Whenever any damage is dealt to a character, the player may choose to lose cards to negate ALL damage done.

The key thing to remember here is this can be done anytime damage is dealt to a character regardless of their current hit point total.

The player may choose 1 of 2 options to negate the damage:

Choose one card to lose from their hand.

Two cards to lose from their discard pile.

Note: Any Active cards that would normally be placed in the discard pile, are considered in the discard pile. So they can be lost to negate damage.

After damage is negated any additional effects of the attack are still applied.

Note: Before a character acts in a round, the two cards chosen at the beginning of the round are neither in the player’s hand or lost or discard pile, and so cannot be lost to negate damage.