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Heal has caused a large stink as of late. Many of us are upset that Hezekiah's Signet Ring restricts healing. This is caused by Heal requiring a search of the discard pile that many of us have never actually realized was present. In order to preserve the integrity of the game and the fact that Nazareth and Hezekiah's Signet Ring stop Exchange to deck, I want to propose a possible option that is more thematic to what healing actually is.

Presently we can heal something that has been sent to the discard pile. So if a Hero was discarded in Preparation Phase, then he can be healed in Discard Phase. I want to make the point that this is an inconsistent feature. The concept of healing never resurrects people from the dead. However our healing ability does. I think this feature of healing should be removed. We should not be able to heal past tense, instead we should have the option to heal at the moment the discard ability is used. At the time a discard is played you typically can negate or instead a discard. I'm suggesting that heal should be added to these options.

Also, why haven't we keyworded search the discard pile and retrieve a character as a "Resurrect" ability? It's thematic, and it lets us remove this capability entirely from heal.

This is one of the most positive sounding and constructive posts I've seen you make, Red. Very well said!

Thank you!

Quote from: Gabe on May 25, 2016, 08:24:46 AM

This is one of the most positive sounding and constructive posts I've seen you make, Red. Very well said!

I want to echo this, thanks for the well-thought post.  I've seen something similar to this before around here, but I think you really explain it well, particularly the reasoning behind it.  A couple of notes at first glance are below. I am not saying I'm against this at all, just things to think about if this is to be considered; maybe people can help answer them as they are brought up here as well.

1. I'd like to look back at all of the older cards that 'heal' to see what they say.  How many are explicitly past-tense?  How many actually implicitly or explicitly indicate the 'healing' happens in discard pile?  This would help determine whether this might be unintuitive for some of them, and how those individual cases might be better addressed in this proposal.

2. It is pretty firmly established that no one can play any cards while another is resolving, except in the case of Special Initiative (and even that change is very recent).  Does it make the game simpler to be able to throw down a Heal the moment someone is discarded, or does that add confusion as to when you can play cards?  Heal is already "weird" so does this make it weirder or simpler in terms of when you can play things?

3. There are some healing cards (I believe, have to look back for sure when I have the capability) that specifically reference someone being raised from the dead.  If these are "heal" cards through their abilities, would that cause an issue with how this proposal would handle them with the same brush?

For number two, I would suggest either listing healing as an immediate response, or adding it to special initiative. I think it would ultimately be easier personally. The other two points I will respond too after work. Thanks for the feedback!

So let me present the way I play cards inside of a battle and show the way I see this playing out, because there is no way to discribe it other than this.  I have an evil character that is in battle and was just discarded.  I do not move my evil character to the discard pile yet, Because to me this ends the battle phase.  So then at that point I lay down Christian Martyr killing the only rescuing hero.  At that point I pick up all my cards on my side of battle and place them in my discard pile.  I see this as the perfect way to play a heal too.  I've just be discarded, acknowledge to my opponent that I'm discarded, but let me play this heal and send my character back to territory instead of the discard.  Now, this could be the completely wrong way to play the battle phase (and I know heal doesn't work this way right now).  But I feel like there would not be any issue with having a heal played during a battle resolution (the rule on heal sends the character back to territory, so we don't have to worry about any affect to the battle phase).  Not sure if this is helpful or not, but this is the way I've always played heal until all of the latest information came out.

By game rules, them not going to discard at that moment is "incorrect."  Of course what you are doing is usually fine, and I actually set characters aside myself like that to signal "I'm not done playing cards."  But if we are looking at what exactly happens in the game state in those cases, that character is in the discard pile once that discard ability resolves, and for Heal to work how it is proposed above, you'd have to basically be able to play a Heal at SI-speeds.

So the question is, is that more confusing?  How does that interact with existing cards with Heal, and would they no longer make sense if the character is still in play?

However, whether or not old cards use terminology that fits with current rules should NOT impact the decision to fix said rules if fixing the rules improves the game.  I'm all for checking on how rule changes impact older cards, but frankly, it shouldn't matter for this.  If healing gets changed, then all healing cards will work according to the new heal rules.  There will always be old cards with wording that don't fit into the game's current rules; there's no reason to use this as a reason to hold up a rule change that will improve the game.

It still matters though, as long as we have those cards being legal.  Will it cause problems for players who have those older cards and they say one thing while the rules say another?  You're right that we often have rules that "override" that type of wording, but we have to be careful how much that happens and what impact it could have on the game or understanding of the game.

Now, to cards in existence, I just did a full search (I hope...) and could not find any healing cards that targeted discard pile (which is good, honestly those shouldn't exist).  I did find examples of cards that would be part of that "ripple" I talk about regarding changes.  For Incurable, this proposal would make it so that you could not heal those characters who were discarded while in territory.  For Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, could you still use a trigger like that during this 'special' moment of being able to heal?  It's not playing a card, but rather discarding one, and similarly even if you can activate a trigger that heals, can you activate one like this that does something else first (discarding itself)?
For these and some other cards, there would have to be answers determined before any change were implemented.

It's way less "weird" than Healing being a Search.  And this is not a snarky or ill-mannered comment; this is my honest opinion.

