Our party of Flenta, WotR Kyra, Zarlova and CD Merisiel were playing the 1-6E scenario of Season of the Righteous, which we positively stomped, and early on Flenta pulled the henchman Wivver Noclan. He has the text:
Before you act, each character summons and encounters a random monster.
We each drew a monster, and sure enough Flenta drew a Boar Demon, which states:
Before you act,... choose another character at your location; that character summons and encounters this adventure's servitor demon.
Merisiel drew a Spite Demon, which states
Before you act, roll 1d6. On an odd result, a character at your location summons and encounters this adventure's servitor demon.
I didn't feel like going through the extra fights, so I said:
Summoned cards cannot cause other cards to be summoned.
Looking back on it, I wished we had fought those fights, because the scenario was too easy. And really, there would have been no problem with it; it wasn't one of those infinite regresses you can get into with summoned cards.
So I think we'll house-rule this rule to be: "Summoned cards cannot cause other cards to be summoned, if it doesn't make sense to do so."
How do others play this? I know in S & S we let summoned barriers summon ships, and we let that darn Owlbeartross summon a Grindylow, even if the Owlbeartross was summoned.
We're 50-50 with it, but we tend to play "a summoned card cannot activate the summoning condition of any card but its own."
We're 50-50 with it, but we tend to play "a summoned card cannot activate the summoning condition of any card but its own."
That would still give you an infinite number of encounters when multiple characters are at a location and one of them encounters a monster which says before you act, every other character at this location summons and encounters the monster.
The rules are there because you need to avoid infinite loops.
With the spite demon you could still end up with quite a lot of summoned Spite demons, even if not technically infinite.
The Spite Demon summoned the servitor demon, which didn't summon anything.
It's in the rules guys :
Summoned cards cannot cause other cards to be summoned.
It's in the rules guys :
Summoned cards cannot cause other cards to be summoned.
But, it is more satisfying to permit the summoning, when it doesn't cause a logistical problem.
One version I've tinkered with in my mind is something like this:
A card can not interact with a summoned card to cause another card to be summoned.
What do I mean by this? Basically, is you summon a card, do whatever that card says, even summon something else. But, if you summon a card and there is another card "in play" it can't interact with the summoned card to summon something. So, if a location said "If you encounter a card, each other character at this location summons and encounters that card" that wouldn't apply if the card you encountered was summoned.
I tend to like the summoning too. Though, your original example was starting to get a bit crazy.
My own houserule goes something like "If a summoned card would summon another card and that card could create a loop of summoned cards, do not summon that card."
This follows summon chains to completion, but short-circuits the moment it detects that the chain can start looping. It only trips on summoned cards summoning other cards so that it is possible to summon something to begin with that would otherwise loop (e.g. the "Before you act, each other character summons and encounters a copy of this card." style powers). The wording allows for blocking non-deterministic loops as well, such as if the Spite Demon in the above example happened to be the servitor demon (not possible, but hypothetically), if it was summoned it could not summon itself again regardless of the die roll.
Thing is, I don't think there's a good way of wording the rule such that it allows for these exceptions without being horribly confusing and needing a paragraph of help text explaining what exactly that sentence means. However, there's a way around it even with the current rule, the card doing the summoning just needs to be explicit that it works even if the card itself was summoned. The rulebook only uses "cannot", not "never", so a properly-worded card can override it.
OK then we are looking at some house rule that would make sense... working on it.
Yes but there's also been other discussions where I'm 99.9999% sure Mike or Vic said it's not as strict as your implying it is. It's poorly worded.
As far as I know:
In the meantime, yes, go ahead and let that summoned barrier summon a ship.
Chief Technical Officer
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Frankly, the "summoned cards can't summon other cards" rule was us trying to fix potential infinite summoning loops... but that solution was like fixing a hole in our wall by stuffing it full of oil-soaked rags: it solved the immediate problem, but created a whole different (and probably worse) one.
