Character powers that still need rulings? (attempt at comprehensive list)

[wkover]

Hi everyone.

About a year ago, it was mentioned that a ruling on Mavaro's display/recharge power might be forthcoming - but as far as I know that never occurred. I'm actually playing Mavaro in a campaign now, so the sooner the ruling arrives the better. :)

What other character powers still need an official ruling?

[Yewstance]

A number of characters with "skill replacement" abilities need to be clarified. A long-winded thread ultimately came to the official conclusion that "Varril's replace-any-skill-with-Divine" power could not be used with a weapon, because you may only use one power or effect to define what skill you're using on a check.

Unfortunately, that leaves Zelhara, Weapon Master Valeros and Rivani with useless powers. Rivani can replace "Ranged" with "Knowledge"... but to use her Ranged skill she'd need to use a weapon, and so can't also use her power. Same with Zelhara with chain-based weapons, and WM Valeros with ranged weapons.

Rivani and Zelhara were explicitly overruled by an official source in the forums (as in, the intent was not in line with RAW), but Mother Myrtle and Weapon Master Valeros (as well as, possibly, other characters) are left in an awkward gray area that hasn't actually been clarified yet, and are awaiting a ruling. Really, none of the 5 listed characters (Varril, Valeros, Rivani, Zelhara, Mother Myrtle) have been given a ruling in a FAQ, so it's still only semi-official one way or another. RAW, none of their powers are useful in combat (except weaponless Varril), despite that contradicting the design intent of an unknown number of them.

[wkover]

Thanks, that all sounds familiar.

No other issues, then? This list is complete?

If so, thanks in advance to Paizo for issuing official rulings on the above character powers - whenever that might occur. :)

[elcoderdude]

Varril is still a bit in the dark: we still need a ruling on whether the skill given in the definition of the target difficulty of a check you attempt is added as a trait to the check, and, based on that, a ruling as to whether a check Varril attempts using his power retains as a trait the skill specified in the check's definition.

For example: if Varril uses his replacement power to use his Divine skill to attempt a Strength check, is the check now both a Divine/Wisdom and a Strength check, or is it just a Divine/Wisdom check?

(You might think "Obviously the latter." Or even "Obviously the former". I refer you to the thread Yewstance cited.)

[Brother Tyler]

elcoderdude wrote:

Varril is still a bit in the dark: we still need a ruling on whether the skill given in the definition of the target difficulty of a check you attempt is added as a trait to the check, and, based on that, a ruling as to whether a check Varril attempts using his power retains as a trait the skill specified in the check's definition.

I thought that Vic provided the design intent (not necessarily a definitive FAQ resolution, but sufficient) here:

Vic Wertz wrote:

Here's what we want: If the card you're making a check against requires an [X] check, and you use a power that lets you use the skill [Y] for it, the check gets both the X and Y traits.

Also, you always determine which skill you’re using during the Determine Which Skill You’re Using action, and the rule "You may play only 1 such card or use only 1 such power to determine which skill you’re using" needs to be followed (unless something specifically overrides it Golden Rule–style). We are definitely going to need to do an override for Zelhara, but I suspect we will not do it for Varril (meaning if Varill uses his power, he can't also use a weapon).

We want all of this to be consistent for all character powers, and we recognize that this may mean rewording some of them.

Based on that, the resolution to your example would be that the use of Varril's power to use his Divine skill for a Strength check adds the Wisdom and Divine traits to the check, and the check retains the Strength trait (and any other traits it may have had).

[elcoderdude]

@BT: Yep, I missed that that first line from Vic was part of the resolution.

A FAQ with this ruling is still needed, for those who don't scour the forums, but for those of us who do, this is sufficient.

[Yewstance]

Huh, I'd forgotten that resolution about traits as well. That's actually seriously important for how I use the Fire Snake spell with my OP characters (and makes it an even better spell). If I'm reading that correctly, I could make a Disable check, then use Fire Snake to use my Arcane Skill, then reveal Thieves' Tools to add a full die? Seriously impressive stuff.

[Yewstance]

There's a few other characters which probably SHOULD get a FAQ, incidentally, but it's debatable how many of these are simply a matter of "Should" vs "Must". A few of these are more down to cards or general rules, too, rather than characters. Like I said, debatable.

Off the top of my head, adding a few more...

Olenjack (Rogue CD), Spider Role has a power that allows him to ignore Poison Damage and recharge cards buried by Poison boon effects. Zadim (MM) had a FAQ that nerfed his similar (though significantly weaker) power, because it technically allowed him to full-heal from using the Tears of Death card, but no such FAQ applied to the much more powerful Olenjack power.

Note that Olenjack, even in OP, can use Tears of Death with ease thanks to Ultimate Equipment.

Reepazo's ability to add 1d6 and draw a card, even pre-role, with every single check she makes is probably far too powerful and probably not in line with design intent (see my proof-of-concept gameplay with her), but has not been touched.

Also, I can't find a conclusive FAQ that explicitly points out that you can't auto-pass Stealth, Fortitude, Acrobatics (etc) checks when you're using them in combat, as has been suggested. Some cards, like Potion of Fortitude and Potion of Vision, have been quietly retconned in print to say "Non-combat Fortitude/Stealth" checks, but there's plenty of older printings and non-retconned cards (like Boots of Elvenkind) that make things more confusing, and certainly suggest that some characters could consistently auto-pass combat with the right weapons or powers.

