VTES Rules Team Rulings, July 7, 1998
LSJ
to give a concrete "real world" reasoning to aid in remembering/
explaining a rule. Some comments address the reason/need for
the errata.
The comments may be safely ignored or deleted.
New Rule:
---------
No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one
Political Action card to gain a vote during a political action,
including the Political Action card used to call the vote, if any.
#
# Idea: arguable reading of the original Jyhad rules. Fixes the
# same problem that the DCI vote-replenishment rule attempted to
# fix (so the DCI rule shouldn't be used with this rule).
Other Changes to the Rules (or changes to Errata to the rules):
---------------------------------------------------------------
Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are still
your own, but are not burned when you are ousted - only the cards
that you control are burned when you are ousted. The rest (stolen
by or traded to other players) are returned to you when they are
burned or when the game ends.
Directed actions are actions that directly affect another Methuselah,
one of her minions, or a card a Methuselah controls. Cards that
involve directed actions have a "(D)" in the card text. Nondirected
actions are actions that are not directed against a Methuselah or one
of her minions. Hunting, equipping a minion, recruiting an ally, and
employing a retainer are examples of nondirected actions.
#
# Yeah, I know - this is a direct quote from the VTES rulebook. But it
# does change the way the (D) symbol currently works [back to the
# correct way] by removing the long-standing errata. Specifically, the
# "(D)" symbol merely identifies (redundantly) a directed action. The
# symbol does *not* address who the action can be directed at - the rest
# of the text on the card should make that clear. Some errata is
# introduced for expansion cards that are dependent on the errata - but
# these cards have caused confusion anyway. The card-specific errata for
# (D) actions is limited to the expansion cards, and then only when
# necessary. See: Darius Styx, Goth Band, and PB: Mexico City
Equipment: is not optional, except as noted on card text. (Note: weapons
always grant the ability to strike, but the minion is still free to
use other strikes.)
#
# Removes some strangeness possible with Writ of Acceptance and possibly
# some other cards, matches the rule for Retainers and Locquipment (so
# should be easier to remember/explain) and doesn't unbalance the game.
Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to avoid
being burned.
#
# Like the original Jyhad rules, only without the "packet" problems.
# Some of the aggravated-damage-dealing effects from the original set
# (and some from later sets) were unbalanced with the VTES-style
# aggravated damage rules, so this serves to restore some of the balance
# to those.
CARDS:
Darius Styx:
"Non-Camarilla. As an action, Darius may allow his controller to look at one
card at random from any other Methuselah's hand. If it is an equipment card
or a retainer card, it is placed on Darius at no cost."
#
# Net effect: no change. Textual change needed to uphold the (D) symbol
# conventions that were in effect when the card was printed, and which are
# necessary in Darius's case.
Fame:
"Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire with this
card goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each Methuselah
burns 1 pool during his or her untap phase if this vampire is in torpor."
#
# Hoses the controller of the vampire instead of the Prey - which makes more
# sense from a World of Darkness perspective (the controller has to expend
# resources to cover up the famous one's disappearance, not the Prey, although
# all suffer from the mounting questions people start asking after an
# extended period.)
# This removes the "watch me shoot myself" abuses, and gives combat decks
# slightly improved speed, which helps in a tournament situation where the
# games are timed.
Fire Dance:
Is directed or not based on the controller of the target, as always.
#
# Previous RT Ruling makes this statement necessary.
Goth Band:
"As a +1 stealth (D) action, the Goth Band may move one counter from
a master card controlled by another Methuselah to a master card you
control that uses counters."
#
# Net effect: no change. Textual change needed to uphold the (D) symbol
# conventions that were in effect when the card was printed.
Heidelburg Castle, Germany:
Cannot be used during an action (including during a combat, since that
is part of the action now - including combats resulting from blocks).
Can be used after an action resolves and before the next action begins, at
the beginning of any minion phase, or at any time outside of the minion
phase.
Major Boon:
"Play this card when another Methuselah is successfully bled. Not usable if
you control the acting minion. The bleed amount may be modified after this
card is played. You burn pool for the bleed instead of the target Methuselah
(must be at least 1 pool) and give this card to the target Methuselah. You
may burn this card to have that Methuselah burn pool instead of you when you
are successfully bled."
#
# The VTES version munged the "may be modified" clause pretty badly
Mind Rape:
"Superior: (D) put this card on a younger vampire and tap that vampire.
The vampire with this card does not untap as normal during his
controller's untap phase. During the acting vampire's controller's next
minion phase, she must burn this card to untap the vampire and take
control of the vampire until the end of her turn."
#
# The original version of this card is just way too powerful. This new text
# is copied from Temptation, with slight obvious modifications.
# Still probably better than Temptation - it costs an extra blood and doesn't
# untap the target and doesn't stick around to let you regain control
# later, but it more than makes up for all of this in speed. Plus it has
# variety in the inferior version - which is worth a good deal.
Of Noble Blood:
Is directed or not based on the controller of the target (and the
definition of "directed").
Powerbase: Mexico City
The action to steal the blood from your powerbase cannot be attempted
by your own vampires.
Pulled Fangs:
The damage is not aggravated.
#
# to balance the card with Lucky Blow, Disarm, and Twisting the Knife.
Return to Innocence:
Action - 4 blood.
Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this card
on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or
goes to torpor, or if your Prey is ousted. During your next untap, this
vampire is removed from play and your Prey burns X pool, where X is the
capacity of this vampire.
#
# to offset the "sudden death" aspect somewhat - not sure if it goes far
# enough, though. We'll see.
Sleeping Mind:
Cards played after Sleeping Mind are still free to break these rules, as
always. So while you are provented from untapping (with Rat's Warning),
for instance, you are not prevented from playing Wake to block - since
Wake allows you to attempt to block "as if untapped", and untapped
vampires can still block the action as normal.
Thoughts Betrayed:
"Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat."
Tomb of Ramses III:
"Master: Unique Location. 3 pool.
When this card is brought into play, or the controller of this card changes,
the controller chooses a vampire in her uncontrolled region. During your
influence phase, tap to move 1 blood from the blood bank to the chosen
vampire. Burn this card when the chosen vampire leaves the uncontrolled
region."
#
# Basically a clanless Eco Terrorist that costs an additional pool and can
# feed only 1 vampire (to balance the clanlessness and the fact that you
# can play it on your first turn).
# This may not be the best fix (indeed, I've seen some better ones posted
# on the NG), but it is the easiest to explain/remember.
Treatment, The:
The action to burn this card is directed (unless the Prince and the
Treatment somehow come to be controlled by the same Methuselah), by the
definition of a directed action.
Wake with Evening's Freshness:
"Do not replace until your next untap phase."
Zip Gun:
Cannot use ammo cards.
--
L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast.
Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings:
http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch
James Hamblin
>
> As before, some comments are included for clarification, or
> to give a concrete "real world" reasoning to aid in remembering/
> explaining a rule. Some comments address the reason/need for
> the errata.
>
> The comments may be safely ignored or deleted.
Well, I don't want to get into another heated argument, but I will say
that there is a lot here. A lot of it is good, but I do have some
comments.
> New Rule:
> ---------
>
> No vote pushing:
[snip]
I'm with you 100% on this one. Especially since being ousted by a
weenie vote push deck at Origins probably kept me out of the finals...
:)
> Other Changes to the Rules (or changes to Errata to the rules):
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are still
> your own, but are not burned when you are ousted - only the cards
> that you control are burned when you are ousted. The rest (stolen
> by or traded to other players) are returned to you when they are
> burned or when the game ends.
I realize that this makes sense in game terms, but when somebody has to
leave, they _will_ take their cards with them. Having to remember who
had what is, I think, more complicated that just saying "OK, he's out,
so all of his stuff is out, too". It _is_ a card game after all.
