Cactus Game Design Message Boards

First, I'm not sure why you're trying to bring anything into an argument here about what Heal should do except game mechanics.  Second, you give examples of things that happened and then say that having heal undo them doesn't make sense.  I'm really not following your logic, but it really isn't applicable here in the first place.

Nothing was 'lost' when we simplified things, we gained clarity.  What does "about to be discarded" actually mean?  How does that jive with the new SI rules, or how nothing can be played normally when things are resolving, etc.?  By clarifying what that means on old cards (we have done that with plenty of abilities) we have a set rule that everyone can follow.  You mention how you don't know how everyone treated heal previously, and that's actually part of the problem...there was interpretation.  We've worked hard to try and make everything standard no matter where you play.

Heal is now more intuitive for how Redemption mechanics work generally.  In any case, we have the rulings for all of the questions asked thus far in this thread (at least the ones I saw).

with the way the reg is currently worded it seems you really could choose either way of clarifying heal. you could a) make it an instead where characters can be healed instead of going to dc pile in which case the search and hsr stuff is all cleared up or b) you can make heal an exception of an ability where regardless of hitting the dc pile characters are given the chance to revert and recapture placed cards. - this is where i am questioning which is more squishy in terms of game ruling and which is more intuitive. is it more intuitive to have a rule where cards which hit deck, discard, or hand are reset- with the exception of healing? or is it more intuitive to have heal as an instead, where they never wind up going there and thereby creating the need for such an exception to game rule?

or c) we can leave it as is and have it continue to make sense and work, if not as strongly as some would like. Heal is not now an instead nor has it ever been an instead. might it have been played similarly to an instead? sure, doesn't mean that it was played correctly though. The rules work. A character has to be an acceptable target of heal to be healed. If that means that the hero has to hit discard pile first and your Paul then reverts to Saul or Peter can't reach him through HSR that stinks, but it isn't a reason to change a rule that makes sense and simplifies the process.

Rules rarely get made because that's how we'd like it to be played. If that was the system used, then there would be a whole lot of "NAME automatically wins the match if he declares it so" rules...

If we want to make heal something that can be played "before discard" like the rule book suggested, maybe this is an easy way to fix it.  When your character is granted special initiative then you can play a card that interrupts/negates said card(s) OR heal any heal able characters. 

You are given SI in the case of a CBN battle winner (i.e. Michael w/ Striking Herod, Black Simon the Magician or Sisera w/ Wrath of Satan against correct opponent), but obviously you can't interrupt/negate those but since you have SI you can heal them.

I'm not suggesting we make the ruling change, just trying to give a good way to implement it the way some people are seeing/wanting it to be played, and I feel this way there isn't a whole lot of added confusion/change.

Redoubter, I know you have put a ton of work in to the REG, and before I go on I want to say thank you for all you have done to clarify these intensely complex rulings.

with the current wording of the reg an enhancement can be played on a character in the dc pile. it just doesn't make sense on top of the game rule to reset..

again - this is where i am questioning which is more squishy in terms of game ruling and which is more intuitive. is it more intuitive to have a rule where cards which hit deck, discard, or hand are reset- with the exception of healing? or is it more intuitive to have heal as an instead, where they never wind up going there and thereby creating the need for such an exception to game rule?

again, from the 10th anniversary rule book under healing enhancements:

Example: You have Silas, a blue brigade Hero, in the Field
of Battle and Isaiah, a green brigade Hero, in your territory.
Silas has been defeated and is on his way to the discard
pile. You activate the green brigade enhancement Ointment
on Isaiah. Ointment reads, “Heal any Hero in play.” Then
you direct the healing effect at Silas. This heals Silas and
returns him to your territory.



i offer my solution.. we are going to have to have some given grace here in terms of understanding the original intention behind healing cards and the way they were meant to work to begin with(and the way they have been played for years), to not break the other rules. i understand you may see it as impossible to be an instead with the current wording of instead, but if a hero is poisoned or paralyzed, then healed- isn't that an instead?

we know that healed characters go back to territory when healed. i don't feel special initiative is the solution here regarding the original wording of healing clarification. the only problem is there isn't a place for them to go yet between where they were when the discard ability was played, depending on where they were discarded from, and the discard pile. this is the middle ground that needs grace to be solved. there has to be a place where throughout the turn characters can be to be targeted for healing, without being playable.

i'm thinking paralysis may be the real solution here. paralysis of pending to be discarded characters until the current turns discard phase, in which they are discarded, if not healed. so a paralyzed character would go somewhere (this is the place which is undefined, but currently defined as dc pile) when the dc ability is played, paralyzed, where after throughout certain phases, prep or dc, they may be healed to prevent them from going to the dc pile, but if they aren't then they go there- in which case they must be searched for to ever return.