Several older characters have powers that refer to discarding, recharging or burying specific types of cards, without stating 'for their power'. Seltyiel (S&S), Marauder Role, for example, as well as Vika (Fighter CD), Blacksmith Role. This may be undesirable, due to how they can interact with other cards or effects, like taking damage or even using OP Mummy's Mask Trader rules.

Infinite combo technically exists between Alahazra (CD), Bride of the Sun Role, and the Climbers Gloves in the same class deck, with a FAQ existing that I think is supposed to close that hole, but doesn't seem to apply as the combo would usually turn up between steps, not during a step, and definitely not during a check.

The current (MM) Rulebook suggests that all explorations take place in a single step, and does not reflect statements made for some time that new explorations create a 'new' exploration step. As a result, you technically shouldn't be able to use the same powers (or cards, for that matter) more than once during or in-between explorations, which is definitely not in line with Rules as Intended.

Infinite combo with Skizza and Alchemist's Kit and various other alchemical cards, like Twitch Tonic, as described here, which is probably highly undesirable, mostly as it's an infinite-exploration combo that can't even be stopped by damage or hand-wipes due to its mechanic.

Probably some other things that I've forgotten for the time being.

[Slacker2010]

Yewstance wrote:

A long-winded thread ultimately came to the official conclusion that "Varril's replace-any-skill-with-Divine" power could not be used with a weapon, because you may only use one power or effect to define what skill you're using on a check.

Yewstance wrote:

Rivani and Zelhara were explicitly overruled by an official source in the forums (as in, the intent was not in line with RAW), but Mother Myrtle and Weapon Master Valeros (as well as, possibly, other characters) are left in an awkward gray area that hasn't actually been clarified yet, and are awaiting a ruling. Really, none of the 5 listed characters (Varril, Valeros, Rivani, Zelhara, Mother Myrtle) have been given a ruling in a FAQ, so it's still only semi-official one way or another. RAW, none of their powers are useful in combat (except weaponless Varril), despite that contradicting the design intent of an unknown number of them.

Do you have references? If it was the following post HERE , then I wouldn't call that official conclusion. It is the way they are leaning on a ruling, but as far as I know they have not made an official ruling.

Now that I'm done playing devils advocate, I'm not sure it is as much an issue with Varril anymore with the additional of the ultimate decks.

@Yewstance - The list above is an amazing collection. Good work.

[Yewstance]

Slacker2010 wrote:

Yewstance wrote:

A long-winded thread ultimately came to the official conclusion that "Varril's replace-any-skill-with-Divine" power could not be used with a weapon, because you may only use one power or effect to define what skill you're using on a check.

Yewstance wrote:

Rivani and Zelhara were explicitly overruled by an official source in the forums (as in, the intent was not in line with RAW), but Mother Myrtle and Weapon Master Valeros (as well as, possibly, other characters) are left in an awkward gray area that hasn't actually been clarified yet, and are awaiting a ruling. Really, none of the 5 listed characters (Varril, Valeros, Rivani, Zelhara, Mother Myrtle) have been given a ruling in a FAQ, so it's still only semi-official one way or another. RAW, none of their powers are useful in combat (except weaponless Varril), despite that contradicting the design intent of an unknown number of them.

Do you have references? If it was the following post HERE , then I wouldn't call that official conclusion. It is the way they are leaning on a ruling, but as far as I know they have not made an official ruling.

Now that I'm done playing devils advocate, I'm not sure it is as much an issue with Varril anymore with the additional of the ultimate decks.

@Yewstance - The list above is an amazing collection. Good work.

Thanks!

And good point! It's fair to say that it's not really an official ruling, but it is an official stating that they are leaning towards one outcome, and having heard no contradicting/conflicting statement that I can find makes it seem like it's the only answer the community could feasibly interpret to be true.

A rather more explicit ruling, or at least stated design intent, was pretty objectively given with Rivani at least, a character that was released around the same time as Zelhara, with both characters (in terms of artwork, class deck boons and wording) pretty clearly indicating that they're supposed to be proficient with the weapons listed in their powers, regardless of anything else.

By the way; the Alahazra infinite-combo also applies with Ring of Climbing, which has the same text as the post-FAQ Climber's Gloves, or at least the relevant power thereof.

I've also got a series of my own personal hangups that I didn't list above because they don't represent exploits or unclear or nonexistent rulings, but rather corner-case scenarios, PFSACG exploits/questions and apparently bad/useless cards. Summarised below.

Various other questions (Corner Cases, Class Deck and PFSACG-centric):

When you use Codex of Conversations (Ultimate Magic), are you making a check "against" an ally or "against" the item, or both? Do you add the traits from both checks to it, what card type are you against? If it's a "check to acquire" the ally, can it trigger cards that occur when you acquire an ally, even though you're not acquiring it? These could seriously impact how certain characters may interact with these checks.

PFSACG Scenario Rewards for 4-P1 and 4-P2 raise so many questions it's hard to begin.

How do Redemption Cards work for temporary characters; and what if your original character has a Redemption Card?

If you're building a deck not by the Hierarchy, but based on your Deck Upgrades, then there's no way to retroactively delete a taken Deck Upgrade, right? That seems like there's nothing stopping substitute characters simply banishing whatever cards they like, then re-adding them to their deck the next time you use them. Combined with being able to rebuild their feat allocations on the fly, they seem objectively better than playing normal characters by quite a margin.