There are quite a few cards out there that just plain *can't* follow that rule. Take Goblin Weidling, which summons Riptide Grindylow... even though Weidling itself can only come into play by being summoned!
Or barriers like Skeleton Horde, which you defeat by defeating things they summon. They're fine most of the time—but what if something summons Skeleton Horde? The answer can't be that it doesn't summon Skeletons—if that were true, you couldn't defeat it!
We contemplated the much milder rule "Summoned cards can't summon copies of themselves," but even that would mess up cards like Crab Swarm, which—like Skeleton Horde—works fine most of the time... but when the Crab Swarm itself is summoned, it really does need to summon Crab Swarms just as if it weren't summoned.
We contemplated the much milder rule "Summoned cards can't summon copies of themselves," but even that would mess up cards like Crab Swarm, which—like Skeleton Horde—works fine most of the time... but when the Crab Swarm itself is summoned, it really does need to summon Crab Swarms just as if it weren't summoned.
So, how about instead of a(not-really-so)general rule, you implement some shorthand explicitly for the cards you DON'T want to summon when summoned themselves? Perhaps something like:
"Before you act, unless (this card was) summoned, each other character at location summons and encounters the Example Monster ..."
I'm sure that's not the best wording, bud do you think such approach possible or desirable? Or do you think that'll be way too much text overhead?
Clearly, we just need to move the recursion layer one further out:
A card that is summoned by a card that was summoned can never summon cards.
So, Enemy Ship summons Goblin Weidling summons Riptide Grindylow fine, but Villain summons Spite Demon which summons Spite Demon which cannot summon another.
Clearly, we just need to move the recursion layer one further out:
A card that is summoned by a card that was summoned can never summon cards.So, Enemy Ship summons Goblin Weidling summons Riptide Grindylow fine, but Villain summons Spite Demon which summons Spite Demon which cannot summon another.
That's an option, I guess, but as the number of cards continues to grow, you guys still need to be on the lookout for all possible combos like (an example) - "to close this location, summon and defeat a random barrier, which can be a barrier summoning a random monster, which monster could be the Owlbeartross...". I don't know maybe such a combo even exists though I cant think of one off the top of my head.
(EDIT 2: I figured one out - if we have a theoretical combo game with S&S and WotR cards: Closing the Eye of Abedengo, which summons Demon Horde, which summons the Spite demon, which - you seem to agree should be the legal play- summons another Spite Demon. )Just seems easier and cleaner to have an all-purpose rule that don't make you review all your cards to date, the moment someone of you gets a cool idea for a summoning card. And to me, personally, it seems awful arbitrary and counter-intuitive to make the role "no third- (or fourth- , or fifth-) degree summoning, but second-degree is ok". I can easily imagine this giving pause to player around the table, "Wait, how many chained summons we have thus far?"
EDIT: What I'm saying is, the great thing about this game is that once you grasp a few simple rules, you only need to read the cards, and it seems that the fewer rules that only figure in the rule book you need to remember - the better.
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There are some design decisions that are relevant here. If a card summons a random monster and that random monster is an Umbral Dragon, should the undefeated Umbral Dragon summon another Umbral Dragon? I think we all agree the second one shouldn't summon another, but does what it means to encounter an Umbral Dragon mean that you always have that penalty for it being undefeated? I think we can all agree and see that you wouldn't summon a third, but should you summon a second is really a design question.
And who knows, they may have made cards based on the principle that summon cards can't summon other cards. Maybe the Umbral Dragon was written the way it was so that a summoned one would never have the undefeated condition triggered.
I'm thinking of these things in 3 categories. And some of the terms I'm going to use here are clearly not "game" terms. This is just how I've thought about the issue:
Non-summoned: Pretty straightforward. These cards are in locations or what have you.
Summoned: These cards are summoned by a non-summoned card.
+Summoned: These cards are summoned by a summoned card.
And these terms:
Simple: 1 card summons another card.
Complex: 2 cards interact to summon another card.
Direct: The summoned card is clearly stated and named.
