abilities: does "all" include zero?

By meffo, in X-Wing Rules Questions

6 minutes ago, MockingBird ME said:

I don't know why calculate keeps getting brought up, it doesn't mimic in any way the text in question here. Focus does however as it changes all results; it then as an additional rule tells you that you cannot spend a focus if there are no <eyeball> results to modify. I understand that you're claiming this is somehow setting a general rule that zero results don't qualify as a target for all results but as general rules are not set inside specific rules I continue to assert this is FFG clearly recognizing that zero results would normally be a valid target for something that modified all results (because that's how the language works) and made focus an exception to this.

Quote

• A ship cannot spend focus tokens to change [eyeball] results to [hit] or [evade] results if it does not have any [eyeball] results.

Quote

• A ship cannot spend calculate tokens to change [eyeball] results to [hit] or [evade] results if it does not have any [eyeball] results.

The text is identical .

Edited by nexttwelveexits

@nexttwelveexits they both specify that you can't spend it for zero but only focus uses the same terminology as Ten. Calculate doesn't let you change all of anything, it lets you change the same number of results as you spent calculate tokens and says you may spend "one or more tokens." I'm not saying calculate can be used on zero results only that it's not relevant to Ten's ability.

Just now, MockingBird ME said:

@nexttwelveexits they both specify that you can't spend it for zero but only focus uses the same terminology as Ten. Calculate doesn't let you change all of anything, it lets you change the same number of results as you spent calculate tokens and says you may spend "one or more tokens." I'm not saying calculate can be used on zero results only that it's not relevant to Ten's ability.

My point is that you're treating the focus prohibition as an exception to an unwritten rule while treating the identically phrased calculate prohibition as superfluous.

2 minutes ago, nexttwelveexits said:

My point is that you're treating the focus prohibition as an exception to an unwritten rule while treating the identically phrased calculate prohibition as superfluous.

Calculate doesn't actually gain anything from the additional text, nothing about its rule would ever allow for it to be used for zero results. Focus is different from any other token, but the same wording as Ten, in that it can change all <eyeball> results and as such it, unlike calculate, appears to have the additional rule to specify that, unlike other all effects, it cannot be used if you have zero <eyeball> results.

29 minutes ago, nexttwelveexits said:

Spending a token to modify dice is not an effect that can fail.

Isn't that part of this whole debate ;)

5 minutes ago, xwingMinty said:

Isn't that part of this whole debate ;)

I was being literal. There is a game mechanic called "fail" with an entry in the rrg and it lists all the stuff it applies to and dice mods ain't one of em

EDIT We are deviating widely from the topic here, arguing about token spending all over again when the question being asked is "is zero part of all" and I haven't been addressing that question so I'm stopping here.

Edited by nexttwelveexits

If it helps I think you guys on the side of not being able to spend the stress on Numb to turn zero focus into zero hits are right, which is a shame really as they have spoiled everything about the Bwings that was good from 1.0.

4 minutes ago, xwingMinty said:

they have spoiled everything about the Bwings that was good from 1.0.

This I can definitely agree with. FFG plz give us more pilots and toys for the B-wing q.q

7 minutes ago, nexttwelveexits said:

This I can definitely agree with. FFG plz give us more pilots and toys for the B-wing q.q

Yes please!!! I really love the B-Wing but it's nowhere near as strong as the, now great, X-wing and it's somehow even more expensive. I do like our current pilots but they too feel overpriced, Ten doubly so if you guys are right on his ability, but a few more would be fantastic especially if they give us Hera.

7 minutes ago, nexttwelveexits said:

This I can definitely agree with. FFG plz give us more pilots and toys for the B-wing q.q

I miss Numb and Dantels, used her a lot :(

On 10/15/2018 at 10:30 AM, Arachneo said:

Rules  Reference 1.0.2 page 23

Quote



ROLLING AND REROLLING DICE
Q: If a card such as Han Solo [YT-1300, Scoundrel for Hire]
or Saturation Salvo instructs a player to reroll “all dice” or
a specific number of dice but there are not enough eligible 
dice, what happens?
A: The player rerolls as many eligible dice as possible.
In the case of Han Solo [Scoundrel for Hire] and other effects that reroll “all
dice,” this means that if 1 or  more dice are for any reason ineligible to be
r  erolled or modified, Han Solo  still rerolls the available dice that are eligible.        

Faqed. Only available dice.

1 minute ago, Arachneo said:

Faqed. Only available dice.

You keep posting this but it doesn't mean what you think it means. It just means if you can't reroll all the dice you still reroll some of them, you do the best you can to resolve the effect. If all your dice were ineligible you would reroll 0 dice.

