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What gets stopped by Sub Zero Trigger?


Hateful Darkblack

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The FAQ response:

3) Q: Rasputina’s Sub Zero Trigger states that it immediately ends the Attacker’s Activation. If a model Charges and Rasputina uses the Sub Zero Trigger on the first Attack, would the Attacker still get the second Attack from the Charge Action?

A: No. When the model ends its Activation it immediately proceeds to the end Activation step and it may do nothing further; it may not take any more Attacks, declare Triggers, or otherwise do anything it would normally do during its Activation. (1/22/16)

Note a charge is a 'actions causing actions' situation.

 

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Kirby, I think your investigation of Paralyzed actually gives a strong implication that the "intended" behavior is expected. This is the important bit:

1 hour ago, Kirby said:

Paralyzed (p62): ... If a model gains the Paralyzed condition during its Activation it loses all of its AP, may not take any more Actions, and ends its current Action with no effect.  Its Activation effectively moves to the "End Activation" step, with no further Actions taken by the model.

Emphasis mine. What that is saying is that when a model "loses all of its AP, may not take any more Actions, and ends its current Action with no effect", that is effectively the same thing as moving to the "End Activation" step. For that to be true, it must also be true that when a model moves to the "End Activation" step, it effectively "loses all of its AP, may not take any more Actions, and ends its current Action with no effect" - equivalence works both ways.

This isn't a RAW argument (the rules don't properly cover this situation, so RAW is useless). Instead, I'd say it's good evidence that in Justin's mind, the rules mechanism of Paralyzed is effectively equivalent to moving to the "End Activation" step. He just forgot to include that additional wording (or assumed it was implied) in the "End Activation" description.

Here's the bit that's silly: a model making attacks outside of its Activation (a Cerberus that has been Prompted by Colette, for example) can trigger additional attacks to its heart's content, completely ignoring the effect of Sub Zero. It genuinely would have been simpler and more consistent to state that the Attacker gains Paralyzed. (On the other hand, the current version means that Sub Zero is effective against models that are immune to Paralyzed.)

However, be very careful with this line of reasoning:

1 hour ago, Kirby said:

So now the question we have to ask: If Sub Zero was intended to do everything that Paralyzed does (force a model to cease all current actions and cannot take any further actions), why wasn't it simply written the exact same way but with the Sub Zero name to get around condition immunity?  We already have an example of this with Von Schill and his Hard To Kill aura that isn't actually HtK.  Was Sub Zero intended by the rule developer to be different from Paralyzed?  Is the strict RAW interpretation correct?

In an ideal world, it makes sense that any differences in wording between abilities must be deliberate and therefore significant. In the real world, mistakes happen! My suspicion here is that the Paralyzed rules and the Sub Zero rules were in development at the same time, and at one stage the Paralyzed rules produced a different effect to that desired for Sub Zero, so they were worded differently. Later in the development process their effects converged again, but it was already understood how Sub Zero worked so it was left as-is.

Finally, I'd like to point out that Rasputina and the whole Frozen Heart theme were extensively tested and balanced on the assumption that Sub Zero didn't allow additional actions from charges or triggers to continue after it took effect. Changing that assumption now would invalidate that process and unbalance the Frozen Heart theme, so it's unlikely to get any official support.

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From a strict Rules As Worded standpoint, it's weird.  On the one hand it seems to allow non-AP actions to continue, on the other it's pretty clear it's intended to stop a model in its tracks and no further actions continue.  This includes the second attack on a charge or any triggers that generate more attacks such as Overpower or Maul.  I know this sounds backwards at first glance, but from RAW appears to be allowed.

For what it's worth, I would choose to play it as it seems to be intended: the model stops dead in its tracks, ceases all further actions, the end.

Please read the following from a word exercise standpoint and reviewing Rules As Written.  I believe the Sub Zero rule should be clarified in an FAQ to state that it acts in the same manner as Paralyzed if that is the intent.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

First, let's look at the defensive trigger Sub Zero.

