Updates to the Rules Reference are now live.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/12/21/updating-the-rules-of-war/

Ah... our much needed update to the rules. I quite like the changes.

Highlights:

pg 9 - Initiating ability / playing a card - step 6 now explicitly states "this is where the card is considered to have been played, or the ability to have been triggered." this will clear up issues with Watch Commander and other such reactions.

Mulligan rules are now updated and clear - you do get to look at all face down cards in your provinces prior to drawing your conflict hand. Personally I played without this one waiting for the update - not that I've played in any major competition where it mattered too much lol but its great to see this clearly defined in the rules.

Rings are now considered contested until all reactions to claiming them have been resolved. This should be good news for Phoenix lol

Roles are now clarified as deck building restrictions, not play restrictions. This was an oversight and I think most players understood how it was supposed to work but when you got down to following the rules exactly it caused some issues.

The "you can only do something if it does something" rule explicitly calls out that it doesn't care about cost payments or consequences of other ability interactions. This should help people decide when an action can or can't be initiated.

This one is a bit odd - but good - You cannot bring a unique card owned by your opponent into play if they already control a copy of that unique card in play. So Actress can't copy a unique character if that character is also in play. Of course you can still play a unique card you own regardless.

3.2 - you can now declare a mil conflict, or a pol conflict, or pass. This is so much clearer than "declare a mil or pass" and "declare a pol or pass" which made us think we had to declare which conflict we passed. Note that it still doesn't explicitly state that you can only declare a conflict if you have an opportunity to do so. Breakthrough could still be ambiguous for players without this clarified especially as it relates to Waning Hostilities.

4 hours ago, shosuko said:

The "you can only do something if it does something" rule explicitly calls out that it doesn't care about cost payments or consequences of other ability interactions. This should help people decide when an action can or can't be initiated.

Does this mean that something that has a cost like, "Dishonor each character you control --" would be doable if you a) don't control any characters or b) all characters you control are dishonored? As long as it's a cost, it's fine if you do it and nothing changes?

This doesn't affect something like Ikoma Ujiaki or Raise the Alarm, where you need to flip a card in a province face up first, since that's part of an effect?

4 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

Does this mean that something that has a cost like, "Dishonor each character you control --" would be doable if you a) don't control any characters or b) all characters you control are dishonored? As long as it's a cost, it's fine if you do it and nothing changes?

This doesn't affect something like Ikoma Ujiaki or Raise the Alarm, where you need to flip a card in a province face up first, since that's part of an effect?

I'm not sure what you mean...

Your cost must be able to be paid. If the cost of an ability is to dishonor a character, and that character is dishonored (or doesn't exist) then you cannot do it.

What this is talking about is the effect part. If your opponent controls no characters and you have an event which states "Action: Bow every character your opponent controls." Well... there aren't any characters to bow so you cannot play the event. It will have no effect.

It doesn't count as having an effect just because you paid 10 fate to play the card, and it doesn't count as an effect if you have another card with a reaction "when you play an event do x." It only looks at that one effect in isolation to determine if it changes the game state allowing you to play it.

Perhaps a bad example, since you could argue that something like, "Dishonor each of your characters" would require you to have no dishonored characters (though the example still stands for a player with no characters at all), but something like, "Bow each ready character" for a player with no ready characters would work. The point is, the cost could include a potential scenario that requires nothing to be paid. I'm just wondering if I'm understanding it right in that such a scenario would not require the board to change, because I thought it would.

Things like: " Action : remove up to 2 fate from your pool -- " or " Action : Bow up to one friendly character--" or " Action : Discard your hand--" or " Action : Pay 1 honor for each claimed ring--" - Where you might not end up changing anything. As long as the consequent effects still have an impact, it's fine to do these things?

“A player cannot bring into play a unique card owned by his or her opponent if that opponent controls an in-play copy of that card.”

So this makes same clan match-ups much more tricky.

And what happens if my opponent has a copy of The Imperial Palace in play and mine flips up?

