Chief Technical Officer
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There are a number of fiddly little questions that are triggered when something at your location causes others at your location to encounter the same card, and we've been working at clarifying the timing and interaction on these, and on how the language about "copies" being defeated/undefeated/evaded plays in to the resolution of the "original," and about making sure that all the language on the card works correctly for the "copy" encounters.
Please troubleshoot the following:
Falling Bell:
Current:
Each character at this location encounters this barrier. If a character succeeds at a Wisdom or Perception 10 check, the difficulty of her check to defeat the barrier is decreased by 4. If a character defeats the barrier, it deals 1 Combat damage dealt to her; if a character fails to defeat the barrier, it deals 1d4+1 Combat damage dealt to her. Banish this card.
Proposed:
Before you act, each other character at your location summons and encounters this barrier.
If you succeed at a Wisdom or Perception 10 check, the difficulty of your check to defeat is decreased by 4. If defeated, it deals 1 Combat damage to you. If undefeated, it deals 1d4+1 Combat damage to you, and is banished.
Silas Vekker:
Current:
Silas is immune to the Mental and Poison traits.
Each character at this location encounters Silas. If any character does not defeat Silas, Silas deals 1d4–1 Poison damage to that character and is undefeated.
If defeated, you may immediately attempt to close this location.
Proposed:
Silas is immune to the Mental and Poison traits.
Before you act, each other character at your location summons and encounters Silas.
If you do not defeat Silas, Silas deals 1d4–1 Poison damage to you.
After you act, if any character did not defeat Silas, Silas is undefeated.
If defeated, you may immediately attempt to close the location this henchman came from.
Occluding Field:
Current:
Each character at this location encounters the Occluding Field. Any character may reveal a boon with the Sihedron trait to evade the barrier; if all characters at the location do so, banish the barrier. Characters who fail to defeat the barrier are dealt 1d4+1 Force damage that may not be reduced.
If defeated, shuffle the barrier into a random other open location deck. If there are no other open locations, banish the barrier.
Proposed:
Before you act, each other character at your location summons and encounters this barrier.
You may reveal a boon with the Sihedron trait to evade the barrier. If undefeated, you are dealt 1d4+1 Force damage that may not be reduced.
After you act, if all characters at your location evaded the barrier, banish it. Otherwise, if defeated, shuffle the barrier into a random other open location deck; if there are no other open locations, banish it.
Barroom Brawl:
Current:
The difficulty to defeat this barrier is increased by the adventure deck number of the current scenario, if any.
Each character at this location encounters this barrier. Each character that does not defeat the barrier is dealt 1 plus the adventure deck number, if any, in Combat damage. If any character defeats the barrier, it is defeated.
Proposed:
The difficulty to defeat this barrier is increased by the adventure deck number of the current scenario, if any.
Before you act, each other character at your location summons and encounters this barrier.
If you do not defeat the barrier, you are dealt Combat damage equal to 1 plus the adventure deck number, if any.
After you act, if any character defeated the barrier, it is defeated.
Tangletooth:
Current:
Each character at this location encounters Tangletooth. If any character does not defeat Tangletooth, she is undefeated.
If defeated, you may immediately attempt to close this location.
Proposed:
Before you act, each other character at your location summons and encounters Tangletooth.
After you act, if any character did not defeat Tangletooth, she is undefeated.
If defeated, you may immediately attempt to close the location this henchman came from.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Good catch!
Occluding Field:
Current:
Each character at this location encounters the Occluding Field. Any character may reveal a boon with the Sihedron trait to evade the barrier; if all characters at the location do so, banish the barrier. Characters who fail to defeat the barrier are dealt 1d4+1 Force damage that may not be reduced.
If defeated, shuffle the barrier into a random other open location deck. If there are no other open locations, banish the barrier.
Proposed:
Before you act, each other character at your location summons and encounters this barrier.
You may reveal a boon with the Sihedron trait to evade the barrier. If undefeated, you are dealt 1d4+1 Force damage that may not be reduced.
After you act, if all characters at your location revealed a boon with the Sihedron trait, banish the barrier. Otherwise, if defeated, shuffle it into a random other open location deck; if there are no other open locations, banish it.
