VTES Rules Team Rulings, July 7, 1998

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. 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

LSJ wrote: > > 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

>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. 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorrow wrote: > > >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

One important bit of information was missing from the Rules Team post. 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. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin wrote: > > 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. [ quoted text not captured ]

>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. 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 [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > 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/

Sorrow wrote: > > Ok, I'm outta here. I cannot believe these rulings/erratta. > How much more damage do you want to do to the game, LSJ? [snip] 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. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6num2t$jt0$1...@birch.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, 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

Your first set of rulings had few flaws (or at least livable ones), 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

Sorrow 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. 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? [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: "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

> 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. 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%.

I'll take a stab at explaining how I thought the card works under LSJ's text. 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: [ quoted text not captured ]

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. 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?

James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > Golden Rule of Card Ownership has been modified. Your cards are still > > your own, but are not burned when you are ousted > > 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. 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

gen...@iname.com wrote: > > > 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 have trouble understanding what it truly means... Maybe with an example > 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

et...@ddg.com (Ethan Burrow) wrote: > 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. > > 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? 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > > 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. > > Then we have an impasse. > > 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. [ quoted text not captured ]

I'd like to echo James' (and Sorrow's to an extent) feelings. Why 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

Addendum to my post: 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. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A370DE...@math.wisc.edu>, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] 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.

>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. 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 [ quoted text not captured ]

>>>Return to Innocence: >>> Action - 4 blood. >>> Bleed. If you successfully bleed your Prey for one or more, put this -------^^^^^^^ It was this that I found unclear. But upon reading it *several* more times, I see that it implies that it replaces the vampires base (inherant) bleed of 1. >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. What I was unclear was how you even got a *1* bleed from RtI. When I first read it, it seemed like to get >1, you *had* to use bleed mods. >Deflection is still a viable defence for Return to Innocence. I see that. However, I still contend that noone will use this card. A 4 blood cost action to bleed for 1 where the only deck that now has to truly worry about it is a vote deck. The text that says that if anything happens to the vamp, the card is burned makes it useless, IMO. An action not even worth taking because the threat of the card being burned prematurely is too great and not worth the 4 blood cost. >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 didn't mind lugging around all the previous erratta because I felt that almost all of it was fair and just. I don't see any of that fair and justness in any of the recent rulings. I'm leaving the game. And yes, it is kind of sad because both here (in New Orleans) and when I lived in D.C., I promoted the hell out of the game. Since I've gotten into V:tes, I'd have to say I've brought more than 50 people on board. I'll be posting a list of all the cards I have later this week if anyone is interested in buying them all. >I hope you'll come to see that the changes arefor the benefit of the >game. But I don't see that they have. I played my Pot/IG deck last week using the new erratta against one of my playgroups Presence deck. MY IG deck won about 75% of the time. I lost every single game (and we played 6 to do a good test). I don't see how any of this erratta/rulings have brought anything into balance. I feel that all the fun has left the game for me. [ quoted text not captured ]

The following may end up being very vitriolic, please take it with many grains of salt or in a satiric fashion. It is not intended to offend, merely to express ideas. <satire> LSJ, I am starting a Lynch Mob to be composed of everyone that ever over-traded or spent upwards of $10 on a Mind Rape, RTI or Tomb and we will be over to your house shortly. You seem to have taken the trump cards effectively out of the game with the exception of Sudden Reversal and Direct Intervention. Do you intend to correct this oversight? Wouldn't it have been better to simply ban Mind Rape, RTI and the Tomb than to issue such sweeping errata that cannot hope to be supported by card text? Why should Pulled Fangs be balanced against a crappy wallpaper card like Twisting the Knife? No self-respecting Potence deck would consider TtK, must they also remove PF from consideration? PF change - This should more than effectively redress Potence against it's miniscule loss with the IG ruling, no longer do they need to be concerned that a Fortitude deck will take the Potence Deck's Bum's Rushes to be an invitation to torporize the rushing vampire (prevent all and PF). </satire> Any other changes immediately in the works? [ quoted text not captured ]

> > > 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. So it is indeed true that you cannot use a (D) bleed to bleed cross table? Sorrow [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Sorrow wrote: > > >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. > > Again, these are not tournament rules. But they do apply in DCI tournaments. (Sorry - I was confused at first by your statement, and wanted to make sure no one else was). -- 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > LSJ wrote: > "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? If you're taking only aggravated damage, yes. First point cannot be healed, and you're on your way to torpor. Next X points deplete your X blood And the final point burns you, since you cannot burn any more blood. [ quoted text not captured ]

pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > LSJ wrote: > "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? As allowed by card text, yes. Note that you can never bleed yourself or enter combat with a minion that you control. > 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? Good questions. I hope to be able to work with WotC and/or VEKN to reach the non-netters out there, but am not sure yet of the scope of what that will involve. The logistics (and profitability) may stand in the way. We'll see. [ quoted text not captured ]

jay...@compusmart.ab.ca wrote: > LSJ 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. > > # > > # 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. No one can "push" the vote - each player can get at most one vote from a PA card. Why should you be allowed two when everyone else is restricted to one? > > > > 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???? Parallel: Or you decide to go home before you're ousted, right? Right??? Um, no. If players cannot stay for the whole game, the situation will have to be handled as the players see fit. In general, if you don't have time for a whole game, you should use a time limit or some other method of ensuring that you can leave when you need to. > 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, Then explain it the current way, except that you lose one less blood. > [objections to some of the card fixes] Noted. -- 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: > >> 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). > > But the effect is the exact same. It's just that the burden of abuse has > moved from Fortitude decks to combat decks. And, as you pointed out in another post, it is much harder for a combat deck to abuse it - to the point, in your opinion, of making the card useless. I don't think it is useless - but it is much harder to abuse (maybe even balanced). > >> >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. > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > Princes or Presense. Or auspex and vote denial. See Ventrue Antitribu. Or Bribery. Or Justicar votes w/ Praxes. ... > >> >Zip Gun: > >> 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. > > Except that you can simply use a Maneuver card instead (there are > disciplinless Maneuver cards) and not worry about hurting yourself. > This is effectivly what LSJ changed the ZG into: a Maneuver card. If so, then it is effectively balanced with Fake Out, eh? (Except that you can use it for multiple strikes at long range with celerity, or in later rounds, or if your hand damage is reduced, or...) [ quoted text not captured ]

> >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. I totally agree with Sorrow on this one. The more I think of it, the worse this one seems. TOR III is now basically worthless. It's expensive, selective, vulnerable, and temporal. There is no point in using it. The fact it is clanlessness doesn't even come close to making up for this. Also this doesn't match the card text at all. Really bad. It would have been much better to say that only transfers made to the vamp with TOR are matched from the blood bank, and that no pool can be transferred from the vampire with the tomb. I personally don't care if it's harder to remember, I think making the card balanced and useful is more important. This ruling is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and TB. My $.02 Steve Bucy

> Legbiter, feeling slightly more cheerful with his third VP from jolstory3 > almost in the bag. I saw this! I'll remember you... :)

Just thought I would throw my comments in here as well. Some rulings I like a lot and are needed but some just do not make a whole lot of sense. :( > 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 do not know how other playgroups are/were but my group has played by the DCI tourney rules and vote pushing has not been a problem. I do not see why we need the change. Anyone had different stories? > >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. Ugh! NO NO NO! While these may be the original rulings for agg damage they were a pain in the ass. Newbies would look at you very confused when trying to understand this one. Why go back? As so many people have said, the card that was abusing the agg rules was PF. Just change PF (only!) and leave the VTES version of the agg damage rules. >Pulled Fangs: > The damage is not aggravated. > # > # to balance the card with Lucky Blow, Disarm, and Twisting the Knife. A very easy change that fixes the card. My group has been playing with this house rule for a while now and have had no problems. Why the need to change all of the agg rules as well? What other cards (agg cards) do you think are overpowering LSJ? >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. This does help the card but why not make a very simple change and say that NO action modifiers can be played on this action at all? Very simple. Keep the original card text. That way, no pumping stealth into it, no Day Ops, no Dawn Ops, Daring the Dawn. Am I missing something? >Thoughts Betrayed: > "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat." Wonderful! Very simple. Very effective. >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. The fix that you suggest is fine. Except that it creates a whole new card. The Tomb was _never_ supposed to be an EcoTerrorist for the clanless. Once again, there is a easy fix without changing all of the words and intent. Proposed fix - just change the phrase "for each blood counter you transfer to _AN_ uncontrolled" to "for each blood counter you transfer to _THE_ uncontrolled". Very simple change. Net effect - Now only blood moved to the vamp with the Tomb gets the free blood. Not the ability of bringing out a vamp for the cost of the Tomb while you influence another. Now the Tomb makes just the very big vamps a little cheaper to play. 10 and 11 cap vamps cost 9 pool (net savings of 2 pool). 8 and 9 cap vamps cost 7 pool (net savings of 1 pool). I understand that you do not like the idea of the Tomb giving free transfers on the first turn before anyone has a change to Arson it. But so does Information Highway which is free. Please do not kill the Tomb because I do not see a lot of larger vamps being brought out now. With this ruling, play continues to shift to the med. (4-6) and smaller vamps. L Scott, I have said in the past that I appreciate all of the work you have done for the game. I still do. I completely understand that you want to change a lot of things in the game. I think most of us are generally for this. But before we make any drastic changes, could we at least talk about some of them first? Like the agg damage rulings. Could the NG at least debate this for a little while before it becomes official? This might ease some of the tension from these rulings. Just my 2 cents. Todd Banister Prince of Atlanta

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > > > 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. > > So it is indeed true that you cannot use a (D) bleed to bleed cross table? Right, unless card text says otherwise. -- 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > > Princes or Presense. > > Or auspex and vote denial. See Ventrue Antitribu. Our playgroup doesn't play with voting enough to even entertain making a deck that *hoses* votes. It would get mauled by the combat decks that are now even stronger with fame ;-) > Or Bribery. Possibly, but I'm not going to build a deck based on it due to.... > Or Justicar votes w/ Praxes. In our group everyone typically has 2-3 votes per Meth simply because of the combo's and vamps we like to play. Praxis Seizures rarely pass unless a weenie get's it off on 2nd turn. Thus without presence there's no way to really get votes passed that directly help your deck, since the table has a majority against you (and most players in our group recognize the meta-game so there is usually no sympathy votes). So your voting deck is downgraded to just "annoying" unless you pack in the presence. The only viable voting deck with the new rules IMHO is a presence vote deck that uses Closed Session, and god have mercy on your soul if you sit next to an intercept deck. Maybe our playgroup is the only one getting screwed, but this doesn't give us any incentive to play with more voting.... _____________________________________________________________ Ethan Burrow V:EKN Prince of Austin et...@ddg.com http://www.ddg.com/ethan/austin http://www.ddg.com/ethan/

LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > 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. > > Then we have an impasse. > > 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. Errata to cards to some extent I can accept. (Let's face it, some cards were poorly worded or poorly tested) Outright changing basic rules of the game to me shouldn't be as simple to change as errata though. That's what house rules and DCI rules are for. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > 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. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and try to play a vote deck without presence using the new rules. But I doubt it'll get a single victory point knowing how our group builds crypts (i.e. 2-3 votes per meth usually). > > > 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. One of the great things about this game is the many options available. Your recent rulings have removed many of my options which I felt enhanced the game. Not being able to directly bleed my predator in times of need effectively removes a strategy from several of my decks. What am I gaining in return? Clearer wording that I felt was already clear?? > 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. If it wasn't broken then what was the motivation for changing the rule that justifies the community's (net and non-net) confusion.... > > 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 That would be an opinion that I don't share. I prefer the VTES rule. I'd rather you made all these rules changes to the DCI rules and leave the casual game alone. It would be less confusing to new players who frankly don't worry about tournaments all that much <g> [ quoted text not captured ]

I have to delurk here. Although I haven't played that long my first deck was a gangrel weenie burn 'em deck with amaranths and such. But no, with the new agg damage rules, it seems like gangrel have just gone down in power since it now requires AT LEAST 3 points of agg damage to burn a vampire, and that's just if the vampire has one blood on him. Before it would have taken two, one to put him in torpor and one to burn him, but now it takes three, which basiclly makes playing a protean based gangrel deck almost impossible, especially since most vampires you run across will have more than one blood on them. Protean was hard enough to play already, and noe it will be basically impossible to creat a viable protean deck taht will do anything but put vampires in torpor WITH BLOOD on them so that they can just get out next turn... Sorry, just my $.02 Ian <snip> > 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. > [ quoted text not captured ]

Ethan Burrow wrote: > > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > > > Princes or Presense. [snip] > > Or Bribery. > > Possibly, but I'm not going to build a deck based on it due to.... You'd be suprised. You call a vote which everyone benefits from (Rumors, Ancient Influence, etc.) and Bribe, then Cryptic Rider your praxis seizure or damaging vote. > > Or Justicar votes w/ Praxes. > > In our group everyone typically has 2-3 votes per Meth simply because of > the combo's and vamps we like to play. I have found in the Ithaca group that people tend to use vampires for their disciplines much more than for votes. If I'm not going to vote effectively, there's not much point in even trying. Hence the vote deck tends to get going more easily, but that's OK. > Praxis Seizures rarely pass > unless a weenie get's it off on 2nd turn. Thus without presence there's > no way to really get votes passed that directly help your deck, since > the table has a majority against you (and most players in our group > recognize the meta-game so there is usually no sympathy votes). So your > voting deck is downgraded to just "annoying" unless you pack in the > presence. The only viable voting deck with the new rules IMHO is a > presence vote deck that uses Closed Session, and god have mercy on your > soul if you sit next to an intercept deck. I have myself made an effective Lasombra vote deck. The Lasombra do not, as you may be aware, have presence. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > > > 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 like the change, but I understand why people want their cards when ousted... A thought hit me, and maybe this could make both parties happy: What about proxy cards? If I remember right V:EKN was trying to get WotC to print blank V:TES cards, and from what I could tell, the blank cards really will be printed. (I'm right, about this anyway, eh?) Then if someone is ousted and needs to leave, (e.g. Has a long trip home after the last game of a tourney.) You can use the proxy card to represent the Curse of Nitocris, Millicent Smith, Kindred Society Games or whatever happens to be leaving. I know that you don't need a blank card to have a proxy, but I thought it would simplify things for tournament use. (Better than using another card-- "No that's not a hunting ground, that's 'The Rack'" or another object-- Chee-tos make lousy proxys... "HEY! Don't eat my ToRIII!" ) If anyone has any different ideas about how to make both parties happy and/or compromise, I'd love to hear it. (If for nothing else, but to develop a decent house rule on the subject.) Thanks, Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

LSJ wrote in message <6o02v1$3r8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >> [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. What?! I can't believe this! I disagree totally with you, LSJ. Your rules "corrections" have the objective to make V:tES a more playable and fair game for all. This has nothing to do with peoples money. I spent a lot of money on cards and now i'm worried with some new rules i disagree, not the money i spent before! But if that's the point, so why don't you bring back for example "Madness of the Bard" and change it's text? I payed for that card and i'm not worried about knowing it's a banned card! >> > 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. I always felt that WWEF should be replaced after i played it. This is unfair... but that's no problem: we still got Forced Awakening! I don't understand the new rules on "aggravated damage". Here's a small example: -B has capacity 2. -A inflicts 3 aggravated points on B. What happens now? B is still burned or just goes to torpor? Just one final comment: in my opinion 2 different things should happen for the good (or the surviving) of the game: 1- Too Powerful cards shoud be banned from Tournments (only), just like Ante cards and "Madness of the Bard". 2- A second edition of the cards should be printed, because NOW i can't explain to the NEW players of V:tES that there are many cards that what they read in the card text is NOT what the card really does... How do you explain this point to the new players, LSJ? "Please don't read the card text! Instead of it, please consult these 8 pages and search for the new card text."...! Thanks for reading. .- Luis....@ip.pt

Ian Cyr wrote: > > I have to delurk here. > Although I haven't played that long my first deck was a gangrel weenie burn 'em > deck with amaranths and such. > But no, with the new agg damage rules, Er, the _old_ agg damage rules. > it seems like gangrel have just gone > down in power since it now requires AT LEAST 3 points of agg damage to burn a > vampire, and that's just if the vampire has one blood on him. ...or two points if the vampire is empty. This isn't as hard to do as you think. There's Gangrel Revel, Ritual Challenge, and Scorpion Sting. See also Gomi no Sensei's "Who needs potence?" deck and my various incarnations of the Gangrel intercept deck. These were all made under the old (and now current again) aggro rules. Then again, there's always the weenie Protean deck. Lots of weenies that bleed with computer hackings and Laptops, and poke anyone who blocks. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> Fame? WTF? > > But the effect is the exact same. It's just that the burden of abuse has > > moved from Fortitude decks to combat decks. > I don't think it is useless - but it is much harder to abuse > (maybe even balanced). I dispute this assertion. During the heated debate about IG, you said time and time again that it still isn't difficult to put the opposing vamp into Torpor in the first round (while still under the effects of IG). And since Fame now is only effective in a combat deck (I pointed out Fame is useless in anything but), it can (and will) still be abused by combat decks. > > >> >No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > > Princes or Presense. > Or auspex and vote denial. See Ventrue Antitribu. These just became ultra powerful v. vote decks. In talking with Jared Strait this morning, he made mention that the more he thought about it, the more he liked this ruling because it made it so that voting is now a group dynamic where one deck would no longer dominate. I contend that this is not a good thing. Unless you pack tons of PS's, Princes or Presence, you are pretty much going to have to rely on the rest of the table to help you pass votes. That just about each of your votes (including, potentially, the initial PS to make your minions a prince) is now controlled by the whims of the table. What ever happened to being able to build a Vote deck that succeeds on it's own merits and not on the mood of the other players. > Or Bribery. Why should a vote deck *have* to pack bribery just to pass it's votes? Of all the vote decks I've ever built, only one contained Bribes. I usually needed the space for other cards. Now, just about every vote deck will need to in order to succeed. > Or Justicar votes w/ Praxes. Yeah, but if your Justicar/PS votes get voted down (which is easy to do) early in the game, then your deck is so screwed. >> >Zip Gun: > > Except that you can simply use a Maneuver card instead (there are > > disciplinless Maneuver cards) and not worry about hurting yourself. > > This is effectivly what LSJ changed the ZG into: a Maneuver card. > If so, then it is effectively balanced with Fake Out, eh? How? Fake Out doesn't cause a damage to be done to the vamp. > (Except that you can use it for multiple strikes at long range > with celerity, or in later rounds, or if your hand damage is > reduced, or...) If you are using celerity, then there are much better things you can use for strikes. And why in the world would you pack a ZG expecting your HD to be reduced? It rarely happens and because of this, it will turn into a wasted slot. And later rounds? If your deck is using ZG, odds are that you don't want to go later rounds. All of the above arguments are poor, imo. Sorrow [ quoted text not captured ]

> > So it is indeed true that you cannot use a (D) bleed to bleed cross table? > Right, unless card text says otherwise. Umm, I don't understand this. Most (all?) bleed cards say: (D) Bleed with +X bleed. It doesn't say anything about bleeding another methuselah (the otherwise). So, now cards like Social Charm and Govern the Unaligned cannot be used to bleed my Predator? Or even my Grand Pred? [ quoted text not captured ]

>First point cannot be healed, and you're on your way to torpor. >Next X points deplete your X blood >And the final point burns you, since you cannot burn any more blood. > I have seen you write this a few times and I just wanted to make sure this is exactly what you mean. You said that the first point of agg damage _cannot_ be healed. No damage prevention? Did you mean if it is not prevented then the first point sends the vamp to torpor? Just needed this ruling a little clearer. Thanks [ quoted text not captured ]

Mike Bohlmann wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > 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? It is possible to take a bleed action when it is not your turn, you know? > > 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. Tomb can be used indefinately as a pool gainer. Dreams cannot. > > 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? FA has a cost if you simply cycle it (or use it to play Deflection or Telepathic Counter or whatever), and carries the threat of a cost if the acting minion out-stealths you. [ quoted text not captured ]

Ethan Burrow wrote: > Our playgroup doesn't play with voting enough to even entertain making a >[...] > In our group everyone typically has 2-3 votes per Meth simply because of Well, which is it? If voting is just a sideline for your players, then you should be able to pass mosts vote if you are playing a voting deck. If it's just a sideline for you as well, then sure, it may not be a sure thing (far from it). That's the way politics are supposed to work. [ quoted text not captured ]

Ethan Burrow wrote: > Errata to cards to some extent I can accept. (Let's face it, some cards > were poorly worded or poorly tested) > > Outright changing basic rules of the game to me shouldn't be as simple > to change as errata though. That's what house rules and DCI rules are > for. DCI rules are for making the game work in a tournament environment, not for fixing problems with the game in general. That's what errata is for. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Good questions. I hope to be able to work with WotC and/or VEKN to reach the > non-netters out there, but am not sure yet of the scope of what that will > involve. The logistics (and profitability) may stand in the way. > We'll see. A failure to plan is a plan for failure. I already get confused and frustrated looks from people when I point out a ruling that means the card they just tried to play to do something really cool doesn't really work like that. Old Way: Me - "Fame is now unique, you can't play more than one without contesting it." Other player - "Oh..." And they usually accept it. New Way: Me - "Fame is unique and instead of causing your prey to lose 3 pool, you lose 3 pool. So since you were using it for a kind of combat defense, you'll want to take it out of that deck and put it in your combat decks." Other player - "What? Why? Huh?" Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP mboh...@pdnt.com Internet Strategy and Development Consultant

Steve Bucy wrote: > > >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. > > I totally agree with Sorrow on this one. The more I think of it, the worse > this one seems. TOR III is now basically worthless. It's expensive, > selective, vulnerable, and temporal. There is no point in using it. The > fact it is clanlessness doesn't even come close to making up for this. Also > this doesn't match the card text at all. Really bad. It would have been > much better to say that only transfers made to the vamp with TOR are > matched from the blood bank, and that no pool can be transferred from the > vampire with the tomb. I personally don't care if it's harder to remember, > I think making the card balanced and useful is more important. This ruling > is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and TB. > > My $.02 > > Steve Bucy Hogwash. You pay 3 pool and get 1 pool per turn or faster influence. I would definately still use the card. It is now balanced instead of a focus of complaint.

Sorrow 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? > > So basically the only cards that the Sleeping Mind will prevent being > used is Guard Dogs and Rat's Warning? > This makes a whole lot of sense. If this is indeed the case, why would > anyone use TSM if it is only useful against an animalism untap deck? 2nd Tradition too. Not too useful, but, hey, dominate did not need Sleeping Mind as it was written.

Quicksilver wrote: > Hogwash. You pay 3 pool and get 1 pool per turn or faster influence. I > would definately still use the card. It is now balanced instead of a focus > of complaint. Unless you actually bring out that vampire. Unless you are willing to take the time to fill a vampire using only the "new" ToRIII, you are going to probably lose or barely break even on your investment. So it's best use under the new wording is as a pool gainer. Kind of like an infinite Dreams of the Sphinx that only does the influence part. If a rewording was going to be done, why wasn't the simpler one chosen that has floated around for quite a while: the ToRIII only works for transfers to the vampire that has the Tomb. Someone else already wrote it, but it basically required the change of the word "any" to "this." A lot simpler than this new wording. [ quoted text not captured ]

Luis P. Duarte wrote: > LSJ wrote in message <6o02v1$3r8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... > >> [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. > > What?! I can't believe this! > I disagree totally with you, LSJ. > Your rules "corrections" have the objective to make V:tES a more > playable and fair game for all. This has nothing to do with peoples > money. Correct. And if I banned cards instead of fixing them, some (more) people would be (more) upset. > But if that's the point, so why don't you bring back for example > "Madness of the Bard" and change it's text? I payed for that > card and i'm not worried about knowing it's a banned card! It is banned for tournament reasons (namely, that it penalizes non-native speakers, and it is hard to fairly "judge" what is a rhyme). > I always felt that WWEF should be replaced after i played it. Even before combat was concluded? I hadn't heard that one before. > I don't understand the new rules on "aggravated damage". > Here's a small example: > -B has capacity 2. > -A inflicts 3 aggravated points on B. > What happens now? B is still burned or just goes to torpor? Torpor: first point (unhealable, since it is agg) sets the vampire on his way to torpor. second point (since he has unhealed damage) requires the loss of a blood (leaving him with one), and the third point (since he has unhealed damage) requires the loss of a blood (leaving him with zero). > 2- A second edition of the cards should be printed, because NOW i > can't explain to the NEW players of V:tES that there are many cards that > what they read in the card text is NOT what the card really does... > How do you explain this point to the new players, LSJ? > "Please don't read the card text! Instead of it, please consult > these 8 pages and search for the new card text."...! The same way you explain that Hidden Lurker is an action modifier, that Blythe has only inferior auspex, that Catatonic Fear's damage is dealt after combat, etc. I'd *love* to get a new edition printed, I really would. Right now, that doesn't look like it'll happen. [ quoted text not captured ]

While for the most part I agree on a point-by-point basis with these rulings (some exceptions, though), I feel that making so many fundamental card/rule changes is unwise. I think most players would have been happy if the "heavy hitters" of brokenness (only) had been addressed, namely: RtI, Tomb, TB, and Fame. Four changes are easily explainable. 20+ changes are not. Making so many changes puts a big damper on tourneys. A friend of mine runs V:TES tourneys at local cons, and most participants are not up-to-the-minute on net rulings. Having to tell them about _major_ rules/card changes as they arrive with prepared decks is an obvious disaster. I don't know if my friend will be able to reasonably run further tourneys. The two rulings I disagree enough with that I feel compelled to say something are: LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > 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." Aside from its "brokenness" angles, the other intent of Fame is to safeguard a vampire from combat somewhat due to the negative consequences of torporizing the vampire. The above "fix" preserves none of this intent, and in fact turns it inside out to make the Famous vampire a target of combat. Why not fix Fame to be: "<uniqueness clause preserved>... If the vampire with this card goes to torpor during another Methuselah's turn, that Methuselah burns 3 pool. ...<1 pool per Meth for torpor preserved>" Since all the broken angles involve loops on the controller's turn, this errata removes those problems while preserving Fame's other intent (combat deterrence). The current errata isn't a "fix"; it's an entirely different card whose only resemblance to the printed card is the name "Fame". > 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. So you're saying that the "tapped minions cannot block this action" clause of Sleeping Mind, despite not being parenthesized, is simply reminder text (since tapped minions can never normally block). Clearly not the intent of SM, so therefore the reasoning must be that SM is broken and needs fixing. Now, I don't think anyone argues that SM is broken on its own -- if you tap all your minions you're kind of "asking for it". It's a combo that taps all your minions and follows with SM that's broken. What combo is that? Everybody together: Misdirection / Sleeping Mind. I'd say that of the two, Misdirection is the broken card; it's devastating in many situations and is what causes the "must have Wakes / SRs" problem. I'd say you're targeting the wrong card for a fix (SM) just because it's newer. Instead of making SM wallpaper and leaving Misdirection overpowered, why not leave SM as is and change Misdirection to a 0 cost master that taps a single minion? --- Eric Pettersen pett "at" cgl "dot" ucsf "dot" edu (NeXTmail capable)

Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Sorrow wrote: > > 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. Not just a tournament rule -- it's also a Sabbat rule. Vote replenishment occurs at the end of the minion phase by Sabbat rules. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Steve Bucy" <tb...@lainet.com> wrote: > I totally agree with Sorrow on this one. The more I think of it, the worse > this one seems. TOR III is now basically worthless. It's expensive, > selective, vulnerable, and temporal. There is no point in using it. The > fact it is clanlessness doesn't even come close to making up for this. Also > this doesn't match the card text at all. Really bad. It would have been > much better to say that only transfers made to the vamp with TOR are > matched from the blood bank, and that no pool can be transferred from the > vampire with the tomb. I personally don't care if it's harder to remember, > I think making the card balanced and useful is more important. This ruling > is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and TB. Yes, I would have preferred a fix along the lines of the matched transfers going onto the _Tomb_. When the vamps blood + Tomb blood == vamp cap, the vamp comes out at full. This allows the Tomb to be burned or stolen _along with its blood_ -- a major risk. But still a possible major benefit. And no transfers off. Oh well. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6o0ku9$2ng$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > > > So it is indeed true that you cannot use a (D) bleed to bleed cross table? > > Right, unless card text says otherwise. > > Umm, I don't understand this. > Most (all?) bleed cards say: > > (D) Bleed with +X bleed. > > It doesn't say anything about bleeding another methuselah (the otherwise). > So, now cards like Social Charm and Govern the Unaligned cannot be used > to bleed my Predator? Or even my Grand Pred? > Kindred Spirits and Night Moves both specify that Methuselah's other than your prey may be bled. According to the new (D) interpretation, these are the only actions that allow you to bleed someone other than your prey. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <omMo1.57$1r.638427@eagle>, "Todd Banister" <T_Ban...@Premier-Lending.com> 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. > > # > > # to offset the "sudden death" aspect somewhat - not sure if it goes far > > # enough, though. We'll see. > > This does help the card but why not make a very simple change and say that > NO action modifiers can be played on this action at all? Very simple. Keep > the original card text. That way, no pumping stealth into it, no Day Ops, no > Dawn Ops, Daring the Dawn. Am I missing something? Concoction of Vitality, Psychic Veil, Misdirection, etc. [ quoted text not captured ]

I playtested Sabbat cards at Gencon afew years ago. You should be happy Mind Rape is as tame as it is now. The original original card text had you taking control of the vamp for good!

