We had several rules questions about the witch come up in tonight's game which I'd like to put to popular interpretation.

1) When using the Ballroom, may a bewitched player deliberately fail to say "Thanks, your Excellency" in order to deprive the Witch of the use of her ability? Or does the Witch still get to do her part of the player's turn? It seems a bit twisted to cheat the Witch out of her power.

2) When the Witch bewitches the Emperor, does the player of the Emperor move the crown, or does the Witch? It seems to me that the Emperor does since this ability happens as the Emperor is revealed, yet it is a specific power of Emperor and Witch is supposed to get to use the bewitched player's powers.

3) Must you use your character's power? Specifically, can a player select the Witch card in order to go first, and then choose not to bewitch somebody so that she can build on her own turn, thus becoming the first person to get 8 districts?

obsidian said:

I'm not so sure about the first one. There is two ways it can go.

Since you have to call it at the beginning of your turn, you could n fact do this. Denying the poor witch.

However because the character is bewitched it wouldn't matter. they would loose there "turn" or at least what they had of it to begin with, the witch would then pick up where she normally would. She'd probably just have two less gold to work with. (though players always take cards anyway)

Makes sense to me, the whitch gets to use there power. And that is his power.

I believe that's how the whitch works, the witch reads, "After you take an action, announce the title of another character you wish to bewitch, then immediatly end your turn." From reading that I assume that you cannot not use your power.

I have a question about the Witch. It may have been answered elsewhere, but I can't find it.

If the player the Witch chooses to "bewitch" chooses to take 2 Gold Pieces for his action, does he get the 2 gold, or does the Witch get it ?

Since I'm not sure how I got to this page, I would greatly appreciate it if someone who can answer this would give me a heads-up at [email protected]. Thank you.

Regarding point 3, no you do not have to use your Special Ability if you don't want to.

However, the Witch's restriction on not being able to build is not her Special Ability. Her Special Ability is to bewitch someone. If you choose not to do that, you don't get to build at all.

J

obsidian said:

Would say no, although I would also expect the Witch to say "Thanks, Your Excellency" when her turn first began (when number 1 was called) or else she wouldn't get to use the character's power now. Strictly speaking the bewitched player's turn ends as soon as they take an action, and the witch's turn "resumes" with the use of that character's power.

obsidian said:

I would say the Witch player moves the crown, however, the Emperor player and the player who currently has the crown remain the two invalid targets for new ownership. This could well mean that the Witch can give herself the crown, if she wants to. I make that ruling based on the portion of the Witch's entry that says the King still gets the crown if she bewitches the King.

obsidian said:

The section of the rulebook on character powers says "may use" so I would say it's not mandatory. The Witch could choose not to bewitch anyone and instead act first.

As an aside, the Witch strikes me as a mostly useless character and we rarely use her ourselves. The only time she's handy is if the character you want is already gone by the time your pick comes around, and you're just desperate enough to gamble that someone else has him and he's not simply out of play. Most of the time if the character I wanted is already gone, I can make do with someone else.

pinkfloyd said:

The original player gets the gold (or cards.) The player's turn ends after taking an action (ie: choosing gold or cards) and the Witch's turn begins from that point forward.