Order of Operations: Brace & Expert Shield Techs

[Mala 49]

I ran into this question while playing yesterday. Now, having a chance to look at the rules, I wanted some opinions on whether my reading of the rules is correct.

The situations: A 4 damage attack is rolled against a ship.

Can the defending ship use the brace effect and THEN the Expert Shields Tech effect to reduce the damage total to 1? (brace halves to 2, EST reduces 2 to 1)

My understanding is no based on the timing of the 2 effects:

 

Expert Shield Techs Timing: during the Spend Defense Tokens step when you spend a [Redirect] defense token you may reduce the total damage from the attack by 1 instead of resolving that token's effect. 

Based on the bolded text I would think the damage reduction happens at Step 4 of attack resolution (Spend Defense Tokens). [Rules Reference Guide Pg 16]

 

Brace Timing: When damage is totalled during the "Resolve Damage Tokens" step, the total is reduced to half, rounded up. [Rules Reference Guide Pg 4]

Since "Resolve Damage" is step 5 I think you need to apply Expert Shield Techs effect before the brace effect.

 

Is my reading correct or incorrect?

 

[ovinomanc3r 4,437]

18 minutes ago, Mala said:

I ran into this question while playing yesterday. Now, having a chance to look at the rules, I wanted some opinions on whether my reading of the rules is correct.

The situations: A 4 damage attack is rolled against a ship.

Can the defending ship use the brace effect and THEN the Expert Shields Tech effect to reduce the damage total to 1? (brace halves to 2, EST reduces 2 to 1)

My understanding is no based on the timing of the 2 effects:

 

Expert Shield Techs Timing: during the Spend Defense Tokens step when you spend a [Redirect] defense token you may reduce the total damage from the attack by 1 instead of resolving that token's effect. 

Based on the bolded text I would think the damage reduction happens at Step 4 of attack resolution (Spend Defense Tokens). [Rules Reference Guide Pg 16]

 

Brace Timing: When damage is totalled during the "Resolve Damage Tokens" step, the total is reduced to half, rounded up. [Rules Reference Guide Pg 4]

Since "Resolve Damage" is step 5 I think you need to apply Expert Shield Techs effect before the brace effect.

 

Is my reading correct or incorrect?

 

The damage is totalled during the "Resolve Damage" step, so there is no way you may reduce the damage by 1 until then cause, before all you have are hits and critical icons, no damage.

So experts will take place during the same window (so you choose the order) brace does.

Otherwise experts won't take place at all.

[Karneck 1,990]

As mentioned, you do not total damage until the after the critical effect happens.

Then Brace reduces that total damage by half (rounded up).

Then Expert Shield Techs applys 

"While defending, during the Spend Defense Tokens step, when you spend a Redirect defense token, you may reduce the total damage from the attack by 1 instead of resolving that token's effect."
 

As you cannot reduce damage until you know what the total damage is, which is after Brace takes place.

 

So step 1: Spend Tokens in the spend defense token step. If you spend a Redirect token, State that you will be using the EST ability instead of the regular redirect effect.

Step 2: Resolve damage step. Attack  can resolve a critical effect (if any)

Step 3. Then the attacker determines the Total damage amount. The defender can then choose to apply EST or Brace in either order, as they share the same timing. 

 

Edit: Correction. Both the EST ability and Brace DO share the same timing. So you can choose to resolve in either order. However changing an even number to an odd number carrys no benefit. It is always better to use EST after brace.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Karneck