agree and don't argue if they do agree.  But make sure you run it past them BEFORE the event starts.  I was one of those people that believed that you could Companion with yourself with Reactivate due to rules, but understood it sounds odd under the name "Companion".  The TO at adepticon that year ruled against it, then later we saw in the FAQ that you could.  You just are going to have to live with your groups *I suggest Democracy in deciding* ruling, then the TOs, and if Wyrd calls it eventually in a FAQ with theirs.  But do not spring it on them Mid Tournament or even Midgame, because there will be disagreements and possible anger feeling if you try to spring it midgame as a critical junction.  More so as the rule is not black and white as you can see just from the level of disagreement on this thread.

 

 

 

PS: To add one point, I suspect the reason that the sacrifice part was put in Warrior's Death was future proofing more than trying to deny anything.  It was likely added in the off chance someone gets a way to give a model a way to heal if they do damage.  If he was not sacrificed and had some way to heal off that last swing he would not die as long as it triggered *so it would be like Death Defying for Colette*.

[Dirial]

Eloquent explanation of my earlier points. Thank you for taking the time, EternalVoid.

 

I'd like to add that "demanding/waiting for an FAQ" might be the only way to resolve an issue conclusively, but in no way means that a FAQ is actually coming. Justin has deemed questions not worthy of FAQ in the past, and he is the final (?) arbiter if the issue needs to be addressed.

[jonahmaul]

This really isn't FAQ necessary.  The reason why the Vik wouldn't heal has been explained coherently throughout.  Attempting to argue that the Vik could heal is nonsense quite frankly because it's quite clear that once it Izamu reaches 0 wounds he sacrifices himself.  If he reached killed before that then he would be removed from the board ompletely and so wouldn't be able to take A Warrior's Death.

[zFiend]

This really isn't FAQ necessary. The reason why the Vik wouldn't heal has been explained coherently throughout. Attempting to argue that the Vik could heal is nonsense quite frankly because it's quite clear that once it Izamu reaches 0 wounds he sacrifices himself. If he reached killed before that then he would be removed from the board ompletely and so wouldn't be able to take A Warrior's Death.

This thread went on a lot longer than I thought. I don't really see the issue here. The Vik won't heal because the model is sacrificed.

I realize that people want that to happen but it just isn't so.

[Ludvig]

While I agree about 0 wounds comes before being killed the actual games designers have in the FAQ put in a wording that tells us that they do not consider this the same way as most (of the very vocal part at least) of the community. This to me is a problem for future rulings. But I am in no way advocating their interpretation and will keep playing the way I feel is right.

The fact that the exact timing of damaging/suffering damage/reduced to zero/killed is the cause of at least one long ass post every month should make it worthy of the title frequently asked question if you ask me. Who here would be angry and/or dissapointed if the general part of the FAQ adressed and clarified what exactly "killed" is and how these (and possibly other) very common timing points interacted? It would save us the hassle of a lot of these threads and I think it's a lot easier for a new player to just hear "Read up on the killed timing in the FAQ because the rulebook was sloppy on that part". The alternative is for every newer player to start this thread and just go, "riiiight, I get it, I think" after a long thread where the tone sometimes turns hostile. Future printings of the book would quite possibly have the updated text from the start. This is a little off topic but I think the original discussion has locked itself in a standoff.

Right now we have reached a point where every group will have this thread available to interpret the rules to their liking. A future TO will probably be confronted with this exact issue and have to make an on the spot judgement call without taking 40 minutes to read and disassemnble the arguments in this thread since there is no time. If the issue is brought up in advance they may create their own FAQ for the tournament much like what happened in the 40k scene (at least in sweden) where the active tournament players did their own FAQ that sometimes contradicted the official one but always superceded it. That also worked out but gave the players and TOs another document to read. I can definetly see this happening again if the Malifaux scene grows and gets more tournament focused.

The big question to me is why NOT put a better definition of killed and expand the timing points in the FAQ?

