Questions from tonight! As always please forgive if these have been asked before. Appreciate the help!

1. In a melee game if a player steps in to support an unopposed challenge (if his title supports another player) is that now supporting player considered a defender for cards that specifically call out defender in their text?

i.e. Norvos, Taste for Blood, etc.

2. "Compelled by the Crown -- Challenges : Choose one participating character on each side during an Intrigue or a Power challenge. Remove all other characters from the challenge. Then, stand all Bara characters with Banner attachments attached." Similar to the above, can this card be played against a supporting players character that is now defending an Intrigue or Power challenge for another player? In other words, would the supporting players character(s) be considered on the defending "side"?

3. Can, "He calls it thinking -- Response : Cancel the effects of a response without an influence cost. Then, attach He Calls It Thinking to a Martell character (counts as a Boon attachment with the text "Attached character gets +2 STR.")."be played twice to cancel the same original response?

4. There is nothing that restricts playing Devious Intentions on an opponents character, correct? Excluding obvious "No attachment" type restrictions.

5. Can you play a melee game with 5 or 6 players?

Thanks!

Madduxx said:

From the Core Set rules:

"If your characters defend a challenge in support of another player, you are considered the winner (or loser, depending on the results) of the challenge , but the original target of the challenge is still responsible for any claim that would need to be resolved."

Madduxx said:

Not to be blunt, but how could they be counted toward the total defending STR if they were not participating on the defending side of the challenge? It doesn't matter who controls the participating characters or what happened with redirects/title supports when playing this event.

Madduxx said:

No. Once an effect is successfully canceled, there is no need - and no opportunity - to cancel it again. So assuming the first cancel wasn't canceled itself, you cannot play the second cancel. The second cancel would fail anyway, just like trying to kill a character who is already dead fails.

Madduxx said:

Correct. You can play it on any eligible character, including characters you do not control.

Madduxx said:

You can play with as many as you want, although you might need to omit the titles if you play with 7 or more (which gets really unwieldy, btw).

Thanks!

ktom said:

I'm sure I didn't ask the question correctly. I'm not sure how to best explain. We did find that in the rules but still don't understand if the now supporting player is considered the defender. Our thinking was the original target of the challenge is the defender. Perhaps they are both considered defender?

Let me give an example.

If I'm supporting someone in a melee game and an intrigue attack against them is unopposed can I have one of my characters join the challenge in a losing effort so that my Norvos would require the attacker to discard a card at random from the their hand AND if I had a character with the Taste of Blood attachment they'd claim 1 power?

Thanks as always ktom!

Madduxx said:

I'm not sure how much plainer it can be stated than it is in the rules. That's why I quoted them.

Okay, the guy you support doesn't declare any defenders. You declare a character of your own as a defender in the challenge. When the challenge resolves, the attacker wins. According to the rules, you lost the challenge - even if the guy you support is the one discarding/killing/losing power for claim. That's what "you are considered the winner or loser of the challenge" means, right?

So looking at the text of Norvos ("Response: After you lose an challenge as the defender, discard a card at random from the attacking player's hand."), did you lose the challenge? According to the rules, yes you did. Were you the defender? Well, you weren't the attacker, so yeah, you were. Play restrictions met.

If you win or lose the challenge, you have to be the attacker or defender. That's just the way it works.

ktom said:

Got it. Again, I think we're being too literal. In other words, Winner or loser didn't equal to defender. Since it doesn't specifically say someone supporting is the/a defender we weren't sure and thought there could only be one defender (the original target) and someone is simply adding character(s) to support them.

Madduxx, I had a brief exchange with ktom about supporting and opposing titles recently. The issue was slightly different, but you still might find it helpful for understanding the who is considered the "defending player" in a challenge:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

schrecklich said:

Thanks Schrecklich!

Madduxx said:

To make sure there is no confusion, I'd like to point out that the answers in the two threads are not incompatible.

Madduxx asks if the player who "supported" the original defender is considered to have won/lost the challenge as the defender for specific card effects - that happened to be Responses. The answer is that you cannot be the winner/loser of a challenge if you are not also considered the attacker or defender of that challenge.

In the discussion with Schrecklich (over Rex Tan's question), it was pointed out that there were a very, very few game effects (claim and the extra power for winning a challenge against a title you "oppose" being the only examples we could thing of) where the original player was still considered the "losing defender" of the challenge.

These two answers may seem to be in conflict, but they are really the same. According to the rules and official examples, the supporting player is considered the winner/loser (and thus the defender) of the challenge for the purpose of passives, Responses and keywords. For game effects (other than passives, Responses and keywords), the original player - against who the challenge was initiated - is still the loser/defending player. Madduxx's question adds the clarification that as the winner/loser of the challenge, the supporting player won or lost on defense for the purpose of passives, Responses and keywords to the other discussion .

Note that the restriction of "considered the winner/loser of the challenge for passives, Responses and keywords" applies to the attacker's passives, Responses and keywords, too. The implications are that the supporting player is the one who loses a character if s/he comes up short in the Deadly count, or the one that is on the hook for "after you win a challenge" Responses that do stuff to the "defending player" or his/her characters. The additional implication is that while the supporting player can use his copy of Norvos, the original defender cannot use their copy of Norvos.

Make sense? It really all just boils down to this: when you decide to commit defenders in support of another player though Title interactions, you are putting yourself on the line as the winning/losing defending player for everything except claim. You have all the benefits - and risks - associated with being the defending player as far as any card effects are concerned during challenge resolution.

It does make sense ktom. Thanks again for baring with me understanding. That last bit was a nice summary and really cemented things and my confidence in understanding as well. Just know, this will continue to happen so expect more help required and know it's much appreciated!