I've never given the burglar much though before, but since we've started removing basic cards, its raised two questions for me about the burglar. I have my opinion on what the answers are, but I'd like some confirmation, even if only from other players, that I'm correct.
This may have been asked before, but the forum search function is acting buggy right now, so I didn't find anything in a search (even tried a site specific Google search and got nothing). So here goes:
If you do not acquire this card, discard 1 weapon or item.
So, here are my two questions:
1. What happens if you evade the burglar?
2. What happens if you don't attempt to acquire him?
I think that in both cases you discard 1 weapon or item. For Q2 this seems more obvious, since his power doesn't say "If you fail a check to acquire..." It just says if you do not acquire him, and not attempting is still not acquiring.
Q1, I still think I'm right, but I guess what has me second guessing myself is that his Powers don't say "If you encounter this card" like a Blessing of the Gods and they don't say "After the encounter" either, so he's kind of unique (at least as far as I can think). But I think the "Cards do what they say rule" covers this:
Cards Do What They Say. Read any card as it is encountered or played, and do whatever it says as soon as it makes sense to do so.
So it makes sense that his Power applies when he is encountered and that evading or not attempting to acquire him doesn't change that.
That makes it interesting for those deciding they don't want to attempt to acquire him so they can remove him as a basic card. Assuming my instincts are right.
So anyway, some confirmation or other opinions on that would be nice. Thanks everyone.
I've never given the burglar much though before, but since we've started removing basic cards, its raised two questions for me about the burglar. I have my opinion on what the answers are, but I'd like some confirmation, even if only from other players, that I'm correct.
This may have been asked before, but the forum search function is acting buggy right now, so I didn't find anything in a search (even tried a site specific Google search and got nothing). So here goes:
If you do not acquire this card, discard 1 weapon or item.So, here are my two questions:
1. What happens if you evade the burglar?
2. What happens if you don't attempt to acquire him?I think that in both cases you discard 1 weapon or item. For Q2 this seems more obvious, since his power doesn't say "If you fail a check to acquire..." It just says if you do not acquire him, and not attempting is still not acquiring.
Q1, I still think I'm right, but I guess what has me second guessing myself is that his Powers don't say "If you encounter this card" like a Blessing of the Gods and they don't say "After the encounter" either, so he's kind of unique (at least as far as I can think). But I think the "Cards do what they say rule" covers this:
Cards Do What They Say. Read any card as it is encountered or played, and do whatever it says as soon as it makes sense to do so.So it makes sense that his Power applies when he is encountered and that evading or not attempting to acquire him doesn't change that.
That makes it interesting for those deciding they don't want to attempt to acquire him so they can remove him as a basic card. Assuming my instincts are right.
So anyway, some confirmation or other opinions on that would be nice. Thanks everyone.
I'd play it as he's sneaky enough to take some goods even if you evade. Better to try to acquire him unless you have something you don't mind discarding.
Don't you need to encounter something to evade it? To me you encountered, evaded then failed to acquire. But you might be right I'd liked to know who is.
Btw just to point out that as a player of PACG this is exactly the kind of question that sometimes frustrates me regarding the rules of the game. Even after reading 100s of posts and having what I consider to be an above average understanding of the rules, I still have no idea what the answer is here.
This seems like a pretty clear conflict between "Cards do what they say" (which I guess you feel needs to be an actual "rule" but seems more like something you say when you're tired of hearing rule questions) and the comments in the past (not sure if this is directly in the rulebook or not) that all card text is to be disregarded when evading unless something directly involves evading or gives an immunity to the type of power giving the evade.
I'd like to know for sure too.
Evading let's you ignore all text except for that which prohibits evasion or which begins with "when you encounter".
My one problem with that is that I think when Mike said you ignore everything on the card except things about evading, he wasn't really issuing a ruling, so much as trying to emphasize how evading relates to "Before the encounter" and "After the encounter".
