Stannis's Northern Cavalry and King's Pavillion 2 - the revenge

By HalfonE, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

Posted at

Hi to all,

i'm new to the forum and I joined this game a few months ago. Sorry for my poor English :/

As the topic title says, this is a reply to an old entry (Stannis's Northern Cavalry and King's Pavillion) that i've read yesterday.

I'm here just to propose another interpretation... but let's proceed step by step:

1) comparing the text of Flaming Sword (FS) and Stannis's Northern Cavalry (SNC), we can note a difference: the 'BY A CARD EFFECT' present on FS but not on the SNC.

2) Think for a moment to the functioning of Pyat Pree: summarizing, he can kill Cat'o canal because his effect acts to an entity, that i will call 'THE X ENTITY', and then this entity kills Cat'o canal. Cat'o canal is immune to opposing CARD EFFECT, but is not immune to X ENTITY, so she dies. This is just to show that such an ENTITY really exist :D.

3) if i play 'Endless Endurance' (EE), the STR goes from X to X+2. Now i ask:

--- has the STR been raised? - YES!

--- And again: has the STR been raised BY A CARD EFFECT? Yes again!

At the end of the phase, the STR boost effect cease to exist... and the cause is the same "X ENTITY" (i think to it as 'GAME RULES' but this is daesn't really matter). So again, if i ask:

--- has the STR been lowered? response: Yes, from X+2 to X is a reduction.

--- But now if I ask "has the STR been lowered BY A CARD EFFECT?" the response is: 'NO', because the lowering happened because of X ENTITY, not because of a CARD EFFECT.

To summarize:

if a Stark char of mine has flaming sword attached to it and i play EE choosing it, at the end of the phase his STR will be back to the normal value, because FS prevent the STR reduction ONLY if this STR reduction happened from A CARD EFFECT;

instead, if I attack (and kneel) with my SNC with a King's Pavillion in play, his STR goes from X+3 to X and this is a STR reduction (though the cause is NOT a CARD EFFECT but the X ENTITY, again, that prevent the effect from applying to a non-valid char); but with the actual wording of SNC, it doesn't matter if the STR reduction happened because X or Y or Z: the only thing that matters is that the STR has been lowered, so SNC ability apply.

My suggestion is: apply a FAQ to SNC, changing his wording to '[...] during a phase in which its STR has been raised or lowered by a card effect.'

Benefits: the actual interpretation is based on an assumption: the meaning of the phrase 'str lowered' is not 'str lowered', but 'an effect that lower the STR starts to apply' (this assumption is needed to 'cut out' the 'STR boosting effect that cease to apply'). this assumption is strange: the meaning of the phrase X is not X...whoa! :D

with the new interpretation, the meaning of the phrase "X" is exactly "X", no assumption has to be made... but it requires a FAQ on SNC to to make it work as well as it works today. ^^

obviusly, this post is just 'pour parler' :D

cheers

Posted at

First of all, your English is perfectly comprehensible and considerably better than that of many native speakers here on the boards!

Alors.... parlons.

1) That entity does exist, and it is the game rules. Pyatt modifies the framework of resolving claim.

2) Endless Endurance's effect doesn't end because of "that entity", it ends because of its own lasting effect (the card, when triggered, says "until end of phase"). There's no rule that says a strength modifier can't persist longer than that. That throws a bit of a wrench in your argument, as I see it!

You have a better case for King's Pavillion - but the long and the short of it is that there's isn't really a problem with the current interpretation; that increases and expiry of increases does not count as "lowering" - only the application of a negative modifier. It may not be as linguistically precise as it could be, but the better way of fixing that would be templating negative modifiers to all use the word "lower" (or something similar).

Edited by -Istaril
Posted at

If you are a French speaker, come on the French language forum (this assumption is based only on your use of "pour parler").

Posted at

If you are a French speaker, come on the French language forum (this assumption is based only on your use of "pour parler").

No! No stealing coherent potential future rules-question answering members from these boards! Especially one with no difficulty expressing themselves in english.

Edited by -Istaril
Posted at
Well... i'm not French: i'm Italian! i've used 'pour parler' just to confuse all of you!!! :D
@Istaril: thank you for the feedback about my English, though it took me about 1 hour to write the topic... hehe :D
So, back to the discussion:
- 1) ok, we agree -> "THE X ENTITY" now formally has a name: 'The Game Rules'
- 2) ok, i understand the objection; but here's an objecton's objection:
The problem here is that the distinction between the "Effect" and the "Duration" part of a card Text isn't well defined in the Rules (as far as i know)... the Rules says that
Card Ability = {Play Restriction, Cost, Effect, Target}. (Card Ability refer to Event card or character ability)
According to the Rules, "The effect of an event/character ability is what the event card / character ability does when played.". It doesn't refer in any way to the Duration, though it neither explicitly says that the Effect has nothing to do with the Duration :D

Maybe a clarification here would help... my suggestion is to define each Ability as composed by 5 parts: {Restriction, Cost, Target, Effect, Duration}; so the ability's Effect would be distinct from the ability's Duration.

So: Endless Endurance has Play Restriction (only Challenges), no Cost, an Effect (+2 STR), a Target (stark char) and a Duration (until the end of challenge). Such 'parameters' are 'fixed' by the card, but they are completely managed by The Game Rules.
In other words: the fact that a card's effect cease to exist once it's duration expires is stated by The Game Rules, not by the card itself. The card only specify the "parameter" duration; it's management belongs to The Game Rules.
Ok, i've made my objection! your turn ^^