Vampiric, damage vs life, and other similar effects

[iNano78]

Last night my spouse stole my phone, so I didn't have a copy of the Codex or FAQ accessible... so I made a ruling based on how the game works in general: that is, that damage gets dealt to a creature, then you check to see if damage on that creature exceeds its life, and if so, it is destroyed and removed from play (or the mage loses, in the special case where the creature is a mage).  In general, it would seem that the amount of damage on a creature can briefly exceed the life total of the creature before those values are compared and {destroyed/not destroyed} status of the creature gets updated.

So when asked how much damage a Vampiric creature recovers when dealing "overkill" damage (e.g. 4 damage dealt to a creature that only has 2 "hit points" = life minus damage remaining), I ruled that the Vampiric creature heals 2 damage, since 4 damage was dealt despite the creature only having enough life to survive the first 2 points of damage.  And I was wrong, according to the Codex.  But why is that?  How does the Vampiric trait know how many "hit points" a creature has remaining (e.g. life - damage value)?  Doesn't an attack simply deal damage, then "life - damage = hit points" gets calculated afterwards to see if the creature is destroyed yet?  Or does damage get dealt "one at a time" and a creature never gets the opportunity to have more damage assigned than life?



P.S.  The same should hypothetically apply to Drain Life and other effects that care about how much damage gets dealt.

[rant]

Last night my spouse stole my phone, so I didn't have a copy of the Codex or FAQ accessible... so I made a ruling based on how the game works in general: that is, that damage gets dealt to a creature, then you check to see if damage on that creature exceeds its life, and if so, it is destroyed and removed from play (or the mage loses, in the special case where the creature is a mage).  In general, it would seem that the amount of damage on a creature can briefly exceed the life total of the creature before those values are compared and {destroyed/not destroyed} status of the creature gets updated.

So when asked how much damage a Vampiric creature recovers when dealing "overkill" damage (e.g. 4 damage dealt to a creature that only has 2 "hit points" = life minus damage remaining), I ruled that the Vampiric creature heals 2 damage, since 4 damage was dealt despite the creature only having enough life to survive the first 2 points of damage.  And I was wrong, according to the Codex.  But why is that?  How does the Vampiric trait know how many "hit points" a creature has remaining (e.g. life - damage value)?  Doesn't an attack simply deal damage, then "life - damage = hit points" gets calculated afterwards to see if the creature is destroyed yet?  Or does damage get dealt "one at a time" and a creature never gets the opportunity to have more damage assigned than life?



P.S.  The same should hypothetically apply to Drain Life and other effects that care about how much damage gets dealt.

I look at it like any creature only has so much life to give. So if they were damaged or maybe they're just a small creature, it makes sense to me that only the remaining life could heal you.

That being said, vampirism doesn't feel like a very good card. It's a card that only works when melee attacking a living creature. If you put it on your mage, you must attack to get the effect. Regrowth is much better because it's a passive trait, costs less mana, and is equal spb for dark mages.

[iNano78]

I look at it like any creature only has so much life to give. So if they were damaged or maybe they're just a small creature, it makes sense to me that only the remaining life could heal you.

That being said, vampirism doesn't feel like a very good card. It's a card that only works when melee attacking a living creature. If you put it on your mage, you must attack to get the effect. Regrowth is much better because it's a passive trait, costs less mana, and is equal spb for dark mages.

It makes sense thematically.  And I'm not looking for a criticism of [mwcard=MW1E40] Vampirism[/mwcard] given that this applies to [mwcard=MW1C26] Necropian Vampiress[/mwcard], [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC02] Blood Demon[/mwcard] and others.

Life and damage are two distinct things in Mage Wars.  Strictly from a rules perspective, this ruling seems weird in a game that goes to great lengths to distinguish between damage and life - e.g. having trackers for each on your mage board, where the objective of the game is to get your opponent's damage to meet or exceed his/her life total, and having various game effects that either affect the life total of an object or apply damage to an object (or "heal" by removing damage, rather than by increasing life).  From a rules perspective, why would the Vampiric trait care about the amount of life the target creature has?  Why isn't it strictly related to damage?  Even the first sentence of the Codex entry talks about damage exclusively.  Then it goes on to mention that excess damage in an overkill situation doesn't count.  Wouldn't Vampiric have already triggered and resolved before you check to see if the creature has been destroyed or not (e.g. during damage and effects step)?  Or is damage really applied one point at a time, checking to see whether or not the creature has been destroyed after each point of damage gets applied to prevent excess damage from ever being dealt?

