maamets said:

I think that this should be added to the FAQ, but you cannot invent rules only because it is "supposed". Where do you see that?

maamets said:

So, your serious argument is that you can fire a cannon once per turn because it is "reasonable", although the rules don't restrict it. You are kidding. Ah! I see your serious argument! So our argument is stupid and irresponsible, yours is "logic" because you suppose that.

maamets said:

The common sense tell me a lot of things in this game, but the rules tell me another, not logical things (bleed, sleep, skeletons with swim...). There is ambiguity with the use of the cannons, not the fatigue tokens. There is ambiguity because the rules tell us what to do with fatigue tokens, but we only know that a hero can spend one of his attacks to fire a cannon. We still do not know how many heroes can use a cannon.

If you want to house rule, come on. But we do not know it and the FAQ is the best solution. You cannot say "Eih! This rule is like I say because I use the common sense!"

... with the tiny exception that there is nothing in the rules that prevents a cannon with a fatigue on it from being fired.

But I keep repeating myself. This is not about how it should work or what would fit common sense when comparing an invented fantasy-based game mechanic with real life experience concerning real-life cannons, it is about what the rules tell us, and that is pretty clear.

Edit: Ninja´ed by gran_orco.

So your point is that you can make a stupid thing because the rules explicitly do not probihit it? Come on, and you are laughing at me? Do you also jump out of a 12th floor just because there is no rule that prohibits it? Of course not, you are using common sense that this action is wrong.

In general at least my explanation does not create any ambiguity with the rules at all. It is fully in compliance with what the rules say. On the other hand your interpretation clearly and specifically creates a situation where you need to start questioning yourself: "Why this ftigue token is there at all? Oh, I know, lets ignore it! Lets make gazillion attacks with one cannon per turn because I dont undersand why the fatigue token is there" - this is called ignorance.

Your comment on other unlogical or non-common sense stuff (abilities) in this game is totally out of place because we are talking about a fantasy game. It's a game and it's relation to real world is questionable at best. So in such cases you refer to game rules. If a situation or ability has a very clear and unambiguous rule you play exactly by it - does not matter how funny or illogical it seems. On the other hand when there is a rule that leaves room for uncertainity or is ambiguous then you have to make a decison about the interpretation and this is done by using common sense. If your common sense is that you can make gazillion attacks with one single cannon in one single turn by ignoring or rephrasing the rules at your leisure then... at best I can say that your interpretation feels wrong. But it's only my opinion.

You are correct on one point though: you and me can play with any house rules we (or our groups are ok with) want.

What I have gathered from the rules:

1. Hero can spend one of its attack to fire a cannon (pg 26). Yes this in theory leaves room to interpret that other heroes also can operate the cannon.
2. Once cannon is fired a fatigue token is placed on it like a ship's station that has been manned (pg 26)
3. After a station has been manned during a turn place a fatigue token on it. That statin cannot be manned again that round. (pg24)

How you can interpret this into making several attacks with one cannon per turn is beyond me. Altough cannon is not a station per se, the rules clearly say that the ftigue token has to be interpreted on cannon exactly the same way as it is interpreted on stations.

maamets said:

Is there any possibility that we could jump from a 12th floor in descent? No. No possibility, no rule about it. Real life has no rulebook, Descent has. End of line.

maamets said:

Why this fatigue token is there? I know why it is there. Simple: the rules say that you can flip back the cannon to its cool side when there is not a token on it. Pretty simple. I am not ignoring it. Maybe you? Is this ignorance, too?

"You put a fatigue token LIKE"... does not mean that the cannon IS a ship station, only that you are putting a token like you do with stations.

maamets said:

There is a forum for that: Descent Home Brews. Here, we are talking about rules, not "common sense".

maamets said:

And, again, you are supposing or inventing rules. There is clear to almost all the people here -obviously you are not in this group- that a cannon IS NOT A SHIP STATION. If it would be, your argument would be obvious.

maamets said:

There is a plot where you can put 5 tokens on islands and says "Each binding token may be sieged and razed by the overlord's lieutenants as though they were cities with a defense of 3"

I thought that those locations were cities because each token could be sieged AS A CITY. I learned through this forum that AS THOUGHT does not mean that it is a city. So, why do you say that the sentence "a token is placed like a ship's station" implies that it should be treated in the same manner? It implies that I PUT a token exactly like a ship station, not that I must treat it like a ship station in all aspects. See Corbon's aclaration.

gran_orco said:

You for some reason try to explain the word "like" as it were "equals". It is not. It is beyond me why you thought that these tokens were cities. You can siege and raze them the same way as they were cities but they are not cities. I dont understand your original reasoning here.

