Rules for 19 November 2004

Your Rules for Friday, November 19, 2004

Kolat Assassin & STYW Temple

One of the players in our group has a question on how Kolat Assassin interacts with Shieh-Tieh Yen Wang Temple.

This question seems to come up every two weeks or something.

He tries to Kolat one of my personalities with 4 Chi. I invoke the STYW Temple, raising Chi to 5

Queries: 1) Since the target is now illegal, does he have to pay the cost of the Kolat Assassin?

"Although targeting occurs before costs are paid, if an action is canceled at the targeting step (e.g., Balance in Nothingness), all costs must still be paid, using any (and, if necessary, all) available sources that do not require actions or abilities to generate. Variable costs may be chosen based on the knowledge that the action has been canceled. [JA, 15 May 2003, 18 December 2003; ML, 21 September 2004]" (Accumulated Rulings, "Canceling and negation")

2) What happens to the KA card? Does it go to the discard pile or back to his hand? {I am not sure why he thinks it would go back to his hand, but that was his question.}

"A canceled Action card goes the discard pile." (Diamond Edition Rulebook, page 72)

Your player may be confusing the general rules for having an action be canceled with the specific rules governing failure to pay the costs (noted further down on page 72) which allow an otherwise legal play that's payment has failed to go back to the player's hand.

3) Since I have reacted "before" he targeted, can he target someone else with the KA? If not, why not? {There were other legal targets on the board with less than 5 chi}

The "before" clause there is meaningless except to put it before any "when" or "after" targeting timing. He has to have already made his targeting choice for there to be a legal trigger for the Temple's Reaction. He can't go back and make a new one.

The Temple's ability is not optimally worded. It should really say, "after" rather than "before" to prevent confusion.

<astrkf@u...>

Another Konishiko question

Given that Konishiko does not gain the gold cost in the coin of a Political Action card when you select the target of her action, what happens if I choose an action whose effect is based on the gold cost of the card, such as Honor's Cost?

Unless Jeff invents a special work-around, I'm going to say that you play it as written - Bow a Personality. The printed Gold cost of this card (Konishiko) equals the targets Chi plus Personal Honor.

So you can bow anyone, and Konishiko changes her printed Gold cost until the end of the turn. That might seem silly, but at least it doesn't require any errata or extra rules (neither of which I could give you anyway).

That said, "Blessings of Isawa"-type effects eat babies and kick puppies. I despise them.

That should cover everything for Friday. If I missed your question unrelated to Web of Lies, please repost it with the flag [RULES] as part of your Clear and Distinct subject line. I'll get back to you at the first opportunity.