I'm not sure if the Barroom Brawl text works. By moving all the other encounters to 'Before You Act', does it cause any issues with the 'if any character defeated' line? Essentially, are we still able to account for everyone's encounters, even if it is in the 'Before you act' step?
The only thing I'd point out is that it slightly weakens some evading tactics, since it now specifies some of the order of the encounters instead of letting you choose all of them.
For example, in the current Barroom Brawl, if Valeros encountered it, he could attempt it first and then, if he defeated it, let others evade it. In the proposed version, if the encountering character is your best bet to beat it, you can't know that they will until after all the others have already encountered it.
I'm not sure that is a show stopper, but wanted to point it out as a trade off for this change.
Should there be a trait, something like "area effect," that equates to "All characters at this location summon and encounter X"?
The "Before you act, all other characters at this location summon and encounter X" clause triggers the mathematician's logic in me to say "and now their summoned card makes me summon another one for myself...". Which obviously isn't the intention, but still makes me twitch a little ;).
That "infinite loop" would be covered by the rule that summoned cards can't summon other cards.
That "infinite loop" would be covered by the rule that summoned cards can't summon other cards.
Doesn't this rule have exceptions?
If you're closing Fringes of the Eye, and the summoned barrier is Pirate Hunting, don't you go ahead and summon a ship to fight?
If you have to summon a random monster, and you summon the Owlbeartross, don't you go ahead and summon Riptide Grindylow?
I think this rule needs revision. I have no idea how to do that, though.
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Yea it has exceptions. Basically how the rule works is the same card power can't summon twice. So you could have a location close that summons a random barrier, that barrier summons a random monster, that monster is Owlbeartross, and you summon the Grindylow. I don't think that thread ever came up with good wording, but I can't find it to know.
The rule that summoned cards can't summon other cards has been house ruled long ago as:
Summoned cards can't summon another card if a copy of that new card has already been summoned by the same character during this step.
Thus you cannot summon twice the same card in a summon chain, avoiding creating summon loops but enabling "a location close that summons a random barrier, that barrier summons a random monster, that monster is Owlbeartross, and you summon the Grindylow".
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Refined ways of preventing recursion are not actual rules. All we have is the FAQ entry for summoned locations.
I don't prefer the new text. The before you act text now depends on a fairly obscure rule to work. The after you act text is also confusing because it should apply to all characters. You seem to be writing these as if the before/after you act text only applies to the character that made the original encounter, but that text is defined as part of all encounters that are not evaded. I think that it would be better to have a paragraph in the rules that explains group encounters. It might tell people to ignore the before/after you act text, but what if you want to have before/after effects such as damage? You shouldn't need to deviate from the standard template to support this. Perhaps 'after everyone acts' text could be introduced.
The old version of Silas seems to deal damage if you try to evade, but the new one would not.
The new Silas and Tangletooth seem to give you multiple chances to close the location.
The evasion situations may cause confusion. Even if the cards are technically correct, it isn't useful if people still end up playing incorrectly or having rules arguments.
The new Occluding Field is much improved.
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The rule that summoned cards can't summon other cards has been house ruled long ago as:
Summoned cards can't summon another card if a copy of that new card has already been summoned by the same character during this step.Thus you cannot summon twice the same card in a summon chain, avoiding creating summon loops but enabling "a location close that summons a random barrier, that barrier summons a random monster, that monster is Owlbeartross, and you summon the Grindylow".
Frencois - true.
But in the case of these cards though, that would still mean that the person who encountered the original card would have to defeat the card TWICE.Once for the original card (which was NOT summoned),
and then once when another character faced a summoned copy, which then summons a copy for the person who drew the original card.
That definitely does not seem to be the intent of these changes.
The after you act text is also confusing because it should apply to all characters. You seem to be writing these as if the before/after you act text only applies to the character that made the original encounter, but that text is defined as part of all encounters that are not evaded.
...
The old version of Silas seems to deal damage if you try to evade, but the new one would not.
The new Silas and Tangletooth seem to give you multiple chances to close the location.
The evasion situations may cause confusion. Even if the cards are technically correct, it isn't useful if people still end up playing incorrectly or having rules arguments.
Pretty much all of that.