Here is a simple sentence exercise for you: "try to tell me that I should put a fork on the table". Here are some options how to do it:

1. Say: "Put a fork on the table"
2. Say: "Put a fork on the table like you would put a knife on the table"

Does it become a bit more obvious now? And of course knife is not a fork - I am not going to argue with you here.

My point here is that you do not need to say "put a token on the cannon the same way you put a token on a station" just to put a token on it. The rules specifically say that you should put the token on the cannon the same way as you put a token on a station that was manned . For me it is clear that rules are referring to the station limitation that it can not be used again while it has a fatigue token on it. No one says that cannon is a station. It says that the token has the same effect on cannon as it has on a station. Meaning - you cant use a cannon that has a token on it the same way as you can not use a station that has a token on it.

Do you see the difference or you just dont want to see it?

Moreover - lets assume for a brief second that you can fire a single cannon as many times as your party has attack actions per round. Now tell me your opinion why would the heroes EVER want to upgrade from coldsteel cannon and why would the heroes EVER would want to buy more than the starting single cannon? Clearly they have enough firepower per round already now.

maamets said:

I remember you that there are 65% of people that thinks like me, so this rule should be added to the FAQ, clearly.. If only Corbon could give you the important points you could understand me, I cannot. Only one answer (translating my opinions to you in your language is extenuating for me, really):

My party of players buy a lot of cannons because they wan't suffer risk of a exploding cannon. Pretty obvious, if they have 3 cannons they can fire once with each of them without risks. If you have one cannon and fire it 3 times, you can lose it... and the hero. Even more, they buy more than the starting cannon because they want variety of attacks, and a good area of fire. A coldsteel cannon does not do much damage, and it can't cover the same area than 3 cannons together. If you think that one cannon is enough firepower, go for it

gran_orco said:

So you can not counter my rule quotations in any way and will hide behind someone named Corbon who is supposed to be very smart and speak my language? I dont get it. I have quoted rules directly from rulebook, they add up and dont raise any questions. Your explanation raises a lot of questions and needs a specific FAQ clarification and you say that I am wrong?

Maybe these 65% of people who think like you are wrong?

Can you in any way explain your interpretation by quoting rulebook so that you dont leave anything out or intentionally misinterpret a whole sentence? One of the funniest explanations I have seen is telling that rulebook does not contain excplicitly a rule that prohibits a cannon from fireing more than once per turn. Come on: there is a specific rule that tells that you should use a fatigue token after fireing a cannon the same way as you would use a fatigue token on a station that was manned. And a station can not be used again if it has a fatigue token on it. If this is not a clear reference than 65% of people are blind or rather dont want to read and understand.

I would love to see how Corbon will explain to me how the sentence "put a fatigue token on a fired cannon the same way as you put a token on a station that was MANNED" will be translated into simple "put a token on a cannon after fireing it".

I would love to see how Corbon is going to explain that the technical writer of the rule book did not know what he was writing and your translation should be correct:).

After a quick search here is a previous thread in which firing cannons was discussed.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

I believe this is the discussion he is refering too.

Thanks for the link. I checked it and the discussion there has no explanation at all. Corbon says there that it appears that a cannon can be fired multiple times per turn but at the same time he does not refer to any rules. I cannot take this as a serious argument as this is clearly his personal assumption without backing of any quotations from the rulebook.

Moveover in the same thread there is a forum user James McMurray who contradicts Corbon with the same rules quotation as I have used in this current thread.

maamets said:

The above explanation could be used in the FAQ.

maamets said:

SoB pg26
Whether a cannon attack hits or not, place a fatigue token on the cannon like a ship’s station that has been manned.
This tells us to place a fatigue token in the same manner as we place a token on ships stations that have been manned. It does not tell us what the token is for, what it's purpose is. You incorrectly say above that it says we should use the token in the same way as we use the token on manned stations. It says nothing of the sort.