Indirect: The summoned card is random or is in some way variable.
Duplicate: The summoned card is a copy of (one of) the card that summoned it.
Discrete: The summoned card is different from the card(s) that summoned it.
For example:
Crab Swarm. This is simple, direct, and duplicate. (Crab Swarm is 1 card that summons another card (though multiple copies of it).
Ancient Skeleton Henchmen during Black Fang’s Dungeon. This is complex, direct, and duplicate. It takes two cards (the scenario card that the henchman) to summon another card.
Wivver Noclan. This is simple, indirect, and discrete.
Boar Demon. This is simple, indirect, and discrete.
Spite Demon. This is simple, indirect, and duplicate or discrete depending on the adventure.
So....
Non-summoned cards can summon things without restriction. This is a no brainer.
Summoned cards can only make simple summons, and they must be direct and/or discrete. This should end most infinite loops. A few loops would get through and should get stopped at the next level.
-Black Fang’s Dungeon + Summoned Ancient Skeleton henchman can’t do this.
-Summoned Boar Demon can summon the Servitor Demon.
-Summoned Crab Swarm can summon other Crab Swarms.
-Umbral Dragon can summon another Umbral Dragon.
+Summoned card can only make simple, direct, discrete summons.
-+Summoned Spite Demon can’t summon another servitor demon.
With these rules, the OP would have gone like this:
Non-summoned Wivver Noclan would summon Boar Demon.
Summoned Boar Demon would summon Spite Demon.
+Summoned Spite Demon would not summon another Spite Demon.
That is just what elcoderdude decided to do.
No idea if this is really a good idea. I'm just sharing what is running through my head. It would need to be weighed against how complex it would be to express it in a rulebook and also whether or not you should just cut off summoning at some point because too much summoning, even if simple, direct, and discrete, can get very unfun very quickly.
And also, maybe I'm thinking about this much more than I really should.
stuff
I like it. I hope Vic endorses it. Sadly I am printing this out as an attachment for my WotR set.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Hawk's plan is probably mechanically sound—or at least, close enough to be workable—but it's far too complicated to explain, use, and remember. We don't need you pulling out a flowchart every time you summon a card.
Here's my challenge to the community: Can you summarize what he laid out—or even something that gets you 80% of the way there—in a short paragraph?
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We don't need you pulling out a flowchart every time you summon a card.
I use flow charts for grappling in PFS
=)
For clarity, the Spite Demon is not a servitor demon. No servitor demons summon other demons, _because_ of the summons can't summon rule :)
In the OP's example, the henchman caused people to summon random monsters and two of those monsters wanted to summon the servitor demon. The chain would have stopped there.
That changes the argument above only slightly, but perhaps enough.
Keith is exactly right about my original example. The servitor demon in Season of the Righteous adventure 6 is Favored of Deskari.
Ah, yes, I misunderstood that. That would mean both Summoned Boar Demon and Summoned Spite Demon could summon the servitor demon in my framework above (being simple and discrete).
The question is, whether or not such a thing is desirable. If such a thing isn't desired, then it might be enough to say that for a summoned card to summon another card it must be simple and direct, while for a +Summoned card to summon another card it must be simple, direct and discrete.
I'm toying with this in my head right now:
When you encounter a summoned card it can only summon another card when (a) the card is summoned solely by the power of the encountered card and (b) the summoned card is explicitly named in the power of the encountered card. Despite this, a summoned card can not cause the same character to summon and encounter another copy of itself, ignore any such power that would do so.
When you encounter a summoned card it can only summon another card when (a) the card is summoned solely by the power of the encountered card and (b) the summoned card is explicitly named in the power of the encountered card. Despite this, a summoned card can not cause the same character to summon and encounter another copy of itself, ignore any such power that would do so.
This doesn't quite address the problem. Kyra encounters a Giant Maggot Swarm. Lem is also at her location. Kyra's Giant Maggot Swarm causes Lem to encounter a Giant Maggot Swarm. We don't want Lem's Giant Maggot Swarm to cause Kyra to encounter another.
