Hi everyone, this is one for the expert.
On your turn, discard this card to move; you may then explore your location. During this exploration, add 1d6 to your combat checks.
You may not move or be moved from this location unless another character is present
You must succeed at a Wisdom or Divine 7 check to move or be moved to another location
Questions:
A) I am alone in the Dam, can I play the Pteranodon to explore locally?Answer is NO if I am not mistaken.
Now for the fun
B) I am at the Shimmerglens, can I play the Pteranodon if I have d8 in Wisdom?
I guess I can.
But now if I fail the Wisdom check, can I explore my location (Shimmerglens)?
I guess I can because I actually TRIED to move with a chance to do so.
But then...
C) I am at the Shimmerglens, can I play the Pteranodon if I have d4 in both Wisdom and Divine?
Do we say we cannot play the ally because I cannot play a card on an impossible effect (moving is just impossible, just like it was in the case of the Dam), so I cannot cheat the rules to use the ally to explore locally? That would be my guess.
Ideas?
Ugh. This is pretty much exactly why I despise the ruling that "An entire power has to be legal for you to play a card in the first place", because there's actually a lot of corner-cases where you won't know whether part of a power will be illegal until you've started it.
(For example, let's say you had a card that said "explore your location, then move". What if you encountered a barrier that displayed itself and prevented you from moving? What if you examined that barrier and knew it was there, so you - as a player - know that the power you're activating will be partially impossible? What about if you had a card that said "Examine the top card of your location deck. If it is a boon, move to a random location and end your turn. If it is a bane; explore your location.". Could you play it if you were in a location that prevented you from moving? Or a location that prevented you from exploring? Both? Neither?)
But for the sake of argument, I would personally rule that you can play the Pteranodon in both B and C, and you would get the exploration both ways. Because you could hypothetically pass the check (though you'd need help in the latter - you could even count die bumps or whatever), and then once it's discarded you simply ignore impossible instructions but play the entire power.
To suggest that "a 1d4 can't pass, so it's an impossible instruction" is a terrifying slippery slope to me, because there are some tables that honestly play with their hands held and 'hidden' from their teammates. You cannot know if a player has a Blessing of Maat available, for example, in that case.
I don't think impossible instructions should neutralize an entire card from going off - most rulings have avoided that as much as possible, hence why the rulebook says to just "ignore the impossible and continue" (to paraphrase). This isn't MTG where cards can fizzle - though MTG at least explains that mechanic in a very objective and simple manner, unlike PACG.
EDIT: This exact circumstance also raises an unappealing point. A location that says "You cannot move from this location" becomes significantly harsher for some decks and players than a location that says "Pass a Melee 10000000 check or you cannot move", because the latter wouldn't prevent you from using Pteranodon (based on my observation) or a myriad of other "move and explore" allies (particularly animals) but the former absolutely would.
Ugh. This is pretty much exactly why I despise the ruling that "An entire power has to be legal for you to play a card in the first place"
Yep as usual with most can'O'Worms examples, il boils down to that.
I would personally rule that you can play the Pteranodon in both B and C, and you would get the exploration both ways. Because you could hypothetically pass the check (though you'd need help in the latter - you could even count die bumps or whatever)...
I would absolutely disagree with that because it creates impossible loops like :
Say I have a card that adds the the B trait to a check but that can only be played if the check already has the A trait.And another card that adds the the A trait to a check but that can only be played if the check already has the B trait.
It is obvious that by RAW I cannot play any of those card in the first place.
With you idea that "yes but if I latter play a blessing, then my d4 in Wisdom can become 2d4 and the move will them become possible in Shimmerglens, so I can play the Pteranodon in the first place", you would break that logic and open an even worst can'O'Worms...
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A) Yes
B) Yes
C) Yes
Nothing says that moving is an impossible instruction and is therefore ignored. It follows a different golden rule that tells you how to resolve conflicts between two powers (cannot overrides can), and the power still affects your situation because it still gives you an explore, despite the movement not happening.
