Two situations.

First,

Coldhands is being played with Blood of the First Men. Can Coldhands benefit from the -2 to first Wildling character played?

I am guessing yes to this.

Second with The Rangers Agenda played, would Coldhands be able to have cost reduced by 1 by Street of Steel?

I am less sure of this one.

I would say "No" to both because a card text does not apply when it is still in your hand, except if it is specifically stated in the card text.

Bolzano is right. Coldhands doesn't have the Wildling or Night's Watch trait; therefore, he doesn't benefit from The North Agendas until he is in play.

FATMOUSE said:

Ok that makes sense for Street of Steel but I am not convinced on Blood of the First Men because:

Coldhands' text specifically states that "Coldhands gains the benefit of any The North agenda being run (as if he had the Nights Watch and Wildling traits)."

It boils down to what Bolzano said earlier.

From the FAQ:

(3.13) Out of Play States
Attachment, location, and character card effects can only be triggered (or affect the game) when the card is in play. Event cards can be triggered from your hand using an action. In general, card effects on non-event cards in a player's hand, deck, shadows area, discard pile, and dead pile are not considered to be actionable unless the card specifically states that it can be triggered while in its out- of-play state.

"Coldhands gains the benefit of any The North agenda being run (as if he had the Night's Watch and Wildling traits)" but not while he is out of play. When a card is in hand, it is considered to be out of play. To put it in play, you must pay the costs of that card. The cost for Coldhands is 4 gold. When you put Coldhands into play, the only trait he has is the The North. He does not yet benefit from The North Agendas as if he the Wildling or Night's Watch traits, as he is not in play yet. Once Coldhands is in play, THEN his ability is considered active, and it is only now that he gains the benefit of The North Agendas. By the time Blood of the First Men does apply to Coldhands, it is no longer useful. Coldhands is already in play and has already been paid for.

FATMOUSE said:

I am still not convinced you are applying the FAQ correctly to this specific situation. Coldhands' ability is a passive ability, therefore the FAQ on triggered effects does not automatically apply. His card is passive, therefore I am not sure your "actionable" rules apply. It is not clear that Coldhands card text is inactive, only that abilities cannot be triggered, but Coldhands is not a triggered effect.

FATMOUSE, are you qualified to give an official FFG rules clarifications?

I posted to get an official ruling from Ktom or FFG.

So far these posts just mirror the brief discussion we had and do not resolve anything imo.

It seems to me that Coldhands was designed to benefit from all The North agendas including the reducer. To me his texts seems to superceded the general rules on triggered effects you quoted.

LaughingTree said:

Yes, I am qualified because I understand logic, and I can read and fully understand the English language. FFG does not provide official rulings unless you directly contact them. Do not post on these forums if you are looking for a direct official comment. You won't get any. Ktom does not provide answers or clarifications under any official capacity. He's simply a rules guru that is kind enough to answer the great majority of our questions when he has the time to do so.

As for your question/concern, it has been answered and resolved.

First time:

Bolzano said:

Second time:

FATMOUSE said:

The section of the FAQ I referred to does not only address triggered effects as you claim. It also addresses card effects. Take a closer look:

"Attachment, location, and character CARD EFFECTS can only be triggered (OR AFFECT THE GAME) when the card is IN PLAY."

Section 4.5 of the FAQ says, " Out of play states are the dead pile, the discard pile, a player’s hand , and a player’s deck."

Coldhands' character is ability is a CARD EFFECT. Card effects AFFECT THE GAME. Character card effects can only (unless noted otherwise, such as Core Set Khal Drogo's ability) AFFECT THE GAME when the card is IN PLAY.

Since Coldhands is in your hand, an out of play state, when you pay for his costs to enter play, his ability, a card effect, is not considered to be active and does not affect the game. When his ability does become active, he's already in the game. Now that's he in play, he gains the benefit of "Blood of the First Men," but the "benefit" is effectively useless since he's already been paid for and is in play.

Furthermore, Coldhands' ability is not a passive ability as there is no point of initiation (unlike Varys' [passive] character ability, which is initiated when he comes out of the Shadows). Instead, Coldhands' ability is a constant ability. I say this is no official capacity, so I will refer to the official FAQ to support my non-offcial (and meaningless?) claim.

(3.10) Card Ability Types
Card abilities are divided into three types. These types are:

Triggered Abilities: Any ability on a card in play that begins with "Phase:" or "Response:" is a triggered ability. These abilities are option- al, and must be triggered by the player control- ling the card at the appropriate time for their effect(s) to occur. An example of a triggered ability is the Dominance: effect on Cersei Lannister (CORE L39).