PFSACG rules state that if a card has a power that requires you to remove it from the game to use, you should replace that card with a random card from the box whenever it's encountered. This is clearly to prevent PFSACG characters from gaining bonus feats with the WotR cards that let you gain them, which is particularly important given that you wouldn't necessarily continue to play with a single person's Base Set/box with an OP character. However, preventing you from encountering them does nothing to stop you from randomly drawing such cards from the box or drawing them from your location deck; there are a number of ways to gather cards without encountering them! (Planchette, a basic item from the Occult Adventures 1 Character Deck, comes immediately to mind; but there's certainly a handful of character powers that can draw random items from the box, too)

Clearly it's unintentional, but the RAW do not cohesively forbid characters from stealing extra feats through these kinds of play. What's made even weirder is that the wording for replacing Basic/Elite cards during high-tier play never uses the word 'Encounter', and pretty clearly allows you to just replace them on the fly whenever you would see them, flip them over or otherwise draw or use them, and why the wording is different for the Remove-From-Game cards baffles me.

The Tyrant role of Urgraz and Book of the Damned alone is way too powerful, such that I'm not sure why they printed it and feel I must be missing something. Redemption applies to the whole party (clarified on close reading of the Redemption rules in PFSACG as well), so there's nothing stopping you from passing the redeemed Book to a player at your location, having them banish it to add Xd4 blessings back into the Blessings deck (where X = Number of Players), and then using your Tyrant power to add the Book of the Damned back into your own hand. To say nothing of the 'recharge instead of banish' exploit with Mother Myrtle.

How does "Before you play this card, if this card has the Corrupted trait, do X" be prevented by powers that say "when you play a card with the Corrupted trait, you may ignore the Corrupted trait on that card"? That seems to be the universal opinion, but I'm not certain as to how that even works.

Various questions as to what is and isn't considered 'directly affecting' a check. Can you banish a Curse of Vulnerability when you take damage so that you can play an armor? Can you play Caustic Fog and deal yourself 1 damage to add 1d8 to a check once you're in an encounter? I would answer "No" to both from literal interpretation of "only play cards that are relevant to the check you're making", but I think I'm in the minority, and I would argue it's poorly-defined in the rules.

Various seemingly-useless cards, like Holy Phylactery (WotR). Holy Phlactery can, admittedly, allow you to ignore the corrupted trait on a blessing you play or on top of the blessings discard pile, but that's an extremely weak effect for a discard power on an item and that appears to be all you can do with it; you generally can't prevent Corrupted penalties from using a weapon, because you have to use a Weapon before playing other cards, right?

This 'sequencing' limitation was compared by Hawkmoon to the Mythic Archmage issue, where Mythic Archmage allows you to ignore immunities by using its power... which could only be used after you've played the card that defined which skill you're using for a check (presumably, a spell), rendering the ability to ignore immunities completely useless. Both Holy Phlyactery and Mythic Archmage seem to imply an intent that you can use them earlier in a check than the rulebook suggests you're able to.

And more.

EDIT: Actually, I'm actually going to move one of the points I'd made in the spoiler above outside of it, because I think it's a pretty solid question to get clarification on. Admittedly, it centres around Redemption mechanics and only is relevant for a Class Deck boon, but it's still a pretty clear-cut question about a core set mechanic.

How can The Asmodean Discplines (HV1) redeem itself? The blog post announcing Hell's Vengeance, written by Mike Selinker, explicitly states that it can do so... but the rulebook says you play a card and go through its text sequentially. The rulebook raises an example, which points out that you would recharge Staff of Minor Healing, then recharge the healed card when using its power, but in this case doesn't that mean you would banish The Asmodean Disciplines and then redeem a card? You can't redeem a card that's not in your deck (or hand, discard pile, displayed or buried cards), as covered in the Wrath of the Righteous FAQ (among other places).

[Parody]

Yewstance wrote:

How can The Asmodean Discplines (HV1) redeem itself?

Don't forget that, in Guild Play, you don't need to have the card to redeem it. (Page 9 of the Guide to the Guild 5.0.)

[Yewstance]

Parody wrote:

Yewstance wrote:

How can The Asmodean Discplines (HV1) redeem itself?

Note that in Guild Play, you don't need to have the card to redeem it. (Page 9 of the Guide to the Guild 5.0.)

I've never heard of this before! Could you please reference the specific rule in question? Because my reading of the Card Guild Guide does not align with that.

Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild Guide, Page 9 wrote:

Redeeming Cards

If your character deck includes a redemption card, when you are allowed to redeem a card, choose one of your cards that’s listed on that card and check it off. In any scenario that character plays, cards checked off on that redemption card no longer have the Corrupted trait.

Mummy's Mask Rulebook, Page 9 wrote:

Your cards include your deck, the cards in your hand and your buried, discarded, and displayed cards.

Note that that passage in the rulebook (most notably the strict rules meaning of "Your cards") was explicitly referenced by a Wrath of the Righteous FAQ, which was made specifically to clarify to players that you can only redeem cards you have in your deck (or otherwise displayed/discarded/etc).

[Hannibal_pjv]

I Also agree that you have to have the card to redeem it Also in Guild play

[elcoderdude]

Tossing my two cents on two points of disagreement:

+1 to Yewstance concerning Vic's ruling about Varril's skill replacement and similar powers.
Calling it an "official ruling" would be a tad strong, but "official conclusion" is not. It's clearly guidance (where we had nearly none before). I can't see how anyone can argue they are able to use Varril's replacement power when using a weapon, for example.

+1 to Yewstance (again) concerning whether you can redeem cards in Guild Play if you haven't added them to your deck yet. The rules are clear that you cannot.

