Pledge of Conduct at Council

[Sauron]

End-of-Game

Only resources that directly affect corruption checks may be played during the Free Council. This includes cards that reduce a character's corruption point total or prevent a character from being discarded.

Pledge of Conduct
Diplomat only. A character facing a corruption check in the diplomat's company may automatically transfer one item he bears to another character in his company. The item must be transferable, and the new bearer must be able to bear it.

Moving an item is reduction of CP indirectly, since the item may or may not have CP. Therefore I don't think this would be legal. Can anyone tell me otherwise?

[miguel]

Hey Brian!

I'd say you can play Pledge of Conduct at Free Council if the conditions are met, similarly as with Marvels Told. Meaning the character's corruption point total needs to be reduced in order for Pledge of Conduct to be legal.

[Sauron]

Hey Brian!

I'd say you can play Pledge of Conduct at Free Council if the conditions are met, similarly as with Marvels Told. Meaning the character's corruption point total needs to be reduced in order for Pledge of Conduct to be legal.

But is that a direct or indirect change? Something like free to choose directly lowers the CP, while moving or getting rid of corruption via Marvels told would be indirect no?

I'm looking at the wording directly versus indirect here.

[miguel]

I understand your point, but since it's been established that Marvels Told is legal to use at Council, this is of course considered a direct change. An example of an indirect change (and thus illegal) would be using a card to untap a character, allowing that character to tap in support of a corruption check. The difference being (IMO) that a card having a direct effect does so by resolving its card effect alone, while an indirect change just sets up a direct change to follow.

[Konrad Klar]

I have heard that removing of negative modifiers to influence attempt counts as a "reduction" if case of Webs of Fear & Treachery.
Question is whether transfering an item worth 0 CP (e.g. Emerald of Mariner) counts as reduction of character's corruption point total.

[miguel]

Well, you can't have a negative corruption point total so maybe it's not the same. I'd say transferring a 0 CP item accomplishes nothing by itself, and does therefore not meet the requirements for Pledge to be used.

However, with Emerald of the Mariner's ability the receiver of Emerald will be getting +1 to his corruption check(s). This seems gray area, but I'm inclined to say moving Emerald with Pledge is legal because doing so accomplishes the +1 to CC without another action. This would be a rare case though, since often it would make more sense to transfer an item that actually gives CPs.

[Konrad Klar]

Well, you can't have a negative corruption point total so maybe it's not the same. [...]

Not quite important, but I can have -1 CP.

Palantir of Osgiliath + Free To Choose + Gates of Morning + stored Fate of The Ithil-stone.

[miguel]

Well, you can't have a negative corruption point total so maybe it's not the same. [...]

Not quite important, but I can have -1 CP.

Palantir of Osgiliath + Free To Choose + Gates of Morning + stored Fate of The Ithil-stone.

I'm not convinced that an item can give negative corruption points, otherwise Emerald would prolly just show -1 instead of 0 and the card text. Of course this is open for interpretation, and it's not helped by some cards that list CP modifiers in the CP area, which should be for CPs and CC modifiers.

It's been ruled that free GI halts at 0, so perhaps something like that should be done here.

[Konrad Klar]

The Balance of Things makes a difference between -1 modifier to CC and - 1 CP more tangible.

I can believe that some players have difficulties in distingushing between modifiers to CC and values of CP. But it is independent from question "whether CP may be negative". Right?

My main question was "whether removing a source of 0 CP counts as removing character's CP total".

At Council a player may want to transfer Emerald of Mariner from character with small amount of CP to character (that has not made a cc yet) with big amount of CP.
It is OK to have more benefits from side effects than from main effects of action as long the action is valid.

[miguel]

As I said, I don't think using Pledge on a 0 CP item at Council by itself is legal. Using Pledge on Emerald might be (and I'd be willing to rule that way).

...it's not helped by some cards that list CP modifiers in the CP area...

It seems I was thinking of some Dream cards, at least I couldn't find any ICE cards like that now, so perhaps ICE was consistent (here) after all.

I still don't think that CP can be negative though, IMO reducing halts at zero. If Free to Choose did use modifiers (-2/-3 CP) then I'd agree a negative CP to be possible, but they don't. You brought up Webs of Fear and Treachery, which has a somewhat relevant ruling.

In a recent game with Nigel Buckle, we had a disagreement over the power
of Webs to nullify negative influence modifiers. On this list, it had
previously been ruled that webs nullifies all cards like Foolish Words,
Scatha at Home, etc. because they are "influence modifications".
However, Nigel pointed out that Webs says "... are REDUCED to zero",
which, according to one way of looking at it, can only move the
modifactions DOWN. So positive modifications go down to zero, but
negative modifications cannot go down to zero, so they stay where they
are. I argued that Webs should be read as either "... are SET to zero,"
or that the absolute value of modifications "are reduced to zero,"
either of which would mean that negative modifications would be
nullified by Webs. Any ideas?

*** I do not have conclusive evidence to overrule the current ruling,
so it stands that negative modifications are also "reduced" to zero by
Webs of Fear and Treachery.

I know Free to Choose doesn't say reduced to zero, but with the absence of actual modifiers it could be implied. This is certainly open for interpretation, which my opinion of course is.

[dirhaval]

I have a different view. I say "No" to the use of Pledge of Conduct.
I do not remember that transferring items was possible during the Council. If you cannot normally transfer
an item during the council then you cannot "automatically" transfer an item either. The text assumes you are able
to transfer. Can you play the card during the end-of-turn phase to induce a transfer?

[miguel]

Yes, provided the character is facing a corruption check.