My friend and I played against the dreamer and it's just the two of us and Whipacorn deals Hero -2 damage. Does the effect happen with cards like that since we take zero damage or do we take zero damage but the effect activates?
When damage is reduced to 0 there is not damage dealt. Whipacorn's secondary effect only triggers when damage is dealt, so the hero will still be able deal damage.
Now something like the Wraith's Stun Bolt, it isn't reliant on damage being dealt, so it will still activate even if damage was not dealt.
Thanks for clearing that up, this will help our games out.
Just for the sake of clarity, the game isn't balanced for 2 heroes - it's meant to be played 3-5 heroes. (2 players can play 2 heroes each for a 4 hero game.) Thus H (the number of heroes) will always be between 3 and 5. (Otherwise cards like the Whipacorn are just silly and don't do anything.)
If you're home-ruling a 2-hero game, that's not an issue - there are a lot of folks on teh forums who do that and there have been conversatiosn on it in the past. You just need to understand that it breaks the game and find ways to account for it (such as always use H=3).
Yeah (H)=2 actually makes the game way too easy.
One thing I really like that I found suggested was using a support deck as a third hero.
Shuffle hero character cards of heroes not in the fight into a deck, treat it as the third hero, at the support turn each of the players selects an incap power from the current top card to use, then discard that top card to support trash. If you make it through all of the cards, shuffle and start again.
I enjot it alot, because you can set up for the incap to be useful, its like being able to call in backup support from a hero not actively in the fight, but it changes each round which works out really cool.
Sounds like gelded Whipacorn...
You could also just bring in one incapped hero and set H to 3. Works just fine.
The random deck idea is pretty nifty as well.
I see no sense in using an incapped hero. For two-player games, it works fine to have one player play two heroes, with the other player taking a turn in between, as well as operating the Villain and Environment decks. My second game ever was like this and I had no problems piloting both Haka and Tempest. I wouldn't recommend trying to do, say, Absolute Zero and the Argent Adept this way, but the player with only one hero can still play one of those, while the other player picks their two favorite of the more manageable heroes.
Some people don't like playing 2 heroes and want the incap hero, the sense is the simplicity of it. The varient you are talking about in particular came from one Father's attempt to get this working as a 2 player game for him and his young son, neither was comfortable running 2 heroes.
On the other hand a friend and I regularly play 2 player games where we both run 2 heroes, sometimes we specifically pick the most complex ones to have some fun with it.
You see no sense in a very viable two player alternative? You may be convinced that your way is superior, but that does not demote every other idea automatically to nonsensical ramblings.
The incap idea has two immense problems. It's like playing with three players but one of them is instantly killed, which means you're handicapped; 3-player games are tough in the first place, without a third living hero you're in even worse shape. And conversely, access to incap abilities on the first turn is not something that normally happens, and may cause the game to go pear-shaped because the game doesn't assume it's possible. For instance the incap ability (found on Tempest and I think Bunker) "take a card from your trash into your hand" is extremely strong, and being able to get that so early in the game may well result in Ra playing Flame Blast every turn and the villain dying far sooner than they should.
The game is designed to use three (living) heroes. I figure it's better to trust that it's been rigorously playtested that way, and not to break the mold.
Very rarely are games harder when H=3 as compared to H=4 in practice.
I find the 2 hero + support deck to be tougher than three heroes, but much better than 2 heroes at (H)=3.
The support deck changes what incap abilities are used each round, so even if you did get to drop flame spike and get it back, you wouldn't have that same option the next round. But even if you could you are basically having a third hero doing that damage each round, that's not broken, it is like having an additional hero, but not as good.
If you have three people, or womeone who wants to run two heroes than go that route, I was just giving an option for two player games.
I have also done a three hero + support deck as a (H)=4 game, because it was a scenario game and the heroes were facing a nasty fight but had satelite hook up to headquarters and were using that to help fight Voss's invasion.
The game wasn't playtested that way, but it has been playtested by plenty of people trying it, and found to be an acceptable way to play.
One of the great things about this game is the way it is balanced there is a lot of room to make the game harder or easier, or even just different. For those of us that have been playing it for decently long time those variations are a great way to spice up an old romance.
For every way this playstyle seems to make things easier, there's another that might swing the game the other way. Playing H=3 with an incap means more damage is being focused on fewer targets in many cases. Think about the damage sponge a third character creates. I feel this makes the game a bit harder, but not obscenely difficult.
As previously noted, the "deck" of incapped character cards also fixes your hypothetical by making whatever powers you get random. Sounds fun.
The other thing that makes the support deck stronger than just an incapacitated hero is that each player chooses one of the incapacitated abilites, so it is more like two incapacitated heros standing in for one full hero.
And while most villains are harder with 3 heros than 4, there are some that seem easier. There are alot more H-2 damages getting reduced to nothing, and I think the Ennead are usually easier if you have one less hero and one less of them.
What I find interesting is when certain effects react differently in an absolute way, rather than relatively, based on the number of players. For instance, in a 4-player game against Citizen Dawn, Tachyon cannot deflect Dawn's innate attack with Synaptic Interruption (assuming no bonuses or penalties to Dawn's damage). In a 5-player game, she can. So the card functions in an absolutely different way.
Unless there is something increasing (or reducing) Dawn's damage… 
>:|
Yep - I wasn't correcting, I was emphasizing. 
Per the winking emoticon, it was meant to poke humorously at your use of "absolute". Nothing personal or insulting, so please don't stress it.
I definitely agree it's a threshold, that cards like this play differently based on damage done, and with more heroes, more damage is done. It's an interesting observation in the relationship between card effects and values set by game state.
Unfortunately, I'm out of time to write anything more than that this morning… 