SoB pg26
At the start of the round, any hot cannon that doesn’t have a fatigue token on it (and therefore hasn’t been fired that round) is flipped back over to its cool side.
This gives us the purpose of the token. We do not need to assume (and make the mistake of thinking it is common sense) that the token has the same purpose as a manned-station-token because we have it's purpose right here.

maamets said:

That is about as easy as explaining how 1+1=2! It is simply what it says.
" put a fatigue (we know it is a fatigue token so we can miss this out without changing the meaning of the sentence) token on a fired (move 'fired' to the end and replace with ' after firing it' which keeps the same meaning - or actually makes the meaning clearer since it positively indicates that this is in response to the firing action not just any old time if a cannon has been fired ever before) cannon the same way as you put a token on a station that was MANNED" (this last part just tells us the way to place the token, which we don't really need).
" put a token on a cannon after firing it "

Please also bear in mind that not everyone here speaks American, or even English, as their first language. So sometimes it is quite difficult for people to parse through things accurately even when they appear simple to native speakers.
And sometimes 9rarely) non-natives parse things more acccurately because they don't have easy assumptions staring them in the face.

I'll admit based on how the rules were written, I thought the cannons were supposed to be done that way (Turn1: Flip+Fatigue, Turn2: Fatigue removed, Turn3: Flip back to cool (if not fired again)), so I think it's a worthy entry for the FAQ. It's a confusing section and needs clarification...

-shnar

Corbon said:

Another rules text on p. 26 of the pdf rulebook says: Whether a cannon attack hits or not, place a fatigue token on the cannon like a ship’s station that has been manned. Remove fatigue tokens from cannons at the same time they are removed from ship’s stations .

So you think that "like a ship's station that has been manned" is to tell us how to place a token? Like, if we weren't told that, maybe we'd put the token on our heads or something the like?

Sometimes we have to do a little detective work with these rules, and the only rational explanation for this "like a ship's station that has been manned" (your supposition that they'd write rules text we don't really need not being very rational imho) is that the fatigue tokens put on cannons also function like those put on ship stations.

Therefore, my bet is that Shnar, Maamets, Radir, James McMurray and I are playing it right - or, at the very least, as intended.

Ispher said:

I'm only discussing what is written . Intent is far too nebulous, and frankly bull. Until the official source clarifies 'intent', the word is just a smokescreen for "how I want it to be'. You say to-mae-to, I say to-mah-to.

What the rules actually say, is place a token, like placing tokens for X. Then elsewhere they say the token is used for Y. That does not add up to the token being used for x, even if it was supposed to.
Saying 'place the token like placing tokens for x' could have a variety of implications. It might just mean the physical act of placement, it might mean the location of placement, it might mean leave the token in play the same way as X, it might mean the token has the same effects like a token X (though that would be better written slightly differently to be fair), or it might mean any combination of those.

But the fact that we actually get a specific rule for what the token does later, combined with not wording it in a way that fits such a meaning well, makes it fairly unlikely that the effect of the token is the same as the effect of token X.

Ispher said:

I don't think this means anyone is playing it right or as intended, but that it means the rules as written are confusing and need further clarification, i.e. FAQ.

-shnar

For the record, I don't know if my view is what's intended or not, it's just what makes sense to me. We only played one SoB campaign and IIRC we fire a single cannon in the whole campaign, so this issue never came up.

shnar said:

That's what I was always aiming at, but I kept getting told the rules are clear enough as written - even though evidence proves it is not so, as this forum is clearly split on the question.

As the deadline for FAQ submissions got closer, I submitted it myself in a FAQ thread that seemed close to the question, entitled "cannons and fatigue tokens" I think. Let's hope it will get noticed even though it has no thread of its own...

Corbon said:

Maybe replace "how I want it to be" with "how the game plays better". The game plays better if sea encounters consist of more than 1 or 2 rounds of cannon shootings. Having the possibility of boarding the opposing ship and having man-to-monster fights makes the game more fun than having one of the two ships immediately sunk. Also, having the cheapest cannon in the game being the most powerful would be strange.

Corbon said:

Can you elaborate on that specific rule for what the token does? What it does, for instance, on a Coldsteel cannon?

Forgive me for refloating this post. Has anyone received an official response on whether the cannon can be fired more than once each turn?