Damage – “Life”

[Grinner]

I’ve always wondered how to tell whether an attack would directly impact life versus making a hit. E.g. the “Gaze of Horror” says “All enemy creatures lose 1 life…” If used every enemy loses a life whether armored or not. Yet “Lave Blast” says “Target creature or player loses 3 life” but that is modified by armor. Both only result in 1 life taken if the target has armor.

[mcamilli]

The distinction is in how armored works:

All loss of life from attacks and destruction spells is reduced by one half, rounded down.

So, armored does not work at all against alterations, thus the creature can still be poisoned for example. In your example, since Gaze of Horror is an alteration, it ignores armored ability and works. Lava Blast is a destruction spell so it deals 3/2=1.5 rounded down to 1 damage.

It gets a bit harder to know what will happen when the loss of life comes from an ability, where it can be unclear if it is a destruction or alteration under the covers.

[Grinner]

Okay, I see that. I’d suggest for future endeavors to maybe use different terms. E.g. Damage or hits vs life. Damage would be affected by external things (armor) while life would be direct loss.

[Author]

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