I'm the one that has continually said this for a long time. MOF, that was the way I played the card until someone pointed out to me that there was another way to read it. Changing one word is a hell of a lot easier to remember than creating a new card (clanless Ecoterrorist). AND it keeps the original intent. Will anyone listen? Todd Banister Prince of Atlanta Mike Bohlmann wrote in message <35A3D7C3...@pdnt.com>... [ quoted text not captured ]

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > I dispute this assertion. > During the heated debate about IG, you said time and time again that it > still isn't difficult to put the opposing vamp into Torpor in the first > round (while still under the effects of IG). And since Fame now is only > effective in a combat deck (I pointed out Fame is useless in anything but), > it can (and will) still be abused by combat decks. He said "isn't difficult" in the context of a combat deck. It is exceedingly difficult to get a working combat deck that can reliably torporize vampires. So having this card work for those decks isn't really broken. Being able to play cards which have penalties like Day Op and get a benefit out of them (ie., Fame damage) _is_ broken. Besides, the Uniqueness of Fame again keeps it under control even in its new context. > What ever happened to > being able to build a Vote deck that succeeds on it's own merits and > not on the mood of the other players. A deck which can basically automatically pass every single one of its votes (read: Weenie Vote Push) is broken, since vote defense is sketchy, narrow, and rarely used. > > Or Bribery. > > Why should a vote deck *have* to pack bribery just to pass it's votes? Why should a vote deck have to play with cards to pass its votes? Because every other strategy has to have something to make it work. Why should votes be any different? > If you are using celerity, then there are much better things you > can use for strikes. And why in the world would you pack a ZG > expecting your HD to be reduced? It rarely happens and because > of this, it will turn into a wasted slot. And later rounds? If > your deck is using ZG, odds are that you don't want to go later > rounds. You seem to be saying that the only thing that made Zip Gun good was the broken Dragons Breath Rounds combo. That is not the case; I have seen the card used as combat defense in weenie decks a lot. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > Ethan Burrow wrote: > > Our playgroup doesn't play with voting enough to even entertain making a > >[...] > > In our group everyone typically has 2-3 votes per Meth simply because of > > Well, which is it? > > If voting is just a sideline for your players, then you > should be able to pass mosts vote if you are playing a voting > deck. > > If it's just a sideline for you as well, then sure, it > may not be a sure thing (far from it). That's the > way politics are supposed to work. What I meant was that people play with high capacity vamps for the skills, and they just so happen to have titles. And if I were to play a voting deck, I would *have* to use presence to have any hope of passing them. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > Ethan Burrow wrote: > > > > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > > > > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > > > > Princes or Presense. > [snip] > > > > Or Bribery. > > > > Possibly, but I'm not going to build a deck based on it due to.... > > You'd be suprised. You call a vote which everyone benefits from > (Rumors, Ancient Influence, etc.) and Bribe, then Cryptic Rider your > praxis seizure or damaging vote. How many times has your hand jammed when you needed at least a 4 card combo? Now that you can't push votes, I expect any deck to easily kill a voting deck using bribes instead of presence. > I have myself made an effective Lasombra vote deck. The Lasombra do > not, as you may be aware, have presence. :) I'd be interested to know what kind of gaming environment your Lasombra deck succeeds in. Would you object to posting the deck here? [ quoted text not captured ]

After a bit of thought and a small amount of discussion with other members of my group and a few of the other members of this newsgroup, it is time for me to join the fray. Not that my words will be listened to, or somehow be more important than anyone elseąs :) First off a thank you goes out to LSJ for fixing some long standing problems in the past few weeks (that includes the last set of rulings and some of this current one). I know that what youąre doing for this game isnąt the easiest thing in the world, and right now you are far from everyoneąs favorite person, but thank you for your good intentions. In terms of numbers, there is more good than bad in all of these rulings. Itąs just that the łbad˛ (or questionable) is significant and difficult to swallow when it comes out of the blue like this. No Vote push Hmm, as one of the people I play with has already stated this could have the biggest effect of all of these rulings on the group I play with. Not that we vote-push on a regular basis - in fact the last time I tried a weenie vote push deck (using the pre-DCI vote push rule) it was pummeled so bad that we havenąt seen another - but often that one or two political action cards thrown for votes could make the difference (mainly because we all have at least one titled vamp per game). Now voting decks have to work much harder (be more creative in how votes are cast, use more action modifiers, stick to only large vampires with titles, or rely upon presence) to achieve the same ends. In an environment where all Methuselahąs are keenly aware of the power of politics and will sometimes willingly vote down a referendum that benefits them in order to avoid a cryptic rider or Voter cap, this makes political decks, especially ones that try to function without presence (malk stealth vote, !Ventrue vote, !Gangrel vote, Lasombra - though they do have ways to make a voting deck that others do not) much less attractive. As I mentioned above, we seldom see WVP decks, so it might be very possible that my opinion on this topic is not average. Perhaps if we saw more WVP decks I would be one of the people cheering for this change. In an attempt to blow some sunshine on the situation - this rule might have the unexpected side effect of re-introducing cards like Bribes (which we have actually used quite a bit more since the Sabbat), Delaying Tactics, Surprise Influence, etc. I doubt it, but it might. Golden rule We have played this way as a house rule since the first time we played (which like everyone else here was mere days after the initial release). so it isnąt that big of a deal to us. A suggestion for those having difficulties with the łwhat if I want to go home˛ question. The way we play it is that if someone needs to go home they take their cards with them and play is suspended momentarily while another version of the same card is pulled from another deck (I steal Ethanąs Sport bike, heąs ousted and needs to leave, I dig through one of my other decks and get a sport bike to replace the one that needs to leave with Ethan), or if that is not an option we remember what card is in play by use of a token, if that becomes too difficult we take a piece of paper (napkin, trash, anything) and write which card it represents. This rarely presents a problem and most people are content with the solution. (D) actions This one is a biggie in that it removes cross table bleeding. Our table dynamic is such that you rarely know who is going to pull off a victory. The current łleader˛ generally finds themself all alone with only enemies. While cross-table bleeding isnąt rampant, it is often used as łdefensive˛ ability (bleeding your predator to relieve or remove some of the pressure you may be experiencing). Half of the time this is an act of desperation or someone going into łspoiler˛ mode, the other half it is a well-planned removal of an obstacle in your path to victory. But now that I think about it, if a well placed direct bleed is the difference between victory and loss, perhaps it is a little too powerful. I donąt like the change, but can live with it. Non-optional equipment My only concern (and this was brought up by another member of my group) is that any +1 bleeder with a laptop is now a target for justicar retribution. Perhaps some clarification that the laptop only gives the +1 bleed when bleeding (similar to the way the Sabbat Pulse of Canaille works) is in order Agg Damage ach. My only complaint with the V:tES agg damage rules was that they broke Pulled Fangs and to a lesser extent the Ivory Bow. With the changes to Pulled Fangs I donąt see this as necessary. The V:tES agg damage rules are much more easier to remember and teach to new players. The Jyhad Agg damage rules (X+2) arenąt all that difficult, but even I still have to pause for a moment to figure it out in the middle of combat. Simplest often is best. Fame I am a longtime abuser of Fame (of sorts) I admit it. I am not sure that I care for the change, but the new wording does make more sense in a real-world sense (which I always try to apply to make sense out of cards). The change is just so significant that it is going to be hell to make sure all people are using it in the same way. This, and other cards are prime candidates for some sort of a special reprint/exchange program where card with the new texts are reprinted in small quantities (just a run with fame, RTI, MR, TOR, etc. slipped onto the printing plates of another product) to replace those that consumers already have. Perhaps even having us ship the cards to a łreprint center˛ so they know exactly how many to print, and to avoid łlittle Johnny˛ manipulating the truth to end up with 50 of each. this idea will obviously never happen, but it would be nice. Even some sort of łsticker˛ program where the new text is printed onto label stock and can be adhered to cards could work. Something with the correct text on it is preferable to a tome of rulings. Mind Rape & RTI The new cards seem like they would be much better had they been the original versions, unfortunately they arenąt. I prefer simpler fixes rather than brand new cards simply because trying to remember the text change is going to be hellish. If it were possible to get new versions printed, Iąm all for the change, but thatąs not going to happen. The text change is too extensive to enforce easily, grudgingly Iąll have to admit that I prefer banning to this significant of a change. The Sleeping Mind This works, donąt like it that much, but I am very aware of how rough the Misdirection/TSM actually is. Something probably needed to be done. Of the five cards it originally hosed (WwEF, FA, RW, GD, & 2nd Trad) it now only hoses three. Thatąs fine, and since animalism untap decks are very popular at times around here I will still be using TSM in my tap & bleed deck. Thoughtąs Betrayed Better than the original and not a complete rewrite. When my group meets to discuss these rulings I will probably be willing to take TB off of our house banned list. TOR 3 I donąt know how I feel about this. Weąve been playing it so that it comes into play tapped (so you cannot use it until it untaps) and that it only matches transfers made to the vamp it is put on. Slows it down a turn and removes the abusive łIąll put blood on all these other minions and viola the one under the tomb also pops out˛ This change is certainly worth trying and it makes more sense than the original when compared to the rest of the cards of that nature. Wake This came as a surprise. I recognize that wakes really donąt require a lot of thought to use, donąt have a drawback, and due to a screwy ruling can be played to cycle cards without ill effect (personally I think this is more damaging than the lack of any real negative effect). But since they in and of themselves donąt allow you to win a game I had never really thought them bad enough to warrant fixing. the łdo not replace until your next untap phase˛ seems severe, especially when you are waking to block your preyąs actions. I would argue that a łdo not replace until the next untap phase˛ might be more in line. But since you are still allowed to łburn˛ a wake to no effect my suggestion still isnąt powerful enough. I guess Iąll just have to use Forced Awakenings in any decks where I plan to block my preyąs actions : ) My apologies if I have offended anyone or displayed an incredible amount of ignorance. Just felt that I needed to join in the łfun˛, thank LSJ for at least trying to clean up this game we all love, and to hope that when all this is said and done cooler heads will have prevailed and that we end up with a game that is as balanced as it can be. -- r. brian smith tam...@purity.com

Ethan Burrow wrote: > > James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > > > You'd be suprised. You call a vote which everyone benefits from > > (Rumors, Ancient Influence, etc.) and Bribe, then Cryptic Rider your > > praxis seizure or damaging vote. > > How many times has your hand jammed when you needed at least a 4 card > combo? Now that you can't push votes, I expect any deck to easily kill > a voting deck using bribes instead of presence. All the time. Why should votes be the special strategy that only requires a one-card combo? As I have said, in Ithaca we used the no vote push rule for years and there were many an effective vote deck. > > I have myself made an effective Lasombra vote deck. The Lasombra do > > not, as you may be aware, have presence. :) > > I'd be interested to know what kind of gaming environment your Lasombra > deck succeeds in. Would you object to posting the deck here? The deck has been posted by me at least twice in the past. I would not object to posting it again except that I have since dismantled it. Try looking through DejaNews or on one of the deck archives. It was called "Hey, hey, we're the Lasombra". It used bribes, titled vampires, and a couple of the goofy Lasombra gain-votes cards. [ quoted text not captured ]

Todd Banister wrote: > > Perhaps I should have said "modifiers" instead of "action modifiers". Except that "modifiers" is not a well-defined game term. > This > would have stopped Concoction of Vitality. As far as the Psychic Veil or > Misdirection goes, thats gets sticky. One would need to have +1 intercept > or a wakey to stop. Either way they will help the RTI but not (IMHO) make > it over bearing. At least this way you have a chance to stop it instead of > the no choice (Day ops way). As I've said before, any bleed for 15 (or whatever) is just broken. Trying to plug up the dam by preventing specific combos will only make people work harder to find other combos. Either cripple the card (as LSJ has done) or ban it. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A4293E...@cco.caltech.edu>, Chris Berger <ber...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote: [LSJ dixit:] >> No more omni-directabilty, correct. >Umm... that doesn't follow at all. Nowhere in the rules (or in your new >rulings) does it say that bleeds must be directed at your prey. I am forced to disagree. From the VtES rulebook, 6.4, available at http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/rulebook: "[...]Bleeding is one of the most fundamental directed actions in the game.[...] To have one of your minions commit a bleed action: 1) Tap the minion and announce to your prey that your minion is attempting to bleed. 2) If your prey's minions cannot block, or are unsuccessful in their attempts to stop you, your prey burns one pool." The use of 'directed' and 'prey' in the definition of the term 'bleed' indicate that an action card that uses the word 'bleed' in its text can only be directed at one's prey, modulo specific cardtext to the contrary. >The >normal "cardless" bleed action, as defined in the rulebook is, "(D) >Bleed your prey." The rulebook available on-line states otherwise. >Therefore, a card which says, "(D) Bleed," allows you >to bleed any methuselah by exclusion of a condition, not by any voodoo >definition of the (D) symbol. Since there has been no ruling saying >that (D) forces you to direct at your prey, Social Charm, et al, are >still directable at any methuselah. Or is there to be new errata for >all such bleed cards? Near as I can determine, no such errata is required. 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

Sorrow wrote: > > >I hope you'll come to see that the changes arefor the benefit of the > >game. > > But I don't see that they have. > I played my Pot/IG deck last week using the new erratta against one > of my playgroups Presence deck. MY IG deck won about 75% > of the time. I lost every single game (and we played 6 to do a good > test). > I don't see how any of this erratta/rulings have brought anything into > balance. I feel that all the fun has left the game for me. You should realize that your six games is a ridiculously sample and not a good measure of the effect of the new rulings. But that is beside the point anyway. For cryin' out loud, make some new decks. Frankly, I think that the fact that many of my existing decks are unusable is a good sign that LSJ is on the right track. Robert Goudie rrgo...@earthlink.net http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

Ethan Burrow wrote: > > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > > 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. > > I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and try to play a vote deck > without presence using the new rules. But I doubt it'll get a single > victory point knowing how our group builds crypts (i.e. 2-3 votes per > meth usually). If your playgroup has this many big vamps at the table then a vote deck probably isn't even what you should be playing. How about some weenie decks? > > > > 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. > > One of the great things about this game is the many options available. > Your recent rulings have removed many of my options which I felt > enhanced the game. Not being able to directly bleed my predator in > times of need effectively removes a strategy from several of my decks. > What am I gaining in return? Clearer wording that I felt was already > clear?? Bleeding someone other than your prey is certainly a tool that all good players have used at one time or another. However, there is little doubt that bleeds were intended to be inflicted upon your prey only. Frankly, I've had too many games de-evolve into figuring out who was winning and then the table ganging up on them. Yawn. > I'd rather you made all these rules changes to the DCI rules and leave > the casual game alone. It would be less confusing to new players who > frankly don't worry about tournaments all that much <g> I feel very strongly that the tournament rules should only address tournament issues such as ante cards. -- Robert Goudie, Chairman rrgo...@earthlink.net Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net _________________________________________________________________ The Official Vampire: the Eternal Struggle Players' Organization

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. > > 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 .... So who knows the rules about Hidden Lurker? How about the tournament rules that removed the 6-card limit on S:CE and Damage Dealing Votes? The list goes on and on... Those with net access have always been the only ones playing with the correct rules. What has changed? > 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!!!!" In the last tournament you played in did the "NEWBIE" play with a six-card limit, or a 2-Card limit on S:CE? Why not? Probably because someone gave them a copy of the current rulings off the net. Either that or they had net access themself. I am as concerned about the people without net access as anyone, but I don't think this situation has changed any with LSJ's latest rulings. Has everyone just gotten so used to not having any Rules Team responses that they are just willing to freeze the May '98 rules forever? [ quoted text not captured ]

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > > > So it is indeed true that you cannot use a (D) bleed to bleed cross table? > > Right, unless card text says otherwise. > > Umm, I don't understand this. > Most (all?) bleed cards say: > > (D) Bleed with +X bleed. > > It doesn't say anything about bleeding another methuselah (the otherwise). > So, now cards like Social Charm and Govern the Unaligned cannot be used > to bleed my Predator? Or even my Grand Pred? The rulebook says that you can only bleed your prey and that bleeding is a directed action. Later, the rulebook says that directed actions are actions that directly affect other Methuselah's. There is little doubt that this game always intended bleeds to be made to prey only. Read Richard Garfield's comments in the original Jyhad strategy guide. He states that games in which players interact too freely become simple games of diplomacy. Richard doesn't like games like that "which is why in Jyhad you can only bleed your prey". [ quoted text not captured ]

Mike Bohlmann wrote: > > 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. If the tournament is sanctioned, the judge will have these rules. I bring stacks of the complete set of rulings and errata (in 4 pt. type) and make them available to the masses. A good judge will also let people know when changes of this magnitude take place. [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Franklin Grau wrote: > > LSJ wrote: > > > > > > 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 like the change, but I understand why people want their cards when > ousted... > > A thought hit me, and maybe this could make both parties happy: > > What about proxy cards? If I remember right V:EKN was trying to get WotC > to print blank V:TES cards, and from what I could tell, the blank cards > really will be printed. (I'm right, about this anyway, eh?) Proxy cards are completely appropriate for regular home playgroups. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> Aside from its "brokenness" angles, the other intent of Fame is to safeguard >> a vampire from combat somewhat due to the negative consequences of >> torporizing the vampire. The above "fix" preserves none of this intent, >> and in fact turns it inside out to make the Famous vampire a target of >> combat. Why not fix Fame to be: >> "<uniqueness clause preserved>... If the vampire with this card goes to >> torpor during another Methuselah's turn, that Methuselah burns 3 pool. >> ....<1 pool per Meth for torpor preserved>" > >I kinda like that one. Small addition, and simple. However it leaves some >room for abuse. But, that abuse is much more difficult to pull repeatedly >(which is, I believe, basically the problem with "broken" cards). I don't think so. Put that Fame on Isabel or any weenie with superior Auspex. Then just play Eagle's Sight during your prey's turn to block any action. Make sure the fight lasts long enough for Isabel to go to torpor (either by having her at one or zero blood, using Zip Gun for the one damage, presses, tapping Mariel, whatever!). It is still abusable in wicked ways. Let's take the time it'll need to fix that card. What if it affects the meth who actually GETS the famous vamp involved in the fight? Either through a Rush or by blocking (or with Brujah Frenzy!). Could lead to some serious philosophical reflexions (To block or not to block?) If cards are to be banned, I'd say we might as well ban that card. But don't count me in the proponents of bans. I'm rather undecided, with a preference for fixes. I'd like to still be happy of getting a RTI in a pack, instead of just going: "Argh! My rare is a no-card!" Bleu remove the "nospam" if I managed to actually get this reader to work properly. If not, please don't spam me as I might send you a can of it.

>Correct. >And if I banned cards instead of fixing them, some >(more) people would be (more) upset. More people? You based your opinion on what statistic? >> But if that's the point, so why don't you bring back for example >> "Madness of the Bard" and change it's text? I payed for that >> card and i'm not worried about knowing it's a banned card! > >It is banned for tournament reasons (namely, that it penalizes >non-native speakers, and it is hard to fairly "judge" what >is a rhyme). Yes, but the point is that there is a list of banned cards... so, ** for tournament reasons** why not ban some cards? The list isn't that huge: TB, ToR, RTI,... >> I always felt that WWEF should be replaced after i played it. > >Even before combat was concluded? >I hadn't heard that one before. Well, there's always a first time for everything in life. Yes, i always think that WWEF should be played as Forced Awakening: play it and draw immediatly a new card. >> 2- A second edition of the cards should be printed, because NOW i >> can't explain to the NEW players of V:tES that there are many cards that >> what they read in the card text is NOT what the card really does... >> How do you explain this point to the new players, LSJ? >> "Please don't read the card text! Instead of it, please consult >> these 8 pages and search for the new card text."...! > >The same way you explain that Hidden Lurker is an action modifier, >that Blythe has only inferior auspex, that Catatonic Fear's damage >is dealt after combat, etc. Please understand that i show to a new player Hidden Lurker card and point to it and say "This is an AM card". This is quite different to show him a card with a text and say: "Please don't read the card text. Here's a 8 page 'erratabook'. Search for that card..." This way V:tES is being transformed to a Card & Errata Game! >I'd *love* to get a new edition printed, I really would. >Right now, that doesn't look like it'll happen. Yes! In this matter i agree totally with you. This would resolve many of the problems... but since we don't have New Cards with New Texts, i personally think that there are TOO MANY changes... Players should play the cards by their text (few exceptions allowed) not for a 8 page errata book! Thanks for your pacience... .- Luis....@ip.pt

> >> combat. Why not fix Fame to be: > >> "<uniqueness clause preserved>... If the vampire with this card goes to > >> torpor during another Methuselah's turn, that Methuselah burns 3 pool. > >> ....<1 pool per Meth for torpor preserved>" > > > >I kinda like that one. Small addition, and simple. However it leaves some > >room for abuse. But, that abuse is much more difficult to pull repeatedly > >(which is, I believe, basically the problem with "broken" cards). > I don't think so. Put that Fame on Isabel or any weenie with superior > Auspex. Then just play Eagle's Sight during your prey's turn to block any > damage, presses, tapping Mariel, whatever!). It is still abusable in > wicked ways. Let's take the time it'll need to fix that card. What if it Yes, but much harder. Beside, taking that vampire out of torpor is harder, since you can't use the FOR cards for that. And while it was done while it is another's turn, there is plenty of time for that vampire to be diablerized by another Meth (while if is it done during your turn, you can assign another vampire to take him out, like Legbiter seems to like to do. :) > affects the meth who actually GETS the famous vamp involved in the fight? > Either through a Rush or by blocking (or with Brujah Frenzy!). Could lead > to some serious philosophical reflexions (To block or not to block?) This may be worth thinking about, but it seems to be way to wacky for the usual players. :)

leg...@nospam.generation.net (Philippe Richer) wrote: > >> "<uniqueness clause preserved>... If the vampire with this card goes to > >> torpor during another Methuselah's turn, that Methuselah burns 3 pool. > >> ....<1 pool per Meth for torpor preserved>" > > > >I kinda like that one. Small addition, and simple. However it leaves some > >room for abuse. But, that abuse is much more difficult to pull repeatedly > >(which is, I believe, basically the problem with "broken" cards). > > I don't think so. Put that Fame on Isabel or any weenie with superior > Auspex. Then just play Eagle's Sight during your prey's turn to block any > action. Make sure the fight lasts long enough for Isabel to go to torpor > (either by having her at one or zero blood, using Zip Gun for the one > damage, presses, tapping Mariel, whatever!). It is still abusable in > wicked ways. Let's take the time it'll need to fix that card. What if it > affects the meth who actually GETS the famous vamp involved in the fight? > Either through a Rush or by blocking (or with Brujah Frenzy!). Could lead > to some serious philosophical reflexions (To block or not to block?) I think you overstate the abuse potential. Since the Famous vampire is going to torpor on the prey's turn, the controller has to not only manage to get the Famous vampire into torpor in the first place (with an Eagle Sight block using sufficient additional intercept) but also has to resist both prey and predator's attempts to diablerize / Sac. Lamb / Vulnerability / GraveRob the vamp, without getting all the controller's vamps hammered in the process. But you're entitled to your erroneous opinion, Bleu. ;-) [ quoted text not captured ]

(Eric Pettersen) wrote: >Bleu wrote: >> >> "<uniqueness clause preserved>... If the vampire with this card goes to >> >> torpor during another Methuselah's turn, that Methuselah burns 3 pool. >> >> ....<1 pool per Meth for torpor preserved>" >> >I kinda like that one. Small addition, and simple. However it leaves some >> >room for abuse. But, that abuse is much more difficult to pull repeatedly >> >(which is, I believe, basically the problem with "broken" cards). >> >> I don't think so. Put that Fame on Isabel or any weenie with superior >> Auspex. Then just play Eagle's Sight during your prey's turn to block any >> action. Make sure the fight lasts long enough for Isabel to go to torpor >> (either by having her at one or zero blood, using Zip Gun for the one >> damage, presses, tapping Mariel, whatever!). It is still abusable in >> wicked ways >I think you overstate the abuse potential. Since the Famous vampire is >going to torpor on the prey's turn, the controller has to not only manage >to get the Famous vampire into torpor in the first place (with an Eagle >Sight block using sufficient additional intercept) but also has to resist >both prey and predator's attempts to diablerize / Sac. Lamb / Vulnerability >/ GraveRob the vamp, without getting all the controller's vamps hammered >in the process. What are weenie Auspex vamps made for, except wake and block? Well, I know, I know. Getting to know everybody's hand is nice too. Still. A Fast Reacting Flamethrowing weenie is quite a force to reckon with. With sufficient permanent and hand-played intercept, it'd be more than possible to pull it off and block almost all attempts at destruction. Of course, Day Op and such would make it harder, but that's basically why I'd use weenies. That and the need to get in torpor. I agree though that Vulnerability would be difficult to deal with (save a well-timed Sudden), but it's also a rarely used card, AFAIK. I'd show it to you, except that I'd still wouldn't like Fame enough to play it. Ahh, scrupples. I can betray a friend or an ally, but I still can't play a screwed card and live with it. Though now that I think about it, let's have the fight to torporize the famous minion, then play Fast Reaction with the Flame throwing weenie and torporize the unlucky vamp. >But you're entitled to your erroneous opinion, Bleu. ;-) Eric, Eric. Are you God to say who's in error or not on this? I think I can make this work, even in big JOL games. Of course, I might have to add some Anarch Revolts to divert some attention. Bleu remove the nospam as it seems to be working.

