Marvel Champions Codex

RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.6)2025-09-25

I’ve got some confusion on how Directed Force works. It’s an interrupt “When your hero makes an attack that…

⚠ This ruling is from an older rules version (Hall of Heroes (rules 1.6)) and might be outdated.

Question

I’ve got some confusion on how Directed Force works. It’s an interrupt “When your hero makes an attack that has a keyword”, so it seems to me that it interrupts the attack before it begins to resolve. But, for an attack like Relentless Assault, it only gains the keyword as part of its resolution, so

1. Can I use Directed Force on Relentless Assault (assuming I spent a physical resource)? This also had me wondering about Melee vs a Marked enemy with Directed Force. 2. Can I use Directed Force if I attack a Marked enemy with Melee? 3. Does it increase both instances of damage or only against the Marked enemy?

4. What if I attack a non-marked enemy first, does that change anything? 5. What if the Marked enemy is Thomas Edison and there is another minion engaged with me that I must attack before he is a valid target, does that change anything? Thanks for helping me to understand this odd card!

Answer

  1. Yes. Relentless Assault’s second sentence is an alteration effect, giving the attack overkill; this allows it to combo with Directed Force’s additional damage.
  2. Yes, with a few considerations (explained below).
  3. Because Marked is giving the “attack against attached minion” overkill, Directed Force can only apply additional damage to the part of the attack targeting the minion; in this case, the 3 damage from Melee is increased to 5 against just that minion.
  4. If you attacked a non-Marked enemy with Melee first, the attack does not have the overkill keyword at that time, and Directed Force cannot be played at that time. But, once the Marked enemy is chosen as a target, you are able to play Directed Force then to deal 5 to that enemy. (This is an interaction unique to Marked, as most attacks that gain a keyword do so at the attack initiation and apply to all parts of the attack. Marked applying the keyword to only one target of a multi-target attack requires us to determine what part of the attack has the keyword, which we determined must be the damage dealt to that target.)
  5. If the first enemy targeted with Melee is defeated and this causes a Marked Thomas Edison to become a valid target, then Directed Force can be played and the damage dealt to him is increased to 5.

— Alex