This is not conjecture. The rulebook actually identifies that assigning wounds and placing wounds are, in fact, two distinctly different things. Quote from the Comprehensive Rules 4.0:
"If a character cannot take wounds, wounds cannot be assigned to that character. However, if a card prevents wounds, wounds may still be assigned to that character.
Faramir, Wizard's Pupil reads: "Skirmish: Exert Gandalf to prevent all wounds to Faramir." This prevents wounds as they are assigned to Faramir, not the assignments themselves."
In other words, the "act of wounding" is not the same as placing the wound tokens.
First, I'm not sure what you're quoting when you say, "the act of wounding." The rules say that "wound a character" means "place a wound on that character." The section you are referring to is just breaking it down into the procedure for doing that, for purposes of understanding why things like "
Consorting with Wizards" may make a character not a legal target for wounding. There is nothing to indicate that
Too Great And Terrible is preventing the
assignment of wounds, rather than preventing wounds, particularly with all the other similarly-worded cards that deal with things that aren't broken down any further (like exerting or adding burdens).
cancel
When an action (such as playing an event or using a special ability) is canceled or prevented, its effects are ignored but its costs and requirements are still paid. If that action is playing an event, that event card is discarded.
See cost, effect.
cost
If an action is prevented, its effects are ignored but its costs and requirements are still paid."
Thus the term "prevent" is very closely associated with the word "cancel", and the rules actually say cancel and prevent in reference to both abilities and events. This contradicts the argument that "cancel" is only used when referring to events and "prevent" for abilities.
"Prevent" and "cancel" do very similar things in theory. The difference is mainly in the words themselves, and how they are put into practice:
If you're trying to "
prevent" something, but a card says you
can't "
prevent" something, you're screwed.
If you're trying to "
cancel" something, but a card says you can't "
prevent" something, then you can
still "cancel," because "cancel' is not quite the same as "prevent."
In theory, if you're trying to "prevent" something, but a card says you can't "cancel" something, you can still "prevent" it, for the same reasons listed above... however I don't think any such situation exists in LOTRTCG, because generally "cancel" seems to be used in a more powerful way than "prevent." In fact, are there any "may not cancel" cards in the game at all? The only thing I can think of, is the rule where Ring-bearer skirmishes may not be canceled, but that's a rule, not a card.
So I once again will make the statement that these "temptation" cards are allowing the prevention of the action stated - with the action stated on TGaT being the wounding of Gandalf and not the actual placement of said wounds.
Wounding Gandalf is not an action, it's an effect. Playing the event is an action.
I think you just solved it, BigRedMF. TGAT assigns two wounds to Gandalf, and tossing the 2 cards from hand prevents those wounds from being assigned.
This sounds like wishful thinking to me. There is nothing anywhere to indicate that the second part of the text of
Too Great And Terrible has anything to do with preventing the
assignment of wounds. "Assign" is not on the card. Again, the "prevent this" text is worded almost the same as things like Narsil (which certainly isn't preventing the
assignment of wounds) and
Why Shouldn't I Keep It (which is preventing something that doesn't even involve assignment).
Topic: Too Great and Terrible Rules Discussion (Read 14031 times)
