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I was playing a match and playing as normal and my friend called me out as cheating for an unclear reason. He said I was using my savior protocol wrong, which I very well might have been because I barely understand the rule.

The rule in the Xenos 2 codex states
"if a drone unit is within 3" of a friendly Tau empire infantry or battle suit unit, you can choose to allocate any wounds to the drones instead of the target unit."

So I am like brand new, so I don't really know what to think, but I know a bit about the rules. So here's what I THINK people are saying it's supposed to mean:

if it's in range, and the unit fails to make the save, you choose to make the drone take the damage.

(Targeting: Battlesuit within 3" of Shield drone
Battlesuit rolls a 1 on all saves and fails.
Activate savior protocol.
Drone takes damage instead of Battlesuit)

What I think it's supposed to be:

When a target is declared and the attack hits, you may declare the nearby drone as the target and have the drone make the save/ take the damage instead. That unit would also absorb the damage from the blocked attack, taking the entirety of the damage.

(targeting: Battlesuit within 3" of a shield drone
Activate savior protocol
Shield drone makes their 4+ invul save/ fails
Sheild drone does/does not take damage dependent on result.)


So who's right? or are neither of us right? Would really appreciate a more intricate explanation as to the proper usage of this rule.

You are incorrect, per the Errata

Pages 53, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73
and 74 – Saviour Protocols
Change this rule to read:
‘Saviour Protocols: If a <Sept> Drones unit is within 3"
of a friendly <Sept> Infantry or <Sept> Battlesuit
unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you
can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of
the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal
wound instead of the normal damage.’

Okay that makes MUCH more sense when you say it like that. Even if it still is really poorly worded and confusing in the manual.
Like I said, I'm totally new so I totally wasn't doing it on purpose.

So from what I understand, since it turns into a mortal wound after the initial failed save. The only drones that would be able to save it from there would be the shield drone and the guardian drone because of the invul saves? Or do they just straight up not get the save at all?

Mortal Wounds ignore all saves, but do not ignore things that are rolled for upon suffering a wound (such as the Warlord trait Tenacious Survivor.

Fortunately for Shield Drones the Errata gives them a nifty ability:

Pages 53, 63 and 69 – Abilities
Add the following sentence onto the end of the MV52
Shield Generator and Shield Generator abilities:
‘In addition, roll a D6 each time a Drone with this
ability loses a wound; on a 5+ that Drone does not lose
a wound.’

That's pretty neat!

So when declaring the Savior protocol and absorbing the hit, would it be taking all wounds from 1 source?

so say:

One attack from a gun would inflict 6 wounds and then 2 were unsaved by the original target.
Declare the savior protocol (Am I declaring it on the source of damage/ the 2 wounds left over? or do I have to declare it on one wound at a time?)
Wounds unsaved by the original target now become mortal wounds directed at the drone,which it can "save" with a 5+

can I only take 1 wound? even if I succeed? or can I take as many wounds as I want as long as I make the 5+ for each of them?

So do I go:

1 wound, 5+ save, succeed
THEN
another wound, 5+ save

or is the limit= 1 wound, 5+ save and no matter the result that's the extent of it

and If I don't save those wounds, do the extras still go to the original target? or do they all go to the drone and it dies?

Example

Drone takes 2 mortal wounds, and dies.
OR
Drone takes 1 mortal wound, dies.
1 mortal wound goes back to original target/squad.

Hope I'm making sense. I'm just trying to see what the limits of this ability are cause to me, it seems like it has a LOT of potential power.

 KnightEclipse wrote:
That's pretty neat!

So when declaring the Savior protocol and absorbing the hit, would it be taking all wounds from 1 source?

so say:

One attack from a gun would inflict 6 wounds and then 2 were unsaved by the original target.

This edition is slightly different. You don't roll saves per wound (exactly). You roll saves per hit that successfully wounds. So a weapon that hits once for 6 damage would get 1 save, where as a weapon that hits 6 times for 1 damage each would get 6 saves.

Wounds unsaved by the original target now become mortal wounds directed at the drone,which it can "save" with a 5+

can I only take 1 wound? even if I succeed? or can I take as many wounds as I want as long as I make the 5+ for each of them?

As long as you pass the 5+ "save" (technically not a save but I'm sure you understand what I mean), you can continue to pass wounds off to the drone(s).

Alright, that about explains everything I think. Thanks a ton for your help man you've been very helpful!

To be a bit more specific, for each Hit that Wounds in 8th edition, you allocate them to a model, one at a time, which saves and then takes damage if it fails that save. Drone Savior Protocol allows you to Allocate a Wounding Hit to a Drone Squadron which instead becomes a Mortal Wound. This will kill a Drone with no Saving Throw, but a Shield Drone can make a 5+ roll to negate the wound and survive. You can keep doing this, one Wounding Hit at a time, until you run to of Drones.

Yeah totally! That about sums it up!
Should just say that in the god damn codex.

A few things for you to follow up:

The 5+ on the drone is often referred to as a 'Feel No Pain' or FNP roll.

These are taken against each point of damage, so if you're hit with a D6 weapon that scores 4 damage, you need to make 4 rolls. This is important if your shield drone is shot at directly rather than damaged passed to it. You'd make a 4+ invun save first against the shot, if this fails you can still make your 4 5+ rolls in this example.

If you pass this damage over however using savior protocols, it becomes 1 mortal wound so only 1 5+ roll needed.

