Hey everyone. Sorry about the delay. I was out of town this weekend, and just got back. Anyway, we finally have the FAQs pertaining to the new Universe rules, so lets see what we have to work with....



Rulebook Corrections:

• Replace the second sentence in the sixth paragraph under Turns and Actions, page 13, with: “At the end of your turn in which a character you control did not receive an action token, remove all action tokens from that character.”

Standard stuff here, but it closes a small loophole that, quite frankly, I missed in my orriginal review.

• Replace the last line in the first paragraph under Elevated Terrain, page 20, with the following: “Descending from soaring to elevated terrain, or ascending or descending a ladder, costs a character 1 speed point.”

The change here is the addition of the cost of moving up or down a ladder. This was omitted from the rulebook, but it was in the orriginal rules, so no real change here.


Clarifications:

The Rule of 3:

• The Rule of Three applies to combat values: Range, Speed, Attack, Defense, and Damage. Damage Dealt may still be modified after the Rule of Three has applied to the Damage Value, as Damage Dealt is not a combat value.

T%his one is interesting, and changes much that was in my orriginal Universe rulebook review.

Basically, as it says, the Rule of 3 ONLY applies to combat values, nothing else. So, what does this apply to? Not much really. Objects, when used as weapons, Critical hits, and damage reduction mainly. None of those are affected by the Rule of 3. Enhancement, SHIELD, and Perplex all modify the Damage Value, so they are affected normally. This does, however, clear up the issue I had with Impervious (it now works as it did in the Indy Rules).


Energy Explosion:

• Energy Explosion may be used with multiple targets. When used in this way, the Damage Value is not divided among targets; instead, each target successfully hit is dealt damage equal to the Damage Value. For example:

ABC

A character with Energy Explosion targets characters A and C with a multiple-target Energy Explosion attack. After the attack is declared, an adjacent friendly figure uses the Enhancement power on the attacker. The attack roll hits characters A and C, and is higher than character B’s defense value as well. Characters A and C are dealt 2 damage, as Energy Explosion reduced the attacker’s Damage Value to 1, and Enhancement increased the Damage Value to 2. Character B is dealt 4 damage, 2 for each successful indirect hit, for a total of 4.

And here is a big one. EE got a major damage potential here, and a lot of confusion has been cleared up.

The example provided is pretty clear. Most of the change here has to do with how Enhancement (and SHIELD for that matter) interact with EE. Instead of adding to damage dealt, it adds to the damage value of the attacker.

Hypersonic Speed

• As the attack option of Hypersonic Speed modifies the target’s defense value with each successful hit, apply the Rule of 3 to the modified defense value.

This is an interesting clarification here. I am actually kinda surprised they chose to go with the literal interpretation here, instead of choosing a slight re-write of HSS. Definately a boost for the power, but I don't think that this will have much impact on the meta-game. I've only actually used this part of the power only a few times, and mostly during the latter part of a game when the outcome was already decided. Has anyone else used this part of the power regularly?


So that's it for the major changes this time around. I do notice that a few items that are 'throwbacks' to the Indy rules, such as a few references in the section on Enhancement refering applying to damage dealt instead of the damage value. Hopefully these, along with an update for the universe specific FAQs.

Anyway, that's it for now. As always, I hope this helps, and questions and comments are more than welcome.

Nice review....

When I field Flash I regularly use the 2nd option of HSSpeed. He only does one point anyway... so any more is good. Especially nice when someone tries to base him. I set up the field with PCers and use HSSpeeders and BCFers and such. Works great.

My question is that does the rule of 3 affect Enhancement and how? Say you are using Vt. Nightwing and Vt. Psylocke together and he is dual Incaping two figures. Do both still recieve a click of damage and a token if successful? Would this mean that you could not then use 2 enhancement figures on figures that use multi-attack options as that will increase the damage by 4 or more? I assumed that Enhancement affected damage dealt... not damage value.

In the Indy rules, Enhancement added to the damage dealt. Now (or, as of June 2nd I should say), Enhancement adds to damage value.

In your example, Incap will reduce the damage value to 0. Enhancement will add 1 to the damage value of the attack, making it a 1. You would then divide that 1 damage among the targets hit. Not as powerful as it was before, but it is still damage...

