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Given that the rule described by texts of Eternal Warrior is the same in each case, and these texts are part of the 4th edition, there's quite good reason to say that being immune to Instant Death is the only result of having the Eternal Warrior rule. Because that's what each version of the rule states. Moreover the Codex: Daemon version not only refers to the universal special rule, it reiterates that rule.

Since we have three versions of the Eternal Warrior rule that agree on its substance, we need not make any assumptions about how to play it in 4th edition: we need only make deductions.

Which is what the diagrams (including the flow chart) are about, they represent the reasoning by which we can deduce how the Eternal Warrior rule works in combination with the 4th edition Instant Death and Feel No Pain rules. Where this reasoning in represented by some deductively adequate method or system, we can check to see whether any conclusion follows from the cited rules with deductive validity.

The flowchart only works if you think that you can be affected by instant death but not affected by its effect(huh?). This is pretty much rules lawyering and word twisting in the extreme.

DeathGod wrote:Re-reading this thread always ALWAYS makes me laugh. Nurglitch's reasoning is the same fallacious reasoning that gets us things like Inappropriate political commentary/opinion deleted Neither of which are in the United States RAW.

At the risk of veering into politics...the comparison is flawed. Because the 40K rules are a permissive set of rules. The Constitution isn't.

Kallbrand:

I think that's a misrepresentation. The flow chart I provided made the distinction between a condition for Instant Death and the effect of Instant Death. Something inflicts Instant Death, it has a Strength double or more the Toughness of the wounded model, and the effect is the model is removed as a casualty.

More to the point, Eternal Warrior either makes a model immune to the effect of Instant Death, in which case it is not removed as a casualty, or it makes that model immune to Instant Death, in which case it is not removed as a casualty.

Either way being immune to Instant Death does not make a Feel No Pain role categorical.

The flow chart simply pictures where Instant Death and Feel No Pain overlap, and where they don't.

Ok.. I think this is a point some are missing...

Instant Death!
If a creature is wounded by something which has a Strength value of double their Toughness value or greater and fail their save, they are killed outright and removed as a casualty.

In order for this rule to be enacted, a condition causing a Save must occur. And what causes the need for a save?
Taking a hit that causes at least one wound.

Is this not correct? You roll to hit.
Roll to wound.
THEN your opponant makes his Saves.

If he makes it, fine no wounds taken.
If he FAILS..... then the rule for EW would come into play.

Since a wound would have to be "inflicted" to cause a Save, and A failed save would cause Instant Death to be applied, Then ...

Feel No Pain
This ability cannot be used against weapons that inflict Instant Death (those with a Strength double or more the model's Toughness)

Nurglitch wrote:
I think that's a misrepresentation. The flow chart I provided made the distinction between a condition for Instant Death and the effect of Instant Death. Something inflicts Instant Death, it has a Strength double or more the Toughness of the wounded model, and the effect is the model is removed as a casualty.

"Instant Death" is a rule that has a connotation associated with its name. This is established both by the definition of the words used in the title and by the description provided by the rules themselves. That connotation is that the model is actually being instantly killed.

A model which suffers instant death is therefore "dead" and removed as a casualty; hence the name of the special rule.

It is categorically impossible to say that death was inflicted upon something that is still alive.

A model that is not removed due to the instant death rule has not had "instant death" inflicted upon him any more than a bullet aimed at a person's heart that is stopped by a bullet-proof vest has had death inflicted upon them.



And Nurglitch, while I respect your healthy love for debate the fact remains that true consensus on many rules disagreements is essentially an impossibility. The fact that the 5th edition rules seem to fully answer this particular question it is perfectly reasonable, IMHO, to call for an end to the discussion pending the quickly approaching revision of the game rules.

Yakface:

Consensus is irrelevant to truth, fortunately. In any discussion with an objective answer, such as this one, it is more reasonable to get to the bottom of things than to stifle debate where we have the time and leisure to discuss things. If you wish to end the discussion, then you should lock the thread.