[Parody]

Nope, I missed "your cards" and the implication thereof. (Also I thought they'd said something similar in another thread, but I can't find it so I was probably mixing it up with something else.)

Carry on with the nitpicking! :)

[wkover]

Parody wrote:

Don't forget that, in Guild Play, you don't need to have the card to redeem it. (Page 9 of the Guide to the Guild 5.0.

I played Linxia through an entire organized play campaign thinking this was the rule.* Apparently it's not. :(

The guide says, "choose one of your cards that’s listed on that [redemption] card and check it off". I thought "one of your cards" meant any card in your deck box. Nope!

*It was an innocent mistake, but I'm glad that I played the redemption rules incorrectly with Linxia. For lots of reasons, but one being that you have to banish (not bury) Asmodean Disciplines when redeeming a card - so you have to waste precious card upgrades getting AD back! That really hurts in lower Tiers, so allowing it to redeem any card makes it more worthwhile.

[Yewstance]

Parody wrote:

Carry on with the nitpicking.

Literally my greatest skill!

Spoiler:

My parents must be so proud.

[Yewstance]

Going to add another one here, though it's more of a boon ruling that a character ruling.

The Witch Class Deck includes 6 Cohorts that each serve 2 purposes. Each gives certain skills to the Witch when displayed (most importantly, giving them their critical Arcane Skill), and has a second power that they can topdeck themselves to use.

Of these 6, Daji and Flying Squirrel have powers that could only be used outside of an encounter. Compsognathus has a power that is only useful during an encounter, but it will wait until after the encounter before topdecking itself.

The remaining 3, however, have powers that are primarily (or solely) useful in combat, but would topdeck themselves before you got to recharge your spells in most cases, and some would even topdeck themselves before you assemble your dice. Because topdecking them causes you to lose your Arcane skill, these lead them to have powers that is either critically hampered, or outright left unusable, for characters who fight with spells... which is the main point of Witches (who don't even have weapon slots). Specifically, this is a problem for Kasmir, due to various other aspects of the remaining characters in the Class Deck and the cohort mechanics. To be specific...

Centipede topdecks itself after you use it to add a boost to your combat check, as soon as the check resolves. By the rulebook, this means it will no longer be displayed by the time you get to recharge your spell, ensuring that any attack spell you use will be banished in the process. Is this intentional?

Snapping Turtle topdecks itself immediately to protect you from damage. If you used it on BYA damage, you would have no spellcasting ability for the check. If you used it on damage taken by failing combat, you will have no spellcasting ability for your recharge checks, causing you to banish any used spell. Is this intentional?

Flesh Poppet topdecks itself immediately to add to your combat check, once again costing your your spellcasting skills. If you use this, you will have no Arcane or Divine skill for your attack spell (leaving you with 1d4) and will have to banish any attack spell used. Is this intentional?

-----

There's a bit more to it than what I've listed, but the point remains is that - specifically for Kasmir - half of the cohorts he's able to use have almost unplayable core powers, as using any of them would remove his only means of combat (which is also the only time, generally, they would be usable in the first place). Over Discord, both Hawkmoon and skizzerz have expressed the opinion that this is likely not the design intent, but I've found no clarification on the matter by an official source, hence the ruling required.

[Yewstance]

I'm also going to bring up this one.
Slacker2010 pointed out in this thread that a ruling on CD Imrijka's power implies (albeit very indirectly), or at least points out, that certain other powers are non-optional, when it may feel to some players that they should be.

Olenjack (from the Rogue Class Deck, both Roles) has powers that allows him, after passing certain checks, to "draw a card ([ ] and recharge a card)". Given that it was pointed out that the rules suggest this is a non-optional power, aren't those power feats weakening those powers significantly, not strengthening them?

For the record, I raised a similar point about CD Qualzar before, with his written card suggesting that when you change his evasion power's mechanics the new "place the evaded card on top of the deck" is non-optional. After I brought that up, it was FAQed to be optional, which is another insight into design intent here.

Nyctessa (from Hell's Vengeance 2, Undead Master role) has the power "When you defeat a monster and would banish it, you may draw it instead ([ ] then you may shuffle into your deck a random card from your discard pile).... In relation to Imrijka's ruling, as linked above, that suggests that you cannot heal yourself unless you choose to draw the monster, correct? What if you are able to banish the monster, but unable to draw it due to the Golden Rule (most notably, summoned monsters) - do you get the heal?

[Hannibal_pjv]

One new case I want to address.
Ultimate intrigue, Aric, the red raven.
Season of blundered tombs, 3-3 E. Up in flames, stolen larvae
Can Aric put stolen larvae to his kit. My gut feeling is no, but rulemonger says Yes.
”When you would banish Stolen Larvae or put it into a deck or pile, suffle it into a random open location deck instead”
Kitt, is not in player hand, but is it considered a pile or deck? Rules does not say. So rulemonger says, you can store the Stolen Larvae to there, but something in my mind says that that is against the spirit of the scenario...
Any ruling in this case?

[Hannibal_pjv]

Yewstance wrote:

Nyctessa (from Hell's Vengeance 2, Undead Master role) has the power "When you defeat a monster and would banish it, you may draw it instead ([ ] then you may shuffle into your deck a random card from your discard pile).... In relation to Imrijka's ruling, as linked above, that suggests that you cannot heal yourself unless you choose to draw the monster, correct? What if you are able to banish the monster, but unable to draw it due to the Golden Rule (most notably, summoned monsters) - do you get the heal?

