Tainted

[TheDOMINATOR]

Hello all. I recently picked up the DVN set and have been having a blast. The tainted condition confuses me though. In the codex, one sentence states tainted counts as damage that cannot be healed or regenerated. Then, one or two sentences later (I don't have it in front of me at the moment) it says that tainted does not count as damage dealt by the attack. This seems contradictory to me. So how does tainted work?

Say I attack your creature with a venomous zombie and deal 2 damage. I roll for tainted and get it. Is this an additional three unhealable damage in conjunction with the two normal damage I dealt with my attack, or is the two normal damage converted to tainted, and instead of the creature taking the two damage I simply put a tainted token on them?

Thanks for any help. I apologize if this has been asked and answered before.

[Laddinfance]

A tainted marker counts as 3 damage on the creature it is place on. What this rule is saying is that tainted markers are not counted as damage from the attack. For instance if you have a vampiric creature that creature would not heal extra if it applied any tainted markers.

For your venomous zombie example, he would deal 2 damage, and then the effect would apply a tainted marker. This means the target would have 5 damage on them.

Does this help?

[Zuberi]

Both sentences are accurate. The first sentence tells you that Tainted counts as unhealable damage. The other sentence specifies the source of the damage. It does not come directly from the attack. Instead, it comes from the condition.

In your example, you would deal two normal damage with your attack + three unhealable damage with the condition. Two different sources of damage even though they both are caused with a single action, totaling five damage.

[TheDOMINATOR]

Thanks, guys. Looks like I have been playing correctly. Doesn't hurt to make sure. Thanks again.

PS, Mort is such a beast.

[Briste]

I was also confused about this so I want to put it in numbers so that it makes sense. I have a Bloodcrag Minotaur in play with 14 Max Life and no damage on him. Mort attacks my Minotaur and does 2 damage from his attack and then rolls for effect and is successful in placing a tainted marker on my Minotaur. After the action phase is complete, my Minotaur has 9 of 14 life? 9 of 11 life? or 11 of 11 life?

The way I had initially read the rule, I would have said 11 of 11 life because the 2 damage from the attack would have brought the Minotaurs health down to 12 of 14. Then the tainted condition would have lowered his max life by 3 to 11 therefore giving him 11 out of 11 doing 1 extra damage by lowering his max life. The reason I interpreted it this way was because the codex says it deals 3 damage and that this damage cannot be healed, but that the tainted marker does not count as damage dealt by the attack. Since the damage dealt by the tainted condition is not dealt by the attack, I assumed it meant it was an attack on max life as it is unable to be healed. It also seemed strange that the damage that is unable to be healed fell in the middle of the creatures Life amount. For example, let's say the tainted damage brought the Minotaur from 7 of 14 down to 4 of 14, I could not heal damage 5, 6 and 7 but could heal 8-14. Since the game is intuitive, and this idea seems ridiculous, I again assumed it damaged max life.

However, based on what is spelled out above I would say he has 9 of 11 life (11 life now since 3 of the damage is unable to be healed) and that the tainted marker acts as both 3 extra points of damage during the effect and condition step AND minus 3 from max life since it cannot be healed. The 9 of 14 option seems least likely since the tainted condition does damage that cannot be healed unless the marker is removed, so the Minotaur cannot have 14 life while inflicted.

Thanks for reading my post and I apologize for the long-winded question, but I really enjoy this game and want to ensure that I am following the intent of how the game was designed.

[Kharhaz]

I was also confused about this so I want to put it in numbers so that it makes sense. I have a Bloodcrag Minotaur in play with 14 Max Life and no damage on him. Mort attacks my Minotaur and does 2 damage from his attack and then rolls for effect and is successful in placing a tainted marker on my Minotaur. After the action phase is complete, my Minotaur has 9 of 14 life? 9 of 11 life? or 11 of 11 life?

