Hi everyone, I have played my first couple of games with the core set and there where some questions that we werent completly sure if we played right and would appriciate to get help clarifying. (I tried searching but either no one have asked this or the forum search is poorly constructed)

1. If not specified does plot card effects affect everyone? For example there is a Lannister plot that simply says "Skip taxation phase this round", does that mean that all players skip taxation round or only the Lannister player?

2. Is there any rules to when event cards and character abilities can be happen?

For example my opponent have have done a military challenge already and now is going to declare a intriuge challenge. I know that I will loose the intriuge challenge. I know I will loose it so I play my any phase event card that raises one of my characters even though I had saved it for a more important situation just so it atleast gets used and not randomly discarded.

3. When we played we seperated the discard pile from the dead pile was this correct? Not sure why we did it but I noticed some cards refeered to the dead pile and some to the discard pile so just guessed it should be 2 different things

4. Can a charachter have negative strenght? For example if he if he/she has a attachment that puts it into negative

5. during marshalling if you play a location card that allows you to kneel to get your next card -1 cost, can you kneel it the same round you put it into play?

6a. When you loose a military challenge it's the defender who chooses what character that gets killed right?
6b. If 6a is yes, then can you choose a character that has for example a attachment that saves it from being killed? which then actually means that no one got killed

That's all question I had right now, I will post more in this thread if I come accross anything else.

Thanks in advance

Persiatic said:

1. Yes.

2. Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Check the FAQ for detailed timing charts. There are specific "player action windows" in which you can use anything that counts as a player action (eg; "Any Phase" or "Challenges" (provided you're in the challenge phase). In your case, as long as the card in question said "Any Phase" or "Challenges", there are, in fact, two opportunities to play the card - one after he declares attackers and before you declare defenders, and one after you declare defenders but before you begin to resolve the challenge.

3. The dead and Discard pile are different entities - as you realized, certain cards and rules only affect one or the other. The most important distinction is for unique characters - if a unique character is in your dead pile, you cannot play another card with that title. If it's in your discard pile, there's no such restriction.

4. No. You sum up all bonuses and negatives at the same time, and any result lower than 0 becomes 0.

5. Yes.

6a. Yes

6b. Yes. The important distinction is that you can't choose a character that "cannot be killed" (eg, a noble character with "Power of Blood" as your active plot), but you can choose a character that would be killed and then save them.

4. It is important to remember, though, that you start from scratch every time you look at a character's STR. So just because a character with negative STR is treated as if it had 0 STR does not mean that it has 0 STR when the next modifier is applied.

For example, say you have a 1-STR character that is given a -2 STR modifier (like, say, Poison Wine). 1 - 2 = -1, but you treat the character as if it had 0 STR (which is important because it means that if that character and a 3-STR character are attacking, your total challenge STR is 3 + 0 = 3, not 3 - 1 = 2). However, if you then play a +1 STR modifier on that same 1-STR character with Poison Wine, you start from the beginning and get 1 - 2 + 1 = 0. You do not start from the 0 it was treated at to get 0 + 1 = 1.

Thanks guys for the fast replies, and thanks a lot for the clarifications. I will post in this same thread after our play's this weekend if anything else comes up so I don't clog up the forum with new threads.

Best Regards
Pers

Hi again, We have now had a couple of more games under our belt and I have also built the four 60card decks with 2xCore that Darkbane recommended. Man this game is awsome, so much tactical possibilities. Only downside I see is that it's so much stuff that you need to remmeber that it can get overwhelming sometimes.

Anyway, I have some more question I was hoping you more experienced players maybe could help me out with:

1. Ser Davos Seaworth ability reads: "Response: Save Ser Davos Seaworth from being killed, then pay 1 gold or return him to his owner's hand. "
What does this mean? We have played it as you can save him and if you pay1g he stays in play otherwise he goes back to your hand. Not sure if the first part is correct that he always can be saved.

2. If a card says "immune to character abilities" does that include stuff like Stealth and Deadly?

3. Varys ability reads: "Plot: If you have more than one opponent, kneel Varys to choose an opponent. Until the end of the round, switch plot decks and used plot piles with that opponent." Does this include the active plot as well? or is it more that you should trigger this before people play plots?