The summoned card ceases to exist at the end of the encounter.

So if the encounter end before the healing part, there is no summoned monster and no healing. If the healing happens before the encounter ends, you get the healin because you still have the monster.
Is it something that happens after you act phase or after you resolve the encounter is interesting question...

[James McKendrew]

Yewstance wrote:

Going to add another one here, though it's more of a boon ruling that a character ruling.

The Witch Class Deck includes 6 Cohorts...

Not to nitpick (heh), but Cohorts aren't boons. They're support cards. (This actually came up last night playing WotR. A character was hoping to remove the Corrupted trait from a Cohort, but the effect power specified "boon".)

[Yewstance]

James McKendrew wrote:

Yewstance wrote:

Going to add another one here, though it's more of a boon ruling that a character ruling.

The Witch Class Deck includes 6 Cohorts...

Not to nitpick (heh), but Cohorts aren't boons. They're support cards. (This actually came up last night playing WotR. A character was hoping to remove the Corrupted trait from a Cohort, but the effect power specified "boon".)

Fair point, and that's an interesting situation it could come up that I never considered. :)

To doubly nitpick, I did say it's more of a 'boon ruling' than a 'character ruling'. I think it's pretty safe to say that Cohorts behave a lot more like boons than like characters. I did, of course, phrase my original sentence in that way completely intentionally, and it didn't at all slip my mind that Cohorts aren't technically boons. Nope. Nosiree.

EDIT: Actually, re-reading my original post, I notice that I said that Flying Squirrel's power could only be used outside of an encounter, is that actually true? Virtually every move effect (that isn't at the start/end of a turn) in the game says "You may not play this card during an encounter" or "If you are not in an encounter, you may move", but it doesn't actually say that. Is that rules-significant?

It does seem like it would be relevant to move during an encounter in a number of circumstances. For example, to get away from a BYA or AYA area-of-effect damage power triggered by someone else. I also recall there being specific rules (brought up during WotR) if you're no longer at a location when an encounter there resolves. Is this intentional, or should the Flying Squirrel explicitly state that you cannot move during an encounter with it?

[Hannibal_pjv]

For example flying carpet allows you to fly away if you spot triggering effect, so it seems plausible.

[Yewstance]

Hannibal_pjv wrote:

For example flying carpet allows you to fly away if you spot triggering effect, so it seems plausible.

Flying Carpet worked similarly to Cape of Escape, but these are completely different; they state that you evade an encounter and then move, rather than simply moving whilst potentially still being in an encounter. That can lead to some very odd outcomes, as specific henchmen/rules in WotR brought up, and it was pretty actively avoided by the devs with just about every movement power I can think of.

[Keith Richmond]

Thanks so much for gathering together these issues for examination. I can't promise any rapid response, but it's high on my list after I get through this week's deadlines.

[Yewstance]

Casting Major Cure on this thread, and providing a few more ruling requests from other parts of the forum.

Ultimate Wilderness Plants, RAW, don't appear to have anything preventing them from exponentially increasing your hand size when you have more than one of them in hand. This is an effectively identical issue to a strict reading of the Curse of Poisoning power, which was resolved by a comment by Vic on the forums but never actually FAQed or further explained.

Even among some of the most veteran players of PACG, there appears to still be confusion about what constitutes an illegal play of a card whose powers list multiple effects. This is something I've struggled with for some time, and a strict reading of (following further reading into comments made by Vic in the past) led me to believe that the weapon "Thousand Stings Whip" was close to functionally unusable, though there's conflicting viewpoints on that.

The Cloudburst spell is poorly defined in use against banes with multiple checks to defeat.

A very recent FAQ entry about gained skills and the corresponding traits of a check resolved one part of the uncertainty regarding the use of Varril, but raised a large balance concern (at least from me) about what this means for Mavaro players. As-written, it's now been made official that using any gained skills from MM Mavaro counts as Intelligence checks, and any gained skills from OA2 Mavaro count as Intelligence/Knowledge checks, in addition to the skill in question. That's an implausibly strong power, both in standard play and PFSACG, where Knowledge-buffing or Intelligence-buffing boons start applying to every single check they make. OA2 Mavaro, in Tier 1, can use cards such as Spellbook and Chronicler to stack large buffs to every check they make (to say nothing of cards that let you auto-pass Knowledge checks like Interrogator or give ludicrous bonuses like Blessing of the Sages, which can be expanded far beyond their initial intent).

Cauterize appears to heal non-random cards, and that's from a Class Deck that had a very similar card (Dogfinder) extensively FAQed; plus it was reprinted without any text changes in Ultimate Wilderness. That's a lot of evidence suggesting that it works as-intended, but is it really? Non-random healing is usually limited to AD5 and AD6 cards, and even then only of specific card types, whilst Cauterize is an AD2 Arcane/Divine card that's both an attack spell and a nonrandom healing spell with a relevant trait, which seems far in excess of what one would expect.

Also, I recently noticed that Skyplate Armor is yet another example of a card that allows you to move without specifying "you may not use this power during an encounter". Once again, moving mid-encounter can actually relevantly change a lot of events, so it's clearly a 'relevant' play, but it also leads to some weird and complex rules knots for players to work through, and I believe the intent is that it should just about always be disallowed (unless it also implicitly gives an evasion effect).

[wkover]

I'm about to use Poog + Ultimate Wilderness in Outpost II, so please refrain from touching Cauterize until after the campaign is over.

