Hello, everyone!

I've a question about the card "Sellsword Deserter" www.agotcards.org/card/nset/83/4509 from Chasing Dragons pack.
There is an interesting wording -- Characters with the Ally or Refugee trait get -1 STR. Card itself has both traits, so my question is -- will Sellsword Deserter get -1STR or -2 STR from his own ability?

Just -1 STR.

Ultimately, checking to see if each character has the 'Ally or Refugee' trait is a yes-or-no question. If yes, the character gets -1. If no, the character is unaffected. But there is nothing in the text of the card that implies the characters get -1 for each trait that it has.

Thank you for answering. I was quite troubled by this one.

Think of it like a character that has Stealth gaining Stealth. Having Stealth two times doesn't give the character "super stealth," the ability to bypass multiple characters, or anything like that. That's because the question, when you do to declare Stealth, is "has he got the keyword?" It's a yes/no question. If the answer is "yes," you get to bypass 1 character, not 1 for each instance of stealth.

Same sort of thing here. Does the character have either 1 or the other of the "suspect" traits? Yes/no? If the answer is "yes," it gets -1 STR, not -1 for each "suspect" trait.

The difference to your example is stealth is declared and has a point of initiation. The passive on the deserter is just a constant effect. Why would, or wouldn't, it be applied to a card multiple times as it is continually checking for those traits?

If it said "and/or" then it would be completely understandable, and I'm not really disagreeing that it shouldn't be applied multiple times. I just don't see any clarification in the rules that it wouldn't be. I don't know of any, but is there any other passive/constants that potentially effect two things like this that set any precedent?

Slothgodfather said:

From a programming and logical point of view, you are only trying to get a true or false from the statement so you can enter the code block that makes the character -1.

Just pretend the below is in some kind of overall StrengthModifier function that constantly calculates the STR of characters by applying all modifiers

If Trait.Contains( "Ally" ) or Trait.Contains( "Refugee" ) Then

Strength = Strength - 1

End If

It would need to be two separate effects applying a -1 to be able to give a character that is both an Ally and a Refugee a -2 in Strength.

In the above, even if you are constantly checking for the Strength, it will only enter that block of code one time if either the Ally, Refugee, or both traits are on the character. This is because as soon as the condition is true, it enters the block of code regardless of both traits existing.

Slothgodfather said:

Seriously though, what you are looking at in both situations is a play restriction that, if true, makes the effect apply. For stealth, you have an "if true, a target may be chosen" play restriction/passive effect. For Deserter, you have an "if true, a -1 STR modifier applies" play restriction/constant effect. The important part is that you are dealing with an "if true" play restriction.

The single "-1 STR" modifier is not applied more than once if the play restriction is "extra true." The effect only cares if it has one or the other trait. It doesn't care if it has one and the other trait.

That is some rational I can understand, thanks guys.

ktom said:

Is it not constant as long as he is in play?

Slothgodfather said:

I was just chuckling because you said "his passive is constant." An ability is either passive or constant, not both. So the statement "his passive is a constant" is kind of like saying "the knife he carries is a gun." It ended up being a play on words, and I thought it was kind of funny.

Ha!, I'm just now seeing the "~'… I see what you did there…

Well if you've played any Final Fantasy games you should know knives can be very dangerous guns also!