Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Its ability reads thus:

Reduce opponent's hand to 7 cards until this character is discarded (or 9 cards if rescuer has Tables of the Law activated).

Does this mean that their hand limit is now 7 and not 16, or that their end of turn limit is 7 and not 8?

Their end of turn limit is now 7, not 8.

(This card was made before the 16 card limit was even established.)

This is correct on all points, to my knowledge.

I guess nobody bothered to fix it, because barely anyone would use it. Also, again, this was made before the 16 limit was made, so the only way it COULD be played is "The way we want it to."

Does it have an errata because that's not what the card says it does...

I'm sure this is an old argument, considering the age of the card, I'm just not sure why it's ruled to play the way we want it to, not the way it reads.

It doesn't need an errata, but we do need to add something back into the REG it looks like.  Based on my research, there had been an entry in the REG about abilities that increase or decrease your hand size, and that they only refer to the maximum hand size at the end of Discard Phase.  This reduces that, it doesn't restrict you to 7 cards in hand maximum at other times.  I'll make a note to get that back in.

I am heading a project to give new Play As/Errata to all cards, that I hope to have complete by the time the new REG is released. Because this is an ability that currently has no set definition (does it mean that you have to discard down to 7 right away? That the max hand limit is 7? Or just the end of turn limit is 7?) Then a Play As to clarify that will suffice. It will say something to the effect of "opponent's end-of-turn hand limit is 7 (or 9 if opponent has Tables of the Law active)." Similarly, Tables of the Law will say. "Your end-of-turn hand limit is 10".

Would it be more accurate to just say "Opponent's end of turn hand limit is reduced by 1"? Isn't that what D&H is actually doing?

No, D&H should actually lower the end of turn hand limit to seven no matter what your starting point. Just like the in turn limit doesn't get bumped to 18 (or 20) if you have Tables of the Law active.

That keeps this card working correctly when we print this:

Hero - Dude I Want to Put in My Speed Deck
Special Ability: Each time you rescue at Lost Soul, increase your end of turn hand limit by 1. CBN.

If D&H were in play first it should override DIW2PiMSD's special ability and force the hand limit to 7. I know that is not what you want, but there are going to be those who complain that DIW2PiMSD is OP. Think of how good it will feel to be able to tell those naysayers that there was a counter printed all the way back in Warriors.