Slaked Thirsts vs. Pippin WoBaS

[Kralik]

Even though I disagree I feel like this discussion with you (Elgar) is more profitable than my discussion with Bib. I'm reading and re-reading your posts carefully.

From the context of the rulebook quote and the example they give of discarding 1 card instead of 2, I think it's clear that "you must perform as much as you can" is not directly related to the choosing of a character. I would instead read it as, for example with WoBaS, that your opponent places as many wounds as he can. If he places one wound and then the minion dies, so be it, he did what he could. (As an aside, in my RL playing circles, players always place the wounds and burdens on their own characters. It is a breach of etiquette to reach across the table and do it for them. Plus each player has their own tokens which are not necessarily mixed.)

In essence the whole difficulty boils down to the fact that the cards in question (Slaked Thirsts, WoBaS, etc.) require something to happen twice. If it were not so, there would be no problem.

WRT actions: An action like 'heal a companion' is the same action in a general sense whether it's 'heal a companion [Legolas]' or 'heal a companion [Frodo]'

What do you think of my Freca example or Terrible and Evil?

[Kralik]

More cards this would affect:

Have Patience. You cannot heal a companion with one wound if there's one with two.
Fury of the White Rider. You cannot wound an exhausted minion if there is a non-exhausted minion. Really?

I wanted to expand on actions. Obviously as far as time is concerned each action is distinct or separate. But that does not mean that each action is different. For example, imagine Faramir with Ranger's Bow vs. Wulf. First, he exerts and wounds Wulf. Then... he exerts and wounds Wulf. Were those actions different? No. Did they occur at distinct times? Yes. The description for both actions is "wound a Man" and Wulf was chosen at two different times.

Now imagine a player has Shadow Between on the table. Every regroup phase they use it and heal a different companion from their elf lineup. Was each action distinct? Yes... But conceptually, the action is the same regardless of which companion was chosen at any particular time. Heal an elf.

Ultimately I hope that player common sense prevails. No one (well, I should say very few) people think that these cards should be played this way. It reminds me of the arguments we had against cancelling RB skirmishes in Fellowship Block. Technically the rules said it couldn't be done but common sense said that it was intended to be able to be done in that format. And I'm going to insist that Decipher didn't intend to limit players' strategic choices or limit them to frankly bad choices with rulings taken out of context and misapplied.

[Elgar]

Imagine this scenario:

At site two your opponent plays Wulf, Freca and Hides. Can WoBaS be used against Freca? According to Bib's line of reasoning, you cannot target Freca because it is impossible to wound him twice. But on the other hand, what if your opponent uses Hides? You have no way of knowing whether they will or not use Hides in advance. If they were going to use Hides, then Pippin could wound Freca twice (but one wound would be prevented). So you actually can't know if it's legal to target Freca or not. Misapplying the rule creates a logical conundrum.

Furthermore, if we keep misapplying the rule we're going to have to look critically at several more cards and twist them from their original design to do something else. For example: Terrible and Evil. You would not be able to use it to kill an exhausted Nazgul if a non-exhausted Nazgul or a non-Nazgul minion was on the table.

In the case of Wulf with 2 Vit and Freca with 1, you must choose Wulf as the card to affect with WoBaS because at the time of performing the effect you can't wound Freca twice.

WRT Terrible and evil, could you not exert Gandalf 0 times to wound the exhausted Nazgul?

Back to WoBaS and your rules interpretation ("choosing is not directly related to performing as much as you can"), what about minions that can't take wounds (per card affects)?  To me it's obvious you can't.  If you could, you start opening another can of worms where people can assign archery or threat wounds to characters that can't take wounds.

I agree that the whole difficulty is on the non-singular effect of the cards in question, and I will also agree that the ruling is counter-intuitive.

WRT actions: While Heal a companion (Legolas) and Heal a companion (Frodo) might be the same action, Heal a Hobbit (Legolas) would be an invalid action and Heal a Hobbit (Frodo) would be legal.  An action is more than the verb, but also the limitation(S) of the direct object.

[gordie124]

Fascinating discussion. In answer to Elgar's question, "WRT Terrible and evil, could you not exert Gandalf 0 times to wound the exhausted Nazgul?", the current CRD is quite clear. No, you cannot:

Exert: A character cannot exert 0 times to pay the cost of a card that requires a character to exert X times.

[Kralik]

Thanks for finding that, gordie.

Back to WoBaS and your rules interpretation ("choosing is not directly related to performing as much as you can"), what about minions that can't take wounds (per card affects)?  To me it's obvious you can't.  If you could, you start opening another can of worms where people can assign archery or threat wounds to characters that can't take wounds.