> > > 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. > Umm... that doesn't follow at all. Nowhere in the rules (or in your new rulings) does it say that bleeds must be directed at your prey. The normal "cardless" bleed action, as defined in the rulebook is, "(D) Bleed your prey." Therefore, a card which says, "(D) Bleed," allows you to bleed any methuselah by exclusion of a condition, not by any voodoo definition of the (D) symbol. Since there has been no ruling saying that (D) forces you to direct at your prey, Social Charm, et al, are still directable at any methuselah. Or is there to be new errata for all such bleed cards? -Chris

> > > > 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. > Hmm... I still don't see how this errata was necessary. Forced Awakening was already a better card than Wake. I always put FA in a deck over Wake, unless I'm adding Wakes "just in case" without any plans of being able to block. This doesn't even throw off the balance between FA and Wake, since they still cost different types of resources. People will still use FA or Wake as necessary. You've just weakened Wake for some reason. Colour me confused. -Chris

LSJ, you've done more for this game than anyone I know. I'm glad that you put your ass on the line to finally address some of the inherent problems with the game. Many of your decisions were good, and long awaited (PF, ZG). However, I am going for the holy grail in an attempt to explain some of our dismay over the current rulings. >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. We have no need for "new rules". I'd prefer to see this as a rules clarification instead. One that I am intrigued to play with. >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. This is unnecessary. IMHO, the decision to go with a more simplified agg damage system was the best decision the old rules team ever made. It improved my level of enjoyment, and it improved the ease with which I could teach new players. Ethan had a good point: "If aggrevated damage wasn't broken, then why fix it?". The game is full of checks and balances, and minions have plenty of ways to avoid/prevent agg damage now that PF is fixed. >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." There was a time not too long ago that I would have been in complete support of this ruling (I've even suggested it in the past), but now I am not so sure. Trust me, I am SO glad someone has finally addressed Fame, but I see this solution as only marginally better. Once in play, there is no way to get rid of it, except to contest the unique card. In other words: Outside SR, the only way to counter the Fame card is to play with the Fame card in your own deck. That defines "broken" to me. >Mind Rape >Tomb of Ramses III >Return to Innocence I disagree with what happened to these rulings. Yes, I enjoy balanced play as much as the next person, but what you have done is created "new cards". These are not "fixes" nor are they rules clarifications. If the cards cannot be "fixed" with a simple understanding, then they should be banned from tournament play. I don't believe it is in our best interest to create "new cards" such as these to balance the game. LSJ, you made some GOOD, GOOD, decisions with your 7th of July Rulings. However, many people (including myself) are opposed to the wide-sweeping changes which aren't really decisions at all... instead they are creations of new cards and new rules. Greg

LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > Ethan Burrow wrote: > > Our playgroup doesn't play with voting enough to even entertain making a > >[...] > > In our group everyone typically has 2-3 votes per Meth simply because of > > Well, which is it? > (5 player game, 2-3 votes on the table per player) 8-12 votes on the table and all inherently against you. One Cryptic Rider, and you will never successfully call a vote again, especially if you are sitting next to Jeff or Greg. Light intercept + combat works really well against vote decks and against most other decks as well. If you can successfully call a second vote, (any time or turn after the CR) you will have betrayed the trust of the misfortunate few who voted with you the first time and all votes will be against you. This has happened in all playgroup's I've played in, are your's different? Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://members.tripod.com/~Lasombra [ quoted text not captured ]

> > 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... > :) I notice this also abolishes multi-pushes by players other than the caller. Not sure if that's good. > > 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. Make proxies. That's what they do in Galactic Empires tournaments. > > 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. It sounds like this means you burn only 1 blood for 2 aggravated, but 2 for 1 of each... J. Andrew Lipscomb <ew...@chattanooga.net, them...@delphi.com> PGP keys by request

In article <35A282...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > 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. Let me see if I've got this straight: an action that has the (D) symbol, but that has no text restricting it to cards controlled by another methuselah, can now be directed at a card you control? And, if so, is it resolved as an undirected action? For example, can you now Derange one of your own vampires (as long as it's not a Malk Anti)? And, if you try, can your predator and prey attempt to block normally without needing Eagles's Sight or Anneke? -- Justin Fang (jus...@ugcs.caltech.edu) This space intentionally left blank.

In article <35A282...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: These changes you've been making have been making have, although being drastic, been good - sometimes on closer inspection, but nevertheless. The idea of fixing powerful cards is a jolly good idea. However, in our local playing there has been one powerful card which hasn't been touched by the rulings. Now I know this card hasn't really gotten a lot of coverage on the newsgroup, not that I've noticed anyway, as being powerful but trust me it is, if you need an explanation just ask. That card is Hostile Takeover. And the reason why I'm mentioning this now, apart from being of the opinion that something should be done about it, is because a new rule makes it more powerful. > 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. Now you can take someone's vampire, kill them and still have the vampire. The card is now more powerful - and it is the opinion of many in our playing group, including the person who uses it, that the card was already quite a powerful card. Any comments? stan http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/5304 [ quoted text not captured ]

Ok, I'll jump into the fray, too ;-) To start with: LSJ, on the whole I like the new rulings, some of them *a lot*. IMHO they go a long way towards fixing things that were broken in the game. That said... "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> writes: > >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. > > IMO, he has ruined both. I do not see how any of these rulings/erratta. > have made any of these cards "balanced" I disagree strongly, I think most of the rulings have a *very* balancing effect on the game. Yes, some decks have become "less powerful", but those are mainly decks that have depended on broken or borderline-broken cards and combos. > >> 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). > > But the effect is the exact same. It's just that the burden of abuse has > moved from Fortitude decks to combat decks. But that's in no way "the exact same". The old version of Fame allowed a zillion different types of "masturbation" decks that did something local to put the Famous vampire in torpor, without much anything the other players could do about it. Fame + Day Operation + hunt is the easiest example. Moving Fame to an offensive card makes it a lot harder to expoit... it's a lot harder to come up with foolproof ways to put other vampires in torpor than it is to put your own. > >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. > > Agreed. That is true, although I hope that the new rulings will reduce the total amount of errata for the game (many old rulings are no longer needed). LSJ and others: this game *REALLY* needs a single reference document which has *all* the needed info, otherwise casual players will never catch on to the game and will only retreat in confusion. > >> >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. > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > Princes or Presense. Partly true, but that's not a bad thing IMHO. A Caitiff vote deck that bowls over everyone else has always bothered me in the game world sense, I myself would welcome some more dependance on titled vampires and political disciplines (Presence, and Dominate to some degree). Also, I've always hated the fact that "normal" rules and tourney rules were different for this game. > >> >Zip Gun: > >> 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. > > Except that you can simply use a Maneuver card instead (there are > disciplinless Maneuver cards) and not worry about hurting yourself. > This is effectivly what LSJ changed the ZG into: a Maneuver card. A maneuver card that also does damage, with a surprise factor. Zip Gun can be a lifesaver for non-comabat decks against close-range combat decks. > >We'll see where this takes things. > > I'm kinda curious as well. But I'm afraid it will just take things down > the crapper. But even so, I no longer care. I'm out. To each his own, but I'm sort of surprised you're *so* negative against this without giving things at least a try first. I for one see the changes as a step in the right direction, with the biggest problem in my mind being the large amount of errata scattered here and there needed to play this game... something has to be done about that. //Petri

"Todd Banister" <T_Ban...@Premier-Lending.com> wrote: > >First point cannot be healed, and you're on your way to torpor. > >Next X points deplete your X blood > >And the final point burns you, since you cannot burn any more blood. > > > I have seen you write this a few times and I just wanted to make sure this > is exactly what you mean. You said that the first point of agg damage > _cannot_ be healed. No damage prevention? Did you mean if it is not > prevented then the first point sends the vamp to torpor? Preventing damage and healing damage are two distinct things. Preventing damage (aggravated or not) requires a suitable "damage prevention" effect (Flak Jacket, Skin of Rock, etc.) Healing [unprevented] regular damage requires a blood. You go to torpor if you cannot heal all the [unprevented] damage dealt. [Unprevented] aggravated damage cannot be healed, so the vamp goes to torpor. [Unprevented] aggravated damage done to a vampire who already has unhealed damage (and is thus already on his way to torpor) requires the vampire to burn a blood to prevent destruction. If he cannot, he is destroyed (burned) outright. -- 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 ]

Todd Banister wrote: [Re: TOR only matches transfers to the selected vampire "fix"] > > I'm the one that has continually said this for a long time. MOF, that was > the way I played the card until someone pointed out to me that there was > another way to read it. Changing one word is a hell of a lot easier to > remember than creating a new card (clanless Ecoterrorist). AND it keeps the > original intent. > > Will anyone listen? That change doesn't make TORIII balanced - it still provides a full recoupment of cost, and an extra blood and an extra four transfers one the turn it is played, as has been pointed out several times before. I know this because I've been listening. The RTR examined several variations on this card, including *all* of the ones that had been proposed on this newsgroup. [ quoted text not captured ]

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > >> Fame? WTF? > > > But the effect is the exact same. It's just that the burden of abuse has > > > moved from Fortitude decks to combat decks. > > I don't think it is useless - but it is much harder to abuse > > (maybe even balanced). > > I dispute this assertion. > During the heated debate about IG, you said time and time again that it > still isn't difficult to put the opposing vamp into Torpor in the first "Time and time again"? I have never said this, certainly not "time and again". Care to cite references to support your claim? > round (while still under the effects of IG). And since Fame now is only > effective in a combat deck (I pointed out Fame is useless in anything but), > it can (and will) still be abused by combat decks. Even if a standard Rush deck can torporize the random opponent without difficulty (your supposition, not mine), Fame is unique and a Master card. To "abuse" it (as someone - James? - pointed out), your combat deck would have to be diluted, weakening the intensive-card-cycling deck, probably to the point of not being abusive. > > > >> >No vote pushing: Each Methuselah can only play no more than one > > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > > > Princes or Presense. > > Or auspex and vote denial. See Ventrue Antitribu. > [snip] > > Or Bribery. > > Why should a vote deck *have* to pack bribery just to pass it's votes? It doesn't. It can (for example) use Princes or Presence, as asserted above. > > Or Justicar votes w/ Praxes. > > Yeah, but if your Justicar/PS votes get voted down (which is easy to > do) early in the game, then your deck is so screwed. You get a minimum of two votes on the Justciar vote. "Early in the game", the other players will likely not have their own titled vampires. That's a pretty big *if*. But yeah, it's not a sure thing. It's politics. > >> >Zip Gun: > > > Except that you can simply use a Maneuver card instead (there are > > > disciplinless Maneuver cards) and not worry about hurting yourself. > > > This is effectivly what LSJ changed the ZG into: a Maneuver card. > > If so, then it is effectively balanced with Fake Out, eh? > > How? Fake Out doesn't cause a damage to be done to the vamp. It's your quote you're arguing with. I'm just following the thread. "effectivly ... a Maneuver card." (above) And I started with "If so". > [snip the argument] [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <jeanfang-090...@cnc056040.mon-nj.concentric.net>, jus...@ugcs.caltech.edu wrote: > In article <35A282...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > 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. > > Let me see if I've got this straight: an action that has the (D) symbol, > but that has no text restricting it to cards controlled by another > methuselah, can now be directed at a card you control? And, if so, is it > resolved as an undirected action? Yes and yes. > For example, can you now Derange one of your own vampires (as long as it's > not a Malk Anti)? And, if you try, can your predator and prey attempt to > block normally without needing Eagles's Sight or Anneke? Yes and yes. -- 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A4293E...@cco.caltech.edu>, Chris Berger <ber...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote: > > > > 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. > > > Umm... that doesn't follow at all. Nowhere in the rules (or in your new > rulings) does it say that bleeds must be directed at your prey. Section 6.4, under the sentence "To have one of your minions commit a bleed action:" specifies "Prey". > The > normal "cardless" bleed action, as defined in the rulebook is, "(D) > Bleed your prey." Not in any of the rulebooks I've seen. What section are you quoting? > [snip] > Or is there to be new errata for all such bleed cards? If errata were needed, it would be issued. So either way... [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6o2el5$n72$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, vte...@wizards.com (LSJ) wrote: > "Todd Banister" <T_Ban...@Premier-Lending.com> wrote: > > >First point cannot be healed, and you're on your way to torpor. > > >Next X points deplete your X blood > > >And the final point burns you, since you cannot burn any more blood. > > > > > I have seen you write this a few times and I just wanted to make sure this > > is exactly what you mean. You said that the first point of agg damage > > _cannot_ be healed. No damage prevention? Did you mean if it is not > > prevented then the first point sends the vamp to torpor? > > Preventing damage and healing damage are two distinct things. > > Preventing damage (aggravated or not) requires a suitable "damage prevention" > effect (Flak Jacket, Skin of Rock, etc.) > > Healing [unprevented] regular damage requires a blood. > You go to torpor if you cannot heal all the [unprevented] damage dealt. > [Unprevented] aggravated damage cannot be healed, so the vamp goes to torpor. > [Unprevented] aggravated damage done to a vampire who already has unhealed > damage (and is thus already on his way to torpor) requires the vampire to > burn a blood to prevent destruction. If he cannot, he is destroyed (burned) > outright. > Why not going back to the Jyhad rules for aggro damage? They were as simple as the V:TES rules, except that a vampire only gets burned when he takes 2 points of aggro damage and has no blood left instead of 1. LSJ's current ruling is *very* confusing, especially for foreigners. BTW, I'm not at ease with the new rulings (esp. Wake!!!). -Carl [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A457A7...@earthlink.net>, Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > point anyway. For cryin' out loud, make some new decks. Frankly, I > think that the fact that many of my existing decks are unusable is a > good sign that LSJ is on the right track. Many of your existing decks are now unusable? Assuming this is not an exageration, do we really want the game to be changed that much? Jeez, come on. A small group of players (LSJ and whoever he tests these rules out with) have now decided that they know better about how the game should be than the rest of us do. I think that's where a lot of people's frustration is coming from. And mine isn't getting much better..... Mike "Ban or simple changes, none of this whole rewrite crap" Bohlmann [ quoted text not captured ]

Eric Pettersen wrote: > Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > Sorrow wrote: > > > 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. > > Not just a tournament rule -- it's also a Sabbat rule. Vote replenishment > occurs at the end of the minion phase by Sabbat rules. Like the Sabbat Widthdrawal Rule, that replenishment rule has been relegated to the "optional" pile. They are no longer part of the standard rules (if they ever were). Sorry they weren't included in the RTR. My mistake. [ quoted text not captured ]

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > > So it is indeed true that you cannot use a (D) bleed to bleed cross table? > > Right, unless card text says otherwise. > > Umm, I don't understand this. > Most (all?) bleed cards say: > > (D) Bleed with +X bleed. > > It doesn't say anything about bleeding another methuselah (the otherwise). > So, now cards like Social Charm and Govern the Unaligned cannot be used > to bleed my Predator? Or even my Grand Pred? Right. It doesn't say that it doesn't follow the normal rules for the "bleed" action, so it follows the normal rules for the "bleed" action. Explicit card text is needed to break the rules. [ quoted text not captured ]

Luis P. Duarte wrote: > > >Correct. > >And if I banned cards instead of fixing them, some > >(more) people would be (more) upset. > > More people? You based your opinion on what statistic? Those "mores" are parenthetic. > >> But if that's the point, so why don't you bring back for example > >> "Madness of the Bard" and change it's text? I payed for that > >> card and i'm not worried about knowing it's a banned card! > > > >It is banned for tournament reasons (namely, that it penalizes > >non-native speakers, and it is hard to fairly "judge" what > >is a rhyme). > > Yes, but the point is that there is a list of banned cards... > so, ** for tournament reasons** why not ban some cards? > The list isn't that huge: TB, ToR, RTI,... Those are broken in general, not just hard to work into a tournament situation. > >> I always felt that WWEF should be replaced after i played it. > > > >Even before combat was concluded? > >I hadn't heard that one before. > > Well, there's always a first time for everything in life. > Yes, i always think that WWEF should be played as Forced > Awakening: play it and draw immediatly a new card. Well, I can't argue with that. :-) > >> 2- A second edition of the cards should be printed, because NOW i > >> can't explain to the NEW players of V:tES that there are many cards that > >> what they read in the card text is NOT what the card really does... > >> How do you explain this point to the new players, LSJ? > >> "Please don't read the card text! Instead of it, please consult > >> these 8 pages and search for the new card text."...! > > > >The same way you explain that Hidden Lurker is an action modifier, > >that Blythe has only inferior auspex, that Catatonic Fear's damage > >is dealt after combat, etc. > > Please understand that i show to a new player Hidden Lurker card and > point to it and say "This is an AM card". This is quite different to show > him a card with a text and say: "Please don't read the card text. Here's > a 8 page 'erratabook'. Search for that card..." No, as an AM, Hidden Lurker requires substantial changes to card text. As listed in the erratabook. [ quoted text not captured ]

sta...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > These changes you've been making have been making have, although being > drastic, been good - sometimes on closer inspection, but nevertheless. > The idea of fixing powerful cards is a jolly good idea. However, in > our local playing there has been one powerful card which hasn't been > touched by the rulings. Now I know this card hasn't really gotten a lot > of coverage on the newsgroup, not that I've noticed anyway, as being > powerful but trust me it is, if you need an explanation just ask. > That card is Hostile Takeover. And the reason why I'm mentioning > this now, apart from being of the opinion that something should be > done about it, is because a new rule makes it more powerful. Well, that one was never on the list of cards to consider fixing, you're right. I'll keep a lookout for it at tournaments, though. If anyone running a tournament notices Hostile Takeover being abused, please drop me a line. [ quoted text not captured ]

Ethan Burrow wrote: > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > Ethan Burrow wrote: > > > Our playgroup doesn't play with voting enough to even entertain making a > > >[...] > > > In our group everyone typically has 2-3 votes per Meth simply because of > > > > Well, which is it? > > > > If voting is just a sideline for your players, then you > > should be able to pass mosts vote if you are playing a voting > > deck. > > > > If it's just a sideline for you as well, then sure, it > > may not be a sure thing (far from it). That's the > > way politics are supposed to work. > > What I meant was that people play with high capacity vamps for the > skills, and they just so happen to have titles. > > And if I were to play a voting deck, I would *have* to use presence to > have any hope of passing them. Or auspex/!ventrue vote denial. Or Bribes. Or deal-making. -- 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

Petri Wessman wrote: > LSJ and others: this game *REALLY* needs a single reference document > which has *all* the needed info, otherwise casual players will never > catch on to the game and will only retreat in confusion. http://www.wizards.com/VTES/VTES_Rules.html (It contains a link to the compiled list of errata and the compiled list of rulings and the compiled list of clarifications. They haven't been updated with the 980707 RTR, but they will be.) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <not.available-0...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, not.av...@your.security.clearance (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. > > 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? > No, Rage is no option. There's simply no game that can compare with V:TES. If I'd ever stop to play V:TES, I'd switch to computer games or strategy games. V:TM live-roleplaying is also an option. I'm strongly opposed to some of the new rulings (aggro, wake, D-actions) and I think that the changes to the cards are *very* grave. We shhould take it more easy. -Carl -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum

In article <6nugqt$9pj$1...@birch.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: > >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. 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. > > Come on Sorrow, I understand you perfectly, but don't give up the game. If you don't like the new rules (which must be discussed anyway IMHO) then don't use them. I certainly will not be using the Wake, D-action and aggro rules. I'll try the others. If I don't like them I wont play them. LSJ, I think you did it the hard way because you think that you are perfectly right. Perhaps you are not? We should avoid too drastic changes. [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Goudie wrote: > > Sorrow wrote: > > > > >I hope you'll come to see that the changes arefor the benefit of the > > >game. > > > > But I don't see that they have. > > I played my Pot/IG deck last week using the new erratta against one > > of my playgroups Presence deck. MY IG deck won about 75% > > of the time. I lost every single game (and we played 6 to do a good > > test). Sorrow, would you post the deck(s)? There might be another reason for this. > > I don't see how any of this erratta/rulings have brought anything into > > balance. I feel that all the fun has left the game for me. > > You should realize that your six games is a ridiculously sample and not > a good measure of the effect of the new rulings. But that is beside the > point anyway. For cryin' out loud, make some new decks. Frankly, I > think that the fact that many of my existing decks are unusable is a > good sign that LSJ is on the right track. Well, I should mention that the potence IG deck is not unusable under the new IG ruling. It is weaker, yes, but unless it's playing its anti-deck (which is, admittedly, easier to construct now, but still just as narrow in its own way), it does generally fine. The tourney at Origins showed that. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu

In article <35A4BA...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > Petri Wessman wrote: > > ...a single reference document which has *all* the needed info... > ...It contains a link to the compiled list of errata and the compiled > list of rulings and the compiled list of clarifications..... Single document. Not three different documents that each might have a change to a card. One should be able to have one document where all card specific rulings/clarifications/errata are together for each card. Mike [ quoted text not captured ]

> > How many times has your hand jammed when you needed at least a 4 card > > combo? Now that you can't push votes, I expect any deck to easily kill > > a voting deck using bribes instead of presence. > All the time. Why should votes be the special strategy that only > requires a one-card combo? But it doesn't. In order to pass a vote before, you had to toss down (what is essentially another useful PA) more vote cards to help pass your votes. Just tossing the cards doesn't come with no consequence. You are literally losing future actions. There has been many a time where I had to make the difficult decision to throw down the like of Command of the Harpies, Protect Thine Own or Disputed Territory just to get the current vote passed. Sorrow [ quoted text not captured ]

>>> I played my Pot/IG deck last week using the new erratta against one >>> of my playgroups Presence deck. MY IG deck won about 75% >>> of the time. I lost every single game (and we played 6 to do a good >>> test). > Sorrow, would you post the deck(s)? There might be another reason for > this. Can't. I've dismantled all of my decks and have already started taking inventory of my collection in preparation for the big sell off. I will, however, try to remember all the cards that was in the deck. It's going to be a little difficult because I've gone through thousands in the past few days. I will say this, though: I do know that it packed 11 Immortal Grapples. Most of the combats in those games went like this: "No maneuver, you? No." "Ok, then I'll Immortally Grapple your vamp" "How did I know? Strike?" "Undead Strength. You?" (hoping at this point I'll get another IG in hand) "Hands, what else?" "Ok, I'll press with the IG" "No maneuver, you?" "No, got another IG" "No, dammit. My strike is Undead Strength." "Well mine is Majesty, pay 1 to untap" Sometimes I'd play a Torn Signpost and there would be times that I would play another IG in the second round. But 11 IGs isn't enough to be consistant (whereas before it was). I ran out of resources during our (mostly ineffectual) combats doing no damage to the opposing vamps. It was a joke. This deck was far from 100% effective, but it was up near the 70-80% range. Now, it's down to about 10-15% (and I'm giving it that. As of sunday, it was at 0%). > Well, I should mention that the potence IG deck is not unusable under > the new IG ruling. It's not unusable if you pack an offensive amount of IG. Perhaps 20 or 25. >It is weaker, yes, but unless it's playing its anti-deck (which is, >admittedly, easier to construct now, but still just as narrow in its >own way), it does generally fine. But a great deal of bleed and vote decks pack the requisite anti-combat cards to ineffectualize POT combat decks. You should play here and see how often you come up against an anti-combat deck (about 85%+ of the time). The only thing I can do now is completely scrap my once valid and effective combat deck and build a bleed deck. But that point is moot because I'm getting rid of all my cards. One of the beauties about Jyhad was that you can build just about any deck type and still be effective against another deck type (ie combat, vote, bleed v. Presence bleed-majesty let's say). Now, you can only use a subset of once possible decks against another deck type. This is not a good thing. A once broad field has now shrunk significantly. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A4BA...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > Petri Wessman wrote: > > LSJ and others: this game *REALLY* needs a single reference document > > which has *all* the needed info, otherwise casual players will never > > catch on to the game and will only retreat in confusion. > > http://www.wizards.com/VTES/VTES_Rules.html > > It contains a link to the compiled list of errata and the compiled > list of rulings and the compiled list of clarifications. Which does not make it a _single_ reference document. The page mentioned has a pdf file of the Sabbat rules addendum (optional rules?), a link offsite to the DCI how to run a tournament rules, a link offsite to LSJ's rulings, errata, clarification page, and links to two variant games situations. Total of 5 different useful documents so far. Any hope of a " _single_ reference document" ? [ quoted text not captured ]

CPilh...@bhak12.ac.at wrote: > Why not going back to the Jyhad rules for aggro damage? They were as simple > as the V:TES rules, except that a vampire only gets burned when he takes 2 > points of aggro damage and has no blood left instead of 1. If that's your view of the "Jyhad" rules for aggro damage, then mission accomplished. That's what the new rule does. The real Jyhad rules for aggravated damage included some additional strangeness that I won't go into here, to avoid confusing the issue further. > LSJ's current ruling is *very* confusing, especially for foreigners. Sorry about that. It was not my intention. [ quoted text not captured ]

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > > All the time. Why should votes be the special strategy that only > > requires a one-card combo? > > But it doesn't. In order to pass a vote before, you had to toss down > (what is essentially another useful PA) more vote cards to help pass > your votes. Just tossing the cards doesn't come with no consequence. > You are literally losing future actions. There has been many a time > where I had to make the difficult decision to throw down the like of > Command of the Harpies, Protect Thine Own or Disputed Territory just > to get the current vote passed. So if you didn't abuse vote push, you shouldn't be upset that you can't do it anymore. But voting that way still doesn't require combos. It requires vote cards, of which there are lots. Just because you may not want to pitch out every vote card in your hand doesn't prevent you from doing so; that's not hand jam. [ quoted text not captured ]

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > I will say this, though: I do know that it packed 11 Immortal Grapples. > Most of the combats in those games went like this: > [snip ineffectual combat] > Sometimes I'd play a Torn Signpost and there would be times that I > would play another IG in the second round. But 11 IGs isn't enough > to be consistant (whereas before it was). I ran out of resources > during our (mostly ineffectual) combats doing no damage to the > opposing vamps. It was a joke. Well, I'm not saying that you don't have to adjust your deck for the new ruling. At Origins I ran 13 Immortal Grapples, whereas Peter Bakija and Josh Duffin each played with 12. We all did fine. Why? We stuck in more Torn Signposts, Fists of Death, and additional strikes when that was applicable. Sometimes things didn't work out, but the deck still functioned. > > Well, I should mention that the potence IG deck is not unusable under > > the new IG ruling. > > It's not unusable if you pack an offensive amount of IG. Perhaps 20 > or 25. As I said, I upped from 11 to 13 and did fine. > >It is weaker, yes, but unless it's playing its anti-deck (which is, > >admittedly, easier to construct now, but still just as narrow in its > >own way), it does generally fine. > > But a great deal of bleed and vote decks pack the requisite anti-combat > cards to ineffectualize POT combat decks. By "anti-deck" I usually refer to the Ventrue or something comparable: S:CE _and_ damage prevention. > You should play here and see > how often you come up against an anti-combat deck (about 85%+ of the > time). The only thing I can do now is completely scrap my once valid > and effective combat deck and build a bleed deck. Maybe that's true. If your group's metagame has shifted to heavy anti-combat, stop playing your combat deck for a while. Then you'll kill them because their hand will be chock-full of combat defense that won't help them. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin wrote in message <35A444AF...@math.wisc.edu>... >Todd Banister wrote: >> >> Perhaps I should have said "modifiers" instead of "action modifiers". > >Except that "modifiers" is not a well-defined game term. Agreed. Maybe there is a better use of words here. Maybe I should just let it go. > >> This >> would have stopped Concoction of Vitality. As far as the Psychic Veil or >> Misdirection goes, thats gets sticky. One would need to have +1 intercept >> or a wakey to stop. Either way they will help the RTI but not (IMHO) make >> it over bearing. At least this way you have a chance to stop it instead of >> the no choice (Day ops way). > >As I've said before, any bleed for 15 (or whatever) is just broken. >Trying to plug up the dam by preventing specific combos will only make >people work harder to find other combos. Either cripple the card (as >LSJ has done) or ban it. I understand that. A 15 bleed will end just about anyone's day. But so will a 9 bleed using the same IC as your example with slaughtering the herd/conditioning. Its just what you find to be acceptable. Someone could still potentially bleed for 15 (or close) by using other modifiers. I understand that RTI only takes one card and the same effect or close can be done using several cards. I was just trying to find a easier solution. No big deal. Todd Banister Prince of Atlanta

LSJ wrote in message <6o2el5$n72$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >"Todd Banister" <T_Ban...@Premier-Lending.com> wrote: >> >First point cannot be healed, and you're on your way to torpor. >> >Next X points deplete your X blood >> >And the final point burns you, since you cannot burn any more blood. >> > >> I have seen you write this a few times and I just wanted to make sure this >> is exactly what you mean. You said that the first point of agg damage >> _cannot_ be healed. No damage prevention? Did you mean if it is not >> prevented then the first point sends the vamp to torpor? > >Preventing damage and healing damage are two distinct things. > Ahh... The light is now coming on as to what you mean. The way I read your earlier post was the agg damage could not be prevented. Thanks for the responce. Take care, TB

<cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: > I've dismantled all of my decks and have already started taking > inventory of my collection in preparation for the big sell off. > One of the beauties about Jyhad was that you can build just about > any deck type and still be effective against another deck type (ie > combat, vote, bleed v. Presence bleed-majesty let's say). Now, you > can only use a subset of once possible decks against another deck > type. This is not a good thing. A once broad field has now shrunk > significantly. I don't understand how reasoned (if disagreed-with) rulings from someone who has actually played the game regularly since it came out is so terrible compared with the half-assed rulings from people who didn't seem to have played the game at all that I assume you suffered through as well. And, yes, some decks may no longer work. However, some decks that wouldn't work before now will. In theory, that should be a zero-sum change. Sorrow, I'd earnestly suggest that you just stuff those cards in a closet for a few days, just to be sure that selling off isn't something you'll come to regret. Hunter -- J. Hunter Johnson /\ SJG Errata Coordinator (sjg-e...@io.com) http://www.io.com/~jhunterj/ /()\ Knightmare Chess Development Coordinator jhun...@io.com /____\ The Games of '98 by # of times played: Gin UpF Crib INWO Lamarck Robo ModArt SoC GrPrix MRAmer HotW Groo KC CatanK

