Bronn's ability

By KainOfDreadwood, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

Can Bronn use his ability to "save" himself if he defends a challange and the player picks Bronn to die as a result of losing a military challange?

Yes, he can. Just keep in mind that Bronn's ability is not actually a save and that you must trigger the ability before the kill effect starts resolving (since it is not a save/cancel response effect).

So does that mean he has to trigger that ability as soon as he declares Bronn a defender? Or can he wait until a winner of the challenge is determined?

KainOfDreadwood said:

So does that mean he has to trigger that ability as soon as he declares Bronn a defender? Or can he wait until a winner of the challenge is determined?

Take a look at the Timing and Structure section of the FAQ (specifically the flowcharts) if you have not already done so. Bronn's ability has to be triggered during any player action window between the start of the turn until just before you count STR to determine challenge winner.

If you want Bronn to stand himself up instead of being killed when his controller loses a military challenge, you must trigger his ability (and make sure he's kneeling) somewhere between the beginning of the phase and the time the winner/loser of that challenge is determined. If you start counting challenge STR, it is too late because Bronn's ability is not a save Response.

KainOfDreadwood said:

So does that mean he has to trigger that ability as soon as he declares Bronn a defender? Or can he wait until a winner of the challenge is determined?

By the way, if you look at the flow charts mentioned by the1andonlime, you will see that the last chance to pay for Bronn's ability is the player action window right after he declares Bronn as a defender.

So say Bronn's ability is triggered in the action window just after he is knelt to be declared a defender, and the attacker wins the challenge and has two Deadly characters participating. The challenge result is implemented and the defender chooses Bronn to satisfy the attackers (1) claim. The lasting replacement effect/constant/conditional constant (??? what's the correct term here ktom?) created by Bronn's ability kicks in and replaces his being killed with his standing. But does he stand immediately in step 3 (Framework event resolves), or does he stand in step 6 when the moribund characters would move to the dead pile? And when the Framework action window moves to its Passives step (4) and the Deadly keyword resolves, is he still kneeling (and maybe "moribund: standing" due to the replacement effect), or is he already standing having stood in "challenge result is implemented" step? Basically, would he then be targettable by the Deadly passive in a way a character who was simply chosen for regular "killed" claim wouldn't be (since he'd be already moribund)?

Your over thinking the moribund part (dont worry, it happens to most of us).

Moribund is, at its core, when the cards play destination is altered (in play, dead, discard, return to hand/deck/shadows, out of game etc) not the cards physical state (standing or kneeling).

Bronns effect would stand him immediately after he is 'saved' from the military claim (as the resolution of the effect tells you to do), so he would be standing having fulfilled the claim requirement. Deadly would be then resolved in the passive step, so baring any other targets bronn will go moribund: dead in your example. He would still be standing and available for an effect like 'a lannister pays his debts' before physically leaving play in step 6.

I totally figured I was.

OK and but: I just read this elsewhere on the FFG boards: "Only if the character is not saved and really is dying, will the character actually be Morribund ('considered dead') and not be... liable for deadly . (except for the case of replacement effects like Bronn, but thats a seperate barrel of monkeys...)"

This seems to imply that an "activated" Bronn WOULD NOT be a viable target for Deadly despite the fact that "really is dying" doesn't apply to him. Or perhaps the poster was saying in a somewhat imprecise manner: "Bronn is also not saved, per se, but unlike everybody else who isn't saved he's not moribund either since his killing was replaced by his standing (and hence eligible to die from deadly, which isn't the exception I'm addressing here)."?

I'm guessing that the poster, in a very imprecise way, is saying that Bronn doesn't die for claim in Step 3, so he's still alive to be killed by Deadly in Step 4. And since he's not kneeling anymore, he'd going to actually die for Deadly unless you have an actual save in your pocket. (And even if I'm wrong about what the poster was trying to say, that is the correct answer.)

The imprecision in the post, which encourages people to overthink moribund, is the whole "really is dying" language. A character either dies for claim or it doesn't. If it dies for claim, you can't kill it again for Deadly. But if it is not killed for claim (and is participating), it can be killed by Deadly. "Moribund" doesn't really enter that discussion at all.

Moribund is simply the "transition" from "in play" to "not in play." Nothing more complicated than that. During the transition, the card that is leaving play can still be a part of passive and Response effects (with the exception of passive and Response effects that would make the card "not in play" a second time).