Sloth's Df Trigger confusion

[DocSchlock]

I'm putting this here in hopes of starting a strong enough discussion to be included in an upcoming FAQ. This is throwing my local player group for a loop with no good, solid answer being available.

Sloth has a DF trigger that reads "After this model fails, the Attacker immediately ends its Activation."

"After this model fails" is not the game-defined term for triggers "after failing," meaning we have to interpret in common language, so the trigger resolves at success / failure before the damage flip of the Action, meaning there is no damage flip or Action effects. That makes this trigger very, very powerful and we want to know if that was the intent, since writing it as "After failing, immediately end the Attacker's Activation." would adhere to the normal timing rules while still being clear.

I am aware Malifaux is written to be read with common sense, but the intent here is not clear and if a game-defined term can be rewritten like that then defining a specific term or phrase in the context of the game means absolutely nothing.

[Dogmantra]

After this model fails and after failing are the same thing afaik.

Malifaux can be inconsistent with its wordings and it's difficult to get used to, and mostly the inconsistencies are because it's really only a couple of people at Wyrd writing the entire rulesets, in addition to space requirements on the cards.

Generally if the words are all there but in a slightly different order, it's the same thing. It's really hard for me too, but try not to read too much into minor wording discrepancies.

[solkan]

Quote

Df () Just Lay Down: After this model fails, the Attacker immediately ends its Activation.

Quote

Df () Sub Zero: After this model suffers damage from a Ml Attack, immediately end the Attacker’s Activation.

The relevance of the Sub Zero FAQ is is "What does 'immediately end activation' mean?", not "When does this trigger resolve?"

From the rules for declaring triggers for an opposed duel:

Quote

Next, the other model may announce it is using a Trigger if it meets the Trigger’s requirements. A Trigger’s effect is resolved immediately unless another time is indicated in its description, as it may be resolved later. Some common timing terms used in Triggers are:

•After succeeding: These effects are resolved after Step 5, and only if the model with this Trigger wins the duel.
•After failing: These effects are resolved after Step 5, and only if the model with this Trigger fails the duel.

•After resolving: These effects happen after Step 5 regardless of who wins the duel.

•After damaging: These effects happen after Step 5 and only if the target suffers 1 or more damage from the Action. These effects are resolved before the damaged model is removed if it was killed by the damage.

If two Triggers would resolve at the same time the Defender's Trigger is resolved first.

'after his model suffers damage' isn't the weird defender-only counter part to 'After damaging'. 

There are main important points here:

1.  "A Trigger’s effect is resolved immediately unless another time is indicated in its description, as it may be resolved later."

2.  The four most common timing terms (across all abilities and actions) are defined by the rules to fit the "unless another time is indicated in its description".

To take the example from the FAQ:

Quote

7) Q: How does the timing for the Safe In My Bed Trigger work? When does The Dreamer discard his card, is it before or after determining damage? Will defensive Abilities such as Impossible To Wound come into play for the Nightmare which suffers the effects?

A: The card is discarded after determining that The Dreamer lost the duel but before determining any damage. Safe In My Bed does not use any of the keywords which have a specific timing in the book, so it must be applied when it says, which is “after an Attack Action succeeds against this model,” so immediately after the duel, but before determining damage. If the new target has any defensive Abilities such as Impossible to Wound or Armor, apply them as normal. However, things which happen when determining a target, such as Terrifying, will not come into play.

'After an Attack Action succeeds against this model' is neither 'After failing' nor how to express the receiving end of 'After succeeding'.  Because of that, you resolve the trigger's effects at the time specified.  That's also why Sub Zero interrupts the process.  If you have a bunch of models under blasts and she's declared Sub Zero, don't resolve Rasputina first. 

Secondary to that is the fact that the actual use of those four common triggers in the rules in some cases involves the fact that the triggers aren't considered separate from the action, any more than it matters that something like Bete Noir's Rusty Knives action is written backwards (because of the rules conventions):

 

Quote

(1) Paired Knives (Ml 6 / Rst: Df / Rg: 1): Target suffers 2/3/4 damage. This Action’s Attack flip receives .