LSJ wrote in message <35A4AC...@wizards.com>... >Todd Banister wrote: >[Re: TOR only matches transfers to the selected vampire "fix"] >> >> I'm the one that has continually said this for a long time. MOF, that was >> the way I played the card until someone pointed out to me that there was >> another way to read it. Changing one word is a hell of a lot easier to >> remember than creating a new card (clanless Ecoterrorist). AND it keeps the >> original intent. >> >> Will anyone listen? > >That change doesn't make TORIII balanced - it still provides a >full recoupment of cost, and an extra blood and an extra four >transfers one the turn it is played, as has been pointed out >several times before. > >I know this because I've been listening. > I know you have and you have been doing a great job for the game. I was (I guess am still am) looking for a better solution on changing the card to keep its original intent. We just use it a lot around here to bring out the 9s, 10s, and IC vamps. Just hate to see it go thats all. Wish there was a way of turning it into something like this.... Tomb of Ramses III - master unique location. No cost. Put on a vampire in your uncontrolled region. If the vamp's capacity is 10 or 11, then the vamp may be influenced for only 9 pool. If the vampire's capacity is 8 or 9, then the vamp may be influenced for only 7 pool. I know its a lot of re-write but at least it keeps with the original intent. It stops the need for the Tomb to be tapped on first turn, stops the speed of the extra transfers, and stops it from being a pool gainer but still gives a nice ability (original intent). Oh well. Thanks again for all of the work LScott. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote in message <35A4B8...@wizards.com>... (...) >> That card is Hostile Takeover. And the reason why I'm mentioning >> this now, apart from being of the opinion that something should be >> done about it, is because a new rule makes it more powerful. >Well, that one was never on the list of cards to consider fixing, >you're right. I'll keep a lookout for it at tournaments, though. > >If anyone running a tournament notices Hostile Takeover being >abused, please drop me a line. I don't want to be a "bad boy" and i know i shouldn't give new ideas, at this time... But i simply couldn't resist to drop a line, after what i read! Here's another list of cards that need new card texts, because i always see many people "abusing" of them: ENTOMBMENT COMA AMARANTH CONDITIONING RENEGADE GAROU KINE RESOURCES CONTESTED DEFLECTION REDIRECTION BRAINWASH GOLGONDA: INNER PEACE INFORMATION HIGHWAY PENTEX SUBVERSION And once upon a time a nice game... .- Luis....@ip.pt

Quicksilver <michael...@lmco.com> wrote in article <35A3CE2F...@lmco.com>... > Steve Bucy wrote: > > > > >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. > > > > I totally agree with Sorrow on this one. The more I think of it, the worse > > this one seems. TOR III is now basically worthless. It's expensive, > > selective, vulnerable, and temporal. There is no point in using it. The > > fact it is clanlessness doesn't even come close to making up for this. Also > > this doesn't match the card text at all. Really bad. It would have been > > much better to say that only transfers made to the vamp with TOR are > > matched from the blood bank, and that no pool can be transferred from the > > vampire with the tomb. I personally don't care if it's harder to remember, > > I think making the card balanced and useful is more important. This ruling > > is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and TB. > > > > My $.02 > > > > Steve Bucy > > Hogwash. You pay 3 pool and get 1 pool per turn or faster influence. I > would definately still use the card. It is now balanced instead of a focus > of complaint. You pay 3 pool to get 1 per turn. However it can stolen, burned, and will only be there until you bring the vamp out. I hardly call it balanced. If the cost where 2 pool (like Eco Terr) it might be fairly balanced. Otherwise Eco Terr is a far superior card. Steve Bucy

mboh...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > ...It contains a link to the compiled list of errata and the compiled > > list of rulings and the compiled list of clarifications..... > > Single document. Not three different documents that each might have a > change to a card. One should be able to have one document where all card > specific rulings/clarifications/errata are together for each card. Well, I don't think most people need the information in "clarifications", but - any format you like is available from the "Power Search" page - just select the appropriate check boxes (Errata, Rulings, whatever), and the desired order (sort by "Card Name", I imagine), set the number of matches to "all" and layout to "full text" and click "Search" (with an empty search string). [ quoted text not captured ]

Steve Bucy wrote: > > You pay 3 pool to get 1 per turn. However it can stolen, burned, and Just like any other location. > will only be there until you bring the vamp out. I hardly call it > balanced. If the cost where 2 pool (like Eco Terr) it might be fairly > balanced. Otherwise Eco Terr is a far superior card. Sure, if you're playing the Gangrel, go right ahead and use your Eco Terrorists. But if you're not using the Gangrel or any one of the other clans that got an "Art Museum"-type card, this might help out. I'd say it's on a par with PB:Chicago. A costly, fragile pool gaining card. [ quoted text not captured ]

Luis P. Duarte wrote: > > Here's another list of cards that need new card texts, because i > always see many people "abusing" of them: > [I changed them to lower case... easier on the eyes :) ] > Entombment > Coma How about Strike: Dodge or S:CE? These are no worse than Walk of Flame. > Amaranth Use more combat defense and don't get sent to torpor in the first place. > Conditioning !!! Try using bleed defense if you think this card is being "abused". You'll also note that Archon Investigation is still untouched by the wrath of LSJ. > Renegade Garou OK, everyone say it with me: "Allies suck!" The Garou costs FIVE pool! FIVE! > Kine Resources Contested With WVP effectively out of the picture in light of the new no vote pushing rule, I don't see any problem with the damage-votes in particular. > Deflection > Redirection This is what bleed defense is! If your bleed deck can't deal with this, then redesign it! > Brainwash This is really sketchy. It's an annoyance, especially on the first turn, but not much more than that. > Golconda: Inner Peace Well, it can't be used with Soul Gem anymore, so I again don't see a problem with it. > Information Highway Arson. Sudden Reversal. Contest it with your own. > Pentex Subversion Sure, this is annoying, but it's hardly broken. It does cost 2 pool, after all. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> You pay 3 pool to get 1 per turn. However it can stolen, burned, and >> will only be there until you bring the vamp out. I hardly call it >> balanced. If the cost where 2 pool (like Eco Terr) it might be fairly >> balanced. Otherwise Eco Terr is a far superior card. >Sure, if you're playing the Gangrel, go right ahead and use your Eco >Terrorists. But if you're not using the Gangrel or any one of the other >clans that got an "Art Museum"-type card, this might help out. I'd say >it's on a par with PB:Chicago. A costly, fragile pool gaining card. I thought that was one of the things that was so hated about ToRIII? That it could be used as a pool gainer. The way I see it, ToRIII * Costs more than Eco-Terrorists/Arcane Library, etc * Works on only *1* vamp * Goes away but of course, all of that is offset by the fact that it is clanless. Yeah, ok, whatever. Sorrow --- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A506...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > Well, I don't think most people need the information in "clarifications", > but - any format you like is available from the "Power Search" page - > just select the appropriate check boxes (Errata, Rulings, whatever), and > the desired order (sort by "Card Name", I imagine), set the number > of matches to "all" and layout to "full text" and click "Search" > (with an empty search string). Cool. 29 pages with 558 rulings/errata/clarifications. If we say there are only 205 non-duplicated cards in Sabbat (anyone know the actual number?), that means there are 995 cards in the mix. That means there is errata et al for approximately 56% of the cards. Let's add more! Jeez, I feel kinda sad for myself that I actually know probably most of those 558 rulings/errata/clarifications. These also don't include the 7/7 rulings. Mike [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Ethan Burrow wrote: > > > > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > > > > 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. > > > > I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and try to play a vote deck > > without presence using the new rules. But I doubt it'll get a single > > victory point knowing how our group builds crypts (i.e. 2-3 votes per > > meth usually). > > If your playgroup has this many big vamps at the table then a vote deck > probably isn't even what you should be playing. How about some weenie > decks? To be honest we rarely see voting decks in Austin. Each of us has a couple of weenie decks built for variety:-). I have about 10 total decks I cycle through.... _____________________________________________________________ Ethan Burrow V:EKN Prince of Austin et...@ddg.com http://www.ddg.com/ethan/austin http://www.ddg.com/ethan/

> > 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. > Section 6.4, under the sentence "To have one of your minions commit a > bleed action:" specifies "Prey". Regarding that subject, I just found something of an inconsistency in the Bleed Action cards regarding that new ruling vs the old ones and the "motivation" behind them. Most of them mention "(D)Bleed +X", and from previous interpretations, that meant "Bleed any body you wish"; from the most recent one, "(D)Bleed your prey", as the rules says. Night Moves says "(D)Bleed your prey or your predator", so it explicitly restrict the previous general ruling, or enhance the new ruling. Kindred Spirits says "(D)Bleed any Meth", so it is redundant when compared with the old rule, or an enhancement on the newest. Speed of Though says "(D)Bleed your prey", so it restricts the previous rule, or uselessly repeat the newest one. Are there other cases I'm forgetting about? Anyway. I just wanted to point these apparent "inconsistencies" to everyone. It would seem that, even since the begining of the game, WotC (and the RTR) doesn't really know what to make of (D)Bleed action (because of the cards initially printed, or the rulings later made). Seems like some errata will be required to get rid of the "inconsistencies", or the useless repeating of basic rules (which cards are "supposed to change", if they bring them up). :-) Frederic.

mboh...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > In article <35A457A7...@earthlink.net>, > Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > > point anyway. For cryin' out loud, make some new decks. Frankly, I > > think that the fact that many of my existing decks are unusable is a > > good sign that LSJ is on the right track. > > Many of your existing decks are now unusable? Assuming this is not an > exageration, do we really want the game to be changed that much? Jeez, > come on. A small group of players (LSJ and whoever he tests these rules > out with) have now decided that they know better about how the game should > be than the rest of us do. I intentionally make decks to abuse things. Ever seen a vamps with numberous Rutors Hands and numberous flak jackets? The standard day op/fame decks? I have about 15 decks made right now, so if I come up with 4-6 decks that don't work anymore, yeah, I'd consider that "many of my decks". Robert Goudie rrgo...@earthlink.net http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

Steve Bucy wrote: > > I totally agree with Sorrow on this one. The more I think of it, the worse > this one seems. TOR III is now basically worthless. [clip] > This ruling > is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and TB. If Tomb is worthless then why should you care if anyone chooses to play with it in the future? [ quoted text not captured ]

Todd Banister wrote: > > Just thought I would throw my comments in here as well. Some rulings I like > a lot and are needed but some just do not make a whole lot of sense. :( > > > 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 do not know how other playgroups are/were but my group has played by the > DCI tourney rules and vote pushing has not been a problem. I do not see why > we need the change. Anyone had different stories? Many people have complained that the Weenie Vote Push decks are still too powerful. I believe that was seen again at Origins just last week. The DCI tourney rules are for tournaments and no vote pushing restriction has ever been made to the regular V:TES game. So, a change was definitely needed. -- Robert Goudie, Chairman rrgo...@earthlink.net Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net _________________________________________________________________ The Official Vampire: the Eternal Struggle Players' Organization

Frederic Genest wrote: > > > > 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. > > > Section 6.4, under the sentence "To have one of your minions commit a > > bleed action:" specifies "Prey". > > Regarding that subject, I just found something of an inconsistency in > the Bleed Action cards regarding that new ruling vs the old ones and the > "motivation" behind them. Kudos to you for looking things up. Take a look at a Jyhad Cat Burglary and you'll see that it says (D) Bleed any other Methuselah. If the bleed is for more than 1, ignore the excess. This is a fine example of how infrequently Richard Garfield though players should be able to bleed someone other than prey. [ quoted text not captured ]

mboh...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > In article <35A506...@wizards.com>, > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > > Well, I don't think most people need the information in "clarifications", > > but - any format you like is available from the "Power Search" page - > > just select the appropriate check boxes (Errata, Rulings, whatever), and > > the desired order (sort by "Card Name", I imagine), set the number > > of matches to "all" and layout to "full text" and click "Search" > > (with an empty search string). > > Cool. 29 pages with 558 rulings/errata/clarifications. If we say there > are only 205 non-duplicated cards in Sabbat (anyone know the actual number?), > that means there are 995 cards in the mix. That means there is errata et al > for approximately 56% of the cards. Let's add more! Clarifications shouldn't be included. Those things include a bunch of questions that are obvious to most players just from card text. But anyway, don't you think the results of your search blow a bunch of holes in people theory that somehow the rulings of 7/7 have now suddenly made the game unplayable for newbies and those without net access? I contend that it has *always* been a pain in the ass for newbiew and those not on the net. > Jeez, I feel kinda sad for myself that I actually know probably most of those > 558 rulings/errata/clarifications. These also don't include the 7/7 rulings. Me too, sick huh? :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Louis P Duarte wrote: (in regards to these cards being too good...) "ENTOMBMENT COMA" No better than any other good strike. Keep in mind that both of these are expensive in Blood cost, not useable at range, and foiled by IG, S:CE, and Dodge (all of which are very common). "AMARANTH" Very sketchy and difficult to use. Yeah, it _can_ be effective, but then you need to win the blood hunt or lose a vamp. "CONDITIONING" ?!? The very backbone of the game. Perfectly balanced with the likes of Bonding and Threats. "RENEGADE GAROU" Undead Strength? "KINE RESOURCES CONTESTED" No more efective than Govern the Unaligned, now that vote pushing has been repaired. "DEFLECTION REDIRECTION" Again, both are basic building blocks of the game. "BRAINWASH" Only useful if you use 15 of them and you are lucky. Then your grand predator gets out of control. "GOLGONDA: INNER PEACE" One of the non busted cards that makes it worth using big vampires. Certainly now that it "Removes from Game" rather than "Burns". "INFORMATION HIGHWAY" Was only really useful in combination with abusive strategies, like weenie vote push. Now just a useful card. "PENTEX SUBVERSION" Expensive and questionable. Only really good against decks with few vampires. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "I am the world's forgotten boy the one who searches and destroys." -Iggy Pop

Sorrow wrote: "I will say this, though: I do know that it packed 11 Immortal Grapples. Most of the combats in those games went like this:" I was playing 12 IGs at Origins, and my deck did just fine. I didn't run into any heavy Fortitude, of course, but that was a product of lack of fear of combat decks on a national level. 12 IGs were pretty much suficcient in most combats. Granted, my Rush deck was completely focused and combat excessive (the deck is posted in a Origins tourney report somewhere around here), as I claim Rush decks need to be, so it rarely had trouble doing 5-7 damage on the first round. "Sometimes I'd play a Torn Signpost and there would be times that I would play another IG in the second round. But 11 IGs isn't enough to be consistant (whereas before it was)." Nah. 11 is enough in any situation, except very heavy Skin of Steel use. As I witnessed 25 other decks at Origins, and none of them seemed to have enough SoS, I wouldn't worry about it on a competetive level. On a local level, sure, you are goin gto get killed by the meta game, but that was always a problem of combat decks. "I ran out of resources during our (mostly ineffectual) combats doing no damage to the opposing vamps. It was a joke. This deck was far from 100% effective, but it was up near the 70-80% range. Now, it's down to about 10-15% (and I'm giving it that. As of sunday, it was at 0%)." I couldn't tell you why that was, but it probably isn't due to the new IG ruling. Mind you, I was the first guy out of the gate with the "LSJ! Are you insane!" regarding IG, but after Origins, I'm simply not all that concerned. When everyone starts packing enough SoS around here, I'll build a new deck... "It's not unusable if you pack an offensive amount of IG. Perhaps 20 or 25." Again, 12 did just fine. "But a great deal of bleed and vote decks pack the requisite anti-combat cards to ineffectualize POT combat decks. You should play here and see how often you come up against an anti-combat deck (about 85%+ of the time). The only thing I can do now is completely scrap my once valid and effective combat deck and build a bleed deck. But that point is moot" Again, if all the Bleed and Vote decks are designed to screw combat decks, then combat decks won't work, regardless of the IG ruling. If everyone is heavy anti-combat, punish them for it with pure non-combat, until they take all the defense out of their decks. "A once broad field has now shrunk significantly." I assure you that Rush decks are still viable. Yes, they are screwed by heavy anti-combat meta gaming, but they always were. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin wrote in message <35A51A3B...@math.wisc.edu>... >Luis P. Duarte wrote: >> >> Here's another list of cards that need new card texts, because i >> always see many people "abusing" of them: >> >[I changed them to lower case... easier on the eyes :) ] > >> Entombment >> Coma > >How about Strike: Dodge or S:CE? These are no worse than Walk of Flame. Yes! You got the point! Those too! I see many many people abusing of Walk of Flame, S:CE, Dodge... >> Amaranth > >Use more combat defense and don't get sent to torpor in the first place. Alright! Thanks a lot for the advice! Do you have one more *general* advice for me? ;) >> Conditioning > >!!! Try using bleed defense if you think this card is being "abused". >You'll also note that Archon Investigation is still untouched by the >wrath of LSJ. Yes! Archon Investigation IS a threat to bleed decks. Let's change it's text to: "Do 1 damage to the acting vampire, if the bleed is superior to 20." What do you think? Does it fits well in the 10 pages errata book? >> Renegade Garou > >OK, everyone say it with me: "Allies suck!" The Garou costs FIVE pool! >FIVE! And Stanislava 10 or 11! So it's better to play RG and kick butt to everyone! >> Kine Resources Contested > >With WVP effectively out of the picture in light of the new no vote >pushing rule, I don't see any problem with the damage-votes in >particular. But they hurt people! Imagine taking 3 damage from a nasty Prince...! >> Deflection >> Redirection > >This is what bleed defense is! If your bleed deck can't deal with this, >then redesign it! We should ban this abusive cards because players (always) use it to protect themselves from the bleeds... it's abusive... >> Brainwash > >This is really sketchy. It's an annoyance, especially on the first >turn, but not much more than that. UUUh! Do you ever played against a Brainwash deck? ... ehehehe... ;) Believe me it's REALLY abusive! The card text should be modified to: "... in your next untap phase, burn it. The vampire is free as a bat(?)" >> Golconda: Inner Peace > >Well, it can't be used with Soul Gem anymore, so I again don't see a >problem with it. yes... neither do i... but i also didn't think there was a problem with Wake With The Evening Freshness... so... >> Information Highway > >Arson. Sudden Reversal. Contest it with your own. Nossa! You know so many cards... let me be your friend!!! ;) I think you forgot Domain Challenge! Here's one! It's abusive! >> Pentex Subversion > >Sure, this is annoying, but it's hardly broken. It does cost 2 pool, >after all. Yes. But if we are going to look to the costs then Thoughts Betrayed wouldn't be a problem...! Or Entombment! Or even RTI (cost=4!) I still think it's more easy to ban some awful cards from tournments. WotC should have thought better when they made Thoughts Betrayed for example. The real responsable for this discussion is WotC itself, that made this great game, promoted it, made thousands of players all around the world to buy it and play it 'til today, and sudden left all US with our hands empty, with almost no support (LSJ is the exception, and an exception always confirms the rule...). It would be nice to make a second edition of this wonderful game... Well, wonderful until the end of the month... i think... .- Luis....@ip.pt

> These changes you've been making have been making have, although being > drastic, been good - sometimes on closer inspection, but nevertheless. > The idea of fixing powerful cards is a jolly good idea. However, in > our local playing there has been one powerful card which hasn't been > touched by the rulings. Now I know this card hasn't really gotten a lot > of coverage on the newsgroup, not that I've noticed anyway, as being > powerful but trust me it is, if you need an explanation just ask. > That card is Hostile Takeover. And the reason why I'm mentioning > this now, apart from being of the opinion that something should be > done about it, is because a new rule makes it more powerful. > > > Golden Rule of Card Ownership [snipped] > > Now you can take someone's vampire, kill them and still have the > vampire. The card is now more powerful - and it is the opinion of > many in our playing group, including the person who uses it, that > the card was already quite a powerful card. > Hostile Takeover is far from a safe card to use in the first place. I fail to see why it should be modified since its effect is generally balanced. If you bid for a vampire and subsequently gain it, the target Methusaleh gains a generous amount of pool. This can also leave you in a precarious position if you had to bid a large amount to gain control of the vampire. Therefore, although you can possibly gain a large vampire, this is more than offset by the fact that you have brought yourself considerably closer to being ousted by giving a substantial amount of your pool to someone else. Secondly, the vampires that are used by other Methusalehs are often quite incompatible with those that I use. So if I name a vampire with a Hostile Takeover, then the chances are it's going to be much less useful to me than my own vampires. Thirdly, why is there any need to change a card that there have been no complaints about until now? I mean, if you are seriously worried about people playing Hostile Takeover, then put some Sudden Reversals in your deck. A couple of these should be enough to convince the Methusaleh playing them to target someone else. If cards like Hostile Takeover are going to be banned just because one person has a problem with it, then maybe everybody should make changes for cards they don't like. For instance, I don't like the fact that Arika got into combat with Badger the other day, and Badger played 12 Drawing out the Beast, and an Earth Meld. Net result, Arika went to torpor with no blood, and Badger took no damage. Now, I'm not too happy about how easy it is to dump handfuls of Drawing out the Beast, but that's the way it works so I guess I'll just have to live with it. Instead, of spending time complaining about more cards to fix, I think we should be working on trying to adapt to all the changes that have already been made. Anyway, maybe I'm biased because I spent lots of time resources collecting Hostile Takeovers and I don't suddenly want to see them suddenly become next to useless. Later, Billy. (bi...@hotmail.com) [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Later, Justicar. (just...@my-dejanews.com) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6o2phs$as7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, mboh...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > In article <35A4BA...@wizards.com>, > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > Petri Wessman wrote: > > > ...a single reference document which has *all* the needed info... > > > ...It contains a link to the compiled list of errata and the compiled > > list of rulings and the compiled list of clarifications..... > > Single document. Not three different documents that each might have a > change to a card. One should be able to have one document where all card > specific rulings/clarifications/errata are together for each card. > > Mike > OK here's my link again. http://www.mich.com/~raille/Jyhad/third.htm It has not had most of the RTR added. That will happen in mid Aug. Dave M. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A59DD1...@earthlink.net>, Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Clarifications shouldn't be included. Those things include a bunch of > questions that are obvious to most players just from card text. But obviously they could be interpreted differently or they wouldn't need clarifications. Clarifications are to prevent possible confusion by making things as clear as possible. > But anyway, don't you think the results of your search blow a bunch of > holes in people theory that somehow the rulings of 7/7 have now suddenly > made the game unplayable for newbies and those without net access? I > contend that it has *always* been a pain in the ass for newbiew and > those not on the net. I don't think anyone was saying it was easy before with all these rulings to bring in new players. Personally, I'd rather see the RT go back through and try and elliminate unnecessary rulings. Instead, we've now got about 30 new rulings, some that have ABSOLUTELY NO BASIS on card text. What you are suggesting also is trying to use "two wrongs make a right." House rules should stay house rules, but many of the new rulings, especially those from 7/7 are someone's house rules. If I'm gonna play with house rules, I'd rather play with ones that my group has agreed on. > Me too, sick huh? :-) We should form a support group for people that have masochistically learned most or all of the rulings. Mike Bohlmann [ quoted text not captured ]

just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > Hostile Takeover is far from a safe card to use in the first place. I > fail to see why it should be modified since its effect is generally > balanced. [snip] The reason people are "suddenly" concerned with Hostile Takeover is that with the new Golden Rule, you keep the vampires you stole even when the person you stole them from is outsed. I suggested that this might be broken in a heavy bleed, pool gain deck, which can afford to pay to get the vampires and heavily bleed the prey he's stealing them from. Combined with a healthy amount of Master:Skill cards, those vampires will be far from useless. I don't know for sure if a change is needed; I'm just concerned that one might be. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > This ruling > > is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and TB. > If Tomb is worthless then why should you care if anyone chooses to play > with it in the future? No, of course not. But I'd be kind of curious why they wasted their pool (and their time). Let's evaluate this new Tomb. (assuming you are in a position that starts you out at 4 transfers) To bring out a(n): - it costs (net loss/gain): 11 cap vampire - 3 Pool (ToR) + 8 Pool Transfers (2 turns) + 3 turns (for ToR effect) = 0 gain and 2 turns longer to bring vamp out 8 cap vampire - 3 pool (ToR) + 4 Pool Transfers + 4 turns (for ToR effect) = 1 gain and 3 turns longer to bring vamp out 6 cap vampire 3 Pool (ToR) + 3 Pool Transfers (so you don't lose any) + 3 turns = 0 gain and 2 turns longer to bring vamp out. Of course, you can take longer to bring said vamp out to realize more of a gain, but it can't be a vampire that you need. You can also transfer more pool to gain speed, but then you are talking about a net loss. So, effectivly, it is useless for it's intended purpose - to influence out vampires. Unless, of course, you don't mind waiting 6 or 8 or more turns to bring that vamp out. So, what does that leave us with? To use it as a pool gainer, which, if I recall correctly, was an even greater complaint as to the use of the card than using it to influence out high cap vampires. Just stick ToR on a vamp you know you won't influence out, tap to put a blood on it and pull that blood back into your pool. Sweet. IMO, this eratta does nothing to fix what most of you thought was wrong with the card and at the same time turning it into wallpaper. Sorrow [ quoted text not captured ]

mboh...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > In article <35A59DD1...@earthlink.net>, > Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > > Clarifications shouldn't be included. Those things include a bunch of > > questions that are obvious to most players just from card text. > > But obviously they could be interpreted differently or they wouldn't need > clarifications. No. If they could be interpretted a different way (by a reasonable player), then it would need a ruling. Clarifications are things that people have asked about, but which have answers which are directly derivable from card text, rules, or other existing errata to the rules or cards. > Clarifications are to prevent possible confusion by making > things as clear as possible. True. > I don't think anyone was saying it was easy before with all these rulings > to bring in new players. Personally, I'd rather see the RT go back through > and try and elliminate unnecessary rulings. Instead, we've now got about > 30 new rulings, some that have ABSOLUTELY NO BASIS on card text. As an aside: The elimination of the (D)-symbol non-reminder erratum also eliminates about 20 other errata (to Blood Bond, Blood Hunt, Cat Burglary, etc.) -- 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Clarifications are things that people have asked about, but which have > answers which are directly derivable from card text, rules, or other > existing errata to the rules or cards. In most cases, I would agree. For example: ] Pander is a clan (while Caitiff still is not). [Sabbat] ] The damage from Catatonic Fear is only dealt if the strike was ] resolved at close range. [LSJ 970904] I wouldn't exactly say that these are directly derivable from card text, rules, or other errata. Maybe these are addressed in other general rulings. The point is, you have to hunt around to find clarification on your gut instinct. And with the number of errata and rulings 178 of the 558 rulings/errata/clarification are clarifications. That means 380 rulings and errata. The odds are really pretty good (about 33%) that an ambiguous card or situation might be cleared up by a ruling or errata. It'd be best just to include them all together. > As an aside: > The elimination of the (D)-symbol non-reminder erratum also eliminates > about 20 other errata (to Blood Bond, Blood Hunt, Cat Burglary, etc.) Awesome! LSJ, I really respect you and what you are trying to do with the game, and I hope none of my comments have been too harsh. But they are based on the same feelings for this great game that you use to try to correct some problems. I just think that if you had gone about just fixing the old RT's mistakes and thereby hopefully reducing the number of errata/rulings/clarifications, people would probably have been more receptive to your other card changes. By fixing the mistakes of the past team, you would have been building trust and loyalty. The way you've done it, people feel like you were just waiting to get the RT power so you could make your house rules the real rules. I beg of you that if you really want to earn people's respect and loyalty, take back all the card specific rulings that deviate greatly from card text and concentrate on reducing previous rulings and errata to make the game less unwieldy. Once you've done that, people will really feel you know what you are doing and be more than happy to follow you as you try to improve the game. Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP mboh...@pdnt.com Internet Strategy and Development Consultant

> As an aside: > The elimination of the (D)-symbol non-reminder erratum also eliminates > about 20 other errata (to Blood Bond, Blood Hunt, Cat Burglary, etc.) Which reminds me... I just took a *good* look at all the accumulated rulings/clarifications/errata. It seems to me that many "situations" have been addresses more than once. I mean, some rulings/etc. are repeating things than have been adressed before (usually not in an "as complete" manner). Are you, LSJ, planning to "clean things up"? :-) Frederic.