> Directed actions are actions that directly affect another Methuselah,
[snip]
I take this to mean that plain brown (D) bleeds are no longer
omni-directable? I think that the old ruling is _so_ old that I don't
really know how this will affect things. Hmm...
> Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to
> avoid being burned.
I think the wording here is a little murky. I understand that you want
this to return aggro damage to the old Jyhad way, but the first sentence
seems to imply that aggro damage can't _ever_ burn anyone.
> Fame:
> "Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire with this
> card goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each Methuselah
> burns 1 pool during his or her untap phase if this vampire is in torpor."
Wow! Upon reading this, I thought at first "Geez, now no one will play
with this card". Then I realized, "hey, _I'll_ play with this card!".
Now you don't just hurt a player by torporizing his vampire, you also
hit them with 3 damage to their pool. And then you rescue the vampire,
and do it again! I can see it now... the Fame/Humanitas combat deck!
> Pulled Fangs:
> The damage is not aggravated.
> #
> # to balance the card with Lucky Blow, Disarm, and Twisting the Knife.
Well, I would think that with the aggro damage rules back the way they
used to be, and the fact that the damage is now preventable, that PF is
now completely in line with Disarm without this change. They both
accomplish the same thing, except that PF pays for being disciplineless
by not being able to be used by a vampire going to torpor and having its
damage be preventable. I don't see what Lucky Blow has to do with
anything, and Twisting the Knife has never been anything but bad, bad,
bad.
> Return to Innocence:
> Action - 4 blood.
> Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this card
> on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or
> goes to torpor, or if your Prey is ousted. During your next untap, this
> vampire is removed from play and your Prey burns X pool, where X is the
> capacity of this vampire.
> #
> # to offset the "sudden death" aspect somewhat - not sure if it goes far
> # enough, though. We'll see.
At this point, do you really think this change is really better than
just banning the card?
> Sleeping Mind:
> Cards played after Sleeping Mind are still free to break these rules, as
> always. So while you are provented from untapping (with Rat's Warning),
> for instance, you are not prevented from playing Wake to block - since
> Wake allows you to attempt to block "as if untapped", and untapped
> vampires can still block the action as normal.
But wasn't the intent of the card clearly to _prevent_ Waken vampires
from blocking?
> Thoughts Betrayed:
> "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat."
I applaud the spirit behind this change, but again I wonder if this is
better than banning.
> Tomb of Ramses III:
> "Master: Unique Location. 3 pool.
> When this card is brought into play, or the controller of this card changes,
> the controller chooses a vampire in her uncontrolled region. During your
> influence phase, tap to move 1 blood from the blood bank to the chosen
> vampire. Burn this card when the chosen vampire leaves the uncontrolled
> region."
> #
> # Basically a clanless Eco Terrorist that costs an additional pool and can
> # feed only 1 vampire (to balance the clanlessness and the fact that you
> # can play it on your first turn).
> # This may not be the best fix (indeed, I've seen some better ones posted
> # on the NG), but it is the easiest to explain/remember.
I don't want to sound like a broken record, but if you're using a
sub-standard fix solely for the reason that it would be harder to
remember another, better one, why not just ban this card, too? That
would be _really_ easy to remember.
> Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
Any reasons behind this? Anything to do with David Pontes' recent post
about "everyone uses this card"? Do you really find the card too
powerful?
Thanks for the work you've put into these, LSJ. I know that your intent
is to make this game better. I may not agree with everything you've
done, but your heart's in the right place.
James
--
James Hamblin
ham...@math.wisc.edu
Sorrow
>to give a concrete "real world" reasoning to aid in remembering/
>explaining a rule. Some comments address the reason/need for
>the errata.
Ok, I'm outta here. I cannot believe these rulings/erratta.
How much more damage do you want to do to the game, LSJ?
Outright changing of the card text, blatently reducing the power
of many cards? For what? Game balance? I don't see any
of that here. Many of the cards have gone from overpowered
(in the opinions of some) to wall paper. Why would *anyone*
ever use RtI or Pulled Fangs or WWEF again? Why did you
change the rules for Vote Pushing? The current rules for PAs
(not replacing until the end of the turn) were fine. Fame? WTF?
Why would anyone ever use that card again?
This is just more than I can bear.
I'll be surprised if anyone new gets into the game. Already people
look at me like I'm crazy when I produce the practical equivilant
of a *books* worth of Rulings and Erratta when I join their group.
These new rulings/erratta are just way out of line.
V:tes used to be a fun game. A game that I was proud to go out
and promote. Hell, in the 5 months I've moved down to New
Orleans, I've gotten 7 or 8 people into the game. But no more.
After producing this new list, I'll be surprised if any of them continue
with the game.
On a side note: Anyone interested in buying my collection? I've
over 10,000 cards which include many copies of really cool rares
that I bought from Mark Korshavn.
A recent list of cards I bought from him include 3 Talbot's Chainsaws,
6 Quickness, 2 Hand of Conrads, 3 Ambrosius, the Ferryman, 9
Gangrel Conspiricy.
I've tons more. I'll try to come up with a list within the next week.
I've been playing this game for a very long time. In that time, I've
invested over $1500+.
Thanks for ruining it for me and, I suspect, alot of others.
>No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one
> Political Action card to gain a vote during a political action,
> including the Political Action card used to call the vote, if any.
What was wrong with the way it currently works?
>Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are still
> your own, but are not burned when you are ousted - only the cards
> that you control are burned when you are ousted. The rest (stolen
> by or traded to other players) are returned to you when they are
> burned or when the game ends.
So, when I'm ousted and I want to leave, I have to wait until the
game is over until I get all my cards back.
Whatever.
>Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire >sends the
vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not >cause the
vampire to burn any blood.
This makes it sound like if you do 5 points of aggro damage, the
opposing vamp simply drops to torpor, losing no blood...?
>Aggravated damage done to a vampire with unhealed damage
>(including aggravated damage after the first point) requires that the
>vampire burn one blood per point of damage to avoid being burned.
This seems almost contradictory to what is said above.
> # Like the original Jyhad rules, only without the "packet" problems.
> # Some of the aggravated-damage-dealing effects from the original set
> # (and some from later sets) were unbalanced with the VTES-style
> # aggravated damage rules, so this serves to restore some of the
> # balance to those.
I seem to remember a comment made by James about how it is
seeming that you want to go back to the 'pristine' rules/text from
the Jyhad set, which you flatly denied.
It seems more and more that James was right on the money.
>Fame:
> "Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire
> with this card goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each
> Methuselah burns 1 pool during his or her untap phase if this vampire
> is in torpor."
Why would anyone ever use this card? What does it do for the
controller? Nothing. If you *really* wanted all the other meths to
lose a pool every turn, you could just use Anarch Revolts. At least
those are stackable. The way it works now, your vamp is just
begging to be Diablerized and you got nothing out of the deal.
> # Hoses the controller of the vampire instead of the Prey - which makes >
more sense from a World of Darkness perspective (the controller
I can't believe I'm hearing this! How many times was the WoD (or
real world perspective) used as an argument only to have it shot
down because this is a card game and you can't really use "real
world" ideas/concepts/etc. Something which even you have said
many times in the past, LSJ.
> # This removes the "watch me shoot myself" abuses, and gives
> combat decks
> # slightly improved speed, which helps in a tournament situation
> where the games are timed.
How?
>Tomb of Ramses III:
> "Master: Unique Location. 3 pool.
> # Basically a clanless Eco Terrorist that costs an additional pool and
> can feed only 1 vampire (to balance the clanlessness and the fact that
> you can play it on your first turn).
