Dark Curse says that anybody attacking him may not spend focus tokens or reroll attack dice. Can somebody (eg. Dutch Vander with R5K6) spend a target lock on him to reroll 0 dice, thereby bypassing his effect and breaking the "breaking the rules" ruling in the rulebook?

consideration: you may spend target locks on Dark Curse already, for things such as proton torpedoes.

EDIT: tl;dr, Dark Curse says you may not reroll any attack dice. Target lock says spend and reroll any number of attack dice. New FAQ says yes, 0 is a number. Question here is since the FAQ says 0 is a number too, does this mean that it is blocked by Dark Curse's ability, since 0 is a number?

If you aren't using torpedos or missiles, why would you spend a target lock on him for no effect? I guess you might *acquire* a target lock in order to pass a free target lock to someone else if you are Dutch, but why spend it for no reason? If you do, but it has no effect, why is that "breaking the rules?"

"breaking the rules" mentions that if an effect says yes, and another effect says no, the final ruling is no. eg. Dark Curse vs Horton Salm, Horton cannot reroll his attack dice at range 2-3 against Dark Curse.

My question here is since we now know 0 is considered a number, does Dark Curse's ability forbid ANY rerolling of the dice, including rerolling 0 dice (ie. you cannot even spend the target lock), or you could spend the target lock, declare reroll 0 dice, and it bypasses Dark Curse's ability because you technically did not reroll any attack dice at all, thereby bypassing the "breaking the rules" ruling.

I'm inclined to allow it. I'm not sure what the point would be though… and I'm not sure the rules are entirely clear on this one.

dbmeboy said:

I had this really interesting situation where my Dutch with R5-K6 could only attack Dark Curse, but I needed to transfer his target lock over to Wedge, who is already on focus and is in 1 range of darth vader's backside. basically the flow of events went as follows:

1) after movement phrase has ended, I now realize Wedge is within range 2 of Dutch Vander. Darth Vader is behind Ywing at range 3 so ion cannons cannot hit him, but within range 1 of Wedge. Dark Curse is within Ywing's firing arc at range 2 so anything goes basically. Dutch has lock on Dark Curse from earlier in the game but cannot perform any actions because he just flew past a floating chunk of space granite, Wedge has swarm tactics and a focus token during his own action. Darth Vader has evade and focus so he is kinda hard to hit, and Darth Vader doesnt have either Dutch nor Wedge in his firing arc.

2) I used Wedge's swarm tactics on Dutch. Dutch is now 9 skill points and I will make him attack first before Wedge since both of them are at the same skill points. I'm thinking of having Dutch attack Dark Curse, spend his target lock, PRAY VERY VERY HARD THAT R5-K6 successfully grants the target lock, thereby giving Wedge a free target lock just before he goes to shoot Darth Vader's ass.

Well, that may be the only scenario currently where that might be a strategy you want to employ. This seems to be a very rare and specific circumstance.

I suppose you should allow it everywhere else per the FAQ, but on Dark Curse I think should forbid it. If you are counting re-rolling zero dice as a legitimate spending of the Target Lock, then Dark Curse should also forbid re-rolling zero dice as well.

Send it in to FFG and see what response you get.

uh, how do i send it to them? sorry, new at this

Rules questions link at the bottom of this page.

magadizer said:

You can spend the Target Lock and not reroll any dice on Dark Curse.

ShadowJak said:

SHADOWJAK HATH SPOKEN!

Are you two brothers, or do you just act like it?

I have no idea who this guy is. Maybe he is my brother. Half the time he makes me laugh and half the time he ticks me off, so could be…

If you can spend a target lock to reroll any number of dice, including zero, then you shouldn't be able to spend target locks against Dark Curse unless it's for torpedoes or missiles. Dark Curse forbids retooling attack dice and spending a target lock makes you reroll 0-Infiniti attack dice.

Budgernaut said:

That's what I was arguing as well. I don't think you should be able to "re-roll" zero dice anyways, but clearly that is within the purview of the game designers as per the FAQ, so that's fine. But to be consistent I think Dark Curse should block that as well.

Budgernaut said:

You are putting words on the cards that don't exist. Rerolling 0 dice is the same as rerolling no dice.

ShadowJak said:

Yes, but not rerolling dice is different than rerolling no dice. Chew on that one for a while.