The rule to apply Powers when they makes sense combined with the fact it has no subordinate clause that relates to any of the other timing effects (if you encounter, before the encounter, after the encounter) is what gives me trouble. That is why I'd say "Well I didn't acquire him, so I have to do this because that makes sense."
Actually, the closest thing that comes to being worded like this is the "If you do not have the arcane or divine skill, banish this card" sentence on the spells. But we've already had it confirmed that those only go into effect when you play the spell.
Can anyone else think of another boon that has wording that clearly is not related to activating its powers, but is also not conditioned by "If you encounter" or any other obvious timing clause?
Here is where Mike said that by the way. I'm re-reading it now. But the context is clearly about evading monsters. That is why I'm not sure he meant his statement to apply to everything. Clearly it doesn't apply to BotGs.
I know. But the statement "If you encounter this card..." doesn't exactly qualify as "anything that says anything about evading or things that might let you evade." Maybe in the sense that a card is rendered encountered before you have the option to evade, but the isn't exactly the same thing as being "about evading", at least not directly.
Like I said, the context is evading monsters. That is why I'm hesitant to apply it too broadly.
Here is the BotGs logic said in what is maybe a slightly more accurate way:
"You can't evade a BotG because it is an encountered card and it says if you encounter it you acquire it."
And here is similar logic for Burglar:
"Even if you evade the Burglar you still discard a weapon or item because it says you do that if you don't acquire it and a card you evaded you did not acquire. You didn't "fail" to acquire it. But you still didn't acquire it."
I do appreciate your insight though. Thanks.
But again, I'm not sure no text on the card matters.
"Before the encounter" and "After the encounter" don't matter, because they are specifically a part of the sequential order of an encountered card that happens after evading and evading immediately ends the encounter.
But the phrase on the Burglar doesn't have those phrases. It has no phrase in relation to the encountering a card sequence. So I'm not sure we can say it really doesn't matter at all.
Your interpretation sort of assumes the "After the encounter" phrase. If it said "After the encounter" I would wholeheartedly agree with you.
My interpretation sort of assumes the "If you encounter" phrase. And if it said "If you encounter this card and fail to acquire it..." you would probably wholeheartedly agree with me.
The fact it says neither is what gives me pause. I'd tend to assume the "If encountered" phrase (because I'm applying it as soon as it makes sense, at least in my mind), rather than assume the "After the encounter" phrase.
But at this point, I think we shall just have to wait for a more authoritative ruling.
But that is the thing, I don't want to assume it. Not wanting to assume it is why I asked the question in the first place.
And maybe more accurate would be to say, you are are assuming that you can ignore everything that doesn't say "If encountered" or "Evade". But no one has ever said that, not really. Mike's statement about ignoring what was on cards was made in the specific context of evading monsters, not of evading boons. And that idea in the formulation isn't expressed anywhere in the rulebook. Doing what a card says to do when it makes sense to do it is expressed in the rulebook. That is why I'm leaning the way I am.
Short of a citation from the rulebook or a more clear official statement about how evading relates to phrases like this, I'm not sure I can be convinced otherwise.
Well, I won't be shocked if I'm wrong. I've been wrong too many times (in both PACG things and non-PACG things) to be shocked anymore.
+
Evade ignores the entire card except for anything that says anything about evading or things that might let you evade.
I found this. Looks like csouth154 is right.
+Evade ignores the entire card except for anything that says anything about evading or things that might let you evade.
I found this. Looks like csouth154 is right.
Copy and paste didn't work the way I hope it would. That was written by Mike Selinker in a Evade thread.
Yeah. I hope this card is a little more hostile though if you don't acquire it. Early game annoyance is good.
Yeah, it should either have "If you encounter this card but do not..." or "After the encounter..." to the last sentence in his powers to make it perfectly clear.
We'll discuss this on Monday. Thanks for bringing it up.
