Hey all,

I was asked this and don't know the answer. What are you guys thinking...

I can choose to use Ysanne at the start of combat, trigger interface, get stressed, then immediately knock said stress right off with Wingman right? This all happens at the start of the combat round, yes?

Seems absolutely OK. If you use the Experimental Interface or Push the Limit at the start of the Combat phase, that's it until the next round, though, due to their "once per round" clause.

Both Isard and Wingman have the same timing, which means you get to choose the order to trigger them in.

If you use Experimental Interface/Push the Limit from her evade action, you'll resolve the free action before continuing on to the next thing in line (Wingman).

So yes, you can use Isard/PtL/Wingman, in that order.

Out of curiosity why does the PTL and EI both resolve thanks to simultaneous action and never see the stress the other gives when performing actions, but these two simultaneous actions still see each other? Call me silly but wouldn't you have to resolve Wingman before PTL and EI try to resolve? This may just be M:TG still screwing with my head but the proto-stack I think should be typed below? My current understanding is that (and I could be completely wrong, and honestly I don't like this ruling) Is that you can have PTL and EI both grant you an action in order but the stress from the preceeder does not stop the later, right?

Start of Combat > Isard Trigger, Wingman trigger

Resolve Isard > Trigger both PTL and EI ***

Resolve Wingman, Fail, leave start of combat phase 'step',

Resolve PTL

Resolve EI

===End result Two Stress, three resolved actions.

***Here though I would've thought since there is another simultaneous action pending, wingman, they both have to wait for the next opportunity to resolve, Magic's timing I'm pretty sure does it this way when an ability is triggered outside a priority granting step or phase, and X-wing timing seems modeled after it so what do? My problem is that it seems inconsistent to have PTL and EI be able to resolve simultaneous without having the stress of one stop the resolution of the other, when you can resolve one or more abilities between two earlier triggers, and the last one to resolve some how does still is able to remove the stress the earlier one. When wing man triggered there was no stress to remove, if PTL, EI, Isard, and Wingman all resolve simultaneous why were EI and PTL blind to the stress between resolutions but Wingman is not? At this point I'm probably typing in circles fruitlessly hoping this odd concept has been accurately purveyed. But with any luck you get what I'm saying? Also crazy question since nothing I can think of could have all these upgrades at the same time. But for a model of how timing works in full it would work rather well maybe?

When you have two abilities that trigger simultaneously, you have to fully resolve the first before moving on to the second. That includes any nested triggers. So Isard and Wingman trigger at the same time. You use Isard first. PtL triggers from Isard, and is resolved immediately. Once PtL is done (and gives stress) then you continue with the other element at the same level as Isard. So something like this:

+ Isard

+--- Evade Action

+--- Push the Limit

+------ Focus

+------ Stress

+--- Push the Limit completes

+ Isard Completes

+ Wingman resolves

Wait. Where are nested triggers in the rules. In going to need the reference material

Wait. Where are nested triggers in the rules. In going to need the reference material

FAQ, top of Page 16, under Push the Limit's entry.

Wait. Where are nested triggers in the rules. In going to need the reference material

You can actually end up nesting quite a few different abilities/effects, but if each one gives you a stress token on completion, you get those as you back out of the nest, so you can potentially end up doing something rather amazing, but getting multiple stress tokens for it.

To me nested resolutions contradict the basis of 'completely resolve one effect at a time'. Like I pointed out though that's interference from magic. One card or ability must completely resolve before moving on to another

The trick is that you don't actually have to completely resolve one effect before you go into the next one. If the trigger for an ability happens within a multistep ability, the triggered ability jumps in right where it was triggered before completing the original ability. The result is nesting abilities like PtL and EI.

To me nested resolutions contradict the basis of 'completely resolve one effect at a time'. Like I pointed out though that's interference from magic. One card or ability must completely resolve before moving on to another

You do still have to completely resolve each ability, but it's just like dbmeboy said, some of them have a trigger for another effect half way through their resolution. Consider it like a sub-routine: you get to the trigger point for another effect, go off and resolve that effect, before coming back in where you left off and completing the first one. Trigger conditions have been met and all effects have been fully resolved.

The end result of some of these "extra" effects is quite often a stress token, so you can end up stacking a few stress token on your ship when you're done.

Refer to the entry in the FAQ for Push the Limit:

Free actions, such as a free action granted from Squad Leader, can trigger Push the Limit. This can result in an action interrupting another effect, causing that effect to finish resolving later. For example, if a ship performs a free barrel roll action granted by Expert Handling, it could use that action as a trigger for Push the Limit. After Push the Limit resolves, Expert Handling finishes resolving.

In this case you'd do your Expert Handling free barrel roll action, triggering Push the Limit to do another action, gain a stress from Push the Limit, come back to Expert Handling and gain a stress from that also.

