Game: ROSE 104 Hopefully I didn't imagine this, I'm not sure if this could be a more general issue (or intended behaviour). My Wizard had a Cone Of Cold reflected back onto him, my cleric then played Team Run, my wizard was still able to move 3 squares and the Cone Of Cold applied didn't even trigger, presumably because the move originated from the cleric? It seems like the reverse of this situation: http://www.cardhunter.com/forum/threads/should-halt-effects-prevent-shift-team.732/ My assumption was that the wizard should still be encumbered. Thanks. Edit: My warrior's Run, Team! card had the same effect, whilst my wizard's Run card was encumbered as expected.
Erm? How is this a problem when the one I reported wasn't? That is: We're developing a pile of places where the move rules seem funky to the player. As I understood it from the last thread, the person playing the move card is the only one the system checks for effects: in Jayce's words, "my wizard was still able to move 3 squares . . . because the move originated from the cleric." An illogical rule to the player, but a simple one computationally. If you're looking into making Encumber apply to the one who moves, regardless of who plays the card, then great. But I'm concerned about leaving a split situation where the deal with Encumber is "corrected" and the deal with Halt is not: there's no way players will expect the double standard. Edited P.S.: By the current rule, Shift, Team! does allow the player to work around Halt states. All you have to do is have somebody else play the card, and the Halted player will move. Perfectly computational. Perfectly illogical.
I believe, as it happens in so many card games, the "problem" is all in the wording. If the wiki is correct, then "Encumber is a reaction that activates when a character holding an Encumber card or who has an Encumber attached plays a Movement card . The effect is to reduce the total length of the move by the numberX, to a minimum move of zero. More than one Encumber can activate on a single move, resulting in multiple deductions." If someone else plays a movement card, wording-wise, it makes perfect sense to letting the encumbered character move.
Well, I wrote the wiki to match what people had reported seeing in the game. The game code is not carved in mystical basalt megaliths yet.
Oh i tought that part of the wiki was taken word-by-word following card text Anyway i like the way it stands right now, may sound "illogical" but it's the kind of workaround that always worked in MtG
No, the game text is Whenever you move, subtract <x> move points from that move. I was hoping to explain how things work in practical situations, not just repeat what the card says.
I think it's a syntactic thing situation, and actually reading it back I think it makes sense acording to the descriptions. Encumber should always subtract <x> from the move points, regardless of which character played. Halt is logically stopping a specific character from playing move cards, so it's working correctly. I do agree it feels like intuitive ambiguity if a character is able to move like this whilst Halt is active, the keyword "Halt" itself suggests he shouldn't be able to move under his own power at all (unless teleported etc.) whereas the keyword description suggests that kind of movement is allowed. Edit: Got a bit off topic, but if Halt is behaving correctly in that case (can be moved by team members), it might warrant some extra attention in a tutorial.
Logically, I think Halt and Encumber should apply to all movement by the Halted or Encumbered character. There are a bunch of tricky cases though. For example, it doesn't logical to have them affect Push or Slide Back cards applied to that character, but it does seem logical to have them affect Run, Team and so on. I need to sit down and think through both the intent, rule wording and implementation. In the meantime, I'm interested to hear what everyone thinks *should* be the case.
If we make a list of all movement modifiers: encumber, free move, halt, jump back X, move X, push x, slide x, step x and segregate them further: negative mods - encumber, halt positive mods - free move, jump back X, move X, push x, slide x, step x It becomes clear that we only have 2 negative mods against a host of positive ones...so encumbering Y on free move X = free move X-Y where X-Y >= 0 halt on free move X = free move 0 and so on and forth... The next consideration is a ratio issue. As it stands, a 2:6 is a lever point which requires monitoring across the entire card vs item distribution. Too many items with positive mods mean encumber/halt become little more than probabilistic nuisances. Too many items with negative mods mean more useless items. If we choose to reduce the impact of negative mods ONLY on certain positive mods, the ratio skews... Say, encumber/halt doesn't influence push X and slide X, ratio skews to 2:4. And items with push x, slide x gets an implicit buff and they become more valued. Players would built around such strats. IMO, skewing the ratio is harder to control...I'd favor the ruleset to apply encumber/halt in a stringent fashion. Hope it helps.