You don't pass the damage over; just allocate the successful to-wound. It still reduces any potential damage(say the d6 a lascannon would normally roll) to a single mortal wound, but you never get to the damage portion of the weapon profile.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
You don't pass the damage over; just allocate the successful to-wound. It still reduces any potential damage(say the d6 a lascannon would normally roll) to a single mortal wound, but you never get to the damage portion of the weapon profile.

Okay now I'm confused again.
So you're converting the damage of a weapon to one mortal wound? So damage from a single wound doesn't carry over?

Ex:

Weapon does D6 damage per wound, there is 1 wound.
Savior Protocol.
Convert to one mortal Wound
Apply Drone rules if Possible (Ex: Shield drones)
There is no left over damage, just the one mortal wound which would go to the drone upon failure

Is that would you mean?

 KnightEclipse wrote:

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
You don't pass the damage over; just allocate the successful to-wound. It still reduces any potential damage(say the d6 a lascannon would normally roll) to a single mortal wound, but you never get to the damage portion of the weapon profile.

Okay now I'm confused again.
So you're converting the damage of a weapon to one mortal wound? So damage from a single wound doesn't carry over?

Ex:

Weapon does D6 damage per wound, there is 1 wound.
Savior Protocol.
Convert to one mortal Wound
Apply Drone rules if Possible (Ex: Shield drones)
There is no left over damage, just the one mortal wound which would go to the drone upon failure

Is that would you mean?

Yes, the damage from that wound gets converted to one mortal wound with no left over damage.

The one place where it gets trickier is if you have a model (or a weapon) with a special rule that says it does a mortal wound in addition to normal damage. In that case, you have a wound doing whatever damage plus a mortal wound. This would end up being 2 mortal wounds going to the drone unit - one is from converting the wound (like in your example, converting the d6 damage) to one mortal wound. The other is the mortal wound that was in addition to that regular wound being transferred. I hope I didn't confuse you with that; this has been something that's been discussed on the forum though, so you'll probably have it pop up in a game at some point.

That is correct.
Lascannon example step-by-step:

Lascannon targets a battlesuit.
Lascannon hits the battlesuit.
Lascannon wounds the battlesuit.
Drone activates savior protocols making the successful wound on the battlesuit a single mortal wound on the drone. Lascannon wound ceases to exist. Lascannon does not roll for damage to any models.

Yeah no, totally get it now. Just sucks that none of this is explained in the codex.

Um it doesn't reduce the damage down to 1, example if a laz does d6 damage the damage is the wounds. So if you manage to do 5 damage then that's 5 mortal wound not 1. It clearly stats that as saying for each successful wound which is the d6. Damage done by weapons in 8th are the wounds it inflicts, So if you didn't save 3 wounds from a laz the you would be making 3 5+ saves not one. The ability is activated after the initial model has already done its saves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:
You are incorrect, per the Errata

Pages 53, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73
and 74 – Saviour Protocols
Change this rule to read:
‘Saviour Protocols: If a <Sept> Drones unit is within 3"
of a friendly <Sept> Infantry or <Sept> Battlesuit
unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you
can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of
the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal
wound instead of the normal damage.’

shadowl1980 wrote:
Um it doesn't reduce the damage down to 1, example if a laz does d6 damage the damage is the wounds. So if you manage to do 5 damage then that's 5 mortal wound not 1. It clearly stats that as saying for each successful wound which is the d6. Damage done by weapons in 8th are the wounds it inflicts, So if you didn't save 3 wounds from a laz the you would be making 3 5+ saves not one. The ability is activated after the initial model has already done its saves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:
You are incorrect, per the Errata

Pages 53, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73
and 74 – Saviour Protocols
Change this rule to read:
‘Saviour Protocols: If a <Sept> Drones unit is within 3"
of a friendly <Sept> Infantry or <Sept> Battlesuit
unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you
can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of
the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal
wound instead of the normal damage.’

"Wound" is used in two different locations with two different meanings. The placement of this ability is at the allocation step, before damage is determined.

shadowl1980 wrote:
Um it doesn't reduce the damage down to 1, example if a laz does d6 damage the damage is the wounds. So if you manage to do 5 damage then that's 5 mortal wound not 1. It clearly stats that as saying for each successful wound which is the d6. Damage done by weapons in 8th are the wounds it inflicts, So if you didn't save 3 wounds from a laz the you would be making 3 5+ saves not one. The ability is activated after the initial model has already done its saves.

No, while other similar abilities activate after saves, Savior Protocol activates before any saves are taken. In effect the drone steps in to take the hit before it even reaches the original target. And the effect of that is that the entire hit is converted into 1 mortal wound.

Cheers

Andrew

shadowl1980 wrote:
Um it doesn't reduce the damage down to 1, example if a laz does d6 damage the damage is the wounds. So if you manage to do 5 damage then that's 5 mortal wound not 1. It clearly stats that as saying for each successful wound which is the d6. Damage done by weapons in 8th are the wounds it inflicts, So if you didn't save 3 wounds from a laz the you would be making 3 5+ saves not one. The ability is activated after the initial model has already done its saves.

Incorrect.

If this were the case you could wipe out a unit of 6 drones with 1 lascannon shot as mortal wounds spill over.

Think of the D6 as 'Damage' rather than wounds. GW have played fast and loose with the wording this edition but it flows better in the mind with different terms.

Not even just think of the d6 as "damage"; the d6 is literally the damage.

For each point of damage your model takes, that model loses 1 wound(as in reduces the value of the W characteristic on its profile)

But savior protocals do not step in at that point; they step in when you would allocate a successful to-wound roll to a model in the targeted unit.