This change seems an odd one. It’s doesn’t seem to be connected to any of the various game issues and rules questions that have been raised in the last few months.

1 hour ago, Crawell said:

“A player cannot bring into play a unique card owned by his or her opponent if that opponent controls an in-play copy of that card.”

So this makes same clan match-ups much more tricky.

And what happens if my opponent has a copy of The Imperial Palace in play and mine flips up?

This change seems an odd one. It’s doesn’t seem to be connected to any of the various game issues and rules questions that have been raised in the last few months.

I don't it means that. I beleive shosuko has it correct. It does not say 'you cannot play a unique card if your opponent controls an in-play copy of that card' but specifies 'owned by his or her opponent'. So I suspect the intention is to stop duplicates of a players characters appearing. You can still have duplicates on either side of the board.

Strange wording though dependant on any punctuation so anyone else have any thoughts?

4 hours ago, AradonTemplar said:

Perhaps a bad example, since you could argue that something like, "Dishonor each of your characters" would require you to have no dishonored characters (though the example still stands for a player with no characters at all), but something like, "Bow each ready character" for a player with no ready characters would work. The point is, the cost could include a potential scenario that requires nothing to be paid. I'm just wondering if I'm understanding it right in that such a scenario would not require the board to change, because I thought it would.

Things like: " Action : remove up to 2 fate from your pool -- " or " Action : Bow up to one friendly character--" or " Action : Discard your hand--" or " Action : Pay 1 honor for each claimed ring--" - Where you might not end up changing anything. As long as the consequent effects still have an impact, it's fine to do these things?

Lets be clear about a few things. The format for a card is action: cost / restriction / targeting requirement (dash) effects. The cost also includes the fate you may need to pay to play the card in addition to any pre-dash requirements. If there is no dash then any text is the effect. The rule states that to play or trigger any action it must be able to cause some change to the game state. This does not consider costs or possible interactions with other cards - it considers strictly the ability of the card when considering if it can effect the game state.

Perhaps this crafted scenario can help clarify it.

Card A - Event, Cost 2 fate, action: dishonor a participating character - give a participating character +2 MIL until end of conflict.

Card B - Character, -/3, Reaction: after you play a card - double this characters POL until end of conflict.

So we have Card B as our only participating character in a conflict and we want to utilize its POL double ability. To do this we must play a card. In order to be able to play the card we must be able to pay its costs AND it must be able to cause a change in the game state. Well lets assume we have the fate, and our Card B is not dishonored so we can pay the costs. We then ask ourselves - can this card effect the game state?

Answer 1 - Yes it does change the game state because your hand has 1 less card in it, you have spent 2 fate, and the character is dishonored.
Incorrect - these are all parts of the cost and do not count as the effect changing the game state.

Answer 2 - Yes it does change the game state because Card B can react to it, doubling its POL value for the conflict.
Incorrect - this is another effect interacting with Card A. A card's own effect must be able to change the game state without considering interactions with other abilities.

Answer 3 - No because your only participating character has a -dash- stat for MIL. You cannot give +2 MIL to this character so the ability cannot change the game state.

Correct. Made more clear by this rules update.

42 minutes ago, Matrim said:

I don't it means that. I beleive shosuko has it correct. It does not say 'you cannot play a unique card if your opponent controls an in-play copy of that card' but specifies 'owned by his or her opponent'. So I suspect the intention is to stop duplicates of a players characters appearing. You can still have duplicates on either side of the board.

Strange wording though dependant on any punctuation so anyone else have any thoughts?

Oh, that makes sense.

My bad for posting first thing in the morning before properly waking up.

5 hours ago, shosuko said:

Lets be clear about a few things. The format for a card is action: cost / restriction / targeting requirement (dash) effects. The cost also includes the fate you may need to pay to play the card in addition to any pre-dash requirements. If there is no dash then any text is the effect. The rule states that to play or trigger any action it must be able to cause some change to the game state. This does not consider costs or possible interactions with other cards - it considers strictly the ability of the card when considering if it can effect the game state.