I'm not sure if this warrants a new thread in the Questions and Feedback forum. My rough thoughts, this will be a bit wooly~ From a purely "This seems logical to me behaviour" I think encumber should apply to all movements the character makes that involve moving as if the character was making the "effort" themselves (even if it's a team instruction), so walking, running, jumping, stepping, dashing, etc. There could perhaps be an exception if you had a card like "He Ain't Heavy" - "Carry an adjacent comrade across the battlefield (carried character must end adjacent to the character who used this card)." Incidentally, I now want that card on humans. From the way Encumber is currently described, I interperet it as Impede/Hinder, so whilst it would effect the ability of the character to move freely (like some bulky/inflexible armour), it would not effect things like Slide/Push reactions. Halt a slightly tricky, if its intent is just to stop the player themselves from playing movement cards, then I think it's working fine, but it needs to be made very clear that's all it will do (i.e the player can still move if someone else plays Run, Team!. In that case I think Push/Slide etc. should still apply. If the intention is for Halt to stop the player from moving/freeze them (which I don't think it currently is), then Slide/Push should not apply, and they should not be able to move from cards used by other players (bar teleports and moves of that ilk). I think the behaviour of Halt is sensible as it is (mechanic that stops movement cards being played), although conceptually it's a little odd on cards like Entangling Roots, when I'd expect my character to be rooted to the spot (so unable to be moved at all). That's all description based intuition though, and ignores the sound balance points made above =D Thanks for taking the time out to discuss things like this, I'm sure you guys are very, very busy ^_^
The primary issue seems to be the flavor of the team move cards rather then the movement rules. The team move cards are odd because from a flavor perspective they appear to be granting an action to other players. You could have the exact same effect but call it mass teleport or mass telekinesis or mass dwarf toss and things would be fine as is. Is the purpose of those cards is to allow other players to move themselves? Is so then you could have the card explicitly do that "Each PC may draw and immediately play a run card." Giving each PC an action would let the standard move rules apply as expected. Alternatively you can rename the team move cards so that the movement for everyone appears to come from the person playing the card and not having halt stop them would seem fine. I'd vote for mass dwarf toss as the new name if going this route. The negative movement modifiers themselves. I'm not convinced the conceptual space between halt and encumber is big enough to be worth having both modifiers. On the face level the intent of halt seems to want to stop movement while encumber slows it. If so a high level of encumber is the same as halt. Change halt to encumber 10 and the person isn't going anywhere. Is the difference of how the modifier interacts with the originator of the movement card important enough to have two modifiers? I'm inclination is no and that it will primarily add confusion. The difference between halt and encumber 10 is a fairly subtle distinction without much ingame effect. What should the movement modifiers stop? Flavor wise you can happily back up any argument. Flavor wise encumber on ill-fitting armor should have no effect on an enemy moving you since your being awkward doesn't do anything to them on the other hand heavy armor should effect the enemy moving you around as being heavy makes you harder to move. I would favor the negative modifiers only apply to cards the person they are attached to plays (with the team move card change listed above) for two reasons. 1) It allows clever play to get around bad situations. Using telekinesis to move your immobile encumbered warrior into position is the kind of depth that should be kept. 2) Allowing encumber to effect enemy moves risks turning negative modifiers into positive ones. A elf warrior with heavy armor would become immune to bash and slideback type effects while still moving at excellent speed. Playing around disadvantages is one thing actively seeking them to counter your opponent means something went wrong.
There are cards (eg: reactive trip: If an adjacent enemy plays a Move card, cancel that move.) that dont use the keywords and yet do similar stuff. There are definitely more than two negative modifiers in game and still more to come.