Does this work?
Despite this, a summoned card can not cause a character to encounter a second copy of itself, ignore any such power that would do so.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Ah, yes, I misunderstood that. That would mean both Summoned Boar Demon and Summoned Spite Demon could summon the servitor demon in my framework above (being simple and discrete).
The question is, whether or not such a thing is desirable. If such a thing isn't desired...
A common misconception of game design is that there's only one intended design and that no other solution is acceptable.*
In this case, I think that the designers would prefer that the summoned Boar Demon and Spite Demon summon servitor demons, but if the clearest and easiest rules don't allow those servitors to be summoned, that's how it goes.
*A sort of correlary to that misconception is that game balance is so tight and important that this sort of thing matters. Whether these guys summon or not is almost totally inconsequential to game balance. Remember, in the situation we're talking about, they're summoned themselves, which is already a highly variable operation. Then, the fact that the Boar Demon only summons when there's somebody else at your location, and the Spite Demon only summons 50% of the time anyway makes the answer even *more* inconsequential.
Here's my shot at a paragraph that gets 80% of the way to what Hawk was saying. Additions to the existing rules are in and removals are striked out.
Summoning And Adding Cards
Sometimes you will be told to summon cards or to add cards to a deck. When this happens, retrieve the cards from the box. However, if you're told to summon a card that's already in play, just imagine you have another copy of that card for the new encounter; this summoned copy ceases to exist at the end of the encounter.
Summoned cards cannot cause other cards to be summoned.If you're told to summon and encounter a card, this immediately starts a new encounter. If you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the summoned card before continuing the original encounter. After evading a summoned card or resolving the encounter with it, never put it anywhere other than back in the box unless the card that caused you to summon it instructs you otherwise. If an effect causes multiple characters to summon and encounter cards, resolve the encounters sequentially in any order you like, including banishing the card at the end of the encounter. If the summoned card is a villain or henchman, defeating it does not allow you to win the scenario or close a location deck--ignore any such text on those cards. Cards that you summon are not part of any location deck.
Corollary: the Golden Rule may need to be adjusted to specify that the rulebook can tell you to ignore things as well, as right now the rule only applies to cards.
I think that wording adequately addresses what Hawkmoon said above. I'm relying on context here to indicate that "already encountering" includes encounters that you put "on hold" due to summoning and encountering other cards. I don't believe that defining that term to include on-hold encounters in a general sense (e.g. having that definition apply globally and not just in this paragraph) harms anything, but it is a snag to look out for. Here's an adjusted wording that indicates the definition is special to this paragraph if we want to be super-safe (at the expense of a larger and potentially more confusing sentence):
If you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the summoned card before continuing the original encounter.
This is different than Hawkmoon's wording in that with the above if you were in an encounter with a summoned Umbral Dragon, you could not fight it a second time (although someone else certainly could, indeed if you got unlucky a single Umbral Dragon could result in everyone encountering it once -- and you encountering it twice if the original was not summoned -- since it is tracked per-character). However it would yield the same result for elcoderdude's sequence.
How's this:
"If a power would summon a card, and that power has already been activated on a card of the same name since the last explore or phase, instead ignore that power."
This would break a power which said something like "Whenever X happens, summon Y", if X was intended to happen multiple times during the same explore, but I do not know of any such power. Otherwise I think it does what you want. It certainly can't loop infinitely since there's only finitely many names of cards and finitely many powers on a card. It will allow chains of different cards to summon each other, since they involve different powers, which is desirable. And it allows a card to summon copies of itself exactly once.
The term "since the last explore or phase" is a bit awkward but I think it does the job. I was originally thinking along the lines of causal chains of events but it's hard to rigorously pin down what that is. So instead I figure that causal chains of events always start with either an explore or happen during a phase like "at the end of your turn" etc. Maybe it also breaks when you have multiple copies of a card which says something like "at the start of your turn do X" where X involves summoning a card? Again I don't know of any such cards offhand that you can also have multiple copies of.
