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Hi all. First, a short history lesson, so we're all on the same page.
Prior to Core, there was always a lot of confusion going around about Before-You-Act and After-You-Act effects. The big scenario that got a lot of people was something like the following:
A bane says that, before you act, every character at your location must pass a Dexterity 10 check or they take 1d4 damage. You, meanwhile, have a card like Galvanic Chakram +1 that would let you ignore it - lets say everyone at that location had it. What does this mean?
The Ruling was made, and referred to a few times, that the answer was D - only YOU ignore something.
I understand this to still be true, based on the following paragraph in the Core Rulebook Golden Rules...
If you are told to ignore something, the thing you’re ignoring never has any effect on you.
(Note the use of the term 'You'.)
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FIRST QUESTION: this means the new "One boon per type per step" rule that covers the party means that, in such a situation, only one player in a group could discard a Galvanic Chakram +1 to avoid a Before Acting power, right? Because if two or more people tried using the same card type (even if they each had their own copy) they'd be violating that rule?
This seems surprisingly harsh, and I'm not really sure the mechanics match up with either flavour or player expectation here. Most new cards that let you ignore BA or AA effects (particularly AA effects) tend to be themed around stunning/poisoning your opponents, and so it seems odd that you can stun them to interrupt some counterattack against yourself, but you cannot prevent them from lashing out at your party members - and your party members themselves may not be able to defend themselves either.
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SECOND QUESTION: Effects that let you IGNORE a Before Acting or After Acting power does not prevent the power from working, it just stops it from having any effect on the character ignoring it, right? This means that Giant Fly, for example...
Monster 1
Traits
Vermin
Check
Combat
10
Powers
If undefeated, bury a random card from your discards.
After acting, shuffle this monster into a random other location.
Would still be shuffled into another deck, even if you used a Warhammer or Noxious Bomb to ignore its After Acting powers, right? The Golden Rules clarify that Ignoring just stops an effect from working on you - it never says that you prevent the effect from working in general.
It just seems odd - especially because there seems relatively few AA effects that Noxious Bomb (in particular) can even prevent in the first place in the Core Set, due to poison immunities and the specifics about 'ignoring'. Once again, it doesn't seem to match up with player expectation or flavour considerations - that you can't stun a fly to prevent it from flying away, even though your card is telling you to ignore (as in, "not read or consider", to use a phrase that would be synonymous in English) its after-acting powers.
Plus... the INDEX, of all places, seems to actually contradict the Golden Rules. Or at least, it gives a definition of Ignore that's subtly different to any other definition given in the rulebook...
Ignore: Don’t process, as an effect or trait. Things you ignore never have any effect on you. See The Golden Rules on page 3.
"Don't process, as an effect or trait" is VERY different to "the thing you’re ignoring never has any effect on you" when talking about effects like Giant Fly, and isn't backed up by any other section of the rulebook.
This comes up in other cases too, by the way. Take another example...
Traits
Undead
Cleric
Veteran
Check
Combat
11+##
OR
Divine
8+##
Powers
Immune to Mental and Poison. No more than 1 Divine card may be played against this monster.
After acting, a local character buries a blessing.
Can you ignore its After Acting power if you don't have a blessing in hand, but another local character does? If you AND a local character both have a blessing in hand, and you ignore the Accursed Priest's after-acting effect, does that mean the other character at your location has to bury their blessing?
After all, a blessing hasn't been buried yet, so the power hasn't gone off, right? Ignoring it isn't the same as removing that line of text, as per every previous ruling made on the matter. Nor can you let someone else ignore a downside with your own boon.
But situations like these make me deeply question the mechanics of "Ignore", because it seems like several Before Acting and After Acting powers can't ever be meaningfully ignored, making me wonder of putting such utility on cards like Shocking Touch, Warhammer or Noxious Bomb if they didn't even work in the rare case that an After Acting power comes up anyway.
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So, do card type restrictions really greatly limit how parties at one location can defend themselves from team-wide effects?
And can you, or can you not, prevent a Before Acting or After Acting effect if it wasn't specifically having a direct effect on you? See Giant Fly, Accursed Priest.
I noticed a similar issue to your second question a couple nights ago with ignoring BYA Structural damage. 5-5E has a henchman/villain that does 1d4 Structural damage then each char does a Str/Con 11 check or takes 1d4 Combat damage.