I think this is a different situation. Going back to a real-life analogy: You have in your hand a handful of wounds tokens--either threats or archery wounds--that you must place. You can "choose" an unwoundable character all you want, but since the wound cannot be assigned, it doesn't matter. There's no point to it. So instead you choose the next character to wound and the next one and the next one until your tokens are all expended. (Note that wounds that are prevented work as if they were placed; the rulebook addresses this directly).

Compare to WoBaS: You choose a minion. He dies after the first wound and, since he has been wounded as much as possible, you stop. I'm not sure if you could choose a unwoundable minion or not. I suspect you should be able to, but that isn't a critical issue to me (why would you?). The issue is when you're unable to do what cards were clearly designed to be able to do.

[bibfortuna25]

If there were one unwoundable minion and one woundable one, you'd have to pick the woundable one. But if there were only one minion who couldn't take wounds at all (say, an Easterling w/ a Polearm), then you could still use Pippin for no effect.

[Kralik]

If there were one unwoundable minion and one woundable one, you'd have to pick the woundable one. But if there were only one minion who couldn't take wounds at all (say, an Easterling w/ a Polearm), then you could still use Pippin for no effect.

Fair enough. I don't see this as a problem.

[bibfortuna25]

So we've established that if there are two minions (one woundable and one not), then Pippin has to choose the woundable one, yes?

But you're not just looking at whether a minion is woundable or not. You're also looking at whether the minion can be wounded twice. Exhausted minions aren't capable of being wounded twice.

[Kralik]

What we've established is that there is a ruling that addresses cards that require a choice of one of two different actions printed on the card (separated by the conjunction or). There are a number of cards, such as:

Hard Choice
Have Patience
Pippin WoBaS
Slaked Thirsts
Fury of the White Rider
Terrible and Evil

That this ruling does not apply to. However, there is somewhat of a problem with the non-singular nature of the action performed by these cards. I think technically they all involve two actions.

Elgar asserts that performing as much as possible requires choosing a character that lets you do as much as possible (based on parts of the rulebook other that the sentence refered to above). I assert that you can choose a character and then do as much as possible. Otherwise, we're left with a bunch of cards (and likely more to follow) that would be played in a completely counter-intuitive manner. I don't believe Decipher intended that, for example, Terrible and Evil would be incapable of killing an exhausted Nazgul under certain random circumstances (Exhausted Nazgul alone? No problem? Random other minion on the table? Tough!).

As to whether you can use WoBaS to target, say, an unwoundable Easterling with a Easterling Polearm... I don't really care that much. Why would you? Would you exert Greenleaf to do the same? There's no rules question in my mind because it's simply the sort of thing that is of no advantage to the Free Peoples player and so it is irrelevant. I suspect that there is no direct violation of the rules if you pay the cost but cannot perform the effect fully (like Greenleaf above). There have been many cases in Gemp that I've misclicked and paid the cost (a wound or exert) for an effect that I cannot perform. So while I don't really care about this particular side point (since it has little practical application), I'm not willing to concede it if it's going to lead to playing a host of other cards incorrectly.

EDIT: Even so, there's a difference between an effect that cannot be performed and one that can be partially performed.

[Elgar]

As to whether you can use WoBaS to target, say, an unwoundable Easterling with a Easterling Polearm... I don't really care that much. Why would you? Would you exert Greenleaf to do the same? There's no rules question in my mind because it's simply the sort of thing that is of no advantage to the Free Peoples player and so it is irrelevant. I suspect that there is no direct violation of the rules if you pay the cost but cannot perform the effect fully (like Greenleaf above). There have been many cases in Gemp that I've misclicked and paid the cost (a wound or exert) for an effect that I cannot perform. So while I don't really care about this particular side point (since it has little practical application), I'm not willing to concede it if it's going to lead to playing a host of other cards incorrectly.

EDIT: Even so, there's a difference between an effect that cannot be performed and one that can be partially performed.

The issue brought up with choosing a card that an effect cannot affect is when a player must negatively affect their own cards.  IE when a free people card forces the shadow player to wound a minion.  A ruling allowing a player to use greenleaf to choose a minion that cannot take wounds (for no effect) would also allow the shadow player to choose minion that cannot take wounds.

I agree there is a difference between an effect that can be partially performed and cannot be performed, however there is a rule that says you must perform as much as possible, and performing the whole action is more than partial.

[Kralik]

Elgar, I got it! I was driving and the solution suddenly came to me. But could you expand on the Shadow player choosing a minion that cannot take wounds for something? When would that come up? I already covered threats and archery.

