Myself and two friends were playing three player with Stark, Baratheon, and Martell decks. Late game, Stark and Martell are both at 13 power, and Baratheon has no characters on the board at the beginning of the challenges phase. Stark has a whole bunch of wolves, including Grey Wind and Shaggydog; Martell has various characters and the Crown Regent title and is first player. Martell makes a power challenge against Baratheon with 10 STR in characters, and Stark reduces them all to 0 using Shaggydog, and kills one with Grey Wind. The other two, though, are still technically participating characters, so the Crown Regent +3 bonus to total STR on power challenges still applies, meaning Martell will win an undefended power challenge and gain two power - and win the game. Stark tries to use more wolves two reduce one of the characters' STR to -4, reducing the total challenge STR to -1, meaning Baratheon wins the challenge 0 to -1 (and so Stark will make an undefended military challenge and win due to their Siege of Winterfell agenda). Martell goes, "dude you totally can't do that, check out the Threat From the North plot card - it wouldn't make any sense if things can have negative strength."

There are no rules or errata about Shaggydog reducing characters' strength to less than 0. Thoughts? I tried to ask AGoT officially, but the rules questions form is broken.

All advice is much appreciated! Cheers.

infinitelyimprobable said:

"If a character's STR is ever lower than 0 after all effects are applied, its STR is rounded up to 0."

So an individual character is never considered to have less than 0 STR, not because "Threat from the North wouldn't make any sense," but because the rules explicitly state that any character that would have a negative STR after all modifiers are added in is rounded up to 0.

So, all the Martell attackers will be 0 STR when determining challenge strength, no matter how many extra direwolves the Stark player kneels. You cannot wipe out the "challenge STR bonus" of Crown Regent by giving the participating characters "negative STR." The Stark player either needed a "jumper" like LoW-Catelyn or Greatjon, or maybe chosen a title that supported the Baratheon player when he realized he was not going to be First Player.

Just to be clear, also, you can't win a challenge when you have 0 STR, even if your opponent has no partecipants at all.

Ikaros said:

"A challenge may not be won by an attacker or defender whose total STR is less than 1, or who has no participating characters when the challenge is resolved."

But the thread is more about the fact that since an individual's STR is rounded to 0, you cannot wipe out the "general challenge bonus" from a title by giving the participating character -3 STR more than it's current STR. Or, say that your opponent is attacking with a 1-STR character and a 2-STR character. You cannot make the total challenge STR 0 by giving the 1-STR character -3 STR.

I was referring to his statement: "…meaning Baratheon wins the challenge 0 to -1…"