Hi,

If Ser Guy Morrigan is in play giving Lords Stealth, and I use Arya on one of them do they lose Stealth and thus does Arya gain it?

i.e. would Guy's ability be constant?

Adding and removing icons works a bit like adding/removing strength. Character starts out with 0 stealth, someone gives a character stealth (+1 stealth), another person takes it away (-1 stealth). Net result is no stealth on the original target. If the original character had stealth, it would start out as 1, then +1 -1 still = 1. Same is true with mil/pow/int icons and any other keyword.

Arya's ability does not cause the character to lose stealth, but rather to lose all instances of stealth. For example, if a Bara Lord character had Devious Intentions (gives INT and stealth) and Ageon's Blade (stealth while having INT) while Ser GM is in play, it would lose all instances of stealth (total of 3) and Arya will gain all those instances of stealth (total of 3) and if that Lord also has renown, Arya will gain that too.

Also, Ser GM's ability (which only give Bara Lords you control stealth, not all Lords) is a constant effect.

Ser GM's ability can be read as "Baratheon Lords you control gain stealth every phase". Then, if you take Arya's ability which causes the character to lose stealth until end of the phase, you get +1 stealth this phase - 1 stealth this phase which nets you 0 stealth this phase.

Basically, treat anything that says gain [something] as a +1 [something] and loses [something] as a -1 [something], and you're set.

the1andonlime said:

Sorry, but what is your basis for this?

When Arya says "until the end of the phase, that character loses those keywords," she is referring to Stealth and Renown. The rules work the way that Twn2dn described. Whenever you "gain" or "lose" something, it is only one instance of whatever you gain or lose. Each modifier can only be factored into the check for Stealth one time, so Arya is still a total of 1. She can be overcome with enough other "gains stealth" effects that the check comes out positive. Of course, if you have 3 separate influence, you could trigger Arya 3 separate times to create three different "loses Stealth" effects on the character, eventually getting it to 0 Stealth.

For Arya to work the way you describe, she would need to say "until the end of the phase, that character loses ALL of those keyword" (changing the normal "one instance" default into "that character will always fail a check for those keywords"). Compare to King Balon's Host.

the1andonlime said:

Oookay... You do realize this contradicts what you just said about a single Arya completely taking away the Stealth granted from 3 separate sources, right?

ALL effects that grant or remove Stealth work like this. They are all lasting/constant effects. There is no difference between Devious Intentions, Aegon's Blade, and Ser GM. The only difference is that, as attachments, they have the unwritten duration of "while this card is attached" instead of Ser GM's unwritten "while this card is in play." (And, btw, it is better to read Ser GM as "while this card is in play, Bara Lords gain Stealth" than "gain stealth every phase". Otherwise, you could think that if he dies, your Lords get to keep their stealth until the end of the phase he died in.)

ktom said:

ktom -

Maybe my sentence dissection sucks but can't "Until the end of the phase, that character loses those keywords..." be interpreted as all? I mean, I see no implication of them being singular here. "Kneel 1 influence to choose a character with a stealth or a renown keyword." would clearly indicate singular.

I mean the way I see it, if "Until the end of the phase, that character loses those keywords..." is enforced, and that character still has remaining stealth or renown keywords, then I feel like this part of the ability wasn't resolved.

Generally I agree with you, but I just want to make sure since other cards will identify singular loss. "... loses an icon of your choice ..."
But then again, cards also have clearly identified plural loss. "... characters lose all non-immunity keywords ..."

I am also no English major, so the sentence construction could very well be singular and not up for interpretation.

I think the reasoning is that when the text says "those keywords" it references the previous sentence. So if you replaced "those keywords" in the sentence it would read "that character loses Stealth and Renown", which makes it structurally equivalent to an ability that says "that character loses Stealth." And we know for the latter case that the character loses one instance of Stealth. So a character that loses Stealth and Renown loses one instance of each.

I admit it's a bit convoluted, and I can certainly see how you could read "those keywords" to mean "all instances of those keywords", but I suppose the above explanation is more consistent with related cases.