I thought Enhancement increased the damage value by 1 for each target hit. Or am I crazy again... :cross-eye

Ok...

Damage dealt is the damage delivered to the target.

Damage value is what is printed on the dial.

Enhancement (In Universe rules) add to damage value, not damage dealt. In the case of multi-target attacks, you take the damage value (modified by powers) and divide that among the targets hit. That number is the damage dealt to each target.

For example, a character has 2 targets, and a natural damage value of 3, with an Enhancer standing close by (adjacent). The attacker hits both targets, and has a modified 4 damage value (3 natural +1 for the Enhancement). The attacker may then divide his damage value any way he chooses. For example, he decides to give 3 to one target, and 1 to the other. Now, the first target is dealt 3 damage, and the other is dealt 1 damage. This is under the new Universe rules.

Under the indy rules, the attacker would divide his damage value of 3, then add 1 to the damage dealt to each target. This is one of the major changes in Universe.


I hope this helps clear things up...

According to the fAQ "If Enhancement is used with a multi-target attack damage delt is increased by 1 for each target sucesfully hit"

Kiryu, please read the thread FAQ goof to see that they accidentally left in some of the obsolete enhancement FAQ entries.

Wow on Energy Explosion. That explains why Ultron was on the list to ban from non-Open play. Can you see E Ultron with Shield + Enhancement to get an EE of 4, and then shooting two adjacent targets? Oh yeah, and then throw an Ultimates on the team...

I thought I read that Brother Magneto said somewhere that the Energy Explosion change was an error in the FAQ and that it would get corrected before June 2.

I'll go look for it.

zgrose is the person that pointed it out. Props to him.

FAQ goof thread

And it was Enhancement, not Energy Explosion.

EE has returned to being nasty.

Here is a snippet from HeroClix1234 on the subject:

So enhancement has now gone back to how it was originally?

How does it work for someone with 2 arrows, but no energy explosion?

If your damage value is 2 and you attack against 2 targets with Enhancement, your damage value would become 3 and you would assign the damage accordingly.

Target 1: 0 -> 3 damage
Target 2: 3 minus value dealt to Target 1

So in that sense, Enhancement got weaker since people with 1 damage value but 3 arrows can no longer do a total of 4 clicks (1 for the damage value plus 1 for the pre-Universe Enhancement) but now only do 2 clicks (leaving one figure unharmed).

"A character with Energy Explosion targets characters A and C with a multiple-target Energy Explosion attack. After the attack is declared, an adjacent friendly figure uses the Enhancement power on the attacker. The attack roll hits characters A and C, and is higher than character B’s defense value as well. Characters A and C are dealt 2 damage, as Energy Explosion reduced the attacker’s Damage Value to 1, and Enhancement increased the Damage Value to 2."

"For example, a character has 2 targets, and a natural damage value of 3, with an Enhancer standing close by (adjacent). The attacker hits both targets, and has a modified 4 damage value (3 natural +1 for the Enhancement). The attacker may then divide his damage value any way he chooses. For example, he decides to give 3 to one target, and 1 to the other. Now, the first target is dealt 3 damage, and the other is dealt 1 damage. This is under the new Universe rules."

Maybe I am just really confused, but don't these 2 seem inconsistent?

An attacker with 1 damage and 2 arrows targets 2 non-adjacent people. He is standing next to an enhancer. If he hits both, he gets to split a total of 2 damage to the 2 targets. Now, in the same example if the attacker has EE, both targets end up taking 2 damage (for a total of 4).

How can this be correct? My confusion is great!

It is correct but I'm not sure I'd call them inconsistent since in one case there is an offensive power involved.

Under the new rules, Energy Explosion becomes an effective tool for doing damage to lots of people. That seems to be "right" to me.

If the same attacker had a 4 damage value and 2 arrows, he would split the (enhanced) 5 damage to the 2 targets. If he had EE, he would only do 2 damage to each versus, for example, 4 to one and 1 to the other.

Perhaps a little odd but not really any worse than it was before. Sometimes it is better to use EE, sometimes it is better to use a single multi-target attack.