Tracking kills

[Flib Jib]

For tracking which player (if any) is responsible for killing a model.  Usually, it’s the model generating the effect. But sometimes it’s an intuitive and ambiguous. Things clicked when I thought of ‘symptom versus illness’; did the patient die of internal hemorrhaging or did they die from a stab wound? I like thinking of the ridiculous hyperbole, “guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people” and in Malifaux it’s almost always the “gun”. 

 

Would love a fact check:

 

It’s the root model generating the effect which caused damage that is attributed with the kill

If the effect is an external/indirect effect like one that resolves during the end phase like burning then it is not attributed to any player

Deaths from fall damage is attributed to the model that generated the move

Damage from hazardous effects generated by a model are the exception, and cannot be attributed to any player.

Root Model, indicating the first, e.g. Model A obeys model B to kill model C. Model A counts as having killed model C.

[Flib Jib]

Just now, Flib Jib said:

It’s the root model generating the effect which caused damage that is attributed with the kill

If this is true, is there any reason not to believe that it’s always the model with activation?

[Flib Jib]

2 minutes ago, Flib Jib said:

Damage from hazardous effects generated by a model are the exception, and cannot be attributed to any player.

This seems inconsistent, and I’m just wondering as to why. Would love expert insight.

[solkan]

50 minutes ago, Flib Jib said:

It’s the root model generating the effect which caused damage that is attributed with the kill

There's no concept of "secondary effect" vs. "root cause" for abilities and actions.  If my model uses Obey to cause your model to make an attack on a model with Black Blood and you take damage from Black Blood which kills you, you were killed by Black Blood.  You were not killed by your own attack or the obey, and the fact that those actions were necessary to create the situation which killed you has no bearing in determining who killed you.

50 minutes ago, Flib Jib said:

If the effect is an external/indirect effect like one that resolves during the end phase like burning then it is not attributed to any player

Deaths from fall damage is attributed to the model that generated the move

Damage from hazardous effects generated by a model are the exception, and cannot be attributed to any player.

Root Model, indicating the first, e.g. Model A obeys model B to kill model C. Model A counts as having killed model C.

From the killed rules:

Quote

Killed models are always considered to be killed by the model that generated the Action or Ability that killed them (as well as by that model’s Crew). If a model is killed by another effect (such as a Condition or Hazardous Terrain), it is not considered to have been killed by any player, model, or Crew.

From the FAQ:

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8. If a model is killed from an outside effect (such as End Phase Condition Damage or being Buried at the end of the Game), who is it treated as killed by?
a) No one. If a model dies from an effect not generated by a model, no model or player is treated as having killed it.

9. If a model is killed from falling damage, who is it treated as killed by?

a) The model that generated the move which caused the killed model to fall is treated as killing the model.

Note the crucial difference here is that falling damage is resolved as part of the movement effect.  You don't have an separation between the movement and the damage during which you'd have to remember who caused the movement.

For hazardous terrain, the FAQ says:

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6. If a model is generating Hazardous Terrain, and that Hazardous Terrain kills a model, is the model that is generating the Hazardous terrain considered to have killed the model?
a) No. Models killed by the effects of Hazardous Terrain aren’t treated as killed by any specific model.

Part of the reason for the difference is game balance.  And part of the reason why end phase Condition damage isn't attributed is so that's not necessary to track who applied the condition, and adjudicate who gets credit if more than one player has applied the condition.  Note that there's a distinction made:

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If an Action would kill a model from damage suffered from a Condition (such as an Action that states “Target suffers 2 damage from the Burning Condition”), the model taking the Action is considered to have killed the model.

I bring that up because there's two points:

• There are models which don't take damage from the Burning or Poison conditions and may in fact heal instead (like Perverse Metabolism).  When an effect says that damage is "from" one of those conditions, it's causing that damage to feed in to those abilities.  Mentioning the condition doesn't turn it into uncredited damage.
•  "Target suffers 2 damage from the Burning Condition" gets credit for a kill, while End Phase burning doesn't.

 

[Adran]

 

6 hours ago, Flib Jib said:

If this is true, is there any reason not to believe that it’s always the model with activation?

Yes. If I hit a model with black blood, and the black blood damage kills something it's not the active model that gets the kill. 

6 hours ago, Flib Jib said:

This seems inconsistent, and I’m just wondering as to why. Would love expert insight.

My view on it is that there are times when you would end up with multiple people trying to claim credit for the kill in some situations  if you allowed hazardous terrain kills to count.  if ipush you in to a hazardous aura should the credit count for the push or the hazardous aura? By stating no one, it solves that.

Also the ability to have uncredited kills can be interesting for the game. 

[Flib Jib]

I can't remember but I'm fairly certain 3E aviods aura's that are Hazzardous because it would then cause ambiguity correcy? 

[Adran]

11 minutes ago, Flib Jib said:

I can't remember but I'm fairly certain 3E aviods aura's that are Hazzardous because it would then cause ambiguity correcy? 

No it doesn't.

look at vent steam on the steamborg executioner for an example of one.

It avoids the ambiguity by not granting credit to anyone by kills from hazardous.