Edit - having just read what Skizzerz wrote, his "encounters put on hold" concept is equivalent to my "causal chain of events", so maybe it is possible to define one.
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Irgy's suggestion at the start of his post is essentially what I have recommended, and always played by, and I think it's the best course of action. The difference is I think the "a card of the same name" should be "that card" (if you somehow summon two of the same card, I don't think that should block future summons), but the gist of it is the same. Allow continued summons as long as it's not the same power that has already been triggered at least once since the last time you were not in an encounter.
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Chief Technical Officer
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If a power on a summoned card would summon and encounter a card that you are already encountering, ignore that power.
I like the simplicity of this. It needs a slight adjustment in that we want to ignore only the summoning effect, not the entire power that contains it (as that power may include other effects that really need to happen), so:
If a summoned card would summon a card that you are already encountering, ignore that effect.
It does subvert the intent of Umbral Dragon, which definitely did want to offer the possibility of coming back on the same character (which is why it says "random character" rather than "random other character,") but if that's the only collateral damage here, it's totally worth it.
I know Hawkmoon has a list of cards that got confusing with the old ruling—Hawk, how's this go down with them?
Does "If a summoned card would summon..." cover things like Black Fang's Dungeon where the card with the power that summons other cards is the scenario card? In other words, does "would summon" mean that the power has to be on the summoned card or does it mean that the summoned card would lead to another card being summoned? Regardless, I'm sure it could be tweaked to cover that.
I'm looking through the other cards to see if anything pops out.
How about "if a card summons a copy of itself, that copy can't summon another copy"?
I'm just trying to nitpick here for even the most extreme issues.
Demonic Horde - Would a summoned Demonic Horde still be able to give 1 character more than 2 servitor demons?
I'm also trying to totally grasp what "already encountering" means. If you go back to Black Fang's Dungeon, it says "When another character encounters..." So, lets assume that happens during the "when encountered" step.
I encounter an Ancient Skeleton with Vic and Andrew at my location.
I stop at the "when encountered" step of my encounter.
Vic summons one.
He pauses at his "when encountered" step. I'm currently encountering one, so I'm covered by the rule.
Andrew isn't so, he summons and encounters one. During his encounter, Vic and I are both covered.
Andrew resolves his.
Vic goes back to resolving his.
We are back to my "when encountered step" but my original Ancient Skeleton didn't cause Andrew to summon one yet, so he has to do it.
And now Vic isn't encountering one, so he has to summon another one.
I think we can all see what we want this to do, but I think "currently encountering" needs some help somehow. Maybe.
How about "if a card summons a copy of itself, that copy can't summon another copy"?
That only accounts for direct loops where cards summon copies of themselves. That would not block a loop where card A summons card B which summons card A which summons card B...
Or for a more real example, there's a location in WotR (Great Hall maybe? forgot the name) that says something like "At this Locatin: When you encounter a villain or henchman, summon and encounter the adventure's servitor demon." Servitor demons are henchman, and you are encountering them at that location, so the location power would cause an infinite loop of servitor demons. Your wording wouldn't account for that since the servitor demon itself is not doing the summoning, and the location is certainly not summoning copies of itself.
@Vic: my wording only subverts a summoned Umbral Dragon. If an Umbral Dragon is encountered normally, you can still be the lucky one that fights the summoned copy. The wording in fact goes in the opposite direction, by allowing multiple people to encounter that Umbral Dragon. Say there are 3 people: Valeros, Kyra, and Merisiel. Valeros explores his location and encounters Umbral Dragon and loses. He then randomly chooses himself and therefore summons and encounters it again, and loses again. This time he randomly chooses Kyra, who has yet to encounter Umbral Dragon in this sequence of events, so she gets to have a shot at it too, and so on until either someone beats it or the random roll hits someone that has previously fought it.