Passive Abilities: Passive abilities must initi- ate when applicable. These abilities are identi- fied by their card text, which indicates when the ability initiates. Passive abilities are not affected by cards that prevent or cancel trig- gered effects or abilities. An example of a pas- sive ability is the ability of Knight of Flowers (CORE B147).

Constant Abilities: Constant abilities are those that are continuously affecting the game state. Because there is no point of initiation, they cannot becanceled. Examples of constant abilities include the ability of Winter Castle (CORE S25).

LaughingTree said:

As pointed out, remember that my opinions here are not really official. I've been at this a long time and have a lot of insight into the game and how its very open-ended rules and clarifications fit together, but my word or reasoning isn't any more official than anyone else's on the boards.

LaughingTree said:

Let's look at a parallel situation. The Wall from the Time for Ravens cycle has the following ability:

"If it is Winter, your Baratheon characters gain the Night's Watch trait and do not kneel to defend."

So, can I use something like The Gift or Castle Black to reduce the cost of any Baratheon character in my hand while I have The Wall in play? In this case, it is probably easier to see that no, I cannot. The Wall does not specifically say that it works on Baratheon characters in my hand, so it does not. As such, I cannot use a NW reducer to reduce the cost to play a Baratheon character from my had because it wouldn't actually be a NW character until it was in play.

The situation with Coldhands has all the same elements, just on different cards. Specifically, the card that lets you treat Coldhands as a NW or Wildling character in relation to The North Agendas is Coldhands himself. Keep in mind that the "Out of Play States" entry in the FAQ doesn't just define when other cards (like the Agenda) can interact with Coldhands; it also defines when Coldhands himself can interact with other cards. Since the "gain the benefit of any The North Agenda as if he had the NW or Wildling traits" text on Coldhands does not specifically say it works when he is not in play, it doesn't. Therefore, his "gains the benefit" text is not active until he is in play. That part seems pretty clear to everyone, right?

The confusing part is that there is a card that specifically says it works on cards that are not in play. The reducing Agenda does refer to cards that are not in play yet and can therefore work on them. But before that Agenda can be applicable to Coldhands, the "gains the benefit" text on Coldhands himself must be active. In order for it to be active, Coldhands himself must be in play. So it's sort of a catch-22; before the Agenda can be applicable to Coldhands, the character must be in play - but the Agenda is only applicable to cards that are not in play.

The reducing Agenda cannot lower the cost to play Coldhands because it cannot be applied to a non-Wildling character. The text on Coldhands that makes him count as a Wildling character is not active until Coldhands is in play - at which point it is too late to apply the reducing Agenda.

I'm not saying that Coldhands wasn't designed to benefit from the reducing Agenda. I am saying that as printed, the cards do not allow it. There may be errata at some point to let it happen, but as is, the Wildling reducing Agenda has no interaction with Coldhands.

ktom said:

Ah, ok thanks for clarifying.

I guess I should email FFG directly because to me this issue has nothing to do with " understanding logic, or understanding the english language" but rather interpreting specific game mechanics. I would kind of like a "This is working as intended " or " This will be errata'd " because like I said it seems to me Coldhands was supposed to benefit from all The North agendas including Blood of the First Men, and possibly FFG just didn't word his card text optimally. Or I could be totally wrong and FFG could have intended Coldhands to not benefit from that specific agenda as well as the other Wilding and Nights Watch trait mechanics which is why he wasn't just given the two traits.

You can email FFG, but you got the good answer here.

There is no "this card works as intented" it just works "as the rules make it work". Here, it is likely that ColdHands game text would specify his ability works from out of play if they intented to do so. Just like they do for every other card that works from out-of-play.

If you think the rules make Coldhand work differently, please explain it in detail so it can be discussed.

LaughingTree said:

Correct. It is all about interpreting game mechanics. But the interpretation of the game mechanics leads to the conclusion that - as written - Coldhands does not benefit from Blood of the First Men. Whether "intended" or not, that's how the mechanics work.

If someone starts with the assumption "Coldhands is supposed to benefit from all The North Agendas," it is easy to fight against the interpretation of the game mechanics rather than conclude that the starting assumption is incorrect. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if Coldhands is "supposed" to benefit from Blood of the First Men or not. There is no game mechanic that allows it to happen. And until errata actually shows up, that really is the way it needs to be played.

