Fifteen Birds in Five Firtrees

Any rule erratum or clarification submission for the upcoming 2019 ARV should be posted here.
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Konrad Klar
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Fifteen Birds in Five Firtrees wrote:Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. An untapped character in the company must tap to face any strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack for the rest of the turn. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn.


A character do not tap to strike. An untapped character may opt to take -3 penalty to prowess and remain untapped after strike, if a strike was not successful.

I propose the following erratum:

"Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. If available an untapped character in the company must face any strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack and may not opt to remain untapped against the strike for the rest of the turn. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn."
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Theo
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My interpretation of the original card is rather that characters are required to tap before facing any such strike, such that they will be guaranteed a minimum -1 penalty.
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Konrad Klar
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Because Mechanical Bow also says about "tapping to face a strike" I interpret it as the same error made for the same reason.
The reason is that "taps to face a strike" is shorter than "does not take an option to remain untapped against a strike".
The shorter phrase has higher chance to be adopted by users, sometimes at the cost of an original meaning being malformed.
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Theo
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Certainly seems plausible.
MELE Example wrote:Lagduf decides to tap to face the strike.
Alternatively, Mechanical Bow might also require the character tap before facing the strike to reduce body by 1. More literal.
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Zakath
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Yeah, I'm with Konrad on this one. I think it would be giving ICE way too much credit to think that they intended to differentiate between 'tapping to face a strike' and 'opting against remaining untapped against a strike'.

Consider also the Balrog's weapons:
Stabbing Tongue of Fire wrote:Unique. Balrog specific. Playable at any tapped or untapped non-Darkhaven Under-deeps site. May only be borne by The Balrog. This item affects The Balrog. +1 prowess when tapping to face a strike. +1 to all body checks resulting from failed strikes against The Balrog. If The Balrog attacks successfully in company vs. company combat, +1 to the defending character's body check.
Whip of Many Thongs wrote:Unique. Balrog specific. Playable at any tapped or untapped non-Darkhaven Under-deeps site. May only be borne by The Balrog. This item affects The Balrog. +1 prowess when tapping to face a strike. If The Balrog is in company vs. company combat, tap this item to cancel all effects of one weapon of your choice (even declared in the same chain of effects) in an opponent's company until the end of the combat. This does not discard the weapon.
If 'tapping to face a strike' is something that you have to do prior to actually facing the strike (thus requiring you to take a -1 penalty to prowess when resolving the strike), then the '+1 to prowess' clauses on those weapons would effectively do nothing. None of the other effects on those weapons are dependent on whether or not the Balrog has used the 'tapping to face to a strike' clause.

I think this might be better resolved by issuing a clarification on the meaning of 'tapping to face a strike' rather than trying to errata every card that uses that language.
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rezwits
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Wait wait wait:

You are saying that you get to cancel "possibly" two attacks, and then ICE is saying if that happens you have to TAP when facing? I would propose this erratum:
Fifteen Birds in Five Firtrees wrote:Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. An untapped character in the company must tap to face any strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack for the rest of the turn. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn.
rezwits proposal wrote:Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. An untapped character in the company must tap while facing any strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack for the rest of the turn. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn.
Two assassins gone to this card, pretty strong... for a Rare tho...
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CDavis7M
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I reviewed the Players Guide and it is clear that this card ensures that untapped characters are tapped by the end of the attack. However, there is no discussion of whether (A) the character must "tap to face a strike" such that a previously-untapped character will receive a -1 modification when facing the strike or (B) the character simply needs to (informally) tap during the strike sequence to avoid the -3 modification (formally, the tapping occurs after the strike resolves).

(A) The wording "must tap to face a strike" does seem to indicate that tapping is a required condition for a character to face a strike. But it is common to have less untapped characters than strikes. Does this mean that tapped characters would not have to face a strike since they "must", but cannot tap, to face it? That doesn't seem right and is not implied by this card.

Still, the uncertainty brought up by option (A), along with the fact that the game does not include a normal mechanism or other cards requiring tapping to face a strike makes me think that (A) is a result of sloppy wording, which is prevalent.