Is it possible for the Structural damage to get blocked at all by a card like Cloud Puff?
I'd say - as written (unless you count the definition in the Index which doesn't show up elsewhere in the rulebook proper) - no, you can NEVER ignore Structural Damage, full-stop, ever. Because the rulebook defines "Ignore" as preventing You from being affected by something, whilst Structural Damage doesn't affect a specific character/player, to my understanding - it affects your ship.
I find it hard to believe this was the intent when producing S&S, though, but the rulebook doesn't contradict that assertion (again, unless you take a statement made in the Index as gospel).
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For the reasons mentioned above, it always made sense to me for "ignore" to be a party-wide effect, or else to at least be able to "freely" play your boons to allow other characters to ignore stuff. our table has discussed implementing either of those as house-rule, but we haven't done so so far, as we don't want to "cheat".
I'll say, each of our players, while encountering Giant Fly, would play a "ignore AA" card to negate that power and wouldn't bat an eye.
For the Accursed Priest, we would allow
A)Active player plays "ignore AA" and that power never fires off (essentially making the ignore party-wide) <<we see that as similar to Merisiel evading a Horde barrier - Meri *could* let the Barrier fire off, and evade her personal summon, but it's a lot better to just evade the barrier itself altogether),
<<and there WILL be some argument here, as the contrary example would be given - shouldn't we by the same token allow the active player to ignore a Dragon's a mass BA damage power for the whole party, with a single card; which was explicitely states as illegal play by the dev, but which has always been - as Yewstance intuits- the play that matches flavor and, more importantly, player expectations, on our table. So, even though we keep playing by the rules, we strongly feel the rules are not "right" in this instance.>>
THEN
B)If active player doesn't ignore AA altogether, Priest's AA fires off: we would select a player to suffer it, then that play may play "ignore AA" to not do so (and this CAN again be the active player himself, in case the distinction matters!); if they do - the Priest's AA is considered satisfied and we wouldn't make another character bury a blessing.
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I think the ruling is silly.
Locations like the Canyon location (WotR) would make every player encounter this card. Assuming 3 players at the location, one plays a ignore BYA then the 3 players would still have to deal with 2 of the Dex 10 checks.
Yewstance brings up a great examples of why I don't think the original ruling works. Just my 2cp
Agree with Slacker2010.
Thats how I have always played Ignore BYA/AYA as if once instance of remove blocked the card text so no one else had to worry about it
Didn't even think there was any confusion
And it all came back to YOU...
We had this discussion thousands of Pre-Core times.
Unfortunately, the Core rules did a lot of good things but didn't really tackle that one.
"YOU" is still ambiguous. And therefore sentences like
If you are told to ignore something, the thing you’re ignoring never has any effect on you.
still carry more questions than answers.
I would have really hoped that in the Rulebook (I get it that on the cards 'you' is efficient, but that doesn't apply to the Rulebook), 'you' would be replaced by things like:- The player whose turn it is
- The player who encounters (or examines or plays) the card
- The player who attempts the check
...
Usual example we have is when a bane has multiple consecutive checks to defeat, with a power like "Succeed at a X check or 'whatever' will happen during the check to defeat" (or "BYA, succeed at a X check or whatever will happen during the check to defeat" which may actually not be the same). What if two different characters attempt the checks to defeat ? Who does what ? Who is impacted by what ? and so on...
We have in mind things that look like: "Succeed at an Arcane check or 'you' cannot use spells on that check"
"Succeed at a Range check to reduce the difficulty by 1d4"
"BYA, suffer 1 Poison damage"
"BYA, succeed at a Fortitude check or suffer 1 combat damage"
"BYA, succeed at a Fortitude check or discard the top card of 'your' deck"
...
I really wish Vic would gave us examples. From past experiences, referring to a rule that includes the word "you" usually doesn't totally clarify the situation.
I think the ruling is silly.
** spoiler omitted **
Yewstance brings up a great examples of why I don't think the original ruling works. Just my 2cp
I'm with you on this one.
I'd say - as written (unless you count the definition in the Index which doesn't show up elsewhere in the rulebook proper) - no, you can NEVER ignore Structural Damage, full-stop, ever. Because the rulebook defines "Ignore" as preventing You from being affected by something, whilst Structural Damage doesn't affect a specific character/player, to my understanding - it affects your ship.
I find it hard to believe this was the intent when producing S&S, though, but the rulebook doesn't contradict that assertion (again, unless you take a statement made in the Index as gospel).