Onto the Instant Death rule. The Instant Death rule says:

"If a creature is wounded by something which has a Strength value of double their Toughness value or greater and fail their save, they are killed outright and removed as a casualty."

This sentence expresses a conditional, it denotes that if some condition, then some effect. The condition is being wounded by something which has a Strength value of double their Toughness value or greater and fail their save. If a model suffers this condition, the effect is that it is removed as a casualty (unless it is an Eternal Warrior...).

Given that Instant Death is the name given to this conditional in the game rules, we get a counter-intuitive situation where Eternal Warrior is concerned: A weapon inflicts Instant Death on a model, and the model survives. Notice the equivocation between the condition of the rule, and the name of the entire rule.

To say that a model suffered the condition of Instant Death, and was not killed outright and removed as a casualty, is quite reasonable when there is a rule in play such as Eternal Warrior that makes a model immune to certain effects where certain conditions apply.

Furthermore, to say that a model gets its Feel No Pain roll, despite the wound meeting at least one condition of negating that roll, because it is immune to the Instant Death rule, is unreasonable where the Feel No Pain rule is not conditional upon the Instant Death rule and merely shares a condition.

That is, of course, where we are concerned merely with the structure of the rules in question, and what structures the text of the rules denote.

I would have to agree with Yak on this one.

The Chaos Deamons codex says that they are Immune to Instant Death. Period. They are Immune to the whole rule. The conditional doesn't apply because the rule doesn't apply.

Furthermore, you can't argue that the model suffers the conditional without suffering the effect without selectively applying sequence to the rules, a sequence that is not given.

But this doesn't matter anyways because soon the issue will be cleared up and the subject will no longer matter.

You know this problem was adressed before like Stelek posted a while back, in the old chaos combat drugs ruling.

If you got hit by a weapon that caused instant death, you couldnt use the ignore first unsaved wound part. But if you got the daemonic rune, becomming immune to instant death the combat drugs worked. This is pretty much the same and was the official ruling.

Mahu:

Yes, I'd already pointed out, several times, that whether you ignore the whole rule or just the effect, you don't ignore the condition that the Instant Death rule shares with Feel No Pain.

One certainly can argue (by the by, the conditional is the whole rule, the condition and the effect) that the model suffers the conditions while not suffering the effect, particularly if some rule such as Eternal Warrior is also in effect.

In fact, logically one must agree that if some condition obtains, but the effect is negated, that the condition is still obtained. To deny this would commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

Affirming the consequent goes like this: P1. If A then B, P2. Not B, C. Therefore not A.

That is what people are doing when they argue that because Eternal Warrior makes a model immune to Instant Death, it also makes a model immune to losing its Feel No Pain roll.

They say: If a model is wounded by a weapon that inflicts Instant Death, that model suffers Instant Death. But if a model has Eternal Warrior, then it is immune to Instant Death. Therefore Instant Death is not inflicted on such a model.

Besides the fallacy of affirming the consequent, this argument has several other deficiencies.

It ignores the fact that the Instant Death rule indicates that: "If a model is wounded by something with a Strength value double or more the model's Toughness, then it is removed as a casualty."

Instead, Instant Death seems to be taken to mean either 'whenever a model is wounded by something with a Strength value double or more the model's Toughness' or 'whenever a model is killed instantly and removed as a casualty'.

This reading yields the premise that the Instant Death rule is when something inflicts Instant Death upon a model, that model suffers Instant Death. It follows, in such a situation, that a model cannot have Instant Death inflicted upon it and not suffer from Instant Death.

One reason this reading might be considered reasonable is that there are 'somethings' in the game that inflict Instant Death but do not have a Strength value that can be double or more the model's Toughness. After all, where some weapons inflict Instant Death, and Instant Death is the common nomenclature for a model being immediately removed as a casualty, the application of that manner of speaking to all weapons capable of inflicting Instant Death is a simple mistake.

