This is the second of two posts I'm making, each covering specific questions I had when interpreting Class Deck characters.
The general questions being asked here are as follows:
- 1. What defines "Playing a boon", or "While playing a boon"? Are there ever traits "on a boon" that aren't listed by default?
- 2. Can you ever retroactively count or choose to use parts of a power in an effect?
First, I'll quote the relevant rulebook text for the appropriate references. Added in spoiler text.
Some cards allow you to use a particular skill for a specific type of check, or to use one skill instead of another. (These cards generally say things like “For your combat check, use your Strength or Melee skill,” or “Use your Strength skill instead of your Diplomacy skill.”) You may play only 1 such card or use only 1 such power to determine which skill you’re using. A few cards that can be used on checks don’t use any of your skills; they instead specify the exact dice you need to roll or the result of your die roll.
The skill you’re using for the check, and any skill referenced by that skill, are added as traits to the check. For example, if your character has the skill Melee: Strength +2, and you are using your Melee skill, both the Strength and the Melee traits are added to the check. When you’re playing a card to determine the skill you’re using, that card’s traits are also added to the check; for example, revealing the weapon Heavy Pick for your combat check adds the Pick, Melee, Piercing, and Basic traits to the check. (This isn’t the same as giving you a skill; for example, playing the spell Immolate adds the Arcane trait to your check, but it does not give you the Arcane skill.) If a power adds an additional skill or die to a check, that skill or die is not added as a trait to the check. For example, a card that adds your Strength die to your combat check does not add the Strength trait to your check
Alright, so moving on to specific questions/examples. These are way more simple than the questions in my last post.
Timing and trait questions?
Emil has the power "When you play a boon that has the Poison ([ ] or Corrupted) trait, you may ignore that trait and immunities to it."
- If you're up against a card that's immune to Poison, you can use this power to play a boon with the Poison trait, such as the Thousand Stings Whip... but it doesn't help you play a card that can ADD the poison trait to your check, because you're not playing a boon with the poison trait, right? If you recharge the Venomous Hand Crossbow +1 or Venomous Dagger +2, you're adding the Poison trait to the check, right? Or are you actually adding the poison trait to the boon, and so you can use that against poison-immune enemies?
- If you can't recharge these cards to late add poison, then I wonder why these cards are even in the class deck, because only Emil can use them effectively and Emil doesn't actually have any power that benefits adding the Poison trait to his check - only using boons WITH the poison trait.
- Can you reveal a Venomous weapon, then add the Poison trait through another means that includes a Poison-traited boon (like the Venom items in the deck), then retroactively use the Venomous Weapon's additional power? I'm pretty confident you can't, because it's 2 different steps of the check, but I'm really trying to find reasons why these weapons are here.
- On a related note; if you can ignore the Corrupted trait when you play a boon with it... that doesn't prevent Corrupted downsides that occur BEFORE playing it, right? Or are they treated as 'simultaneous'? Take Traitor's Blade, that says "If this card has the Corrupted trait, a random character at your location must discard a card or you may not play this card". Can Emil not prevent that, because you'd need to do that to play it, and therefore before you get to use Emil's power?
I'm pretty sure you're not playing a boon with the Poison trait if you "add the Poison trait" via an additional power. It doesn't say "add the Poison trait to your check", but nor does it say "this card gains the Poison trait" like, lets say, Channel Corruption's template suggests. I would read it as adding the Poison trait to your check, which is entirely unhelpful for Emil, weirdly. These are tied closely into questions about Mogmurch as well, though, so switching to the Goblin's Burn deck...
Mogmurch has the power "While you play or would banish a spell that has the Fire trait, gain the skill Arcane equal to your Craft skill."
- Once again, if you're playing a spell that can ADD the fire trait, the spell itself doesn't have that trait, correct? So "Ice and Fire" cannot be used with Mogmurch's temporary Arcane skill, correct? If I've misunderstood the "add the X trait" the whole time, then that would explain a great deal, but the rulebook doesn't seem to clarify this (that I can tell).
Pretty much tied into the same question for Emil. I also had a question written up about "Sphere of Fire", but it was sufficiently answered by the rulebook (what isn't explained is why Sphere of Fire has the line of text "This counts as playing a spell", when that's implicit anyway. Using a power on a displayed card is playing that card).
I will, however, leave with one last, purely hypothetical question.