2 minutes ago, Arachneo said:

Faqed. Only available dice.

This has been brought up before and it's still not an answer. The "1 or more" in that FAQ is in regard to the dice that are ineligible, not the ones remaining. "The player rerolls as many eligible dice as possible" still doesn't necessarily rule out rolling zero dice. The FAQ doesn't address what happens if there are zero eligible dice.

Ok. Let's talk about language.

Resolve: To solve or end a problem or dificulty (or effect, in the rules)

Nothing: Not anything.

Happen: To have existence o to come in to existence.

There is a rule that states, clearly, that if you cannot resolve an effect you cannot pay the cost. The discussion with this rule is: when is resolved an effect?

There is another rule: If a die cannot be changed to a given result, nothing happens. Seem that nothing happens means effect not resolved, but another discussion: Nothing happens does not means effect not resolved.

If you resolve (bring to the end) an effect, then comes in to existence a "resolved state" in the effect (without thinking on if the effect does any change in game state). So something have happened, you have resolved an effect. Additionally if you want to pay a cost for the effect, in paying the cost something happens: you're paying a cost and a token is removed (generally), that removing is another "something".

The rules for Dice Modification always mention you have to take a die and do something with it. So the effect is doing this something (reroll, change, spend).

See Ten Numb case: you may change all of your (Focus) results. If you change 0 of your (Focus) results, how can resolve the change? If you apply the Change rule: Rotate the die to a face. What die? What face? You cannot rotate a die you don't have to a face you too not have.

You cannot take physically nor doing nothing with 0 die. So if you cannot take the die you don't resolve the effect.

Available: able to be obtained, used or reached.

Eligible: having the necesary qualities or satiffying the necessary conditions.

Talking in game terms, if you have 0 dice:

Able to be used, sorry, i've forget that you say 0 can be used here.

Having the necesary qualities or satiffying the necessary conditions. If the cards say Focus results and you does not have Focus results you don't have eligible Focus results to change.

So applying the rules as writen:

All does not contains zero.

4 minutes ago, Arachneo said:

Ok. Let's talk about language.

Resolve: To solve or end a problem or dificulty (or effect, in the rules)

Nothing: Not anything.

Happen: To have existence o to come in to existence.

There is a rule that states, clearly, that if you cannot resolve an effect you cannot pay the cost. The discussion with this rule is: when is resolved an effect?

There is another rule: If a die cannot be changed to a given result, nothing happens. Seem that nothing happens means effect not resolved, but another discussion: Nothing happens does not means effect not resolved.

If you resolve (bring to the end) an effect, then comes in to existence a "resolved state" in the effect (without thinking on if the effect does any change in game state). So something have happened, you have resolved an effect. Additionally if you want to pay a cost for the effect, in paying the cost something happens: you're paying a cost and a token is removed (generally), that removing is another "something".

The rules for Dice Modification always mention you have to take a die and do something with it. So the effect is doing this something (reroll, change, spend).

See Ten Numb case: you may change all of your (Focus) results. If you change 0 of your (Focus) results, how can resolve the change? If you apply the Change rule: Rotate the die to a face. What die? What face? You cannot rotate a die you don't have to a face you too not have.

You cannot take physically nor doing nothing with 0 die. So if you cannot take the die you don't resolve the effect.

Available: able to be obtained, used or reached.

Eligible: having the necesary qualities or satiffying the necessary conditions.

Talking in game terms, if you have 0 dice:

Able to be used, sorry, i've forget that you say 0 can be used here.

Having the necesary qualities or satiffying the necessary conditions. If the cards say Focus results and you does not have Focus results you don't have eligible Focus results to change.

So applying the rules as writen:

All does not contains zero.

I want to frame this post because it's so insanely dumb.

The rules clearly state that all you have to do to resolve an effect is do as much as you can, if no dice is as much as you can then go wild.

I mean Ten Numb still doesn't work but for other far simpler reasons.

In the Rules Reference there is an _additional_ rule for focus tokens:

"Additionally: • A ship cannot spend a focus token to change focus results to hit or evade results if it does not have any focus results."

Note that this is an addition to the rule for focus tokens as it is written in the rule book, it does not claim to be a general rule. If the intention was to cover similar cases, that is not stated and needs to be clarified. If it had been worded something like "Note: A ship cannot spend tokens to change results if it does not have any results of the appropriate type" Tens ability would clearly not allow him to spend stress for zero effect, but as I would interpret it, he can do this now. I do understand the other side of the argument and have been swinging back and forth on my opinion and agree with that a clarification on this is needed (if I can disagree with myself about it... hmmmm).