The issues Hawkmoon raises are valid points against that wording though, I'm going to try to think of how to revise it to cover those cases. Summoned Demonic Horde in particular is tough, I think the solution for that card would be to simply issue errata for it after a solid rule gets formed so that the card can trump the rulebook. Tailoring the rule to account for summoned Demonic Hordes without opening loopholes in everything else seems really difficult if not impossible. (This is the reason I don't want to use the word "never" in the rule, so that special case cards that aren't quite covered by the rule can be covered by errata to that card instead -- ideally this would be 0 cards impacted, but it looks like it may need to be 1 instead).
Try #2
Summoning And Adding Cards
Sometimes you will be told to summon cards or to add cards to a deck. When this happens, retrieve the cards from the box. However, if you're told to summon a card that's already in play, just imagine you have another copy of that card for the new encounter; this summoned copy ceases to exist at the end of the encounter.
Summoned cards cannot cause other cards to be summoned.If you're told to summon and encounter a card, this immediately starts a new encounter .
If you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the summoned card before continuing the original encounter.After evading a summoned card or resolving the encounter with it, never put it anywhere other than back in the box unless the card that caused you to summon it instructs you otherwise. If an effect causes multiple characters to summon and encounter cards, resolve the encounters sequentially in any order you like, including banishing the card at the end of the encounter. If the summoned card is a villain or henchman, defeating it does not allow you to win the scenario or close a location deck--ignore any such text on those cards. Cards that you summon are not part of any location deck.
Two new sidebars should be added to support the above rule change (one is a Rules sidebar, the other is a New sidebar to bring attention to the change and so would only appear in the MM rulebook and can be omitted if you feel that the rule change doesn't really need to be highlighted):
Rules: Multiple Encounters
If you are told to encounter a card and you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the new card before continuing the current encounter. The current set of encounters consists of every encounter that happens from the time the original encounter started to the time it is resolved.
New: Summoning and Encountering Cards
Summoned cards can make you summon and encounter other cards, but only when you haven't already encountered that card in the current set of encounters.
This adds a new game term "current set of encounters" which is explained via a rules sidebar. The encounter nesting rule has also been moved to that sidebar to beef it up a bit and to make it apply generally rather than just with summoned cards (not sure that this distinction would matter, but it opens up the door to cards having you encounter (but not summon and encounter) other cards. If that isn't desirable, just change the wording back to "summon and encounter." I think having the nesting rule in close proximity to the "current set of encounters" definition is useful for context purposes, so they should go together wherever they end up being. I replaced "original encounter" with "current encounter" in the nesting sentence so that the words "original encounter" in the current set of encounters definition can unambiguously refer to the first encounter that kicked everything off.
With the current set of encounters defined the way it is, a summoned Demonic Horde still doesn't let the same person encounter the servitor demon more than once, but it prevents Ancient Skeleton from double-dipping on Vic and Andrew.
The difference is I think the "a card of the same name" should be "that card" (if you somehow summon two of the same card, I don't think that should block future summons)
The problem is that many cases where multiple of the same card is summoned you're technically meant to find another copy of the card in the box (as a general rule henchmen work this way and monsters don't). If it's another card then by your wording you could end up recursively summoning more copies until everyone had encountered every copy of the card, which is clearly wrong.
I think a similar problem potentially exists with Skizzerz suggestion above, in that it might matter which copy of the card you've already encountered. If "a card you have already encountered" is already considered to cover all identical copies of the same card then there's no problem, but "of the same name" was my way of trying to make sure of that.
If a summoned card would summon a card that you are already encountering, ignore that effect.
I fully support that idea as
A) SIMPLICITY!B) List of cards which are potential candidates for an errata seems to be limited (Umbral Dragon, Demonic Hordes...)
But I will let the Mighty Uber Godly Hawk check into his Universal Compendium of Strange Cases correct me if needeed.
B) List of cards which are potential candidates for an errata seems to be limited (Umbral Dragon, Demonic Hordes...)
I don't believe Demonic Horde would even require adjustment, as you must first complete your encounter with one of the summoned servitors, before encountering another.