Except that cards like Eco Terrorist stay around for the *entire game*
(barring location burning effects), can be used on *any* vamp in your
uncontrolled region and _costs less_. I don't see how the clanlessness
of ToRIII makes up for weakening this card this much.
ToRIII is now essentially wallpaper.
>Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
Why? Why not do the same thing to Forced Awakening?
Wallpaper.
>Zip Gun:
> Cannot use ammo cards.
Again, wallpaper. Used with DBR it was pretty brutal, but why
would anyone use this card again? Because you don't have
to use an equip action? There is nothing good that this card
offers now that offsets the bad.
Hrmmm, I can pull ZG out and do a *max* of 1 point of damage
(barring celerity) while I do a damage to myself. Alot of incentive
there...
Sorrow
-ex Prince of New Orleans
---
I don't want to be alone | I hurt, therefore I am
anymore |--------------------------------
I don't want to be anyone | "What are you looking at...?
anymore | you never seen anyone try to
I don't need a reason to kill myself | commit suicide before?" - Anon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Goudie
>
> >As before, some comments are included for clarification, or
> >to give a concrete "real world" reasoning to aid in remembering/
> >explaining a rule. Some comments address the reason/need for
> >the errata.
>
> Ok, I'm outta here. I cannot believe these rulings/erratta.
> How much more damage do you want to do to the game, LSJ?
> Outright changing of the card text, blatently reducing the power
> of many cards? For what? Game balance? I don't see any
> of that here.
Game balance and consistancy are the reasons for these changes. Cards
that were over-powered had their power blatantly reduced and (hopefully)
brought into balance with the rest of the cardset.
> Why did you
> change the rules for Vote Pushing? The current rules for PAs
> (not replacing until the end of the turn) were fine.
That is a tournament rule. The regular V:TES rules have no prohibitions
against vote pushing.
> Fame?
> WTF?
> Why would anyone ever use that card again?
Re-read the card text.
> >Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are still
> > your own, but are not burned when you are ousted - only the cards
> > that you control are burned when you are ousted. The rest (stolen
> > by or traded to other players) are returned to you when they are
> > burned or when the game ends.
>
> So, when I'm ousted and I want to leave, I have to wait until the
> game is over until I get all my cards back.
> Whatever.
Again, these are not tournament rules.
> >Fame:
> > "Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire
> > with this card goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each
> > Methuselah burns 1 pool during his or her untap phase if this vampire
> > is in torpor."
>
> Why would anyone ever use this card? What does it do for the
> controller? Nothing. If you *really* wanted all the other meths to
> lose a pool every turn, you could just use Anarch Revolts. At least
> those are stackable. The way it works now, your vamp is just
> begging to be Diablerized and you got nothing out of the deal.
>
> > # Hoses the controller of the vampire instead of the Prey - which makes >
> more sense from a World of Darkness perspective (the controller
>
> I can't believe I'm hearing this! How many times was the WoD (or
> real world perspective) used as an argument only to have it shot
> down because this is a card game and you can't really use "real
> world" ideas/concepts/etc. Something which even you have said
> many times in the past, LSJ.
At the start of this post LSJ made it very clear that the "real world"
examples were not the basis for the card changes.
> > # This removes the "watch me shoot myself" abuses, and gives
> > combat decks
> > # slightly improved speed, which helps in a tournament situation
> > where the games are timed.
>
> How?
Re-read the card. No more Day-Op/Fame, Mummify/Fame, Force of Will/Fame
decks. Votes, Bleeds, Combat, and Fame. Fame abuse has become a style
of play unto itself.
--
Robert Goudie, Chairman rrgo...@earthlink.net
Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net
_________________________________________________________________
The Official Vampire: the Eternal Struggle Players' Organization
Robert Goudie
That these Rules Team Rulings become effective August 1, 1998. This
date should coincide with the release of new DCI Tournament Rules for
V:TES.
Robert Goudie
>
> LSJ wrote:
> >
> > Sleeping Mind:
> > Cards played after Sleeping Mind are still free to break these rules, as
> > always. So while you are provented from untapping (with Rat's Warning),
> > for instance, you are not prevented from playing Wake to block - since
> > Wake allows you to attempt to block "as if untapped", and untapped
> > vampires can still block the action as normal.
>
> But wasn't the intent of the card clearly to _prevent_ Waken vampires
> from blocking?
Not to speak for Scott, but his goal isn't always to return a card to
its original intent. The chief concern seems to be balance. And if the
original intent was unbalanced then the card gets a fix. If the
original intent was properly balanced then the card returns to original
intent.
[clip]
> > Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> > "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
>
> Any reasons behind this? Anything to do with David Pontes' recent post
> about "everyone uses this card"? Do you really find the card too
> powerful?
I suspect it wasn't that the card was too powerful. Rather that its
power was inappropriate for its cost. WwEF was the only card in the
cardset that didn't even cost a hand slot.
Sorrow
> Action - 4 blood.
> Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this card
> on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or
> goes to torpor, or if your Prey is ousted. During your next untap, this
> vampire is removed from play and your Prey burns X pool, where X
> is the capacity of this vampire.
One last thing:
This new erratta makes it *impossible* to redirect this bleed/loss
of pool. At least with the text before, you could redirect the bleed
to your prey. This new text prohibits that.
Also, in order for this action to be even worthwhile, you *need*
modifiers. With just this card alone, using the new text, you will
never bleed your prey with anything. Since it is an action, it
essentially replaces the vampires built in bleed of 1. The card
text says nothing about (clearly, anyway) about how much you
are bleeding your prey for. So in effect, it is useless w/o bleed
mods.
People hated it before when the only defense you had against
it was deflection. I wonder how people are going to take to it
now that they cannot deflect the huge pool loss effect of this
card.
Sorrow
Ethan Burrow
> As before, some comments are included for clarification, or
> to give a concrete "real world" reasoning to aid in remembering/
> explaining a rule. Some comments address the reason/need for
> the errata.
OK, I'm gonna have to un-lurk for this one.... I'll comment on what I
don't like, thus what I <snip> is generally a thumbs up, pat on the back
kinda thing.
> No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one
> Political Action card to gain a vote during a political action,
> including the Political Action card used to call the vote, if any.
> #
> # Idea: arguable reading of the original Jyhad rules. Fixes the
> # same problem that the DCI vote-replenishment rule attempted to
> # fix (so the DCI rule shouldn't be used with this rule).
I concede that you wanted to invalidate weenie vote decks. But now this
leads me to believe that presence is essentially required for vote decks
to pass votes now. Is this your intent?
> Directed actions are actions that directly affect another Methuselah,
> one of her minions, or a card a Methuselah controls. Cards that
> involve directed actions have a "(D)" in the card text. Nondirected
> actions are actions that are not directed against a Methuselah or one
> of her minions. Hunting, equipping a minion, recruiting an ally, and
> employing a retainer are examples of nondirected actions.
Removing cross bleeds in our playgroup will drastically affect the
Meta-Game in a bad way. Considering you have fixed "certain" cards to
restore balance, I didn't think this change needed to be made. (i.e. I
have survived numerous games by (d) bleeding a predator I couldn't
handle to help oust him, thus ensuring my survival. Removing this
ability doesn't seem to be a good thing to me, as I'll just fix that by
putting in more wakes <g>)
> Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to avoid
> being burned.
The only card the new agg rules broke IMO was Pulled Fangs, and I
honestly feel the VTES agg rules were simpler and more fun to play. And
for those interested I played Jyhad since the beginning, so changing to
the new rules made sense until I started seeing Pulled Fangs in
abundance 2 years (a group) later. So in short fix Pulled Fangs; you
fix the problem.