4. Winterfel Castle reads: "Each of your House Stark characters gets +1 STR." Just wanted to confirm if this is something that is permanent during all phases? When we played this was just so freaking powerful.

5. Winterfel Kennels read: "Any Phase: Kneel Winterfell Kennels and pay 1 gold to search your deck for a Direwolf card, reveal that card to all players, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your deck." In for example marshalling phase can you pay 3g and search the deck for 3 direwolves?

6. What do you do if you get duplicates of unique locations/attachments? I guess you cant "attach" them like you do with duplicate characters right?

7. Lady Daenarys Chambers reads: "Response: After you play a House Targaryen character, return an attachment with printed cost equal to or lower than that character from your discard pile to your hand." The way we understood this was that during marshalling after each character played by the Tagaryn player he can search his discard pile and put an attachment into his hand and also play it during the same marshalling phase turn. This seemed extremly powerful and just wanted to know if we played it correctly?

this are all the question for now

Thanks

I'm new myself, but I'll take a shot.

1. The way you are playing looks right to me. You don't need to kneel Davos to save him, so you can trigger his response anytime. If you've got gold, you can keep him in play. If not, he goes to your hand.

2. Stealth and deadly are keywords, not abilities. Abilities are things in the printed text box (both passive and triggered effects), but abilities don't include icons (mil, int, pwr), crests (war, noble, learned, holy, shadows, etc), strength, traits (lord, ally, dragon, etc), or keywords (no attachments, deadly, intimidate, etc).

3. Ill have to pass on answering this. I've only played a few melee games, and this hasn't come up. Check the flow chart in the FAQ

4. Yup, +1 in all phases. Good card.

5. You cold do this 3 times in marshalling if you found a way to stand the kennel master back up. He has to kneel each time as part of the cost of his triggered ability.

6. I'm sure you can use duplicates for locations. I don't believe you can for attachments. Ice is the only unique attachment in core that I can think of. My guess is that you are stuck with a dead card in your hand, although maybe if the unique attachment gets discarded instead of dead you can play your duplicate later.

7. The way you are playing looks right. There's no limit text or cost, so I believe you can use this effect multiple times per round. Welcome to recursion

1. Not sure what you mean by "he can always be saved." You can't, for example, just trigger the ability because you want to return him to hand. Something has to be actively in the process of killing him in order to trigger the Response. However, since there is no cost to trigger the save (the gold in a cost to keep him in play after saving him), you can pretty much use it for every killing effect that comes his way - provided that you can keep him in play, of course.

2. Keywords are not considered "character abilities," so "immune to character abilities" will not interact with them at all. On a side note, it is worth noting that the answer in the previous post potentially overstates what is considered to be "in the printed text box." Challenge icons, STR banners, and crests are not considered to be part of the text box.

3. Plots have three separate states: plot deck, used pile, and currently revealed. Varys only affects plots in two of those states. The currently revealed plot for each player stays where it is (and could actually be "captured" into the other player's used pile during the exchange period).

4. It's a continuous effect. As your card pool expands, though, you'll probably find its cost very prohibitive.

5. Let's make sure we get this question right. It is true that there is nothing stopping you from triggering the ability multiple times - so long as you can pay the whole cost multiple times (which would include standing the location so that you can kneel it to pay the cost each time). However, what your question implies - and what you cannot do - is kneel the location once and decide that the "pay 1 gold to search for a Direwolf" really means "pay 3 gold to search for 3 Direwolves." When you trigger an effect, you follow the text exactly. One kneel corresponds to 1 gold and 1 Direwold for this location. It would need to say something like "Kneel the Kennels and pay X gold to search for X direwolves" in order to give the player any say in how much gold and how many Direwolves they can get for triggering the location one time.

6. Check the rules on unique cards and duplicates again. Everything about duplicates talks about "unique cards ," not "unique characters. So there is nothing stopping you from using dupes on locations and attachments (there are effects that remove those from play that you could save against too, after all). The dead pile restriction also applies to unique cards , although there aren't a lot of effects that put locations and attachments into the dead pile. (But if you wait a bit, the simple fact that I made that statement usually means that someone will take it as a personal challenge and post a list of ways it can happen….)

