Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Heal
A heal ability can be used to remove the effects of a discard or an ability paired to a poison, disease, or paralyze ability. A heal ability can only target a character.

How to Play

When a character is healed, it is no longer poisoned, diseased, or paralyzed. Any ongoing effects tied to any of those conditions end immediately.

When a character is healed, any decrease of the character’s abilities is removed.

When a character is being discarded by a special ability, or by a game rule that has been triggered by a special ability, after special initiative is complete, its controller has initiative to use a heal ability before the discard completes.  When this occurs, suspend the card causing the discard, additional abilities waiting to activate, and any triggers (currently active ongoing abilities remain active).  The character’s controller may play an enhancement or activate an ability to heal the character being discarded.  The enhancement played or ability activated must be able to heal the character being discarded.

A character to be discarded as a result of Battle Resolution can be healed (see Battle Resolution in the glossary).

When a character is healed from being discarded, it is placed in the territory of the player with permanent control, and the discard is not considered to have completed for the purposes of abilities or conditions that trigger based on a character or card being discarded.

A player has the option to play a healing enhancement during the preparation phase and the discard phase of any player, provided there is a character that is healable.

A healing enhancement played from hand must be played on a character of matching brigade, either in territory or a character currently being discarded.
Heal abilities target the characters that are to be healed.

All heal abilities are instantaneous.

Default Conditions

● A character is “healable” if it is being discarded, is poisoned, is diseased, or is paralyzed. If no other requirement is specified, targets must be “healable”.
● Characters cannot be healed once they are placed in a discard pile.

Special Conditions

● The ability to use healing cards outside of battle does not apply to characters with heal abilities, unless the character is Territory Class. The heal ability on a character without Territory Class can only be activated in battle.

Clarifications

● “Restore abilities” means “heal”.

Battle Resolution

As is described in Battle Resolution in the rulebook, there are four outcomes to a battle:

● Evil Character wins
● Hero wins
● Mutual destruction
● Stalemate

However, beyond the outcome of the battle you must also determine the outcomes of the battle challenge or rescue attempt. Here is the order to follow:

1. Determine the outcome of the battle (Evil Character(s) wins, Hero(es) wins, mutual destruction, or stalemate).

2. Determine success or failure of the rescue attempt or battle challenge. If the battle was a battle challenge, then success or failure of a battle challenge has only one condition, the battle outcome in step 1. If Hero wins and has (or has gained) access to a Lost Soul, it’s a successful rescue. If Hero loses battle or loses access to opponent’s Lost Souls, then the rescue fails.

3. Resolve end-of-battle special ability based on the conditions established in Steps 1 and 2. All unaffected cards are treated under normal gameplay rules (such as discard, return to territory, Land of Redemption, etc).

4. Discard and/or return characters based on the battle outcome in step 1.  Characters that would not be discarded as a result of the battle outcome are returned to the territory of the player with permanent control.  Characters that would be discarded may be healed by the controlling player before the discard occurs.

Battle Resolution
As is described in Battle Resolution in the rulebook, there are four outcomes to a battle:
● Evil Character wins
● Hero wins
● Mutual destruction
● Stalemate
However, beyond the outcome of the battle you must also determine the outcomes of the battle challenge or rescue attempt. Here is the order to follow:
1. Determine the outcome of the battle (Evil Character(s) wins, Hero(es) wins, mutual destruction, or stalemate).
2. Determine success or failure of the rescue attempt or battle challenge. If the battle was a battle challenge, then success or failure of a battle challenge has only one condition, the battle outcome in step 1. If Hero wins and has (or has gained) access to a Lost Soul, it’s a successful rescue. If Hero loses battle or loses access to opponent’s Lost Souls, then the rescue fails.
3. Resolve end-of-battle special ability based on the conditions established in Steps 1 and 2. All unaffected cards are treated under normal gameplay rules (such as discard, return to territory, Land of Redemption, etc).
4. Discard and/or return characters based on the battle outcome in step 1.  Characters that would not be discarded as a result of the battle outcome are returned to the territory of the player with permanent control.  Characters that would be discarded may be healed by the controlling player before the discard occurs.

Thanks for sharing that, Dayne. That's what I meant to share but it was late and I messed up.