1. If I'm defending military challenge with House Day Skirmisher, can i kill him to satisfy military claim and then trigger his any phase response " kill skirmisher and draw a card. Opponents discard one.? My Lannister opponent didn't think so. I said i remember reading something about the "Lannister's pay their debts" and you could kneel a character and satisfy a military claim with the knelt character. I then played my " i've been reading the forums you haven't" card and we agreed i could satisfy claim and trigger response.(any pahase is a response right?)

2.When i play Southron Scavenger " put into play and discard a random card from martell or greyjoy", can i pick myself to discard to get say a Darkstar or House Dayne Reserves into play if i'm the martell's?

snaggrriss said:

First, House Dayne Skirmisher's ability is not a Response. "Any Phase" is a standard action, like a "Marshaling" or "Challenges" action, that can be done in any phase. It cannot be played with the timing of a Response. Once the challenge starts resolving, you cannot play any standard actions until the challenge is completely resolved and all Response effects to the challenge resolution have been played. You were much too late to trigger the Skirmisher's effect.

Second, the "Lannister Pays His Debts" thing you are referring to is the "moribund" rule. For details, see the FAQ, but the long and short of it is that when a character is killed, or otherwise leaves play, it can still take part in Response effects before it physically leaves a table - provided that the Response in question does not try to make it leave play a second time. So kneeling a dead Lannister character "on the way out" to pay for ALPHD is fine (you can kneel a character that is already dead), but discarding a dead Dornish Paramour (assume you won a "Deadly" challenge on defense and chose the Paramour to die for Deadly) "on the way out" to pay for her "draw 2" effect (you cannot discard a character who is already dead).

snaggrriss said:

Note that the Reserves only go into play if they are discarded as claim for an intrigue challenge, so if the Scavenger gets him, he goes to the discard pile.

So you said i was way too late triggering House Day skirmisher. Is there any action window i could trigger his effect - kill him, draw a card, and satisfy military claim. Could i do this if it was triggered in the first player action window before attackers are declared or the second window before defenders are declared?

This brings to mind another question with triggering "any phase" effects. One of our players uses targ all the time. he'll wait till i declare attackers and then slap Forever Burning on one of my players (Targ's deathbound effect card) to screw my attack 1 strength shy of victory(so i'm always adding an extra strength to my attacks to compensate just in case) Is this Legal? What window(S) can he play this. That goes for any Any Phase card, especially with challenge phase. The player action window in the timing charts- what does that include -Any Phase, response, save,cancel, passive....?

snaggrriss said:

Essentially, it comes down to this: you cannot kill the same card twice. So either you kill it for claim, or you kill it to pay for the ability. One or the other.

snaggrriss said:

1. Player actions
2. Attacking player announces challenge type/kneels attackers
3. Player actions
4. Attacking player assigns stealth/defending player kneels defenders
5. Player actions
6. Resolve challenge

So it is legal for your Targ friend (or anyone) to play a "Challenges" or "Any Phase" action in #'s 1, 3 or 5.

snaggrriss said:

Check out the "general action window" section in the FAQ before the timing charts. That explains when and where Responses and passives are used within other action windows.

Thanks for taking the time and clarifying. It would appear I've been cheating once again.

ktom said:

You quoting this framework bring a question to mind. There's a card called dragon sight that stated:

"Attach to your House card. If if is Summer, when you declare a challenge type, your opponent must declare defenders before you declare attackers. The opportunity for your opponent to declare defenders after you declare attackers is lost."

Does this mean that the 3rd step in this framework window is completely removed preventing the attaching player from declaring stealth on targets, or does the attacking player still get to declare Stealth after he declares attackers?

Thanks for the info

(Sorry to hijack the thread)

I'm not too sure on this, but i think it becomes:

1. Player actions
2. Attacking player declares challenge type
3. Player actions
4. Defending player declares and kneels defenders
5. Player actions
6. Attacking player declares and kneels attackers
7. Players actions
8. Resolve challenge

I am sure, however, that if you do use Dragon Sight, you lose the opportunity to declare stealth on the defending player's characters.