Budgernaut said:

exactly, because consider this: before the FAQ, one way of looking at it: you could spend target lock on Dark Curse to reroll 0 dice, and Dark Curse ability doesnt trigger because you did not reroll anything. because 0 could be treated as if it isn't a number

Now with the FAQ, 0 is a number, and when you spend target lock on Dark Curse to reroll 0 dice, you are rerolling 0 number of dice, but Dark Curse says you cannot reroll any dice.

ie. you spend target lock to reroll X number of dice. Dark Curse says you may not reroll any number of dice. let X = 0

so the question is what does the "ANY" in Dark Curse's ability refer to? the number X or the physical dice itself

It seems like the problem is: does Dark Curse prevent all reroll effects from even starting, or does he restrict the total number of dice rolled to zero (ie limit "any" to zero)? I don't think anything in the rules or the English language is going to solve this one. Has anyone submitted this question to FFG yet? I don't want to flood them with the same question a bunch of times.

I've been thinking about this today, and I see something I didn't see before. Until now, I always assumed (as with most games I play) that in a construct of "do X in order to do Y", you had to do Y if you did X, and if you could not perform Y, X was forbidden. I assumed this was the way focus and target lock worked. You discard the token to modify the dice. If you couldn't modify the dice, then you couldn't discard the lock. When the FAQ was released, I immediately interpreted the ability to discard a token and modify zero dice as meaning that you are still modifying dice (because it's required) but the number of dice you are modifying is zero. It finally occurred to me last night that this typical construct may not exist in this game. Maybe the FAQ really is saying you can discard the tokens and not modify any dice, rather than meaning that zero is a number.

Now, I don't particularly like this interpretation, but if that is how the game goes, then that's how it goes. One reason I don't like it is because it's inconsistent. With Barrel Rolls, if you can't perform a barrel roll without hitting something, you simply can't take that action. I don't see why, if you can't [or won't] modify any dice, you should be able to spend a focus token or target lock. If you can spend the target lock but not reroll dice, what's stopping someone from using Expert Handling to remove a target lock without performing the barrel roll? That would be ridiculous, but I think spending focus and target lock tokens to modify zero dice is just as silly. If the rules said that you can spend a target lock and if you do, you may reroll dice, then I'd accept it. But the rules say you may spend a target lock to reroll any number of dice, not spend a target lock so that you may spend any number of dice. Rules-as-written suggest that spending the lock is optional, but not the modification of the dice results. Oh well. That's FAQs for ya. I don't think it will show up too much in my games anyway.

Duraham said:

This is just wrong on a lot of levels and you obviously haven't read through the FAQ and cards. If you did, then you didn't understand it. The FAQ didn't make Zero a number. Zero has always been a number. The FAQ says you can spend a target lock to reroll no dice. The FAQ does say:

Q: Can a ship spend a target lock and choose
not to reroll any of its attack dice?
A: Yes.

Done. You people need to learn how to read.

Budgernaut said:

Q: Can a ship spend a target lock and choose
not to reroll any of its attack dice?
A: Yes.

ShadowJak said:

You've just crossed my line.

Don't you get it?! I was AGREEING WITH YOU FOR ONCE! And what thanks do I get? A comment that a Ph.D. student in the life sciences doesn't know how to read. The point here is to discuss rules not point fingers at others and declare them as incompetent. My entire point in these rules discussions has been to try to see the debates from both sides and encourage others to do so as well. It's not easy (as you clearly demonstrate now). But you can't correct someone's view on a particular issue until you understand why they see things the way they do. An open mind is the only way we will reach consensus on these forums. And by consensus, I don't mean deciding the rules. FFG does that for us. By consensus, I mean we all agree why the rulings are the way they are and what implications those rulings have on other aspects of the game.

ShadowJak said:

It has nothing to do with literacy and has everything to do with interpretations of rules based on prior experience.

Ugh. That's not the way to build credibility around here. These forums have been typically more polite than other internet forums, and I feel like most of us like it that way.

There is the argument to be made that Dark Curse prevents the use of any abilities that would reroll dice (like target locks), even if you would actually reroll zero dice. No one is disputing that, in the absence of other effects, rerolling zero dice is permissible.

Try being less of a bully, please. Unless you're secretly an FFG employee, you haven't earned the right.

Budgernaut said:

Chill out.

I understand that you agree but your reasoning is flawed. Zero has always been a number (a PhD student in life sciences should know this… or not ). The FAQ doesn't mention "Zero" in the question or answer. The cards don't mention "Zero" either. Even if they did, rolling zero dice is synonymous with rolling no dice.

Discussion on this topic has devolved into sophistry and people are commenting without having read the cards, rules, or FAQ. I posted the exact wording from the FAQ to show why the ruling is the way it is. It isn't complicated. It isn't difficult. It is plainly written. There is no deeper understanding necessary. The fact that zero is a number and is synonymous with 'none' shouldn't even have to be explained.

The discussion is over because:

Q: Can a ship spend a target lock and choose
not to reroll any of its attack dice?
A: Yes.