> Sleeping Mind:
> Cards played after Sleeping Mind are still free to break these rules, as
> always. So while you are provented from untapping (with Rat's Warning),
> for instance, you are not prevented from playing Wake to block - since
> Wake allows you to attempt to block "as if untapped", and untapped
> vampires can still block the action as normal.
This goes against the very nature of the card. It's now wallpaper,
since Wakes aren't going away even with the current changes.
> Tomb of Ramses III:
> "Master: Unique Location. 3 pool.
> When this card is brought into play, or the controller of this card changes,
> the controller chooses a vampire in her uncontrolled region. During your
> influence phase, tap to move 1 blood from the blood bank to the chosen
> vampire. Burn this card when the chosen vampire leaves the uncontrolled
> region."
> #
> # Basically a clanless Eco Terrorist that costs an additional pool and can
> # feed only 1 vampire (to balance the clanlessness and the fact that you
> # can play it on your first turn).
> # This may not be the best fix (indeed, I've seen some better ones posted
> # on the NG), but it is the easiest to explain/remember.
We locally played where ToR comes into play tapped, and cannot be used
until untapped. This gives the other players a round to do something
"location" wise and reducing the speed of the transfers, while making
the card still useful. As it is, I doubt anyone will now play with it
as it's too costly for a location that can be stolen/burned before it's
even used enough to break even. Better to just ban it.
> Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
??!? This helps how? People will just play with Forced
Awakenings....unless you plan on changing Forced Awakening too.
While I acknowledge that some of the intent is to return to the purity
of Jyhad rules, I don't think some of these sweeping changes will
enhance or help the game at all. If my responses were premature because
I didn't fully understand the rules, please PLEASE clarify them for me.
I'm responding mostly from the gut here, since my interpretation of
these rulings *really* pulled a nerve.
As I noted earlier, I agree pretty much with the rest of the rulings I
haven't ranted about (although RTI, Mind Rape, TB, etc. should never
have been printed...without a reprint they'll never be "fixed" to the
masses).
_____________________________________________________________
Ethan Burrow V:EKN Prince of Austin
et...@ddg.com http://www.ddg.com/ethan/austin
http://www.ddg.com/ethan/
James Hamblin
>
> Ok, I'm outta here. I cannot believe these rulings/erratta.
> How much more damage do you want to do to the game, LSJ?
Man, and I thought I was belligerent. No offense here, but as I said,
LSJ's intentions are to make the game fun _and_ balanced. Had any
expansions not come out, this would have been a lot easier. But, as it
is, many people feel that the expansions themselves have led to a
decline in the balanced nature of the game. This is what LSJ is trying
to fix, and he's doing it in a way that not everyone agrees with.
> Why did you
> change the rules for Vote Pushing? The current rules for PAs
> (not replacing until the end of the turn) were fine.
Well, actually not. Around the time when everyone was lobbying WotC to
implement the Corrupter's SPTR rule set, the current rules (don't
replace until end of turn) were instead implemented. Some people were
mollified (something being better than nothing), but others were sure
that this fix was not good enough. And, as suspected, in various groups
decks were constructed which pushed votes brokenly despite this new
rule. So, at least in Ithaca, we kept the no vote push rule, since it
was better.
> Fame? WTF?
> Why would anyone ever use that card again?
> This is just more than I can bear.
As others (including me) have pointed out, it is now an offensive card
(as in used on the offense) as opposed to an offensive card (as in
broken broken broken).
> I'll be surprised if anyone new gets into the game. Already people
> look at me like I'm crazy when I produce the practical equivilant
> of a *books* worth of Rulings and Erratta when I join their group.
I agree here, as do others. Many non-net-able players are shocked and
dismayed when presented with a huge list of eratta. Which is why I
argue that it's just better to ban a card rather than completely change
its card text.
> >No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one
> > Political Action card to gain a vote during a political action,
> > including the Political Action card used to call the vote, if any.
>
> What was wrong with the way it currently works?
You could still make an effectively broken weenie vote push deck, which
the rule was intended to hinder.
> I can't believe I'm hearing this! How many times was the WoD (or
> real world perspective) used as an argument only to have it shot
> down because this is a card game and you can't really use "real
> world" ideas/concepts/etc. Something which even you have said
> many times in the past, LSJ.
I can see the point that if a card needs to be changed, changing it so
that it _also_ makes sense in "real world" terms is desirable; it helps
you explain to people why the change was made the way it was.
> >Zip Gun:
> > Cannot use ammo cards.
>
> Again, wallpaper. Used with DBR it was pretty brutal, but why
> would anyone use this card again?
You say "brutal", many others say "broken".
> Because you don't have
> to use an equip action? There is nothing good that this card
> offers now that offsets the bad.
> Hrmmm, I can pull ZG out and do a *max* of 1 point of damage
> (barring celerity) while I do a damage to myself. Alot of incentive
> there...
You're maneuvering to long range... against one of my decks, you take 1
point of damage instead of 7.
Strangely enough, I am actually mollified by this set of rulings, modulo
the comments I made in my first post on this subject. We'll see where
this takes things.
Gomi no Sensei
Sorrow <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote:
>>Return to Innocence:
>> Action - 4 blood.
>> Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this card
>> on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or
>> goes to torpor, or if your Prey is ousted. During your next untap, this
>> vampire is removed from play and your Prey burns X pool, where X
>> is the capacity of this vampire.
>One last thing:
>This new erratta makes it *impossible* to redirect this bleed/loss
>of pool. At least with the text before, you could redirect the bleed
>to your prey. This new text prohibits that.
Actually, they still work. The first complete sentence ('If you
successfully bleed your prey for one or more...') means that
bounce or reduction are as effective RtI defences as ever, with
the added bonus that now combat decks can cope with it.
>Also, in order for this action to be even worthwhile, you *need*
>modifiers. With just this card alone, using the new text, you will
>never bleed your prey with anything. Since it is an action, it
>essentially replaces the vampires built in bleed of 1. The card
>text says nothing about (clearly, anyway) about how much you
>are bleeding your prey for. So in effect, it is useless w/o bleed
>mods.
I'm not sure how you figure that. For an X-cap vampire:
Old RtI New RtI
One bounceable X+1 bleed, plus mods One bounceable 1 bleed, plus mods
One turn later: loss of X pool
___________________________________ _________________________________
Loss of X+1 pool (plus mods) Loss of X+1 pool (plus mods)
In both cases, bounce will shut the card down; with New RtI, the
defenses are expanded, not reduced (the time-delay, the combat
defence) -- a single Telepathic Counter or even an Ignis Fatuus
will suffice as a defence in many cases.
>People hated it before when the only defense you had against
>it was deflection. I wonder how people are going to take to it
>now that they cannot deflect the huge pool loss effect of this
>card.
Deflection is still a viable defence for Return to Innocence.
I hope you'll reconsider leaving the game; you've been a passionate
contributor to the group, and I'm glad that you've promoted the
game in the past. I hope you'll come to see that the changes are
for the benefit of the game.
gomi
--
Sure, she may be a nuisance for a while, but then you
kill her and go on with your life. - hamblin at math wisc edu
Jaysen Knight
and I support you completely on those rulings. Some of these ones
however.....
LSJ wrote:
>
> As before, some comments... <snip>
> the errata.
>
> New Rule:
> ---------
>
> No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one
> Political Action card to gain a vote during a political action,
> including the Political Action card used to call the vote, if any.
> #
> # Idea: arguable reading of the original Jyhad rules. Fixes the
> # same problem that the DCI vote-replenishment rule attempted to
> # fix (so the DCI rule shouldn't be used with this rule).