By the rules writing conventions, this action's effects are specified backwards--it tells you about the damage flip and then tells you about the modifier to the duel. 

On the other hand, there are enough effects specified in 'After succeeding' clauses that the rulebook could use a FAQ or errata to state something like:
 

Spoiler

 

•After succeeding: [Warning: Modified]  These effects are resolved only if the model with this Trigger wins the duel.  If the effects specified by the trigger modify the resolution of the action, apply those effects in Step 5, otherwise apply the effects After Step 5.

•After failing: [Warning: Modified]  These effects are resolved only if the model with this Trigger fails the duel.  If the effects specified by the trigger modify the resolution of the action, apply those effects in Step 5, otherwise apply the effects After Step 5.

 

because that appears to be how things like Taelor's Relic Hammer's Crushing Blow and From the Heavens have been written and how they end up being played in practice.  And I think there are enough of the misbehaving 'After succeeding' triggers that it's fewer words to change to correct the rulebook definition of the trigger than to fix the wordings on the cards.

Relevant to both Frozen Heart and Just Lay Down is the easy to overlook sentence in the Declare Triggers rules:  If two Triggers would resolve at the same time the Defender's Trigger is resolved first.  That's what's going to prevent the action from resolving actions granted by triggers.

 

[MrDeathTrout]

DocSchlock,

I asked this same question a while back and there was no cut and dried rule on the timing of "after failing".  The consensus was that Sloths Trigger works the way it seems it should.  The attacker resolves the current action before the trigger takes effect, though there were no rules we could find to definitively point one direction or the other.  I'm very much a RAW guy, but there are too many things I found in Malifaux that until the rule set is tightened up I have to be a RAI guy to some extent.

Here's a great example.  Look at Taylor's "Crushing Blow: After succeeding, this Attack ignores Armor and Hard to Kill" trigger.  RAW she doesn't ignore Armor or Hard to Kill until after the attack is resolved, so it wouldn't do anything for her, but we all know what they mean and I've never heard anyone suggest it be played RAW.

 

[MrDeathTrout]

22 hours ago, Bengt said:

I'm pretty sure Taelor's triggers was a brainfart/copy paste error by the developer as "After Succeeding" has a clearly defined timing that doesn't make sense for them. As such it's a poor example to bring up for anything. Justin has said that he really don't want the FAQ document to get too large so he is not going to put stuff in there that may be wrong but people understand how it's supposed to be played, like Taelor's triggers.

I think you misunderstood the intent of the example.  The fact that Taelor's trigger "has a clearly defined timing that doesn't make sense for them." is exactly what makes it the perfect example for RAW vs RAI.  Since we know RAW is nowhere near RAI, this trigger shows that sometimes you just have to throw RAW out the window and apply this line from the FAQ "...when in doubt, please interpret them with a grain of common sense. The easiest way to misinterpret a rule is to overthink it."

[MrDeathTrout]

1 hour ago, Bengt said:

Taelor is (IMO) obviously a misprint that Justin consider to insignificant to clutter up the FAQ with. As a misprint it gives no guidance for interpreting anything else.

Whether or not it is a misprint that is what is written on the card and shows that some times we need to use common sense when interpreting the rules.  We cannot always doggedly adhere to what is printed.  Your opinion is that this is so obviously not what was intended that it is not even worthy of a FAQ entry.  I agree with that.  Why can't the same log apply to Sloth?

[Sault]

9 minutes ago, MrDeathTrout said:

I agree it is not as cut and dry, but IMHO they did not intend to make Sloth immune to attack and possibly end the attacker's activation if he has a crow.  The rules that justify this interpretation are murky at best.  IMHO the Taylor principle applies: "The easiest way to misinterpret a rule is to overthink it."

 

I don't think interpreting a rule is a good way to go which goes back to OP's point. We don't know the timing and both interpretations are viable within the core rules. Needing to interpret a rule every time I play someone new means the rule should receive an official interpretation.

