Just checking after a friend made me promise during our sunday game that I would ask the community.
Say I have a card that has the Fire trait and that has a power that spells something like
"[Whatever the condition] ignore the bane's immunities."
Now I encounter a bane that is immune to Fire and Cold.
Do we agree that I cannot play that card (or use this power - if the card is already displayed or played earlier for example) against that bane?
So with that card I:
- can remove the Cold immunity to a bane only immune to Cold
- cannot remove the Cold immunity to a bane immune to both Fire and Cold
And that is true even if that card :
- is already displayed when I encounter the bane (and has for example a power like "While displayed ignore all banes' immunities").
- has been played earlier and has a power impacting the encounter. For example the card is an ally that I discarded/recharged/... to explore again and it had a power like "During that exploration ignore all banes' immunities".
I'm pretty sure it works like that but I promised I'll check with you guys.
So, the card with the Fire trait also is the card with the power to ignore immunities? Then I'd say that if you were playing that card (or activating the power on a displayed card) then once you do so you are ignoring all immunities.
A lot of times the "ignore immunities" isn't the main part of the power, but an added effect. Let's be more specific. Let's say your card says "Discard this card to add 1d4 and the Fire trait to your Combat check; ignore all immunities." (It would probably be written better than that of course.)
In that case, once you play it, you are ignoring all immunities. It doesn't matter if the bane is immune to Fire, Cold, Poison, whatever. You would be ignoring all of its immunities. You couldn't play such a card if you weren't making a combat check, but as long as you are making a combat check, you can play it and ignore all immunities.
So, if you played it, against a bane immune to the Cold trait, you could ignore that immunity. If the bane was immune to the Cold and Fire trait, you could ignore both those immunities. (Just you remember. Ignoring only effects you.)
Do you have a real card example that this is coming from?
Then I'd say that if you were playing that card (or activating the power on a displayed card) then once you do so you are ignoring all immunities.
I recently asked a similar question in regards to BoAnubis VS Undead. I believe that Frencois is referring to the fact that, while playing the card will allow you to ignore immunities, the rules forbid you from playing the card in the first place:
If the card you’re encountering states that it is immune to a particular trait, during the encounter, characters may not play cards that have the specified trait.
Yeah, but "ignore immunities" isn't all that useful if it didn't allow you to play the card against the immune card.
I believe that Frencois is referring to the fact that, while playing the card will allow you to ignore immunities, the rules forbid you from playing the card in the first place
That!
So Hawk's point isn't totally convincing.
Even if we agree that the golden rule that says... "... if one card tells that you cannot do something and another card tells you that you can, comply with the card that tells you that you cannot" doesn't really apply here.
Yeah, but "ignore immunities" isn't all that useful if it didn't allow you to play the card against the immune card.
Not true : the card would indeed be very useful against every bane that have immunities EXCEPT those that have immunity to Fire.
So I can see such a card existing with interest.Will try to remember what card was played when we started that discussion. It was a MM card.
Ah. Well, personally, I take cards that say you may ignore an immunity to also apply to the act of playing that card.
If the card said "you may play this card after rolling the dice" (or some other unusual time), would you say "well it says I can play the card then, but I can't play the card to activate the power that says I can play the card then, so I can't play it"? Of course not. This seems like the same thing to me. The immunity might normally stop you playing the card but it doesn't stop you from reading it. I think the only thing this would stop is some poorly thought through computer implementation of the card or something (not referring to the app here, no idea if it works right in that or not).
Also, see this thread, where the rules (RAW at least) do clearly say you shouldn't be able to play the card, but the intention has been made clear that you're meant to be able to play it. If you can play the spell in that case you can definitely play it in this case.
Well bottom line is.
RAW my initial post seems right.
Intentionwise it "seems" it could be the opposite and indeed it refers to Mike's post in the thread linked by Irgy (thanks).
So I guess it's as you want to home play it until further notice.
Well bottom line is.
RAW my initial post seems right.
Just for the record I still don't personally agree on RAW either. I think you're interpreting the way you play a power as:
1. Play the power.
2. Read what the power says.
3. Do what the power says.
But I think it's:
1. Read the power to determine whether you can play it or not.
2. Play the power.
3. Do what the power says.
If a card/power says "you can play this card/power [in some situation where you normally couldn't]" then that text is active/relevant from your hand.
And I can think of at least one example where it still works even when it's a little indirect. For instance, if you have a buckler-gun, it's an armour, but playing the combat power counts as playing a weapon. Which means you can't play it if the bane is immune to weapons (I've confirmed this one explicitly). It would also mean you can play it against a bane immune to armours. The text describes how you play the card, so it's relevant when you play the card.
So it must be true that the words written on the power can influence whether you can play the power in the first place. I'll admit it's not explicit in the rules (either way), but to me it's common sense* and consistent with other rulings.
* of course common sense didn't get in the way of me being a little greedy/hopeful with the buckler gun against weapon immunity thing, but I learned my lesson.
OKI this is a good candidate for the ever lasting weekly can'o'worms contest.
Vic ? Mike ? Your idea/ruling on the initial post?
But I think it's:
1. Read the power to determine whether you can play it or not.
I don't think anyone actually disagrees on that. I think the issue may actually lies with with the way the power in question is worded. For example, if it says:
"Discard this card to add 2 dice to a check; (you may) ignore any immunities"
- I don't think anyone would argue this is disallowed, as it's obvious the "ignore immunities" part is there to modify how you may play ('discard') the card. However, if it is worded:
""Discard this card to add 2 dice to a check and TO ignore any immunities"
- I'd argue that the "TO ignore" part is actually the result, or consequence of playing the card, and does not modify the way you may play it prior to taking effect (which happens only AFTER playing the card).
This most often does NOT render the card invalid per se - as Frencois points out, this card may still have its uses (say, a Fire card that you play TO ignore immunity, may allow you to then play a Poison card against an Undead; however, you won't be able to do the same against an Outsider that is immune to both Fire and Poison - as he would disallow you to play the Fire card in the first place)
Pertaining to the above case, the Arch-mage thread you quoted, if anything, is an indication to me that wording of ignore powers DOES matter a lot, and that RAW may very well disallow playing such powers; our only recourse to know the intent in such cases is indeed if someone official chimes in and say if RAW matches the intent, on a case by case basis.
I'm not sure where I'd draw the line but I agree with you Longshot that there's two possible cases and a distinction that certainly could be made. Don't know the exact wording of the card in question either.
I think what's missing is a line in the rules saying that if a card is immune to something and if a power on another card let you ignore that immunity, you can play the second card against the first one for that power even if it would normally be prohibited for reason of that precise immunity.
Ok that's a hard sentence (my english isn't that good) but I'm sure someone can rewrite the exact same idea in a simpler way.