I don't believe Demonic Horde would even require adjustment, as you must first complete your encounter with one of the summoned servitors, before encountering another.
B) List of cards which are potential candidates for an errata seems to be limited (Umbral Dragon, Demonic Hordes...)
Indeed. That's why I said "potential" candidates.
Rules: Multiple Encounters
If you are told to encounter a card and you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the new card before continuing the current encounter. The current set of encounters consists of every encounter that happens from the time the original encounter started to the time it is resolved.
The problem with that though is, right now, summoning can (and does) happen in various different steps. Some have it BYA. Some have it AYA, some have it if undefeated. Some have it when encountered.
And the BYA ones can be pretty important. Like Jordimandus from RotR. He summons a random monster BYA (BTE in RotR-speak). If you defeat that monster it changes how you can defeat Jordimandus. Saying I'd have to wait until I resolved the encounter I was already in would make the not possible.
Or the Owlbeartross, who summons a Riptide Grindylow BYA and, depending on whether you defeat the Riptide Grindylow or not, modifies the check to defeat the Owlbeartross.
I'm still hung up on "already encountering".
If it literally means I'm in the midst of encounter with that card right now, Demonic Horde is fine but Black Fang's Dungeon has a problem.
If it means "that you have already encountered since this chain of encounters began" then Black Fang's Dungeon is fine, but Demonic Horde has a problem.
There are cards that summon physical cards from the box and cards that summon copies of themselves (or particular cards for the deck/scenario). Assuming that the latter are worded to not go into self-recursive infinite loops (possibly through errata), there may be a fairly simple solution. Don't put cards back into the box until the end of the top-level encounter. If there isn't a copy of a card to pull from the box, you don't need to summon and encounter that card. (It only seems like there are an infinite number of Ancient Skeletons.)
This also solves what to do if your game is missing a card and makes having all the copies of henchman useful. If you hate a particular type of summoned card, Balazar can build up a collection of those creatures so that you can stop encountering it.
Rules: Multiple Encounters
If you are told to encounter a card and you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the new card before continuing the current encounter. The current set of encounters consists of every encounter that happens from the time the original encounter started to the time it is resolved.
The problem with that though is, right now, summoning can (and does) happen in various different steps. Some have it BYA. Some have it AYA, some have it if undefeated. Some have it when encountered.
And the BYA ones can be pretty important. Like Jordimandus from RotR. He summons a random monster BYA (BTE in RotR-speak). If you defeat that monster it changes how you can defeat Jordimandus. Saying I'd have to wait until I resolved the encounter I was already in would make the not possible.
Or the Owlbeartross, who summons a Riptide Grindylow BYA and, depending on whether you defeat the Riptide Grindylow or not, modifies the check to defeat the Owlbeartross.
But skizzerz's rule handles this. You complete the new encounter before returning to the original encounter.
Ah. Yeah. I read that wrong. My bad.
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Chief Technical Officer
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The problem is that many cases where multiple of the same card is summoned you're technically meant to find another copy of the card in the box (as a general rule henchmen work this way and monsters don't). If it's another card then by your wording you could end up recursively summoning more copies until everyone had encountered every copy of the card, which is clearly wrong.
Nope. "If an effect causes multiple characters to summon and encounter cards, resolve the encounters sequentially in any order you like, including banishing the card at the end of the encounter." So when multiple characters summon the same card, the encounters aren't simultaneous, they're sequential, and if the card came from the box, it is technically returned to the box between each encounter. The number of copies in the box therefore does not provide an upper limit to the number of times you can summon a card.
Also, "If you’re told to summon a card that’s already in play, just imagine you have another copy of that card for the new encounter; this summoned copy ceases to exist at the end of the encounter." So if the card didn't come from the box, there's also no upper limit to the number of times you can summon it.
I'm still hung up on "already encountering".
If it literally means I'm in the midst of encounter with that card right now, Demonic Horde is fine but Black Fang's Dungeon has a problem.