Sorry, I disagree with this
If the bane says BYA take 1d4 structural damageIn my view active player could be the target of the cloudpuff and so ignore the BYA or AYA, the active player would never get to the point of seeing what the BYA was, even if it was structural damage, summon a critter etc and so it would be as if the BYA line was not printed on the card
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How I rule it:
If the before acting/after acting power says "each character" then you ignoring it doesn't give the other characters a pass. With the new restriction on playing boons, this indeed runs into issues where only one character can effectively ignore something (sans character powers).
If the before acting/after acting power doesn't specify "each character" then if the person encountering the card ignores it, it has no effect. This is because the person encountering the card is the one actually carrying out those instructions, so if they ignore it, those instructions no longer apply (what the instructions actually state is irrelevant). This neatly resolves Giant Fly, Structural Damage, and similar.
With the new Core restrictions, I would prefer a ruling/revision that aligns it to what Slacker2010 suggested. Only the encountering character can ignore (because nobody else can take your turn for you), but once ignored, it doesn't apply at all to anyone. That is definitely not the RAW however, so a rulebook revision is necessary to do that.
If the before acting/after acting power doesn't specify "each character" then if the person encountering the card ignores it, it has no effect. This is because the person encountering the card is the one actually carrying out those instructions, so if they ignore it, those instructions no longer apply
How would you resolve that if the active player doesn't ignore the Accursed Priests AA (which can potentially affect another character)? Would you allow that character to then play powers to ignore the AA themselves?
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Ignoring the big question, for now:
Although "Each character takes 1d4 damage" is a single instruction, we've already been told that the d4 is rolled separately for each character. That certainly suggests to me that each character would be able to play their own card to ignore or reduce the damage as if it were a separate step.
Logically this also suggests they should be able to mitigate the damage even if it were a fixed amount rather than based on a die roll.
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With the new Core restrictions, I would prefer a ruling/revision that aligns it to what Slacker2010 suggested. Only the encountering character can ignore (because nobody else can take your turn for you), but once ignored, it doesn't apply at all to anyone.
I agree, with one minor modification.
If the person encountering the card plays a card that ignores the BYA effect ...
That should also include the possibility of something like
Bury or banish this card to allow a character to ignore a bane's power that happen before and after you act
i.e. I could play my Cloud Puff to allow the encountering character to ignore the BYA/AYA powers.
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For the reasons mentioned above, it always made sense to me for "ignore" to be a party-wide effect, or else to at least be able to "freely" play your boons to allow other characters to ignore stuff. our table has discussed implementing either of those as house-rule, but we haven't done so so far, as we don't want to "cheat".
This highlights a big problem for me as a Venture Officer.
We run PACS scenarios at our local game store (and several other stores in our area are running, or attempting to run, PACS as well). When a table of players comes across a situation like this there's a risk that my taking the position "those are the PACS rules, so that's how we're going to play it" could cause some players to quit signing up for our games. But that's what I have to do - I don't have any choice in the matter.
The best outcome is that those players continue to play PACG, but simply don't report those games. I know this happens (in fact I've even done it myself before it was PACS-legal to have a two-player, four-character table). But there are a lot of other options for players - Gloomhaven, a whole raft of Fantasy Flight games , &c., and once we lose a player they rarely come back.
When a table of players comes across a situation like this there's a risk that my taking the position "those are the PACS rules, so that's how we're going to play it" could cause some players to quit signing up for our games. But that's what I have to do - I don't have any choice in the matter.
As a semi-regular organizer of OP at a local game store, I 100% understand your position. For what it's worth, the Guide also says this:
During a scenario, you may encounter rules questions or card combinations that aren’t easily solved, and it’s important that you keep the game moving along. In these cases, the event coordinator should adjudicate the rules with the goal of ensuring a fun and fair experience for all.
Not every PACG player (or organizer, for that matter) has a full understanding of the PACG rules. Based on my reading of the Paizo forums these past 24 months, I'm not sure anyone does, actually. It was once remarked that you shouldn't need a PhD in Pathfinder to play PACG correctly, but sometimes it does feel that way.
I joined a new OP group about a year ago, and for a while I pointed out rules errors - some of them pretty important. Sometimes they acknowledged the rules misunderstandings, but sometimes their response was, "Well, we've always played it that way. And that's more fun anyway."
