Lupus' Tara question

Scott, while you're about it, could the rules team review the whole concept of not being able to take (D) actions against oneself? An awful lot of perfectly good babies have been thrown out with the Powerbase: Mexico City bathwater.

[ quoted text not captured ] That ruling/errata was around long before Mexico City was even being considered (before Sabbat, before Ancient Hearts). It first came to the players (I believe) via Tom's answer to a question about Darius Styx: Subject: Re: TOM: Q: DS: Darius Styx (Ravnos) From: aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) Date: 1995/12/14 Message-ID: <4aoe4n$3...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> (D) actions may not be taken against yourself unless the card specifically indicates otherwise, which Darius does not, so no, you can't try to grab your own equipment. Some time before then, the outlook was different: Subject: Re: Haven Uncovered... From: aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) Date: 1995/05/25 Message-ID: <3q2ip1$r...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> Looking the corrected rulebook, I can't find anything that says you can't use D actions on yourself ("Directed actions... allow you to direct the action against *any* Methuselah", Section 13.3.1). Matt Burke just confirmed that you can use D actions against yourself, with the exceptions being any kind of bleed, and any card that explicitly says it's used on another Methuselah. There may be certain cards which would be better off if you couldn't use them against yourself (e.g. Haven Uncovered), but in general it's not a problem. So apparently the 5/25 decision was overturned/forgotten by the RT in favor of the 12/14 version. It has been questioned (heavily) since that time, and the RT has so far stood firm on it, although they've never (TTBOMK) explained the reasoning behind the change. But I'll be glad to put it back on their plate. -- 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

[ quoted text not captured ] Presumably the reasoning is that a direct action against oneself cannot be blocked except by the Methuselah against whom it's directed, which makes it essentially an unblockable action. Usually i'm against fixes but in this instance the fix already exists [though not in the rulebook] and doesn't work that well IMHO. Could I suggest that it may be simpler on this ONE occasion to fix this problem in a slightly different way? "Direct actions against a Methuselah, card or minion can usually only be blocked by minions of the Methuselah who is being attacked or who controls that card or minion, unless there is card text to say differently. EXCEPTION: if a Methuselah takes a direct action against herslef, this action may be blocked by minions of her prey or predator."

> > Usually i'm against fixes but in this instance the fix already exists > [though not in the rulebook] and doesn't work that well IMHO. Could I > suggest that it may be simpler on this ONE occasion to fix this problem in > a slightly different way? > > "Direct actions against a Methuselah, card or minion can usually only be > blocked by minions of the Methuselah who is being attacked or who controls > that card or minion, unless there is card text to say differently. > EXCEPTION: if a Methuselah takes a direct action against herslef, this > action may be blocked by minions of her prey or predator." Please no. Directed actions against yourself are generally broken, even if blockable. Most notably in the cases of Darius Styx and Powerbase: Mexico City, but in other cases as well. If there are to be self-directed (D) actions, let them be decided on a case-by-case basis. As far as I'm concerned, I'm fine with letting Tara be useless, and other (D) actions shouldn't be self-directable. Otherwise there is no restriction against bleeding yourself or attacking your own minions (and sticky situations result). -Chris

Chris Berger <ber...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote: > other (D) actions shouldn't be self-directable. Otherwise there is no > restriction against bleeding yourself or attacking your own minions (and > sticky situations result). FYI: There is a restriction: two minions you control cannot engage in combat with each other (which is possible with the current card set, except for this rule). And: you cannot bleed yourself. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading