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Not something I've experienced thus far in my local Meta, as nobody besides myself seems to use Psykers... at all.

I suppose this is more a question on the method that Smite does damage. When you're hit with its multiple Mortal Wounds, are they counted as being multiple sources of One Damage, thus preventing Serpent Shield from working. Or, is one source of Multiple damage, allowing the Serpent Shield to reduce it by 1, to a minimum of 1?

Had the question come up while watching a MWG BatRep, and felt that they were doing it wrong. Which honestly is the case with a lot of how they play, but that's beside the point.

Thanks!

Serpent shield only affects shooting, so has no effect on smite.

The rulebook clarifies that mortal wounds are dealt 1 at a time, so anything that cares about damage or modifies it or whatever will see it as 1 damage, followed by another 1 damage, followed by another 1 damage, and so on.

The Serpent Shield or whatever states explicitly in its description that it affects attacks made with a ranged weapon. Thus, it does not affect psychic powers.

Having said that, you can expect a horde of mindless arguing that shouts about "ranged weapons aren't explicitly explained in the rules!" kind of garbage if this thread lasts long enough - because people are generally horrible.

 Elbows wrote:
The Serpent Shield or whatever states explicitly in its description that it affects attacks made with a ranged weapon. Thus, it does not affect psychic powers.

Having said that, you can expect a horde of mindless arguing that shouts about "ranged weapons aren't explicitly explained in the rules!" kind of garbage if this thread lasts long enough - because people are generally horrible.

Well, technically that's true. Ranged weapons AREN'T defined. That's only a problem because GW uses a permissive rules set. If they used a restrictive rules set vagueness wouldn't be so bad.

Technicalities and pet peeves aside, there's no basis in the RAW to say that psychic powers are 'ranged weapons' even if we jokingly call them "mind bullets". So the shield does nothing. Plus what Yarium said about Mortal Wounds to seal the deal.

There are five types of ranged weapon:
Page 180, Weapon Types

How can anyone honestly argue that 'Ranged Weapons are not defined' when we are informed of five weapon types that are Ranged Weapons?
In addition, every Codex has a list somewhere titled 'Ranged Weapons' that always contains Weapons of these five types....

I understand the desire to ridicule those people who take pleasure arguing over semantics in a Rule based system, but those people tend to be pretty good at it if they have been on sites like this one for years.
One could actually offended such a person by implying that they would be stumped by such an easily disproved argument of 'what is a ranged weapon when we get down to it?...' Such people will always flick through the Rule book like I did, find the one clause that specifically informs us how to determine if something is a Ranged Weapon like I did, and then post it here to highlight the point as I did.

Seriously - I am starting to wonder what sort of people your running into out there, with such ridiculous argument such as 'Advanced Rules don't over-write Basic Rules?' and 'Ranged weapons are not limited to the listed Weapon Types... cause it didn't say every other weapons are Melee Weapons...."
Honest though - I really would like a 20000 page glossary for this 20 page game... but that is just me, I don't expect others to need to Lawyer that hard.

Jinx: welcome to dakka; where if it is not explicitly defined it is "undefined" and if it is explicitly defined an argument on whether "a" means 1 or "the noun" will invariably occur.

Mortal wounds ruling was already shown; it makes sense with the allocation rules and the "wounds lost beyond the model's current value are discarded" portion of the resolution rules.

I've been here a while Kel, and rare is it to encounter a long term poster stating something is 'undefined' when it is very easy to prove otherwise.
I might see that from someone who buzzes through from another forum, or entire site at times, but never from the serious Rule Lawyers who have actually read the book.

I think what you are referring to is the 'is Smite an Attack' question that was raised, and even that question makes sense when you look at it within the Context provided by the person raising it. That poster found it very curious that this edition did something very different the previous editions; it got rid of the 'this category of power are shooting attacks,' 'this category of Powers are Boons,' and so forth. Naturally, as this is a player who is moving from the previous chunky systems where such a definition existed for a reason, they understandably wondered what this means for Rule interactions concerning 'Shooting Attacks' and 'Psychic Powers.' They where also provided with the correct answer:- Previous editions required the power to be 'shooting' just to access a needed sequence to function, while this edition has each power self-enclosed so it can function without accessing the Fight or Shooting sequences.

In addition, as this edition is even more embracing of 'the common tongue' then the previous, anything we would normally describe as an attack falls under the 'attack' category:
If someone threw mind bolts at me, I would say that I was attacked... so Smite is an attack.

I know jinx, it was a joke.

It sometimes seems like posters here would have preferred a glossary defining every term in the rule book that would be longer than the actual rules(and, of course, there would be no less than 7 instances within the rules that a synonym to one of the defined terms would be used accidentally and a 12 page thread railing about how that rule is clearly meaning something other that what it says when you replace the proper term).

20-000 pages of glossary sounds perfect for a 20 page game!
*Smiles and thumbs up*

Whether or not Smite is considered a ranged attack for the purpose of the Serpent Shield is moot.

Unlike multiple damage attacks, Mortal wounds are applied one at a time.

As such, assuming you roll 3 for the number of wounds here is how it works out for both getting the shield and not getting the shield.

No shield
1. Apply 1 Mortal Wound
2. Apply 1 Mortal Wound
3. Apply 1 Mortal Wound

With shield
1. Apply 1 Mortal Wound, reduce by 1 to a minimum of 1
2. Apply 1 Mortal Wound, reduce by 1 to a minimum of 1
3. Apply 1 Mortal Wound, reduce by 1 to a minimum of 1


Either way, you still lose 1 wound per mortal wound inflicted, for a total of 3 wounds in this scenario.

Yeah MW directly bypass SS.

The simple answer to this is...

Mortal wounds are wounds, and serpent shield reduces damage...not wounds. Thus it has no effect on mortal wounds.

From 'Mortal Wounds', page 181 of the main rulebook:

Each mortal wound inflicts one point of damage on the target unit.