- Can a power have an effect that may or may not be changed in a later step? If I have a weapon that says "reveal this to use your Strength or Melee skill. If you have the Arcane skill, add an additional 1d12", then can I play an item during the check that says "gain the Arcane Skill equal to your Intelligence skill" and get an extra 1d12 to my check? This is a component of some other questions I've had, but won't be bringing them up now.
As my previous post; I'd be greatly appreciative of anyone who can provide clarifications; whether I'm misreading or misunderstanding, or whether there's an issue with the powers themselves.
General answers:
1. Playing a boon is playing a card which is a boon. This means using a power on the boon by revealing, recharging, discarding, burying, banishing, or otherwise manipulating it. While playing a boon would be a trigger condition for things that happen based on playing the boon, perhaps dependent on what the boon's power does. I'm not sure of any card that use the phrase "while playing a boon" but then again I don't have every card memorized :)
2. No*. See the Choices Matter section on p29 of the rulebook. (* Some powers may "retroactively" change as other cards are played later due to the wording; for an example if you played a card that added 1 to your check for each card in your hand, and someone else then played a card which let them give you a card, you'd get an extra +1 from that)
Emil answers:
1. The power adds the poison trait to the check, not the boon.
2. Not every card in a deck needs to play exactly into someone's power. The cards are still useful as general-purpose weapons that evil people would use, especially evil people that want a weapon but lack weapon proficiency.
3. No. Finish One Thing Before You Start Something Else. You play the power on the venomous weapon, you have to choose right then and there whether or not you get rid of it for the extra die and the poison trait. You can't do something else such as play a different card before you finish processing that power. This would be the case even if they were on the same step of the check (which they are not).
4. If you're ignoring something, the thing you're ignoring has no effect. So, if you can ignore the Corrupted trait on Traitor's Blade, nobody has to discard anything for you to play the card.
For Mogmurch, same thing applies. The power tells you what the check is, and it says to add the Fire trait (talking about the check). It does not add the Fire trait to the boon itself.
For your hypothetical question, that's iffier. I would personally rule that yes, you would add the extra d12, because Assemble Your Dice is when you actually pick up all the dice on the check, and that step is after you finish playing that item. So, I view Assemble Your Dice as the time when you do the check of "do I have Arcane? Yes? Add 1d12."
However, if the hypothetical power was "Recharge this card to use your Strength or Melee skill. If you have the Arcane skill, reveal this card instead." then I would say that you'd need the skill at the time it's played, so your Item wouldn't help in that case.
All of your answers are what I expected, though it still annoys me that there's a grand total of 1 poison-traited weapon in the entire potential arsenal of Emil, and it's deck 4. Basically just there for the items (pre-power feat); oh well.
I still don't follow one thing, though.
4. If you're ignoring something, the thing you're ignoring has no effect. So, if you can ignore the Corrupted trait on Traitor's Blade, nobody has to discard anything for you to play the card.
Traitor's Blade says "(If corrupted, do X) or you may not play this card" while Emil says "When you play a boon". I recognize that ignoring the corrupted trait would prevent the effect, but I don't understand how you can start ignoring it before you play it.
Specifically, Traitor's Blade reads to me as "you have a prerequisite. Fulfill this prerequisite, and now you are officially playing the card" . Emil's power only allows you to cancel the Corrupted trait on a card you're playing.
But I'm trying to break it down sequentially, and there isn't a 'sequence' for playing a card. Either you play it or you don't, so by the act of removing it from your hand and saying "I use the Traitor's Blade", you suddenly end up with your answer; with both effects coming up, Emil cleanly cancels the downside as his effect implies.
I'm still having a hard time disentangling myself from thinking about how it works when broken down. It almost seems like "finish one thing before starting another" should come into play here. I can't play this card until I do X, according to Traitor's Blade, so until I do X, I am not playing this card, implicitly. If I'm not playing the card, Emil cannot cancel the Corrupted trait (yet). This remains my hangup.
[W]hat isn't explained is why Sphere of Fire has the line of text "This counts as playing a spell", when that's implicit anyway. Using a power on a displayed card is playing that card.
Because Sphere of Fire dates back to Skull & Shackles, and the ruling about using a power on a displayed card came later. (It's in the S&S FAQ.) Either they decided it didn't hurt to leave the redundant instruction (something they've said more than once in the forums) or they forgot when copy/pasting. :)
+1 to skizzerz's Traitor's Blade ruling.
Playing a card doesn't have a "before you play the card" step. I take "do X or you may not play this card" as a 'when-played' cost, not a 'when playing but before you actual play' cost, which is my take on Yewstance's interpretation.