While I appreciate the follow-up, Heal includes a Search right now just because it matches the definition for Search.  So my follow-up to this would be: would changes to Heal as proposed here be necessary if Search changed?  Or would this be something to do independent of that conversation?
I don't want to derail this topic and rehash the Search part of it, but merely understand the input of players on whether this proposal would be desired to change Heal in this manner even if, hypothetically, Search were to change.

Find one of these cards first, then the problem can be addressed.  I can't think of anything like this off the top of my head.

Most cards like Resurrection do a Search for a character to "resurrect" them, yes.  However, both Elisha's Bones and Jairus refer to stories of people being raised from the dead and use "heal" instead.

If the heal cards searches the discard pile for a target like rising of Lazarus  than they would be stop by HSR but if the heal card says in play, it makes sense to allow an SI or special battle resolution phase to allow the heal to happen before the card is discarded.

Redoubter, I'm confused about how you play Incurable.  The way I read that card with the current rules means that any hero in territory are protected from being healed (decrease, disease, paralysis, etc.).  If this is not the way the currently is ruled I need to know, because I have a deck I play in my playgroup that actually uses that card a lot!

Keep in mind with the Brass Serpent example that its errata was based on how Healing was understood to work at the time. Obviously if it were printed today (or given an updated errata) it would simply say "Heal all Heroes."

For the record, I'm totally in favor of discussing changes to heal, but I just wanted to point out that using Brass Serpent as an example of how healing is wonky isn't the best example.

Quote from: Crashfach2002 on May 25, 2016, 02:01:05 PM

Redoubter, I'm confused about how you play Incurable.  The way I read that card with the current rules means that any hero in territory are protected from being healed (decrease, disease, paralysis, etc.).  If this is not the way the currently is ruled I need to know, because I have a deck I play in my playgroup that actually uses that card a lot!

I was referring to if a proposal were put in place that you used Heal as they were being discarded.  Right now, Incurable wouldn't stop you from being able to restore them from discard pile with a Heal, because they aren't being protected there.  If a rule change were to make it so that you used Heal as they were being discarded, well then they would still be in territory, thus protected and no Heal.

Yeah this thread is confusing going back and forth between "current" and "proposal," sorry I wasn't clearer

Got you!  I have another thing in place to keep them from being healed after the fact, but the new rule would make those extra cards not needed, which my deck would like a lot! 

Under my proposal yes, incurable would protect the characters from heal totally. Wolves in sheep's clothing would function in the same way as a played heal. I'd look at it almost as using Cov of Noah as an artifact in Special Initiative. I want this change to Heal's function regardless of a search change, different phase healing is strange and unnatural.

I'd look at it almost as using Cov of Noah as an artifact in Special Initiative.

Just to clarify, you cannot use CoN during Special Initiative if it is activated as an artifact.

please name one card that says 'heal a hero in the discard pile'

Vega, you should reread my posts

Now, to cards in existence, I just did a full search (I hope...) and could not find any healing cards that targeted discard pile (which is good, honestly those shouldn't exist).

To your other issue, old cards often say "heal in play," new cards always say "heal," but old cards often use different wording than we would prefer to include today.  And the rules for Heal had been unchanged and like that for...a decade?

heal requiring a search of the discard pile also breaks game rule of cards reseting when they go to dc pile, deck, or hand

What?  Vega, I have no clue what you are saying.  If I have a card that says "search your discard pile for a Hero," that doesn't violate anything about that card still resetting.  If you're referring to the way Heal interacts with characters in discard pile, that's honestly not relevant to whether or not it searched for them; it still targeted the character in discard, therefore it is a search.  Perhaps you can clarify what you mean?

Red's proposal makes way more sense than the current heal ruling, which is clearly confusing and seeming to go against a vast majority of the player population's understanding of the way the ability has worked for a long time, much longer than it involving a search or requiring cards be in dc pile which does not work with the majority of wording on healing cards due to them defaulting to play.

Okay, Vega, for the last part, that is how older heal cards were written, and then you still healed from discard, just like now.  That hasn't changed, even when we updated Heal to actually work last year.  I know people used shorthand in different places for healing, and we actually adjusted the rules last year to match that understanding of how it should work.  I think you might also be exaggerating the number of players whose understanding is affected.  Number of posts =/= number of players

I think we should fix that too, but I'll take what I can get. I think I was vaguely aware of that. How does that work exactly?

When a player is controlling character(s) in battle and an opponent's special ability, or a game rule
that has been triggered by an opponent's special ability, would leave that player with no character in
battle when the special ability has completed, they have Special Initiative.
When this occurs, all abilities are paused and suspended (including additional abilities on cards
played or any triggers) and the player with their character(s) being removed has the opportunity to
play an Enhancement that will interrupt or negate the ability that is causing the removal (or that
triggered the corresponding game rule). The enhancement played must be able to interrupt or
negate the removing ability. If the card with the removing ability was already removed from play
due to its ability, it may still be targeted during Special Initiative by an enhancement that specifically
targets its card type.

You have the opportunity to play an enhancement, not activate a trigger.  And we've had that discussion on the boards here before (very long); there are a tiny number of cards where this actually matters (see Herod Agrippa II and Abandonment), because you can still use those triggers in almost every case after SI ends, and so making it so that you can use triggers opens up a big can of worms for what amounts to no real benefit (in the end).

If there should be more questions on this one point, it could probably use a different thread so as not to derail it here, and I just wanted to address it as specifically relates to the response regarding the issue with how to treat Wolves.