7. There is no limit, other than the play restrictions on the card. Just make sure you know the difference between "play" and "put into play." For example, if you use Khal Drogo's ability to put him into play from your hand, you have not "played" him, so you would not be able to trigger the Chambers.

ktom said:

Thanks for the fast replys to my questions much appriciated.

Ktom: I got a bit confused about this reply, I understand that you saying that Varys ability affects used pile and plot deck. but I couldn't understand the caputered in used pile part. Is it because you put the revealed plot in the used pile as a last step before the round ends?

Also I'm not sure about this but is my suggestion of triggering his ability before people actually play plots a valid way of getting to play plots from someone elses deck?

Plots do not go to the used pile at the end of the round. They go there when another plot is revealed. There are ways to make players reveal new plots outside of the framework (CS Bran, for instance).

Even without getting that sneaky, using his ability in the plot phase action window before plots are revealed means that each person's currently revealed plot will go into their opponent's used pile and they will keep whichever one is revealed from each other's plot decks.

To build on J_Roel's answer, and to be 100% direct in answering your questions (in more detail than you probably want):

Persiatic said:

Anyway, if we're playing and you use Varys, we trade plot decks and used piles, but not the currently revealed plot. That means you give me 6 of your plots (between your plot deck and used pile) and I keep 1 of mine (my currently revealed plot). Same for you (you have 6 of mine and 1 of yours). If we reveal plots during the exchange, I still have 6 of yours and 1 of mine, but now, that 1 of mine is in your used pile and 1 of yours is my revealed plot. Same for you. At the end of the phase, I give you back 6 plots, but now 5 of those are yours and 1 of them is mine (in the used pile). I keep 1 of yours (the revealed plot). Same for you.

So, the end result of using Varys' ability before plots are revealed (so we each have to reveal a plot from the other's plot deck) is that after the exchange, we each end up with 2 of the other guy's plots: the 1 that was revealed when Varys' ability was triggered (that is now in the used pile) and the 1 that we chose to reveal from their plot deck (which is now our revealed plots).

Convoluted, but that's how it works.

Persiatic said:

Thanks a lot for the detailed answers, I get the use of it now. Suddenly Varys card became very useful and sneaky indeed.

thanks again for helping me with my questions, I will update this same thread if I have some more questions in the future so I'm not creating unecessary threads.

I want to chime in and thank ktom and others. I learn a lot reading these, and I thank him for his time and patience. Sorry if I mislead anyone on the unique attachments question. It's good to know that you can play unique attachments even if there's a copy in your discard pile. I'd love to see if anyone found a way to send attachments or locations to the dead pile as ktom referenced.

a situation came up which we where a bit uncertain of last night. I took control of starks kennel master and the stark player had 2 direwolfs. Do the kennel master still get +strength from the direwolves even though the wolves are not in my control?

The question is basically does charachters that get bonus stuff depending on cards with certain traits, does only the traits of your own characters count or the whole board?

The second question would be, if you take control of a character/location that has an attachment do you get the attachment as well?

Persiatic said:

That depends on the wording. Try to take the wording as literally as possible. Kennel Master says it gets +1 STR for each Direwolf in play, so it doesn't matter who controls them. If the text said "Kennel Master gets +1 STR for each Direwolf you control", only Direwolf cards controlled by the controller of Kennel Master would give the bonus.

Persiatic said:

You only take control of the character/location, but the attachment stays attached to it.

If the attachment modifies the card it is attached to, the modifications would still apply. Let's say you take control of a character with Gutter Rat's Cunning attached to it. Even though you don't take control of the attachment, it stays attached to the character and still give the +2 STR amd Stealth.

Note, though, that only the controller of a card may trigger abilities on that card. Say you take control of a character with LoW Grey Wind. You can do with the character as you please, but only the controller of Grey Wind may use him to kill people.

There's also cases where taking control of a card will cause its attachments to fall off. Remember that attachment restrictions apply at all times. Look at Pyromancer's Cache. It says "Attach to a location you control". So if your opponent takes control of your location with your Pyromancer's Cache attached, the restriction is no longer met, and the Cache is discarded.

Great, then we played it as it was supposed to. Tnx alot for the quick reply and detailed info