I am trying to resolve a situation where a plot card is revealed (City of Soldiers) which kills an x strength character. The character has x strength, but has Northern Steel, which states: Any phase: Kneel Northern Steel for +3 STR (paraphrasing). Can Northern Steel be knelt to save the character in this case?

Thanks in advance!

Rheingold said:

This isn't a moribund situation. The only things you can use while a character is moribund before it is removed from the table are "Response" effects. So no, there is no way to trigger an "Any Phase" effect between an effect killing a character and that character physically leaving play.

But the thing is, even if this WERE a Response effect - or if you had a Response effect that increased STR - you couldn't "save" the character from the plot effect with it. Even with Responses, the original killing effect has been resolved and is over and done with before you can use a Response. You cannot undo an effect by making the character an illegal target after the effect is already resolved.

Let me give you another example to hopefully make that clearer. Say that I have an event that says "Any Phase: choose a standing character. Kneel that character." Once the effect resolves, the character is kneeling, and therefore no longer a legal target for the effect. So does that make the effect invalid so that it is undone and the character stands up again? Of course not; it is simply that the effect is resolved. You are essentially trying to do the same thing: the effect says "Choose a character X STR or lower. Kill that character." After the character is dead, making it X+3 STR will not undo the killing any more that kneeling the character would undo the act of actually kneeling it in the first example.

The only way to stop the kill once the target is legally chosen is with an effect that specifically uses the word "save" (or cancel) - and even that has to be used immediately.

Now, specifically with the Northern Steel/City of Soldiers example, you could use the attachment's ability to bump a character's STR and put it out of reach before the plot is revealed, but once the plot is flipped over, you there is nothing you can do without a "save" effect.

Wow, that answer helped me too.