Hmm, this is an interesting topic. Up until now, I've been playing it the way csouth has described, i.e. when you evade a card, you ignore all text except for things that specifically prevent you from evading or things that say "When you encounter."
Looking more carefully at the rulebook, I see that this "ignore all text" rule is never explicitly stated anywhere.
Evade the Card (Optional). If you have a power or card that lets you evade the card you’re encountering, you may immediately shuffle it back into the deck; it is neither defeated nor undefeated, and the encounter is over.
The above paragraph directly implies the following when you evade an encounter:
-You ignore all "before/after the encounter" effects (because the encounter is over as soon as you evade, and those effects would happen after the opportunity to evade)-You ignore all effects that would modify the "Attempt the check" step of the encounter (again, because the encounter is already over before this text would become relevant)
-You ignore all "when defeated/undefeated" effects (because the evaded card is not considered defeated nor undefeated)
It is neither stated explicitly nor directly implied by the rulebook that you can ignore any other text on the encountered card. Mike's comment about ignoring all text except for evading-related text may be the intended rule, but the point is, the rulebook doesn't seem to directly support it.
Interpreting it like a "rules-lawyer", I think I would now say that evading a burglar would NOT allow you to ignore its effect. It'll be interesting to see where Mike and his team land on this.
If a card said "If this card is not defeated you are dealt two combat damage", would evading negate that?
I interpret that phrase from the book to mean you don't do the rest of the steps, but that anything on the card that wasn't one of those steps sill applies.
The book says the encounter is over immediately if you evade. How else can you interpret that, other than that it means that anything that doesn't happen immediately upon encountering doesn't happen at all?
That's the way I interpreted it originally, too. But after thinking about it some more, I think that interpretation has a few logical holes.
Namely, we know you can't just flat out ignore ALL text on a card when you encounter it and decide to evade it. First, you have to check if the card has any immunities that might prevent you from evading, or if it outright says you can't evade it. Second, you have to check if any of its effects happen when "this card is encountered."
So why, when you evade, would you get to ignore some text but not ignore other text? How do you make the distinction between what to ignore and what not to ignore? You can make the rulebook explicitly call out certain types of phrases as identifiers, i.e. specifically write "may not be evaded", "immunity to X", "when encountered" as exceptions that can't be ignored when you choose to evade. Nothing of that sort is explicitly in the rulebook, and it would be kind of a clunky design (in my opinion) to put them in there.
It's much tighter design and more logically consistent if NO text is ever really ignored when you evade it. Instead of ignoring text, think of it as certain text being rendered irrelevant when you evade, because you are skipping the steps in the encounter where those effects would otherwise matter.
So my current interpretation of it goes like this:
1. You encounter a card
2. You read ALL text on the card
3. If none of that text prevents you from evading, you may evade. If you evade, apply any relevant text effects, then skip the remaining steps.
4. Apply any effects that happen "before" the encounter
5. Attempt the check, applying any text effects that would matter here
6. Apply any effects that happen "after" the encounter
7. Resolve the encounter, applying any text effects that would matter here
So again, I think it makes more sense to think of evading NOT as something that lets you ignore some or all of an encountered card, but it's something that let's you skip most parts of the encounter. You can *effectively* ignore any text related to steps 4-7, but there is no explicit rule about ignoring ANY text when you evade.
"Defeat" and "Acquire" are equivalent states of an encounter. Defeat is to banes as acquire is to boons.
I'm basically saying that banes can be defeated, undefeated, and not defeated/not undefeated. And therefore I'd also think that boons can be acquired, unacquired, and not acquired/not unacquired.
So if we'd apply "not defeated" to an evaded bane, why wouldn't we apply "not acquired" to an evaded boon?
Like I said above, Mike's comment to ignore all text on the card except what relates to evading and being able to evade was in the middle of a long conversation about evading monsters. I don't think he was issuing a "ruling" when he said that. He was just trying to help someone understand how evading worked. And it was in a very limited and specific context.
