Before you act, Warchanter vs Sinspawn

[Brainwave]

Both the Goblin Warchanter (as has been discussed in other threads) and the Wrathful Sinspawn text have before you act rolls. The Warchanter makes everyone roll as per that other thread but the Sinspawn does not.

 

Maybe there's a reason why there should be a difference but I don't see it.

[ArchSenex]

 

 

 

Surely, by far the simplest and most appropriate solution is just to add a clause referencing "each character" to the Warchanter's card, just as it appears on every other card that affects each character.

 

Agreed, which is why we're pushing for that one.  The whole discussion is about supporting how the Warchanter is what is wrong BECAUSE all those other identical cards work the way we expect, so either it's behavior needs to be changed to be consistent, or the phrasing needs to update to match the behavior.

 

Absolutely. I trust Obsidian will make the functionality clear on the card text while they're revamping it with its new special effects, because it really is unintuitive and goes against established card behaviour.

 

I guess the best way to counter any arguments against clarifying the card itself is to put it this way: if you encountered the Warchanter card in the physical game, why would you think for even a moment that you had to roll for each character? Nothing on the card itself indicates you should.

 

 

After some more digging, the problem is that Rise comes from back when they had "before the encounter" cards.  They don't use that phrasology any more.

 

The standard pattern is... "Before you act, do X" which makes a BIT more sense.  So yeah, if the "you" rule was applied then, it would apply to any character that wants to act (although the BEST pattern is "Before acting, a character must do X").

 

Odds are good that if they were re-written, Warchanter would be:  "Before you act, Check Wisdom..."  And the Sinspawn would be "Before you encounter Sinspawn, Check Wisdom"

 

That would make the behavior consistent, follow the ruling, and explain the difference.  Most cards have been re-written to say "Before you encounter, X does damage" and the like, using the encountering as the trigger.

 

However, in Rise, cards like the Enchanter etc. just said "before THE encounter" and that's the root of all the problem.

 

So yes, I fully understand the intent, just that it needs more than the ruling to make it work, it needs the ruling AND the modern phrasing.

[Brainwave]

Actually I think people are arguing that it's not the "you" in before you act that means all characters, it's the "you" in "succeed at a wisdom X roll or you may not play Y on this check". To me this makes no difference though, as the Sinspawn also has a "your" in the effect part of the text "succeed at a wisdom X roll or your checks are increased by 1 for the rest of the turn". This is just a different tense of the same exact word...

 

I love the 1+1=3 analogy btw

[zeroth_hour]

"Before you act" is a step in the game.  It's not meant to be parsed as normal English.

 

In Wrath of the Righteous, Seelah has a power that said "When you attempt a check before you act, you may use your Charisma skill instead of any listed skill."  People kept tripping up over this because people kept thinking you could use it on all the checks in an encounter because it's always going to be before you do any actions.

[Brainwave]

Right, which is why I took the "before you act" parts out of the card texts in my last post. I recognize that's just referring to the step of the turn in which that text applies.

 

Haven't played wrath but I can imagine the arguments my S&S partner and I would have had over that power. That wording...