Also, in this scenario, Walder Frey will join in some time during step 4.

Dragon Sight

Thank you for that link Rogue30, I always wanted a breakdown of this, and didn't realize that it was there if I went to the actual card listing rather than just scrolled through the full list...

When Dragon Sight is in play and applicable, that sequence changes to the following:

1. Initiate Challenge
1a. Attacker announces challenge type
1b. Defender declares/kneels defending characters
1c. Attacker declares/kneels attacking characters.

2. Player Actions

[3. Defend Challenge
3a. Attacker identifies Stealth "targets"]
NOTE: This technically still happens, but it is virtually meaningless.

4. Player Actions
5. Resolve challenge


So there is no player actions window after the declaration of a challenge and the defender would not have the option to use, for example, Orphan of the Greenblood between the declaration of a challenge and the declaring of the attackers?
Some additional questions, sorry for the unlikely OOH scenarios I'm about to present...

Attacker has a Hidden Vale Pass in play, declares a challenge and then defenders are declared - the attacker cannot then use HVP to make the challenge with only a character from his/her hand and not commit any characters that are in play since there is no window between attacker declares challenge type and attacker declares attacking characters, correct?

According to the breakdown Stealth is still declared, so Lost Oasis or Posioned Knife can still be used, Lost Oasis only on a character who is not defending (I guess you could use it on a "does not kneel to defend" character to kneel them even though they are still part of the challenge), but PK can be used to discard a character, even one who is defending? My concern here is about the wording on PK "...discard the bypassed character..." - is the character technically "bypassed by Stealth" if they are declared as a defender before the attackers are declared?
I could probably dissect the FAQ for the answers, but I just wanna be sure on these, thanks in advance.

Based on this: http://info.wsisiz.edu.pl/~szczesnj/card.php?id=10, I think you will not be able to bypass with stealth characters that are already defending.

Skowza said:

Let's say there is a player action window where you suggest there could be one and I declared a military challenge, which you defended. Then you used Orphan of the Greenblood to take the icons from my only military character. So I am legally able to declare an attacker in the challenge - but if I don't declare an attacker, I have not met the rule requirements for initiating the challenge - meaning that the challenge hasn't been initiated. And if the challenge hasn't been legally initiated, what is your character defending? That's the paradox that stops Dragon Site from working the way you suggest.

Skowza said:

"Bypassed" is a status that changes eligibility to be declared in the challenge. If you are already declared, it has no practical result - but you can still "Respond" to it.

ktom said:

I thought characters that have been bypassed by stealth cannot participate in the challenge, and not just cannot be declared as participating?

From the core rules:

Stealth does that by stopping them from being declared as defenders, not removing them from the challenge. If it removed them from the challenge in this case, it would have no effect normally because when stealth applies there are no defenders yet. Nom sayin?

You get a character into a challenge, "stealthing him out" doesn't matter anymore, he is already participating. The same way losing an icon mid challenge would stop a character from being declared as an attacked in that challenge, it does not remove them - they are already part of it.

A use for stealth with Dragon Sight that I can think of is that you still have Lost Oasis at your disposal so that you can kneel out characters that do not kneel to defend, or characters outside the challenge. Other than that, Dragon Sight pretty much nerfs all your stealth. People knock it all the time, but I love the stealth ability.

The rules do not state that characters without the relevant icons cannot participate in the challenge, just that the cannot be declared as participants.

Relevant bit:

Remember that stealth actually stops Greatjon Umber's ability, even though he doesn't need to be declared as a defender.

the1andonlime said:

In that thread you mention about Greatjon, there is the caveat that if you use Greatjon's ability to jump him into the challenge between the "announce type/declare defenders" and the "assign stealth/declare defenders" windows, his ability will get around Stealth because he will already be participating in the challenge when stealth is assigned.