>
This should read "not including the Political Action card used to
the vote, if any." Why should everyone else be able to push on a
vote and I can't? I can understand the need to stop the 6 card
dump on a vote, but this goes too far.
>
> Other Changes to the Rules (or changes to Errata to the rules):
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are still
> your own, but are not burned when you are ousted - only the cards
> that you control are burned when you are ousted. The rest (stolen
> by or traded to other players) are returned to you when they are
> burned or when the game ends.
>
Unless, of course, I decide to go home after I am ousted right?
Right????
>
> Directed actions are actions that directly affect another Methuselah,
> one of her minions, or a card a Methuselah controls. Cards that
> involve directed actions have a "(D)" in the card text.
> <snip>
> # (D) actions is limited to the expansion cards, and then only when
> # necessary. See: Darius Styx, Goth Band, and PB: Mexico City
>
Um, sure. I guess I can agree with this. Logic is nice that way.
>
> Equipment: is not optional, except as noted on card text. (Note: weapons
> always grant the ability to strike, but the minion is still free to
> use other strikes.)
> #
> # Removes some strangeness possible with Writ of Acceptance and possibly
> # some other cards, matches the rule for Retainers and Locquipment (so
> # should be easier to remember/explain) and doesn't unbalance the game.
>
Um, sure. I guess I can agree with this. Logic is nice that way.
>
> Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to avoid
> being burned.
> #
> # Like the original Jyhad rules, only without the "packet" problems.
> # Some of the aggravated-damage-dealing effects from the original set
> # (and some from later sets) were unbalanced with the VTES-style
> # aggravated damage rules, so this serves to restore some of the balance
> # to those.
>
No. No. No. Don't go back to the original Jyhad Rules here. The
only card I know of that abuses the V-TES style aggro. rules is
Pulled Fangs. The old Jyhad way was hard to use, harder to explain,
and a general pain in the ass. We are much better off fixing the
broken cards - not an unbroken rule.
>
> CARDS:
>
> Fame:
> "Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire with this
> card goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each Methuselah
> burns 1 pool during his or her untap phase if this vampire is in torpor."
> #
> # Hoses the controller of the vampire instead of the Prey - which makes more
> # sense from a World of Darkness perspective (the controller has to expend
> # resources to cover up the famous one's disappearance, not the Prey, although
> # all suffer from the mounting questions people start asking after an
> # extended period.)
> # This removes the "watch me shoot myself" abuses, and gives combat decks
> # slightly improved speed, which helps in a tournament situation where the
> # games are timed.
>
Abusive the other way now. Please don't do this. Something else has
to work. Instead of a must have in my defensive decks, it is now a
must have in my offensive decks! Where is the wisdom in that?
>
> Mind Rape:
> "Superior: (D) put this card on a younger vampire and tap that vampire.
> The vampire with this card does not untap as normal during his
> controller's untap phase. During the acting vampire's controller's next
> minion phase, she must burn this card to untap the vampire and take
> control of the vampire until the end of her turn."
> #
> # The original version of this card is just way too powerful. This new text
> # is copied from Temptation, with slight obvious modifications.
> # Still probably better than Temptation - it costs an extra blood and doesn't
> # untap the target and doesn't stick around to let you regain control
> # later, but it more than makes up for all of this in speed. Plus it has
> # variety in the inferior version - which is worth a good deal.
>
Have to think some more about this one.
>
> Pulled Fangs:
> The damage is not aggravated.
> #
> # to balance the card with Lucky Blow, Disarm, and Twisting the Knife.
>
Wallpaper. Really ugly wallpaper. Please, just change it to one point
of unpreventable damage (not aggro., not regular, just unpreventable).
Nice, simple, still effective. For balance, make the card unreplaceable
until after combat. Still nice, still simple, still effective.
>
> Return to Innocence:
> Action - 4 blood.
> Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this card
> on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or
> goes to torpor, or if your Prey is ousted. During your next untap, this
> vampire is removed from play and your Prey burns X pool, where X is the
> capacity of this vampire.
> #
> # to offset the "sudden death" aspect somewhat - not sure if it goes far
> # enough, though. We'll see.
>
Just ban the card. Make life simpler for all of us. I have thought
about many fixes to this card - haven't found one I like yet.
>
> Sleeping Mind:
> Cards played after Sleeping Mind are still free to break these rules, as
> always. So while you are provented from untapping (with Rat's Warning),
> for instance, you are not prevented from playing Wake to block - since
> Wake allows you to attempt to block "as if untapped", and untapped
> vampires can still block the action as normal.
>
Don't like this one. Never saw the card as 'that broken'. Just change
the '1 blood cost' to 'X blood cost', where X is the number of minions
induced to sleep.
>
> Thoughts Betrayed:
> "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat."
>
I must say that I actually like this one - I do, I really do. Kudos.
>
> Tomb of Ramses III:
> "Master: Unique Location. 3 pool.
> When this card is brought into play, or the controller of this card changes,
> the controller chooses a vampire in her uncontrolled region. During your
> influence phase, tap to move 1 blood from the blood bank to the chosen
> vampire. Burn this card when the chosen vampire leaves the uncontrolled
> region."
> #
> # Basically a clanless Eco Terrorist that costs an additional pool and can
> # feed only 1 vampire (to balance the clanlessness and the fact that you
> # can play it on your first turn).
> # This may not be the best fix (indeed, I've seen some better ones posted
> # on the NG), but it is the easiest to explain/remember.
>
Just make it a clanless Eco-Terrorist that can only be played when you
have a vamp in play.
i.e. I bring out Vliam and KoKo, on my next master phase I can
play the Tomb (for three pool) and declare which clan,
of the clans I have in play, it supports.
A simpler fix that doesn't relegate the Tomb to "Wallpaper city".
>
> Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
>
What????? Can you say wallpaper boys and girls??? This is crazy talk.
Are you secretly a Malk?
Insults and snideness aside, this change is completely unnecessary.
>
> Zip Gun:
> Cannot use ammo cards.
>
Um, why. While ZG/DBR was cheesy, it didn't blow the game away. This
makes the ZG into wallpaper. Twisting the Knife all over again.
>
> --
> L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast.
> Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings:
> http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch
I appreciate your hard work LSJ. I rarely object to your rulings.
However, in the cases where I have objected above; I am really, really
objecting - almost pissed off even. Especially on:
Aggro Damage
Fame
Pulled Fangs
Tomb of Ramses III
Wake w/Evening's
Zip Gun
Please rethink these, please,
Jaysen
Robert Goudie
>
> >Return to Innocence:
> > Action - 4 blood.
> > Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this card
> > on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or
> > goes to torpor, or if your Prey is ousted. During your next untap, this
> > vampire is removed from play and your Prey burns X pool, where X
> > is the capacity of this vampire.
>
> This new erratta makes it *impossible* to redirect this bleed/loss
> of pool. At least with the text before, you could redirect the bleed
> to your prey. This new text prohibits that.
What you do is deflect the RTI bleed to your prey (or whoever). If this
is done then the "If you successfully bleed your prey" is not met and
the RTI is not placed on the acting minion. So, the loss cannot be
deflected but deflection is still a good defense against RTI. As LSJ
pointed out, this new version removes the sort of "Rushian Roulette"
aspect of the original version.
> Also, in order for this action to be even worthwhile, you *need*
> modifiers. With just this card alone, using the new text, you will
> never bleed your prey with anything. Since it is an action, it
> essentially replaces the vampires built in bleed of 1. The card
> text says nothing about (clearly, anyway) about how much you
> are bleeding your prey for. So in effect, it is useless w/o bleed
> mods.
How is bleeding your prey for a minimum of Capacity + 1 useless?
PDB6
"No vote pushing"
Yaa! Make those freaking Caitif work for their political power.
