Tarl: (If Tarle the Thrice-Drowned has 3 or more power on him, discard him from play.
Response: Save Tarle the Thrice-Drowned from being killed. Then, he claims 1 power.)

Flame Kissed: If attached character has no other attachments, attached character gets -2 STR and is killed if its STR is 0.

Situation: Tarl has no power on him. I reduce his STR by 1 with Forever Burning, then play Flame Kissed. Can Tarl activate his response 3 times so that he will be discarded instead of dead?

What if he already had 2 power, and activated his text?

His save ability may not be used to save from a terminal effect. He simply dies (barring any legal save from a different card).

Things to remember here:

1. The rules do not allow you to save against a terminal effect like burn unless the save removes the card from the terminal effect at the same time. So clearly, Tarle's ability will not be legal when there is no discard involved.
2. Getting him to 3 power (so the discard kicks in) does not actually remove him from the burn's terminal effect. Instead, it creates 2 simultaneous terminal effects (the burn kill and the power discard). And the First Player could always choose the kill. So even at 2-power, the save does not remove him from the terminal state and is still not legal.

ktom said:

I thought your argument will be: passive vs constant.

Rogue30 said:

What would be the passive effect?

Saturnine said:

Ultimately, in this situation, it doesn't matter because whatever you feel like calling it, both are the same. The "discard at 3" effect on Tarle is a separate effect, not a part of the resolving save (the way returning to hand is for Viserys), so one does not pre-empt the other. "Kill at 0 STR" and "Discard at 3 power" will have the same timing when Tarle has 0 STR and 3 power on him and the First Player will decide which one is applied first (thanks to the "simultaneous entry to moribund state" entry in the FAQ).

But since they conflict, the "discard at 3" does not remove Tarle from "kill at 0"'s terminal effect. So that means it would be illegal to use the save in the first place. The difference between passive and constant doesn't enter into it, so there is no reason to re-open the discussion on this question.

ktom said:

That's exactly what I figured; I had it in my mind for some reason that terminal effect = constant effect (because every terminal effect has a constant component, I guess), but I think we already had this discussion about the result of a terminal effect being applied passively and all that jazz. I don't remember what I took away from the discussion last time, but, as you said, both effects are clearly of the same order, so the discussion is largely moot.

I was just curious why effect of Flame kissed is passive if verb is "gets" and "is killed" just like on Threat from the north. But if it's moot then there's no need to answer.

It's passive because there's a trigger that makes the effect initiate at a certain point: when a character reaches 0 STR. That's what Nate told me some time ago when I was having some trouble identifying the kind of effect(s) in Threat from the North.

eloooooooi said:

But it is a tricky distinction between that and a conditional constant effect like "Stark characters get +1STR while defending."

So Threat from the north is passive and discard happens in step 4, right?

The -1 STR part is constant.

The "discard if STR is 0" part is passive. Yes, it does happen in Step 4 (or Step 2.IV, Step 4.IV or Step 5.IV) of the action window of whatever effect takes the STR down to 0.

If it is passive, then after revealing Threat it should look like this:

1. Choose and reveal plots
2. Initiative is counted
3. High initiative player appoints “First Player”
4. "When revealed" plot effects resolve

5. passives - discard by Threat

No?

Rogue30 said:

What's the example you have to show why it can't possibly be that way?

ktom said:

It's not like that. I am just confused by your explanation of Threat vs Valar.

Rogue30 said:

I'm sure that at one time or another, I have mistakenly equated the "plot passive" in Threat with the "when revealed" effect of Valar and presented it as a possible conflict for the First Player to decide. We all screw up sometimes. But the "when revealed" of Valar would come before the "standard" passive and Valar would kill before the "discard at 0" would kick in.

ktom said:

Actually, you said that Threat as a constant happens before Valar.

What's important though, that I'm really glad that things are now much clearer (...unless something will change in this matter).

Rogue30 said:

So if you aren't paying attention to when the "discard at 0" actually should activate, it's easy to assign it the same resolution as the "-1 STR" part of the same plot. Like I said, I'm sure I've screwed it up before.