Friday, April 15, 2005

"Negative Damage" ruling change

A new ruling by Guy Fullerton:

I just got the go-ahead from R&D to make a big change in how I previously ruled these sorts of things. I'm no longer going by the potentially-weird interpretation that seems supported by the letter of the rules. Instead, we're going with a ruling that matches the spirit of the rules as well as how most casual players would handle it.

Here's how negative damage officially works from this point forward:

• An effect which normally deals negative damage doesn't actually deal damage to Undead creatures. Instead, such an effect removes damage from Undead creatures, and Undead creatures do not make saves against these sorts of spells and effects.

(This replaces part of the glossary definition of Negative. It should be obvious which part it replaces.)

The most important part of this new ruling is the wording of the first sentence. Inflict spells don't "deal damage" to Undead creatures. (Heal effects do deal damage to Undead creatures, but this was already pretty clear from the rules.)

Therefore, an inflict spell on an Undead creature doesn't benefit from the Red Wizard or Valorous Prince's commander effects.

Likewise, the Bloodhulk Fighter's Bleeder ability does not increase the amount of damage that gets removed.

Also, because you aren't actually dealing damage to an Undead Incorporeal creature if you cast an inflict spell on it, you don't have to roll against the Incorporeal ability to affect it with the inflict spell. I'll add this to my clarifications page soon.

Thanks to AesophDarkfable for bringing this bit of news to my attention.