title pretty much says it all...i know you can play actions at every phase but when exactly? i know the active player gets priority to get the first action but what if they dont take one on their turn? is there a window where i get to play an action? someone please help a noob better understand.

The windows are illustrated nicely on page 13 of the rule book.

During an action window, the active player has the first opportunity to take an action. Then it alternates with the passive player(s) until all have passed consecutively.

So if an action window opens and the active player chooses not to take an action, the passive player then has the option to take an action or not.

If the passive player does not, then both players have passed and you move on.

If the passive player takes an action, then the active player has the option to take an action or not.

Loop until both players pass sequentially.

i saw the page in the rule book and i realize when it says you can play them but it doesnt exactly specify certain situations. for example i play intimidate on my opponents character after he commits to the story. is that possible? or say my opponent commits to a story, can i pay 3 to commit terror of the tides to the story and then block?

kamacausey said:

You CAN play intimidate on a character committed at a story... but only on a non-exhausted character. However, this won't uncommit the character. There is a window in which you can play Intimiated to exhaust a character before your opponent can commit (but after the operations phase). Since most characters exhaut to commit (its the default rule) to stories waiting until after your opponent commits is generally going to be a waste.

Remember, in the story phase you have:

0. Beginning of the Story Phase.
1. Actions can be taken. (best spot to play Intimidate on a character you don't want to be sent to a story)
2. Active player commits (no actions can be taken while this is happening)
3. Responses to that player's commitings.
4. Actions can be taken. (this is usually the best place to use Terror of the Tides's action to put him into play)
5. Defending player commits (when you could commit terror of the tides)
6. Responses to defending player's commitings
7. Actions can be taken.
8. Reslove the story.

Think of A ction s like sorcerery cards in magic. Except that instead of only being able to play them in the main phase, you can play them in any window that allows actions to be taken (including during your opponents turn). They're not instants, they don't disrupt other card effects. Thats what Disrupt effects are for

ok! now that is an explaination! thank you very much! i finally get it, lol! i guess it just needed to be brought down to me in magic terms, lol! im not knocking you professor but telling me to go to x page in the rulebook when i have a question isnt typically going to help me out. im not lazy. i have read the rule book. multiple times actually. i just needed additional clarification.

kamacausey said:

To be fair, we can't always assume that everyone owns/has looked at the rule book. In fact I'd go as far as to say that most people who play have usually only glanced at the rulebook once or twice. Thus easily forgetting or not completely getting all the info that they need. (Which is probably true for nearly everyone, I certainly don't claim to know everything inside and out and I'm the champ! a 3 year in a row one at that!)

Sometimes a quick reference to a page in the rulebook or an entry in the faq is all the person needs to figure the answers to their own questions. Even if its simply because it showed them where they should study a little extra harder if they come up with similiar questions later on.

Which... is basically what happened here (and could possibly continue). He saw that you were having repeated problems with timing structure and simply tried to remind you that 99% of the basic information needed to answer most of your questions was located on that page (and/or in the same section).

Not that I need to fight the professor's battles, and I know you're thankful, but I just want you to not be offended (in any way) by his repsonse.

We're all here to help and I hope it "clicked" on for ya.

Thanks Magnus! I certainly was not trying to be rude or dismissive. We're a friendly community and I want to try to assist fellow players.

As Magnus points out, sometimes a reference to the rule section can be very helpful. The diagram on page 13 is important. One of the guys at our play group made a mini-version of this (about a 1/4 page) laminated it, and gave them out to all the players because it is so important to the game. It answers many questions.

oh ok. sorry i took it that way professor. a lot of forums have trolls or people that are just rude and are like go read it here noob! not that that is what you did but it kinda felt like you were brushing me off. either way its all good. thanks for the replys guys.

My pleasure!

This thread helped immensely. My friend and I were playing for a little less than a year before we realized we were handling the Action sequence wrong. Everything suddenly makes so much more sense! Thanks

Prof_werewolf said:

Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

Hey guys , yesterday was day 1 of playing the game officially and my bro and I did have a blast playing , but we were baffled by a lot of rules and card effects and what not. So I was hoping I could get some answers as to a few terms and conditions we didn't get to understand fully . Here they are:

1.What exactly does "actions may be taken" in the turn sequence chart on page 13? place a example per phase please.