It would seem that excess damage can (at least temporarily) apply to a creature.  Here's a clip from the current rule book:

Life and Damage

All creatures and conjurations have a Life value. Life is the maximum amount of damage the object can take before being destroyed. If the object suffers damage equal to or greater than its Life value, it is destroyed. Record damage to your Mage using your Mage status board, and record damage to other objects with damage counters.

Damage and Life are tracked separately for all creatures and conjurations, including Mages. Note that various spells and abilities can change an object’s Life value without changing the amount of damage it has taken.

[Ravepig]

I look at it like any creature only has so much life to give. So if they were damaged or maybe they're just a small creature, it makes sense to me that only the remaining life could heal you.

That being said, vampirism doesn't feel like a very good card. It's a card that only works when melee attacking a living creature. If you put it on your mage, you must attack to get the effect. Regrowth is much better because it's a passive trait, costs less mana, and is equal spb for dark mages.

It makes sense thematically.  And I'm not looking for a criticism of [mwcard=MW1E40] Vampirism[/mwcard] given that this applies to [mwcard=MW1C26] Necropian Vampiress[/mwcard], [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC02] Blood Demon[/mwcard] and others.

Life and damage are two distinct things in Mage Wars.  Strictly from a rules perspective, this ruling seems weird in a game that goes to great lengths to distinguish between damage and life - e.g. having trackers for each on your mage board, where the objective of the game is to get your opponent's damage to meet or exceed his/her life total, and having various game effects that either affect the life total of an object or apply damage to an object (or "heal" by removing damage, rather than by increasing life).  From a rules perspective, why would the Vampiric trait care about the amount of life the target creature has?  Why isn't it strictly related to damage?  Even the first sentence of the Codex entry talks about damage exclusively.  Then it goes on to mention that excess damage in an overkill situation doesn't count.  Wouldn't Vampiric have already triggered and resolved before you check to see if the creature has been destroyed or not (e.g. during damage and effects step)?  Or is damage really applied one point at a time, checking to see whether or not the creature has been destroyed after each point of damage gets applied to prevent excess damage from ever being dealt?

It would seem that excess damage can (at least temporarily) apply to a creature.  Here's a clip from the current rule book:

Life and Damage

All creatures and conjurations have a Life value. Life is the maximum amount of damage the object can take before being destroyed. If the object suffers damage equal to or greater than its Life value, it is destroyed. Record damage to your Mage using your Mage status board, and record damage to other objects with damage counters.

Damage and Life are tracked separately for all creatures and conjurations, including Mages. Note that various spells and abilities can change an object’s Life value without changing the amount of damage it has taken.

This same thing happened to me in my game last week. I actually ruled in the opposite (per the rules). From my perspective, I envisioned a wounded creature bleeding out... if the vampire creature attacks, s/he is going to be limited to what the wounded creature has to give. I get your logic, but I suppose the way the rules are written makes more sense to me.

[Zuberi]

Life and damage are separate, but that doesn't mean they aren't interrelated. Think of it as life is the maximum amount of damage a creature can take. Period. It is a wall that can't be gone past. Excess damage doesn't exist. When you hit the wall you stop and you die. I can't think of any reason currently where excess damage should be a thing, despite the rules mentioning it in passing.

[exid]

supplement: damage dealt in excess of its remaining health does not count toward healing.

[iNano78]

supplement: damage dealt in excess of its remaining health does not count toward healing.

It even states this in the core rule book (4th printing) in its codex section regarding Vampiric. With internet access, it isn't that I can't find the "correct" ruling; it's that I don't quite understand the ruling in the context of game rules.  Without any resources available and with only my knowledge of the game at my disposal, I ruled the other way because "damage" and "life" are distinct.  It makes sense thematically that a vampire can't steal more life than a creature has to give.  But strictly from an in-game rules perspective, with "life" and "damage" being separate characteristics, it isn't self-consistent that a creature can't have more damage applied to it than its life (before the game state checks to see if a creature is destroyed).  Perhaps it should be stated somewhere in the rules or supplement that whenever damage gets resolved, it gets applied one-at-a-time, and the game state checks to see if "damage = life" after each damage is applied, so the creature is removed as soon as it has enough damage to destroy it (and thus no "overkill" damage can ever get applied)... in which case the rule book should be corrected in the part I quoted above (where it suggests that a creature could have more damage than life, since it says:

"If the object suffers damage equal to or greater than its Life value, it is destroyed."