Dodge:canceling a attack

By bluehawks207, in Runebound

Armor I had gave me dodge and said I can Cancel a attack if I spend a surge.

Does that mean I can spend a surge in the same way I spend a shield on my opponents turn?

Cancel says

A player can only use an ability that cancels or prevents something from occurring immediately before that ability resolves. ̉

So if it can only be used immediately before that attack happens it would have to be on my opponents turn.

It says in surge Abilities that they have to be use as a combat action.

I can only use combat actions on my turn

Any help would be welcome :)

The Rogues Gear says
1 surge dodge: Cancel the next attack made against you this combat round.


Cancel Rule Says:

Something that is canceled or prevented does not resolve. ̉

Cancel and prevent are synonyms. ̉

A player can only use an ability that cancels or prevents something from occurring immediately before that ability resolves. ̉

If a cost is paid and the effect is canceled or prevented, the cost is not refunded; e.g., if a player spent a surge to trigger an ability and the ability is canceled, the surge is still spent.

Surge Abilities

Abilities that are preceded by a surge symbol are surge abilities.

Surge abilities can be used as a combat action by spending the number of surges listed before the surge from the player’s combat pool.

Each surge ability cannot be triggered more than once per combat round. ̉

A player can spend more surges for an ability than required.

Any overspent surges have no effect. ̉

The cost of the surge ability is paid before the effect is resolved.

This means that if a surge ability allows a hero to recast spent tokens, the surge tokens spent to trigger the ability are eligible to be recast. ̉If an X surge ability is triggered by another ability, X is considered to be 1 unless otherwise noted.

Surge symbols

As a combat action, a player can spend surge symbols from his or her combat pool to trigger a surge ability.

I think it works the way that you use a surge to activate the Rogue Gear as your combat action. Then it's your opponent's turn. The next attack that he will make in this combat round will be canceled.

And since your opponent knows that you've activated Rogue Gear, he'll most likely attack with just one token so that your Rogue Gear will cancel that. Or he'll do something else. And then it's your turn again.

So, effectively, it's a bit worse than a shield symbol as it requires you to set it up as your own combat action but it usually ends up blocking a single damage.

It could also end up blocking some serious damage. For instance if your opponent has a 2 Skull token on a doubler as its only damaging tokens. It's very situational, and usually it's rather helpful, even if you have to invest 1 of your combat actions to trigger the ability.

So is that an official ruling? That Dodge for that armor is an exception to the cancel and prevent rule and can only be activated on your turn with a combat action?

So is that an official ruling? That Dodge for that armor is an exception to the cancel and prevent rule and can only be activated on your turn with a combat action?

Using surges is a combat action so it seems to be an exception to the cancel rule.

But it is also along the lines of the Rules Reference Foundational Rules:

If the rules text of a card contradicts information from the Rules Reference, the component-specific rules text takes precedence. If both the card and the rules can be followed at the same time, they should be.

That's all good and relevant, but I already can see the arguments for each side. I'm very specifically looking for an official response on the intended use, not more speculation and discussion. You could feasibly interpret this several ways.

That's all good and relevant, but I already can see the arguments for each side. I'm very specifically looking for an official response on the intended use, not more speculation and discussion. You could feasibly interpret this several ways.

Bigmac, the answers here given are by no means official; the only way to have an official ruling on this (since this very specific question had today no official ruling), is asking FFG directly (by using the rules question button on this very site) and wait to receive an answer from the actual responsible of the line.

If you're ok with a non-official answer, I'd like to share my point of vew on the matter, since, in my opinion, there's nothing contradicting the rules. Let's go with order:

- Spending surges is a combat action

- The object requires you to spend 1 surge to trigger a specific ability

- The specific ability targets the next attack made in this combat round

It's pretty straightforward, I'd say. Saying you are allowed to trigger this ability during your opponent's turn is (for me) non-sensical.

As for the rule about how to resolve "cancel effect": it's very important to remember that this is not a cancel effect, this is a surge effect resulting in something being cancelled, which is absolutely another thing.

Hope this helps :)

Edited by Julia

Whether you think it requires an official ruling is irrelevant. You actually make a good case, Julia. You've posted a bunch on here and it looks like you might be officially affiliated with FFG. I was simply curious as to whether your post constituted an official answer. I'm not sure why you seem to think this is an unreasonable question. Yes, I can email the official channel, but I thought first I'd check if there was an official answer already provided. Elraths response in no way addressed my actual, specific question of whether your post constituted an official response, just reiterated the already stated judgement call/interpretation. I was looking for a simple confirmation.

Bigmac,

I edited my previous post with some additional info on everything. Important thing regarding your latest post in this very thread: by no means anything that I may write on these boards is to be intended as official or related to FFG's opinion on the games. Even if I worked on a few of their games as tester / tech editor, I'm not a spokesperson for the company, and my knowledge of games is limited to what I've learned "the hard way", by playing them. For any need of something official, we all need to use the rules question function on this site

Bigmac, if you want an official answer you can also post your question in the FAQ discussion on this forum . I've seen discussion about this dodge ability in few threads already, I think it's a question that FFG might answer in their FAQ.

But it might be faster to ask them through their rules question function. In fact, if you ask FFG through that, could you also post the question and possible answer in the FAQ discussion thread? I bet it would be really helpful for many. I'd also like to see an official answer so I don't have to rely on my own understanding of the rules. :)

Edited by Elrath

Sounds perfect. Sorry if I came off a bit short, I believe I may have overreacted a bit. I don't think you ever specifically represented yourself as an official moderator or anything, Julia, you just seemed to have really in-depth knowledge so I thought you might be. Wasn't entirely sure. Sorry if I introduced a confrontational tone. I apologize for that.

No need to apologize for anything of sort :)