Sub Zero: After a model suffers damage from a Ml attack, immediately end the Attacker's Activation.

Next, let's define ending an activation.  To do so, look at the Steps of Activation, page 33 of the small book.

When a player Activates one of her controlled models the Activation follows these steps in order:

  1. Resolve "Activation" Effects
  2. Generate AP
  3. Take Actions
  4. End Activation

In a literal sense, when a defender declares the Sub Zero action, the Attacker's Activation immediately ends, meaning it moves to Step 4.  Now here's where it gets funky.  

Let's say a Sabertooth Cerberus charged Rasputina.  It hits once, still has the second swing of its charge and any Maul triggers it may get.  Rasputina declares and resolves Sub Zero, so the Sabertooth's Actiivation is immediately ended.  It is now in Step 4.

At first glance you are now in Step 4, having passed step 3, and so cannot take any more actions.  That would seem to include actions generated by other actions such as triggers or the second attack of a Charge.  However, even though Step 3 is titled "Take Actions", it would more aptly be called "Spend AP".

In the above situation, the Sabertooth went through the four steps.  Activated, resolved effects, generated 2 AP, and took a (2) AP Charge action, but after the first (1) Ml of the charge action its activation ended, so is now in Step 4.

So far, at first glance, that seems to be the end of it.  But here's the funky part and where Rules As Worded vs. Rules As Intended come in.  Earlier in this post I mention that Step 3 would be better named "Spend AP".  Let's look at what Step 3: Take Actions rules state.

Take Actions (p34): The modle now spends its AP on Actions.  Each Action costs a specified amount of AP (usually 1 or 2).  If the model does not have enough AP to spend on the Action, it cannot take the Action.

... A model is not required to spend all of its AP, but otherwise ends its Activation when it cannot take any more Actions.

So as you can see, during Step 3 you are not "taking actions" in the standard English sense of the phrase, but you are spending AP which allows you to take the actions with a corresponding cost.  This is a distinction because of the callout box for Actions Causing Actions (p36).

Actions Causing Actions: Some Actions will force or allow a model to take another Action. If an Action calls for another Action to be taken (such as Charge or Make a New Entry) then the additional Action or Actions do not cost any AP. The original Action is not considered resolved until the new Actions are also resolved.

So in our earlier example, the Sabertooth used a (2) Charge tactical Action.

Charge (p39): ... This model then takes two Rg :meleeAttack Actions against the target model. Each of these Actions must have an AP cost of 1.

So here we have a standard example of an Action  Causing Actions.  The (2) Charge causes two (1) :meleeattacks.  As clarified in the Leveticus FAQ, the Charge action encompasses the two (1) :melee actions, so it is fully resolved once both :melee actions have been fully resolved which includes any appropriate triggers.

Now that we are at the heart of the issue with rules defined above, let's go back to our Sabertooth and Rasputina.  After damaging from the first :melee attack, the Sabertooth was immediately moved to Step 4 per Sub Zero.  It is no longer in Step 3, so at first glance one could argue that it could no longer take actions.  It is literally out of the "Take Actions" step.  However, Step 3 only states that the model spends AP for actions during this Step.  Per Actions Causing Actions, the two attacks generated by Charge have no cost and do not involve spending any AP.  Even more perplexing, attacks generated by the Maul trigger (after damaging, take this Attack Action again against the same target) would also fall under the Actions Causing Actions clause and thus have no AP cost.  To go even further, Step 4 states nothing about stopping or ceasing to resolve any current actions.  

Again, Step 3 only states that it is the step where you spend AP to take actions of a corresponding value.  It does not state that it is the Step during which all actions during an activation are taken.  Even (0) Actions have a cost of 0, which you declare you are spending when you take the action.  A cost of 0 is different from an action with no cost (Actions Causing Actions).  This is why I feel Step 3 should be renamed "Spend AP", since its rule wording is different from "Take Actions".