Now, YOU, as designers of the game may think the new rules are clearer, but the fact is they'll just raise a new bunch of problems. I am, for example quite comfortable with the PACG rules and with adjudicating them for other people; however, even I when I read the "You" on a summoning card, I instinctively take it to mean "the person who drew the original card" and not "the person reading a summoned copy".
This wouldn't be a problem in the electronic version of the game or maybe if the card game made you "summon" by drawing real, physical copies of the card from the box, with big bold "SUMMONED" on the face of the card. However, we all know that's not how it works; instead, a person draws the original card, reads it, then all the relevant players attempt to meet the condition but there's still only ONE physical card on the table, sitting in front of player X, and that's the person everyone *assumes* to be the "you" the card addresses. *Maybe* the new text will be clearer for hardcore players (I fancy myself one, and if I didn't know the subject of this thread I'd probably still get confused) , but I can guarantee the more casual players will end up more confused.
In some thread or other, Vic or Mike, can't remember, explained about the wording on some card that even though it was not technically perfect, in the end most players ended up playing it correctly because they *felt* the intent of the card. That's how I see the original versions of the above-quoted cards: technically imperfect, but definitely more *clear* and *intuitive*.
Additionally, one big issue(for me):
Let's take Silas for example, proposed new wording:
"After you act, if any character did not defeat Silas, Silas is undefeated."
Now, I know that a summoned card shouldn't summon more cards (although as pointed out in a post above - the rule has exemption which makes even more of a mess); however, the summoned cards have other functional powers AND they also *pretend* to be real, physical cards (and the new texts ironically enough treat them as such);
So, if I am reading
"....if any character did not defeat Silas..." - does that mean the ORIGINAL Silas, or my PRETEND Silas? Because there's nothing to point out it's not the latter.
I foresee some questions about something counting as "Before you act" if the barrier is summoned (eg Seelah's Divine Grace power)
I'm kind of uncomfortable with using the summoning rules as a basis for these. Besides these whole "summoned cards can't summon" edge cases, I'm with hawkmoon about the altering of evasion.
I think that these could be reworked so that there is a single card that is said to have one check per person at the location. That way everyone would need to make their checks and there would only be one opportunity to evade. Occluding field would have text 'you may reveal a boon with the Sihedron trait to succeed at your check'.
This would mean that individuals could not save themselves from the consequences of a failed check through evasion. Possibly the card could state 'instead of performing a check, a character may use a power to evade this bane, but it will then be undefeated'.
Another potential issue is cards like (I think) Heartseeker Crossbow, which specifically call out summoned cards. I'm not sure whether allowing those types of cards to be used is good or bad, but it is a functional change.
Might also be weird with powers that allow you to evade a bane and someone else fight it. That makes more sense with summoned cards.
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Vic,
What exactly is the issue/concern with the current phrasing?
One thought I had might be to use something a secondary card for these? Similar to 'loot' but for banes.
i.e.
Falling Bell:
Current:
Each character at this location encounters this barrier. If a character succeeds at a Wisdom or Perception 10 check, the difficulty of her check to defeat the barrier is decreased by 4. If a character defeats the barrier, it deals 1 Combat damage dealt to her; if a character fails to defeat the barrier, it deals 1d4+1 Combat damage dealt to her. Banish this card.
Proposed:
Each character at this location encounters the card 'Bronze Bell'.
Banish this card.
Bronze Bell:
Traits: Trap/Obstacle (or whatever it needs to 'inherit' from the current Falling Bell).
Before you act, succeed at a Wisdom or Perception 10 check to reduce the difficulty to defeat Bronze Bell by 4.
If defeated, you are dealt 1 combat damage.
If undefeated, you are dealt 1d4+1 combat damage.
And I think you can make this work how you want with evasion.
i.e. IF you want the person encountering the original card to be able to evade it (so no one faces it), you leave it as I proposed.
If you want each person to have to make their own evasion attempt, than you make the first sentence of Fallen Bell start with "before you act".