Having two copies of Cauterize to play with should be fun. Thank you. :P

[Yewstance]

Plus he gets +1d6(+X) to his checks to recharge them, since the recharge check invokes fire (as well as adding to combat checks with them, of course).

I'm more of a fan of Ultimate Magic for that reason; his Fire Snake and Pyrotechnic Blast checks are insane, allowing him to overcome his crippling weakness to barriers with ease.

[wkover]

Just curious - have any rulings/clarifications been made on the above character issues?

The Core recovery rules have fixed some/all of the infinite combos. I'm mostly asking about the character powers themselves: Mavaro, Varril, etc.

[Yewstance]

A few rulings or clarifications or fixes have been implemented for the issues listed here, and some were inherently fixed with Core rules. However, at least 50% of the issues still remain - in particular pre-Core character powers that don't just seem to work as intended - and I recall having found some more issues since the last few posts, such as the odd behavior of one of Fumbus' role powers. I just don't really think to continue to update this thread since I'm not sure it's being used to issue rulings.

For another example, Vic has made a comment in another thread that suggests, based on strict RAW analysis, that some character powers are mis-worded, including MM Ezren, which can be observed when comparing it to rulings made on CD Imrijka.

[Mike Selinker]

Would you mind spelling out which ones you think have not been addressed?

[wkover]

Mike Selinker wrote:

Would you mind spelling out which ones you think have not been addressed?

To get the ball rolling:

Mavaro (Mummy's Mask): Can he display cards to get them out of his hand, even though the displayed skills aren't relevant for any checks? This would allow him to easily cycle cards, which may or may not be the intention.

Varril (Inquisitor class deck): Does his "use Divine for any check" power work for weapon-based combat?

(People are playing both ways in both cases, which is why clarifications would help.)

[Yewstance]

Slightly disagree with Varril above. Whilst I agree people are playing him completely differently, I think the Core Set rulebook does clarify that he can use his skill to use Divine even alongside a weapon, RAW, because it's addressed in the "use one skill instead of another" paragraph on page 11.

Mike Selinker wrote:

Would you mind spelling out which ones you think have not been addressed?

I'll try...

Ruling Issue: A variety of older characters have powers that care when you bury/discard/recharge types of cards, without listing "for their power". This leads to a wide variety of consequences that I would require a full post to pick apart, but one example is Vika (CD), Blacksmith Role, who can discard any weapon or armor she buries for any reason. This can be exploited to trade cards to a Mummy's Mask trader without actually giving them up from her deck (as all non-buried cards are shuffled back into your deck after drawing opening hands), or otherwise skipping or exploiting various other "Bury" penalties which are often designed to limit the length of time players can handle a scenario (like scenario 3-P or the final scenario of Rise of the Runelords).

Ruling Issue: Infinite combo between Alahazra (CD), Bride of the Sun Role, and the Climbers Gloves, in the same class deck. This occurs because limitations on playing cards 'per check or step' don't apply in-between steps, as has previously been ruled several times (such as explaining why Alahazra (S&S) can recharge multiple cards to examine multiple locations).

Ruling Issue: PFSACG Scenario Rewards for 4-P1 and 4-P2 raise a variety of unanswered questions about their actual functions and limitations, which I detail in an earlier post in this thread and have posted an entire separate thread about a couple of years back. I still have almost all of those questions outstanding.

Ruling Issue: How can The Asmodean Discplines (HV1) redeem itself? The blog post announcing Hell's Vengeance says it can, but once you banish it isn't it no longer in your deck, and thus an illegal target, and PACG rules say to do everything on the card in the order it's written so it would be banished first?

Ruling Issue: As linked above; Fumbus (Core), Fumbler Role has some odd interactions with other rulings, notably that "when you're told to do something with a card, do it no matter where that card is". This means his "When you make a check, draw a card, if you don't play it by the end of the check, recharge it" power becomes much, much, much more powerful, since he can use another one of his powers to discard the drawn card to add a bonus (and a trait, which usually stacks on yet another bonus) to his check, then recharge the card from his discards after the check is done. When built right, this will usually give Fumbus a +1d4+1d6 to literally every check he makes, bar none, which is kind of insane for the paltry cost of being Poisoned (which is basically -1 hand size), especially given how all of the contributing power feats are individually powerful and useful for any Fumbus player. Surely this wasn't the intent of the power?

Ruling Issue: Cloudburst Spell has templating issues.

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General Query/Concern: Reepazo is still, in my opinion (and as I feel I demonstrated in a link earlier in the thread), designed in such a way as to make her far more powerful than any other character in many key regards, and whilst Core Rule changes make it impossible for her to win scenarios in a single turn they do not do much to otherwise limit her extensive ability to buff all of her own checks and draw cards indefinitely.

General Query/Concern: Urgraz, Tyrant Role, also seems too too powerful. Once he redeems Book of the Damned from his own character deck, he can basically buy the party infinite turns on every scenario since he can uniquely completely sidestep any kind of 'banish' or 'bury' cost in the game at least once every turn. I have Play-by-post demonstrations of playing him in Season of the Runelords where his ability to give a card to someone, let them bury/banish it, then draw it into his hand with his power had endless applications, between exploiting Emerald Codex, hourglass renewal and even instant-location-close cards.