So what we wind up with, strictly speaking from Rules As Worded, is the Sabertooth continues to resolve both its second attack and any Maul triggers it gets, likely winding up with a very dead Rasputina.

Now, don't get me wrong, this does not appear to be what is intended to happen.  What seems to be intended to happen is that the Sabertooth attacks, declares Maul trigger, Rasputina is hit and declares Sub Zero.  The Defender's trigger activates first, so the Sabertooth immediately stops.  It does not resolve its trigger and it does not finish resolving the Charge.

The problem, again, is in the wording.  Sub Zero does not state that it stops the current action.  Theoretically it doesn't need to; a model whose activation has ended is not intended to continue taking actions.  But, as we parsed earlier, that is not actually what the rules state.  That said, we could ask the question if Sub Zero is even intended to stop the action.  Contrast the wording with Paralysis.

Sub Zero: After a model suffers damage from a Ml attack, immediately end the Attacker's Activation.

Paralyzed (p62): ... If a model gains the Paralyzed condition during its Activation it loses all of its AP, may not take any more Actions, and ends its current Action with no effect.  Its Activation effectively moves to the "End Activation" step, with no further Actions taken by the model.

Note that Sub Zero does not state you cannot take any more Actions and it does not state to end the current Action.  The current action above was Charge, so to fully resolve it would include the second attack and any additionally triggered attacks.

Also note the phrase "effectively moves to the End Activation step".  It does not actually move there, but as noted in Step 3 a model that has no further AP to spend or cannot take actions has no logical option other than to move to the End Activation step.  But the End Activation step is not forced, and it still only means you're no longer in Step 3 which was the Spend AP step.

So now the question we have to ask: If Sub Zero was intended to do everything that Paralyzed does (force a model to cease all current actions and cannot take any further actions), why wasn't it simply written the exact same way but with the Sub Zero name to get around condition immunity?  We already have an example of this with Von Schill and his Hard To Kill aura that isn't actually HtK.  Was Sub Zero intended by the rule developer to be different from Paralyzed?  Is the strict RAW interpretation correct?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, again, the rule seems to be intended to act just like Paralyzed but get around condition immunity - the Attacker immediately stops its current trigger resolution and does not get the second :melee generated from resolving the Charge action.  But Rules as Worded?  It appears that Charges, Flurry, and triggered additional attacks are scary things for Rasputina.

If you read this far, I hope you had fun and I am happy to discuss anything in here! :D 

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Oh yeah, I definitely agree that the intended interpretation is that it's effectively Paralyzed without being Paralyzed.  Although, as you mentioned, Prompt, Obey, etc. all get around the trigger entirely since it happens after being damaged, that model is not activated, and it does not apply a condition.  Perhaps if we do get an FAQ/Errata that may also be addressed unless it's intentional.

So here's another fun aspect with the initial RAW activation ended but still resolving actions.  Models such as Cursed Hounds or Wild Boars that get a :+fate when attacking out of their activation would then get a :+fate on that second Charge attack since its activation ended.

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Just a side note. I cannot fully understand why this wouldn't get official support. I'm not privy to Justin's intent, wasn't part of any beta testing, nor would I really know what a rule is intended to be. I just read the rules as written and understand sub zero to operate differently as paralyze when interacting with flurry, pig charges, etc...

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I don't know.  When you're arguing about the rules as written and ignoring the name of a phase (arguing that Step 3 isn't actually the Take Actions phase), I think the argument is flawed.

According to the Take Actions phase rules:

When a model has taken all the Actions it wishes to, it moves to the End Activation phase. A model is not required to spend all of its AP, but otherwise ends its Activation when it cannot take any more Actions.

According to that, ending activation in 'end the attacker's activation' is defined in the same way as kill in 'kill target model'.

In other words, the "may not take any more actions" wording in Paralyzed is redundant (and probably overly dramatic, since it doesn't stop a model from being obeyed to perform actions...)