i think this was the original intention behind healing and this is a great solution that solves healing's game breaking current wording.

yeah, there was a space where healing could happen to prevent the rule of cards reset when they hit dc/deck/hand from happening when they hit the dc pile.. this is why you even said yourself healing is weird. it HAS become an exception to game rule because of wording, outside of original intention.

yeah, there was a space where healing could happen to prevent the rule of cards reset when they hit dc/deck/hand from happening when they hit the dc pile.. this is why you even said yourself healing is weird. it HAS become an exception to game rule because of wording, outside of original intention.

I'm sorry, but there was never really that space.  The rules for heal never actually jived with the rest of the rules of the game.  Now they do, and the only thing that seems to be upsetting to some is that you cannot heal to discard when there is a HSR up.  That stinks and all, but it is correct per the rules.  Adding limbo, and adding weird interactions to heal, would not help the game.  It would make it so you could heal with HSR up, but at the expense of a whole host of other consequences alluded to before.  If there were anything to happen to change heal, that would not be it.  We would have to change how heal targets, not do something with an in-between state for cards.

let me ask you this, is naaman's heal an instead?

Absolutely not.  Nothing in that ability indicates an instead.  It is just a heal that targets a healable EC.

EDIT: Apparently you edited your post since I quoted it.  Namaan himself is an instead.  His heal removes all conditions he has as well, which is what the story is about.  It tells you what to do instead of discarding him.  Not sure why that's relevant here, it has nothing to do with heal as a whole.

honestly it has very little to do with hsr and way more to do with the fact that i have been told countless times that cards reset when they hit deck/dc/hand and now healing is some sort of exception.

that seems inconsistent. and i cannot see how 'about to be discarded' is not an instead.

you are telling me that there is no difference between the words 'about to be discarded' and 'in the discard pile'

You need to review the current rules, and not be looking to the past.  I've already addressed how heal currently works in this thread, here is instead:

An ability cannot be affected by instead ​retroactively; instead ​must trigger during the activation.

Instead has to already be active in order to work, tied to an ongoing trigger.  Namaan activates when placed in battle.  If he is discarded, "instead" he is targeted by a heal and then converted to a hero.  The discard never actually takes place.

You cannot activate an ability or play a card between the discard and the character hitting discard pile.  Namaan works because his instead is already in place, and it is an instead.  Heal cannot be done in-between, unless it were also tied to an instead on a card.

Not the same situations, sorry, it doesn't work that way.

EDIT: Please stop just modifying your posts and changing the actual content...the quote above was your original submission, and no, I did not say that, please read the above.

so what about Peter? he is ongoing

Which does not have an instead modifying the ability.  When you can use activated abilities, you can activate Peter.  He does not work in-between things completing, as noted in the Activated Abilities section of the REG.

i'm just saying man.. it seems like the wording has become overly binding to the original wording of healing abilities and their intent.

still a broken heal rule making cards go to the dc pile, then revert all of this stuff because of one heal ability. that's what i'm saying is wrong.

there needs to be a solution that is more in line with the past.. the game is 20 years old. these cards/reg are less than 2

Vega, I've addressed everything.  There's nothing broken with things reverting upon healing, and I can tell you that this was actually the intention of the original heal (having spoken with Elders who have been around longer than myself).  We've fixed heal, made it how it should have worked, and made it so that it works with our current rules.  I'm not keen on trying to break the game, which is what the suggestions so far would do.

Unless something new is raised here, I'll just let this thread go.  Nothing new to actually say, sorry.

Does this mean Potter's field can make a come back? Lol

Yeah except for the fact that with this current ruling of Paul going to dc, becoming Saul again by game rule, he CAN be targeted by Peter as a HERO, or in the next phase by love and even brass serpent, healed, then reverted back to Paul the hero with previously placed but discarded enhancements..

Is this correct? If so, how?

Quote from: kariusvega on March 20, 2016, 02:44:40 AM

Yeah except for the fact that with this current ruling of Paul going to dc, becoming Saul again by game rule, he CAN be targeted by Peter as a HERO, or in the next phase by love and even brass serpent, healed, then reverted back to Paul the hero with previously placed but discarded enhancements..

Is this correct? If so, how?

Yes.

If a character was discarded earlier in the turn, a heal ability must be able to target or be played on that character as it existed prior to being discarded (the character type and brigade it had prior to being discarded), not as it is at face value in discard pile.