So "cannot defend" does not retroactively undo a character that is already defending. "Defending" is not the act of counting a character's STR on the defending side when the challenge resolves; it is the act of entering the current challenge with the status of "defender." Anyone that already has that status does not lose it if Stealth is applied after they get into the challenge because the rules say the only way to stop a character from participating once it has started is to specifically remove it from the challenge, or from play. Bypassing a character with stealth does neither of those things.

We have kind of the same question on the French forum.

However ktom I don't understand where in the rules/FAQ it is written that "defending" is the act of entering the challenge. I would rather say Defending is being participating in the challenge on the Defender player side.

Some characters never actually "enters" the challenge (such as Horseback Archers) but yet they are defending characters.

And if because of Stealth the character cannot participate on the Defender's side, he becomes illegal and would be removed from the challenge.

We have kind of the same question on the French forum.

However ktom I don't understand where in the rules/FAQ it is written that "defending" is the act of entering the challenge. I would rather say Defending is being participating in the challenge on the Defender player side.

Some characters never actually "enters" the challenge (such as Horseback Archers) but yet they are defending characters.

And if because of Stealth the character cannot participate on the Defender's side, he becomes illegal and would be removed from the challenge.

Bolzano said:

"Challenges: during a MIL challenge, put Horseback Archers into play from your hand, knelt, as an attacker or defender. Then, at the end of that phase, if Horseback Archers is in in play, return it to its owner's hand."

So if you put it into play "as an attacker or defender," that is - with the same status it would have gained had it actually been declared as an attacker or defender - doesn't it "enter" the challenge? Isn't it a participating character? So I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that they are "defending" without ever actually "entering" (i.e., "participating") in the challenge?

Let's say you had an effect that said "Choose a character. That character cannot stand." If you played it on a character that was already standing, would it kneel immediately? No, because "cannot stand" refers to the act of transitioning a card from the "kneeling" state to the "standing" state. So a character that "cannot stand" is prohibited from entering the standing state from another, not from being in the standing state.

That's not something spelled out in the rules, it's just reading comprehension and the way the card text is understood and implemented.

Now look at Stealth which says "that character cannot defend." So similar to the "cannot stand" wording referring to the act of transitioning to the "standing" state, "cannot defend" refers to the act of transitioning into the "participating as a defender" state. So just like a "cannot stand" limitation on a character will not automatically change the state it is in when the limit is applied, "cannot defend" does not remove a character from the challenge.

But if you really need something in the rules, remember that the rules say that once a character is participating, nothing makes it stop participating - except removing it from play or an effect that specifically says to remove it from the challenge. "Cannot defend" does not specifically say "and stop defending if you already are." At least not in the native language.

I agree with your example of "cannot stand".

About "cannot defend" I'm still little bit confused why it would be going from a non-defending status to a defending status (maybe because I don't speak native English)

But the rule you quoted about characters that cannot be removed is consistent with your explanation. Thanks again for taking the time to answer

Bolzano said:

It is a little confusing because conceptually, there is only one way to define "standing" (i.e., the character is in the "ready" position), so "cannot stand" referring to an inability to enter that state is clear. However, there are two ways to define "defending" that seem to make sense; participating in the current challenge on the defending side and contributing STR to the defending side during challenge resolution.

If you define "defending" in terms of "participating," the idea that "cannot defend" refers to an inability to enter a "participating" state is clear as well. If you define "defending" in terms of "contributing STR," the idea that "cannot defend" refers to an inability to contribute STR to the challenge resolution tries to assert itself - and it seems like using Stealth on a character that is already participating should somehow either remove it from the challenge or make its STR not count during resolution.

Where I am coming from - and what the rule for "once participating, remains participating unless specifically removed" supports - is that the "defending" means "participating" is the correct interpretation. If the stealth effect said "the bypassed character cannot participate in the challenge" and was used on a character that was already participating, it would force the character out of a "participating" status (just like "cannot stand" on a character that is already standing will not force it out of a "standing" status). That "defending" should be defined in terms of "participating" is further reinforced by the fact that "contributing STR" to the challenge is itself defined in terms of participating. Only characters that are participating in the challenge can count their STR. So "defending = participating" actually encompasses the "defending = counting STR" concept.