The Cultist Charioteers say (to the effect of):
"...when you encounter a card with a check to defeat or acquire, roll d6+d8 ... If the Charioteers' result is greater than your result, put the card into the Charioteers' stack. Otherwise, put it in your stack..."
The following questions were raised on our table;
1) How does the Charioteers power interact with Obsidian Golem, Fiery Glare, Key of the Second Vault? All of these cards let you banish the card you encounter.
- do you chose which power to apply first - so you chose to banish the encountered card, and you never get to roll for the Cultists or to put the banished card into a stack?
- if you chose/rule to apply the Cultists first (so you roll for their result), then you banish the encountered card - does no one get the card (because the remainder of the Cultists power becomes "impossible instruction"), or should the Cultists get it because you didn't generate a result (mind you, the banishing happens in When You Encounter, and before Attempt the Check - which step can ostensibly be seen as the trigger for the "If the Cultists' result is greater than the player's..." part of the Cultists power)?
2) How does the Charioteers power interact with auto-defeat/auto-acquire powers? We know those count as "succeeding at your check", however - does the player get the card, because there's no "player result" that the Charioteers can beat; OR do the Charioteers get the card, because the player didn't generate a result, so it's assumed the Charioteers beat it?
3) What happens with cards without checks to defeat/acquire? Do we treat them normally (i.e. they get banished/displayed/added to player hands), OR does the "...When you encounter card with a check to defeat or acquire ... Otherwise, put the card in your stack..." condition means that you automatically get into your stack cards without check?
I remember this discussion occurring, but it was a couple years ago, so standard disclaimer that I am _not_ the rules arbiter (that's Vic and Mike):
1) It is banished (not in a trophy stack)
3) They are treated normally and do not go in a stack.
(Yes, I skipped 2, see disclaimer)
1) It is banished (not in a trophy stack)
3) They are treated normally and do not go in a stack.
Thanks, Keith! It seems we made the right call on these two (though some players felt that on point 1) we were perhaps trying to make the game "too easy" on us, so they wanted that we clarify this matter officially :)
Chief Technical Officer
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It's important to note that the Charioteer does NOT say this:
• Before you act, roll.
• Encounter the card.
• After you resolve the encounter, put the card in a stack.
It says:
• When you encounter, roll, then attempt to acquire/defeat, then put the card in a stack.
Which is to say, the whole thing is one big "when you encounter" power, and when you execute a power, you execute the whole thing (except parts that are impossible).
Situation 1:
The banishment powers you're citing happen at the same time as the Charioteer's power, so you can choose which you execute first.
If you choose to banish first, that doesn't makes the instruction to roll impossible. So you roll. And since it's all one power, you keep going.
The next instruction is "Then attempt to acquire or defeat the card." Again, its previous banishment doesn't make that impossible. (If Charioteer said "attempt a check to acquire a random ally from the box," you'd have to do it, right?)
And then you're directed to put it in one stack or the other, and given that it clearly already applies to cards that would be in the box because you failed to acquire them, its pretty clear that it can make you dig it out of the box because you banished it and then failed to acquire or defeat it.
On the other hand, if you choose to execute the Charioteer power first, the card ends up on one deck or the other, and then, since the banish power isn't impossible, it gets banished. So you might not want to do that in some situations.
Situation 2:
First, evaluate "If the Cultist Charioteers’ result exceeds the result of your highest check to acquire or defeat, put the card on top of a trophy stack next to this card."
Since you have no result, there's no way to exceed it—same answer as the old "autodefeated Rat Swarm" question—so you don't put it on the Charioteers' stack.
Then, evaluate "Otherwise, if you acquired or defeated the card, put it on top of a trophy stack next to your deck."
Since you automatically acquired or defeated it, that's what you do.
Situation 3:
Since the Charioteer power happens only "when you encounter a card that has a check to acquire or defeat", it doesn't happen when you encounter any other type of card, so you complete those encounters as usual. (The "otherwise" is tied to the "If the Cultist Charioteers’ result exceeds..." clause. The man reason that should be clear is that that's the bit that immediately precedes it; also, "While displayed, when you encounter a card that has a check to acquire or defeat, each character rolls 1d8+1d6. Otherwise, if you acquired or defeated the card, put it on top of a trophy stack next to your deck" just doesn't make any sense.)