The “entire power must be legal” bit is false as well. The only check for legality is the very first instruction—the one that has you manipulating the card you’re playing. If that instruction is impossible (and therefore ignored), then you have no means of playing that card. If later instructions are impossible, you ignore only those instructions and can still play the card.
(Sorry for brevity, on phone)
The “entire power must be legal” bit is false as well. The only check for legality is the very first instruction—the one that has you manipulating the card you’re playing. If that instruction is impossible (and therefore ignored), then you have no means of playing that card. If later instructions are impossible, you ignore only those instructions and can still play the card.
That was my understanding for years of play, and then I was counteracted on a different forum by numerous people, which linked me to posts such as this and this to argue that a full power has to be legal or you cannot play a card, full stop.
OK then we have played it wrong for a while.
Definitively not obvious so it was worthwhile asking.
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I'm going to be forthright in that I'm not 100% confident in my answer, however given the choice between "cool card is unusable" and "cool card is usable" I will always favor the latter because that's just more fun to play with.
In terms of the "impossible instruction" rule, I parse that as restrictively as I can: I only rule that something is impossible if there is no way to physically do what is being asked. So, in that light, I view that moving is only impossible if there is no way for you to physically pick up your token card and plop it down at a different location card (so either there is only one location, or your token card is currently shuffled into the location).
Yewstance, the Vic quotes you are listing do not support as restrictive an interpretation as you are advocating.
The second in particular, to whit:
If a card instructs you to do something impossible, like draw a card from an empty deck, ignore that instruction.So the "ignorable unit" identified in the Golden Rule is "an instruction." In game terms, that's hard to quantify, because an instruction might be part of a sentence, it might be a whole sentence, or it might even be an entire power that consists of multiple sentences. You really have to examine the context to answer the question.
You have to examine the context. Vic does *not* say here that you must always be able to do everything or else you cannot play the card.
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There's no way on earth what dice you're rolling for a check to move matters when deciding whether you can play a card or not.
I think you "should" be able to play it at the Dam, from a design perspective. Impossible should mean essentially implausible, in that the action makes no sense to do, not that there's something which may stop you from doing it.
I think the crucial design principle is that you shouldn't need to predict the future to know whether you can play a card or not. It shouldn't depend on what powers you have, or cards in hand, or cards in other players hands, or anything else. Not being able to move because there is no other location, that makes moving implausible and I could accept that you couldn't play the card. Anything else though and it should be fair game.
Look at it this way, you can't see other players' hands (in theory), so you don't know for sure that another player doesn't have a card that lets you ignore location powers or movement restrictions. So moving isn't "impossible" at the dam. It's just unlikely.
That's all just how I think it should work though. How it does work seems to be just outright unclear, to the point that it can't even usefully be discussed, as far as I can tell.
"So the "ignorable unit" identified in the Golden Rule is "an instruction." In game terms, that's hard to quantify, because an instruction might be part of a sentence, it might be a whole sentence, or it might even be an entire power that consists of multiple sentences. You really have to examine the context to answer the question. In this case, "recharge [the ally] and draw a card" is a single instruction, and since you can't do the first part, you don't do the second."
Well, this might have been my fault. I said "partly illegal powers have always been illegal to play". Which is technically correct, but didn't define how partly illegal powers were partly illegal (technically I did post the quote above) and I was mainly concerned with Yewstance's example about moving and exploring (in the aforementioned thread), and I didn't get time to parse out the rest of his examples of illegal powers.
I didn't realize Yewstance had interpreted that to mean the full sentence on the card. Skizzerz is correct in that the first instruction defines how the card is activated and thus whether it's playable or not, and you have to be able to play that instruction to do that. The simplest example I can think of regards to the instruction versus the rest of the card is this Sphere of Fire thread. Sphere of Fire has the instruction of "Display this card." and can be played at any time you can display a card (even though it can still be played during a combat encounter, since it applies to combat checks).