I believe it would also allow you to handle the varying 'banish' conditions.
i.e. "always banish the trap" == "Banish this card"
"this card is defeated based only on the encountering player's check" == "Banish this card if you successfully defeat Bronze Bell"
"this card is defeated if ANY character passes the check" == "Banish this card if any character defeats Bronze Bell"
And it also avoids the dual loop I mentioned of the 'original' card is not a summon, which currently causes the encountering player to face the barrier twice (once for the original card, and once for the copy that is 'summoned' the first time another player 'summons' the card).
It might be a bit complicated to add another card type, but it would be similar to how LOOT is also a weapon/spell/item/etc. This new type would also be trap/henchmen/etc.
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Chief Technical Officer
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The before you act text now depends on a fairly obscure rule to work.
I'm not sure what you're referring to. Do you mean the rule that summoned cards can't summon other cards? If you don't know that rule, you're going to be in a world of hurt for a lot of other reasons beyond these cards.
The after you act text is also confusing because it should apply to all characters. You seem to be writing these as if the before/after you act text only applies to the character that made the original encounter, but that text is defined as part of all encounters that are not evaded.
It *does* apply to all characters.
Silas: "After you act, if any character did not defeat Silas, Silas is undefeated." Works for all.
Occluding Field: "After you act, if all characters at your location revealed a boon with the Sihedron trait, banish the barrier. Otherwise..." Works for all.
Barroom Brawl: "After you act, if any character defeated the barrier, it is defeated." Works for all.
Tangletooth: "After you act, if any character did not defeat Tangletooth, she is undefeated. " Works for all.
I think that it would be better to have a paragraph in the rules that explains group encounters. It might tell people to ignore the before/after you act text, but what if you want to have before/after effects such as damage? You shouldn't need to deviate from the standard template to support this. Perhaps 'after everyone acts' text could be introduced.
The problem is that there really isn't a standard. Sometimes we care if one person defeats the thing. Sometimes we care if everybody does. Sometimes we care if nobody does. And sometimes (like Occluding Field), we care about something other than defeating.
The old version of Silas seems to deal damage if you try to evade, but the new one would not.
Yes, he does: "If you do not defeat Silas, Silas deals 1d4–1 Poison damage to you. "
The new Silas and Tangletooth seem to give you multiple chances to close the location.
No, they don't. As always, summoned cards aren't coming from the location deck.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Just to be clear here, the actual problem is that *before*, it was unclear which parts of a card applied to the original and which to the summoned copies. Now, the answer is that *all of the words apply to everyone encountering it*—you no longer have to guess our intent. It's just that some of them don't *do* anything when you're encountering the copy, because they tell you to summon other cards or to do things that would result in something other than banishment happening to the summoned card after the encounter.
So, if I am reading
"....if any character did not defeat Silas..." - does that mean the ORIGINAL Silas, or my PRETEND Silas? Because there's nothing to point out it's not the latter.
"After you act, if any character did not defeat Silas, Silas is undefeated. "
Doesn't matter who you're talking about. When the person encountering the original processes this power, if nobody failed, Silas gets banished, and if somebody failed, he is shuffled back into the deck. When the person encountering a summoned copy processes this power, either way, the summoned Silas gets banished.
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I'm not sure I actually see any ambiguity in the 'before' cases Vic - but there is nothing wrong with trying to be more precise.
The primary issue I see with what you are proposing is that it is now enforcing an order to the encounter which was not present before, as has already been mentioned. Namely that the person who encountered the original card MUST be the last to encounter the card.
Perhaps that is intentional, but it is not part of the 'problem' you describe.
If you evade Silas, that text doesn't happen, does it? Evade ignores the entire card except for anything that says anything about evading or things that might let you evade.
The old version of Silas seems to deal damage if you try to evade, but the new one would not.Yes, he does: "If you do not defeat Silas, Silas deals 1d4–1 Poison damage to you. "
"Before you act" says something about evading, and since evaded banes are neither defeated nor undefeated the "if any player (fails to) defeat" works, unless the player who encountered the bane evades, in which case the rules for evading take precedence, because that text is ignored.
Occluding Field:
Current:
Each character at this location encounters the Occluding Field. Any character may reveal a boon with the Sihedron trait to evade the barrier; if all characters at the location do so, banish the barrier. Characters who fail to defeat the barrier are dealt 1d4+1 Force damage that may not be reduced.
