Does Femme Fatale's bypass ability count as a paid ability?

By Pandonetho, in Android: Netrunner Rules Questions

Posted at

I was just looking through the FAQ when I came upon a text that said

Encountering Ice
When the Runner encounters a piece of ice, he must resolve any
abilities triggered by the encounter before he can trigger paid
abilities or break subroutines.
This would seem to imply that you don't get the chance to use Femme Fatale's ability (if it's a paid ability) before having to pay the toll. From what I've read online it seems to be pretty widely agreed that Femme Fatale does bypass Tollbooth and ignores the encountered ability.
Can anyone clarify this for me?

From my understanding, its definition as an *encounter* ability allows the runner to prioritize it over tollbooth's encounter conditional. Just wanted to be sure this was the case.

Edited by Pandonetho
Posted at

The bypass effect on Femme Fatale is a conditional ability (the trigger being when you encounter the targeted piece of ICE). Paid abilities are specifically those with the format <cost>:<ability>.

On encountering a Tollbooth, there will be two abilities that trigger, Femme's and the Tollbooth's. This means that the rules for simultaneous effects kicks in and the Runner will choose the order in which to resolve them.

If the Runner pays for the Femme to bypass the ICE, any other remaining conditional abilities (such as that of Tollbooth) will be prevented from resolving.

Posted at

Flogging dead horse: the runner doesn't choose the order of triggered abilities. The runner chooses the order of HIS OWN triggered abilities, if he has more than one. Active player abilities ALWAYS go first, so if you had some reason you wanted to allow Tollbooth yo go off them bypass, you don't have that option.