"Aggravated Damage"
I don't think I fully understand this rule. Does this mean that Aggro damage
is not pretty much identical to Jyhad aggro? You now burn from X+2 aggro,
where X is your current blood level?
"Fame:
Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire with this card
goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each Methuselah burns 1 pool
during his or her untap phase if this vampire is in torpor."
Hmm, while I never liked Fame, I think this goes too far away from the original
intention of the card. It will be a pretty henious addition to the already
viable Rush deck (I make your Smudge Famous and kill him, then rescue him, then
kill him again...).
"Mind Rape:"
So it makes your vampire get tapped, and then stolen a turn from now? It seems
a bit wordy.
"Powerbase: Mexico City
The action to steal the blood from your powerbase cannot be attempted by your
own vampires."
Did I miss something? Can you now do (D) actions against yourself?
"Pulled Fangs:
The damage is not aggravated."
While a viable fix, It now seems kinda worthless (just like Twisting the
Knife...). Why not change it to the same template as Disarm? Don't the re-old
Aggro rules fix PF anyway?
"Return to Innocence:"
Pretty good!
"Thoughts Betrayed:
Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat."
Also good.
"Tomb of Ramses III:"
I always thought this was probably the best fix, although I fail to see how the
above mentioned radical changes to the 3 cards are any better than simply
banning them?
"Wake with Evening's Freshness:
"Do not replace until your next untap phase."
Good.
"Zip Gun:
Cannot use ammo cards."
Good.
Now while this is a good bunch of rules, most of these are pretty severe
changes to the cards presented (Tomb, RTI, Fame, etc), and I can see a great
deal of resistance (Man, I thought I was being reasonable about IG, m'self :-),
especially from non Net folks. Most of the last set of changes were pretty
subtle (except for Rutors Hand) and easy to explain. Most of these make old
cards into pretty much completely new cards. Are there any plans to reach the
leigons of non Net Jyhad players? At Origins this last weekend, the vast
majority of the players we met had zero information from any of the Net
rulings, and there was a pretty large number of players with very weird ideas
of how the game worked, and a good number of them became fairly beligerent when
introduced to the various rules fixes. I suspect that if I go to a tournamnet
with all of these rules, most people won't know them, and some of them will try
and lynch me. What to do?
Peter D Bakija
PD...@aol.com
"I am the world's forgotten boy
the one who searches and destroys."
-Iggy Pop
gen...@iname.com
> that there is a lot here. A lot of it is good, but I do have some
> comments.
I agree; a lot of "heated" arguments will come from this. But not from me. :)
> > Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> > vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> > vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> > unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> > requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to
> > avoid being burned.
>
> I think the wording here is a little murky. I understand that you want
I agree, and I have trouble understanding what it truly means... Maybe with an example
or two?
> > Fame:
> > "Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire with this
> > card goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each Methuselah
> > burns 1 pool during his or her untap phase if this vampire is in torpor."
>
> and do it again! I can see it now... the Fame/Humanitas combat deck!
That's the spirit! And I really like that idea... I'll give you due merits, don't worry. :)
> > Return to Innocence:
> > Action - 4 blood.
> > Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this card
> > on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or
> > goes to torpor, or if your Prey is ousted. During your next untap, this
> > vampire is removed from play and your Prey burns X pool, where X is the
> > capacity of this vampire.
> At this point, do you really think this change is really better than
> just banning the card?
Well, at least it leaves a way out of it... Enter combat with the minion and deal some
damage, or simply use Cryptic Mission, and RtI is burned before it is useful.
> > Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> > "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
>
> Any reasons behind this? Anything to do with David Pontes' recent post
> about "everyone uses this card"? Do you really find the card too
> powerful?
I am also having trouble seeing the motivation behind this... I never considered this
card "broken" in any way...
> Thanks for the work you've put into these, LSJ. I know that your intent
> is to make this game better. I may not agree with everything you've
> done, but your heart's in the right place.
Agreed 100%.
DOUGDWISE
The card text starts off with "Bleed." So, yes, the card does replace the
vampire's inherent bleed for one point. But it replaces that inherent bleed
with a carded bleed for 1 point. So playing the card still means your vamp is
taking a bleed action and successful bleeding minus modifiers will still cause
a 1 point pool loss.
As far as bouncing, it looks to me as if this carded bleed can still be
bounced. The only difference is that you don't get to bounce a nasty X+1 bleed
to your prey but only the carded bleed of 1. So bouncing the bleed still looks
like an effective defense against RTI, it just can't be used to turn RTI into a
great windfall for you to use against your prey.
Anyway, that's how it looks from here.
Now, about that Golden Rule of Card Ownership. . . .
Doug Dunaway
Artistically Inept Toreador
Sorrow writes:
>This new erratta makes it *impossible* to redirect this bleed/loss
>of pool. At least with the text before, you could redirect the bleed
>to your prey. This new text prohibits that.
>Also, in order for this action to be even worthwhile, you *need*
>modifiers. With just this card alone, using the new text, you will
>never bleed your prey with anything. Since it is an action, it
>essentially replaces the vampires built in bleed of 1. The card
>text says nothing about (clearly, anyway) about how much you
>are bleeding your prey for. So in effect, it is useless w/o bleed
>mods.
Card text is:
Legbiter
working very hard to try to popularise what is basically a very good game,
and I feel betrayed by these new rulings. I simply can't justify to myself
or others ANY change to the explicit text of ANY card.
What you have done here is simultaneously create an elite of Jyhad players
who know the new rules, and cast into outer darkness the vast majority of
fun players who will find it difficult either to access or to understand
the new rulings. Gaze into my eyes and I will give you another instance of
my prophetic Malkavian powers ....
Scene: the near future. A tense game of Jyhad is nearing its climax .....
NEWBIE: "Hah! Using my two master phases I play Fame and Memories of
Mortality on Zebulon, no minion phase, and during influence Zebulon burns
the Memories, goes to torpor and you are ousted!!! I WIN I WIN!!! I LOVE
THIS GAME!!!!"
LEGBITER: "Erm .... sorry dear Newbie, but according to the latest rules
team rulings Fame kills YOU! I WIN I WIN!!!! I LOVE BEING RICH ENOUGH TO
HAVE NET ACCESS SINCE IT ENABLES ME TO KILL PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY BETTER
THAN ME!!!!"
However, I'm not selling up or getting out of the game. I will even try to
explain these rulings to people. I just won't like it and, disastrously
for our game, i don't think they will either.
Legbiter, feeling really let down and sad.
PS: Hey Sorrow and anyone else who feels the way I do, d'ye fancy a game
of Rage?
LSJ
> LSJ wrote:
> > Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are still
> > your own, but are not burned when you are ousted
>
> leave, they _will_ take their cards with them. Having to remember who
> had what is, I think, more complicated that just saying "OK, he's out,
> so all of his stuff is out, too". It _is_ a card game after all.
If someone has to leave before the game is finished, that may create
problems, true. Whether or not she is ousted by the time she has to
leave. As with most games, you should allocate enough time to play it.
> > Directed actions are actions that directly affect another Methuselah,
> I take this to mean that plain brown (D) bleeds are no longer
> omni-directable? I think that the old ruling is _so_ old that I don't
> really know how this will affect things. Hmm...
No more omni-directabilty, correct.
> > Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> > vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> > vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> > unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> > requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to
> > avoid being burned.
>
> I think the wording here is a little murky. I understand that you want
> this to return aggro damage to the old Jyhad way, but the first sentence
> seems to imply that aggro damage can't _ever_ burn anyone.
Hmm. Sorry about that. The second was meant to
clarify/expound/give-exception-to that point, but I can see how the two are
at odds.