> Let's evaluate this new Tomb. (assuming you are in a position that > starts you out at 4 transfers) (snip) > Of course, you can take longer to bring said vamp out to realize > more of a gain, but it can't be a vampire that you need. You can > also transfer more pool to gain speed, but then you are talking > about a net loss. If you invest a couple of pool to be able to get a vampire out faster, then it is somewhat fair, isn't? Of course, when compared to Information Highway (0 pool investment, +2 xfer each turn), I would tend to agree that paying 3 pool is too much of a cost for the current "version" of ToR3. So, in a future RTR, either it should be made slightly more powerful, or the cost should be reduced.. In the meantime, ToR3 cannot be "abused", since it's usefullness is much reduced (when compared to the previous incarnation). But, I'd rather have a wallpaper card than a banned card, since I can still use it, should I find a worthwhile way to do so. Frederic.

gen...@iname.com wrote: > > Are you, LSJ, planning to "clean things up"? :-) Call me a brave soul, but I'm willing to poke through the texts and take out redundancies, etc. I let you know when I give or when I'm done. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6o2sio$ia8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, cbo...@apdi.net writes >"No maneuver, you? No." >"Ok, then I'll Immortally Grapple your vamp" >"How did I know? Strike?" >"Undead Strength. You?" (hoping at this point I'll get another IG in hand) >"Hands, what else?" >"Ok, I'll press with the IG" This is the problem. IG should be utilised in the first round *anyway*. IG lets potence work in the first round. If you have to go to the second round, you're not playing potence well enough. You should be able to torporise them on the first round and thus the IG does its job. Of course, you can get unlucky draws but if you go to the second round routinely, you're wasting your time. -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia) Change nospam to obeah to reply Vampire: Elder Kindred Network madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

Okay, I've read more or less everything on the group that I have at the moment on the subject so now I'll through in my two-pence. >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). No bad thing. It's still quite possible to get votes going - lots of cards like Ventrue Headquarters, the Mausoleum, Ventrue Directorate Assembly, Powerbase: Rome, Power Structure and so on can give you some permanent votes and this might make such cards more useful. Limiting it to permanent votes on vampires is also no bad thing as it will shift the game back towards using higher capacity vampires which isn't bad in and of itself. > >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. > Okay, I don't have a problem with this either. It helps make Corruption a viable strategy because before you couldn't really steal your prey's vamps because that would help you oust him (good thing) but then you'd lose your vampires (bad thing). >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. Hmmm.... I don't think I like this on face value. But Robert Goudie's cries of "It stops people working out who's the biggest threat and then ganging up on them" has kind of worked on me. ISTR reading an article in the back of Duelist with Richard Garfield which mentioned a game he played and it turning into simple diplomacy based on who held the strongest territories or something. I think this helps stop Jyhad being like that. However, I *do* know that it will have a big influence on some decks which used bleed as a defence against their predator. Ho hum. > >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.) Perhaps the wording should be cleared up to resolve the issues about equipment which obviously IS optional - things like Leather Jacket which you don't HAVE to burn. > >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. > I think I prefer this a little. It's VERY complicated here and should be re-written. The first sentence "but does not cause the vampire to burn any blood" is very awkward when contrasted with the fact that it's only the first point which isn't burned. But I like the clearing up of the intent of the Jyhad rules - it was always difficult to know if vampires were burned because of the fact that, say, the aggravated damage from my claws and the aggravated damage from, say, my Pulled Fangs were resolving at different times so was my vampire burned or not (argue ad nauseum). >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." Fine. Limits the card to what it was supposed to do. > >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." No, I don't like this. Either way, it's still abusable simply because of it's repeat capacity during a turn. I don't mind it being used OFFENSIVELY (ie I do damage to YOUR vamps and you lose pool) since it does bolster the beleaguered combat decks a little but I still think its difficult with it being used more than once in a turn. Maybe: "The first time the vampire with this card goes to torpor since your (the controller who plays this card) untap phase, then this vampire's controller burns three pool." Whatever, I just don't think it should be usable repeatedly during turns. The thing about the untap phase was based on the fact that CI/Madness Network would get round it. > >Fire Dance: > Is directed or not based on the controller of the target, as always. > # Fine. >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." Fine. >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. The "or at any time outside of the minion phase" might conflict with the Play-Resolve thing. I play a card to put a card I own up for sale, say, Malkavian Time Auction and I choose a vamp with Sengir Dagger on it. During the bidding, I tap Heidelberg to move the Sengir Dagger off it. I can hear the arguments now: "But you can't interrupt the resolution." "But the card says at any time!" <whine ad infinitum> > >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 > I see the need for this alteration based on things like Madness Network and Anson. Bleed your prey for fuck loads outside of his turn and there's very little he can do to stop you playing this, especially if it's down to only two people cos he can't plead for an SR off anyone else. >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." Hmmm... not too bad. > >Of Noble Blood: > Is directed or not based on the controller of the target (and the > definition of "directed"). > Fine. >Powerbase: Mexico City > The action to steal the blood from your powerbase cannot be attempted > by your own vampires. > Fine. >Pulled Fangs: > The damage is not aggravated. > # > # to balance the card with Lucky Blow, Disarm, and Twisting the Knife. > I don't agree with this one. Pulled Fangs can now be more easily prevented due to things like Skin of Rock being playable against it. Maybe just make it unable to burn you. So, maybe just send the vampire to torpor. >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. It works weirdly. I don't think it will work too well. I'd have to see it tried first. But it looks like it may well just be ban material simply because the idea of a +X bleed is simply broken. > >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 don't know if I like this now. It's difficult to judge it, I guess. > >Thoughts Betrayed: > "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat." There is the problem, though, that I feel it was created to help the Tremere get to second round. Maybe do something like: "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play maneuver cards/strike cards/press cards (choose one) for the remainder 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 . No, I don't like this one at all. As I see it, the card was originally intended to let you get out a big vampire quickly, to trouble the weenie decks. So my suggestion would be: "When this card is brought....... uncontrolled region <verbatim>. At the end of your influence phase, if the chosen vampire has blood equal to or greater than half their capacity, move them to the controlled region and give them enough blood to reach capacity from the blood bank, and burn this card." >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. > Fine. >Wake with Evening's Freshness: > "Do not replace until your next untap phase." > Unnecessary. I know that LSJ's group plays with all sorts of restrictions on wakes but I don't think this is necessary. Wakes are not a "no brain" choice for a deck - maybe desirable but not necessarily necessary. I think it's fine as is, myself. >Zip Gun: > Cannot use ammo cards. > I dunno. It does kind of rip the guts out of the card. Maybe make it pay to use ammo cards, instead? After all, DBR for a Zip Gun would be a mite expensive, surely? [ quoted text not captured ]

> > Of course, you can take longer to bring said vamp out to realize > > more of a gain, but it can't be a vampire that you need. You can > > also transfer more pool to gain speed, but then you are talking > > about a net loss. > If you invest a couple of pool to be able to get a vampire out faster, > then it is somewhat fair, isn't? Except that you *pay more* for the vampire for what it's worth. And the speed gain is negligable. > Of course, when compared to Information Highway (0 pool investment, > +2 xfer each turn), I would tend to agree that paying 3 pool is too much > of a cost for the current "version" of ToR3. So, in a future RTR, either it > should be made slightly more powerful, or the cost should be > reduced.. Just what we need... more eratta, more eratta, more eratta. > In the meantime, ToR3 cannot be "abused", since it's usefullness is > much reduced (when compared to the previous incarnation). but it can still be abused. Stick on a vamp you'll never bring out and rake in a pool every turn. Nothing's changed with this regards. Sorrow [ quoted text not captured ]

> gen...@iname.com wrote: > > > > Are you, LSJ, planning to "clean things up"? :-) > > Call me a brave soul, but I'm willing to poke through the texts and take > out redundancies, etc. I let you know when I give or when I'm done. :) :-) I was also about to offer myself. But I asked LSJ for a good reason. Since he is the one responsible for the RT, he should be better placed to judge what could be "removed/cleaned", and what couldn't. Not that I'm doubting that you could do an as good a job; I'm willing to let you do it if you insist (even only slightly :). Yesterday, I d/l the three web pages containing all the modifications from the RTR (clarifications/errata/rulings). They are now in Word97 format on my drive, ready to be verified. If you want them, I could place them somewhere (on an anonymous FTP site, for example). The only problem is that they don't include the 7/07 RTRs (yet). We can either wait until LSJ updates his pages, then I'll d/l them and convert them again, or the files could be updated by you or me using the RTR from the newsgroup. Frederic.

> >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." > > No, I don't like this. Either way, it's still abusable simply because > of it's repeat capacity during a turn. I don't mind it being used > OFFENSIVELY (ie I do damage to YOUR vamps and you lose pool) since it > does bolster the beleaguered combat decks a little but I still think its > difficult with it being used more than once in a turn. Maybe: > > "The first time the vampire with this card goes to torpor since your > (the controller who plays this card) untap phase, then this vampire's > controller burns three pool." > > Whatever, I just don't think it should be usable repeatedly during > turns. The thing about the untap phase was based on the fact that > CI/Madness Network would get round it. How about something like: "Burn this card if the vampire it is on goes to torpor." Of course, the part about losing pool if the vamp is in torpor would have to be removed. But, at least, it could be used *once* in a matter to make your prey/or the controller lose pool. Another alternative would be to add a sentence saying that this card can only be used once in a game (like Giant's Blood, for example). So, once the vampire is burned (or the controller is ousted), then no more Fame could be played.

bi...@my-dejanews.com writes: > In article <35A4BA...@wizards.com>, > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > Petri Wessman wrote: > > > LSJ and others: this game *REALLY* needs a single reference document > > > which has *all* the needed info, otherwise casual players will never > > > catch on to the game and will only retreat in confusion. > > > > http://www.wizards.com/VTES/VTES_Rules.html > > > > It contains a link to the compiled list of errata and the compiled > > list of rulings and the compiled list of clarifications. > > Which does not make it a _single_ reference document. Yup. *I* have time and interest to hunt through a zillion tiny little links and pages, all alike ;-), but many people do not. IMHO, we need a SINGLE document that has all the required stuff. Otherwise you can forget about the changes and "correct" rules ever reaching anybody except us fanatical players. //Petri

Steve Bucy wrote: > Quicksilver <michael...@lmco.com> wrote in article > <35A3CE2F...@lmco.com>... > > Steve Bucy wrote: > > > > > > >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. > > > > > > I totally agree with Sorrow on this one. The more I think of it, the > worse > > > this one seems. TOR III is now basically worthless. It's expensive, > > > selective, vulnerable, and temporal. There is no point in using it. The > > > fact it is clanlessness doesn't even come close to making up for this. > Also > > > this doesn't match the card text at all. Really bad. It would have been > > > much better to say that only transfers made to the vamp with TOR are > > > matched from the blood bank, and that no pool can be transferred from > the > > > vampire with the tomb. I personally don't care if it's harder to > remember, > > > I think making the card balanced and useful is more important. This > ruling > > > is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and > TB. > > > > > > My $.02 > > > > > > Steve Bucy > > > > Hogwash. You pay 3 pool and get 1 pool per turn or faster influence. I > > would definately still use the card. It is now balanced instead of a focus > > > of complaint. > > You pay 3 pool to get 1 per turn. However it can stolen, burned, and will > only be there until you bring the vamp out. I hardly call it balanced. If > the cost where 2 pool (like Eco Terr) it might be fairly balanced. > Otherwise Eco Terr is a far superior card. > > Steve Bucy Stolen? That takes a card like Kine Dominate. No more vulnerable than the card it was compared to, Eco Terrorists. Burned? Again, that takes a special card. There is no burn or steal text on the card. Only ther until influenced? Yep thats a big one. But not big enough to mean that the card will not be played. To Summarize: Eco Terrorists vs TOR III 2 pool vs 3 pool only Gangrel vs. any single vampire permanent vs. goes away when influenced. takes a Gangrel to play vs. no restrictions. TOR is better when 1) Playing a clan with no ET equivelent or want more. 2) You can afford to leave a vampire uninfluenced. It gives you 1 pool per turn at a cost of 2 pool the first turn (3-1 during influence) For a clan non-specific card, that is very nice.

gen...@iname.com wrote: > > :-) I was also about to offer myself. Eh, I've already given up. I went through about half of it, realized I was doing something consistently wrong, and just gave up the ship. Your turn. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Eh, I've already given up. I went through about half of it, realized I > was doing something consistently wrong, and just gave up the ship. Your > turn. I'll wait until the pages are updated, then I'll start to do it. May take a couple of days though. As a side note, I'll probably also merge the three files, so we'll almost have our "rulebook" with this. :) I'll keep you posted. Frederic.

Ian Cyr wrote: > I have to delurk here. > Although I haven't played that long my first deck was a gangrel weenie burn 'em > deck with amaranths and such. > But no, with the new agg damage rules, it seems like gangrel have just gone > down in power since it now requires AT LEAST 3 points of agg damage to burn a > vampire, and that's just if the vampire has one blood on him. > Before it would have taken two, one to put him in torpor and one to burn him, > but now it takes three, which basiclly makes playing a protean based gangrel > deck almost impossible, especially since most vampires you run across will have > more than one blood on them. Protean was hard enough to play already, and noe > it will be basically impossible to creat a viable protean deck taht will do > anything but put vampires in torpor WITH BLOOD on them so that they can just > get out next turn... > > Sorry, just my $.02 > Ian > > <snip> > > > 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 ==----- > > http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum You are right about aggravated damage being less powerful, but wrong if you think the new rules make it less effective. With the rewrite on Rotzreich, your Gangrels can kick some very serious butt. You just gotta flash your claws, you don't even need to hit 'em, and they go to topor. From now on if you let a Gangrel block you better be ready to handle topor, no matter how good a combat deck it is.

In article <35A660E6...@lmco.com>, michae...@lmco.com wrote: > TOR is better when > 1) Playing a clan with no ET equivelent or want more. > 2) You can afford to leave a vampire uninfluenced. Look at it this way: You pay 3 pool. What do you get for that 3 pool? One free blood for influence each turn until the vampire it is on comes into play. Let's assume you are using it to bring out a vampire. Turn Action Total Cost Recouped 1 Play ToR, Use ToR, Use 4 Transfers 1 Pool 2 Use ToR, Use (Capacity-6) Transfers 2 Pool At this point, a vampire of capacity 10 or less comes into play. So you must ask yourself, is it worth paying one pool to get a vampire out one turn faster (if it's a 9 or 10 capacity)? Considering that Information Superhighway is permanent, costs nothing, and has the same effect (plus 2 more transfers) I would say no. The ONLY situation where you would reasonably use ToR is if you are bringing out an Inner Circle Member (you'll recoup your third pool, but it still took you just as long to bring it out as normal - 3 turns) or you are using it for pool gain. Quite frankly there are better pool gainers that are more reliable. Conclusion - Nearly wallpaper. To be honest, I didn't think that this change was that bad, but now that I've sat down and put down the numbers, it's terrible. Mike Bohlmann [ quoted text not captured ]

"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. Also, Archon Investigation no longer stops RtI. --- Eric Pettersen pett "at" cgl "dot" ucsf "dot" edu (NeXTmail capable)

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > I will say this, though: I do know that it packed 11 Immortal Grapples. > Most of the combats in those games went like this: > > "No maneuver, you? No." > "Ok, then I'll Immortally Grapple your vamp" > "How did I know? Strike?" > "Undead Strength. You?" (hoping at this point I'll get another IG in hand) > "Hands, what else?" > "Ok, I'll press with the IG" > "No maneuver, you?" > "No, got another IG" > "No, dammit. My strike is Undead Strength." > "Well mine is Majesty, pay 1 to untap" So, no Torn Signpost to start the combat, and no second-round IG. Presuming you used BR to get into combat (rather than Ambush or Haven Uncovered), you have a six card hand. 1-2 of those should be more rush cards. 1 should be a maneuver. What were the other 3-4 cards you were holding? [ quoted text not captured ]

> > If you invest a couple of pool to be able to get a vampire out faster, > > then it is somewhat fair, isn't? > > Except that you *pay more* for the vampire for what it's worth. And > the speed gain is negligable. Which is why I would agree that paying 3 pool is too much. > Just what we need... more eratta, more eratta, more eratta. Hey, there ain't much we can do about that. For as long as the proposed fix to "broken" cards won't satisfy us, there will be erratas. > > In the meantime, ToR3 cannot be "abused", since it's usefullness is > > much reduced (when compared to the previous incarnation). > > but it can still be abused. Stick on a vamp you'll never bring out > and rake in a pool every turn. Nothing's changed with this regards. The same with Ecoterrorist, Art Museum, and others. Must they be changed too? Errata, errata... :-) The fact that they need a clan to bring them out, and affect only that clan, while being absolutely permanent (which means that you *could* bring a vamp out with it), means that they cost 2 pool, not 3. Looks somewhat fair to me. (Sounds like I'm repeating LSJ commentary, but that's not intentional). Frederic.

leg...@nospam.generation.net (Philippe Richer) wrote: > What are weenie Auspex vamps made for, except wake and block? Well, I > know, I know. Getting to know everybody's hand is nice too. Still. A > Fast Reacting Flamethrowing weenie is quite a force to reckon with. With > sufficient permanent and hand-played intercept, it'd be more than possible > to pull it off and block almost all attempts at destruction. Of course, > Day Op and such would make it harder, but that's basically why I'd use > weenies. That and the need to get in torpor. I agree though that > Vulnerability would be difficult to deal with (save a well-timed Sudden), > but it's also a rarely used card, AFAIK. > I'd show it to you, except that I'd still wouldn't like Fame enough to > play it. Ahh, scrupples. I can betray a friend or an ally, but I still > can't play a screwed card and live with it. > Though now that I think about it, let's have the fight to torporize the > famous minion, then play Fast Reaction with the Flame throwing weenie > and torporize the unlucky vamp. So let me get this straight, your proposed "abuse" of the alternative Fame fix is: 1) Put Fame on a weenie with superior Auspex 2) Eagle Sight block a prey action 3) Stay in combat long enough to go to torpor without getting burned 4) Block the ensuing wave of prey/predator diablerie attempts, 5) Successfully pull the weenie out of torpor 6) Successfully hunt with the weenie without getting torporized (which would hurt no one via Fame if it happens on your turn) 7) Wake and Eagle Sight block a prey action 8) Repeat above steps 3-7 successfully What you're describing isn't an abusive cycle -- it's an outright miracle. [ quoted text not captured ]

Chris Berger wrote: > > > > > As an aside: > > The elimination of the (D)-symbol non-reminder erratum also > > eliminates > > about 20 other errata (to Blood Bond, Blood Hunt, Cat Burglary, > > etc.) > > > Yes, but your insistence that it somehow makes bleeds only directable > at prey adds about 20 more errata. (Every card that says "(D) > Bleed..." must say "(D) Bleed your prey...") That's not true. Here's the argument, step by step; if you disagree with any of the steps, let me know. 1. Without a specific card, you may only bleed your prey. 2. The new rule says that a (D) action does not automatically provide omni-directability. 3. A card which says "(D) Bleed" allows you to use this card (presumably with some added benefit) to perform the natural bleed action, i.e., against your prey. Hence, for you to be able to bleed someone other than your prey, you have to have a card which specifically lets you. The only reason there were cards printed that say "(D) Bleed your prey" is because those were printed under the (now overturned) (D)-omni-directability rule. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > As an aside: > The elimination of the (D)-symbol non-reminder erratum also eliminates > about 20 other errata (to Blood Bond, Blood Hunt, Cat Burglary, etc.) > Yes, but your insistence that it somehow makes bleeds only directable at prey adds about 20 more errata. (Every card that says "(D) Bleed..." must say "(D) Bleed your prey...") -Chris

(Eric Pettersen) wrote: >leg...@nospam.generation.net (Philippe Richer) wrote: >> What are weenie Auspex vamps made for, except wake and block? Well, I >> know, I know. Getting to know everybody's hand is nice too. Still. A >> Fast Reacting Flamethrowing weenie is quite a force to reckon with. With >> sufficient permanent and hand-played intercept, it'd be more than possible >> to pull it off and block almost all attempts at destruction. Of course, >> Day Op and such would make it harder, but that's basically why I'd use >> weenies. That and the need to get in torpor. I agree though that >> Vulnerability would be difficult to deal with (save a well-timed Sudden), >> but it's also a rarely used card, AFAIK. > >So let me get this straight, your proposed "abuse" of the alternative Fame >fix is: > >1) Put Fame on a weenie with superior Auspex >2) Eagle Sight block a prey action >3) Stay in combat long enough to go to torpor without getting burned >4) Block the ensuing wave of prey/predator diablerie attempts, >5) Successfully pull the weenie out of torpor >6) Successfully hunt with the weenie without getting torporized (which > would hurt no one via Fame if it happens on your turn) >7) Wake and Eagle Sight block a prey action >8) Repeat above steps 3-7 successfully > >What you're describing isn't an abusive cycle -- it's an outright miracle. That's me! Bleu, the MiracleMan. Always here to plan a miracle (but I leave the "making" part of it to others, thank you). Alright, let's make it work. First off, let's put it in a JOL setting. It increases the number of meths who could attempt diablerie. Out of the other seven players, there are always one or two who don't care enough about the rest of the table to go diablerize a famous vamp. They often have decks made to quickly bleed out their preys (or they themselves will die), and indeed the loss of one pool a turn is an added help. Maybe they even play with Anarch Revolt! Then again, there are one or two meths in such bad situations that they can't take an action to diablerize your vamp. Those are usually the prey or predator of a fast deck. Also, one meth is going to be too worried they'd also lose a vamp in a Blood Hunt, 'cause their predator or prey is playing a vote deck or has a few princes out. Or they could lose it because of that Flame Thrower in the hands of the weenie waiting to block such a crime. Your prey might have to wait until his next turn to try and diablerize your famous vamp. You can easily block the action you want, so why not the last one of a meth who doesn't care to block, or plays with many wakes? If he still has untapped vamps, and they can go and diablerize your vamp, then please block with the other weenies, especially the one with the Flame Thrower. In the mean time, you have an ally (I hope you remember not to make everyone mad at you) who might be able to rescue the famous weenie. Thus, you will need one less risky action, and the vamp will be available for a Hunting Ground (or Blood Doll) to prevent the need to hunt. If the ally is unable to make the rescue, you will have your predator to deal with. Unless he's confident he can oust you before you oust his future, weakened, prey. Unless he's in a very bad situation. Don't forget that big expensive vamps make difficult Blood Hunt victims. Also, getting back to the top, please wake and block. And if you do lose that vamp, wait a while and get another Fame in play. It might not be happening all in the same turn, but it's still what I consider an abusive playing of the card. I know others would call it a creative way of using a combat defense card, but I call that abusive and counter to the card's nature. Bleu

> You are right about aggravated damage being less powerful, but wrong if you > think the new rules make it less effective. With the rewrite on Rotzreich, > your > Gangrels can kick some very serious butt. You just gotta flash your claws, > you don't even need to hit 'em, and they go to topor. From now on if you let > a Gangrel block you better be ready to handle topor, no matter how good a > combat deck it is. Explain? Ian

In article <35A60E74...@math.wisc.edu>, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > > > Hostile Takeover is far from a safe card to use in the first place. I > > fail to see why it should be modified since its effect is generally > > balanced. > [snip] > > The reason people are "suddenly" concerned with Hostile Takeover is that > with the new Golden Rule actually that would be incorrect. I was always concerned with HT, I honestly was expecting LSJ to make a change to the card in the second round of changes. Though now with the new Golden Rule I am "much more" concerned with the card. stan http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/5304 [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6o4art$u0h$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > Hostile Takeover is far from a safe card to use in the first place. I fail to > see why it should be modified since its effect is generally balanced. Oh yeah, balanced - I take your vampire. > If you > bid for a vampire and subsequently gain it, the target Methusaleh gains a > generous amount of pool. This can also leave you in a precarious position if > you had to bid a large amount to gain control of the vampire. The position is precarious if you're stupid enough not to have cards to support that outcome in your deck. Hmmm, let me think - I put this card in my deck which could see me losing upwards of 13 pool in one go, I wonder if I'll try and get the pool back straight away - errr duh, maybe? > Secondly, the vampires that are used by other Methusalehs are often quite > incompatible with those that I use. So if I name a vampire with a Hostile > Takeover, then the chances are it's going to be much less useful to me than my > own vampires. Having Ventrue you have Dominate (which many clans have and which nearly all big vampires have). Those clans which don't have Dominate tend to have Fortitude or Presence. So unless everyone is playing a Tzimisce or Nosferatu deck things shouldn't be too bad in that regard. If people are playing weenie vote decks hey your Venture, maybe you'll need those votes. If people are playing weenie bleed decks ... well try Deflections. > Thirdly, why is there any need to change a card that there have been no > complaints about until now? I merely brining up the problem. I think that there has always been a problem but it is only that most players haven't been bothered to try and figure out how to use HT. > I mean, if you are seriously worried about people > playing Hostile Takeover, then put some Sudden Reversals in your deck. So why was Tomb changed, just Sudden Reversal it. So why was Return to Innocence changed, just Direct Intervention it. So why was Fame changed, just Sudden Reversal it. So why was Thoughts Betrayed changed, just Direct Intervention it. So why was Golconda changed, just Sudden Reversal it. I think you get the idea. > A > couple of these should be enough to convince the Methusaleh playing them to > target someone else. True, so after a couple of Sudden Reversals, a couple of Direct Interventions, a bit of bleed defense, a bit of vote defense and a bit of combat defense I may be able to build a half way decent deck. > If cards like Hostile Takeover are going to be banned just because one person > has a problem with it, then maybe everybody should make changes for cards > they don't like. I feel flattered that you think that my views will have such a drastic effect. From where I stand, I think they should, I'm glad you agree - good to have you on board Billy. > For instance, I don't like the fact that Arika got into > combat with Badger the other day, and Badger played 12 Drawing out the Beast, > and an Earth Meld. Net result, Arika went to torpor with no blood, and Badger > took no damage. Try some Direct Interventions - problem solved! > Now, I'm not too happy about how easy it is to dump handfuls > of Drawing out the Beast, but that's the way it works so I guess I'll just > have to live with it. So why cant people have lived with Tomb, Return, Rutor's Hand and all the rest of it? > Instead, of spending time complaining about more cards > to fix, I think we should be working on trying to adapt to all the changes > that have already been made. Yeah, there's logic. Better to stop half way to let everybody to catch up - and one they've caught up maybe change some other things. > Anyway, maybe I'm biased because I spent lots of time resources collecting > Hostile Takeovers and I don't suddenly want to see them suddenly become next > to useless. Good to see you've got a bias. I'm biased as well I've collected a lot of HTs as well - it's because they were always a bloody awesome card and now they're even better. Hang on, if I'm biased that way why the heck am I speaking out against it - because it's wrong that's why. So why were you spending resources to collect them? Maybe you just liked the artwork? I'm not trying to be agressive, I just don't agree with your stance and especially not with the logic you've used to get there. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] > That's not true. Here's the argument, step by step; if you disagree > with any of the steps, let me know. > > 1. Without a specific card, you may only bleed your prey. > 2. The new rule says that a (D) action does not automatically provide > omni-directability. > 3. A card which says "(D) Bleed" allows you to use this card (presumably > with some added benefit) to perform the natural bleed action, i.e., > against your prey. > > Hence, for you to be able to bleed someone other than your prey, you > have to have a card which specifically lets you. The only reason there > were cards printed that say "(D) Bleed your prey" is because those were > printed under the (now overturned) (D)-omni-directability rule. > Okay. I follow your reasoning. I don't, however, agree with your logic. 1. A bleed action is not *defined* as only being able to affect any particular methuselah. 2. The default (cardless) bleeding action restricts you to only being able to affect your prey. 3. A card which allows you to bleed has two options: a) Specifically restrict you to bleeding a particular methuselah (your prey), or b) Just plain allow you to "bleed." 4. Cross-reference 3 with 1. The word "bleed" doesn't restrict you to bleeding your prey. Therefore, all cards that you want to work that way must be errata'd. -Chris