Saturnine is right. You have to look at the context of the whole ability. And yeah, there is something convoluted about trying to say "choose a character with A, B, or both; remove the A, B, or both that it has."

In this case, the plural of "those" refers to the keyword "Stealth" and the keyword "Renown" collectively. So the target character loses one instance of Stealth and one of Renown - assuming they had both to begin with. I suppose one could read the collective "those" as referring to all instances of those two keywords, but that seems to be a misinterpretation of the typical use of the word "loses" for effects like this. Something as powerful as "fail a stealth check, no matter what" is usually spelled out far more specifically on a card effect.

So yeah, from a "general English grammar" point of view, I suppose "those" could be seen as "all instances of the two keywords," but in the context of the game's general rules and timing, "those" referring to both keywords collectively seems more consistent.

Saturnine said:

Right on. "those keywords" is what I thought would be the previous sentence, but if it were singular, wouldn't "one of each of those keywords" be better? "all of each of those keywords" would also be better for more than one.

So we do know for the "that character loses Stealth." case that the character loses one instance of Stealth? I am inclined to read everything in this game as being singular unless it states "all" since several words used in this game are both singular and plural spellings.

Bomb said:

It helps if everytime you see "Stealth" you think "the keyword Stealth" -- same with any other keyword. It's one of those things in the game that is linguistically unintuitive, but makes an odd kind sense mechanically.

Wow I did not know you can stack abilities like that.

So does that mean if you have someon with Renown and you give them an other source of Renown do they then claim 2 power win they win a challenge?

Ivengar said:

No. With keywords, just like with icons and crests, it matters only whether the card has one or none. The additive nature of those entities is only relevant to determining whether the character is considered to have them or not.

Okay, regarding the phrase "those keywords," what happens if Arya targets a character with only Stealth and then later in the phase that character gains Renown? Since Arya says "those keywords," would that character end up with +1-1=0 instances of Renown? Would Arya gain Renown instead, or does her ability only grant her the abilities that are removed as her ability resolves? I think Arya's ability sets up a lasting effect of stealing abilities that lasts through the phase and that she would take Renown from the character, but I am not sure.

schrecklich said:

Remember, consider the whole ability, not just the "removes" part. She says to choose a character with Stealth, Renown, or both. She then removes "those" abilities - as in, the ones the character has when chosen. So if the character is chosen with just 1 of the keywords, there will be no interaction if it gains the other one later.

Keep in mind that not only does the chosen character lose "those" keyword, Arya gains them. If the a character with just Stealth was chosen, then received a "lose 1 Stealth and lose 1 Renown (even though they don't have it)" condition, Arya would pick up a "gain 1 Stealth and 1 Renown" condition at the same time. She'd "steal" a keyword the other character never had to take.

Think of it this way: Consider Field of Fire, which chooses "all" participating non-Dragon characters, then resolves to give them -2 STR until the end of the phase. If your opponent declares attackers, you play the card, then declare defenders, do all your your defenders get the -2 now that they are participating? Or do they escape it because they were not chosen by the effect? They escape it, right? Something similar happens with Arya; "those" keywords removed are based on the keywords it has when it is chosen.

Compare the targeted triggered effect to a general, non targeted effect. What if Arya said something more like "Kneel 1 influence to choose a character. That character loses Stealth and Renown." instead?

ktom said:

Ah... Focus too much on the second part of the effect, I did.

So would it be different if Arya specifically said "loses Stealth and Deadly" instead of "loses those keywords?" It seems a little bit poorly worded to use the plural there. The second reference to the keywords ("any keyword lost in this way") makes more grammatical sense to me if the point is that only a keyword that the character currently has can be lost. To me, "those keywords" means "Stealth and Deadly."

ktom said:

The end of the text for her ability says "that were lost in this way.". So if there is no renown, but there is stealth, how does Arya gain Renown when it wasn't there to be lost?

Bomb said:

I believe that was his point, made in order to illuminate why Arya can only affect the keywords present on the target at the point her ability resolves.