RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.5)2023-12

205 – I’m trying to understand how “cannot take more than X damage” effects interact with damage reduction…

Question

205 – I’m trying to understand how “cannot take more than X damage” effects interact with damage reduction effects. I believe that constant effects come before “would take” effects, such as “cannot take damage” preventing the triggering of a Tough status. But I have a couple points of uncertainty: I attack an enemy with Titanium Exoskeleton attached, dealing 6 damage (“Attached enemy cannot take more than 2 damage from a single attack.”).
(1) If it’s Magneto with Magnetic Bubble attached (“Forced Interrupt: When Magneto would take any amount of damage, place it here instead”), how much damage is placed on the bubble? (2) If it’s a minion with Jetpack attached (“Forced Interrupt: When attached minion would take any amount of damage from an attack, discard the top card of the encounter deck. Reduce damage from that attack by the number of boost icons discarded this way.”) and they discard a 3-boost, do they take 0 damage or 2 damage? Similarly, (3) I’m attacking Magneto with Magnetic Bubble attached, and Boarding Party is in play while he’s already sustained 4 damage. Is this the same as Titanium Exoskeleton in that he cannot “take” more than 2 damage, or do these effects work differently (and result in different amounts of damage on the Bubble)?
Finally, (4) suppose I am playing Bishop and use Energy Conversion (“Hero Interrupt (defense): When an enemy attacks, shuffle each resource card in your discard pile into your deck. You cannot take more than 3 damage from this attack.”), if the villain deals 6 damage to me, and I play Side Step, do I take 0 or 3 damage?

Answer

Constant abilities that reduce damage will be applied before interrupt abilities that reduce damage, as long as they have the same timing trigger. So, Titanium Exoskeleton’s constant ability reducing damage taken comes into effect as soon as the damage dealt is calculated, and after that any interrupt abilities that reduce damage taken come into effect.
If you attack an enemy for 6 damage and the enemy has Titanium Exoskeleton and Magnetic Bubble attacked, TE reduces the damage to 2, then you place 2 damage on MB.
Similarly, if you attack an enemy for 6 while it has TE and Jetpack attached, TE reduces the damage taken to 2, then Jetpack’s interrupt triggers, and in your example the enemy takes 0 damage.
Boarding Party is treated similar to TE (note, this is altering a previous ruling we made for BP), in that the amount of damage Magneto can “sustain” affects the amount of damage he can “take” when he’s dealt damage. In your example, assuming it’s a solo game, BP makes it so that he can only sustain 6 damage max, so if he’s already sustained 4, he can only take up to 2 damage whenever he’s dealt damage; if he’s attacked for more than 2 damage, only 2 damage is placed on Magnetic Bubble.
Bishop’s Energy Conversion creates a lasting effect that has the same timing priority as a constant ability, so it’s treated similarly to the other cases: when damage is dealt to Bishop, EC reduces that damage to 3, then Side Step’s interrupt can be used to that Bishop ultimately takes 0 damage.