So... fair enough. Sometimes fun trumps other stuff. :)
Chief Technical Officer
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Before you come down against the "never has any effect on you" ruling, allow me to point you back at the thread that caused us to make it.
I'm with you on this one.I think the ruling is silly.
** spoiler omitted **
Yewstance brings up a great examples of why I don't think the original ruling works. Just my 2cp
Ha! You were with me back then:
I must admit that Vic's version, although it limits the capability of Pulura, seems to me more easy to rule and play.
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Chief Technical Officer
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[Giant Fly] ... Would still be shuffled into another deck, even if you used a Warhammer or Noxious Bomb to ignore its After Acting powers, right?
No. The rule is "The thing you’re ignoring never has any effect on you." "Effect" is defined as "Anything that happens in the game," so the thing you're ignoring can't cause you to do anything.
The Fly's power "After acting, shuffle this monster into a random other location" is telling the person who encountered it to do that, so if the person who encountered it ignores that, they don't shuffle it.
If the before acting/after acting power doesn't specify "each character" then if the person encountering the card ignores it, it has no effect. This is because the person encountering the card is the one actually carrying out those instructions, so if they ignore it, those instructions no longer applyHow would you resolve that if the active player doesn't ignore the Accursed Priests AA (which can potentially affect another character)? Would you allow that character to then play powers to ignore the AA themselves?
The only one who could ignore Accursed Priest's AA power is the one who would be ultimately burying the blessing, because that power is clearly only affecting them.
Yes that contradicts what I wrote earlier, but there's always going to be exceptions :). I suppose I should have written "If the before acting/after acting power doesn't specify "each character" or other wording that explicitly would effect someone else then if the person encountering the card ignores it, it has no effect."
Before you come down against "the never has any effect on you" ruling, allow me to point you back at the thread that caused us to make it.
I'm with you on this one.I think the ruling is silly.
** spoiler omitted **
Yewstance brings up a great examples of why I don't think the original ruling works. Just my 2cp
Ha! You were with me back then:
I must admit that Vic's version, although it limits the capability of Pulura, seems to me more easy to rule and play.
I'm coming down on the combination of the "never any effect on you" ruling with the "combined limit of one boon of each type per encounter step" rule. It's in my opinion incredibly un-fun to be told that you can't ignore a party-wide before acting power with your Blessing or whatever simply because someone else already played a Blessing before acting. The way the two rules interact seems bad in this case.
Armors blocking damage has the same issue (although there's a different thread for that, and I'd argue the armor issue is way more important than the ignoring powers issue).
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Chief Technical Officer
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I noticed a similar issue to your second question a couple nights ago with ignoring BYA Structural damage. 5-5E has a henchman/villain that does 1d4 Structural damage then each char does a Str/Con 11 check or takes 1d4 Combat damage.
The power is "Before you act, your ship is dealt 1d4 Structural damage, then each character at your location must succeed at a Strength, Melee, Constitution, or Fortitude 11 check or be dealt 1d4 Combat damage and discard the top card of his deck."
If you are the character encountering the card, and you ignore this power, the ship is dealt damage and each other character at your location has to deal with the check, because those things aren't happening to YOU. You get to ignore the one effect that power would have on you—you get to avoid the check and its potential penalty.
If you are at the same location as the character encountering that card, and you ignore this power, the answer is the same: the things that aren't affecting you still happen (the ship is dealt damage and each other character at your location has to deal with the check) and only the thing that would happen to you (the check and its potential penalty) is ignored.
If you are not local, since you are not being affected by that power, ignoring it would have no effect.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Usual example we have is when a bane has multiple consecutive checks to defeat, with a power like "Succeed at a X check or 'whatever' will happen during the check to defeat" (or "BYA, succeed at a X check or whatever will happen during the check to defeat" which may actually not be the same). What if two different characters attempt the checks to defeat ? Who does what ? Who is impacted by what ? and so on...
We have in mind things that look like: "Succeed at an Arcane check or 'you' cannot use spells on that check"
"Succeed at a Range check to reduce the difficulty by 1d4"
"BYA, suffer 1 Poison damage"
"BYA, succeed at a Fortitude check or suffer 1 combat damage"
"BYA, succeed at a Fortitude check or discard the top card of 'your' deck"
Most of your examples (all but the first) are covered on page 8 by the general rules for Encountering a Card: "When you encounter a card, you must attempt to acquire it (if it’s a boon) or defeat it (if it’s a bane) by going through a series of steps. No one else can perform these steps for you, though others might be able to play cards to help you deal with the encounter’s challenges." In other words, the powers on cards you encounter are directed at YOU, the encountering character, unless either they or another rule explicitly say otherwise.