Another reason why this reading might be considered reasonable is why discussing the matter is important: the fact that there can be disagreement on the matter of three simple rules. As Mahu says, this won't matter in terms of game play if/when the 5th edition of the rules clarifies matters, but it will matter in terms of the ongoing project of YMDC: developing effective community habits for analyzing and resolving disputes involving the rules and their application.

Given the relatively even division in numbers between groups of disputants, it is clear that there are at least two different ways of reading the rules. This disagreement in methodology will simply turn up in another thread where it might distract from the topic at hand. Therefore even if everyone agreed on a particular interpretation of the rules, discussion of the hows and whys would be merited so that we could make sure we're not simply all agreeing on the wrong answer.

Nurglitch wrote:Yakface:

Consensus is irrelevant to truth, fortunately. In any discussion with an objective answer, such as this one, it is more reasonable to get to the bottom of things than to stifle debate where we have the time and leisure to discuss things. If you wish to end the discussion, then you should lock the thread.

Consensus maybe be irrelevant to the truth but it is not irrelevant to game play or life in general. You can debate all you like but as many people disagree with you main argument (if they managed to actually read it without wading through some of your unreadable verbose posts of oh why use one word when 4 long ones can be used instead) who is to judge what the truth actually is. If two sides disagree and neither is willing to admit the other is right and disputes their reasoning and evidence then consensus and compromise is what is left.

8 pages later and both sides firmly entrenched holding onto their version of the truth seems quite pointless.

Not all arguments when presented logically give one answer, especially if no-one agrees to the main premise, otherwise there would never be an argument.

fullheadofhair:

There is no doubt I could learn a thing or two from you about the fine art of prose. However, you seemed to have missed my point. Maybe I was too verbose. Let me try again:

When we discuss how the truth is reached, as well as what that truth might be, we have the groundwork for both judging what the truth actually is, and a consensus.

If two sides disagree, and neither is willing to admit that the other is right, then they need to take a step back and discuss the hows and whys of the disagreement.

If it was one hundred pages later, and the disagreement persisted, then it would be all the more important to work on find the truth and resolving the disagreement. We have the time and leisure, and the message board format allows us to keep track of the discussion for reference purposes.

Giving up in the face of mere disagreement is not merely pointless, it's counter-productive since the conversation arose out of disagreement.

Given that I've supplied a version of the opposing opinion, could you suggest what I might have gotten wrong in my presentation and analysis of that argument? Because it would move things along to be able to compare the relative logical merits of the competing arguments, and this discussion requires co-operation (as well as correct method) to be productive.

"it is more reasonable to get to the bottom of things than to stifle debate where we have the time and leisure to discuss things. "

this is lol. sorry but yak's posts are like 1/4 the posts you made and he actually makes more sense. and please? more reasonable when the fact your long arguments and yak's argument will be rather pointless when gw clears things up with an faq etc.

Nurglitch:
I agree that the "No FNP" interpretation most likely follows from RAI and is probably the best way to play it. However, the assertion that it is also RAW is incorrect. The most favorable logical conclusion from RAW is that the rule ambiguous and that there is no clearly correct means of resolving the situation.

I'll try to lay out my argument as concisely as possible.

FNP is denied by weapons that inflict instant death.

Aside from things like wraithcannons, "weapons that inflict instant death" are those that have S twice or more the target's toughness. Thus, aside from things like wraithcannons, the question of whether or not a weapon "inflicts instant death" depends on its target. For example, an AC "inflicts instant death" on a T3 model, but not a T4 model.

Models with the EW rule are immune to/do not suffer the effects of instant death, and thus cannot have ID inflicted upon them. (I'll come back to the part in italics).

Thus, no weapon is a "weapon that inflicts instant death" against a model with EW, just as an AC is not a "weapon that inflicts instant death" against a T4 model. So models with EW get FNP regardless of the strength of the weapon they were wounded by.



