Cumulative Passive Conditions

[Manuel]

Hello dear community,

I’m having a hard time trying to understand why certain passive conditions are considered cumulative and why some aren’t. Maybe some of you can help me with this.

Example:

Lure of Power
If two instances of Lure of Power are in play and are triggered, only force one check at -4, and both are discarded.

Traitor
Two instances in play of Traitor have no extra effect and are both discarded with the next failed corruption check.

However, there are other cards where this is not so clear, like Crept Along Carefully. Van ruled that the reducing effect isn’t cumulative:

ICE RULES DIGEST #586

30-07-1999 Author: Van Norton Source

QUERY 4

From: Joe Walker

Subject: Crept along carefully

I never saw an answer to this question awile ago, and I’m still curious. What’s the effect of duplicating Crept Along Carefully?

The hazard limit is reduced by one and you have an extra Crept Along Carefully to discard and attempt to cancel an attack.*

But then Chad Martin ruled that they are cumulative, and this is how I’ve seen this played historically (of course he could be wrong)

CoE RULINGS DIGEST #25

15-04-2002 Author: Chad Martin Source

QUERY 3

In Van’s digest #586 he ruled:

“I never saw an answer to this question awhile ago, and I’m still curious. What’s the effect of duplicating Crept Along Carefully?

R: The hazard limit is reduced by one and you have an extra Crept to discard and attempt to cancel an attack.”

Why is the hazard limit reduced by only one? There is no stipulation of that on the card.

If Crept Along Carefully is duplicated, the hazard limit reductions are cumulative, but the three region movement restriction stays at three regions.

‌

The main problem for me, though, is that this “cumulative” thing is nowhere in the rules. I’ve seen only several digests about this, but I fail to see the consistency in them.

ICE#79, #80 and #81 is where Ichabod talks about this issue. in #81 he says this:

ICE RULES DIGEST #81

10-05-1998 Author: Craig Ichabod O'Brien Source

QUERY 2

From: John Coble <_jco...@vnet.net_>

Ok, I follow you in that there is no “cumulative” text in the game; if two cards are not prohibited from being in play simultaneously then their effects are assumed to be cumulative. This still leaves the question of why Lure of Power is not cumulative?

Because that’s the way passive conditions work. If two of the same effect trigger at the same time, only one of them applies, but they are both considered to have triggered for purposes of discarding them.

Traitors not having an effect I can see, mainly due to the resolution text on the card, but I still don’t understand why a “duplicate” Traitor card goes away: why doesn’t it wait for the next failed corruption check?

Because the next corruption check has already happened.

‌

“Because that’s the way passive conditions work”. Yeah, but where in the rules does it say that? In any other card game I know, two instances of Lure of Power would cause two different corruption checks.

I still fail to see where in the rules is this located, and why. Also, if this is the case, I think that cumulative or non-cumulative distinction is kind of funny: having two corruption checks instead of one seems as cumulative to me as getting the hazard limit reduced by two with Crept Along Carefully. Maybe the only wrong thing here is that Crept Along Carefully shouldn’t be cumulative?

Any thoughts on this? Any other examples that I might be missing?

Thanks in advance for your help

[Konrad Klar]

For Traitor: I think that there was two concepts of the card, first- action activated by failed cc (METW LE), second - action taken in lieu of normal result of failed cc (METW UE). CRF Errata breaks both.

For second version "Two Traitors have no extra effect and are both discarded with the next failed corruption check" makes sense. Two or more copies of Traitor set the same "in lieu" action, than cannot be performed in multiple paralel instances.

For first version, cc should trigger multiple ccs from multiple copies of Traitor ("After the attack the card is discarded"). "After the attack all copies of Traitor are discarded" would fizzle attacks triggered from other copies.

If Crept Along Carefully is duplicated, the hazard limit reductions are cumulative, but the three region movement restriction stays at three regions.

Is right.

“Because that’s the way passive conditions work”. Yeah, but where in the rules does it say that? In any other card game I know, two instances of Lure of Power would cause two different corruption checks.

Similarly to Traitor (METW LE). " Discard this card after the corruption check" not " Discard all copies of Lure of Power after the corruption check"
There was of proposal of errata that could fix the issue"
https://councilofelrond.org/forum/viewt ... wer#p31737


EDIT:
For second version "Two Traitors have no extra effect and are both discarded with the next failed corruption check."
->
For second version "Two Traitors have no extra effect and are both discarded with the next failed corruption check" makes sense.

[sarma72]

Here is my opinion.

I think the text in the cards you mentioned is sufficiently different that it grants such two different interpretations when it comes to cumulating effects.

Both Lure of Power and Traitor trigger once a certain condition is met (rallying a faction, failing a cc), after which there immediately follows an action to be resolved (a cc and becoming a Traitor etc). Then, both cards are meant to be discarded, Lure of Power after the effect is resolved (the cc) and Traitor after the condition to trigger is met (the cc fail), so that Traitor should be discarded even before the Traitor character does his/her backstabbing. I think the key here is that both Lure of Power and Traitor effect are immediate effects that cannot cumulate (ie. you cannot simultaneously roll two cc triggered by two Lure of Powers nor make a Traitor character twice because you have two Traitors cards on the table). At the same time, there is no indication that the trigger for discarding would apply only to one of multiple copies of Lure of Power or Traitor in play. The cc followed by one Lure of Power triggers the discarding of all Lure of Power(s). Likewise, all Traitor cards gets discarded once a character fails a cc.

On the other hand, I don't see a problem with the effect of two Crept Along Carefully duplicating. I think two copies would mean -2 to the hazard limit and two cards to be discarded to attempt cancelling an attack.

In short, I think one can always go by the card text when it comes to cumulating effects, with some card text being also specific when cards (and their effect) cannot be duplicated/cumulated.

[Konrad Klar]

If Lure of Power will be discarded by Marvels Told before cc-4 resolve, then cc-4 will not resolve, will fizzle.
Right?

Why actions from Traitor would resolve if Traitor is not in play at their resolution.
Remember that:

Annotation 9a: If a card is required to be discarded by some passive condition, the
card is discarded immediately when the condition resolves, not in the following chain
of effects.

So if to treat actions from Traitor as actions caused by passive condition, then

Card Erratum: Replace the last paragraph with "This card is discarded when a
character fails his corruption check."

effectively fizzles rest of them.
The same for "When the next character fails a corruption check, he becomes a 'traitor,' this card is discarded" from Traitor METW UE, if to treat the actions as actions caused by passive condition, not as action "in lieu" of normal result of failed cc.
Version from LE says "After attack, this card is discarded [...]"

[Konrad Klar]

Concept of actions caused by passive conditions has been introduced (or was built-in in game from beginning but it has been expressed later) to regulate some situations, not to make the game more complex, and not to make the game complicated.

The situations are situations when multiple actions described in texts of card(s) are activated in the same moment and/or when the action(s) are activated in middle of resolving chain of effects.*

What makes the game complicated is trying to apply the passive conditions rules to things that are neither actions activated by passive condition nor passive condition.

*) big omission is not covering the situations when they are activated not in middle of resolving chain of effects.

[Manuel]

Thank you so much for your help, there were insightful words for me here.