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Could it be because of the new crop of negates that now have CBP or CBN that have arisen? In the past if something was negated by a character, there were not many options available...now there are several...I thank Gabe for that reference in the REG. I looked through the REG and searched initiative and such but came up empty-handed for the condition I was looking for otherwise the question would not have been raised.

The improvement where Special Initiative is granted when a SA is causing you to lose the battle. As-is, it's more like granted when an SA is making you maybe lose the battle if you don't have any more enhancements or doms.

But how is that an improvement? I like being able to negate if I "am losing," I think it's a good part of the game and that's how it's now ruled. Why would only "losing" necessitate a negate be any better? Different, sure, but I have yet to see a reason to prefer.

First of all, there doesn't need to be a "special" initiative.  The only reason we have it is because a lot of players are confused on what to do when they no longer have a character in battle, which requires that the SA causing the condition be interrupted.

The bottom line is you gain initiative when you are losing the battle, and this could occur whether you have characters in battle or not, and even if those characters are different due to CTB or CTR.

I don't know what's more simple than that.

The problem is not a type of initiative.  The problem is dominants.  They cause all sorts of issues, e.g. slapjack, permission to respond, etc.

Fix the rules for doms, not initiative.

Im worried that with the new rule book the rules for initiative, ignore, ect. will be fixed and simplified when they are not broken.

And yet these are the most common Ruling Questions threads, or at least the ones that need the most discussion because the West Coast doesn't rule it the same way as the Midwest.

Quote from: Isildur on October 03, 2011, 06:41:26 PM

Im worried that with the new rule book the rules for initiative, ignore, ect. will be fixed and simplified when they are not broken.

And yet these are the most common Ruling Questions threads, or at least the ones that need the most discussion because the West Coast doesn't rule it the same way as the Midwest.

Even though only myself, Stamp, Eric Wolfe and Lightning Ninja are the ones from the West Coast who post in the ruling section besides Bryon? Seems to be more of a Midwest vs East Coast to me.

Quote from: Isildur on October 03, 2011, 10:33:19 PM

Even though only myself, Stamp, Eric Wolfe and Lightning Ninja are the ones from the West Coast who post in the ruling section besides Bryon? Seems to be more of a Midwest vs East Coast to me.

I was picking regions out of a hat. My point was that not all regions are ruling the same. 

How big is your hat? 

Quote from: ChristianSoldier on October 03, 2011, 10:22:32 PM

Special Initiative is needed for more than Dominants, if it were the same as normal initiative I wouldn't need to have an interrupt to stop removal by a special ability.

I beg to differ.  The only reason there is a definition for special initiative is because it was confusing to most players that you could play any enhancement in the first place when all your characters were removed from battle.  It still comes down to gaining initiative then determining what are your options.  Sometimes those options require an interrupt only and sometimes not.

I still would say that as long as Redemption keeps to the mechanic that abilities have to complete before another ability can be inserted we must have a special rule for being removed from battle otherwise you would never get to play an enhancement when you are being removed because you wouldn't have a character in battle when the ability completed.  Special Initiative exists for the same reason the Stack exists in MtG and the Chain Rule exists in Yu-gi-oh, it must exist to keep the game interesting, normal initiative wouldn't work in the case of removal so long as abilities have to complete before another ability can be inserted.

I see 3-1 for elders, and was unsure of Prof Underwood's stance...

That's OK, because I'm unsure of my stance as well

I can see both sides on this one, and am fine with going with the majority opinion of my fellow elders.  I just imagine a scenario where a 5/1 hero is blocked by 5 banded Panic Demons of various brigades (all 2/4).  The hero first plays Zeal for the Lord to discard 2 of the PDs.  After that we would count the numbers and see that the defense still had a toughness of 12 and therefore the hero would still have "normal initiative".  Then the attacker plays Angel of the Lord to discard another PD.  We count numbers again and see that the defense is now a 4/8 so "regular initiative" still stays with the hero.  He then plays Trumpet and Sword (while x=1) to discard one more PD.  We count numbers again and see that the toughness is down to 4 and initiative will pass.  The question is whether it will be "regular initiative" again, or whether it would turn into "special initiative" since it was passed due to an EC leaving battle.

One side would say that it should be "regular initiative" again to be consistent with what happened when the other ECs were discarded, and since the battle is not ending by any special ability at this point, but rather just by the numbers.

The other side would say that it's more consistent to say that anytime a person has initiative due to their character leaving battle that they have "special initiative" to play a negate of whatever caused that situation.