All that said, I need to stipulate a couple things. First, I don't think that's the way it was intended to work, and there's clearly some ambiguity to the rule, and so I think it's best to play that such models don't get their FNP save. Second, this argument hinges on the bit above that I put in italics. If that clause doesn't actually follow, then the whole argument falls apart.

To me, the truth of that conclusion is obvious; it follows inarguably from the meanings of "inflict" and "suffer the effects of" (or equivalent phrases). Clearly, you disagree, and I grant that your argument follows from your understanding of the semantics of the wording used. The trouble is that no one here can prove their semantics to be "correct."

That's why we can't all agree on this. This is fundamentally not an argument about rules or logic, but about the semantics of the English language, and language is arbitrary. In this sort of linguistic disagreement, there's no such thing as "truth" since no one can prove that their version of English is "right." The closest thing to truth that one can hope for in these situations is a general consensus amongst a discourse community, and clearly that's not going to happen here. (That's not to say that correct logical conclusions or truth can't exist, just that in this particular case they can't be obtained because different conclusions follow from different semantic models, neither of which can be proven "right").

Bottom line: RAW for this case depends on the reader's understanding of the meaning of the words ("inflicts," etc.), and, in the presence of disagreement as to that meaning, can only be ruled "Ambiguous - Unresolved pending FAQ/5th ed."

Dire Wombat:

I feel that I should try to clear up some miscomunication here. I am not making a "RAI" argument. I am arguing about what the text of the rules states, not what anyone might want it to state.

Firstly, I am not asserting the position that the Feel No Pain roll is negated by the text, I have made an argument to that effect using the text as my premises and the position that the negation of the Feel No Pain roll is the only logical conclusion given the text.

Secondly, the text of the Feel No Pain rule says:

"If a model with this ability loses a wound, roll a dice."

And:

"This ability cannot be used against weapons that inflict Instant Death (those with a Strength double or more the model's Toughness)"

This means that the Feel No Pain roll is negated when a model is wounded by a weapon that inflicts Instant Death: a weapon that provides the conditions for the Instant Death rule to take effect, either by stipulation or by being a weapon that has a Strength double or more the model's Toughness.

Thirdly, if a model is immune to the effects of Instant Death, then the players do not apply the effects of that rule when the conditions of that rule are met. The conditions are not ignored or negated.

Hence the argument that no weapon provides the conditions for the Instant Death rule when they wound a model with the Eternal Warrior rule, a rule that negates the effect of the Instant Death rule, and that these conditions do not negate the Feel No Pain roll is a fallacious argument.

The fallacy in question is sometimes called the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

Where we avoid this fallacy, we get the situation represented earlier in the flow chart I posted: The condition, a weapon having a Strength value double or more the wounded model's Toughness, is a condition shared by two concurrent rules, Instant Death and Feel No Pain.

The presence of the Eternal Warrior rule means that the condition does not trigger the Instant Death effect, since it specifies the Instant Death rule, and the model is not removed as a casualty if it has wounds remaining. Since the Eternal Warrior rule does not change the conditions for Feel No Pain, the model's Feel No Pain roll is negated.

So as you suggest, the italicized bit in your post misrepresents what is actually being described in the text of the rules.

Hmm...

For the sake of discussion, consider the following.

1) A S4 weapon hits and wounds a model with one wound, T4, EW, and FNP.

2) The defending player fails his armor save for that model.

3) FNP applies due to taking a wound from a weapon not classified for Instant Kill due to its strength not being double the models toughness.

4) Player fails his FNP.

5) EW does not apply, though TECHNICALLY the model would be "Instantly Killed" from the above, due to the weapon failing to fall into the classification of an "Instant Kill" weapon.

6) Same player then has a model hit with a S8 weapon, double the T4, bringing the IK rule into play.

7) IK states there must be a FAILED SAVE before removing the model due to Instant Kill.

