Card clarifications: Lich, Div. Int., Sacred Pool, Blackmail

[jtkauff]

Briefly spoke with Monk about this on Friday, so I suppose this is a combination reminder as well as a few questions about cards and errata.

First off, is a Card Errata forum planned? I think that was what was mentioned on Friday, but I just wanted to make sure. Probably the best way to do things...

And the cards that I've got questions about (from the demo deck, of course):

Lich: "Vitality Token" is never defined in the rulebook. Now, I understand what Lich is supposed to do: he wounds someone, he goes from 2 vit. to 3 vit. - simple enough. Now, the way that I figured this out to be best is that he gains a General Counter that gives him +1 vitality, and that these Counters don't cancel out wounds (so if a card required something to have a wound, Lich would still count even if he was at 1 Vitality Counter and 1 Wound). Is this all correct?

Blackmail: Can a player respond to blackmail by dumping tokens or exhausting personalities? Basically, does the Event resolve right away, or can the player respond by using an ability that would exhaust a personality/etc. And if responding is valid, can he respond multiple times (requiring the player playing Blackmail to pass, as well as any other players).

Sacred Pool: I'm assuming that this card can be destroyed by non-combat, like if there was an Event or Invocation that would destroy it. Is this right?

Divine Guidance: This one is tricky. Say it's put on Personality A in a two-player game, who does not do anything until the rest of the turn. During the discard phase of his opponent's turn, the player exhausts Personality A, using Divine Guidance to give Personality B +2/+2 (making him 4/4, let's say). Now, since B has not been in one battle, does the bonus still stay on him until the player's combat phase? This would of course let Personality A give him an additional +2/+2 (up to 6/6), since A would unexhaust at the beginning of the player's turn.

Obviously, I'm picking apart these cards, but I figure it's best to from the start to try and anticipate any rules problems down the road...

jt.

PS. my personal ruling on these cards would be that Lich works as I described, Divine Guidance carries over until the next battle occurs, Sacred Pool can in fact be destroyed outside of combat, and that Blackmail can be responded to. I'm curious to see how close I came

[Patheos]

Monk will have to confirm this all, but since I am reading this I think I will try to answer.

Blackmail - the effects are instant. You must exhaust (without using any abilities to do so) 3 people, or pay the person 3 influence. You can however respond with an intterupt card on any general event and cause it not to take place.

Lich - You just use one of the clear counter tokens that come with the game for each vitality they gain. Then you take one off each time it is wounded and then you use their regular vitality etc.

Sacred Pool - You cannot destroy the card in a combat type encounter. A tornado or other event could.

Divine Guidance - THis must be played before you roll the die in battle. If you play it at the end of the wanderers phase the bonuses go away during the city maintenance phase.

Hope that answers your questions.

- Patheos
_________________
Patheos
AKA James Grierson
Game Designer #2
Director of Sales/Marketing

[jtkauff]

OK, so for Lich if he is wounded after having received a Vitality Token, that would just be removed instead of a wound counter being placed on him? Thus, something like Festering Wound (if I'm remembering the card correctly) would not work, since he would not have a wound counter on him?

And re: Blackmail - so all effects/cards/etc. happen instantly, unless an interrupt is played? If that's the case, timing sure is a lot easier, esp compared to a certain other game out there...

Finally, Divine Guidance. So basically this card just needs errata stating that it must be used before the die roll in a battle (either combat or wanderer), and that the effect wears off after one battle has occurred, or during any City Maintenance phase (not necessarily your turn), whichever occurs first. If this is the case, perhaps it might be good to add that in to the rules for City Maintenance, that all temporary bonus still in effect end, unless stated otherwise by the card - according to the way the card and the rules are written currently, the card should work as I described.

Can't tell that I can be a rules lawyer at times, can you?

jt, who has actually been training to be a judge for another CCG.

[Monk]

Lich: Yep, his "extra" vitality do not count as normal wounds if removed. He would be considered wounded when he took a red wound counter (ie below his normal vitality).

