joediamond

Howard Langston Prompted three times is what causes these Prompt threads.  

I think the spell itself isn't a problem.  Like Carcosa said, you have to remember you are spending your master's AP for it.  What makes it really golden that she's got so many good targets for it.  I'm a little surprised it didn't follow the style of her other rules/abilities (i.e. Target Minion or Showgirl).

I don't know.  I can't read the design team's minds.  But what I CAN do is take Cassandra and a Malifaux Child for 2 extra prompts.  

Marcus Howls near a non-Beast model, giving them the "Hear the Call" Condition.  ("If this model is a Beast, it gains +2 WP.  If this model is not a Beast, it suffers -2 WP")

Then, Marcus' crew, sometime later in the same turn, gives this same model the Beast condition, through any of Marcus' various methods (Feral, Primal Awakening trigger, and so on).

My question is: Does the enemy model now have +2 WP instead of -2 from Hear the Call because it is now a Beast, or does the Condition only care about the model's characteristics at the moment when Marcus takes the Howl action?

(And visa versa, if say a model is temporarily given the Beast characteristic, Marcus Howls, and then the Beast characteristic is lost later on in the turn)

Thanks!

Uncontrolled detonation is not an "enemy Ca action" so Counterspell doesn't do anything.

I meant the spell requires 16    , so you need an extra tome from somewhere to cast it with your Alpha Ramos.  What I meant was if they have counterspell, you need to provide a bunch of extra suits...

• A   for the Counterspelled Feral
• A     for the Counterspelled Alpha
• A   to meet the TN of Uncontrolled Detonation

Sorry I was unclear about that.

Howl is a pulse that applies a Condition until the end of the turn.  The Condition modifies Wp based on whether the target is a Beast or not.

If Howl directly modified Wp, or applied a "beast +2WP" Condition and a "non-beast -2WP" Condition, then I'd totally agree.

-Counterspell will make this much more difficult to do, as you will need three suits as opposed to one.

-Howl will increase Ramos' Wp to a 8 when he becomes a Beast.

-Domesticate's debuff can be cancelled out using soulstones.  Also, if you use Domesticate to soften Ramos up for Alpha, you then need to focus or spend soulstones to cancel out the   on his casting attempts for Uncontrolled Detonation.

-Uncontrolled detonation requires a tome.  If Ramos has Counterspell in addition to this, that's even MORE suits that you need to flip/stone for.  What's worse is most of them are Tomes, so this is very taxing on a single suit in your deck.

Honestly, though, Brdparker's advice is much better.  Keep Marcus from being able to execute this at all instead of simply making it more costly/risky to do so.

I'm suggesting that Ht does not describe the length of a cylinder, it is not used like that anywhere else in the rules. Sure, I can see why someone would like to think of auras as finite cylinders, but I don't think the rules support it.

• "An aura is centered on a model and radiates out in all directions from the edge of the model's base." (Manual pg 58)
• "By default, all objects within the aura's area, including the model it is centered on, are affected by the aura..."  (Manual pg 58)
• "An aura has the same Ht as the model it comes from, unless specified otherwise." (Manual pg 58)
• "Ht is used for drawing LOS" (Manual pg 9)

Pg 59 has similar wording for pulses for the first three points, except pulses do not affect the source model.  Ht the stat is not to be confused with "height," the vertical dimension.

Auras/pulses affect an area (2D), not a volume (3D), and go out in all directions from the edge of the model's base.  If we are going to talk geometry, an aura appears to be a flat circle, NOT a cylinder.

Malifaux in general seems to stick to 2D, with some exceptions for 3D interactions.  I specifically cannot find anything that says a model is anything but a flat base.  All checks are done from base edge to base edge.  The vertical portion of a model doesn't appear to exist in the rules at all.

Basically, two simple steps to auras and pulses (similar to many abilities/actions): 1) You check the range as normal using the range specified by the aura/pulse, then 2) check LOS (taking the Ht stat of the aura/pulse into consideration), excluding any models that are out of LOS from the aura/pulse effects.

Yes pulses and auras don't go down so if Huggy was standing on ht2 or greater terrain Then neither fleshie nor illuminated would be effected.

 

the Ht of pulses and auras does not go down. I always operated on the premise that you only needed LoS and to be within range, I never noticed that the Ht is as tall as the model, so I can understand why if Nicodem is in a Ht 2 structure he affects nothing that is Ht 2 or lower with his auras 

Can someone please tell me where this notion of 3D auras/pulses is from?  I know in 1.5 Auras/Pulses were more of an "infinite cylinder" sort of deal, but as far as I can tell from the rules manual, you only need to be within range and LOS of the source.  Page 14 of the Rules Manual says all measurements are done from a top down perspective, so the range part is pretty obvious from what I can tell.  Auras/Pulses do have a Ht stat (usually equal to the source's Ht), but Ht, as far as I can tell, is almost exclusively used for LOS (interactions like Devour and Grab and Drop being examples of exceptions).

The Ht stat doesn't even have a set dimension, as far as I can tell.  You assign terrain a Ht value based on it's height in inches (RM Pg 73), and it is assumed to correlate to inches when looking at Vantage Point terrain (RM pg 42), but the Ht stat itself appears to be dimensionless, like Df or Wp.  All that is said about the stat is: "The model's relative height in the game.  Ht is used when drawing LOS." (RM pg 9).

Auras/Pulses seem to just require range and LOS (RM pg 58/59).  Am I missing something here?  Rules/FAQ/Errata references would be helpful.  I've been looking through them, but I can't see what you are referring to when you say "auras and pulses don't go down."  And if they don't in fact go down, where does it say they go up?

Ahh gotcha.  Sadly, it seems like I am at work when all of the Malifaux is happening!  

Thanks everyone for all of your replies though.  I'm glad to see Portland Malifaux is alive and well.  If my schedule changes, I'll be sure to swing by sometime!

Malifaux players in the Portland area:  When/where is a good place to find a game of Malifaux these days?  I'm looking to cheat some fate.  

Thanks!

How does the Mood Swing Condition interact with Chain Activations, specifically via the Companion or Accomplice abilities.  Can a Pandora/Candy player force a player to Chain Activate a model with Mood Swing, if it is eligible to do so thanks to Companion or Accomplice?  Essentially I am asking if it counts as the model's controller having "an opportunity to Activate a model" for the purposes of using Mood Swing.

If this is legal, and you can indeed force a model to Chain Activate if it is eligible to do so, I have another question:

Marcus casts Alpha on a model.  However, he is within 6" of a different friendly model that is eligible for a Chain Activation (via Accomplice) that has the Mood Swing Condition.  What happens if the Pandora/Candy player wants them to activate the Mood Swing model?

Or am I just overthinking this, and does Mood Swing not interact with Chain Activations at all?