All very legal. And quite the normal way to nest various effects.

Yeah, I get how it works, but we've nested them in one example and we've sequenced them in mine and so far as I know both worked. Up until now every other mechanical process in the game has required itself to complete before moving on to the next process. Like the dice modifications steps and order of abilities. Am I crazy? haven't we been telling people up till now to full resolve one action before moving on?

Anyway, if they are truly nested this way and we want to look at just PTL and EI you must trigger them sequentially right? As in Action, trigger PTL, interrupt trigger EI, complete EI, complete PTL...Because earlier I pointed out a sequence where Isard triggered BOTH simultaneously and nobody has stated that was incorrect, so I need to know if that was or not. Particularly because if BOTH are allowed, I think there is a segment of the rules that could be argued to break down allowing you to technically have two triggers pending of an upgrade that is only supposed to work once per round. For the giggles it would be this:

>Tycho performs a Boost, triggers PTL and EI since they both have the opportunity to trigger now, but one will have to go first.

>Resolves EI with Expert Handling, and interrupt triggers PTL (again), Resolves PTL^2 with an Evade

>Attempts to resolve PTL^1 with a Focus? because it's just floating there?

The reason I would argue this would work is when you trigger PTL the second time you haven't resolved it from the first time, it just queued. EI/PTL are not actions in and of themselves so they could repeat if already triggered into the queue. Since neither of these two upgrades, PTL and EI, is an action they don't self stop repetition. And each only allows you to queue another action, but in this scenario you haven't used the ability from the first trigger yet, it would still be waiting to resolve. I would argue that since I haven't yet done it 'once per round' when I trigger it a second time the text can't stop me from triggering it twice. Now we all know this surely can't be right, right? If this were magic I would safely assume the trigger from the initial action (PTL^1) attempts to resolve it gets countered as the target is no longer legal.

So then at what point can you interrupt Daredevil or can you at all? I'm going with no.

Well if nothing else I'm having fun messing with this stuff

Since neither of these two upgrades, PTL and EI, is an action they don't self stop repetition. And each only allows you to queue another action, but in this scenario you haven't used the ability from the first trigger yet, it would still be waiting to resolve. I would argue that since I haven't yet done it 'once per round' when I trigger it a second time the text can't stop me from triggering it twice. Now we all know this surely can't be right, right? If this were magic I would safely assume the trigger from the initial action (PTL^1) attempts to resolve it gets countered as the target is no longer legal.

So then at what point can you interrupt Daredevil or can you at all? I'm going with no.

Well if nothing else I'm having fun messing with this stuff

Once you've triggered PtL or EI, you've met the "once per round" clause of their card, so there will be no "second" time around for them. They do stop self repetition by their very wording.

As for Daredevil, the only chance of an interrupt is from an ability/effect that has an "after executing a maneuver" trigger. PtL and EI can't be used with it as the action completes with a stress token, thus denying the free action from PtL or EI.

But that's where I see the problem. Until the action it allows you to perform is complete, you haven't done it once per round, you just started too. You haven't actually completed it. If I follow my above example I can show that I can complete all the wording for the second triggering before ever even getting past the second comma of the first. That would be different if there was something in place that said "trigger once per round". It would seem the only stop to this initially in PTLs design and in it's prodigy EI, the mechanic in place to keep you from continuing was the stress at the end, and the fact that nothing could interrupt it. Unfortunately X-wing doesn't use the exhaust (ahem, Tap) mechanic like many of their other games which would be super handy right here since you couldn't exhaust it twice. There's no actual mechanic in place to stop it. It's implied, it's understood, but there isn't anything concrete. It wouldn't be functionally different if there as even a header format that was bolded like "Once Per Round:" Note the colon. But it would be quite clear.

Because even triggering it simultaneously, which nobody still has said is illegal or not, I'm starting to think it is legal but just non-productive, I'm interrupting the wording of the second triggered effect and carrying two half complete abilities forward. At the point I perform the action for PTL, I'm somehow miraculously paused at the second comma of EI at the same time. Breaking the faux rules for complete resolution. Interestingly each card individually wouldn't work at all really if they weren't allowed to nest. Quite the design conundrum. All I'm getting at is that this is a place where we could evolve the wording and formats of upgrade cards to clarify timing mechanics. All I'm trying to show is that there is this tiny gray area which could be tightened up however they saw fit. This is really important going forward as it opens design doors. Whats to say we can't have a secondary weapon with the header Action[Attack]: ? The more things entering the game the wider these gray gaps will grow as things repeat, like EI mimicking PTL. I think all of you here understand how fixing things early would help in the long run.