8) FNP is disallowed due to the rule itself stating it does not work against weapons with a strength double the models toughness.

9) EW applies due to the weapon falling into the classification of being an "Instant Kill Weapon" in this case.

10) This now creates a paradox. The model only has one wound to lose. FNP cannot allow the model to keep going because the IK rule trumps it. EW trumps IK. The Failed save means the model still takes a wound. The model would still be removed because it only had ONE WOUND to lose.

People seem to want to apply EW before FNP, but the IK rule only begins to apply AFTER A FAILED SAVE!
FNP can only be rolled AFTER A FAILED SAVE!

Applying these rules BEFORE the save roll basically translates into single wound model cannot be killed.

A successful save roll negates the entire arguement.

My position is this....
Nearly every weapon can cause a W1 model to be removed after a single wound if saves and FNP rolls are failed.
BUT, NOT ALL weapons meet the conditions of being an "Instant Kill Weapon".
EW cannot save a model with only one wound, if it is hit, wounded, and a failed save is rolled.
FNP DOES NOT apply to wounds done by weapons that meet the requirements for IK.
EW is only effective for models with more than one wound.

From what I have read here, my understanding of the rulebook and the fact I don't have access to the literal wording of the codex for immune special rule. Here's my thoughts...

Feel No Pain: Allows a normal wound to be ignore on 4+
Instant Death: If str is double Tg then model is killed outright regardless of wounds. (inv save allowed)
Immune: Guess this would say "ignores Instant Death rule, duh!"
(we all know it, but thought I'd explain my reasoning)

The special rules page 78? state that you do not get FNP from Instant Death or power weapons.

So as the two rules for FNP and instant death are used in seperate circumstances depending on the weapon fired at them then you would not get FNP when hit with Instant Death or power weapons.

For the immune bit, I can hazard a guess, but as I said, don't have the codex so I'd be blindly making a point without any evidence to back it up.

Hope it helps

Feel No Pain cannot be used against attacks that inflict instant death.

Eternal Warrior daemons are immune to instant death.

To me, here's what the two camps of argument boil down to:

There's a red car sitting outside.

One person says, "this car is red".

The second person says, "No, actually this car is every color *but* red. This car is blue, and orange, and yellow, and magenta, and it is because these colors are absorbed out of the visible spectrum that red is reflected back and gives the exterior the appearance of being red while actually the car is anything but!"

I say bollocks to the second person. The car is red, and a Plaguebearer shot by a demolisher cannon gets two invulnerable saves before taking a wound.

Sourclams, I like how you think.

The book says that Instant Death negates FNP. Daemons don't suffer instant death, so their FNP is unaffacted.

What complicates things is that the rulebook says something along the lines of "blah blah blah not against Instant Death (Weapons with Strength double or more than the model's Toughness)."

So is that ( ) portion just an example/clarification or also a condition for ignoring? If the latter, then they wouldn't get FNP because regardless of whether it causes ID, it's double their toughness.

Nice ...

Think the one in the book would just be a example
Cause for them they'd negate ID.

sourclams wrote:
The second person says, "No, actually this car is every color *but* red. This car is blue, and orange, and yellow, and magenta, and it is because these colors are absorbed out of the visible spectrum that red is reflected back and gives the exterior the appearance of being red while actually the car is anything but!"

I say bollocks to the second person. The car is red, and a Plaguebearer shot by a demolisher cannon gets two invulnerable saves before taking a wound.

Good one sourclams!!! After looking back at the rules again, once I figured out what Nurglitch was actually proposing, I think I still side with Yak's view. It is a simpler, clearer take on the inter-action of the rules involved. Nurglitch, et al, do have a point and hopefully this will be a moot issue in a very few weeks. I suspect that they will be vindicated once the 5th BGB is published, but for now, I'm going with the KISS principle... Even though I don't play Daemons (or against them) yet...