>If you don't like the new rules (which must be discussed anyway IMHO) >then don't use them. I certainly will not be using the Wake, D-action and >aggro rules. I'll try the others. If I don't like them I wont play them. Except that if you wish to participate in a tournament (which I had been having great fun in) or if you want to go play with another group, you pretty much have no choice but to abide by these, flawed, rulings. In order to grow as a player, you need to play against new people. Otherwise you are just recycling the same strategies over and over in your current playgroup (not that mine or any other playgroup is bad). By making house rules to ignore these rulings, you are limiting yourself to play with/against the same people every week and you rarely learn anything new. I've grown as a player because I've made the effort to go and play in groups other than my regular playgroup. But if my only choices are to stagnate or abide by these newest rulings, I'd rather get out of the game altogether. Sorrow --- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris Berger wrote: > > > That's not true. Here's the argument, step by step; if you disagree > > with any of the steps, let me know. > > > > 1. Without a specific card, you may only bleed your prey. > > 2. The new rule says that a (D) action does not automatically provide > > omni-directability. > > 3. A card which says "(D) Bleed" allows you to use this card (presumably > > with some added benefit) to perform the natural bleed action, i.e., > > against your prey. > > > > Hence, for you to be able to bleed someone other than your prey, you > > have to have a card which specifically lets you. The only reason there > > were cards printed that say "(D) Bleed your prey" is because those were > > printed under the (now overturned) (D)-omni-directability rule. > > > Okay. I follow your reasoning. I don't, however, agree with your > logic. OK, usually at this point you note a flaw in my argument. If there is no flaw in my argument, then I am correct; you can't have it both ways. > 1. A bleed action is not *defined* as only being able to affect any > particular methuselah. > 2. The default (cardless) bleeding action restricts you to only being > able to affect your prey. #2 directly contradicts #1. > 3. A card which allows you to bleed has two options: a) Specifically > restrict you to bleeding a particular methuselah (your prey), or b) Just > plain allow you to "bleed." A card which allows you to bleed allows you to bleed. What is a bleed? It's an action directed against your prey to make him lose 1 pool and give you the Edge. If the card wants to let you do something other than this, it has to tell you so specifically. You seem to have snipped this part out of my message, so here it is again: ] The only reason there ] were cards printed that say "(D) Bleed your prey" is because those were ] printed under the (now overturned) (D)-omni-directability rule. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu

James Coupe wrote: "> >Thoughts Betrayed: > "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat." There is the problem, though, that I feel it was created to help the Tremere get to second round. Maybe do something like:" This version of TB does nothing _but_ help the Tremere. Their opponents can still not play S:CE or Dodge. Thus, they can press to the second round, so all those Traps and Apportations in their deck have become useful. TB helped the Tremere before, and now that is fixed, it still helped the Tremere. If the Tremere are trying to get to the second round, and they don't have enough pressess to do it, what is the deck doing instead? Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "I am the world's forgotten boy the one who searches and destroys." -Iggy Pop

In article <35A70E3...@cco.caltech.edu>, Chris Berger <ber...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote: >Okay. I follow your reasoning. I don't, however, agree with your >logic. Logic, more or less definitionally, is irrelevant to 'agreement.' You may disagree with the *premises* the logic is derived from, but if you 'follow the reasoning,' you have implicitly agreed with the logic. >1. A bleed action is not *defined* as only being able to affect any >particular methuselah. This is incorrect. Section 6.4 of the rulebook explicitly uses 'prey' in the definition of the 'bleed' action. Specific cardtext is required to override this definition. v.g.: "6.4. Minion Actions [...] Bleed (no card required): [...] To have one of your minions commit a bleed action: 1) Tap the minion and announce to your prey that your minion is attempting to bleed. 2) If your prey's minions cannot block, or are unsuccessful in their attempts to stop you, your prey burns one pool." Action cards that state 'bleed' can only be directed at your prey, by definition of 'bleed,' barring specific cardtext to the contrary. QED. >2. The default (cardless) bleeding action restricts you to only being >able to affect your prey. Per the definition of 'bleed,' above. >3. A card which allows you to bleed has two options: a) Specifically >restrict you to bleeding a particular methuselah (your prey), or b) Just >plain allow you to "bleed." 3(b) is inclusive of, and equivalent to, 3(a) with the parenthetized (your prey) clause. A third option (3(c)) is required to allow bleeds of other, non-prey Metheuselahs. >The word "bleed" doesn't restrict you to bleeding your prey. Therefore, >all cards that you want to work that way must be errata'd. 'Bleed,' by definition, restricts the valid target of the action to one's prey, and specific cardtext is required to override that. 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

These new changes suck! They are much to difficult to remember and totaly disrupt the original intent of the card. I agree that when some clever player finds a way to abuse a card so much as to make it overpowered it should be changed. However, I feel it is VERY important to maintain the original, INTENDED purpose of the card. I have included a couple of relevant examples. Tomb of Ramses was never intended to be a way to draw infinite pool, it was supposed to be a way to get a large vamp out quicker. Here is my simple interpretation/change: Put this card on a vamp in your uncontrolled region. For each blood counter you transfer to THIS vampire during your influence phase, move one counter from the blood bank to this vamp. ADDITIONALLY, you may not transfer blood counters FROM this vamp to your pool during your influence phase. Burn this card when this vamp comes into play. What about Fame? It was designed to protect your vamp, right? How easy is this: Put this card on a ready vamp YOU CONTROL. If the vamp is sent to torpor by ANOTHER METHUSELAH OR HIS MINIONS, THAT Methuselah loses 3 pool. Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his or her untap phase as long as the vamp is in torpor. Don't these simple changes make a whole lot more sense, while still preserving the original intent of the card? Please enlighten me on how they could still be abused. I would also love to hear your ideas on some of the other card changes that could have been done better.

Elliott wrote: > > These new changes suck! They are much to difficult to remember Come on now. I know a lot of people have issues with the new rulings, and one main (and certainly valid) complaint is that the game is harder for new people to learn with lots of eratta. But how many cards have been significantly changed? Less than 20, I think. The people who have already memorized the existing changes to cards will, I think, have no trouble remembering these new changes. > and > totaly disrupt the original intent of the card. In the cases where the card was totally busted, I don't think this was unwarranted. It is arguable that the intent of cards like ToRIII and the like was "to bust the game". Such intent cannot be preserved. > I agree that when some > clever player finds a way to abuse a card so much as to make it > overpowered it should be changed. Players do not make the cards overpowered. The cards are themselves overpowered. We do not advocate changing cards because people have found a cool combo to use them in. We advocate changing cards because they are busted. > Tomb of Ramses was never intended to be a way to draw infinite pool, > it was supposed to be a way to get a large vamp out quicker. How do you know that? It certainly can be used as a pool gain card, so how do you know that that was not its original intent. That may be how you mainly used it, but who can say what was in the minds of the design team? > What about Fame? It was designed to protect your vamp, right? How easy > is this: If you say so. I think it was designed to simulate a vampire becoming famous, and the effect the torporization of that vampire would have on the table. Just watch the news for a couple of days and you'll see that celebrities are not protected by their fame, but threatened by it. I think LSJ's fix not only takes the brokenness of the card away, but also captures this feeling nicely. > Don't these simple changes make a whole lot more sense, while still > preserving the original intent of the card? These changes look exactly like others which have been posted here in the five (!) days since the recent rulings. I don't really see why these are preferable over LSJ's or over banning. By the way, why are you so sure that people will universally accept your changes when almost everyone has been decrying LSJ's? I think it was Robert Goudie who expressed this best, but people are rigid animals. Most of us are upset that LSJ made these changes without consulting us, and this bothers us because _our_ changes are better, etc. So, I say again, is it not better to just ban the broken card? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A66827...@lmco.com>, michae...@lmco.com wrote: > Ian Cyr wrote: > > > I have to delurk here. > > Although I haven't played that long my first deck was a gangrel weenie burn 'em > > deck with amaranths and such. > > But no, with the new agg damage rules, it seems like gangrel have just gone > > down in power since it now requires AT LEAST 3 points of agg damage to burn a > > vampire, and that's just if the vampire has one blood on him. > > Before it would have taken two, one to put him in torpor and one to burn him, > > but now it takes three, which basiclly makes playing a protean based gangrel > > deck almost impossible, especially since most vampires you run across will have > > more than one blood on them. Protean was hard enough to play already, and noe > > it will be basically impossible to creat a viable protean deck taht will do > > anything but put vampires in torpor WITH BLOOD on them so that they can just > > get out next turn... > > > > Sorry, just my $.02 > > Ian Gangrel are still the best burners, even with the new (old) aggro rules: No other clan has 3 vamps with +1 hand damage. The Gangrel have the Ritual challenge and Gangrel Revell. They can play Scorpion Sting, Lucky Blow and Channeling the Beast, all of them can be made aggravated. Quite a number of the Gangrel have potence, you just have to be creative. Scorpion Sting and Dog Pack help a great deal in burning the opposing vamps, and if you like, you can Rotschreck them and suck them dry.... I played Gangrel in the old Jyhad days. Gangrel are now probably the best burners in the game. Try it!! -Carl [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A6AB07...@cco.caltech.edu>, Chris Berger <ber...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote: > > > > As an aside: > > The elimination of the (D)-symbol non-reminder erratum also eliminates > > about 20 other errata (to Blood Bond, Blood Hunt, Cat Burglary, etc.) > > > Yes, but your insistence that it somehow makes bleeds only directable at > prey adds about 20 more errata. (Every card that says "(D) Bleed..." > must say "(D) Bleed your prey...") I only insist because it is in the rules, and always has been. No errata is needed to say "the rules apply in this case". -- 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 ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

snip some stuff > > This is incorrect. Section 6.4 of the rulebook explicitly uses 'prey' > in the definition of the 'bleed' action. Specific cardtext is required > to override this definition. > and a bit more stuff > 'Bleed,' by definition, restricts the valid target of the action to one's > prey, and specific cardtext is required to override that. > > 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 Sure gomi, you're right as usual [except about football]. With one tiny addendum: "Specific cardtext [or the whim of some Magic-loving know-zip who is tired of being moaned at by the vocal minority of Jyhad players who want a change in the law] is required to override this definition." And lest anyone think i am getting at my good friend Scott here, let me say that this is DIAMETRICALLY opposed to the truth. Scott, to his EVERLASTING credit, argued FEROCIOUSLY against the direct-bleeds-target-anyone dogma when it was first announced.

<snip a combo i don't understand> As a methuselah of very little brain i don't really understand the concept of brokenness. One definition i saw was that a card is broken if you HAVE to put it in your deck. When i was building my combat deck i realised that Fame was that card - because i kept getting killed by it in real life, and because the deck upon which i based mine [George Fink's Double Jeopardy] came unstuck against the Gangrel Famers in the JOL final. Initially, the main reason for Fame was to contest it if some other unscrupulous fellow played it .. and then i realised that i could KILL people with it too!!!! Abusive or creative? So far i've hit my various prey for 15 with it in jolstory3 .... and BTW Bleu, it's your turn again!

> As a methuselah of very little brain i don't really understand the concept > of brokenness. One definition i saw was that a card is broken if you HAVE > to put it in your deck. When i was building my combat deck i realised that > Fame was that card - because i kept getting killed by it in real life, and > because the deck upon which i based mine [George Fink's Double Jeopardy] > came unstuck against the Gangrel Famers in the JOL final. Initially, the > main reason for Fame was to contest it if some other unscrupulous fellow > played it .. and then i realised that i could KILL people with it too!!!! > You might be a broken card if: 1) Every (or almost every) deck requires the card. Any (or almost any) deck that does not have this card is less effective than the same deck with this card. (Ex: Tomb of Ramses III. Under old rules, basically any deck can add in a Tomb (perhaps in place of an Art Museum or whatever) and it will be better.) 2) The card is flat-out better than any similar cards. A card is "better" than another if for all (or almost all) situations, this card may be substituted for the other card and give equal effect AND: a) there are some (or all) situations where this card gives better effects than the other card b) there are some situations where this card can be used and the other cannot (Ex: If there were a Master Card that said "Gain 2 pool from the blood bank," it would be broken because it is obviously better than Ascendance in all situations and obviously better than StI in almost all situations.) Note: This rule may sometimes be broken if the original card was so useless that it would never be played anyway, and is regarded by the manufacturing company as a mistake. 3) Using this one card (or possibly a very-small combo involving this card) will ruin the chances of any deck that is not specifically designed to defeat it, or which does not contain one or more of a relatively small class of cards. (Ex: Return to Innocence. Under old rules, unless you use bleed bounce or Archon Investigation, RtI is an "instant win" card.) 4) Using this one card alone will destroy a large class of decks. Thus simply adding a few to your deck will literally win the game against anyone who plays those decks. (Ex: If there were a card which said: "You may not be bled while you have minions in play," the card would be broken because it completely hoses bleed decks, nominally 1/3 of basic deck archetypes. Archon Investigation borders very closely on this.) 5) The word "Broken" appears in the title or trait text of the card. (Sorry, joke from L5R... "Broken Sword of the Scorpion" and "Dragon Sword is Broken" are often reffered to as "broken cards.") -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

Elliott <ell...@odsy.net> wrote in article <35A8CDD6...@odsy.net>... > These new changes suck! They are much to difficult to remember and > totaly disrupt the original intent of the card. I agree that when some > clever player finds a way to abuse a card so much as to make it > overpowered it should be changed. However, I feel it is VERY important > to maintain the original, INTENDED purpose of the card. I have included > a couple of relevant examples. > > Tomb of Ramses was never intended to be a way to draw infinite pool, it > was supposed to be a way to get a large vamp out quicker. Here is my > simple interpretation/change: > > Put this card on a vamp in your uncontrolled region. For each blood > counter you transfer to THIS vampire during your influence phase, move > one counter from the blood bank to this vamp. ADDITIONALLY, you may not > transfer blood counters FROM this vamp to your pool during your > influence phase. Burn this card when this vamp comes into play. This was exactly the change I proposed. However the gripe is that you get a pool and 4 extra transfers for no risk. For some reason they feel this is to powerful. I personally think they are crazy. An ascendance and info Highway (played after anson) would get you a pool and two transfers with no risk for FREE. I hardly think paying 3 pool to gain extra transfers and a couple of pool (you would save max of 2 putting out a I.C. or 10 pointer. 3 for TOR + 6 for transfers = 9 for a I.C. 3 for TOR +5 transfers for a 10 blood vamp). In a sense your paying a pool for the extra transfers. This seems balanced especially when you consider Info Highway is free. As you have stated TOR was ment to put out large vamps quicker. The aweful (IMO) ruling totally changes the card text, eliminates the purpose of the card, and makes a useful and powerful rare card a near useless one. I understand putting out a I.C. for 3 pool in half the time is abusive, but the change we proposed is not. Steve Bucy

Just wanted to say that I'm in total agreement with Todd on his ideas on how to fix RTI and Tomb III. Good Job Todd.. ================================= Todd Banister wrote in message ... >>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. > >This does help the card but why not make a very simple change and say that >NO action modifiers can be played on this action at all? Very simple. Keep >the original card text. That way, no pumping stealth into it, no Day Ops, no >Dawn Ops, Daring the Dawn. Am I missing something? > > >>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. > >The fix that you suggest is fine. Except that it creates a whole new card. >The Tomb was _never_ supposed to be an EcoTerrorist for the clanless. Once >again, there is a easy fix without changing all of the words and intent. >Proposed fix - just change the phrase "for each blood counter you transfer >to _AN_ uncontrolled" to "for each blood counter you transfer to _THE_ >uncontrolled". Very simple change. Net effect - Now only blood moved to the >vamp with the Tomb gets the free blood <snip>. Please do not kill the >Tomb because I do not see a lot of larger vamps being brought out now. With >this ruling, play continues to shift to the med. (4-6) and smaller vamps.

Personally I liked the DCI fix (last year?) which only allowed you to replenish vote cards at the end of your turn. Nice n' simple. Under the new rules there's no way to effectively pull off an off-clan voter (Nosferatu, Gangrel, etc..), as they tend to rely on some vote pushing. These decks always will have a tough time up against the big favorites (Ventrue, etc.), but it was cool to watch when they worked. If the big reason for the change on vote pushing was because of the weenie vote decks, would it not be easier to simply state that Caitiff Vampires cannot hold a title? Would this help with the "balance" that you're attempting to reach? Heck, I might even play with writ of acceptance, clan impersonation, etc.. if I really had to have weenie princes. Just a quick thought. Bernie Bresnahan

Ian Cyr wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Rotz was reinterpreted to mean what it says. Text: Play when a minion attempts to use aggravated damage against a vampire, whether successfully or not. Combat ends before damage is resolved. That vampire is put in torpor, tapped, with this card on it. During the vampire's next untap phase, burn this card instead of untapping the vampire. As you can see, it does not matter whether the acting minion dodges. Rotsreich is not dependent on actually connecting with the claws. It is the mere fear of aggravated damage that sends teh vampire to topor. So Mr. Brujah with the perfect combination attempts to bleed. Little Ricki blocks. Brujah plays Torn Signpost, Fists of Death, and Undead Strength to really wail on poor Ricki. He is sitting there with a Sideslip and a Blur to really trash Ricki. But WAIT!!! Ricki grows some really nasty Claws and the Brujah starts to panic. Combat ends. No damage is done. Mr. Brujah goes to topor. Poor Mr. Brujah can't even play his Sudden Reversal since it is his turn. Rotsreich also beats out S:CE. The new improved interpretation of Rotsreich just made aggravated damage MUCH more effective and difficult to avoid the consequences of.

> The ONLY situation where you would reasonably use ToR is if you are > bringing out an Inner Circle Member (you'll recoup your third pool, > but it still took you just as long to bring it out as > normal - 3 turns) or you are using it for pool gain. Quite frankly > there are better pool gainers that are more reliable. > > Conclusion - Nearly wallpaper. To be honest, I didn't think that > this change was that bad, but now that I've sat down and put down > the numbers, it's terrible. > > Mike Bohlmann Not true. It is inferior to Information Highway if all you want is to get a vampire out quick. But TOR does more than that. It allows you to get a vampire out quicker in the beginning OR, I repeat OR, that is a big OR you can use it to cycle a blood to your pool each turn . IH is not very useful once the first 5 turns are over. TOR is. It's main use is to pay 3 pool to allow you to get 1 pool per turn. Sort of like a cross between a Long Term Investment and an Eco Terrorist clone. It is hardly wallpaper. In fact it is above borderline useful and on the same level IMHO as Short Term Investment and slightly superior to Long Term Investment.

In the spirit of slight changes opposed to complete re-writes, I submit the following on our old friend "Fame". The original text (Jyhad): FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as long as the Vampire is in Torpor ==== Possible Errata instead of Re-Writes ==== FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. THIS Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as long as the Vampire is in Torpor FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during THE CONTROLLERS untap phase as long as the Vampire is in Torpor FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire NOT YOUR OWN. If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as long as the Vampire is in Torpor ======================================= Whether ya'll like it or not, this is the kind of change I like to see. Slight changes are much easier to introduce, rather than complete re-writes.. Bernie Bresnahan

Bernie Bresnahan wrote: > > Under the new rules > there's no way to effectively pull off an off-clan voter (Nosferatu, > Gangrel, etc..), > as they tend to rely on some vote pushing. This is certainly not true. There are many examples of such decks which were operated in a no-vote-push environment. It's just a little harder to pull these decks off, but that's a small price to pay for the benefits of the rule. [ quoted text not captured ]

Your statement is True, but I'd like to point out that the current DCI tournament point system hadn't been introduced until when? The release of Dark Soveriegns or Ancient Hearts? Way beyond the release date of Jyhad. My play group found that after the Tournament Point system was introduced everyone started focusing more on their prey in order to earn VP's. Way back when, we played that last man standing was the winner (ick!). One of the folks that played with us long ago said "The problem with Jyhad is that there isn't enough cross-table interaction", and to this day I'd probably agree with him. Bernie Bresnahan Michiganian Madman Robert Goudie wrote in message <35A45C1E...@earthlink.net>... >cbo...@apdi.net wrote: >> >> > > So it is indeed true that you cannot use a (D) bleed to bleed cross table? >The rulebook says that you can only bleed your prey and that bleeding is >a directed action. Later, the rulebook says that directed actions are >actions that directly affect other Methuselah's. > >There is little doubt that this game always intended bleeds to be made >to prey only. Read Richard Garfield's comments in the original Jyhad >strategy guide. He states that games in which players interact too >freely become simple games of diplomacy. Richard doesn't like games >like that "which is why in Jyhad you can only bleed your prey". > >-- >Robert Goudie, Chairman rrgo...@earthlink.net

[ quoted text not captured ] Umm... LSJ changed the wording by about the same amount. No "re-write," just a slight change. The card now says, IIRC, "Put this card on a ready vampire. If the vampire goes to torpor, ITS CONTROLLER loses 3 pool. While this vampire is in torpor each methuselah loses 1 pool during his or her untap phase." Not much more complex than your changes, is it now? -Chris

In each of the examples I'd used in the previous post, the Vampires prey loses 3 pool. This is the important aspect of the card people will bitch over. This is where the card starts, and what should remain intact. This is my opinion, so there ya go.. The same holds true for the other "broken cards". Fame: Penalyze your prey for blocking one Vampire's action. Tomb of Ramses: Intended to bring out 1 larger vamp cheap Thoughts Betrayed: Beats Combat decks at their own game RTI: A last ditch sacrifice by a Vamp for a large bleed Point of Interest: None of the decks that made it to the finals at Origins 98' relied on any of the "broken cards". It's a fact.. -- Bernie Bresnahan Chris Berger wrote in message <35AAE3A4...@cco.caltech.edu>... >> >Umm... LSJ changed the wording by about the same amount. No "re-write," >just a slight change. The card now says, IIRC, "Put this card on a >ready vampire. If the vampire goes to torpor, YOU lose 3 pool. While [ quoted text not captured ]

"Bernie Bresnahan" <ber...@mich.com> wrote: > In the spirit of slight changes opposed to complete re-writes, > I submit the following on our old friend "Fame". > > The original text (Jyhad): > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor > > ==== Possible Errata instead of Re-Writes ==== > > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > THIS Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor > > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during THE CONTROLLERS untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor These two do nothing to address the abusiveness of (the old) Fame > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire NOT YOUR OWN. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor > > ======================================= > Whether ya'll like it or not, this is the kind of change I like to > see. Slight changes are much easier to introduce, rather than > complete re-writes.. The current errata effectively changes one word: "prey" to "controller". Hardly a "complete re-write" - more slight than adding "controlled by another Methuselah" to the text (which is the proper way to say "not your own"). (And the card is unique, as in the VTES version). -- 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 ]

Bernie Bresnahan wrote: > > Point of Interest: None of the decks that made it to the finals > at Origins 98' relied on any of the "broken cards". It's a fact.. Well, there was a weenie vote push deck... [ quoted text not captured ]

Bernie Bresnahan (ber...@mich.com) wrote: : Point of Interest: None of the decks that made it to the finals : at Origins 98' relied on any of the "broken cards". It's a fact.. Except, ironically enough, Immortal Grapple. ;-) (And one of the decks was (ab)using the vote-push-no-redraw DCI rule.) Josh just being contrary

> Not true. It is inferior to Information Highway if all you want is to get > a vampire out quick. But TOR does more than that. It allows you to > get a vampire out quicker in the beginning OR, I repeat OR, that is a > big OR you can use it to cycle a blood to your pool each turn . IH is > not very useful once the first 5 turns are over. TOR is. It's main use > is to pay 3 pool to allow you to get 1 pool per turn. Sort of like a > cross between a Long Term Investment and an Eco Terrorist clone. > It is hardly wallpaper. In fact it is above borderline useful and on the > same level IMHO as Short Term Investment and slightly superior > to Long Term Investment. Yes, but that is pretty much *all* you can use it for - a pool gainer. So much for it's intended purpose - to help get a vamp out faster. If you do want to use it to bring out any vamp, you either lose pool or lose time in influencing that vamp. Neither of those make it at all appealing to use for that purpose. The new ruling took an effective card and turned it into wallpaper. Way to improve the game. Sorrow [ quoted text not captured ]

Quicksilver <michael...@lmco.com> wrote in article <35AA957C...@lmco.com>... > > The ONLY situation where you would reasonably use ToR is if you are > > bringing out an Inner Circle Member (you'll recoup your third pool, > > but it still took you just as long to bring it out as > > normal - 3 turns) or you are using it for pool gain. Quite frankly > > there are better pool gainers that are more reliable. > > > > Conclusion - Nearly wallpaper. To be honest, I didn't think that > > this change was that bad, but now that I've sat down and put down > > the numbers, it's terrible. > > > > Mike Bohlmann > > Not true. It is inferior to Information Highway if all you want is to get > a vampire out quick. But TOR does more than that. It allows you to > get a vampire out quicker in the beginning OR, I repeat OR, that is a > big OR you can use it to cycle a blood to your pool each turn . IH is > not very useful once the first 5 turns are over. TOR is. It's main use > is to pay 3 pool to allow you to get 1 pool per turn. Sort of like a > cross between a Long Term Investment and an Eco Terrorist clone. > It is hardly wallpaper. In fact it is above borderline useful and on the > same level IMHO as Short Term Investment and slightly superior > to Long Term Investment. As you replied to one of my posts; hogwash! Haven't you ever seen a Minion tap then 5th tradition deck. Info Highway can be used for turns and turns in such a deck. I often end up transfering out large vamps (because of some kind of blood gain, like ousting a prey perhaps.) late in the game. Info Highway will stick around and be useful. TOR under this pathetic ruling either disappears or can only be used for blood gain. For blood gain you would have to build a deck with a lot of vamps you don't ever need to bring up to make TOR effective. Dumb deck planning... Also TOR under this ruling sucks worse than Short Term or Long Term Investment because it can burnt or stolen. That makes it so much better... You need to think about this more. Steve Bucy

Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in article <35A59E78...@earthlink.net>... > Steve Bucy wrote: > > > > I totally agree with Sorrow on this one. The more I think of it, the worse > > this one seems. TOR III is now basically worthless. > > [clip] > > > This ruling > > is a joke. It would be better to just ban the card along with RTI and TB. > > If Tomb is worthless then why should you care if anyone chooses to play > with it in the future? Gee Bob, I think that would be obvious. As the ruling is now it makes a confusing, totally different card that wouldn't be worth the complete hassle of playing. I wouldn't want to explain why the card does nothing like the text says or have to tell someone who didn't know. It would totally suck! I can see it now: player says, "TOR". I say, "Oh that doesn't work like that anymore. In fact you can tap it in the influence round to gain a pool... yadda yadda yadda...". Other player says, "WHAT! ARE YOU HIGH ON CRACK! WHO MADE THAT DUMB ERRATA!". No thanks, I'd rather see it banned. Steve Bucy

Cards are not broken. 1) I have never required a specific card to win or be successsful. To include RtIII. Numerous extremely sucessful decks do not include "broken" cards. Burn the location, sudden reversal, etc 2) Just because a card performs a function more succesfully than another card does not indicate a roken state, it indicates a differing power level. Not all cards were meant to be "equal", nor should they be. 3) RtI is powerful but there are a number of ways to counter this card. Design a deck with some depth of strategy. A rush deck with no intercept will pay the price for its lack of flexibility. I personally will exploit a persons lack of forethought in deck design. 4) Archon investigation is a rough card but unless your deck is specifically designed to be stealth bleed deck (again lack of forethought if thats all your deck can do) , the loss of a vampire should not be debilitating. I include sudden reversals for things such as this (political leverage for other meth turns). I cannot stress this enough, build your decks with as much flexibilty a psossible considering your deck concept a local playing enviroment. -C ber...@cco.caltech.edu wrote: [ quoted text not captured ]

> 1) I have never required a specific card to win or be successsful. To include > RtIII. Numerous extremely sucessful decks do not include "broken" cards. Burn the > location, sudden reversal, etc > Any deck without ToRIII can be better with it. It is a broken card. Yes, it can be gotten around. But those things you talk about are also factors with less powerful cards. Are you really this dense? > 2) Just because a card performs a function more succesfully than another card > does not indicate a roken state, it indicates a differing power level. Not all > cards were meant to be "equal", nor should they be. > Go play Magic if you think there should be power cards. If one card is more powerful than another, what reason is there for the less powerful one to exist? None, except so that people with access to more copies of the power card will win more. > 3) RtI is powerful but there are a number of ways to counter this card. Design > a deck with some depth of strategy. A rush deck with no intercept will pay the > price for its lack of flexibility. I personally will exploit a persons lack of > forethought in deck design. > One card should not ruin decks. This is wrong. > 4) Archon investigation is a rough card but unless your deck is specifically > designed to be stealth bleed deck (again lack of forethought if thats all your > deck can do) , the loss of a vampire should not be debilitating. I include sudden > reversals for things such as this (political leverage for other meth turns). > Sudden Reversal is the answer for everything, eh? Bah! A card that basically means "include this other card in your deck or else you lose" is the most broken of all. I'll say it again... if these are your real feelings, and you're not just playing Devil's Advocate or trying to annoy me, go play Magic. [ quoted text not captured ]