X-wing is very fuzzy on what constitutes an ability being triggered/activated, when you choose to use an optional ability, and what that impact is. But at least in this particular case, you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

First, let's consider your "two half-activated" abilities problem. There are two possibilities for the "once per round" limit: it checks when the ability triggers, or it checks when you choose to use the optional part of the ability. If it's the first, then PtL would only ever be an option for the first action you take, because even if you got a second one, you've already triggered it once. Or it only counts as your "once per round" if you actually use it. In this case your first action is triggered and waiting, you use it for the second, then you resolve the first which says "Hey, I see what you did there, you already took a bonus action so you can't do it again."

Since I think we can all agree that PtL is not intended to lock you into a use-or-lose situation on your very first action each turn, we've got a pretty good example that says that the trigger can be met multiple times without it actually doing anything.

If you don't mind some friendly advice, you need to dump the Magic-think, because you're trying to apply its structure here, and it's getting you in trouble. There's nothing miraculous about pausing mid-process on an ability to resolve another, and there's nothing wrong with having multiple abilities triggered and waiting. That's how X-wing works.

I'll be the first to say there's a lot in X-wing's rules that need to be fixed, but this really isn't one of them.

Gotta agree with Buhallin here also. It is another mountain/molehill scenario and if that's the logic behind Magic, it makes me glad I never bothered with it in the first place.

To me nested resolutions contradict the basis of 'completely resolve one effect at a time'. Like I pointed out though that's interference from magic. One card or ability must completely resolve before moving on to another

Compare the nested trigger in X-wing to an Instant spell in Magic if you want to keep the comparison going.

But basically, you agree with me when I point out it's fuzzy. You just pointed out an area where there are two possible ways to interpret it. And be fair to me please, I did say it could be problematic in the future. Which is to say yes it's a molehill now, but could be a mountain later. And the Magic-think (That's funny, I like it ) is one of the strongest tools I've had at my disposal when interpreting many rule sets, I can't just drop it lol. Before I got out of the game I was studying casually to get my level one judges certification. And I used it's structure here and it did resolve the problem the same way you just did. See?

First, let's consider your "two half-activated" abilities problem. There are two possibilities for the "once per round" limit: it checks when the ability triggers, or it checks when you choose to use the optional part of the ability. If it's the first, then PtL would only ever be an option for the first action you take, because even if you got a second one, you've already triggered it once. Or it only counts as your "once per round" if you actually use it. In this case your first action is triggered and waiting, you use it for the second, then you resolve the first which says "Hey, I see what you did there, you already took a bonus action so you can't do it again."(specifically)

If this were magic I would safely assume the trigger from the initial action (PTL^1) attempts to resolve it gets countered as the target is no longer legal.

So there we had it.

To me nested resolutions contradict the basis of 'completely resolve one effect at a time'. Like I pointed out though that's interference from magic. One card or ability must completely resolve before moving on to another

Compare the nested trigger in X-wing to an Instant spell in Magic if you want to keep the comparison going.

That's what I have been doing. In Magic if I am in the middle of resolving a multi-step ability or spell when something triggers, either may or must trigger it doesn't matter, I have to finish the current ability or card. The trigger still goes off but it gets delayed entry until the next opportunity for it to enter the stack or just queues into the stack depending on circumstances. For example if I have a game state where I'm at 1 life my opponent has 2 life. And I activate an ability that reads "Draw a card. You lose 1 life." And I draw the card "Shock - Instant - Deal two damage to target creature or player" I can't actually cast it until I finish the earlier effect and I die because of it. If Magic had X-wings nested rules I suppose I could. Another example would be I activate the same ability when I have another card in play that triggers off of a card draw and gains you one life, in Magic it would go card draw, (trigger into the stack), lose one life, die. X-wing allows it to go in order of: draw a card, trigger and gain one life, then lose a life. Be alive at one life.

Certainly there is going to be some overlap in the system, but using Magic's rules to resolve things in X-wing is going to be more luck than anything else. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't.

In this specific case, a "fully resolve" rule breaks X-wing. Sure, it may work with some minor differences when you're looking at abilities that grant an action, but what about Gunner or Corran? Those grant attacks, which are very long-running processes. Think about what happens if you take an entire attack without any nesting going on.

I believe that Magic lacks those long running processes, so the rule works fine there. Here it fails. Different game, different needs, different rules.

TL;DR some of the replies - will read properly if needed tonight at home.

For mine, EI and wingman don't work together for the same reason AS won't allow cloak and decloak.

At the time they both trigger, there is no stress, so Wingman won't trigger, so you can't choose to stack it after EI.

It follows the same timing sequence and ruling as AS cloak/decloak, in that if you are cloaked, you can't choose a cloak action, even if you activate declaok before it, and if you're decloaked you don't qualify to decloak, even if you activate AS first and cloak.