If it means "that you have already encountered since this chain of encounters began" then Black Fang's Dungeon is fine, but Demonic Horde has a problem.
That's what my try #2 hoped to address. I removed the text "already encountering" and instead introduced a notion of "current set of encounters" (explained via the rules sidebar). However, a one-sentence rules sidebar looked a bit sparse, so I also moved the already-existing sentence about encounters-within-encounters from the summoning and encountering card text into the sidebar and tweaked the wording from "If you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the summoned card before continuing the original encounter." to "If you are told to encounter a card and you're already in an encounter, complete the encounter with the new card before continuing the current encounter." since it was no longer in the section on summoning so mentioning summoning seemed weird, and I wanted to use "original encounter" in the next sentence to refer to the first one, so I needed to use something else here.
With the notion of "current set of encounters", it is clear that already-resolved encounters are still included since they happened in between the time the original encounter started and the time it resolved -- the fact they are over does not change their inclusion. This fixes the Ancient Skeleton issue you mentioned in response to my first try and doesn't add too much complexity (one extra sentence, really, although it's moving 2 sentences to a sidebar so takes a bit more space in the rulebook). This breaks Demonic Horde, but if that's the only broken thing then it can just be FAQ'ed/errata'd in response to the new rule.
"If an effect causes multiple characters to summon and encounter cards, resolve the encounters sequentially in any order you like, including banishing the card at the end of the encounter."
I thought the current rule for summoned cards is that they're "returned to the box" , not "banished". Am I mistaken?
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Chief Technical Officer
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"If an effect causes multiple characters to summon and encounter cards, resolve the encounters sequentially in any order you like, including banishing the card at the end of the encounter."I thought the current rule for summoned cards is that they're "returned to the box" , not "banished". Am I mistaken?
Kind of. The rule says "After evading a summoned card or resolving the encounter with it, never put it anywhere other than back in the box unless the card that caused you to summon it instructs you otherwise." If the summoned card was banished during the resolution of the encounter, it *did* go back in the box, so in this situation, this rule doesn't change anything.
If this rule were a flowchart, it would look like this:
<Did the card get put back in the box?> —YES—> [Done!]
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NO
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[Put it back in the box.]
The problem is that many cases where multiple of the same card is summoned you're technically meant to find another copy of the card in the box (as a general rule henchmen work this way and monsters don't). If it's another card then by your wording you could end up recursively summoning more copies until everyone had encountered every copy of the card, which is clearly wrong.Nope. "If an effect causes multiple characters to summon and encounter cards, resolve the encounters sequentially in any order you like, including banishing the card at the end of the encounter." So when multiple characters summon the same card, the encounters aren't simultaneous, they're sequential, and if the card came from the box, it is technically returned to the box between each encounter. The number of copies in the box therefore does not provide an upper limit to the number of times you can summon a card.
Also, "If you’re told to summon a card that’s already in play, just imagine you have another copy of that card for the new encounter; this summoned copy ceases to exist at the end of the encounter." So if the card didn't come from the box, there's also no upper limit to the number of times you can summon it.
Sure but my point was about a specific modification to a specific wording that I'd proposed, and my point was just that it didn't work.
I guess I shouldn't have said you're "meant to find another copy", but I think it's still true that you can choose to find another copy. The fact that which physical copy of the card you choose to summon could matter makes my point about it not working stronger.The important point is that if you want the rule to refer to whether a card has been seen already "recently", then it's important that it doesn't matter which copy of the same card is which. The phrase "card of the same name" is one solution to that problem which I proposed. It's also possible that "the same card" is considered to be good enough already but like I said it leads to issues if you (maybe mistakenly) interpret it as a referring to a physical piece of cardboard. On the whole I think "already encountering" or "in the current set of encounters" and so on work ok in this regard. It's clear enough that if you're encountering a card with a given name and you're asked to summon a card of that name then you are indeed already encountering it, so this isn't an issue necessarily with the current proposals.