There aren't many rules that say otherwise.
The most common exception is in Attempting a Check on page 11: "...If a card requires sequential checks to acquire or defeat, the character who encountered the card must attempt at least one of the checks, but any others may each be attempted by any local character. While you are attempting a check against such a card that you did not encounter, powers that would apply to the character who encountered it apply to you instead."
The other big exception applies only to banes, so you'll find it the Banes section on page 22: "If [a power] limits the things you can do, that limit applies to any character who wants to do those things; however, if the limitation is the result of an action such as playing a card or attempting a check, it applies only to the character who took that action."
The first part of that rule covers your first example. "Succeed at an Arcane check or you cannot use spells on that check" is limiting the things you can do, so that rule means it applies to any character who wants to use spells on that check.
The second part of that rule applies to powers like Xanesha's "If you fail a combat check, you may not play weapons or spells for the rest of the turn"—the restriction applies only to characters who fail combat checks against her, not to any character that wants to play a weapon or spell later in the turn.
(We do recognize that the word "you" in the previous phrasing "before you act" suggested to some that those powers might only be triggered by a specific person doing a specific thing, rather than what it really means: a thing happening at a specific time. This is why we changed the phrase to just "before acting." That is to say, "Before acting, suffer 1 Poison damage" should not be read as "before each person does anything, they suffer 1 Poison damage," but as "During the Before Acting step, you, the character encountering this card, suffer 1 poison damage.")
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Chief Technical Officer
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I'm coming down on the combination of the "never any effect on you" ruling with the "combined limit of one boon of each type per encounter step" rule. It's in my opinion incredibly un-fun to be told that you can't ignore a party-wide before acting power with your Blessing or whatever simply because someone else already played a Blessing before acting. The way the two rules interact seems bad in this case.
Armors blocking damage has the same issue (although there's a different thread for that, and I'd argue the armor issue is way more important than the ignoring powers issue).
All that seems very valid. We'll discuss. Who knows—there may even be one solution to both problems.
Not sure what this means for Accursed Priest. If I have a blessing in hand and ignore its power; does another local character still bury a blessing, or was that effect "spent" on me, since only one character ultimately suffers?
What if I had no blessing in hand? What if another local character tried to ignore it whilst I did have a blessing?
I suppose Skizzerz is right - you pick someone to bury a blessing (that player must have a blessing in hand), then that character alone can ignore the power to negate it.
Good to know that Giant Fly's power can be negated, though.
Ha! You were with me back then:
I must admit that Vic's version, although it limits the capability of Pulura, seems to me more easy to rule and play.
1) Thanks A LOT Vic for the very extensive answers.
2) You got me. I feel ashame and do hereby present my infinite full apologies. I owe you a Golarion's special beer and a bottle of french Alsace wine. Especially because I'm tremendously impressed by the way you managed to resurrect my old post. I thought only Hawk had that kind of magic.|
Chief Technical Officer
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Not sure what this means for Accursed Priest. If I have a blessing in hand and ignore its power; does another local character still bury a blessing, or was that effect "spent" on me, since only one character ultimately suffers?
What if I had no blessing in hand? What if another local character tried to ignore it whilst I did have a blessing?
I suppose Skizzerz is right - you pick someone to bury a blessing (that player must have a blessing in hand), then that character alone can ignore the power to negate it.
Unlike "After acting, suffer 1 Poison damage," "After acting, a local character buries a blessing" doesn't have an implied "you." The priest is making sort of a general announcement: "We're not moving on until some local character buries a blessing." So the only way to disrupt that would be if *all* local characters who have blessings manage to ignore the effect. (Or if no local characters have blessings.)
Oof. Almost impossible to ignore that effect if you're not alone, due to the one-card-per-type limitation, plus so many of those AA ignoring effects being stapled onto combat only items/weapons/spells.
Yeah, that reduces the "value" somewhat of those Weapons/Spells/Items that have the ignore effect. However, I guess you can think of it that the ignore effect Weapons/Spells/Items you are using creates a small "protection bubble" around you only, so other local characters still get hit by any "fallout" from the encounter.