Diving Guidance: Any time a bonus or effect is made the effects last for the entire phase UNLESS specified otherwise on their card or in some other rule. So if you were to use divine guidance and it says target gains +2/+2 then it would last until the end of the phase. So, using it during a discard phase would be stupid (unless someone had a coliseum, sewer tunnel, or some other way to force you into battle).

Blackmail: Anytime something begins another action cannot be initiated until the previous one is resolved. The ONLY exception is responding to the action with something that is designed specifically as an interrupt. For example, if I use sap on you, you could NOT give your tokens away to someone instead. The sap has already begun and the only thing you can do is something designed SPECIFICALLY to interrupt it. In this case a debate would be perfect as debate is designed to interrupt a political ability.

One other important note is that if you are in the "Action and Development Phase" and choose to perform an action instead of bringing a new card into play then another player can only react if their reaction is specifically designed to interrupt your action. This especially makes sense if it isn't the person who would normally make the next action - otherwise you'd have people doing things out of turn and everyone could simply state that their action was in response to what you did breaking the entire sequence of play and resulting in mass chaos.

Sacred Pool: Yep. Most cards are carefully designated with restrictions. Sacred pool may not be destroyed by combat, but it can be forced to the discard pile through other means such as Interrupt events (earthquake for exampe), or simply due to an oppressive players demands. I can "force" you to discard it or "else".

As for the errata forum. =) Lemme build one right now.

Monk

[jtkauff]

OK, that all makes more sense. Looking at the rules, it states that bonuses granted by Items last until end of phase, but nothing is stated about bonuses granted by Invocations. Likewise, the idea that only interrupts (or interrupt-speed actions) can be used to respond to an effect will clarify things greatly. Strangely enough, interrupts are only mentioned briefly in the rulebook, but I have a feeling that rules-wise, they will be quite important. Glancing over the rulebook, there are a few abilities that seem that they are played as an interrupt: Debate, Persuade, and Retain. This all of them?

I'm also assuming that Bribery, Crusade, Discredit, and Influence are not, since they don't specifically state that they can be played in response to another action.

jt.

Edit: wow, that was weird. I started posting in one forum, and ended up in another, as the topic was being moved

[Monk]

Heh, yep, you are right. Interrupting abilities specifically state that they are designed to interrupt. As a side note, there are also Interrupt Events. These are designed specifically to interrupt ONLY events and generally clarify whether the event to be interrupted is a battle, general, or any.

Monk

[Paladin]

In reading over this thread I noticed that Patheos stated having a Construction Guild or Builder's Guild in your start-up is a great thing... I just wanted to clarify that you cannot have unique structures in your initial holdings.

I apologize if that was already implied and I just misread it.

[Monk]

There's actually no rule in the rulebook against unique structures. Somehow that got removed from the final version. =\ So there's going to have to be an addendum made for it. Currently I'm floating around the idea of high-die roll keeps it and the other copies are lost with no refund for the costs.

Monk

[GuJiaXian]

Ah, you mean if two people include the same unique structure in their initial holdings?
_________________
Christopher Kugler
Copy Editor
Allegiance: War of Factions
Lucid Raven Productions

[Monk]

Yep. The rules used to say that you were not allowed to play unique structures as part of your initial holdings. Perhaps that is the best rule?

Monk

[jtkauff]

That probably works the best (no uniques, that is). Seems more logical overall.

Either way, I can add it to the Rules Errata.

jt.

[GuJiaXian]

I like that ruling, Monk.
_________________
Christopher Kugler
Copy Editor
Allegiance: War of Factions
Lucid Raven Productions

[Monk]

That's how it was SUPPOSED to be. =) But somehow that got cut off the page by erm...probably me on accident.

Monk

[GuJiaXian]

Hey, don't look at me! I can't edit/proofread what's not there.
_________________
Christopher Kugler
Copy Editor
Allegiance: War of Factions
Lucid Raven Productions

[jtkauff]

Well, it's for exactly reasons like that that this forum exists Added to the Rules Errata.

jt.

P.S. So I take it the rules have gone to print as well, then? Seems like a no-brainer, but rule sheets are by far the easiest thing to print, so it makes sense that they would be the last as well.