Hi, everyone.

I have a Maester wiith the attachment Dragon Fear (If there is at least 1 Dragon character in play, attached character must be chosen to satisfy Military claim, if able.) and Leyton Hightower (Maester characters you control gain: "immune to opponents' events and attachments."). I lose a military challenge and there is a Dragon character in play.

Do I have to choose my Maester with the Dragon Fear to kill for claim?

I believe so because Hightower doesn't blank the attachment and the immunity he provides is blank in this case because the attachment is forcing the controller to kill him by a rule's effect: claim. It's the game killing the maester, not the attachment. I think this because of the similarity of Pyat Pree being able to kill character which are immune to character abilities.

Thanks for your time.

Your interpretation seems reasonable to me. Immunity to attachments is rare (I think Leyton Hightower is the only way to gain this immunity in the LCG), so I am not so familiar with it. The thing I am not sure about is: does being attached to something count as directly affecting it? Should the Dragon Fear fall off the Maester when Leyton Hightower comes into play? If not, then I think you are correct for the reason you stated. Dragon Fear directly affects the player and not the attached character.

I'd argue that your maester would be immune to dragon fear, because dragon fear is not a modifier on claim or on the player (like, say, Pyat Pree) but is a modifier on the character (Attached character must be...), that affects how claim is resolved

Tomdidiot said:

It's a very fine-line distinction, but this is the interpretation I would go with.

Tom is correct that Pyat Pree is not the best comparison because Pyat directly modifies the way claim resolves (it is a claim replacement), but Dragon Fear does not. Dragon Fear only places a restriction on the eligible target of military claim. So the question is whether or not the attachment is acting directly on the character - effectively marking it as the only choice for claim. The way we figure that out in all other situations is to determine what the subject of the effect actually is. For example, an effect that says "kneeling characters can be declared as defenders" would be considered to act directly on said characters (adjusting their individual eligibility), but "players may declare kneeling characters as defenders" would be considered to act directly on the player, not the characters. So a character's own immunity would apply to the first, but not the second, wording, even though the two do essentially the same thing.

Looking at the wording of Dragon Fear, the text is "...attached character must be chosen...," meaning that the attachment is working directly on the character, adjusting its eligibility (or preference) as the target of military claim. It would need to say something like "You must choose attached character..." to be acting on the player rather than the character.

Since the attachment works directly on the character, not on the player, then immunity to attachments will block the attachment making it the "mandatory" target for military claim. I know it is confusing because there is no functional difference between how Dragon Fear is worded and the idea "The Player must choose the attached character to satisfy claim," but as is so often the case, the actual words on the card make a difference.

It probably looks like a technicality, but "immunity to attachments" will protect the Dragon Fear character from having to be chosen for military claim. The player could still decide to, and claim will still kill it, but the forced choice is ignored.

I actually had a question on Dragon Fear as well - if the loser of a military challenge has two Dragon Fears played on his characters, how are they resolved? Two characters "must be chosen" if able (and they both are able) - does this mean neither of them dies (because you cannot chose the other?), or one dies, chosen by the first player? Or simply (maybe the intuitive, but not necessarily rule-abiding) one of the two has to be picked?

-Istaril said:

This is the correct answer, and it is rule-abiding. Targets are chosen sequentially when initiating an effect. So, the losing player must chose one of the 2 characters for the lost 1-claim military challenge. Upon making the choice of that first character, the second character becomes ineligible to be chosen because there is only 1 target called for by the effect. Therefore, the losing player is "not able" to choose both, so the Dragon Fear on the second character is not violated.

Choosing A means the "if able" part on B kicks in.

What if dragon fear is on a character with duplicate, if I choose to save that character with duplicate it is considered that i satisfied the claim and this dragon fear is gone or I saved it with duplicate so dragon fear its still on character? ( This is also for other ways to save from being killed like starfall healer etc )

What about a Maester with Head of a Dwarf attached while Leyton Hightower is in play? That one sounds like it is forcing the player to move claimed power to the Maester which does not sound like it is doing anything directly to the character.