31 minutes ago, haukurv said:

In the Rules Reference there is an _additional_ rule for focus tokens:

"Additionally: • A ship cannot spend a focus token to change focus results to hit or evade results if it does not have any focus results."

Note that this is an addition to the rule for focus tokens as it is written in the rule book, it does not claim to be a general rule. If the intention was to cover similar cases, that is not stated and needs to be clarified. If it had been worded something like "Note: A ship cannot spend tokens to change results if it does not have any results of the appropriate type" Tens ability would clearly not allow him to spend stress for zero effect, but as I would interpret it, he can do this now. I do understand the other side of the argument and have been swinging back and forth on my opinion and agree with that a clarification on this is needed (if I can disagree with myself about it... hmmmm).

it's not just for focus, it's for calculate as well. there is also the paying costs section with the gonk example. it's already been stated that neither of these examples deal with every case of all including zero or not. how ever, they are all we have to go by at the moment.

Just now, meffo said:

it's not just for focus, it's for calculate as well. there is also the paying costs section with the gonk example. it's already been stated that neither of these examples deal with every case of all including zero or not. how ever, they are all we have to go by at the moment.

Very true (although calculate and gonk both clearly state: spend 1 to gain/change 1 which is different from focus), but one little rule clause on this would clear the issue up completely. (and btw, now I have leaned a little towards not allowing Ten to change zero results... *sigh*)

3 hours ago, Arachneo said:

Ok. Let's talk about language.

I appreciate your thought in defining all these terms but you've not defined them in a way that I or I suspect most people, except the correct or sole definition of each word. More importantly for the purpose of the rules, they are not defined this way. You don't get to make up term meanings then apply them to situations you feel like when you want to be right.

1 hour ago, haukurv said:

In the Rules Reference there is an _additional_ rule for focus tokens:

@haukurv sadly the forms don't accept markdown, you've got to use the buttons or keyboard commands for emphasis. :(

1 hour ago, meffo said:

it's not just for focus, it's for calculate as well.

You keep bringing this up but for calculate the entire line is meaningless. Calculates primary rules specify that it changes one or more, at a guess I'd say it's left over from them copy/pasting focus's text but that's just speculation as to why a completely useless line is there.

1 minute ago, MockingBird ME said:

You keep bringing this up but for calculate the entire line is meaningless. Calculates primary rules specify that it changes one or more, at a guess I'd say it's left over from them copy/pasting focus's text but that's just speculation as to why a completely useless line is there.  

it's already been stated that neither of these examples deal with every case of all including zero or not. how ever, they are all we have to go by at the moment.

maybe you think it's useless. not everyone agrees with you. we both agree this definitely warrants clarification, though. ^_^

10 minutes ago, MockingBird ME said:

@haukurv sadly the forms don't accept markdown, you've got to use the buttons or keyboard commands for emphasis. :(

Still learning, thanks for the tip ?

20 minutes ago, meffo said:

it's already been stated that neither of these examples deal with every case of all including zero or not. how ever, they are all we have to go by at the moment.

I don't believe these are anything to go on, they are both specific rules applying to specific token use and one of them doesn't actually add anything to the rules because it's rendered redundant by the "spend one or more to change an equal number" base rule in calculate.

21 minutes ago, meffo said:

we both agree this definitely warrants clarification, though. ^_^ 

Oh 100%, yes please!! I know FFG takes their time responding to common issues in their rules but at this point, I really wonder if they pay any attention to their own rules forum at all :( .

4 minutes ago, MockingBird ME said:

I don't believe these are anything to go on, they are both specific rules applying to specific token use and one of them doesn't actually add anything to the rules because it's rendered redundant by the "spend one or more to change an equal number" base rule in calculate.

Oh 100%, yes please!! I know FFG takes their time responding to common issues in their rules but at this point, I really wonder if they pay any attention to their own rules forum at all :( .

they are specific, yes. we're using them as a general rule of thumb because that's all we have at them moment.

oh, there is no doubt in my mind this will be clarified sooner or later. FFG generally do good things for their games, including keeping an eye at their forums. they may not have all the technical writers they could use, so things sometimes get a bit confusing, but i'm sure it will be done sooner or later.

They don't.

They don't answer in the threads themselves at least. They answer a bundle at a time.

If you want an answer you have to use the Contact form for rules questions.

(For what it's worth, I submitted this very question about a week ago.)

Edited by GermanBlackbot
7 minutes ago, GermanBlackbot said:

(For what it's worth, I submitted this very question about a week ago.)

Yeah, I'm not sure on the date but both myself and my regular opponent submitted this as soon as the original Ten Numb thread popped up.