Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I believe we can still say that the default for Site special abilities is that they are only active when occupied by a Lost Soul unless otherwise specified (as Herod's Dungeon does).

Does that cause problems? I'm in the process of looking up the rest of the sites with special abilities.

Ironically, the only other site where an issue might come up is the other new one, Kir. Most sites specify either that they must be occupied or they trigger when a player makes a rescue attempt at them (which obviously implies they must be occupied). Kir does neither.

Site abilities also activate in battle.

There's going to have to be exceptions either way. If Site SA's are always active while they are in play, then The Ends of The Earth is uber-powerful. If Site SA's are only active when occupied or in battle, then Herod's Dungeon would be no better than Golgotha, except you can only use 1 per 50. We already have defaults with exceptions (cards target in play cards unless otherwise specified) so what's the problem with The Guardian's proposed default?

For a starting point:

The REG says that single color Sites with a special ability are only active when they're occupied.  It also says that multi-color Sites special abilities are only active when in battle.

I don't see any reason that this needs to be changed because of Herod's Dungeon.  It specifically says that the ability works when it's not occupied.  We have countless other cards with special abilities that work outside of normal game rules.  That's one of the things that special abilities do, they allow us to get around game rules in certain circumstances.

So, imo, Herod's Dungeon works just fine as written.  Kir only works when occupied.