Again, I'm totally fine if I'm wrong on this. I just think what I'm saying makes the most sense to me right now.
If a ruling does come down on the side of how I'm reading it, what should be changed is the rule book. The Encountering a Card section should have this changed:
Evade the Card (Optional). If you have a power or card that lets you evade the card you’re encountering, you may immediately shuffle it back into the deck; an evaded bane is neither defeated nor undefeated and an evaded boon is neither acquired nor unacquired. The encounter is over.
I'm not sure that is really the best language, but I think it gets the idea across.
Mike said they would talk about it today, so we shall see what is said when they've had time to decide. Until then, lets remember we share as common ground our love for PACG. Long live PACG!
Right. But the Burglar text isn't a "Before the Encounter" or "After the Encounter" effect. At least not explicitly. Look at Zombie Nest. It says if any character does not defeat the Zombie Minion, the Zombie Nest is undefeated. If Merisiel evade's her Zombie Minion, it is not defeated and the Zombie Nest is therefore undefeated. Likewise, if Merisiel evades the Burglar, is is not acquired.
Evaded BotGs are still automatically acquired (slightly different I know since you never really even get to the evade step so you can't really evade them). And that is not a before the encounter or after the encounter effect either. So evade doesn't simply trump all text on a card. It just means don't go through the rest of the encountering a card steps. You still have to apply anything that isn't a part of one of those steps though.
That is my line of thinking anyway. csouth, who understands this game very well, quite respectfully disagrees. I acknowledge his line of argument has merit to it. I'm just not convinced enough. So I'll wait for word from on high. Or the pacific northwest at least.
The way I'm seeing it now, the moment you flip over and encounter a card, ALL effects in the Powers box of that card are immediately on "standby mode". While that encounter card is still revealed, any effects on "standby" immediately trigger the moment their associated condition is fulfilled. If there is no associated condition, the effect happens immediately.
So effects like "This card has immunity to X" or "This card may not be evaded" trigger immediately upon revealing the card, since there is no condition associated with those effects.
Effects like "Before/after the encounter, do X" happen at steps specifically mentioned in the encounter sequence, so those effects happen immediately when you reach those steps. Evading the encounter explicitly skips those steps, so those effects never get out of "standby mode".
Effects like "If this card is defeated/undefeated do X" only trigger when you either succeed or fail at the check(s). Since the evading rule specifically says the card is neither defeated nor undefeated, these kind of effects never get out of "standby mode".
The burglar's effect states "If you do not acquire this card, discard 1 weapon or item." Just like any effect, it goes into "standby mode" the moment the card is revealed. When you evade it, you are "not acquiring" it, so the condition is fulfilled and the effect should trigger.
Nothing in the rulebook says to ignore any text on an encountered card when you evade it. For as long as that encountered card is in front of you, all of its effects/powers are on "standby" and will trigger immediately when appropriate.
At least this is how I'm interpreting it. I don't mean to come across as sound as if I know this is the way it definitely is, it would just clutter what I'm trying to say by constantly having to write "I think that..." or "The way I see it...". I'm really interested to see what the team decides on this.
I don't think you came across that way. I'm also conscious of how I "sound" when I write on forums. But I give everyone the default tone of "friendly and helpful, not at all arrogant" unless the opposite is blatantly obvious. And even then its often best to just ignore arrogant/rude tones to direct the thread back to the real issue at hand.
I don't think anyone on this thread has been jerky or arrogant. Passionate maybe, but passion is good. People should have passion for great things like PACG.
Thanks Vic. And I realize "unacquired" isn't really a term used at all. I was more trying to show that an evaded boon is "not acquired". I'd actually say that if for any reason you don't acquire a boon (don't try, fail the check, or evade), that boon is "not acquired". I went a bit too far in drawing the parallel.
Sorry if I confused anyone with that attempt at parallelism.
We wait patiently for your insight.