"Attached character gains infamy.
If attached character's controller would claim power for his or her House,that power must be placed on a character with at least one Head of a Dwarf card attached. "

blashkowitch said:

If the character is saved, you have still satisfied the claim, but there's no reason that would discard Dragon Fear.

Though it is worth noting that even at claim 2+, a Dragon Fear character would only have to be chosen once. Only able, actually. A character cannot be chosen for claim more than once in a challenge.

Bomb said:

Well, for starters, the immunity would prevent the character from gaining Infamy.

As for the second effect… since it seems to me to be affecting the power, not the character, I'd say it would still work.

@blashkowitch: you have satisfied the military claim, but there is no reason for the attachment to go away, so it stays (it would go away if the character left play)

@Bomb: Interesting question. The Maester doesn't gain Infamy because of the immunity, but then, the player cannot put the power on him, because he doesn't have Infamy (unless he has it already or gets it from the player's own cards).

Khudzlin said:

Sure he could. There's nothing in the rules that say a character CANNOT have power on them, you just need an effect to put it there, and the second half of the effect does so.

Khudzlin said:

Kristoff is correct in this situation. The second part of the attachment effect works directly on the power that is claimed and is completely "self-contained" from Infamy. So whether the attached character is immune to attachments or not, power tokens claimed by the player must be put on a character with the attachment. (In fact, imagine that the attachment did not have the effect "attached character gains Infamy" printed on it; what would it do? Becuase that's exactly what it will do on a character that is immune to attachments.)

The Infamy on Head of a Dwarf is mostly redundant. Without the Infamy, though, you are locked into putting power you move (such as from winning a power challenge) on your House card.

I'm trying to generalize this appropriately.

Are you saying that Dragon Fear is generating a constant effect that effectively says "Targetted character must be chosen to satisfy claim."? This would mean the targetted character is "Attached Character". As such, with the character being immune to attachments and thus unable to be targetted by Dragon Fear, the constant effect is nullified by having no target?

mdc273 said:

Basically, yeah.

Actually, not quite. You are coming up with the right answer, but you are getting there from the wrong direction.

mdc273 said:

mdc273 said:

Remember, immunity means two separate things:

1. The card cannot be chosen as the target of whatever it is immune to
2. The card ignores the direct effects of whatever it is immune to

In terms of generalizing this discussion appropriately, you really just stick to #2 above. The "immune to attachments" character completely ignores the constant effect of Dragon Fear. The "must be chosen for claim" effect therefore has nothing to "grab on to" (for lack of a better term).

Sounds like where you are making your misstep is in trying to force an understanding of immunity in terms of "no legal target." But immunity goes beyond choosing targets. It is the "beyond choosing targets" part of immunity that lets "immune to attachments" characters ignore Dragon Fear and bypass the forced selection in military claim.

Ok, so how about this?

Dragon Fear tries to retrive the name of the character that is immune to attachments. The character goes "I'm immune to attachments. I'm not giving you my name." Dragon Fear then tries to force the player to claim the named character, but with no name it can't enforce the constant effect.

Or the card Bastard (I'm taking this example because Staton said it would work in one of the CardGameDB articles).

You play Bastard on a Maester that is immune to attachments. Bastard tries to knock off all attachments on attached character. To do so, Bastard tries to retrieve the name of the attached character. Attached character goes "Neener! Neener!". Bastard then tries to knock all attachments off of the named character. There is no named character and the effect fails. Consequently, all of the effects of the card Bastard fail.

mdc273 said:

Bastard is a whole other animal. Bastard's attachment removal does nothing directly to the attached character. That's all done to the attachments themselves… otherwise Tin Link would never be able to discard any attachments off of "immune to attachments" characters. Bastard directly affects the character itself by removing a POW icon, so that is the only effect the character is immune to.

I admit I'm still a little uncertain on Dragon Fear being eligible for being immune to with "immune to attachments", but because it's a fine line I'm happy to go with it. I'm kind of indifferent on the ruling.

mdc273 said:

As Bomb points out, the scope of immunity only extends to the direct effects on the immune card itself. Bastard says two different things:

1. After you play Bastard from your hand, discard all other attachments on attached character.
2. Attached character gains the Bastard trait, loses a POW icon, and cannot have attachments played on it.