General Query/Concern: Balance concerns about Mavaro - both kinds, but especially OA1 Mavaro - since a rules change FAQ means he can trivially add the Intelligence/Knowledge traits to all of his checks, which can easily be combined with a variety of boons to buff effectively all of his checks. A brand-new OA1 Mavaro with Ultimate Magic can repeatedly reveal Chronicler and Spellbook (both basics) to add +1d6+1d4 to all of his noncombat checks, for example, or just Chronicler to add +1d6 to his combat checks.

General Query/Concern: Olenjack (CD) has a power feat on each role card that actually weakens his character, by forcing him to recharge cards after CHOOSING to draw additional ones, as enabled by a previous, separate power feat. It's very clear, RAW, that it's non-optional to recharge cards once you take the power feats that 'let'/'make' you do so, which seems undesirable design. I don't think he's alone with this issue, either.

General Query/Concern: I'm still not sure whether your checks to recharge allies with Codex of Conversations are checks against the ally or checks against the item, or both - or, for that matter, whether they count as checks to recharge, checks to acquire, both, or neither. Even my most well-respected (though non-official) Rules Arbiters in PACG have given me conflicting responses on this.

General Query/Concern: How does "Before you play this card, if this card has the Corrupted trait, do X" get prevented by powers that say "when you play a card with the Corrupted trait, you may ignore the Corrupted trait on that card"? This is actually intuitively understood by most PACG players I've spoken to, so I don't consider this a 'ruling' issue, but I have RAW-based confusions about how I can ignore a "before you play" effect with a power that requires me to actually "play" the card before I can ignore anything.

General Query/Concern: Confirming that Nyctessa cannot heal herself if she does not - or cannot - draw the monster she defeats and banished, in alignment with my understanding of conditional and non-conditional power templating.

General Query/Concern: Note that, as linked above, my understanding of conditional and non-conditional power templating means that MM Ezren's core power might not technically function correctly, nor and I suspect a few other character powers are also mis-written.

General Query/Concern: Cauterize heals non-random cards; in all of the printings the word 'random' is conspicuously absent despite making it a much more desirable spell than many higher-level healing cards. Intended?

General Query/Concern: Skyplate Armor, Signal Whistle and other cards let you move mid-encounter, purely by virtue of missing the "you may not use this during an encounter" standard template on their movement powers. Whilst the rulebook does explain what happens if you move during an encounter, and it's clearly directly relevant to most encounters (thus making it a legal play); is this really intended? It's a "partial/conditional" sort-of-evade power, but it requires precise rules knowledge to use in the first place.

General Query/Concern: Since Before You Act/Before Acting has been repeatedly ruled to be a timing statement, which has nothing to do with the character who's taking a turn, cards like Signal Whistle or powers such as that appear on Nyctessa, Blood Lord, can be used during any encounter of any player at any time, to interesting effects. Intended?
==================================================

There's other rulings I would be requesting, including clarification on various scenarios (including Core/Curse scenarios), character powers and boon powers, but right now I'm only listing ones I've already brought up in this thread rather than adding more to the pile.

[wkover]

@Yewstance - If people are still playing Varril differently, I disagree with your disagreement. :)

As an aside, Cauterize no longer heals non-random cards, as "heal" in Core has been explicitly defined as:

When a power heals you, shuffle the specified number (and, if specified, type) of random cards from your discards into your deck. If you’re discarding a card to heal yourself, exclude that card from the cards you are healing.

[Longshot11]

Yewstance wrote:

General Query/Concern: Cauterize heals non-random cards; in all of the printings the word 'random' is conspicuously absent despite making it a much more desirable spell than many higher-level healing cards. Intended?

General Query/Concern: Skyplate Armor, Signal Whistle and other cards let you move mid-encounter, purely by virtue of missing the "you may not use this during an encounter" standard template on their movement powers. Whilst the rulebook does explain what happens if you move during an encounter, and it's clearly directly relevant to most encounters (thus making it a legal play); is this really intended? It's a "partial/conditional" sort-of-evade power, but it requires precise rules knowledge to use in the first place.

General Query/Concern: Since Before You Act/Before Acting has been repeatedly ruled to be a timing statement, which has nothing to do with the character who's taking a turn, cards like Signal Whistle or powers such as that appear on Nyctessa, Blood Lord, can be used during any encounter of any player at any time, to interesting effects. Intended?

Respectfully, these few don't seem unclear or broken, but rather don't seem to match your personal preferences/expectations? Unless there are examples why they *would* be broken (though I would assume the issue would then be with a specific location/scenario power, rather than the overall functionality of mid-encounter move/BYA application themselves)?

(Also, I could be missing something because I *never* understood what "If you move during an encounter, any effects that would happen after the encounter do not happen." is supposed to do/fix, so feel free to explain it to me in slow-people terms :) And how exactly is mid-encounter move being a "partial/conditional sort-of-evasion" ?!?

wkover wrote:

Cauterize no longer heals non-random cards, as "heal" in Core has been explicitly defined

Cauterize is a legacy card that doesn't use the new "heal" template, though (or is it also present in Core? Don't have the set with me). As, I believe, do several other old cards that are pretty content to let you select the cards to "shuffle/recharge from your discard pile into your deck".

[wkover]

Longshot11 wrote:

wkover wrote:

Cauterize no longer heals non-random cards, as "heal" in Core has been explicitly defined

Cauterize is a legacy card that doesn't use the new "heal" template, though (or is it also present in...

Gah, you're right. I misremembered the card and thought "heal" was used. So yes, it would be good to get a ruling on Cauterize - particularly since my version of Poog is currently using two of them!