If defeated, shuffle the barrier into a random other open location deck. If there are no other open locations, banish the barrier.
Proposed:
Before you act, you and each other character at your location may reveal a card with the Sihedron trait. If all players at your location do so, banish Occluding Field. Every character at your location who did not reveal a card with the Sihedron trait encounters Occluding Field.
If undefeated, you are dealt 1d4+1 Force damage that may not be reduced.
If defeated, shuffle it into a random other open location deck; if there are no other open locations, banish it.
A Mike Selinker quote, while often correct, aren't actual rules in the rulebook. That said, there is a rule about evaded cards that says much the same thing, so lets take a look at it:
If any powers on the card you're encountering relate to evading the card, they take effect at this time. If you evade the card, do not activate any other powers on it.
So, in the new version of Silas, evading would not deal poison damage to the person that evaded. If dealing poison damage was intended, it should read
If you evade or do not defeat Silas, Silas deals 1d4-1 Poison damage to you.
By sequencing, Evasion happens before the Before you act step, so if the person encountering the actual card evades, nobody else summons a copy of the card to encounter. I personally think this is fine however.
If you evade or do not defeat Silas, Silas deals 1d4-1 Poison damage to you.By sequencing, Evasion happens before the Before you act step, so if the person encountering the actual card evades, nobody else summons a copy of the card to encounter. I personally think this is fine however.
What Vic is saying is that this damage does occur. Evading skips the before/after you act (and the checks for acting) but doesn't free you from the other text (such as 'immune to Mental' which might prevent evasion).
The sequencing you are assuming is not always true. The Whip allows you to evade instead of failing your check.
If you evade something, it is neither defeated nor undefeated, so you 'did not defeat Silas' (also, 'did not undefeat'). If you were supposed to be able to evade the damage, the card would say 'If Silas is undefeated ...'.
Yes, but the rulebook explicitly states "If you evade the card, do not activate any other powers on it" ("other powers" being powers that do not relate to evading the card), so with the card as-worded Vic's statement would be contrary to the rules. Since the damage power does not reference evading at all, it would be ignored per that rule. Either the card or the rule would need to be re-worded for the damage to apply, and I suggested the card since it's easier :)
That does pertain to evading; evading prevents you from defeating the card. See the FAQ for Pirate Hunting.
That's a different construction: you didn't evade Pirate Hunting itself, you evaded the summoned ship/monster. Your encounter with Pirate Hunting is still active, so you follow all of the powers on that card. If you evaded Pirate Hunting itself, you would not summon the ship/monster and Pirate Hunting would be shuffled back into the deck (not remain on top).
In other words, you have the following:
- Encounter Pirate Hunting, encounter the summoned card: Do everything as normal. Follow all powers on both Pirate Hunting and the summoned card.
- Encounter Pirate Hunting, evade the summoned card: You evaded the summoned card so you ignore any powers that do not reference evasion on the summoned card. However you did not evade Pirate Hunting itself, so all of its powers still apply.
- Evade Pirate Hunting: No cards are summoned, and you ignore all powers on Pirate Hunting that don't reference evasion, including the one instructing you to leave it face-up on top of the deck. Pirate Hunting is shuffled back in the deck due to being evaded.
Silas has a similar situation with regards to being defeated in the "After you act" power, for those that did not evade it:
- Encounter summoned Silas: If you fail the encounter you are dealt 1d4-1 Poison damage. No matter what, the summoned Silas is banished.
- Evade summoned Silas: Silas is banished due to having been summoned. You ignore any powers that do not reference evasion, and as such do not take Poison damage.
- Encounter actual Silas: If you fail the encounter you are dealt 1d4-1 Poison damage. Silas is shuffled back into the deck if any character failed the encounter or evaded Silas, otherwise Silas is banished and you get a chance to close.
- Evade actual Silas: Nobody else summons a copy of Silas, and you do not take any Poison damage, because none of those powers reference evasion and as such are ignored. Silas is shuffled back into the location deck.
In order for Silas to actually deal Poison damage to people evading it is for the power that deals Poison damage to actually reference evasion. Pirate Hunting still works in that FAQ because you aren't evading Pirate Hunting itself, but rather the card it summoned.