What happens in the following situation:

I make a military challenge, and my opponent kneels his only character. That character is killed. According to some input I got on the forum this counts as an unopposed challenge because the character was killed and when it was time to resolve the opponent's STR was less then 0 (well, actually it is NULL, but we can leave the mathematics out of it). And thus I score a Power as well ... woo woo!

However, I'm browsing the rules and in the example on p. 14 it seems to indicate that all the resolution mechanics get executed BEFORE the losing side has to select a character to kill, (see the paragraph starting "Because he lost a military challenge ....").

Can someone please resolve this for me?

BrooklynMike said:

This is the source of confusion.

When you asked your original question, you made it sound like the defending character was killed by some other effect before the challenge actually resolved, not that it was killed by the claim effect of losing the challenge. Here is the anatomy of a challenge:

1. The attacking player announces the challenge type and declares the attacking characters.

2. Players take turns triggering effects.

3. The attacking player assigns targets for Stealth (if appropriate) and the defending player declares defenders.

4. Players take turns triggering effects.

5. The challenge resolves. In order to do this, the following things happen, in order:

5a. The challenge winner is determined (i.e., add up the attacking and defending STR, and compare; ties go to the attacker)

5b. The claim effects for the challenge type are executed.

5c. The attacking player gains 1 power for "unopposed" if the defending player's STR was 0 in 5a.

5d. The winner of the challenge collects power on characters for "Renown" if any participating characters have the keyword.

5e. Passive effect for anything in 5a - 5d take place

5f. Responses to anything that happens in 5a - 5e are triggered

So, the way you phrased the question "that character is killed" made some people (myself included) think that you were killing the only defender with some card effect in #4. If that does happen (and it can), the challenge ends up "unopposed" because the defending player counts no STR in #5a. (There are other games in which simply declaring a defender in #3 would make the challenge "opposed" whether any of those characters make it to 5a or not.)

BUT, if the defending player counts challenge STR in 5a, then has his only character die for military claim in 5b, the attacking player will NOT collect "unopposed" in 5c. This is because whether or not a challenge is considered "unopposed" is really determined by that defending STR greater than 0 in 5a, even though the power itself is not collected until 5c.

Hope that helps clear things up.

Thanks so much for clearing that up. Of course I was not trying to create confusion, and I'm sorry if I did, but that goes to show you when you use imprecise vocabulary. I'm used to this in CoC but am not familiar enough with aGoT terminology to make sure I am asking exactly the right question. This makes more sense, and would have saved me a few Power in my most recent humiliating defeat at the hands of my daughter.