Hi,

I have a couple of, quite basic, questions.. But they cropped up during a 3 player game last night and my friends and I would like to be sure we understand!

The first regards a plot card: Rule by Decree. The card states 'When revealed, the player with the most cards in hand chooses and discards cards from his hand until he has 4 cards in hand'. Now as it happened two of us had the 7 cards in hand, so we both discarded down to 4 cards, was this correct? Is there a general principle (or a rule) to follow in situations like this?

The second question regards the Deadly keyword. The rule book states that if the attacker has more participating characters with Deadly than the defending player, the defender must choose and kill a participating character after the challenge resolves. I am afraid my questions are very basic:

1. When exactly does this occur? The FAQ shows a framework action, within which you determine the winner, challenge result is implemented, reward for unopposed challenge is awarded, renown is awarded. Does Deadly come as a 5th action of this framework window or come after this?
2. In the instance of a military challenge, and the defender commits one character to the challenge, could you pay the military claim with the defending character, thus leaving no character to be the target of the Deadly attack?
3. If you were defending only with a character like Ser Davos Seaworth, could he use his response to save him from both a military claim, and a Deadly attack (paying 1 gold each time if you wanted to keep him in play)?

I am not sure if we are trying to look to deep into how things work, when really they are as simple as would appear at first glance!

many thanks

- "Rule by decree" 's effect only apply if one and only one player has more cards in hand than the others.

- The Deadly keyword's effect is applied after the claim is resolved (always the first thing to resolve) and before triggered responses can be played. I think it's Renown first, then Deadly but I'm not quite sure and it's not very relevant (except if the defending player only needs one power to win the game).

- So yes you can defend with one character, choose him as claim soak (during military challenges) and so you're not forced to kill another character (no more eligible target for Deadly).

- You can save Davos twice in this case, one for the claim, one for Deadly. Notice that you cannot choose twice the same character as claim soak if your opponent's claim is 2 during a military challenge.

A little extra information to generalize here:

1. The general principle on Rule By Decree is that when any card says "player with the most" (or "least" for that matter), only one player can fit the bill. Since two players had 7 cards, neither of you had the "most" cards (although you were tied for the "highest" number of cards in hand). So the general rule is that if the card says "most" or "least" or something, there can be no ties. But if the card says "highest" or "lowest" (and in some cases, "fewest") of something, there could be ties.

2. Deadly is resolved as a passive ability. So in the framework action window you describe, it is not resolved as a 5th framework event in Steps 1-3; it is resolved in Step 4. So claim (which does come first) and Deadly are two separate effects that technically have nothing to do with each other. That's why killing the only defender for military claim creates a "no legal target" situation for Deadly, but Davos would have to be (and could be) saved two different times.

Thank you both for your replies, there always seems to be something I have questions about!

ktom said:

I'm curious, why they put 'renown' as framework event and 'deadly' not? In rulebook these keywords have equal description "after the challenge resolves".

BTW: 'Vigilant' and 'vengeful' will be declared as responses in step 5, correct?

Rogue30 said:

Largely because Renown has been in the game from the beginning, but Deadly was added about 4 years in. Also, the timing of framework events has shifted a bit in the last year. Now, framework events cycle through their own Steps 1-3, then move on to a common Step 4-6 after they have all taken place. But that's a new development. Until about a year ago, all framework events shared a single, common Step 1-3. So in that timing structure, you can probably see why you wouldn't want the Deadly kill initiating at the "same time" as something like military claim. Now it would be different, but until that shift, you could actually create some confusion with 2 kill effects initiating at the same time.

Maybe FFG will update the framework events now, but until they do, Deadly resolves as a passive effect.

Oh, and Vigilant and Vengeful are both passive effects. So they will take place in Step 4, not Step 5. This is really important when looking at the card "Banner of the Storm."

ktom said:

That's a little confusing since you trigger them. I mean they are optional, so I thought about them like responses.

Rogue30 said:

Bear with me here. We'll do this with Vigilant, but the reasoning is the same for Vengeful:

Vigilant works as such: "After you win a challenge as the attacker, you may stand any number of cards with the “Vigilant” keyword that you control."

So, when you win a challenge as the attacker, you need to make a choice for each character with Vigilant: stand or not stand. You are correct that there is an element of player choice in how the effect resolves.

However, the thing you need to recognize is that you must choose for each character whether or not to stand them. Whether you want to or not, you have to choose between standing or not. So "Vigilant" initiates every time you win a challenge, whether you want it to or not. That is the defining characteristic of a passive effect. Granted, it is a little confusing because by choosing to have Vigilant resolve by not standing the character, the result is essentially the same as if it hadn't initiated at all. But it did initiate - otherwise, there would have been no choice for you to make.

That's why Vigilant and Vengeful are passive effects - they initiate by forcing you to make a choice about whether or not to stand the character. Do not confuse having a choice in how the effect resolves with having a choice in whether or not it initiates. That's the key here.