The wording for the Arcane prefix in the rulebook says “Arcane: Any effect with the Arcane prefix can only be resisted with a Spellshield”
There’s a couple cases that aren’t covered here:
If you are hit with “Arcane fireball” and have retreat, can you reduce the fireball to 10 damage?
If you’re hit with “Arcane fire” and have a ward against fire effects, do you still ward?
If you’re hit by arcane fire, and increase fire effects, possibly because you’re an ice artificer, do you still increase the effect?
General-case answer: the idea of the Arcane prefix is “this means if you don’t have a Spellshield, you take the effect”. If you are unsure whether something you have will make the call less bad, assume it does not. I am making a note to update the rules and add a note about Arcane in the Special Calls section, since it likely should have been in there originally (as a reminder, “Special calls can’t be resisted via normal means. If a defensive ability does not explicitly say it works against any of these, it won’t work against them”)
If you are hit with “Arcane fireball” and have retreat, can you reduce the fireball to 10 damage?
No.
If you’re hit with “Arcane fire” and have a ward against fire effects, do you still ward?
No.
If you’re hit by arcane fire, and increase fire effects, possibly because you’re an ice artificer, do you still increase the effect?
Yes. The “arcane” prefix does not mean it isn’t also a fire effect, only that it is particularly difficult to resist/reduce/etc.
As a bonus answer to a question you didn’t ask: being able to call “immune” to Fire calls does not render you immune to Arcane Fire, for similar reasons to those outlined above.
6 Likes