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39 minutes ago, malekhant said:

Just a side note. I cannot fully understand why this wouldn't get official support. I'm not privy to Justin's intent, wasn't part of any beta testing, nor would I really know what a rule is intended to be. I just read the rules as written and understand sub zero to operate differently as paralyze when interacting with flurry, pig charges, etc...

If Justin feels that the rule "as written" doesn't match the intent, and that there's widespread misunderstanding about how it should be played, then it will be clarified in an FAQ. All I'm saying is that I think it's unlikely that clarification will end up in favour of continuing with additional actions after Sub Zero is triggered. If the rule were intended to work that way, the fact that everyone was playing it incorrectly would have been noted during the testing process.

It's an interesting phenomenon how rules like this, which have been consistently assumed to work a certain way for several years, are starting to be questioned as the game matures. In some cases this is motivated by a deliberate attempt to change the balance (or perceived imbalance) of the game, and in others it's simply people examining their assumptions and wanting to allay their doubts. In most cases, the consistent assumption has been supported.

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I know it has no impact on the rules argument, but glancing at it, I would never question that Sub Zero effectively is Paralyze+.  I do very strongly understand the issues presented, and I feel there is a bit of messy cross inference to be drawn from a few of the rules involving Actions.  Specifically I find that "Actions Causing Actions" leads me to the most misled conclusions, most recently with Mei Feng's Conflux Re-write.  Frankly, while I understand fully the intention, I can not see how the Actions Causing Actions side-bar does not cause the phrase:

"Until the end of the Turn, friendly Leaders which target the Scrap Marker with an Action gain +6 Ca for the duration of the Action, and then discard the Marker after completing the Action (if further Actions are generated by a Trigger, the Marker is discarded before declaring them)."

To last through triggered Railwalker Actions, since they are caused by the original Action, which is from my impression of things, still going on, e.g. still during the duration.  Discarding the Scrap Marker I understand as breaking the chain if there are no other targets, since she can no longer target that individual Scrap Marker, but if she can hop to another Construct?  I don't see why the rules support her no longer having the +6 Ca.  Even though it has been strongly impressed upon me that this is clearly how it is meant to work.  (Sorry Aaron).

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

In an ideal world, it makes sense that any differences in wording between abilities must be deliberate and therefore significant. In the real world, mistakes happen!

I think it's not fair to assume that differences in wordings are strictly meant to have different rules, unless within that set of rules they define those terms.  Observing differences in parlance is simply not a strong enough reason.  And while I love the concept of a comprehensive rule set (I often look at Magic: The Gathering as an inspired set of rules), sometimes it simply does not have an easy time being that way.  Especially with a miniatures game, where the basic rules are not a living document that can simply be altered at will (As with Magic, which has very public rules).  So it's fair that as they find new turns of phrases that function better at what they are hoping to accomplish are more or less suitable than previous phrases, despite mirrored intentions.

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

My suspicion here is that the Paralyzed rules and the Sub Zero rules were in development at the same time, and at one stage the Paralyzed rules produced a different effect to that desired for Sub Zero, so they were worded differently. Later in the development process their effects converged again, but it was already understood how Sub Zero worked so it was left as-is.

I think it's even more important to point out that the whole of the rule set, at the time of Wave 1 (Or simply the release of M2E), was under a rather large flux.  Plus Rasputina and the Sub Zero rules were part of that first Wave, giving them the least foresight into their own rule documentations.  Had Rasputina been held back for a later release, I am fairly certain that it would have been worded a bit differently.  Although perhaps the issue is really with a few of the seemingly conflicting basic rules, and they wouldn't have really had a chance to alter those core values.

 

Either way, Hateful, I think it's easy enough to at least bring it to the attention of the opponent and discuss it.  Assuming that your club or group of friends does not simply have house rules in place.  At the very least, if someone does want to argue to the ends of the Earth in favor of the less-likely rule intention you'll be able to gather the important fact that, perhaps that player is not quite worth trying to game against.  Most strictly RAW proponents in any game are the scourge of gaming :).