Wrt the actual examples Frencois posted, I think (but this is an interpretation) that the first example is no but the last 2 are yes. The first one is a no because even though it's a conditional, it's clear to see the conditions being met. But the last 2 are check-based, and it's impossible to know (yes, even if you only have a d4, because someone could play a blessing on your check or something).
...even if you only have a d4, because someone could play a blessing on your check or something.
Sorry Zeroth, this point is not valid.
It's like if you were saying, "I can play this Fire card against a bane immune to Fire because someone can later play a card that will cancel that immunity".
A card has to be legit to play at the time you play it.
If you have d4 on Wisdom at the time you play the Pteranodon at the Shimmerglens, at that precise moment you cannot move (just like if you were at the Dam)... so you cannot play it.
Else I could argue that you could also play it at the Dam because someone later can play a card that says "ignore the At this Location power".
And you could pretty much play anything anytime because nobody really knows what can happen next that could make it legit. See the Pandora Box ?
That's why I stick to RAW and by RAW... seems I cannot play Pteranodon at the Shimmerglens with d4 Wisdom. I don't like it, but it looks really like RAW.
Well I've been happily corrected... but absolutely agree that it's still vague and needs to be more clearly defined (as I brought up in a thread that zeroth_hour referenced).
In particular, an excellent point that someone could be allowing you to ignore a location's power, hypothetically, just as someone could be adding a blessing to your check. Though I've also gone on record saying that "ignoring immunities" doesn't make sense to me in the rules either.
If you have a card that says "discard this card to ignore a bane's immunity to the Poison trait", then it's clearly not relevant to play it unless you're adding the Poison trait to a check against a Poison-Immune bane, and so is not allowed to be played in a check whilst it remains non-relevant. But the RAW state that you cannot play a card that has the Poison trait against a poison-immune bane in the first place.
Adding to the confusion is that you play a weapon in a different phase than other cards that affect the check ('Define the Skill You're Using', rather than 'Play Other Cards that effect the Check', or whatever they're called). So you'd need to play something that's explicitly disallowed, then wait, then play something to ignore the immunity, it seems like.
Or can you play something that ignores the immunity as soon as it would stop you, because it's immediately relevant even though it's in a non-relevant phase of play, perhaps? But then that raises the question of how would you know if a party member could help you ignore the immunity with a card from their (potentially hidden) hand; are you allowed to try to play a Poison weapon or not when there's uncertainty?
Oy.
I view the impossible rule as a last resort. We have other rules that prevent you from playing a card due to immunities or other restrictions. Impossible should be reserved for when something is actually impossible to perform, not considering what powers are or possibly could be in play at all. It’s entirely possible for me to move away from some location as long as I can physically manipulate my token card and shift it elsewhere. It’s entirely possible for me to discard a fire spell from my hand to play it.
Movement restrictions and fire immunity don’t make those actions impossible. There are other rules that prevent such cards and powers from having an effect (the cannot overrides can rule) or even playing them at all (the immunity rule).
If you have a card that says "discard this card to ignore a bane's immunity to the Poison trait", then it's clearly not relevant to play it unless you're adding the Poison trait to a check against a Poison-Immune bane, and so is not allowed to be played in a check whilst it remains non-relevant. But the RAW state that you cannot play a card that has the Poison trait against a poison-immune bane in the first place.
I think the intention at least is for ignoring an immunity to be considered to be affecting the check. Remember that just adding a trait is considered to be affecting the check, regardless of whether that trait results in more dice immediately or even ever. It's not purely just about adding dice. You're ignoring generally immunity *for this check*, which is qualitatively different from, say, drawing or fetching a card in the hopes of doing something useful with it.
Whether that's what the rules say (yet) or not I don't know but at the very least that's how I'd play it.
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Bottom line, it would be cool to have Mike or Vic's view on the 3 initial questions:
A) I am alone in the Dam, can I play the Pteranodon to explore locally?
B) I am at the Shimmerglens, can I play the Pteranodon if I have d8 in Wisdom?
C) I am at the Shimmerglens, can I play the Pteranodon if I have d4 in both Wisdom and Divine?
It would create a reference for a lot of similar questions