[Yewstance]

Longshot11 wrote:

Respectfully, these few don't seem unclear or broken, but rather don't seem to match your personal preferences/expectations? Unless there are examples why they *would* be broken (though I would assume the issue would then be with a specific location/scenario power, rather than the overall functionality of mid-encounter move/BYA application themselves)?

Totally fair! That's why I listed them under 'general queries/concerns', rather than 'ruling issues', because the RAW is super clear. However, I list them as concerns because I don't think they're intended, since it's at odds with design philosophies shown over sets of cards as a whole... or that I see people misplay them all the time and so I think they deserve clarification (which, after all, justified wkover's reasoning on the Varril issue).

The Before-Acting thing, for example, means that Nyctessa's Blood Lord role allows local characters to give her cards from their hand during every single encounter anybody makes. Is this "powerful"? No (though there are synergies - setting up turn-long buffs on her then giving her a huge exploration capacity is an option), but it probably doesn't match the design intent, because otherwise the ability to 'enhance' the power by turning it from 1 to 2 cards, and from "before" to "before and after" acting seem incredibly low in relevance when she can already activate the power so, so many times in a given round of turns.

If the power only works on her own turn or her own encounters, I could see the need/interest to 'drain' more cards out of other players when you have the chance, should this be integral to the party strategy. If you're draining so many cards so rapidly at the drop of a hat, accelerating that already-breakneck pace seems an unnecessary alteration, yet that's all that both of the additional power feats do.

Longshot11 wrote:

(Also, I could be missing something because I *never* understood what "If you move during an encounter, any effects that would happen after the encounter do not happen." is supposed to do/fix, so feel free to explain it to me in slow-people terms :) And how exactly is mid-encounter move being a "partial/conditional sort-of-evasion" ?!?

Hm. For some reason I remembered reading a thread that basically said you shuffle the encountered card back after the encounter was finished, effectively evading it but potentially suffering damage. However, in looking up a source for this, I found some discussion on this rules thread (which you yourself were active in and raised this issue), that both suggests that I'm wrong, but also that it appears to not be fully resolved...

I guess I would have to interpret it as "anything that occurs after the encounter, as a result of the encounter, does not occur". That's a pretty narrow list of stuff, actually.

I think I have to assume that the "Resolve the Encounter" (Page 10 of the Core Rulebook) is explicitly the end of the Encounter, by definition of having the sentence "In either case, the encounter is over." concluding the step.

This means...

Anything that says "after you encounter X", which is a very, very small number of effects, will fail to resolve. I think this can include certain scenario rules that cause you to summon and build a location or fetch a second villain after the first one is encountered/defeated, so that could actually cause a serious issue if you banish the first villain and the second fails to turn up.

Nobody can Avenge your encounter.

You do not close the villain's location if you defeat a villain.

You do not determine whether the villain escapes... which means...? Does that mean he gets banished if you defeat him and you win automatically even though heaps of locations remain open? That can't be right... but I think that might be true, RAW.

...Yeah, I'm confused now, too. So I'm going to say that that's more of a Ruling Issue - not about Skyplate Armor and the like specifically (though I truly don't think it was intended to let you move mid-encounter without explicitly evading, which makes it almost entirely exclusive design in PACG history), but about what "After the Encounter" means in the context of the movement rule.

[Yewstance]

To summarize the most important thing from my unintentionally long post...

I think, RAW, if you move during an encounter with a villain (such as with Skyplate Armor), and you defeat the villain... you either automatically win, or you're left with an unwinnable, villain-less scenario. Following the rules, the Resolve the Encounter step says that you banish the villain, and all of the information about location closing, escaping and winning is "Villain Step" information in Core, which is explicitly after the encounter and so should be ignored as per RAW since you moved.

[Yewstance]

Quite a few more ruling questions have been raised to me or by me in various forums/avenues of discussion over the past few months, but I've been refraining from posting most of them to the main forums (or adding them to this thread) until the existing backlog is handled, to avoid making anything harder to follow (or building rules assumptions off non-clarified fundamental rulings).

Can I get an update as to whether any of these rulings or concerns will be resolved or responded to?

(Some extra ruling questions I could raise include some Conversion Guide issues with a few characters, such as Alase, several scenario rules issues (particularly with Season 5), some bane wording oddities (such as Vampire in the Core Set), and Sanctioning Document issues (particularly with Curse of the Crimson Throne).

[wkover]

No Paizo reps have posted in my last 4-5 rules threads, so my guess is that people are busy elsewhere during covid-19.

[skizzerz]

Keith Richmond wrote:

Cauterize isn't intended to be non-random, but it's also not been a big enough deal to rise above other considerations, given that there is an inherent cost to asking people to change their cards.

Got an answer for RAI on Cauterize at least. 1 down, 16 to go!

[Yewstance]

skizzerz wrote:

Keith Richmond wrote:

Cauterize isn't intended to be non-random, but it's also not been a big enough deal to rise above other considerations, given that there is an inherent cost to asking people to change their cards.

Got an answer for RAI on Cauterize at least. 1 down, 16 to go!

2 down, sort of; another thread showed Keith clarify that Fumbus' "Fumbler" role will not recharge cards if you draw them to his power, then discard/bury them. Albeit the ruling was still a bit vague, since depending on the specific wording change it would lead to mechanically distinct powers, and no single wording change was agreed on.

It definitely needs a wording change to match intent, though, because we've gotten rulings before to continue following the instructions on a character power even if the card it interacts with becomes out-of-sight (like Double Chicken Sabre +1 and Quinn).