Melisandre and immunity

By sajuhl1987, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

I will admit I didn't try incrediably hard to find the awnser to this question on my own but it is the deciding factor in who will win our current game, my question simply is, is Melisandres text that does not allow players to count their renown totals a player ability, and if so could characters who are immune to char abilities bypas this/ I think it is a passive char ability and that chars with immjunity can still count their power but I am willing to admit that I don't know enough to call for certain

Yes. If a character is immune to character abilities or even card effects, they would be able to claim power for renown if they have it. Keep in mind though the immunity to character abilities does not protect against stealth, intimidate, or deadly as these are keywords and not an ability.

sajuhl1987 said:

I think it is a passive char ability and that chars with immjunity can still count their power

I think immunity has nothing to do with this. Melisandre does not allow a player (not a character) to count these tokens of power.

White Phoenix is (almost) correct. Rogue30 is mistaken.

Mel's ability ("Power on opponents' characters does not count towards their total power.") affects the power on opponent's characters. Power on a character is considered a characteristic/stat of the character, meaning you cannot separate the two. Therefore, Mel's (character) ability is acting directly on the character, not on the "power" as something different from the character or on the "opponent" as the person counting power. And because her (character) ability is working directly on other character cards, those other character cards would ignore the effect if they were immune to character abilities - or card effects for that matter.

Rogue30 is making a common misinterpretation of Mel's ability, thinking that it works directly on the player - as the one counting the power - instead of on the power/character itself. The easy shorthand is to look at the subject of the ability (in this case "power"). That is what the effect is acting on directly. Note that if Mel's ability read "Players do not count power on characters they control toward their total power," the ability would do pretty much the same thing, but in this case would not be countered by immunity because it is phrased to affect the player (as the subject), not the character. There is a distinct difference, as far as immunity is concerned between "power does not count..." and "players do not count power...."

So yes, if Mel is out, an opponent's character with immunity to character abilities will still count its power toward victory. White Phoenix has the correct answer overall, but implies that opponent's characters do not claim power for Renown. Renown still works for opponents when Mel is in play and their characters still accumulate power, it just isn't part of their total power. It isn't uncommon for a opponent's power to jump from 10 to 16 by killing Mel.

ktom said:

Power on a character is considered a characteristic/stat of the character

Is this in FAQ? I thought that power/gold token on character is no different than attachment on character.

Besides, Mel seems to me like changing game rule:

Power thus claimed is put on the character instead of
the House card. This counts towards your 15
power victory total

Similar like Mance Rayder turns on new rule: Power on Kingdom locations counts towards their controller's victory total.

Rogue30 said:

Is this in FAQ? I thought that power/gold token on character is no different than attachment on character.

I don't believe so. It is a consistent ruling from FFG, though. Attachments are cards in their own right, but power/gold tokens are not. Remember that the tokens are just there to keep track of the power/gold held by the character. They are place markers, not separate game entities. You cannot affect the power on a character without affecting the character itself, just like you cannot change the icons, crests, STR, etc. of a character without changing the character itself.

Rogue30 said:

Besides, Mel seems to me like changing game rule:

Power thus claimed is put on the character instead of
the House card. This counts towards your 15
power victory total

Actually, she is changing the way the power, and thus the character, interacts with said rule. I mean, when a card says "characters with 2STR or lower do not stand during the Standing Phase," we assume that card's direct interaction is with the character, not with the basic rule "stand all characters in the Standing Phase," right?

Look at it this way: I have a character that says "while this card is attacking, Martell characters cannot be declared as defenders." That card seems to be changing the game rule that the defending player can declare any (un-Stealthed) character with the correct challenge icon as a defender by imposing an additional "non-Martell" requirement on the choice of defenders, right? And while that is true in the big picture, the direct card interaction is actually considered to at the character level - not the rulebook level - by placing the restriction on the Martell characters, making them ineligible defenders, not by changing the rules of the game en masse . A character with the ability "this card cannot defend" is not changing the rules; it is changing its own status as a legal defense choice. Same thing in this example; the cards are changed, not the rules. So here, The Red Viper would ignore the restriction placed on him by this character ability and could be declared as a defender.

Mel (and Mance) work the same way. They do not change the rules as a whole because they do not conflict with the rules as a whole. They only conflict with the rules as pertains to certain cards (opponent's characters with power on them and locations with the Kingdom trait respectively). Therefore, their action is said to be on the cards, not the rulebook. And if something acts on a card, there is a potential for that card to be immune to that action.