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I am struggling to find any ambiguity in the wording of sub zero.   "...immediately end the attacker's activation" does not, for me, provide any wiggle room for interpretation.

"immediately" is redundant, however the redundancy provides emphasis on the interpretation of the timing: immediately--right away--without delay--instantaneously.  Whichever synonym you choose, once MI damage is inflicted the attacker stops and can do nothing more.  It ends its activation.  

Defining the attacker does would create an issue if one assumes that a prompted or obeyed model is the attacker, but I don't think they are.  If Zoraida prompts my ice gamin to kill my Wendigo, does Zoraida get to count the kill towards Reckoning?  Of course she does--she is the active model and she controls the attack.  Consistency demands that she is also considered the attacker for sub zero and so would end her activation immediately if sub zero is triggered, which would simultaneously free the obeyed model from the obey action.

 

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I'm pretty sure that if Zoraida obeys someone to kill a model on the same crew as it, then she won't get to count it for reckoning. 

 

Kirby

If you made step 3 spend AP, then you wouldn't be able to do a (0) action. Where as Take actions, still allows you to do so.  Especially since Spend AP is actually a stage of taking an action. 

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29 minutes ago, paradoxstorm said:

Defining the attacker does would create an issue if one assumes that a prompted or obeyed model is the attacker, but I don't think they are.  If Zoraida prompts my ice gamin to kill my Wendigo, does Zoraida get to count the kill towards Reckoning?  Of course she does--she is the active model and she controls the attack.  Consistency demands that she is also considered the attacker for sub zero and so would end her activation immediately if sub zero is triggered, which would simultaneously free the obeyed model from the obey action.

 

She neither gets a point for Reckoning nor is her Activation ended. She Attacked the Ice Gamin (and didn't kill it) and the Ice Gamin Attacked the Wendigo (which is a friendly model to it, so no effect for Reckoning) and the Wendigo's trigger only affect the model which attacked it (the Ice Gamin).

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11 hours ago, Adran said:

Kirby

If you made step 3 spend AP, then you wouldn't be able to do a (0) action. Where as Take actions, still allows you to do so.  Especially since Spend AP is actually a stage of taking an action. 

This is covered in the call-out box for (0) Actions, and as noted in my post a cost of 0 is not the same as having no cost.  The cost of 0 is defined and has its own restrictions which is why Actoins Creating Actions does not create more (0) Actions, it creates no-cost actions.

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Sorry I'm seeing this a few days late, but I thought I'd chime in.

I am of the opinion that Sub Zero stops all extra attacks, pushes, etc.  Here's why:

1. Defender triggers are resolved first per pg 26 of the mini rulebook ("4. Declare One Trigger")

2. Triggers are resolved before any Abilities per pg 51 of the mini rulebook ("General Timing" callout)

This means that the attacking model's activation is immediately over after suffering damage, since Sub Zero will go before any other effects with the same timing.

 

There's an argument that being moved to the End Activation step does not stop triggers and such from being resolved (based on the Actions causing Actions callout on pg 36).  But what is actually allowed to happen during the End Activation step?  Per pg 34 of the mini rulebook ("End Activation"), you resolve anything that has "at the end of this model's activation" timing, lose any unspent AP, and end the Activation.  That's it.  You do not resolve any other effects during this time unless they specify "end-of-activation" timing.

 

And rules aside, it seems odd to me that you can walk up to Raspy and say "yeah okay my activation is over, but let me finish my activation first..."  :huh:  Also, I think the reason the trigger did not simply hand out Paralyzed like people are suggesting is because then you could trigger it against out-of-activation attacks and get Paralyzed on the attacking model with no chance to resist, all for the cost of one :tome.


Then again, I just sold my entire Raspy crew, so maybe I shouldn't be arguing this for the sake of Ironsides and Mei Feng.  ;)

Edit: typo and clarification

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