From:	Tony Glinka <glinka@**.NETCOM.COM>
Subject:	Re: [COW] Hellblast (was Andrews been thinking again)
Date:	Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:55:01 -0700

Loki wrote:

> Here it is, open for discussion:
>
> Hellblast
> Type: Gear
> Rarity: Rare
> Description: Gear/Magic/Spell
> Notes: 5¥. Play on Runner with Sorcery. Turn to use attack value of
> Hellblast in place of user's attack value. Attack value: (D6+8).
> Hellblast inflicts 2 armor piercing damage on all Runners present.
> Illustrator: Ron Spencer

snip regarding first question

> When does the 2 armor piercing damage come into play - before or after
> the normal spell/combat damage. At first this may seem trivial, but
> it's not. If the armor piercing damage comes first, as a stinger when
> the spell cast is turn then this forces the damage from the spell's
> Attack Value to be spread out among more of your runners if present
> (as such damage cannot be overflowed). Do you see what I mean by this?

I see what you mean. If you split up all of the damage from the
challenge first then you may kill off or nearly kill off (1 body left) some
of the runners to soak up most of the damage. Then if you add the 2 armor
piercing (A.P.) damage in you in effect gain a little damage "overflow."
(Runner X may have 1 body left after the challenge damage and so he takes 2
A.P. damage and is killed. You just saved 1 point of body from someone
else.) If the damage was all done at the same time you couldn't do this as
you are only allowed to assign enough damage to kill a runner.
My feeling is that the damage should all be accounted for at the same
time. The spell is cast during combat and all combat is supposed to happen
at the same time. It would be nice to get an official ruling on this
though.

Tony