Petri Wessman wrote: > Ok, I'll jump into the fray, too ;-) After a long absence, I will as well... > To start with: LSJ, on the whole I like the new rulings, some of them > *a lot*. IMHO they go a long way towards fixing things that were > broken in the game. I agree with this. > "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> writes: > > >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. > > > > IMO, he has ruined both. I do not see how any of these rulings/erratta. > > have made any of these cards "balanced" For my part, I am tired of seeing the same RTI/Dom Bleed Decks win consistently. There was a power escalation from the time Jyhad put out its first expansions which was almost plottable on a graph. > I disagree strongly, I think most of the rulings have a *very* > balancing effect on the game. Yes, some decks have become "less > powerful", but those are mainly decks that have depended on broken or > borderline-broken cards and combos. I agree with this. > > >> Fame? WTF? Fame was well-known for being a poorly-designed card. WwEF was lambasted consistently for being a card which had no downsides. It was free. It could be played at any time with no penalties. When I first began reading the newsgroup, entire diatribes were written about how WwEF needed to be CHANGED (not given errata). > > >> Why would anyone ever use that card again? > > >> This is just more than I can bear. Sorry. > > >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). > > > > But the effect is the exact same. It's just that the burden of abuse has > > moved from Fortitude decks to combat decks. Well, not everyone is going to be packing it in the same way. It's easy to send your own guys to torpor; it's a little more difficult to do it to someone else's guys. I'll be alarmed if someone plays Fame on my own vamp now, but I'll know I'm up agaisnt a combat deck (or at least one that _can_ send my vamps into torpor). It's a _harder_ combo now. > But that's in no way "the exact same". The old version of Fame allowed > a zillion different types of "masturbation" decks that did something > local to put the Famous vampire in torpor, without much anything the > other players could do about it. Fame + Day Operation + hunt is the > easiest example. Actually, the terror was Fame/Day Op/Force of Will. >Moving Fame to an offensive card makes it a lot > harder to expoit... it's a lot harder to come up with foolproof ways > to put other vampires in torpor than it is to put your own. Therein lies the distinction. Not everyone _can_ put other vamps into Torpor. It's much easier to put cards into your deck that have side-effects of torporizing your minions than it is to have reliable ways of doing it to other vamps without diluting your deck's main theme. I just don't think that _every_ deck is going to use it now. > > >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. > > > > Agreed. > > That is true, although I hope that the new rulings will reduce the > total amount of errata for the game (many old rulings are no longer > needed). It's not like there are new cards being added to the mix. The amount of errata/rulings is finite once there are no new interactions. If wording is cleaned up, I see no reason to worry about errata. I'm very cynical about 'new players' being added to the core following. > LSJ and others: this game *REALLY* needs a single reference document > which has *all* the needed info, otherwise casual players will never > catch on to the game and will only retreat in confusion. > > > >> >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. > > > > But now, the only effective vote decks will be those that pack *all* > > Princes or Presense. The problem always was that it was more efficient to do weenie-vote-push than anything else. They're like cockroaches - fast, very tough to kill, and though everyone who sees one tries to kill it, most of the time they get away. > Partly true, but that's not a bad thing IMHO. A Caitiff vote deck that > bowls over everyone else has always bothered me in the game world > sense, I myself would welcome some more dependance on titled vampires > and political disciplines (Presence, and Dominate to some degree). <snip> > > >> >Zip Gun: > > >> 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. > > > > Except that you can simply use a Maneuver card instead (there are > > disciplinless Maneuver cards) and not worry about hurting yourself. > > This is effectivly what LSJ changed the ZG into: a Maneuver card. > > A maneuver card that also does damage, with a surprise factor. Zip Gun > can be a lifesaver for non-comabat decks against close-range combat > decks. De-emphasizing aggro damage may make this ruling unnecessary, but again, many people argued long and hard against zip gun/DBR combos. I can see why the ruling was made. > > >We'll see where this takes things. > > > > I'm kinda curious as well. But I'm afraid it will just take things down > > the crapper. But even so, I no longer care. I'm out. There is no diplomatic way of asking this : if you don't care, why all the posts? I respect your opinion (you were on the list when I first joined it, years ago) but it just seems strange that all this noise is being made for a rules set. Almost everyone who posts to this list has rules they disagree with/cards they hate/opinions on rulings that they find abhorrent. I remember all the posts about making LSJ an 'official Rules Team guy', and how supportive everyone was at those times. I'm positive that Scott thought long and hard before posting his 'rewrites'. He has to know they were controversial, but in every case, they were cards that a) people complained bitterly about b) were known 'abuses' that every advanced deck designer knew about and exploited. c) had a history of controversy regarding rulings/timing/effects d) were included in decks regardless of theme/style of play I'm willing to try out the rules set. I do believe that the changes are good changes. Alan (aj)

>1) I have never required a specific card to win or be successsful. To include >RtIII. Numerous extremely sucessful decks do not include "broken" cards. Burn the >location, sudden reversal, etc ToR, as printed, gets out Anson in a single turn at 1 less cost than normal and no risk to the owning methuselah. Burn the location how? >2) Just because a card performs a function more succesfully than another card >does not indicate a roken state, it indicates a differing power level. Not all >cards were meant to be "equal", nor should they be. But all cards should have equivalent effects for equivalent costs. No one is arguing that Acrobatics shouldn't be a little better than Arms of the Abyss (if you want additional strikes and dodges). People are claiming that some cards don't have costs proportionate to their effects. For example: "Red Hot Unavoidable Arms of Death" Potence, 1 blood Strike: +8 hand damage. This damage may not be dodged or prevented Superior, Strike: +8 Hand damaged, aggravated. This damage may not be dodged or prevented. This card costs as much as Wolf Claw's or Pushing the Limit, but has much great effect. On the other hand, it can be avoided by going to range or S:CE, so it's a balanced card and you wouldn't object to it in the next expansion, right? >3) RtI is powerful but there are a number of ways to counter this card. Design >a deck with some depth of strategy. A rush deck with no intercept will pay the >price for its lack of flexibility. I personally will exploit a persons lack of >forethought in deck design. How are you going to intercept a Day Op'd RtI? Direct Intervention or something? Oh, I know. "Then use Bleed Bounce." So much for Brujah, Gangrel, Nosferatu, Settite, Assamite and Weenie decks. And if the S&B deck is coming in with heavy stealth, how much intercept do you expect the "flexible" rush deck to have? If it had a lot of intercept, it would be an intercept deck. >4) Archon investigation is a rough card but unless your deck is specifically >designed to be stealth bleed deck (again lack of forethought if thats all your >deck can do) , the loss of a vampire should not be debilitating. I include sudden >reversals for things such as this (political leverage for other meth turns). I can't play Sudden Reversal on my own turn in response to your Archon Investigation. Not to mention the fact that AI doesn't hose S&B decks half as much as it hoses Bruise&Bleed decks. An S&B deck can continuously bleed for 2 per action - it knows all its actions will get through. A B&B deck often has to bleed for as much as it can - because it'll only get one bleed through. >I cannot stress this enough, build your decks with as much flexibilty a psossible >considering your deck concept a local playing enviroment. Yeah, I bet my Brujah rush deck would work a lot better if I put in some Misdirections - after all, Anvil has dominate and bleed bounce is a good bleed defense - a bunch of Wakes, some Enhanced senses - I think Anvil has Auspex, doesn't he - oh, and a bunch of Aires of Elation and Social Charms so I can bleed. Yeah, I'm sure my Gangrel prey is going to be real scared of that deck, you bet. But it'll be flexible (until I hand jam on turn 2, that is). -Mark Langsdorf Jyhad Archivist and Sarcastic bastard http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/

<snip> > I intentionally make decks to abuse things. That's sort of the point of CCG's - to find the cards that work optimally together. If a card has an advantage over its peers, then decks should exploit that advantage. If a card has a severe advantage, the deck is called 'degenerate', because it is hyper-successful. But any deck that doesn't try to 'abuse' its cards isn't an effective deck. Dilbert : Wally, I think you're abusing your power. Wally : Isn't that what it's for? > Ever seen a vamps with > numberous Rutors Hands and numberous flak jackets? The standard day > op/fame decks? My Tzimice deck had numerous Flak-jackets, and was quite scary if it got setup. It very rarely did. :( Alan (aj)

Steve Bucy wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] I still say hogwash! Which was in reference to banning it due to being made useless. I will concede that IH can be useful later in the game if you design a deck as you suggested. I've also seen it useful in a weenie deck which will use it throughout the game to pop out a weenie every turn. But my statement was meant as a generalization, applicable in most cases. I did not mean to imply that you could not design a deck that makes use of it in the mid and end game. Even if TOR could only be used for pool gain it would not be wallpaper. As I've said before, compare it to Long Term Investment. With TOR you make back your investment 2 turns later rather than 3, it effectively costs you 2 pool, not 3, since you get one back at the end of the turn, does not cost a master phase action to use, and can last the entire game! I think the advantages over LTI outweigh the disadvantages, which are that it can be burned by Arson like affects, requires an uninfluenced vampire, and is unique. I think that the problem you people have with it is that it no longer does what it was intended to do, but does something different, and is not nearly as powerful. I can not understand why you are reacting by calling it wallpaper. That is what I am objecting to. IT IS NOT WALLPAPER. I would be arguing your case WITH you if you would just making that rediculous claim. I also believe that it should have been rewritten differently, keeping to the original intent of allowing a large capacity vampire to be influenced quickly and more cheaply.

cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > > Not true. It is inferior to Information Highway if all you want is to get > > a vampire out quick. But TOR does more than that. It allows you to > > get a vampire out quicker in the beginning OR, I repeat OR, that is a > > big OR you can use it to cycle a blood to your pool each turn . IH is > > not very useful once the first 5 turns are over. TOR is. It's main use > > is to pay 3 pool to allow you to get 1 pool per turn. Sort of like a > > cross between a Long Term Investment and an Eco Terrorist clone. > > It is hardly wallpaper. In fact it is above borderline useful and on the > > same level IMHO as Short Term Investment and slightly superior > > to Long Term Investment. > > Yes, but that is pretty much *all* you can use it for - a pool gainer. > So much for it's intended purpose - to help get a vamp out faster. > If you do want to use it to bring out any vamp, you either lose pool > or lose time in influencing that vamp. Neither of those make it at > all appealing to use for that purpose. > The new ruling took an effective card and turned it into wallpaper. > Way to improve the game. > > Sorrow I agree that the initial intent of the card is now gone. You are right in that it is not very good at getting out vampires quick. But you are wrong when you say it is wallpaper. Is Long Term Investment wallpaper? Seems to me the two are roughly equivelent. LTI Pay 3 pool Gain 1 pool back per turn starting next turn must use a master phase action to gain pool runs out in 6 uses TOR Pay 3 Pool Gain 1 pool back per turn starting THIS turn must use a transfer to gain a pool never runs out unique [ quoted text not captured ]

Quicksilver <michael...@lmco.com> wrote in article <35ABBCCE...@lmco.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] The reason most of us are calling it wallpaper (in reality it probably isn't) is because we don't use LTI either. Your correct in comparing it to LTI, but most of us find LTI a very poor card. There are much better, and less risky ways to gain pool. I never use it, and have seen only one deck use it in years. Steve Bucy

Quicksilver <michael...@lmco.com> wrote in article <35ABBCD4...@lmco.com>... > Steve Bucy wrote: > > > Quicksilver <michael...@lmco.com> wrote in article > > <35AA957C...@lmco.com>... > > > > The ONLY situation where you would reasonably use ToR is if you are > > > > bringing out an Inner Circle Member (you'll recoup your third pool, > > > > but it still took you just as long to bring it out as > > > > normal - 3 turns) or you are using it for pool gain. Quite frankly > > > > there are better pool gainers that are more reliable. > > > > > > > > Conclusion - Nearly wallpaper. To be honest, I didn't think that > > > > this change was that bad, but now that I've sat down and put down > > > > the numbers, it's terrible. > > > > > > > > Mike Bohlmann > > > > > > Not true. It is inferior to Information Highway if all you want is to get > > > a vampire out quick. But TOR does more than that. It allows you to > > > get a vampire out quicker in the beginning OR, I repeat OR, that is a > > > big OR you can use it to cycle a blood to your pool each turn . IH is > > > not very useful once the first 5 turns are over. TOR is. It's main use > > > is to pay 3 pool to allow you to get 1 pool per turn. Sort of like a > > > cross between a Long Term Investment and an Eco Terrorist clone. > > > It is hardly wallpaper. In fact it is above borderline useful and on the > > > same level IMHO as Short Term Investment and slightly superior > > > to Long Term Investment. > > [ quoted text not captured ] > wallpaper. As I've said before, compare it to Long Term Investment. With > TOR you make back your investment 2 turns later rather than 3, it effectively > costs you 2 pool, not 3, since you get one back at the end of the turn, does > not cost a master phase action to use, and can last the entire game! I > think the advantages over LTI outweigh the disadvantages, which are > that it can be burned by Arson like affects, requires an uninfluenced vampire, > > and is unique. > > I think that the problem you people have with it is that it no longer does > what it was intended to do, but does something different, and is not > nearly as powerful. I can not understand why you are reacting by calling > it wallpaper. That is what I am objecting to. IT IS NOT WALLPAPER. > I would be arguing your case WITH you if you would just making that > rediculous claim. I also believe that it should have been rewritten > differently, keeping to the original intent of allowing a large capacity > vampire to be influenced quickly and more cheaply. Ok, it's not WALLPAPER. It could be, and probably would be used. Rather the rework makes TOR a lame card. I wouldn't bother to use it. It would require a vampire to remain in the uncontrolled or it disappears, it could be contested, burnt or stolen, and it would take three turns to make up for the cost. I don't think the fact it could possibly remain around for a long time outways the disadvantages. I would much rather use a couple of Short Term investments. Steve Bucy I'd be better off undead... "Hmmm. I notice the number of conditional phrases in there... _seems_ to indicate a weakness, _may_ be vulnerable in theory." - G'Kar

In article <35A282...@wizards.com>, 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. I like this rule although it would be better if the acting Methusaleh could push with one vote as well (this interpretation is also supported by the original rules, in addition to as the one proposed by LSJ). > > 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'm not quite sure why this rule was added. Although it does add interesting possibilities for stealing peoples vampires, locations, etc, it also creates a big pain-in-the-ass for people who had planned to do something else if they died early. Maybe this should be a tournament-only rule, when players are pretty much guaranteed to be hanging around until the end of the game. > > 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. Does this mean you can now play Temptation on your own vampires? > Equipment: is not optional, except as noted on card text. This rule seems fine. > 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. What were the "packet" problems associated with the jyhad rules for aggro damage? Anyway, doesn't this ruling make aggro damage less powerful, and thereby further weaken combat decks? Won't this detract even further from the competitiveness of combat decks? > CARDS: > > Darius Styx: > Goth Band: > Fire Dance > Of Noble Blood: > Powerbase: Mexico City > Treatment, The: All these look fine. > > 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." Yeah, I guess this removes the abuse aspect from the card, while still allowing it to be useful in other ways. > 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. Is the second sentence really necessary? > > Major Boon: Fine. > 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." Yikes. Now I think this is going just a bit too far from the original wording and intent of the card. I personally haven't had too much trouble with the card, certainly not enough to warrant this sort of card text change. If it really is such a problem, maybe it should be just banned from tournament play altogether. > > Pulled Fangs: > The damage is not aggravated. Yeeouch. This removes one of the main sources of aggro damage for decks that do not contain Thaumaturgy, Protean, or Quietus. Once again, this seems to be to the detriment of combat decks that don't contain the aforementioned disciplines. Perhaps a different sort of ruling could be used. For example, say that: each Pulled Fangs resolves individually , such that the first Pulled Fangs sends the vampire to torpor and prevents the playing of subsequent pulled fangs. This also implicitly requires the ruling that going to torpor ends combat immediately, and that no more cards can be played except for those with specific card- text that are played when a vampire is going to torpor. Hmm, I waffled on a bit there, but I hope you get the general idea. > > 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. Once again, this ruling is a bit too far removed from original card text and intent for my liking. What if the "+X bleed" were _only_ applicable against your prey. This introduces a risk into the card (similar what is introduced in the above ruling), that if the bleed is deflected, your vampire is burnt whilst only achieving a minimal bleed. > 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 guess this ruling is OK, although it does seem a bit against the intent of the card, since a vampire with a 'Wake' is still essentially 'tapped'. Nevertheless, I accept that it is necessary to curb abuse of 'Sleeping Mind'. > > Thoughts Betrayed: > "Superior: Opposing minion cannot play strike cards for the rest of combat." > Strangely enough, I am more than happy with this ruling. It brings it in line with other cards such as Hidden Lurker, and Fast Reactions that prevent vampires from 'doing stuff' in 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." No way. That's just ridiculous. The original intent of the card is almost destroyed entirely, and the card text is mangled beyond belief. How about this change that preserves card text (pretty much) and intent: Tomb of Rameses Master Cost: 3 Master: unique location Put this card on a vampire in your uncontrolled region. For each blood counter you transfer to [this] uncontrolled vampire during your influence phase, move one counter from the blood bank to this vampire. Burn this card when this vampire comes into play. This only requires the change of one word, whilst still restricting the usefulness of the card for bringing out multiple large vampires simultaneously. > > Wake with Evening's Freshness: > "Do not replace until your next untap phase." > Ugh. I've never had enough problems with Wake to warrant this sort of ruling. Why is this change necessary. I mean it can be bad enough remembering not to replace the Wake until the end of combat, let alone waiting until your next untap phase. Besides, the vote-pushing replacement was only ever until the end of your minion/discard (depending on rules) phase. Why should Wake be penalised even more than vote cards were? I mean in a 7-player game, you could be waiting for a long time with only four cards in your hand, just because you wanted to _try_ (no guarantee of success) to stop a few of your prey's actions. > Zip Gun: > Cannot use ammo cards. > I guess I reluctantly agree with this ruling. Justicar. (just...@my-dejanews.com) [ quoted text not captured ]

just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: [ comments that have already been addressed deleted. ] > > 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. > > Does this mean you can now play Temptation on > your own vampires? Yes, which would be an undirected action at zero stealth. > > 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. > > What were the "packet" problems associated with > the jyhad rules for aggro damage? The old Jyhad rules treated each source of damage indiviually. So if you had 4 Wolf companions during a Dawn Operation, each would do one agg. The opposing vampire wouldn't burn any blood (since you didn't burn blood for the 1st point of agg in the Jyhad rules). [ quoted text not captured ]

> I agree that the initial intent of the card is now gone. You are right in > that it is not very good at getting out vampires quick. But you are > wrong when you say it is wallpaper. Is Long Term Investment > wallpaper? Seems to me the two are roughly equivelent. > What is this "Long Term Investment?" What expansion is it in? Is it a promo card or a chase card? 8) -Chris Sorry, that was uncalled for... I just laugh everyone I see someone call Protracted Investment "Long Term..." [ quoted text not captured ]

Christopher Chew (c...@id4.telecom.fedex.com) wrote: : Cards are not broken. Others have already disputed this point, but I'm planning to do it in my own particular idiom. ;-) : 2) Just because a card performs a function more succesfully than another card : does not indicate a roken state, it indicates a differing power level. Not all : cards were meant to be "equal", nor should they be. This, I think, is where our opinions begin to diverge, and why you reach completely different conclusions from me (and some other people). My idea of a good card game includes that it should embrace the principle of balance in card design. That is, there should *not* be cards that perform their functions better than other comparable cards. There shouldn't *be* differing power levels among cards. My stance is that all cards *are* meant to be equal, and should be. (It's probably impractical for all cards to be exactly equal in 'power', so I'm willing to settle for their being at least not blatantly out of line with each other, which I think is the case for the others arguing in favor of balance as well.) It's fine, for example, to have Undead Strength and then Growing Fury - the 2nd round or later restriction on GF makes its otherwise identical cost (in terms of space in hand, in deck, blood cost to play, etc) balanced with the 1 greater damage it does at each level. It's even acceptable to also have Pushing the Limit and Lucky Blow - PtL costs an additional blood to get the same bonus as GF, and Lucky Blow works like inferior Undead Strength, but requires no discipline, and so pays the cost of being a 'do not replace' card. All these reflect principles of balance in card design. But now look at Pulled Fangs versus, say, Twisting the Knife. Pulled Fangs does 1 agg damage if the user inflicted more damage at close range (under the old rules). Twisting the Knife does 1 regular damage if the user did at least 3 damage with a hand or melee weapon, requires Potence, costs 1 blood (PF costs 0 blood and requires no discipline). The only apparent benefit is that TtK provides an optional press at superior. These cards are not well balanced. Pulled Fangs is so much better than TtK that no one would even consider using TtK over PF if they had the choice. In my opinion, it's an indication of bad design work that TtK was printed as it was. (PF was also somewhat overpowered in relation to other comparable combat cards, but TtK is worse than them as well - my argument here is not that PF was too powerful but that TtK was not powerful enough.) : 3) RtI is powerful but there are a number of ways to counter this card. Design : a deck with some depth of strategy. A rush deck with no intercept will pay the : price for its lack of flexibility. I personally will exploit a persons lack of : forethought in deck design. It is also my opinion that the existence of countermeasures is never justification for an overpowered effect. The classic "action: oust your prey" is a good example of this. It can be blocked, or Direct Interventioned, but that doesn't make it balanced. Josh spreading the gospel of enlightened card design

Bernie Bresnahan wrote: > > Your statement is True, but I'd like to point out that the current DCI > tournament > point system hadn't been introduced until when? The release of Dark > Soveriegns or Ancient Hearts? Way beyond the release date of Jyhad. > > My play group found that after the Tournament Point system was introduced > everyone started focusing more on their prey in order to earn VP's. > Way back when, we played that last man standing was the winner (ick!). Even before the DCI rules it was necessary to oust your prey to win. The rulebook was clear on that point. You are aware that "Last Man Standing" was only a house rule, right? > One of the folks that played with us long ago said "The problem with > Jyhad is that there isn't enough cross-table interaction", and to this > day I'd probably agree with him. One of the big lures of Jyhad for me was the ability to stand on your own and not be ganged-up on. When I finally got net access and found out how the (D) was being interpreted I had a cow. -- Robert Goudie, Chairman rrgo...@earthlink.net Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net _________________________________________________________________ The Official Vampire: the Eternal Struggle Players' Organization

In article <35ABBCCE...@lmco.com>, michae...@lmco.com wrote: > cbo...@apdi.net wrote: > (sorrows inspiring message snipped) > > I agree that the initial intent of the card is now gone. You are right in > that it is not very good at getting out vampires quick. But you are > wrong when you say it is wallpaper. Is Long Term Investment > wallpaper? Absolutely. I haven't seen a LTI played in over 3 years. (outside of sealed games) Have you? Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://members.tripod.com/~Lasombra [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35AC98...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > [ comments that have already been addressed deleted. ] > > > > 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. > > > > Does this mean you can now play Temptation on > > your own vampires? > > Yes, which would be an undirected action at zero stealth. > > > > 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. > > > > What were the "packet" problems associated with > > the jyhad rules for aggro damage? > > The old Jyhad rules treated each source of damage indiviually. > So if you had 4 Wolf companions during a Dawn Operation, each > would do one agg. The opposing vampire wouldn't burn any blood > (since you didn't burn blood for the 1st point of agg in the > Jyhad rules). Oops! We never played it that way. 8) [ quoted text not captured ]

Pre-script. Stupid mailer. 'Replied via mail' rather 'Replied via newsgroup. Damn. ----------------------- I had resolved to keep away from the 'rewrite' issues, but this solution popped into my head, and I was powerless to resist typing it in. :) Not that I expect this version to fly, either... Tomb of Rameses III Master 3 pool UNIQUE LOCATION. Put this card on a vampire in your uncontrolled region. For each blood counter you transfer to an uncontrolled vampire during your influence phase, place one Tomb counter on to this vampire. Treat Tomb counters as blood for the purpose of bringing this vampire into play. Burn this card and all Tomb counters when the vampire enters play. Fixes proposed by this wording : 1) Big vampires can enter play quickly; they are not at full capacity, but that's the penalty for bringing them into play ear 2) There is little 'pool cycling' going on; you can transfer blood back and forth to the card, but the net effect is zero on your pool and a big, empty vampire when it enters play. 3) If the Tomb moves, the Tomb counters remain functional for the purpose of bringing vamps into play. 4) The counters are on the vamp (rather than the Tomb) to avoid problems with Goth Bands. 5) It preserves the _intent_ of the card without changing a majority of text. Problems proposed by this wording 1) It introduces a penalty for play of the card - the vamp is no longer at full capacity when it enters play. 2) Can be confusing to explain to new players. Alan (aj)

> Tomb of Rameses III Master 3 pool > UNIQUE LOCATION. Put this card on a vampire in your uncontrolled region. > For each blood counter you transfer to an uncontrolled vampire during > your influence phase, place one Tomb counter on to this > vampire. Treat Tomb counters as blood for the purpose of bringing > this vampire into play. Burn this card and all Tomb counters when > the vampire enters play. Quite frankly: I love this one! It adds a little interesting twist; try to use Minion Tap on that vampire now! :-) Should the card be burned (with Arson, e.g.) are all the counters burned also? And if the card is moved (with Disputed Territory), what happens to the counters? Burned? > 2) There is little 'pool cycling' going on; you can transfer blood back > and forth to the card, but the net effect is zero on your pool and > a big, empty vampire when it enters play. We might add that Tomb counters cannot be taken to the Meth's pool, to make sure there is no misunderstanding. > Problems proposed by this wording > > 1) It introduces a penalty for play of the card - the vamp is no longer > at full capacity when it enters play. Problem? I see it more like the balancing factor. > 2) Can be confusing to explain to new players. Not as much as all the errata combined. Over all, great idea and good work! Frederic.

<snip of proposed card text> > Should the card be burned (with Arson, e.g.) are all the counters burned also? > And if the card is moved (with Disputed Territory), what happens to the counters? > Burned? The way I thought about it was this : If the card is burned, the counters remain, since they are on the vampire. They still function according to the rules on the card that generated them, even when that card is no longer in play (ie. Corruption tokens). If the card is stolen, _all_ Tomb tokens are destroyed per card text when a vamp with the Tomb enters play (ie. _all_ means _all_.) > > 2) There is little 'pool cycling' going on; you can transfer blood back > > and forth to the card, but the net effect is zero on your pool and > > a big, empty vampire when it enters play. > > We might add that Tomb counters cannot be taken to the Meth's pool, > to make sure there is no misunderstanding. Since you can't move counters into your pool, I'd feel it was redundant. I don't like cluttering text with extraneous rules. Personal taste. :) > > Problems proposed by this wording > > > > 1) It introduces a penalty for play of the card - the vamp is no longer > > at full capacity when it enters play. > > Problem? I see it more like the balancing factor. Frankly I do too, but I had to anticipate reactions to the proposition. > > 2) Can be confusing to explain to new players. > > Not as much as all the errata combined. Again, I agree. > Over all, great idea and good work! Thanks! Alan (aj)

gen...@iname.com wrote in article <1103_90...@bernier2.meca.polymtl.ca>... > > Tomb of Rameses III Master 3 pool > > UNIQUE LOCATION. Put this card on a vampire in your uncontrolled region. > > For each blood counter you transfer to an uncontrolled vampire during > > your influence phase, place one Tomb counter on to this > > vampire. Treat Tomb counters as blood for the purpose of bringing > > this vampire into play. Burn this card and all Tomb counters when > > the vampire enters play. > > Quite frankly: I love this one! > It adds a little interesting twist; try to use Minion Tap on that vampire now! :-) Not bad. I also find this one interesting. I would definetly be willing to try it. Makes the RTR one look like a bad joke. Steve Bucy

Bernie Bresnahan wrote: > In the spirit of slight changes opposed to complete re-writes, > I submit the following on our old friend "Fame". > > The original text (Jyhad): > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor > > ==== Possible Errata instead of Re-Writes ==== > > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > THIS Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor > > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during THE CONTROLLERS untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor > > FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire NOT YOUR OWN. > If the Vampire goes to Torpor, the prey of the vampire loses 3 pool. > Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as > long as the Vampire is in Torpor > > ======================================= > Whether ya'll like it or not, this is the kind of change I like to > see. Slight changes are much easier to introduce, rather than > complete re-writes.. > > Bernie Bresnahan Personally, I like the following: FAME: Put this card on a ready Vampire. If this vampire goes to Topor, the acting minions methuselah loses 3 pool. Each Methuselah loses 1 pool during his/her untap phase as long as the vampire is in topor.