#2 directly affects the character (so "immunity to attachments" would let the character ignore the attachment), but #1 directly affects the attachments on the character (by discarding them), and only indirectly affects the character itself (by whatever changes because it loses attachments). So, "immunity to attachments" does not let the character keep its other attachments when Bastard is played on it.

But not only is it the wrong result, it is a very bad way of explaining that result, based on a very bad interpretation of immunity. It is based on the idea that the "immune to attachments" character is "invisible" to the attachment - ie, when "Bastard tries to retrieve the name of the attached character," it doesn't find it. That is completely backwards. The character is not "invisible" to the attachment. Rather, the character ignores the direct effects of the attachment. The attachment knows the character is there. It knows everything about the character. But when the attachment says "you lose a POW icon now," the character says "Did you just hear something?"

The thing to realize is that Bastard doesn't say to the character, "You lose your attachments now." It says to the other attachments , "You guys are GONE . B'Bye!" And so even though the character doesn't hear the attachment, the other attachments hear it just fine.

Further, the idea of "looking for the name of the attached character" is completely off because there are specific situations in this game where things do specifically affect, or are affected, based on card title - and Bastard isn't one of them.

mdc273 said:

If you really need to generalize this in a cute sort of way, do it like this:

Attachment: "You, attached character, must be chosen by your controller to satisfy military claim."

Immune character: "Did you hear something just now?"

Bomb said:

"If there is at least 1 Dragon character in play, attached character must be chosen for MIL claim if able."

Because it phrases this in terms of "…attached character must be chosen…," it is working on the character, changing its eligibility to be chosen for MIL claim. That is, the character's eligibility as a target for MIL claim is affected directly (which, of course, has an indirect effect on the player's actual choice). If it were phrased differently, eg, "If there is at least 1 Dragon character in play, yo u cannot choose the attached character to satisfy MIL claim," that would be the attachment directly affecting the player (or at least the player's choice).

Look for the subject of the sentence. That is what is being directly affected. If it is being directly affected, immunity can protect it.

If you are having trouble with it, consider the opposite: "Attached character CANNOT be chosen for MIL claim." That is working much more plainly working directly on the character, changing it's eligibility as a target for MIL claim. Dragon Fear is the same thing, just in reverse. (Although I sympathize that "must be chosen" is a lot harder to see as a change in target eligibility than "cannot be chosen.")

ktom said:

As I read Staton's piece, he understood all of that so I don't think he pulled an epic fail.

Someone made mention in the comments, as I recall, that chains that come off TMP aren't blocked by Bastard because they were being put in play, not played. Is that how you read it, too?

Amuk said:

Is his reported outcome - that playing Bastard on an "immune to attachments" character will not discard all other attachments on the character - the outcome in the article? If so, I'm still going to give Staton a hard time because even if he understood all of that, he didn't apply it correctly. (He'll know it's all in good fun.)

Amuk said:

That's true, and basic "play" vs. "put into play" stuff. Bastard says attachments cannot be played on the character, which does nothing to stop you from putting attachments into play on the character.

ktom said:

No. Quite the opposite. Asked, "For the record, immune to attachments does not protect against Bastard correct?" Staton replied, "Correct, except for the missing power icon part. The discarding of the attachments targets the attachments themselves…."

I can only assume he's not here to defend himself because he's preparing his liver for GenCon….

Possibly.

Well, his position was mis-reported and people put words in his mouth.

FYI, I meant Staton said that Bastard would knock off the attachments. Should've been clearer on what I meant by "it would work". I was trying to explain why I jumped to considering Bastard. My interpretation had ramifications that extended beyond me if I was correct. I wanted to make it known in case it would've modified how you responded.

I like your Dragon Fear explanation there, but then why does that not make Bastard work like this instead of how you suggest:

Bastard - "I, Bastard, am removing all of your attachments, attached character."

Attached Character - "No, you're not."

Let's throw in some more nonsense. Let's say that person A can not do anything to Person B. In the middle of the night Person A sneaks into Person B's house and steals all his stuff. Would you say that Person A did nothing to Person B? Does this example apply in AGoT?