I'm inclined to believe that (B) was the intention. That a character must tap "when" (not "to") facing a strike (formally, after). For me, it is much more believable that (B) was the intention given that choosing to tap or not during the strike sequence (formally, choosing a modifier) is an original mechanism of the game and the game is full of sloppily worded cards. In fact, this could not even be the original wording. For all we know, the Proofreader could have made this change and it was never picked up by the designers.

Bottom line, I just cant believe that an already complex card was intended to (A) create the brand new requirement for tapping before facing a strike, such that the character received -1 (instead of regular modified prowess) without any further expression of such an intention on the card.

Last edited by CDavis7M on Mon Aug 19, 2019 9:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Bandobras Took
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I believe Konrad's wording better reflects the original intent in this case.
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Khamul the Easterling
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This topic will most likely make it into this year's ARV. While I personally concur with CDavis7M, I'm planning to take up Konrad's submission, but removing the part of "for the rest of the turn" - as this does no longer make any sense to me:
Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. If available an untapped character in the company must face any strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack and may not opt to remain untapped against the strike. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn.
Do you agree?

Could you please further specify if "an untapped character" means "1 untapped character" or "any untapped character"?
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CDavis7M
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Doesn't this Short Event need to say "for the rest of the turn" because there could be several more attacks that turn? But the effect does not last indefinitely.

Also, the wording still has some clarity issues.

It would probably be helpful if there was an example to go along with the proposal with discussion of the cards that affect tappi g and facif strikes. Noble Hounds, More Sense than You, Enruned Shield, Sable Shield, etc.

From that, a clarification could be issued alongside the errata.
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Theo
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Konrad's proposal seems to include two points. I'm not sure if these were both intentional.
* Errata: Defender can no longer choose to not assign any strikes to untapped characters.
* Errata: "untapped characters must tap to face any strike" => "untapped character cannot take -3 penalty to avoid tapping after strike".

I think these should be separated. Focusing on the second, wording such as this should be sufficient:

"Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. Any character in the company facing a strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack this turn cannot avoid being tapped if untapped after the strike is resolved. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn."

If the first errata was tied into the same submission, it would unquestionably change my vote, which would be sad.
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Konrad Klar
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Theo wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 3:30 am I think these should be separated.
Good catch.
Theo wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 3:30 am "Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. Any character in the company facing a strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack this turn cannot avoid being tapped if untapped after the strike is resolved. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn."
I agree.
Theo wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 3:30 am If the first errata was tied into the same submission, it would unquestionably change my vote, which would be sad.
Don't.
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Khamul the Easterling
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OK. I've slightly changed the proposal (underlined) so that it is somewhat similar to the phrasing of the Alatar erratum. Would you be ok with this, too?
Theo wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 3:30 am "Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. Any character in the company having faced a strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack this turn must tap if untapped after the strike sequence. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn."
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Konrad Klar
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"Playable on a moving company facing a non-unique hazard creature if Gates of Morning is in play. All attacks of the creature are canceled and all attacks of the next non-unique hazard creature the company faces this turn are also canceled. Any untapped character in the company facing a strike from a subsequent hazard creature attack this turn cannot opt to remain untapped against the strike. The company can do nothing during its site phase unless it contains a Wizard or you discard Eagle-mounts from your hand. Cannot be duplicated on a given turn."

I have changed slightly Theo's last proposal.
"cannot opt to remain untapped against the strike"
is not the same as
"cannot avoid being tapped if untapped after the strike is resolved".

Untapped character may not opt to remain untapped against the strike but still can avoid being tapped after the strike is resolved.
This may happen e.g. if he bears Sable Shield and strike would wound him otherwise.
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CDavis7M
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A conflict may occur when More Sense than You is played.
More Sense Than You wrote:Playable before strikes are assigned on an untapped character or ally whose company is facing an attack. Tap target character or ally. He may not be assigned a strike from this attack.
Here, the untapped character is still tapped but they did not face a strike. Does or should Fifteen Birds in Five Firtrees require the untapped character to face the strike? I think it ends up being OK because the character is no longer untapped and so FBiFF doesn't apply anymore.

But what about other cards that let the defender assign multiple strikes to one character? Should an untapped character be forced to face the strike? It would be nice to address these related issues here.
Last edited by CDavis7M on Tue Sep 03, 2019 6:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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