Read the first sentence as "agg done to a vampire who doesn't currently have
unhealed damage will send the vampire to torpor..." (Or just read the second
sentence as an exception).
> > Pulled Fangs:
> > The damage is not aggravated.
> > #
> > # to balance the card with Lucky Blow, Disarm, and Twisting the Knife.
>
> Well, I would think that with the aggro damage rules back the way they
> used to be, and the fact that the damage is now preventable, that PF is
> now completely in line with Disarm without this change. They both
> accomplish the same thing, except that PF pays for being disciplineless
> by not being able to be used by a vampire going to torpor and having its
> damage be preventable. I don't see what Lucky Blow has to do with
Lucky Blow: 1 extra damage, announced with the strike, dodgeable, preventable
by Skin of Steel, disciplineless, card not replaced, not stackable (only one
per strike).
PF: 1 extra damage, announced after the strike, not dodgeable, not
preventable by Skin of Steel, disciplineless, card replaced, stackable,
hunting restriction, requirement on playing the card (more damage done than
received).
> [Re: several major overhauls]
> At this point, do you really think this change is really better than
> just banning the card?
I'm *really* don't like the idea of banning cards. More people would be
even more upset at that than this, esp. the ones that have paid a lot
of money for a card that they could then no longer play with at all.
> > Sleeping Mind:
> > Cards played after Sleeping Mind are still free to break these rules, as
> > always. So while you are provented from untapping (with Rat's Warning),
> > for instance, you are not prevented from playing Wake to block - since
> > Wake allows you to attempt to block "as if untapped", and untapped
> > vampires can still block the action as normal.
>
> But wasn't the intent of the card clearly to _prevent_ Waken vampires
> from blocking?
Probably (IMO), but the intent isn't a good excuse for leaving a broken
card unbalanced. I'm all for intent when balance is preserved.
> > Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> > "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
>
> Any reasons behind this? Anything to do with David Pontes' recent post
> about "everyone uses this card"?
No, the rule was penned and being playtested well before David's post.
> Do you really find the card too powerful?
More powerful than it should be - the old restriction was meaningless,
and led to this single card supplanting the need for resource
management.
> Thanks for the work you've put into these, LSJ. I know that your intent
> is to make this game better. I may not agree with everything you've
> done, but your heart's in the right place.
Thanks for that. Nice to know we can agree on occasion. :-)
--
L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast.
Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings:
http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
LSJ
> > > Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> > > vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> > > vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> > > unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> > > requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to
> > > avoid being burned.
> or two?
OK:
vamp w/ 0 blood takes 1 regular damage: goes to torpor empty since he cannot
heal the damage.
vamp w/ 0 blood takes 1 agg damage: goes to torpor empty since he cannot
heal the damage.
vamp w/ 1 blood takes 1 agg damage: goes to torpor with 1 blood since
he cannot heal the damage.
vamp w/ 1 blood takes 1 regular and 1 agg: loses 1 to heal regular, and goes
to torpor with no blood.
vamp w/ 1 blood takes 2 agg: 1st point will send him to torpor (since
it cannot be healed), 2nd point requires the loss of a blood (since
he now has unhealed damage - namely, the first point). He goes to
torpor with no blood.
vamp w/ 1 blood takes 2 regular and 1 agg: loses 1 to heal first point
of regular damage, cannot heal the second point of regular damage, so
he will be sent to torpor. The point of agg requires the loss of a blood
(since he currently has unhealed damage - namely, the second point of
regular damage), so he is burned since he has no more blood to burn.
vamp w/ 1 blood takes 1 regular and 2 agg: loses 1 to heal first point
of regular damage; the first point of agg damage will send him to torpor
(but doesn't require the loss of a blood, since he currently has no
unhealed damage), and the second point of agg requires the loss of a blood,
which he cannot pay, so he is burned.
--
L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast.
Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings:
http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
LSJ
> LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote:
> > No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one
> > Political Action card to gain a vote during a political action,
> > including the Political Action card used to call the vote, if any.
>
> leads me to believe that presence is essentially required for vote decks
> to pass votes now. Is this your intent?
No, nor do I believe that it has been achieved.
Bribes, vote denial (auspex and/or !Ventrue), and good old-fashioned
politics (deal making) are still viable.
> > Directed actions are actions that directly affect another Methuselah,
> Removing cross bleeds in our playgroup will drastically affect the
> Meta-Game in a bad way.
"drastic" and "bad way" are both matters of opinion. The latter one is
one that I do not hold to.
>
> > Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> > vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> > vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> > unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> > requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to avoid
> > being burned.
>
> The only card the new agg rules broke IMO was Pulled Fangs, and I
It also made all of the other methods of dealing aggravated damage
stronger, when most were balanced to begin with.
While not all of them were "broken" by the VTES rule, they were all
made stronger. Some (Ivory Bow, e.g.) moved deep into the unbalanced
field, others less so.
> honestly feel the VTES agg rules were simpler and more fun to play. And
The new rules are simpler than the Jyhad rules, and almost as simple
as the old VTES rules. Effectively, the vampire simply has to burn 1
less blood to avoid destruction now than with the old VTES rules.
> > Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> > "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
>
> ??!? This helps how? People will just play with Forced
> Awakenings....unless you plan on changing Forced Awakening too.
FA requires a blood if used to play a deflection, and runs the risk of
a loss of blood even if you try to block. Sometimes a vampire's blood
is worth the temporary loss of a hand slot, sometimes not. Now it's
more a matter of a deck-building decision rather than a given.
--
L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast.
Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings:
http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
James Hamblin
>
> Legbiter wrote:
> >
> > Sigh. I have to say that I agree with Sorrow about this lot. I've been
> > working very hard to try to popularise what is basically a very good game,
> > and I feel betrayed by these new rulings. I simply can't justify to myself
> > or others ANY change to the explicit text of ANY card.
>
>
> I myself do not relish the thought of playing with an Obedience
> that doesn't cancel combat (Sabbat), or playing a Soul Gem that
> costs two pool.
LSJ... I'm trying to support you this time, I really am... :)
As I said before, those cards you mention are bascially typos. It's
really easy to explain to someone that there was a typo on a card and
tell them to play it the way it was printed before. But telling someone
"here are these 20 cards which were changed" tends to make that person
angry and confused. I do understand that changes are needed, to
overturn bad rulings in the past and to make the game better. But the
simpler these changes are, the better for everyone. If I were in the
position to be making these kind of changes, I would only give myself
three options:
1. Leave the card alone.
2. Make a slight change.
3. Ban the card.
If we can't live with the card the way it is, and there isn't some
slight change that will fix it (like correcting a typo), then we're
probably better off just banning it.
Mike Bohlmann
the entirely new card wordings? The Rulings, Clarifications, and
Errata are already over 20 printed pages long (based off of printing
them directly from LSJ's web pages). If the cards that got major
rewordings were in such dire need of fixing, why not just ban them?
It's much easier to tell someone that a card is banned rather than
saying they totally changed the card to make it not be so powerful.
LSJ wrote:
> No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more.......
It's really too bad that vote pushing decks were around. It was
always fun to be in the middle of voting and get someone to
give you something in exchange for a couple extra votes. Good
rule.
> Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified.....
Personally, I love this rule. When I was in Vienna, that's how
the group played. Now we might actually see some Corruption decks
on the tournament scene.
However, I've also had my fair share of people who are very bitter
when they lose. They just want to take their cards and go pout when
they are ousted. This has the possibility of leading to some
confrontations without a strong and firm judge.
> Directed actions are actions that directly affect another.......
As James said, is one of the unstated results of this change that you
can't use bleed cards to bleed anyone other than your prey?