There is a third option in addition to your "It's working as intended" and "There will be errata" answers from FFG. There is the possibility of "It's not working as intended, but we're not going to change it." We've seen that before. Any explanation for why Coldhands works with Blood of the First Men would also make it possible to reduce the cost of NW characters with Street of Steel while you are running The Rangers agenda. So I don't see a general "clarification" anywhere in the future. There might be specific card text changes to either Coldhands or Blood of the First Men, but I tend to think FFG just isn't going to mess with it.

I'm just going to leave this here , as I think it's a pretty accurate description of what's going on in this thread.

Well, sticking blindly with rules/text on a card without thinking is not a good thing.

I suppose that all players will kindly not take 2 more gold from Knights of the Hollow Hill, as this card prevents you fom doing this, right?

Rogue30 said:

If you are trying to say that the "other cards do not provide income bonuses" text on the Agenda is at odds with the "your House card gains +2 gold," don't forget that Agendas are considered House card modifiers. There isn't really a game distinction between the Agenda and the House card.

Haven't been playing in a while and recently back to the game again. Wanna go back to the Coldhands discussion. Did anyone ever email ffg directly and get a confirmation on this one way or another? If we can reduce the costs of an Edmure's Host or the new Dothraki army while it is in hand why not Coldhands. The text is exactly the same it just requires 2 cards to "make the full sentence" as it were.

Point 1: Coldhands says that he gains the benefits of all the agendas as if he was Wildling/Night's watch.

Point 2: Card text on characters does not apply when in an out of play state, unless that text specifically says so or refers to an entering play effect.

Point 3: Again, maybe it's not what FFG wants but in general logically if A then B: if the agenda effects cards out of play when entering play and Coldhands' passive gives him the benefit of an agenda that effects cards entering play, then Coldhands' text validly creates a passive effect when in hand that affects the entering of play thus rendering the ability active even though out of play. This is absolutely no different than the text on Edmure's Host as afar as I can tell. It just happens to be spread across 2 cards. Which is perhaps a first for the game, but it certainly it's the first time that we've run into new card interactions in this game.

Or do I just have no idea what I'm talking about?

Freerider said:

You really shouldn't feed people straight lines like that on this board....

Freerider said:

And being spread across 2 cards makes the situation completely different. More to the point, the FAQ specifically forbids the "spread across 2 cards" situation for allowing something to affect the game from an out of play state:

(3.13) Out of Play States
[...] In general, card effects on non-event
cards in a player's hand, deck, shadows area,
discard pile, and dead pile are not considered
to be actionable unless the card specifically
states that it can be triggered while in its out-of-
play state.

So according to this part of the FAQ, the specification must be on the individual card. meaning you cannot transfer the "is actionable even if it is not in play" specification from one card to another. Therefore Coldhands himself must specify that his own ability to take advantage of The North Agendas works when he is out-of-play. Such an allowance is "non-transferrable" and you cannot take the Agenda's ability to work on Wildlings that are not in play to allow Coldhands' ability that lets him be treated as a Wildling by Agendas to activate when not in play.

That is the difference from Edmure's Host, where the specific allowance to be actionable from out-of-play is on the card itself.

Let me give you a slightly different example. Let's say this card existed:

Crow-Come-Over
Neutral Character
Cost = 2
STR = 2
No Icons
Traits = Night's Watch.
While you are playing a "The North" Agenda, Crow-Come-Over gains the "Wildling" trait.

I am playing Blood of the First Men - does the Agenda allow me to play this hypothetical Crow-Come-Over character for free? The Agenda says it works on Wildlings that are not in play. The text on the character gives it the Wildling trait if a certain condition is met - which it is. But no, I can't apply the Agenda's cost reduction to this because the text that gives the character the Wildling trait is not actionable when the character is not in play. Makes sense, even though it is the same thing as Edmure's Host, just spread across 2 cards," right?

So why would Coldhands' text, saying that he gains the benefits of The North Agendas as if he had the NW/Wildling traits while he is in play, be applicable through the Agenda, but the text that gives the hypothetical card the Wildling trait not be applicable?

ktom said:

The agenda is seperate from the house card. it give the house card +2 gold, then it says other cards dont give income bonuses. If you interpret this as referring to itself, then it stops the +2 gold. if it refers to the house card, then you get the +2 gold. I think thats what he means, but the intention of the card is clearly to give you +2 gold, otherwise its a waist of ink. But as printed, its a question of how we interpret the english language. Someone will say that the agenda is like an attachment to a house card, but that doesnt mean the "attachment" cant have abilities that reference itself (a la Jousting Steed or Veteran Marauder, which have abilities directly affecting the attachment). I don't agree with it, but thats what he meant.