Just my worthless $.02

Cheers

Ok lets break the Instant Death Rule down for everyone.

Instant Death!
If a creature is wounded by something which has a Strength value of double their Toughness value or greater and fail their save, they are killed outright and removed as a casualty.

If a creature is wounded

Meaning: If the model TAKES A WOUND.

by something which has a Strength value of double their Toughness value or greater

Meaning: Well this part kind of explains itself.

and fail their save,

Meaning: Again explains itself.

Ok.. at this point we see that the rule has a set of conditions that must be applied for this rule to be in effect....
A wound MUST be taken.
A specified S/T Ratio MUST be met.
A Save Must be failed.

All before the model is removed.

Breaking down FNP:

Feel No Pain:
This ability cannot be used against weapons that inflict Instant Death (those with a Strength double or more the model's Toughness).

This ability cannot be used

Meaning: This is a Restriction.

against weapons that inflict Instant Death

Meaning: This defines the above restriction. Note the word WEAPONS is included in the rule.

(those with a Strength double or more the model's Toughness).

Meaning: This clarifies what WEAPONS the restriction includes.

You will note that the ID rule flatly states what would CAUSE Instant Death.
FNP uses () to clarify what weapons would cause Instant Death.

At this point I believe we have no disagreement.

The disagreement is over Eternal Warrior, and how it is applied to a given situation.

Eternal Warrior:
Every model in the Army has the Eternal Warrior universal special rule (see the Warhammer 40,000 rule book) and is therefore immune to Instant Death.

Ok....Not breaking this down.
It clearly states that the Models are immune to Instant Death.

FNP Also Clearly states it cannot be used against WEAPONS of a specified S/T Ratio.

This is not a matter of the car is/is not "red".

Its a matter of what the rules CLEARLY STATE.

In a demolisher cannon VS a plaguebearer situation: The WEAPON (S10) clearly fits the profile given VS the plaguebearer (T5) of being
"something which has a Strength value of double their Toughness value or greater" from the Instant Death rule.
AND
"weapons that inflict Instant Death (those with a Strength double or more the model's Toughness)." From the FNP rule.
As clearly stated by those rules themselves.

The EW rule Clearly states that the Plaguebearer is immune to being removed from the table AFTER being Hit, Wounded, and Failing his normally allowed Inv save.

It still takes A Wound and if that is all it had THEN it would still be removed as a casuality. But if it had more than one (PBs have 2 as I recall) It can continue to fight on.

Every model in the Army has the Eternal Warrior universal special rule (see the Warhammer 40,000 rule book) and is therefore immune to Instant Death.

That's where I stop reading. By my argument, the car is red.

Now insert your very long and detailed post, including the parenthicated bit that you are taking as a categorization of weapons that inflict instant death whereas I treat it as only an example addendum for clarification.

By your argument, the car is not red, but by absorbing every other color, appears red.

It all depends on what order you decide to prioritize EW, FNP, and ID. Some people read it ID, FNP, EW. I read it EW, and stop, because it's the most simple, parsimonious solution. In a month, we'll know for certain. Until then, my argument is going to be exactly one sentence long.

The thing that everyone (except Yak, very briefly) seems to be ignoring is that this codex was written for 5th ed. So how is this going to work in 5th?

No Feel No Pain, even if you have Eternal Warrior.

Nuff said?

It is kind of a moot point isn't it?

I read the 5th edition rulebook and as everyone expected, Feel No Pain does not work against weapons that inflict instant death, even if the model has eternal warrior. It also doesn't work against AP 1 or 2 shooting weapons too, wow!


So anyway, unless you think I'm a big fat liar this "issue" should really be done with.

I'm just glad to see that GW's new policy of spelling it out for their end-users is working.

YAY 5th edition

this will make the death company fear deep striking chaos combi plasma termies

Although I think the Ap1/2 rule is more than a little over-harsh, I do appreciate GW's spelling things out as explicitly as possible.