The way I had initially read the rule, I would have said 11 of 11 life because the 2 damage from the attack would have brought the Minotaurs health down to 12 of 14. Then the tainted condition would have lowered his max life by 3 to 11 therefore giving him 11 out of 11 doing 1 extra damage by lowering his max life. The reason I interpreted it this way was because the codex says it deals 3 damage and that this damage cannot be healed, but that the tainted marker does not count as damage dealt by the attack. Since the damage dealt by the tainted condition is not dealt by the attack, I assumed it meant it was an attack on max life as it is unable to be healed. It also seemed strange that the damage that is unable to be healed fell in the middle of the creatures Life amount. For example, let's say the tainted damage brought the Minotaur from 7 of 14 down to 4 of 14, I could not heal damage 5, 6 and 7 but could heal 8-14. Since the game is intuitive, and this idea seems ridiculous, I again assumed it damaged max life.

However, based on what is spelled out above I would say he has 9 of 11 life (11 life now since 3 of the damage is unable to be healed) and that the tainted marker acts as both 3 extra points of damage during the effect and condition step AND minus 3 from max life since it cannot be healed. The 9 of 14 option seems least likely since the tainted condition does damage that cannot be healed unless the marker is removed, so the Minotaur cannot have 14 life while inflicted.

Thanks for reading my post and I apologize for the long-winded question, but I really enjoy this game and want to ensure that I am following the intent of how the game was designed.

Damage works like this.

Mort deals 2 damage.
2 of 14 health

Mort deals 2 damage and a taint condition.
5 of 14 (3 can not healed)


Taint Condition Codex

"The marker counts as 3 damage, and this damage can not be healed or regenerated."

damage counts up and health loss / gain changes the total amount.

So priestess gaining 1 life would go from

2 of 32  to 2 of 33

Hope that helps

[Briste]

Thanks, I forgot the basic tenant of adding damage from 0 instead of subtracting from max life. This is the first game I've ever played that handles damage that way so I must retrain myself.

[Zuberi]

As Kharhaz pointed out, damage is counted separately from your Life total, and is added upwards. Your Life doesn't actually changes due to damage. When your damage total equals your Life total, that is when the object is destroyed. The part about tainted damage being unhealable is setting a minimum amount of damage on the creature that can not be reduced, it is NOT reducing the amount of Life on the target.

Thus, in your example, the correct way of reading it is that it has 14 Life AND 5 damage on it, 3 of which can not be healed. This results in the fact that it requires 9 more damage on the creature before it dies and it can only heal 2 points of damage off of it at this time. If you want to read that as 9 out of 11 life remaining you would be amounting to virtually the same thing semantically, but you should keep the mechanics in mind so you don't confuse yourself.

[Master Ruprecht]

so, if I didn't misinterprete something, Tainted also triggers Bloodthirsty, which seems thematically wrong to me... 

[Zuberi]

Tainted also triggers Bloodthirsty

I believe that is correct.

[Laddinfance]

Tainted does trigger Bloodthirsty. Most predators try to pick off the weak and the stragglers.

[krj]

if we talking about bloodthirsty i would like to make sure at one thing.

If i have doublestrike (normally 3 dice each) and bloodthirsty trait, let's say +1 and I attack with that creature a creature which don't have any damage on it, will it gain +1 bonus to second strike (i'm assuming it will make damage in first strike) or it it won't. I had that situation with Goran. I'm almost sure it will be 3d + 4d attack (my Warlock was in different zone), because i made some damage in first strike and "didn't used bloodthirsty trait" so i think it should work in second.

[sIKE]

@krj

Yes you would get that new +1 on the second attack. I think this is covered in the new FAQ.

[Zuberi]

Indeed, it is detailed on page 5 of the FAQ

Some traits (such as Melee +X) state that "if the attack makes multiple attacks against the same or different creature, it gains the bonus only for the first attack it makes." This wording is clarified to say, "if the creature makes multiple attacks during the same attack action, it gains this bonus only for the first attack it can make with this bonus."