You said:

That's fair.  I find it easily deductucted from:
"If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot, you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest. (See limit.)"

that you must first try to permorm that action to its fullest.  Choosing cards to affect is part of performing the effects of a card.

"6. Perform effects of The Card. This includes
choosing cards to be affected, if necessary. If
initiative is a requirement for an effect, you
cannot count The Card. If an effect takes a card
into your hand from your discard pile, The Card
is not there yet."

OK, so let's look at 6 from the CRD. Performing the effects of The Card includes choosing cards to be affected, if necessary. Got it. Part of performing the effect. Now the rulebook section:

"If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot, you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest. (See limit.)"

I asserted that this doesn't apply to choosing the card. I finally realized why. You've been quoting the second half, "you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest," without the context of the first half:

If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot

Now look at that conditional statement! The second half is not a blanket statement that applies to EVERY action. It doesn't mean that you always have to choose a character that allows you to perform as much as you can. It assumes that you are already in a situation where you cannot perform the full action.

So therefore I see the ordering with WoBaS as:

• Return WoBaS to hand.
• Choose a roaming minion (from 6. above. You must choose)
• Can you perform both wounds? Then do so.
• You can't perform both wounds? Then the sentence, "If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot, you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest. (See limit.)" applies.

I'm also not seeing a place in the rulebook that would limit WoBaS from choosing an unwoundable Easterling. You are doing the choosing before the sentence above applies.

[leokula]

Keep it comin, u guys, keep it comin

[Elgar]

Elgar, I got it! I was driving and the solution suddenly came to me. But could you expand on the Shadow player choosing a minion that cannot take wounds for something? When would that come up? I already covered threats and archery.

Off the top of my head, the Eowyn that forces you to wound a minion for each wound on a character she is skirmishing.  I believe there are others but I can't recall right now.  I'll respond to the rest of the post in another post once I figure out how I want to say it.

[Kralik]

Elgar, I got it! I was driving and the solution suddenly came to me. But could you expand on the Shadow player choosing a minion that cannot take wounds for something? When would that come up? I already covered threats and archery.

Off the top of my head, the Eowyn that forces you to wound a minion for each wound on a character she is skirmishing.  I believe there are others but I can't recall right now.  I'll respond to the rest of the post in another post once I figure out how I want to say it.

I see this as the same as the threats and archery wounds. You have a number of wound tokens in your hand. They have to go somewhere! A "for each" situation is not the same as a "choose a single character then do X" situation.

[Elgar]

That's fair.  I find it easily deductucted from:
"If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot, you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest. (See limit.)"

that you must first try to permorm that action to its fullest.  Choosing cards to affect is part of performing the effects of a card.

"6. Perform effects of The Card. This includes
choosing cards to be affected, if necessary. If
initiative is a requirement for an effect, you
cannot count The Card. If an effect takes a card
into your hand from your discard pile, The Card
is not there yet."

OK, so let's look at 6 from the CRD. Performing the effects of The Card includes choosing cards to be affected, if necessary. Got it. Part of performing the effect. Now the rulebook section:

"If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot, you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest. (See limit.)"

I asserted that this doesn't apply to choosing the card. I finally realized why. You've been quoting the second half, "you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest," without the context of the first half:

If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot

Now look at that conditional statement! The second half is not a blanket statement that applies to EVERY action. It doesn't mean that you always have to choose a character that allows you to perform as much as you can. It assumes that you are already in a situation where you cannot perform the full action.

So therefore I see the ordering with WoBaS as:

• Return WoBaS to hand.
• Choose a roaming minion (from 6. above. You must choose)
• Can you perform both wounds? Then do so.
• You can't perform both wounds? Then the sentence, "If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot, you must perform as much as you can and ignore the rest. (See limit.)" applies.

I'm also not seeing a place in the rulebook that would limit WoBaS from choosing an unwoundable Easterling. You are doing the choosing before the sentence above applies.

I'm wondering if that first rule is actually being a Red Herring (which both of us fell for).  The conditional you point out says "If the effect of a card or special ability requires you to perform an action and you cannot,...".  Therefore this rule doesn't apply *if you can perform the action*.  Furthermore, being able to perform an action must mean that you can completely perform the action, otherwise this rule doesn't make sense.

Since choosing a card to affect is part of performing an action, and if you can perform the complete action then you choose a card to affect (because it's necessary).

Here's how  would interpret WoBaS:
•Meet requirements (Pippin in play and active)
•Pay cost (Return WoBaS to hand.)
•Responses to activating the ability (none in our case)
•Perform the ability
Can you perform the ability (wound a roaming minion twice)? if so, make your choice that allows you to. If not, make a choice so that you do as much as you can.