Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I am fairly sure they don't stay active in Set Aside.

How long would they stay active for? The phase, the turn, the round? And what about one like Iron Pan that is constantly updating?

But I assume that Artifacts set aside with Samaritan's Water Jar aren't active due to never having been activated in play.

Yep.  Just placing an artifact does not activate it, and it was only placed in set-aside.

How long would they stay active for? The phase, the turn, the round? And what about one like Iron Pan that is constantly updating?

They would stay active as long as they are up.  Based on my understanding of artifact activations, it would technically be taken down the next prep phase when artifacts get handled, as it must 'reactivate' on the character.  It cannot do so on a character in set-aside.

But you're saying that keeping Magic Charms on my magician would use up my artifact activation every turn?

It doesn't use up your activation.  Only Priestly Breastplate does (to my knowledge) because it can be 'placed on' a character, not 'held' or 'activated' on.  However, each turn it would still be activated (essentially) from your pile back out.

Charms can be 'activated' on your magician but (as far as I know for the rules) it is technically still activated each turn out of the pile onto a magician.

Of course, it's not exactly clear how any of that works, but that is what I have gleaned from similar rulings.

So, artifacts that are activated on people (or something else) re-activate each turn, but it is not counted as an "artifact activation?" I'm confused. 

Let me try to explain. Normally you can only activate one artifact during your prep phase, however there are quite a few ways to activate extra ones, like Magic Charms on a Magician or Solomon's Temple, each of these essentially allows you to activate their artifact in addition to your normal activation. So I can activate Magic Charms on a Magician and The Golden Cherubim in my Solomon's Temple in addition to activating Household Idols in my artifact pile.

Each turn during your prep phase (at this point it isn't defined as to when, so its up to the player) all your artifacts deactivate and you reactivate them. Normally it makes little difference so you can just leave everything as it is, but some cards trigger on activation, so you can do that each turn.

Finally, due to bad wording and artifact activation rules Priestly Breastplate has to activate in your artifact pile before being placed on a priest, but it deactivates, thus returning it to the artifact pile, and to place it again you have to use up your artifact activation phase.

Basically you can think of all "Holds an active <Insert Artifact Here>" and "You may activate this on <Insert Location Here>" as mini artifact slots that each have their own activation.

I'm with YMT on this one. Artifacts need to activate each turn. An Artifact in set-aside is not able to activate seeing as it's not in play. So it stays active rather than deactivating and staying off until it can activate again... How does this make any sort of sense?

That's not exactly what YMT was questioning.  His question seemed to go back to whether it counts as your 'activation' for the turn to activate an artifact on a character.

Characters and fortresses (and sometimes sites...) can hold an artifact.  When they can, they will (or the artifact will) specify that they can be "held" or "activated" there.  That DOES NOT count as your 'activation' for the turn for the pile.  You may only activate ONE artifact on the pile, but you can activate any number that are "held" or "activated" elsewhere (like Temple Artifacts going in a Temple).

Priestly Breastplate is different because its ability 'places' it on a character as part of the ability, and it does not meet that criteria above.

Artifacts have to be able to be held/activated on their target each turn.  If it is the Artifact Pile, you only get one of those in a given turn.

If you have an artifact in set-aside, the effect still goes (as long as it doesn't say something about it needing to be in play, but even then it's checking for that condition).  When you next resolve your artifacts, that artifact goes through the pile to be 'reactivated' and thus cannot be placed on a target in set-aside (by default).  It returns, deactivated, to the pile unless you activate it on a different, legal target.

It is actually consistent with the other rules we have about artifacts.  I'm not sure which part you still have a problem with, let me know.

If artifacts reactivate every prep phase, wouldn't you be able to switch an artifact to a different person? At a tournament, I had Astrologers and Chaldeans in play with Charms on Astrologers. I wanted to move it to Chaldeans but I was told I couldn't unless I deactivated it for a turn (something along the lines of choosing not to activate it again on Astrologers meant choosing not to have it active for that turn). Was that an incorrect ruling then?

If artifacts reactivate every prep phase, wouldn't you be able to switch an artifact to a different person? At a tournament, I had Astrologers and Chaldeans in play with Charms on Astrologers. I wanted to move it to Chaldeans but I was told I couldn't unless I deactivated it for a turn (something along the lines of choosing not to activate it again on Astrologers meant choosing not to have it active for that turn). Was that an incorrect ruling then?

My guess is that ruling was made based on a player not being able to deactivate Lampstand, use Falling Away, and then reactivate Lampstand.

There's definitely some things that could be ironed out better with artifacts and I could see myself being okay with that ruling going either way.

This is just more reason to have a defined artifact phase with specific rules on what can be done

I'd be all for an artifact phase before the Prep Phase (after would work in theory, but that would cause some difficulties with dealing with artifacts activating right before the battle, and the rulings on how the battle starts by moving a hero into battle and muddying that with artifact activation could be confusing)