Quick question about UC II and above.

[phiwum]

ITL41 says:

Evade. Hand weapon attacks from your front hexes are at -1, and damage done to you is reduced by 1 hit per attack.

Does the damage reduction apply only to hand weapon attacks from the front hexes or to all attacks? (I know the comma is trying to tell me something, but it's not clear what.)

[larsdangly]

Like a lot of the technical rules, this one isn't clearly interpretable just based on parsing grammar. But my interpretation, given the context and other similar examples, is that the -1 damage modifier carries the same conditions as the -1 to-hit modifier. I.e., you only get it against hand weapon attacks through your front hex. If you want a more general natural damage reduction, take Toughness.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Like a lot of the technical rules, this one isn't clearly interpretable just based on parsing grammar. But my interpretation, given the context and other similar examples, is that the -1 damage modifier carries the same conditions as the -1 to-hit modifier. I.e., you only get it against hand weapon attacks through your front hex. If you want a more general natural damage reduction, take Toughness.

Thanks. Makes sense to me.

I'm sure that comma is doing some work there, but I'm not sure what.

[hcobb]

Note by the wording on UC V that this is no defense against pole arm jabs.

[phiwum]

I notice there's a little inconsistency in UC III, where the evade is described as applying to melee attacks from the front hexes, not hand weapon attacks.

I wonder why evade doesn't work with unarmed attacks. Or does that count as "hand weapon"?

[larsdangly]

Personally, I treat all non-thrown, non-missile attacks as part of the same category with respect to these sorts of rules, so a jab is the same as a 'melee' weapon attack is the same as a melee unarmed attack and so forth. The narrowest reading of the rules would suggest some of these are handled differently from the others, but this leads to unnecessary fussiness in play (and feels like nonsense). See the discussion of the Defend action for another case where people have considered how to respond to peculiarities in the language uses in the rules.