So ultimately, it boils down to 2 points: 1) power on cards is a characteristic of the card because you cannot change one without directly changing the other (you can change the attachments on a card without creating a game change on the character), and 2) the wording of the ability indicates direct action on the cards, not the rules, because it is not a general rules conflict, only a specific conflict pertaining to cards with a specific game-defined characteristic.

If you don't like this explanation, feel free to send the question into Nate.

ktom said:

It is a consistent ruling from FFG, though.

Ok then. I'm glad that sajuhl1987 asked this question - we have small number of characters with immunity, so such situations don't happen very often. Although in CCG era probably there was more such characters and questions about this. So, it would be nice to have it in FAQ.

Rogue30 said:

Ok then. I'm glad that sajuhl1987 asked this question - we have small number of characters with immunity, so such situations don't happen very often. Although in CCG era probably there was more such characters and questions about this. So, it would be nice to have it in FAQ.

That is the understatment of the year. In CCG format, I believe it was Valaryain Edition and its two expanisions, almost every one and their mom had immunity in some form or another. Lanni was terrible, as most of their guys were imuune to oppents characters or card effects. So you you often came up against immune decks which were a real pain to get rid of if you did not have the right cards to work with.

Wow. In all the time that this version of Melisandre has been out, I never even thought about immunity. You know, I probably won a lot of games that I should've lost because of that. I guess you learn something new every day!

Staton said:

Wow. In all the time that this version of Melisandre has been out, I never even thought about immunity. You know, I probably won a lot of games that I should've lost because of that. I guess you learn something new every day!

Actually, I doubt that. There wasn't a lot of "immune to character abilities" still in wide use by the time ITE came around and "immune to triggered effects" wouldn't protect against her.

Oh ok. Phew! Good points!

an other immunityquestion:

1. does immunity from events protect from Plotcardevents?? (Plot texts)

or

2. what type of effect are the Plotcard texteffects?? Event? Action? Cardability? Cardeffect?

3. which abilitiy protects from plot effects?

chrassos said:

1. does immunity from events protect from Plotcardevents?? (Plot texts)

or

2. what type of effect are the Plotcard texteffects?? Event? Action? Cardability? Cardeffect?

I'm not entirely sure why you would think that a plot card counts the same as an event. They are completely different card types and they are played completely differently.

Plots are a card type in their own right, not a subset or special kind of any other card type. A plot effect is simply a plot effect. They tend to be passive and constant effects (to my knowledge, there is only one triggered plot effect: Unconventional Warfare).

chrassos said:

3. which abilitiy protects from plot effects?

In terms of immunity, "immune to card effects" is the only thing currently on any card. Plots aren't characters or events, so "immune to character abilities/events" doesn't work. And most plots aren't triggered abilities, so immune to triggered effects doesn't work, either. Plots are cards, though, so "immune to card effects" would let a card ignore plot text.

Of course, "cannot be killed," "cannot be discarded" or other specific protection can protect from specific plots that do those specific things, but it isn't general protection from plot cards.

simply thanks

ktom

I hate to bring back a long-since closed thread, but I can't find an answer to our question anywhere and this thread seems "closest" to our question.

We had a game yesterday where I had "The Fox's Teeth" in play which has the following text:

" While The Fox's Teeth is attacking, knelt characters may be declared as defenders.

While The Fox's Teeth is attacking, only knelt characters may be declared as defenders. "

My opponent had two characters with the "knight" trait in play (and two others without) and the revealed plot card "Tourney for the Hand" with the following text:

" Each of your Knight characters gets +1 STR and is immune to opponent's character abilities. "

Acting first with no cards knelt, I declared my first challenge with The Fox's Teeth attacking alone. Are his knight characters eligible defenders, as they are immune to The Fox's Teeth character ability?

After a (very) long discussion and online searching we found this thread and we both concluded that the standing knight characters were indeed eligible to be declared defenders. We were correct?

By the way, thank you so much guys, and in particularly ktom, for this amazing resource for AGOT LCG. Countless answers have been found here and it makes it easier to play and enjoy the game having so many good answers online.

yep, per the FAQ, "A card with immunity ignores the effects of card types to which it is immune."

It's worth noting that the FAQ was updated somewhere between 2010 and today, so the answer to the original question is the opposite now (the character's immunity does not extend to peripheral entities like power, so the power is not immune to Mel - and counts - even though the character is).

That has nothing to do with Fox's Teeth, though.

if Mel is out, an opponent's character with immunity to character abilities will still count its power toward victory. White Phoenix has the correct answer overall, but implies that opponent's characters do not claim power for Renown.
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Edited by bandassbebo