2. When a support or event card is exhausted to use an effect , is it committed the same way a character is? or when exhausted is it's effect universal to all stories?

2.How exactly does a disrupt effect work, when to use it ?

3.When a card effect says choose a character , can that character be anyone on the field( mine or opponents) including characters committed to a story?
can it even be a insane character?
Example : Fishers from the outisde says :"After fishers from outside enters play , choose an exhausted character. Return that character to its owner's hand.
to whose characters would this apply?

4.What exactly does pay # on a character card or what ever exactly mean? and how to do it.

Example chupacabra :
Action pay 1 and sacrifice a character to give chupacabra 3 terror icons until the end of the phase.
Does it mean pay 1 resource by draining an entire domain?

5. Difference between forced response and response.

6. Just verifying , You cannot drain multiple Domains to pay for 1 single card correct? that is , 1 domain can only be used for 1 specific card.

7. How exactly do you resolve a story that has gained mutliple struggle icons?

Sorry for the alarming amount of questions but honestly I have not been able to extract this information from the rulebook.
I will however give it another look.


PS. Has anyone here recorded their matches and posted it on youtube? I really wish to see a match to see the phases and actions at work.
Post a link here if you know of any match 8D Thanks!

Zealotscout said:

1. the "green boxes" are the times when the players can take actions, meaning they can play cards that say "Action" on them, (or "Response"). This alternates between the players. In other words, if you are NOT in a green box, you may NOT play Actions.

2. Support cards don't commit to stories (except Guardian Pillar - which is different). Card can be exhausted for a number of reasons. One of them is a payment to commit a character to a story. But exhausting a character or support card does not commit that card to a story. When you exhaust a support card to trigger some ability, then that ability is executed as described on the card. I'm not sure what is confusing you here - probably some specific ability on a specific card?

3. Yes. Choose a character means any character in play.

4. Pay # means to drain a domain you control containing at least # resources.

5. A Forced Response MUST go off when the trigger happens. And this can happen outside the Green Box timing. A Response is optional to the player controlling the card and goes off during Action windows (green boxes).

6. You are correct. All payment must come from a single domain.

7. If there are multiple extra struggle icons, you just do that struggle as many times as required, one after the other.

Not to derail the thread, but I've seen some players that refuse to accept any answers about rules WITHOUT specific page references. They even hate to accept an answer from the game designers themselves without this. Odd but true!

Ok , seems to be clear about now , but i'd like to get down a few further items.

-Lets say a Chupacabra enters play and is later committed to a story :" Action : Pay 1 and sacrifice a character to give chupacabra 3 combat icons until the end of the phase.
Just to clear this out , this action can be played in the story phase but before solving struggle icons correct?
So that Chupacabra will have a total of 4 combat icons when the combat struggle is being resolved all the way until the story phase ends?

As to struggles , if an active player commits his characters to a story in which the opponent has none , nor does he decide to defend. And also saying that the active player commited atleast 1 character with a investigation icon. Does that mean the active player recieves a success token for winning the investigation struggle? does he also recieve another token for "meeting success" and does he also recieve a token for a unchallenged story? So in the end a undefended story card (with an attacking character with a investigation icon ) will grant him ( active player ) 3 immediate success tokens?

(Does winning a Arcane struggle ready a character committed in the story even if there isn't any character on the other side of the story?)

What if the above happened on another turn but with a character defending opponent ( unactive player ) with 0 skill ?

That should be all really for now , until I can replay some of my friends again.

Thanks again and sorry for blasting you guys with so many questions again..

Zealotscout said:

Yes on the Chupacabra question. A small point, you COULD perform the Action after Story resolution - nothing stops it, just you won't get much out of it.

Yes. If the active player commits a character with an investigation icon with more than 0 skill and the opponent does not defend, then that character will win Investigation (1 icon), will win skill (1 icon) and will be unopposed (1 icon). Note the importance have having more than 0 skill though - you can't win skill with 0 skill.

Winning the Arcane struggles allows the winner to ready one character. Doesn't matter if there is an opponent or not - all struggles resolve.

If the opponent has 0 skill, the active player would win skill and unopposed (assuming the active player has more than 0 skill).