Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Is being Gathered a weapon?

No but captured hero that is treated a lost does lose the gatheredness I thought.

Hey,

I think The Hobbit has a point here.

If a character in a territory has an enhancement placed on them (by an ability like Agur is the only way I can think of that this would happen) and that character is shuffled into a draw pile, I would rule that the enhancement on the character is shuffled too because of the "placed cards follow the cards they are placed on" rule.  Similarly if that character was returned to hand I would rule that the enhancement is returned to hand as well because of the same rule.

I realize that weapons are not exactly like placed enhancements, but they are similar.  And if a "regular" enhancement on a character in a territory follows it to the draw pile or back to its owner's hand, why wouldn't a weapon?

After all the REG does say, "Weapons follow bearers to battle, set aside area, and when returned to territory as a Hero or Evil Character. Otherwise they are regular enhancements."

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly, WildCard Secretary of Defense
www.freewebs.com/redemptionne

Hey,

You bolded the area of the REG that says weapons act like regular Enhancements other than following the character to those specific areas.  Therefore, I am going to go by that, and treat them like regular Enhancements, not placed Enhancements.

Isn't a "regular" enhancement on a character in a territory the same thing as a "placed" enhancement on a character in a territory?  That's what I was thinking when I chose to bold that statement.  I was thinkiing "regular" as opposed to "weapon-class."

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly, WildCard Secretary of Defense
www.freewebs.com/redemptionne

Hey,

If a character enters battle holding a weapon, and during the battle another weapon is played on the character, if the character survives battle, can it choose to discard the weapon it entered battle with and take the new weapon with it when it leaves battle?

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly, WildCard Secretary of Defense
www.freewebs.com/redemptionne

Hey,

So you're just responding with your own questions instead of answering mine?  Thanks.

Wasn't your question basically rhetorical?  You know the answer, I know the answer, it really didn't need to be posted.  Additionally I don't think that line of qestioning is going to get us anywhere.  It seemed to me like we were just starting to run in circles, so I tried to change the direction of things a little.

I really don't understand the point of this question, it doesn't do anything to explain why a weapon should be treated like an Enhancement that is being treated under the rules of a specific special ability rather than general rules regarding Enhancements.

The point of the question was to see if a weapon when brought into battle is "demoted" to a regular enhancement while it's in battle or if it is still "attached" to the hero in a way that other enhancements played on the character are not.  I guess the question does not exactly answer that question, but when it came to mind it was a quesiton I didn't know the answer to so I asked it.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly, WildCard Secretary of Defense
www.freewebs.com/redemptionne

Wasn't your question basically rhetorical?  You know the answer, I know the answer, it really didn't need to be posted.  Additionally I don't think that line of qestioning is going to get us anywhere.

It wasn't rhetorical, it was leading, and as a leading question, it was in fact going to get us somewhere.  A placed Enhancement in battle follows its container to the draw pile.  Under normal circumstances, an Enhancement would be discarded if the character was sent to the draw pile.  From that we can observe that Enhancements that are placed by a special ability have their own set of rules governing their behavior.  If they place themselves, they do not re-activate anew each time they enter battle.  If their container is sent elsewhere, they follow the container.  Brigade and even type matching are no longer relevant.  There are several unique things about the placement special ability.

Regular Enhancements get none of those benefits.  Weapons, as you have pointed out, have only the advantages of being placed outside of battle and following the character to the specific areas mentioned in the REG.  In no other way do they behave like a placed Enhancement; they get to reactivate, they have to match brigade.  And they do not follow their containers to places not listed in the REG.  The rules for "regular" Enhancements are considerably different than those of placed Enhancements, and I see no compelling reason to take that one rule for placed Enhancements and apply it to the exclusion of the others.  If weapons are not placed Enhancements, none of those unique rules should apply.

If the hero is holding a hand weapon then it should follow him to the draw pile if he is truly holding it.
If the enhancement is not attached then when set aside the weapon is discarded.

Holding =/= placed

emphasis added   I think it is interesting that even you use the word "placed" to describe how WC enhs get put on characters in territory.