> Equipment: is not optional, except as noted on card text.....
Bye-bye IC member with the Laptop...... I'm guessing that you looked
at EVERY equipment item to make sure this didn't create any weird
card interdependencies?
> Aggravated Damage: aggravated damage done to a ready vampire sends the
> vampire to torpor (since it cannot be healed) but does not cause the
> vampire to burn any blood. Aggravated damage done to a vampire with
> unhealed damage (including aggravated damage after the first point)
> requires that the vampire burn one blood per point of damage to
> avoid being burned.
I would recommend rewording this to be the exact wording from the
Jyhad
rulebook along with clarification as necessary. First you say
aggravated damage doesn't cause a vampire to burn blood and then you
do. We all know what you mean, but it should be stated better.
> Fame:
> "Unique Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire with this
> card goes to torpor, then his controller burns 3 pool. Each Methuselah
> burns 1 pool during his or her untap phase if this vampire is in torpor."
At first, I was like, "Great, there goes my Ravnos deck." But then I
realised that my combat decks now have a way to cause some actual pool
loss. However, I must reiterate that if a card gets this much
rewording
to "fix" it, I'd rather see it banned.
> Major Boon:
> ...Not usable if you control the acting minion....
Is this piece of text necessary? It's an OOT Master. Or are you
planning on making OOT's playable on your turn?
> Mind Rape:
> # The original version of this card is just way too powerful.
Once again, ban rather than totally reword.
> Pulled Fangs:
> The damage is not aggravated.
> #
> # to balance the card with Lucky Blow, Disarm, and Twisting the Knife.
Huh? Making the damage preventable didn't balance it enough?
> Return to Innocence:
Great fix, but once again, ban rather than totally redo.
> Sleeping Mind:
> Cards played after Sleeping Mind are still free to break these rules, as
> always. So while you are provented from untapping (with Rat's Warning),
> for instance, you are not prevented from playing Wake to block - since
> Wake allows you to attempt to block "as if untapped", and untapped
> vampires can still block the action as normal.
I always took the above as the devil's advocate way of interpreting
the card. Net effect - none on decks that don't use Animalism untaps,
and Animalism untap decks have to pack some Wakes (if the meta-game
warrants).
> Thoughts Betrayed:
> "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat."
Cool, but ban rather than fix. Although at least this fix doesn't add
a whole paragraph to the card.....
> Tomb of Ramses III:
> "Master: Unique Location. 3 pool.
> When this card is brought into play, or the controller of this card changes,
> the controller chooses a vampire in her uncontrolled region. During your
> influence phase, tap to move 1 blood from the blood bank to the chosen
> vampire. Burn this card when the chosen vampire leaves the uncontrolled
> region."
Ummmm, I didn't see Dreams of the Sphinx on this list anywhere.
Unless you are using ToR for pool gain, it just became wallpaper.
I'm sure glad I didn't _buy_ any as singles.
> # This may not be the best fix (indeed, I've seen some better ones posted
> # on the NG), but it is the easiest to explain/remember.
I'm sorry, LSJ, no offense intended, but I had a hard time staying on
my chair laughing at this statement. None of the cards (apart from
maybe TB) that got major reworkings are easy to remember.
> Wake with Evening's Freshness:
> "Do not replace until your next untap phase."
Forced Awakening? Hello? Is Forced Awakening alright or did you just
forget about it?
> Zip Gun:
> Cannot use ammo cards.
Zip Gun went from combat offense to combat defense. And a pretty weak
one at that.
I think I can safely predict that these rulings will increase the
room temperature on r.c.t-c.jyhad to a level that is at or above the
most heated CL debates.
Mike
--
Mike Bohlmann, MAIP mboh...@pdnt.com
Internet Strategy and Development Consultant
Mike Bohlmann
My news server seems slow so I went to DejaNews to see that there
were about twice as many posts as I say from my news server.
Overall, I think the new rulings are great. However, I'm in the
group that feels non-typo, complex card changes should not be
made. In their place, a card should be untouched or banned.
I've played Jyhad with about 30 or 40 different people now (not
counting conventions and tournaments). I would _liberally_
estimate that about 10 of those have Internet access. I already
feel like somewhat of an ass when I have to bring up the rulings
and such on one of every 10 cards (just a wild estimate). Usually,
I don't get too much resistance when the ruling/errata/clarification
is somewhat obvious from card text or a typo. However, when they
weren't, resistance could be great. Like the pre-June ruling on
2nd Tradition: only usable by a tapped Prince or Justicar that
needed the intercept. The card was wildly open to interpretation.
However, when faced with "official" ruling, people either just
accepted it or got upset because they depended on the card to work
a different way.
When a card is errata'd/ruling'd/clarified based on a reasonable
interpretation of a card, generally you can count on at least someone
else supporting your position.
However, I can just see what happens at the next tournament with
these rules in effect. A net savvy person is playing a game with
3 non-net people. One of the non-net people plays a Tomb of
Ramses. You have to explain to them how the card works. Then
later, someone plays a Pulled Fangs, and you have to tell them about
that change. As you continue to tell them that cards their decks
depend on have been incredibly reworded, they accuse you of cheating.
So now that you've played a tournament with a bunch of people that
don't know about the RTR, what do they do? They tell their play
group about all these weird rulings. Most likely, they don't have
anything printed, so they just continue to play as they always did.
Are tournament and event organizers now going to start carrying around
30 page books with all the new rulings to give to non-net savvy
players?
I realise that the rulings are well intentioned and meant to make
the game better. However, in my humble opinion, they've just made
a somewhat complex game with an already complex set of fixes a whole
lot more complex. And unnecessarily so.
Legbiter
<ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote:
I agree with James here, as usual. And let me say that I hate to appear so
negative. I like the reversion to the original aggravated damage rules. I
understand that a lot of the card-fixes are very ingenious, and we can all
marvel at them and wish that they had, indeed, originally been phrased
that way. I even suspect that as Jyhad fades out we dwindling band of
die-hards may find ourselves playing an objectively better game.
Unfortunately, it isn't going to matter one bit, because the already
difficult task of bringing in new people has just been made about ten
times more difficult.
We've been through this whole discussion before, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
see that playability is NOT the main problem with Jyhad. The main problem
is LACK OF PLAYERS AND LACK OF SALES. By all means let's fix abusive
tournament play if that's what the community wants, but NOT at the expense
of fossilising the whole game. And, as James suggests, let's do the fixing
by BANNING cards, NOT by creating new texts for them.
Legbiter, feeling slightly more cheerful with his third VP from jolstory3
almost in the bag.
Sorrow
that were over-powered had their power blatantly reduced and
I don't see how these ruling have balanced anything.
>> Fame?
>> WTF?
>> Why would anyone ever use that card again?
>Re-read the card text.
I've read it several times.
>> >Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are >>>
still your own, but are not burned when you are ousted - only the cards
>> > that you control are burned when you are ousted. The rest (stolen
>> > by or traded to other players) are returned to you when they are
>> > burned or when the game ends.
>> So, when I'm ousted and I want to leave, I have to wait until the
>> game is over until I get all my cards back.
>> Whatever.
>Again, these are not tournament rules.
Oh, but if I'm playing with my regular gaming group, if I need to leave
I cannot because my cards are "still in play".
Whatever.
>> >Fame:
>> How?
>Re-read the card. No more Day-Op/Fame, Mummify/Fame, Force of >Will/Fame
decks. Votes, Bleeds, Combat, and Fame. Fame abuse has >become a style of
play unto itself.
As I point out in a different message, Fame abuse has moved from
Fortitude decks to Combat decks with this ruling. I don't see how
that is any better.
Plus, in it's current state, it is practically unusable.
Sorrow