When an item that has the Poison trait requires you to banish or bury a card, you may discard or recharge it instead.
If you played a weapon on your combat check, reveal this card to add 2d8 and the Acid, Cold or Poison trait. After the check, succeed at a Disable or Craft 12 check or Tears of Death deals 1d4+1 Poison damage to you then bury your discard pile.
By my interpretation of RAW, Executioner Zadim can recharge his whole discard pile every time he plays Tears of Death and fails the Disable/Craft check.
Is that intended, is my interpretation wrong or do we need a FAQ?
Agreed that this probably needs FAQ.
I can split hairs and say that Zadim's power says "banish or bury a card" (singular) and Tears of Death is having you bury multiple cards (potentially) so it doesn't apply, but I don't think there's any rules support for that argument.
The power should probably specify "banish or bury a card from your hand or deck" (iirc there is at least one poison that makes you bury the top card of your deck if you fail a check).
I can split hairs and say that Zadim's power says "banish or bury a card" (singular) and Tears of Death is having you bury multiple cards (potentially) so it doesn't apply, but I don't think there's any rules support for that argument.
We've thought about that argument as well, but then we wondered if the argument still applies if your discard pile consists of precisely one card.
That is why I said there's no rules support for that argument :)
I'm also pretty certain that there are powers worded like that which are meant to act on multiple cards, but can't think of any offhand (they'd be At This Location or Scenario powers if they'd exist, probably. Then there's Verbozzer Swarm or w/e it's called in WotR which banishes weapons played against it, and Eyrines Devils in S&S which banishes Divine cards or blessings, but I don't remember how those are worded)
Yeah, we are agreeing :)
For completeness' sake:
If you play a weapon during this encounter, banish it.
This is probably the same thing as Damiel + Time Stop. Keep in mind you are still dealt 1d4 + 1 Poison damage, so you'll have to discard cards to get the benefit of the recharge, and that's pretty bad (and you may also have to take a Curse if you're playing in Mummy's Mask)
That being said, I could see it being limited to being from your hand.
There are lots of other poison items that bury the top card of your deck if you fail. Zadim getting to recharge or discard them makes sense.
This is probably the same thing as Damiel + Time Stop. Keep in mind you are still dealt 1d4 + 1 Poison damage, so you'll have to discard cards to get the benefit of the recharge, and that's pretty bad (and you may also have to take a Curse if you're playing in Mummy's Mask)
That being said, I could see it being limited to being from your hand.
I agree on the curse, but fail to see why the poison damage is a problem - the cards you discard for poison damage end up in your discard pile before you'd get to recharge it completely. Losing your hand in order to heal yourself completely seems like a no-brainer.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think Tears of Death is in the Rogue CD and that can be unlocked to use with Zadim in OP, which makes this combo much more likely than Damiel abusing cards exclusive to the game box.
You could also presumably carry a poison-friendly reveal armor to help mitigate the 1d4+1 poison damage. Not near my class deck so not sure if there are any in a deck that also has tears of death and allows Zadim.
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Tears of Death is in the Alchemist class deck.
... and to build on that, Executioner Zadim also has:
"You may ignore a monster’s immunity to the Poison trait."
Meaning as long as he has a weapon, he can pretty much always reveal it plus Tears of Death on any combat. Only thing limiting would be immunity to weapons for example.
Not to mention that the power "you may discard or recharge it instead" let you decide exactly what you do with each card that is in your discard. So you can stack in your deck exactly what you need to draw and leave the rest in discard (who cares, you'll get to chose again for those cards during the next combat).
Which brings another interestning food for thoughts (I like sending puzzles to not-this-Mike): can you select the order in which you recharge the cards in your discard? I see a fun can'o'worms.
A) If the "bury your discard pile" was replaced ("instead") by "recharge your discard pile", one could easily argue that the order is not to be changed. But even then, since your discard pile has to be flipped over to be recharge, the first card recharged should be the one that was discarded first or last (fun isn't it?)?
B) But the power as written seems to let you decide for each card whether you discard or recharge it. So you have to handle them one by one. OK. But starting by which one? And that has an importance since the card you gonna recharge first will most of the time (unless some shuffling of your deck happens) pop-up in your hand sooner.
Good luck on that one.
Which brings another interestning food for thoughts (I like sending puzzles to not-this-Mike): can you select the order in which you recharge the cards in your discard? I see a fun can'o'worms.