This is why I stopped playing Magic.

At the time they both trigger, there is no stress, so Wingman won't trigger, so you can't choose to stack it after EI.

Having a stress isn't a requirement for activating Wingman like the cloak token is for decloaking, though. There are (at least currently) no rules in X-wing which stop you from activating an effect which won't do anything. So I don't think there's anything that stops you from activating Wingman even if you don't have a stress yet.

TL;DR some of the replies - will read properly if needed tonight at home.

For mine, EI and wingman don't work together for the same reason AS won't allow cloak and decloak.

At the time they both trigger, there is no stress, so Wingman won't trigger, so you can't choose to stack it after EI.

It follows the same timing sequence and ruling as AS cloak/decloak, in that if you are cloaked, you can't choose a cloak action, even if you activate declaok before it, and if you're decloaked you don't qualify to decloak, even if you activate AS first and cloak.

This situation is different, though, since Wingman doesn't actually care whether or not there's a stress token around for it to remove. Wingman's text reads:

At the start of the combat phase, remove 1 stress token from another friendly ship at range 1.

The trigger point is the start of the combat phase, so technically Wingman goes off every single round and simply does nothing when there's no stress available to remove.

So, in this situation, both effects go off at the same time (the start of the combat phase) so we can resolve them in any order we want. We choose Ysanne first, leading to:

> Ysanne begins resolving; grants a free evade action.

>> Evade action triggers Interface; perform another action.

>> Receive stress token from Interface.

> Ysanne finishes resolving.

> Wingman begins resolving. There is a stress token on a friendly ship at range 1 for it to remove; it does so.

> Wingman finishes resolving.

I'm not using Magic rules. I'm using X-wing rules. But when X-wing has gray areas I need something to turn to. And Magic rules have been a fine guidepost. I may have quit the game nine months ago after fifteen wasted years, but not because it's rules were poorly defined. And again I'm not knocking these things just want to make sure I've hammered them all the way to their nitty gritty detail. I would only do this with a game I love.

Certainly magic has long running process. Have you seen combat? There are 9 pages in the comprehensive rules for five interactive steps of just that one phase. X-wing thank god has three steps that aren't individually interactive that each player resolves in one simple 6 step chain. Attacker rolls, defender modifies, attacker modifies. Then the Defender does the same sequence with greens going def>atk>def priority. rinse and repeat for each ship with targets available. And your done! It's brilliant. It's difficult to even make it sound complicated. And X-wing only has one guy that attacks twice. Magic has 14 cards that start an entire new combat phase. Its awful. When you've sat through a 10 minute upkeep phase alone you'll know what we're talking about.

But I'm curious what would you nest into combat? As far as I know there isn't anything that doesn't fully resolve while going through a normal combat procedure. C-3PO maybe? But that's a replacement effect right? But even that can't be interrupted. But it can apply a replacement effect to Lando Calrissian's Crew Card. But notably even that's not nesting. If it were, then casting spells in Magic during combat would be, which isn't the case, they are given a specific set of times that they can be used. That just happens on your priority to use effects. Which then uses the rule to fully resolve one thing before moving on to the next.

Biggs doesn't nest, its just a continuous effect. Howlrunner doesn't nest, she is active in a state then waits for a very specific step of combat to let the ship in question use her ability and then that ship fully resolves it. Howlrunner doesn't even interrupt it to use the ability but gives it to the friendly ship. Wedge is a continuous effect while in a state. Right?

And will anybody tell me what the difference between triggering EI and PTL off of the same action and triggering them off of each other is? Does one work and the other not the way I suspect? Speaking of, why does this work when Isard's wording and full effect is actually complete before PTL starts?

+ Isard

+--- Evade Action

+--- Push the Limit

+------ Focus

+------ Stress

+--- Push the Limit completes

+ Isard Completes

+ Wingman resolves

It would be just as functional to say, and you don't break the concept of 'fully complete' with:

+Start of Combat Phase

++Trigger Isard and Wingman

>Isard

>-Evade Action, Isard completes

)))>>now go to complete since it did just trigger, PTL, stress

>Wingman

You could still go back and nest EI into PTL and nothing would have changed in that sequence. Right?

Addendum Note: While I typed posts 20# through #23 came in. Will look at later I guess.

And will anybody tell me what the difference between triggering EI and PTL off of the same action and triggering them off of each other is? Does one work and the other not the way I suspect?

If you trigger them off the same action, then one will resolve fully and, critically, give you a stress token before you move on to the other. That stress will prevent you from taking any further actions (unless you're Tycho, of course). Nesting them is the only way to pull it off.

Speaking of, why does this work when Isard's wording and full effect is actually complete before PTL starts?

Isard ends with the Evade action being performed. That action is sufficient to trigger PtL/Interface.