In article <6o6v4f$kju$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, sta...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > In article <6o4art$u0h$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > > > Hostile Takeover is far from a safe card to use in the first place. I fail to > > see why it should be modified since its effect is generally balanced. > > Oh yeah, balanced - I take your vampire. In exchange for pool which is determined by an auction. If you don't think you're getting enough pool for the vampire, then bid higher yourself. You only have to pay half that amount (rounded down) remember. > > > If you > > bid for a vampire and subsequently gain it, the target Methusaleh gains a > > generous amount of pool. This can also leave you in a precarious position if > > you had to bid a large amount to gain control of the vampire. > > The position is precarious if you're stupid enough not to have cards > to support that outcome in your deck. Hmmm, let me think - I put this > card in my deck which could see me losing upwards of 13 pool in one go, > I wonder if I'll try and get the pool back straight away - errr duh, maybe? So how do you suggest regaining that 13 pool immediately? Parity Shift will give you up to 5 pool (in a five-player game) but you still have to get the vote through. Now that vote-pushing has been effectively neutralised, you have to find some other way of getting the vote through or the other Methusalehs will simply vote it down. > > > Secondly, the vampires that are used by other Methusalehs are often quite > > incompatible with those that I use. So if I name a vampire with a Hostile > > Takeover, then the chances are it's going to be much less useful to me than my > > own vampires. > > Having Ventrue you have Dominate (which many clans have and which nearly all > big vampires have). Those clans which don't have Dominate tend to have > Fortitude or Presence. So unless everyone is playing a Tzimisce or > Nosferatu deck things shouldn't be too bad in that regard. If people are > playing weenie vote decks hey your Venture, maybe you'll need those votes. > If people are playing weenie bleed decks ... well try Deflections. One of the problems of gaining control of a vampire where Dominate is the only discipline that you can use, is that it will have fairly weak combat defence, because it will be unable to play Majesty, the combat avoidance card preferred by most Ventrue. > > > Thirdly, why is there any need to change a card that there have been no > > complaints about until now? > > I merely brining up the problem. I think that there has always been a > problem but it is only that most players haven't been bothered to try > and figure out how to use HT. If that's the case, then it's hardly a big problem now, is it? Besides, why penalise the players who do make some effort to make the most out of particular cards that other people ignore? > > > I mean, if you are seriously worried about people > > playing Hostile Takeover, then put some Sudden Reversals in your deck. > > So why was Tomb changed, just Sudden Reversal it. > So why was Return to Innocence changed, just Direct Intervention it. > So why was Fame changed, just Sudden Reversal it. > So why was Thoughts Betrayed changed, just Direct Intervention it. > So why was Golconda changed, just Sudden Reversal it. > I think you get the idea. In that case, why not just change every master card in the game that looks remotely useful. Then you won't have to worry about ever playing Sudden Reversal again. It looks like you're implying that any card that is worth playing a Sudden Reversal on should be changed. Does this mean that Blood Doll should be changed because I might want to Sudden Reversal one played by my prey to stop them recouping blood off their vampire and into their pool? All I'm saying is that if you lack the diplomatic skills to convince the person with the Hostile Takeover to play it on someone else, and you can't think of something to do with the pool that you would gain in exchange for your vampire, then put in some Sudden Reversals to ease your mind. Personally, I don't use Sudden Reversals to defend my vampires from Hostile Takeover. I usually find that a bit of creative diplomacy is enough to make people change their minds. > > > A > > couple of these should be enough to convince the Methusaleh playing them to > > target someone else. > > True, so after a couple of Sudden Reversals, a couple of Direct Interventions, > a bit of bleed defense, a bit of vote defense and a bit of combat defense > I may be able to build a half way decent deck. If that's what you think you need, then go for it. [snip] > > > For instance, I don't like the fact that Arika got into > > combat with Badger the other day, and Badger played 12 Drawing out the Beast, > > and an Earth Meld. Net result, Arika went to torpor with no blood, and Badger > > took no damage. > > Try some Direct Interventions - problem solved! Uh huh. All the other person has do is play one more Drawing out the Beast, and exactly the same result will occur. Exactly how does this fix my problem? > > > Now, I'm not too happy about how easy it is to dump handfuls > > of Drawing out the Beast, but that's the way it works so I guess I'll just > > have to live with it. > > So why cant people have lived with Tomb, Return, Rutor's Hand and all > the rest of it? Because LSJ and his rules-team determined that those cards were _broken_ as they previously existed and needed to be fixed (except for Rutor's Hand which was changed to remove an anomalous ruling about damage prevention outside of combat). If you're not quite sure how to do determine whether a card is broken or not then take a lot as this definition put forward by James Hamblin: "bro'ken (adj) : 1. Any card which costs less than, or has a more potent effect than other comparable cards. 2. Any _single_ card which requires concerted efforts from other players to thwart. 3. Any card which prevents other players from playing the game." Let's analyse Hostile Takeover with regard to these three points. 1. Hostile Takeover ---------------- Requires a master action. Costs 1. Requires a ready Ventrue. If another Methusaleh wins the auction, the previous owner gains pool in exchange. If the controlling Methusaleh wins, they only pay half the winning bid (rounded down). Temptation of Greater Power --------------------------- Requires a master action. Costs 3. Requires a ready Justicar. If another Methusaleh wins the auction, the previous owner gains nothing. If the controlling Methusaleh wins, they pay the whole amount of the winning bid (with the option of paying some of it back later). Now, I admit that Ventrue can be easier to get than Justicars, and that Temptation of Greater Power (TGP) costs two pool more than Hostile Takeover (HT), but TGP has a much more powerful effect. Assuming a winning bid of 10 pool by another Methuselah, the original owner would gain 10 pool in compensation after a HT, and 0 pool after a TGP. 2. The Methusaleh of the chosen vampire receives pool in exchange for their vampire so there is no need for other players to get involved (unless they want the vampire themselves). 3. The Methusaleh is not prevented from doing anything. The auction is an open process, open to all players. If someone thinks the current bid is too low, then they can just bid higher. If they lose their vampire, then they gain pool which allows them to bring out other vampires, or play pool-costing cards that they previously couldn't afford. > > > Instead, of spending time complaining about more cards > > to fix, I think we should be working on trying to adapt to all the changes > > that have already been made. > > Yeah, there's logic. Better to stop half way to let everybody to catch up - > and one they've caught up maybe change some other things. Do I detect a note of sarcasm there? Maybe you should tell LSJ that you think he's only gotten half-way and that he should be concentrating on making a lot more changes, rather than checking to see that the current ones are OK. Besides, if you think that there are more changes to be made, why don't you suggest some yourself, rather than simply whining about things? > > > Anyway, maybe I'm biased because I spent lots of time resources collecting > > Hostile Takeovers and I don't suddenly want to see them suddenly become next > > to useless. > > Good to see you've got a bias. I'm biased as well I've collected a lot of > HTs as well - it's because they were always a bloody awesome card and now > they're even better. Hang on, if I'm biased that way why the heck am I > speaking out against it - because it's wrong that's why. As LSJ consistently points out, _wrong_ is simply a matter of opinion. Personally, I can't see anything wrong with the card at all. > > So why were you spending resources to collect them? Maybe you just liked the > artwork? I've spent a lot of time and resources collecting Freak Drives, Kiss of Ra, and Temptaion of Greater Power because I think they're bloody awesome cards. Are you suggesting that just because people like to play a particular card then it should be changed? Now there's some warped logic. > > I'm not trying to be agressive, I just don't agree with your stance and > especially not with the logic you've used to get there. Fair enough. Maybe you could suggest a way the card could be changed then, rather than just making vague moanings and complainings, and hoping that someone else will do it for you. Justicar. (just...@my-dejanews.com) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35AE1E...@calvin.usc.edu>, Alan Flesch <afl...@calvin.usc.edu> wrote: > Pre-script. Stupid mailer. 'Replied via mail' rather > 'Replied via newsgroup. Damn. > > ----------------------- > > I had resolved to keep away from the 'rewrite' issues, > but this solution popped into my head, and I was powerless > to resist typing it in. :) > > Not that I expect this version to fly, either... > > Tomb of Rameses III Master 3 pool > UNIQUE LOCATION. Put this card on a vampire in your uncontrolled region. > For each blood counter you transfer to an uncontrolled vampire during > your influence phase, place one Tomb counter on to this > vampire. Treat Tomb counters as blood for the purpose of bringing > this vampire into play. Burn this card and all Tomb counters when > the vampire enters play. > > Fixes proposed by this wording : > > 1) Big vampires can enter play quickly; they are not at full capacity, > but that's the penalty for bringing them into play ear > > 2) There is little 'pool cycling' going on; you can transfer blood back > and forth to the card, but the net effect is zero on your pool and > a big, empty vampire when it enters play. > > 3) If the Tomb moves, the Tomb counters remain functional for the purpose > of bringing vamps into play. > > 4) The counters are on the vamp (rather than the Tomb) to avoid problems > with Goth Bands. > > 5) It preserves the _intent_ of the card without changing a majority > of text. > > Problems proposed by this wording > > 1) It introduces a penalty for play of the card - the vamp is no longer > at full capacity when it enters play. > > 2) Can be confusing to explain to new players. > > Alan (aj) > Let me give you my opinion on your version: EXCELENT! Really. I like it, if we have to do something about TOR, then this should be the way. I don't think that it's a problem with vamps bringing out not at full capacity. I think counters should be put on the vamp, and not be burned if the Tomb is removed/destroyed. As counters are not blood (or pool) they can't be taken into to pool, and that's okay. Good work. Keep going! -Carl [ quoted text not captured ]

Warning: Self-serving article here... 8) The following in no way implies that I disagree with the Rules Team on any matter... 8) In article <1103_90...@bernier2.meca.polymtl.ca>, gen...@iname.com wrote: > > Tomb of Rameses III Master 3 pool > > UNIQUE LOCATION. Put this card on a vampire in your uncontrolled region. > > For each blood counter you transfer to an uncontrolled vampire during > > your influence phase, place one Tomb counter on to this > > vampire. Treat Tomb counters as blood for the purpose of bringing > > this vampire into play. Burn this card and all Tomb counters when > > the vampire enters play. > > Quite frankly: I love this one! Nobody said that about the (almost identical) version that I suggested. To get that version out of the one above, replace "Treat Tomb counters as blood for the purpose of bringing this vampire into play" with "This vampire has -1 capacity for each Tomb counter on him or her." > It adds a little interesting twist; try to use Minion Tap on that vampire now! :-) Similarly with the one I posted. > > Should the card be burned (with Arson, e.g.) are all the counters burned also? > And if the card is moved (with Disputed Territory), what happens to the counters? > Burned? > With my preffered version, the counters stay on, since the are "-1 capacity" counters. With that version, I'm not sure. > > 2) There is little 'pool cycling' going on; you can transfer blood back > > and forth to the card, but the net effect is zero on your pool and > > a big, empty vampire when it enters play. > > We might add that Tomb counters cannot be taken to the Meth's pool, > to make sure there is no misunderstanding. > It would be obvious that "-1 capcity" counter cannot go into your pool. > > Problems proposed by this wording > > > > 1) It introduces a penalty for play of the card - the vamp is no longer > > at full capacity when it enters play. > > Problem? I see it more like the balancing factor. > having it come out with a lower capacity balances it even further. -Chris ...okay, I'm done now... 8) [ quoted text not captured ]

just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > > > Hostile Takeover is far from a safe card to use in the > > > first place. I fail to see why it should be modified since > > > its effect is generally balanced. > > > > Oh yeah, balanced - I take your vampire. > > In exchange for pool which is determined by an auction. If you don't think > you're getting enough pool for the vampire, then bid higher yourself. You only > have to pay half that amount (rounded down) remember. Except that you may not _have_ the pool to bid higher yourself. In which case you just sit idly by while your vampire is stolen. > > The position is precarious if you're stupid enough not to have cards > > to support that outcome in your deck. Hmmm, let me think - I put this > > card in my deck which could see me losing upwards of 13 pool in one go, > > I wonder if I'll try and get the pool back straight away - errr duh, maybe? > > So how do you suggest regaining that 13 pool immediately? Well, if you stole a big vampire, there's Golconda, Minion Tap, or you could gain pool indirectly by making the stolen vampire play RtI. > Parity Shift will give you up to 5 pool (in a five-player game) but you still > have to get the vote through. Now that vote-pushing has been effectively > neutralised, you have to find some other way of getting the vote through or > the other Methusalehs will simply vote it down. Yeah, the Ventrue certainly have problems getting votes passed. Besides which, if the deck were cleverly built, it would have some heavy bleed. You beat your prey down to low amounts of pool, steal all of their vampires, then oust them. With the new Golden Rule, you get to keep the vampires after your prey is gone. > One of the problems of gaining control of a vampire where Dominate is the only > discipline that you can use, is that it will have fairly weak combat defence, > because it will be unable to play Majesty, the combat avoidance card > preferred by most Ventrue. There's always Master:Skill cards. And they can call votes. > All I'm saying is that if you lack the diplomatic skills to convince the > person with the Hostile Takeover to play it on someone else, !? You are their prey. They want to kill you. What possible diplomacy are you considering? For example, if you're a rush deck, you'll say "don't do that to me, I'll come beat you up". But you'd do that anyway, _probably_ with the vampire they're going to steal! > and you can't > think of something to do with the pool that you would gain in exchange for > your vampire, then put in some Sudden Reversals to ease your mind. Again, a deck which takes optimum advantage of this card would make sure that you don't have a lot of pool to bid with. And if a card is so good that you need Sudden Reversals to counter it, it's probably broken. > Personally, I don't use Sudden Reversals to defend my vampires from Hostile > Takeover. I usually find that a bit of creative diplomacy is enough to make > people change their minds. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't listen to diplomacy, even when it's in their best interest. I found this a lot at Origins. There was a weenie vote push deck at the table. It was having trouble, and was pleading with the other people who had votes to help him out. And they did! I was dumbfounded. > If you're not quite sure how to do determine whether a card is > broken or not then take a lot as this definition put forward by James > Hamblin: Heh. I'm so proud... > "bro'ken (adj) : 1. Any card which costs less than, or has a more potent > effect than other comparable cards. 2. Any _single_ card which requires > concerted efforts from other players to thwart. 3. Any card which > prevents other players from playing the game." > > Let's analyse Hostile Takeover with regard to these three points. > > Hostile Takeover ---------------- Requires a master action. Costs 1. Requires > a ready Ventrue. If another Methusaleh wins the auction, the previous owner > gains pool in exchange. If the controlling Methusaleh wins, they only pay > half the winning bid (rounded down). Actually, I would say that Hostile Takeover is borderline broken by my definition. By (2) the card is broken since it requires either a Sudden Reversal, or a large expenditure of pool. By (3) the card is broken because it takes away your vampire, thus reducing your ability to play the game. [snip Tempation of Greater Power -- same problem] > 2. The Methusaleh of the chosen vampire receives pool in exchange for their > vampire so there is no need for other players to get involved (unless they > want the vampire themselves). Exactly. So it all comes down to how much pool the person who plays the HT is willing to pay. And even if the deck isn't optimized for this card, HT still very often ends up being a master-phase-bleed-for-four. What other master cards cause a directed pool loss, and how do they compare to HT? > The auction is an > open process, open to all players. But, as you said, most other players won't get involved. You'll get mad, but you'll bid as high as it takes to keep your vampire, since you need minions to play the game. > If someone thinks the current bid is too > low, then they can just bid higher. If they lose their vampire, then they > gain pool which allows them to bring out other vampires, ...which takes time, during which time you may be ousted already or have that pool taken from you already. > As LSJ consistently points out, _wrong_ is simply a matter of opinion. > Personally, I can't see anything wrong with the card at all. IMO, a card which allows you to take someone else's vampire is wrong. > Are you suggesting that just because people like to play a particular card > then it should be changed? Now there's some warped logic. _I'm_ suggesting that people like to play with overpowered card because they make you win. But overpowered cards are not really good for the game. I will be the first one to admit that I think HT is on the borderline. I challenge anyone on this group to build a deck which breaks the hell out of HT, post it and let us know how it works. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu

In article <6omr5d$tm7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, just...@my-dejanews.com writes >> So why was Tomb changed, just Sudden Reversal it. >> So why was Return to Innocence changed, just Direct Intervention it. >> So why was Fame changed, just Sudden Reversal it. >> So why was Thoughts Betrayed changed, just Direct Intervention it. >> So why was Golconda changed, just Sudden Reversal it. >> I think you get the idea. > >In that case, why not just change every master card in the game that looks >remotely useful. Then you won't have to worry about ever playing Sudden >Reversal again. It looks like you're implying that any card that is worth >playing a Sudden Reversal on should be changed. That's not what was being said at all. All they're saying is that a lot of people turn round and say "Sudden Reversal" if you have a powerful master. All that was being pointed out is that Sudden Reversal is not the be all and end all. Taking a card which said "Master. 0 pool. Oust your prey." The fact that you could SR it would not be sufficient to temper its ability and so it would be broken. Going down the sliding scale, cards such as TOR COULD be SRed but they can still be very abusive anyway, even with the threat of SR. Basically, unless you play it on the first two turns of the game, you automatically get blood onto a vampire equal to the cost of the card which can be transferred back (assuming you use all your transfers and you'd be mad not to) and probably a profit (fourth turn or later). Other cards have strategies and multiple cards used to get around them. Strike: Combat Ends.... well, Errata-ed Thoughts Betrayed, Psyche, Hidden Lurker, Fast Reactions, Dog Pack, Immortal Grapple can all be used to get round Strike: Combat Ends. You're not stuck to using ONE card before it becomes abusive. -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia) Change nospam to obeah to reply Vampire: Elder Kindred Network madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

James Hamblin wrote: > Actually, I would say that Hostile Takeover is borderline broken by my > definition. > By (2) the card is broken since it requires either a Sudden Reversal, or > a large expenditure of pool. By (3) the card is broken because it takes > away your vampire, thus reducing your ability to play the game. Every player in the game can bid - and you start off by losing a pool (and spending a Master phase action). How is this broken? You are on equal footing with all of the other players, except that you start by losing a pool. If the original controller can't keep pace with the bid, what's stopping the other players? And, if one of them gets the vampire, the original controller *still* gets the pool, and you're *still* out a pool and a master card action. Now, if you have that much more pool than each of the other players, you're winning. Hostile Takeover doesn't change that state, it merely allows you to take advantage of your previous good playing. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35AF4E33...@math.wisc.edu>, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: >Heh. I'm so proud... > >> "bro'ken (adj) : 1. Any card which costs less than, or has a more potent >> effect than other comparable cards. 2. Any _single_ card which requires >> concerted efforts from other players to thwart. 3. Any card which >> prevents other players from playing the game." [snip] >Actually, I would say that Hostile Takeover is borderline broken by my >definition. >By (2) the card is broken since it requires either a Sudden Reversal, or >a large expenditure of pool. By (3) the card is broken because it takes >away your vampire, thus reducing your ability to play the game. But these arguments also apply to Vulnerability, except that Sudden Reversal is the *only* defense. Surely Vulnerability is not 'borderline broken'? I feel that both analyses are failing to take into account the concept of 'opportunity cost.' The opportunity cost of successfully playing Hostile Takeover or Temptation of Greater Power is huge -- effectively 10 or so *disposable* pool are a requirement. And, to paraphrase, 'some folks might *have* 10 pool, but no one's got 10 pool *to spare*, if you know what i mean.' It's non-negligible, even with Minion Tap/5th or some such. There are definitely games where 10 pool are better to have than a given 10cap vampire; the judgement required to successfully time the play of HT/TGP, add to its already high opportunity cost. This high opportunity cost is certainly in the same range as Vulnerability's (vampire in torpor). gomi

I may be misunderstanding this post and discussion, but Tomb of Ramses, does not get counters. Rather it gives the uncontrolled vampire blood from the blood bank equivilant to the blood transfers you make from your pool. Thus there is no such thing as "tomb counters" and the tomb never has counters on it, rather the uncontrolled vampire gets blood. so if the tomb is stolen or burned, all counters that were given to the vampire via the tomb remain on the vampire.

LSJ wrote: > > James Hamblin wrote: > > Actually, I would say that Hostile Takeover is borderline broken by my > > definition. > > By (2) the card is broken since it requires either a Sudden Reversal, or > > a large expenditure of pool. By (3) the card is broken because it takes > > away your vampire, thus reducing your ability to play the game. > > Every player in the game can bid - and you start off by losing > a pool (and spending a Master phase action). How is this broken? > You are on equal footing with all of the other players, except > that you start by losing a pool. > > If the original controller can't keep pace with the bid, what's > stopping the other players? Lack of interest? Or, more politically, not wanting to tick off a person from across the table? I don't think I've ever seen a HT played where more than two people were bidding. > And, if one of them gets the vampire, > the original controller *still* gets the pool, and you're *still* > out a pool and a master card action. But pool is generally less useful than a vampire. > Now, if you have that much more pool than each of the other > players, you're winning. Hostile Takeover doesn't change that > state, it merely allows you to take advantage of your previous > good playing. As I said, I'm not 100% convinced that HT is broken. I just think it's something to think about. Once again, I challenge anyone who's up to it to make a HT deck and let us know how it works. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6omr5d$tm7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > In article <6o6v4f$kju$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > sta...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > In article <6o4art$u0h$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > > just...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > The position is precarious if you're stupid enough not to have cards > > to support that outcome in your deck. Hmmm, let me think - I put this > > card in my deck which could see me losing upwards of 13 pool in one go, > > I wonder if I'll try and get the pool back straight away - errr duh, maybe? > > So how do you suggest regaining that 13 pool immediately? > > Parity Shift will give you up to 5 pool (in a five-player game) but you still > have to get the vote through. Now that vote-pushing has been effectively > neutralised, you have to find some other way of getting the vote through or > the other Methusalehs will simply vote it down. Parity Shift, give some blood to a person with votes. With 1 blood from a Parity Shift and a bribes with the vote most people will be willing to vote for anything. You then upll out the second, or multiple Parity Shift and take another five. > One of the problems of gaining control of a vampire where Dominate is the only > discipline that you can use, is that it will have fairly weak combat defence, > because it will be unable to play Majesty, the combat avoidance card > preferred by most Ventrue. And Obedience is such a bad card too. > > > Thirdly, why is there any need to change a card that there have been no > > > complaints about until now? > > > > I merely brining up the problem. I think that there has always been a > > problem but it is only that most players haven't been bothered to try > > and figure out how to use HT. > > If that's the case, then it's hardly a big problem now, is it? Besides, why > penalise the players who do make some effort to make the most out of > particular cards that other people ignore? Why penalise players with the changes that have already been made. Take Mask of 1K Faces. The rules changed to that killed off about three of four of my decks - some may have been a bit abusive, what with Masking Sacrifice or Masking Atonement - but some of the decks were also in existance to put clans together that I had trouble with beforehand. The Mask ruling makes sense but it killed a number of my decks. I don't think that one more ruling on Hostile Takeover and the decks that such a change would alter are really that important given that other decks have already been altered by the rulings to date. > In that case, why not just change every master card in the game that looks > remotely useful. Then you won't have to worry about ever playing Sudden > Reversal again. It looks like you're implying that any card that is worth > playing a Sudden Reversal on should be changed. No, I never said that. There is a difference betwene broken and useful. That's why I find your next example interesting. >Does this mean that Blood > Doll should be changed because I might want to Sudden Reversal one played by > my prey to stop them recouping blood off their vampire and into their pool? I commonly Sudden Blood Dolls because their a good card, but the thing is that they're useful. They're not broken. > > > For instance, I don't like the fact that Arika got into > > > combat with Badger the other day, and Badger played 12 Drawing out the Beast, > > > and an Earth Meld. Net result, Arika went to torpor with no blood, and Badger > > > took no damage. > > > > Try some Direct Interventions - problem solved! > > Uh huh. All the other person has do is play one more Drawing out the Beast, > and exactly the same result will occur. Exactly how does this fix my problem? Keep up with me here. Your logic is that Sudden fixes Hostile, ergo Direct Intervention fixes Drawing Out the Beats. Any opponent can always have one more of either card. If it's really a problem then try some of that creative diplomacy that you mentioned above - if the diplomacy works against Hostile Takeover then I'm sure that it'll work against Drawing Out the Beast. > > > Instead, of spending time complaining about more cards > > > to fix, I think we should be working on trying to adapt to all the changes > > > that have already been made. > > > > Yeah, there's logic. Better to stop half way to let everybody to catch up - > > and one they've caught up maybe change some other things. > > Do I detect a note of sarcasm there? What's sarcasm, isn't that just another seven letter word? >Maybe you should tell LSJ that you think > he's only gotten half-way and that he should be concentrating on making a lot > more changes, rather than checking to see that the current ones are OK. > Besides, if you think that there are more changes to be made, why don't you > suggest some yourself, rather than simply whining about things? Well you suggested Drawing Out the Beast, there's another card which I put alongside Hostile Takeover as being a bit worrisome, given the changes that have been made. See you can think of cards yourself. > As LSJ consistently points out, _wrong_ is simply a matter of opinion. > Personally, I can't see anything wrong with the card at all. I never insinuated that what I was writing was anything but my opinion. > > I'm not trying to be agressive, I just don't agree with your stance and > > especially not with the logic you've used to get there. > > Fair enough. Maybe you could suggest a way the card could be changed then, > rather than just making vague moanings and complainings, and hoping that > someone else will do it for you. In a creatively titled post "Hostile Takeover - fixes?" dated the 11th, six days before your post, I suggested two options for a fix? What do you think about them? stan http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/5304 options for fixing [ quoted text not captured ]

(TO REPLY VIA E-MAIL, STRIP 'XYXYX' FROM THE ADDRESS) Is there a Web or FTP place I can download a compendium of all of the most current rulings on VtES? Like a "D'Angelo rulings file" for VtES? Fred

(TO REPLY VIA E-MAIL, STRIP 'XYXYX' FROM THE ADDRESS) fred_...@netcom.com (Frederick Scott) writes: >Is there a Web or FTP place I can download a compendium of all of the most >current rulings on VtES? Like a "D'Angelo rulings file" for VtES? No one ever responded to this. Can I get an answer, even if it's "no - this doesn't exist"? Fred

> >Is there a Web or FTP place I can download a compendium of all of the most > >current rulings on VtES? Like a "D'Angelo rulings file" for VtES? > > No one ever responded to this. Can I get an answer, even if it's "no - > this doesn't exist"? Officially, aside from what you can find on the Rulesmonger's page, there is none I know of. However, 2 weeks ago I mentionned I would be working on something like that. :) I've worked a bit, and now I only need to order and clean up everything. I could send you what I have now, if you like. Frederic (another :-)

> >Is there a Web or FTP place I can download a compendium of all of the most > >current rulings on VtES? Like a "D'Angelo rulings file" for VtES? > > No one ever responded to this. Can I get an answer, even if it's "no - > this doesn't exist"? Officially, aside from what you can find on the Rulesmonger's page, there is none I know of. However, 2 weeks ago I mentioned I would be working on something like [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott wrote: > >Is there a Web or FTP place I can download a compendium of all of the most > >current rulings on VtES? Like a "D'Angelo rulings file" for VtES? > > No one ever responded to this. Can I get an answer, even if it's "no - > this doesn't exist"? http://www.wizards.com/VTES The rulings compilations under "Rules" link to the rules summaries on the Rulemonger Site - which is only updated once a month. So it won't have the "current" rulings until the first of august. But, you can get the rulings that were current as of July 1st from there, then add in the 7/7 rulings: http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=369345600 [ quoted text not captured ]

gen...@iname.com (Frederic Genest) writes: > > >Is there a Web or FTP place I can download a compendium of all of the most > > >current rulings on VtES? Like a "D'Angelo rulings file" for VtES? > > > > No one ever responded to this. Can I get an answer, even if it's "no - > > this doesn't exist"? > > Officially, aside from what you can find on the Rulesmonger's page, > there is none I know of. BTW, according to my experimentation you can get a "complete" rulings document from the Rulemonger site with this URL: http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi?searchresults&fmt=full&per=0&l=1&l=2&l=3&l=4&sort=c Might not be optimal, but seems to work. This is IMHO much nicer than referencing 3 separate documents. //Petri