Beating up Pandora...

so, i know the game is new and there are a lot of interpretations as to how the RAW work, so this is going to be more of a debate than a QnA i feel, mostly concerning the rules of Pandora vs Rasputina that we encountered in our match last night. namely Pandora's the box opens and expose fears against Rasputina's frozen heart and ice mirror.

*note that all the attributes in question are abilities

the rules for Pandora-
the box opens: models within 12" of this model lose any immunities to WP duels
expose fears: enemies attempting to target this model for any reason must first win a WP-WP duel or immediately end the action

Rasputina-
frozen heart-this model ignores morale duels
ice mirror- this model may draw LoS and range from a friendly model within 6" with Frozen heart when casting spells. These spells recieve -3 Ca. The friendly model counts as the caster for the target model's defensive triggers.


now, my question is: say an Ice Gamin, with frozen heart is 10 inches away from pandora, and Rasputina is 5 inches further, making the distance between her and Pandora 15". she is 3" outside of the radius for "the box opens". if Rasputina casts "december's curse" (rg 10) through the ice gamin, would Rasputina's "frozen heart" nullify the effects of "expose fears", as it is not affected by "the box opens", or would she still have to pass a WP duel anyway?

also, if Pandora is hit by the splash damage from a blast attack, does she still cause the WP duel, since she was not actually targeted?

Yeah, this is where Malifaux gets tricky. Some of the more complex rules interactions just aren't covered by the rules too well. I am not the Malifaux rules master, but I do have a few ideas on this one.

Pandora makes models lose their immunity to WP duels. You must also win a WP-WP duel to be able to target her.

Rasputina is immune to morale duels, which is a type of WP duel (if I remember right - no rulebook on hand.)

Ice Mirror - you use LOS and Range from a target friendly model.

It looks like Ice Mirror is a bit different from the way you usually cast spells through other models. Usually you use extend magic or something similar and the other model actually casts the spell, not the master. In this case the master is casting the spell, just drawing line of site and range through the other model, the other model would take any defensive trigger effects though. So here is how I think it would go down -

Rasputina casts December's Curse using Ice Mirror through the Ice Gamin. Rasputina is 15" away from Pandora, she is therefore not under the effects of The Box Opens. However! Rasputina ignores Morale Duels, not all WP duels, so she would still have to take the WP-WP Duel in order to target Pandora. An example of a model that ignores all WP duels is Perdita.

On to the blast issue. I am not sure. I would have to have a rulebook to see how the blast works. I know that you could target a model near here just fine, but I do not know what would happen when you went o place the blast markers. This might not be addressed in the rules. What would probably get around this would be pulse or aura abilites since you truly are not targeting anything with them. My best guess is that she would be affected by the blast markers without a WP duel.

Exactly right, not all WP duels are Morale duels.

Blast damage is an issue with Pandora because it can hit her without triggering Expose Fear. However, I don't beleve you can just target the ground with a blast, so no targeting the ground next to her and hitting her with the 50mm blast.

Right. A WP duel isn't a morale duel, however, morale duels generally require a WP.

As for blast damage, it would trigger expose since she isn't targeted by the attack. The model hit is attacked and then anything the blast damage touches takes the 2nd tier damage. It's not targeted.

As for frozen mirror being outside of the box, hm, yeah - I'd say you wouldnt need the WP duel since the model targetting is outside the box.

Haren wrote:

Exactly right, not all WP duels are Morale duels.

Blast damage is an issue with Pandora because it can hit her without triggering Expose Fear. However, I don't beleve you can just target the ground with a blast, so no targeting the ground next to her and hitting her with the 50mm blast.

yeah, that's understandable, the situation arose when the target model was near her, and again when she was pretty much in base-to-base with the other model. in both instances, there was a legitimate target. ground targeting would be cheap, cheezy, and most likely against the rules, because there'd be no way to use a defense flip as it would hit automatically. breakable terrain targeting however.... *readies ice pillars for casting*

capnwoodrow wrote:

As for frozen mirror being outside of the box, hm, yeah - I'd say you wouldn't need the WP duel since the model targeting is outside the box.

While 'Tina would be out of range for The Box Opens, and Emotional Trauma, she would still need to do the WP duel since Expose Fears does not have a defined range. It just says Enemies attempting to target this model for any reason... .

Also to clarify what a morale duel is, according to page 78 in the core rule:

Quote :

A model in Malifux is required to conduct a WP > TN Morale Duel when:

• It is confronted by a Terrifying opponent.
  
• It is targeted by a spell or talent requiring a Morale Duel

The spell or talent will say that it is a Morale Duel.

sirhelnor wrote:

yeah, that's understandable, the situation arose when the target model was near her, and again when she was pretty much in base-to-base with the other model. in both instances, there was a legitimate target. ground targeting would be cheap, cheezy, and most likely against the rules, because there'd be no way to use a defense flip as it would hit automatically. breakable terrain targeting however.... *readies ice pillars for casting*

Yea if Pandora has a model within 2 inches of herself and it is targeted then yea she takes the damage from the blast, however EricJ has responded to a thread about blast damage on breakable terrain also.

EricJ wrote:

Official Word Time: Please read breakable terrain closely. This is not a normal situation of inflicting damage, it's a damage flip that is simply checked against the terrain hardness, if the damage is higher, the terrain breaks. Period. There is nothing more to it, no triggers, no blasts, does not count as killing something (for the executioner). It's a check of a damage flip against terrain hardness, so you can not cause it as a way to get automatic hits with blast spells.

https://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?p=89651#post89651

oh well, that's understandable, else you'd just see rasputina players throwing up pillars then blowing them up