We also "place" characters in the Field of Battle, Enhancements into the Field of Battle to play them on a character, I hope you're not going to use this logic to treat ALL cards like "placed" cards because we use the word "place" when talking about putting it on a particular area of a table.

I hate these kind of conversations.

Because you're having the wrong conversation.  If you're teaching that the "follow" rule applies to anything other than Forts and the "place" special ability, you get what you deserve from that conversation.

By contrast, if you teach that weapons are Enhancements that the Warrior can take with him to battle, territory, or set-aside, but then loses it like a regular Enhancement in other circumstances, then it is simple and consistent with the (other) rules for Enhancements, the way the rules for retaining gained abilities and/or returning to face-value are treated, and the way the rules for duplicate unique characters are treated.

If people continue to draw parallels that do not exist between weapon class (which is only a supercharged Enhancement) and a special brand of cards (placed) with their own function, they are going to continue to see contradictions that crop up from the very nature of trying to cram a square peg into a round hole.  If they realize that "placed cards" as a category are their own thing, with a completely different set of rules and behaviors from everything else, it will make sense.

It seems to me that weapon class enhancements function more like placed enhancements than they do like "regular" enhancements.  Namely in their primary characteristic: they can be present on a character in a territory (i.e. outside of battle).

That is the ONLY characteristic they have in common.  In virtually every other respect they behave like regular Enhancements.  The question about shuffling a character with a placed Enhancement that is in battle, was a direct demonstration of that difference.  And now the recent arguments are that weapons should follow the same rules as placed Enhancements because one person or another chooses to use a particular term when trying to describe something briefly and clearly?  Should we change the rules of interrupt or prevent to function exactly the same as negate because we have a tendency to use "negate" as a catch-all term to refer to the cancellation of special abilities?

If you had a place ability that said, "Place an enhancement from your hand on a character of matching brigade in your territory.  Each time that character enters battle the placed enhancement activates."  Wouldn't that function basically the same as a weapon?

We have one-shot cards that work like that now.  They are placed Enhancements.  They follow the rules governing the "place" special ability.  Weapons are not the exception, their rules flow elegantly with the other rules regarding a change in status from the norm.  Placement as a special function is the exception, due to the way Forts need to be handled.  There is no need to change weapons away from the regular flow of the game to accommodate a shuffled Fortress.

If a character is converted...set-aside...At the end of battle

You just listed the rules that apply specifically to weapons.  The same rules which I pointed out bring weapons into line with gained abilities and duplicate uniques rules.

I also pointed out to you several rules which are unique to placed Enhancements and do not apply to weapons or any other form of Enhancement.  Non-reactivation.  Non-brigade-matching.  Following their container to areas that are not in the Field of Play or Set-Aside area.

Weapons have a few specific VARIATIONS from the STANDARD RULES governing Enhancements.  Placed cards are substantially different in nearly every way.  This is like saying because Mexico is a different country than the United States, it's closer to China than the US, even though the US and Mexico are on the same continent and China is half a world away.

I believe that weapons are more like placed enhancements than they are like regular enhancements and I believe it would be beneficial for the rules to reflect that more strongly than they currently do.

The facts above say otherwise.  Unless you're going to allow me to put 2K Horses on King David.

Why do the rules currently state that a weapon class enhancement on a character in a territory gets discarded if the character is returned to a draw pile?

Because regular Enhancements are discarded if the character is returned to a draw pile.  In this way, weapons behave like regular Enhancements, just as the rules state and just as I have been stating, and in contradiction to your claim that they act like placed Enhancements.

No one denies that this is how they currently work.  Schaef and you are both correct about the current ruling of course.

The question is whether this should remain the ruling, or whether it would be more intuitive to change one aspect of WC enhs.

Personally, I think that it seems intuitive if you are looking at your territory and see 2 characters that have enhs on them (one "placed" on them, and the other a WC "played" on them), and you shuffle both characters then the same thing should happen to those enhs.

I know this isn't the current rule.  Tim, Hobbit, and I (and perhaps others) are just suggesting that it should become the rule.

Is there any chance?  Or is this a rule that really can't change and we should just drop it?