@all moderators: I'm sorry if I end up derailing this further, please change it into a new thread rather than just delete it if you feel it necessary.

[Csonti]

I also believe the Vik should not heal but I have to agree that there is a serious contradiction here.

 

Yeah, I know you should not extrapolate from FAQ rulings but the statement "Violation of Magic occurs “when the target is reduced to 0 Wounds.” When a model is reduced to 0 Wounds it is  “immediately killed” (Core Rulebook pg. 51) so Violation of Magic and Explosive Demise have the same timing point" is quite a general one. Reduced to 0 Wounds happens the same time as when killed. Period. You can't argue this is not the case in other situations where there is no Violation of Magic and Explosive Demise. That would make the rules rather awkward. Like if you got Violation of Magic: turn right, in case you have A Warrior's Death: turn left. Looks silly, right?

 

My guess is that this was an attempt to rationalize the intention with that timing statement but accidentally this opened a can of worms here. I think reduced to 0 wounds and killed should be two separate steps (and that would deny healing for the Vik finely) but according to the FAQ this is not the case. Maybe the problem is that Wyrd tries to avoid errata as much as he could (yeah, that costs a lot of money), so they try to solve any serious issues in the FAQ section. And sometimes this leads to interesting solutions. Like in the case of Lure. RAW nothing stops you from moving the target around the base of the acting model. You fulfill every single requisition of the spell, yet the FAQ says you can't move when started in B2B. This is not a clarification stuff, this would warrant a healthy errata with rewritten text.

[AoS]

I understand all the points in this issue.

If you think that reduce to 0 wounds is before killed, the problem is solved in the way you explained. I'm agree.

Reading faq and other moderator's answers in this forum make me think killed as an status that you get when you are at 0 wounds, and that is why reduce to 0 wounds and killed would get the same timing.

I think it is not trivial and need a clarification.

Once I am in this position about the timing question the rest of my argue is following the rules and we found complicated situations but not breaking any rule.

Said that, if this issue is not going to be FAQed, I would like a clarificatión about killed and its timing.

[EnternalVoid]

I think it is not trivial and need a clarification.

Once I am in this position about the timing question the rest of my argue is following the rules and we found complicated situations but not breaking any rule.

Said that, if this issue is not going to be FAQed, I would like a clarificatión about killed and its timing.

 

I am going to agree with you this is not trivial as timing is very important in the game and knowing how it falls into place.  It becomes very important when you get to a key moment.  Personally I feel the problem is less in the timing and more in the wording of Wave 1 Vik's ability.  Some of the wording in Wave 1 is not as tight as they did not foresee the problems.  You know what they say about Hindsight and there is limit to what can be expected.

 

That said I am not sure you are going to get a clarification on this particular point from any moderators on this forum.  They use to do that in the past but realized it created kind of a headache because not all the players follow the forums or might catch the discussion.  Instead they have pretty much settled that any official wording they need to give out will be done in the FAQ.  This might show up in the FAQ, but it might not depending on how important they feel it is.  If they feel that 99% of people follow it the way they believe it works, they might assume that is alright till proven otherwise.

 

Simply put no matter how long this thread goes, odds are you will not get any sort of Official answer on this.  There is a thin chance you might, but I suspect if you have not gotten it yet you are not going to.  Generally when they do weigh it in it picking someone's post they feel said it correctly and quoting it with a "This", "Correct", or "This is how I play it".  As we have not seen this to any post yet it is more than likely they will not.  So that end the best to do is either find other examples of when this is a problem so that you can expose them and see if enough of them will warrant ruling.  Otherwise play to the best of your ability.

[Rautenfreund]

I don't see any complicated situation:.

Izamu breaks the rules as on p. 28 allowed.

There is NOWHERE written, that reducing to 0 wounds means, the model counts as killed.

P.46 states: "...If the model is reduced to 0 wounds [....] it is immediately removed from game AS KILLED."

Izamu breaks this rule as he is not removed as killed through his ability. And this ability remives him from game not the 0 wounds. Can't see the point, why this should not be clear!?