All of my examples were segments before the -- dash, so part of costs. Let me try with a full example, so you can see what I mean, since neither of your card examples included a cost that could have no-change.

"A New Fortune - 2 fate Event

Action: Discard your hand -- Draw cards equal to the number of discarded cards, plus one."

By what people have been saying, you can play this with an empty hand (or rather, as the last card in your hand). I had thought that costs had to have a change as well, but that appears incorrect. Is the card above ok to play if you have no cards left to discard, letting you draw just one extra card?

6 hours ago, Matrim said:

I don't it means that. I beleive shosuko has it correct. It does not say 'you cannot play a unique card if your opponent controls an in-play copy of that card' but specifies 'owned by his or her opponent'. So I suspect the intention is to stop duplicates of a players characters appearing. You can still have duplicates on either side of the board.

Strange wording though dependant on any punctuation so anyone else have any thoughts?

That's correct. It's literally there to close the loophole that let you use Soshuro Actress a unique that your opponent already had another copy of in play.

32 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

All of my examples were segments before the -- dash, so part of costs. Let me try with a full example, so you can see what I mean, since neither of your card examples included a cost that could have no-change.

"A New Fortune - 2 fate Event

Action: Discard your hand -- Draw cards equal to the number of discarded cards, plus one."

By what people have been saying, you can play this with an empty hand (or rather, as the last card in your hand). I had thought that costs had to have a change as well, but that appears incorrect. Is the card above ok to play if you have no cards left to discard, letting you draw just one extra card?

You can because you have met the cost discarding your hand which was empty to begin with. The issue would be if the cost was discard a card than you wouldn't be able to pay the cost with an empty hand.

11 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

You can because you have met the cost discarding your hand which was empty to begin with. The issue would be if the cost was discard a card than you wouldn't be able to pay the cost with an empty hand.

Ok, thanks. That clarifies it!

3 hours ago, AradonTemplar said:

All of my examples were segments before the -- dash, so part of costs. Let me try with a full example, so you can see what I mean, since neither of your card examples included a cost that could have no-change.

"A New Fortune - 2 fate Event

Action: Discard your hand -- Draw cards equal to the number of discarded cards, plus one."

By what people have been saying, you can play this with an empty hand (or rather, as the last card in your hand). I had thought that costs had to have a change as well, but that appears incorrect. Is the card above ok to play if you have no cards left to discard, letting you draw just one extra card?

Anything that appears before the dash is a cost and must be paid. If you have "action: dishonor this character - draw a card" you could not use that action if that character could not be dishonored. If there were a cost worded in such a way that you could avoid it like your example then yeah it doesn't matter if that changes the game state or not. I don't think you'll ever see a cost worded in such a way as that you could avoid it though. For your example its not likely a cost would be "discard your hand" Its more likely this would simply be action: discard your hand and draw as many cards as you discarded plus 1. That's probably why there was some confusion about your question - I don't think you'll find any costs that can be avoided like that.

No, this part of the rules doesn't look at cost to ensure costs change the game state, although costs must be paid in order to play the card too - the whole effect doesn't have to change the game state either - just some element of it does. A Fate Worse than Death does a lot of things. It sends a character home, bows them, dishonors them, removes a fate from them, and causes their text box to be blank. If there were a character that was already bowed, dishonored, had no fate, but had the text box ability that prevents it from being sent home - you could still use this on a character even though the only change to the game state is that their text box is blank. The effect doesn't have to be able to do everything, it just has to be able to do something.

If there were an ability that was action: discard your hand and draw as many cards as you discarded - then you could not use this without a card in your hand to discard. If it were action: discard your hand and draw as many cards as you discarded plus one - then you could use it regardless of your hand size since that plus one ensures the game state changes.

Am a little saddened as to not having clarification of Reactions; specifically Ide Trader’s Reaction. (this card and it’s previous arguments on a thread on this site are still bothersome for me)

But I must state that I haven’t fully read the new Rules Reference update.