A) If the "bury your discard pile" was replaced ("instead") by "recharge your discard pile", one could easily argue that the order is not to be changed.
I believe the consensus for multy-card recharges (Father Z heal, etc..) is that you CHOSE the order. I see nothing in the rules to let someone argue your A).
I believe the consensus for multy-card recharges (Father Z heal, etc..) is that you CHOSE the order. I see nothing in the rules to let someone argue your A).Which brings another interestning food for thoughts (I like sending puzzles to not-this-Mike): can you select the order in which you recharge the cards in your discard? I see a fun can'o'worms.
A) If the "bury your discard pile" was replaced ("instead") by "recharge your discard pile", one could easily argue that the order is not to be changed.
Agreed. So, indeed, Damiel gets to take whatever cards he wants from his discard and recharge those in the order he wants. Uberpowerful.
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Just confirming something; I would imagine the intent is that this rule is also applied to Olenjack from the Rogue Class Deck, correct? He has an effect that is even more powerful than Zadim's when combined with Tears of Death, at half the power feat expenditure.
[ ] Reduce all Poison damage dealt to you to 0. If a card that has the Poison trait would cause you to bury a card, you may recharge that card instead.
I recognise that, historically, Olenjack would almost never come into contact with Tears of Death except in a home game of late-game Mummy's Mask with the Rogue Class Deck integrated in... but since any PFSACG Olenjack can play with Ultimate Equipment and develop access to Tears of Death, that kind of seems like something that should be FAQed. As written, he currently heals every card in his discard pile every time he gets into combat, as well as having a +2d8 to any combat check with a weapon, upon drawing Tears of Death.
The fact that Zadim had to be FAQed in the first place all but confirms that his power WOULD have allowed him to heal his discard pile with Tears of Death, which means that currently Olenjack can do so, with even greater ease.
Sorry this is sort of a related question, but on the Craft check after using Tears of Death, would Zadim be allowed to use his "recharge a card and add Intelligence to a check that invokes the poison trait"? If so seems like he can use Tears of Death without much fear of any penalty besides having to recharge a card.
Yes, he would (he is making a check against a card with the Poison trait, therefore his check invokes the Poison trait). Rechare VS 2d8 Poison combat doesn't seem like that much of an overkill for a late game hero, though. For a character power, recharge for +1d8 seems to be (have been) a relatively established baseline for ROLE powers (i.e not counting towards your card types per check). On the other hand, this particular combo:
- uses the worst possible trait (esp. in MM)- appears very late in game
- requires you to have a particular single card in hand
- competes with other possible Item plays
- seems altogether redundant on Zadim, who by this stage in the game should be a combat machine, and could probably use cards that cover his weak spots instead
Personally, I went through MM with Zadim and never even considered the Poisons - I found the Embalming Fluid a much better proposition overall.
Sorry this is sort of a related question, but on the Craft check after using Tears of Death, would Zadim be allowed to use his "recharge a card and add Intelligence to a check that invokes the poison trait"? If so seems like he can use Tears of Death without much fear of any penalty besides having to recharge a card.
You're correct. I'd point to Longshot's statement above, though, and would additionally note a few things.
He can ignore monster's immunities to poison with one of his roles, of course, but I never felt I had any problem covering any combat check with Zadim simply by recharging a weapon to add his Stealth skill for the harder checks, or occasionally his Intelligence skill for his checks invoking Poison, Acid or Undead (which can be done with the help of weapons without needing to use an item slot for a weapon poison).
I never understood why Tears of Death existed as a card. Adding non-poison traits from a card that is stuck with the Poison trait (and thus cannot be used against poison-immune enemies anyway) seemed irrelevant, and it provided the same combat bonus as Wyvern Poison with a far larger - and harder to avoid - downside, at a later AD#. Did there exist a character who would prefer it over Wyvern Poison?
I'd say perhaps Tears of Death was made for Channa Ti (who likes to carry Liquids, and can protect herself from the Poison damage side effect), but she's almost always as good with Poisons by that point as she is with the Acid and Cold traits.
I'd say perhaps Tears of Death was made for Damiel (as it's an Alchemical card), but he can provide safer, bigger bonuses with any alchemical card that's on hand with his own powers, rather than rely on a weapon poison with a huge, hard to avoid downside that only works with his weapons (not his 'grenade' style items) and can't be used against Undead.
But then, I've also been pretty underwhelmed by the Poison-matters design of some of its mascots (most egregiously the bizarre self-defeating power set of Emil).