Sphere of Fire discard / recharge timing


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion

Grand Lodge

Last night, one of my players asked this question:

Sphere of Fire wrote:
Display this card. While displayed, for your combat check, you may use your Arcane or Divine skill + 1d6, you may additionally discard this card to add another 1d6. At the end of your turn, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card; otherwise, attempt an Arcane or Divine 9 check. If you succeed, recharge this card; if you fail, discard it.

Arboreal Blight came up on another player's turn. Fiendish Trees for everyone.

Player is Enora. Just for reference, Arcane skill plus mythic charges plus die from cohort and Arcane die makes the card an auto-recharge.

He plays Sphere of Fire. It's Kyra's turn. He additionally discards it for 1d6.

When does the recharge check come?!? It's not his turn but he discarded the card. The reason is that he wanted to use Toad to put it back in his hand in his turn. I ruled that since he didn't keep it displayed, he had to do the recharge check at that time so it went to the bottom of his deck automatically instead of potentially back in his hand.

Also, if you have enough skill plus mythic charges plus dice to automatically recharge a card without rolling, can you choose to fail the recharge check?


Theryon Stormrune wrote:
Also, if you have enough skill plus mythic charges plus dice to automatically recharge a card without rolling, can you choose to fail the recharge check?

This seems to be why I was not getting a part of your issue. The recharge check being optional (hence, the current wording "you may succeed ... to recharge") was confirmed at least as far back as RotR. (So it's not because the "of your turn" wording that the Enora player will fail recharge/swap with Toad - he can do it whenever he has option to recharge).

As for the issue of *when* Enora was supposed to recharge, the current wording is obvious, however I can see the intent going both ways, both beneficial in some ways:

A) If FAQed into "the end of the turn" - yes, your Enora can make use of the Fire Sphere again in her turn (and actually even earlier - as soon as the current encounter is over), instead of having to wait to the end of her upcoming turn.

B) As written: If Enora hadn't discarded the spell, she would get to use it all through the current player's turn and all through her upcoming turn and potentially - all through the turns of any other players between her and the current player.

Grand Lodge

Except that Sphere of Fire is written differently than other recharge checks as I posted above. It doesn't say "may attempt" although it can be implied. It says "; otherwise, attempt a".

Also, we're not confused if you are playing the card as displayed. That is clear. But the card was discarded to gain the additional damage … while on another player's turn.

So, as written, the check for recharge doesn't occur until the end of Enora's turn (which is after Kyra's turn who is the current player and after my turn and then Enora's). So the question becomes, even though the card was displayed and discarded on another player's turn, does the recharge check still come at the end of Enora's turn and the card sits in the discard pile until then?


The FAQ adds wording to indicate you recharge either when you discard it or at the end of your turn, which ever happens first.

Grand Lodge

Thank you. I couldn't find the entry last night. Except it still doesn't add the "may". I'm going to play it with "you may attempt".


Yeah, I had to find where that one was. Vic clarified that here.

Grand Lodge

LOL When asked, on the fly, about a card (that you don't normally play), those rulings were not easy to find!

Yeah, I would have ruled to add "may" (but he was insisting that as written, the recharge check was mandatory) but it was more about the timing that was an issue last night. So we played it wrong last night and I'll let him know.

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