But I do wish the right answer was more apparent. "Do x or you may not play" is odd wording in PACG, IMHO.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think "or you may not play" effectively means "or rewind and act as if you have not played". It's a bit time-travely but it's a simple enough instruction to follow. The power saying you can't play the card doesn't exist/activate until you try to play it.
The thing is, the alternative interpretation doesn't make any more sense. You can't just choose to discard a card whenever you feel like it. If you had to discard a card before you played the Blade, then you couldn't play the Blade at all, because discarding a card isn't a thing you can just do unless something tells you to do it. You also can't discard a card to "allow yourself to play the Blade" and then just choose not to play it. It doesn't double as an unlimited-discard outlet.
It's only by playing the Blade that you're even allowed to discard a card in the first place. Yes there's a bit of an undo/reversal involved if you then don't discard, but you're not undoing any actual physical action.
Also (and I've said this elsewhere) people should really just stop saying "finish one thing before starting another" because it doesn't mean anything and never actually helps get the answer right. Neither of the the two places I've read it here were what it was written for, so even if it is right it's either co-incidence or (more likely) the ability to use the phrase to justify either side of almost any argument.
Edit - PS I agree with the answers given already to the questions, but I really do wish Emil could get errata'd to just say:
"You may ignore the poison ([] or Corrupted) trait and immunities to it."
Then it would work everywhere people expect it to, would apply to more than, for example, zero boons in S&S, without being the slightest bit overpowered, and no-one would have to go around in circles over whether it applies or not.
Edit - PS I agree with the answers given already to the questions, but I really do wish Emil could get errata'd to just say:
"You may ignore the poison ([] or Corrupted) trait and immunities to it."
Then it would work everywhere people expect it to, would apply to more than, for example, zero boons in S&S, without being the slightest bit overpowered, and no-one would have to go around in circles over whether it applies or not.
I'd particularly like that, but they'd need a different errata because that would break one of his role card power feats, which appends "and add 1d4 to your check", to trigger from playing a Poison traited or Corrupted traited card.
And agreed on the "Finish One Thing Before Starting Another" point. That line of text in the rulebook delayed my understanding of Triggers by some time, because it explicitly overrules that a trigger should 'interrupt' an ongoing examination effect (like Augury), even though that's exactly what they're supposed to do.
Also, thank you all for your answers. All of them were what I expected to some point. The Traitor's Blade sounded like RAI (though I'm not convinced about the exact wording), whilst the "poison traited weapons only, not additional poison sources even if they're from a weapon" looked exactly like RAW. I still find several elements clunky here, but at least there's now a basis to refer to.
I'd particularly like that, but they'd need a different errata because that would break one of his role card power feats, which appends "and add 1d4 to your check", to trigger from playing a Poison traited or Corrupted traited card.
A fair point, but easy to fix:
"You may ignore the poison ([] or Corrupted) trait and immunities to it. [] Add 1d4 to your checks with that trait."
A fair point, but easy to fix:
"You may ignore the poison ([] or Corrupted) trait and immunities to it. [] Add 1d4 to your checks with that trait."
Not that simple. That means you can't both ignore the Corrupted trait and add 1d4 (because by ignoring the trait, your check no longer has that trait). That would functionally change - and weaken - the power, which is intended to work whether or not you negated the trait; simply that you used it in the first place.
It also means you could ignore those traits in some situations which may not be intentional, such as an effect that says "discard a card that does not have the corrupted trait to...", or other situations where you're not actually playing anything.
I'm sure there's a possible reword, but it's deceptively difficult to do off the top of my head that wouldn't have potentially undesirable consequences. It's particularly annoying that in one case (Poison) you'd usually only want to ignore the immunity, and in one case (Corrupted) you'd solely want to ignore the trait, meaning the wording has to catch both cases completely without impacting the additional power feats.
Note that Emil's power has an FAQ that makes it "trait and/or immunities to it". I'm not sure it changes much of what you are discussing, but just in case I wanted to mention it.
Ok, take 3:
"You may ignore the poison ([] or Corrupted) trait and/or immunities to it.
------------------
[] Add 1d4 to your checks with one of the traits listed above."
There's precedent already for referring to the power above. It now works because you can activate the second power before ignoring the trait with the first. And the ability to ignore immunities helps make sure you don't get into a loop of having to ignore the trait before you could get the bonus.
Ignoring it in other situations is possibly irrelevant, and at worst "power creep" that I'd be willing to live with. I did for instance think about the consequences of ignoring the poison trait on poison damage but couldn't think of a single case where that would actually be helpful.