Brgds

Raute

[rgarbonzo]

Regarding Izamu's ability, if it works that way, then Stuffed Piglets will never be killed.

 

 

 

Justin Edit: I assume you are talking about the fact that stuffed Piglets can take the Bacon Bomb Action in response to being killed and Bacon Bomb sacrifices the model.

 

However, it Goes Pop says: "When this model is killed, it may take..."

 

So the Stuffed Piglet clearly counts as killed. In fact, it has to for the Ability to work. Izamu has no such wording. Additionally, Bacon Bomb states:

 

"...after resolving this Action, if this model is still in play, sacrifice it."

 

After resolving the Action the Stuffed Piglet will not still be in play if it made the Action "when" it was killed.

 

This is one of those rabbit holes I refer to below. 

 

So, hush, you. 

 

(You know I love you and all your gremliny goodness)

[Rautenfreund]

I don't have the books right here. What is the wording of stuffed piglets?

[Justin]

Maybe the problem is that Wyrd tries to avoid errata as much as he could (yeah, that costs a lot of money), so they try to solve any serious issues in the FAQ section. And sometimes this leads to interesting solutions. Like in the case of Lure. RAW nothing stops you from moving the target around the base of the acting model. You fulfill every single requisition of the spell, yet the FAQ says you can't move when started in B2B. This is not a clarification stuff, this would warrant a healthy errata with rewritten text.

 

Quoting you to address this point. It's not about money, it's about clarity. I discuss here in part how I distinguish between what goes into the FAQ and what goes into the errata: http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/108226-let-mah-handle-this-targeting-and-contingency-of-effects/page-2#entry830804

 

I'm not going to errata the entire Lure spell in a way that would be less intuitive, longer, and more complex for everyone else just to answer one question; instead, I'll answer the question. (And personally I believe that the FAQ was the proper place for the ruling regardless, but it's the example you gave, and that reasoning can apply to other situations).

 

Alright, that bit done with, to the thread in general:

 

Moderators are selected because they are valuable forum members who we feel will give out bans and lock threads fairly; they do not need to know the rules of the game at all, so don't take what they say as official (they have the right to ask questions back here same as anybody else). Even posts by staff have absolutely no official backing. Only the FAQ and errata have any official bearing on any rules (outside of, you know, the rules).

 

I am the one who decides what goes into the FAQ and errata, and even what I say on the forums cannot change the rules. One thing to keep in mind when arguing back here, when I choose questions to put in, I am pragmatic above all else. What questions seem to legitimately come up in games? Which people are really confused? There are, bluntly, a lot of people who enjoy the debate that unraveling rules entails. And that's fine, those people make good playtesters. But just because you came up with some theory about how the rules could work, or argument that makes everything stop working if you read the rules a certain way while everyone else says, "just...don't read the rules that way?"... does not mean that what you brought up belongs in the FAQ. That isn't even to say these people haven't found legitimate points, but often minutia sends us down a rabbit hole we never or hardly ever would even see in a game. So when I hear arguments like, "I don't even play [insert models here] I just thought of this" I am less inclined to include it. 

 

To be succinct: questions that arise on the tabletop will always have priority over questions that arise on paper.

 

Now, why can't I just put everything that comes up into the FAQ, it couldn't hurt anything, right? The more content in the FAQ, the harder things are to find. And, the more content in the FAQ, the more things there are to extrapolate from and create more minutia (you can see that in this thread). So I need to be very careful about what I put in there, where, and how it's phrased. People can't twist rulings I don't make (another great reason for not posting rulings in the forums).

 

All of that said, I want to emphasize I'm not singling anyone out. I think the OP had a question they were confused about and discussion ensued, and that's fine. But the discussion has turned away from the rules question, and towards philosophy on how to handle an FAQ. Since I handle the FAQ, this is my topic, so I'm weighing in.

 

And since the topic has diverged from the actual question, I will be locking this thread.