[DocSchlock]

Not to be smart (seriously, no insult is meant by these questions), but can you point me to where in the rulebook the game-defined term "after failing" (which means when this exact term appears in the rules, apply this effect) is equivalent to "after this model fails"? Or where the rulebook says I am allowed to redefine game-defined terms?

The problem is, there are some rules where it's just a rewording and thus benign, and there are some where the intent is completely different, and there's not a uniform application of these two states. Look at Dreamer's Safe in My Bed - I had a lot of people telling me this was obviously an "after succeeding" effect just reworded against the Dreamer, but lo, new FAQ came out saying it's not, its timing is as written.

In the card space argument, this makes no sense, since the actual game-defined term takes less space than what was written. The multiple authors is a valid reason, but should have been caught since there were fewer models in the last beta. Having game-defined terms and not using them is a confusing thing to do (esp without a note in the rulebook saying game-defined terms are actually not very well-defined or can be reworded), as evidenced by my play group, so we draw the conclusion that it was intentionally written this way, making Sloth have one of the strongest Df triggers in the game.

[Dogmantra]

38 minutes ago, DocSchlock said:

Not to be smart (seriously, no insult is meant by these questions), but can you point me to where in the rulebook the game-defined term "after failing" (which means when this exact term appears in the rules, apply this effect) is equivalent to "after this model fails"? Or where the rulebook says I am allowed to redefine game-defined terms?

This isn't the answer you wanted to hear and it's not really the one I wanted to give, but there isn't one, it's just how the game is, for another example, declaring and taking an action are the same thing. It's something I also still struggle with, but you have to learn to interpret it.

 

Edit:

To add to that - Ending the Activation doesn't include ending the action itself I don't believe. The way I read it, it stops the enemy model spending any more AP. So Raspy's Owerpower and KillJoys Onslaught triggers would still work (as they are part of the action which caused the Def Trigger) but they wouldn't be able to spend any further AP. 

The recent FAQ covered Rasputina's Sub Zero trigger which I would assume applies to all end a model's activation effects:

"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)"

[DocSchlock]

Sub Zero's ruling does not apply here since it occurs "after this model suffers damage from a Ml Attack," which is already occurring after the damage flip of the action. My question is in relation to a trigger timing possibly going before Damage is flipped.

Your response is actually the response I want - it's proving my point for me regarding the level of ambiguity. It shouldn't be like this and it can be improved, we just have to talk about it.

Declare Action is the first Step in the Action Resolution steps, page 35 small rulebook.

[baggined]

  I've been trying to figure out how to properly put my confusion into a coherent thought and MrDeathTrout has brought up two great points that help me do that.  It's not my intention to attack his ideas, but they do give me a great stepping point to illustrate where my confusion comes from at least.

  So first off, he brings up the consensus from his previous question and that makes total sense.  'After failing' would allow you to complete the current action and then Sloth's trigger would take effect. Cool, seems to be perfectly reasonable.

  Now, if we look at the example with Taelor's Crushing Blow.   Here 'After Succeeding' could only mean directly after succeeding on the duel, before going to do the damage flip or anything else.  And I agree with this, definitely RAI.  So if we extrapolate this to go with the idea that 'After succeeding' means directly after the duel, we come to my first point of confusion: 'After Succeeding' and 'After Failing' seem to be the same tense, so one could assume that they take place at the same time.  So if we take this as a basis for our logic, then Sloth's trigger would stop the action right after failing the duel...so no damage flip, nothing.  This contradicts with the first point, that the consensus was that the action is resolved and then Sloth's trigger kicks in.

  Okay, so directly applying the same logic as we do with Taelor's trigger may not be the correct route.  Maybe we need to look at these triggers on a case by case basis, 'what makes sense to happen' RAI.  So, with Crushing Blow, by this logic, we look at it and say 'Oh yea, ignoring Armor and Hard to Kill needs to be applied before damage flips, otherwise it won't do anything.'  This is pretty easy to reason out.  So, only looking at Sloth the argument could be made that 'hey, this attack finishes resolving, then the activation ends' just like the consensus from your previous question. And that seems totally logical also, the action fails, so after failing would take place after the failed action resolves. 

  Now you have two points of view, the activation is ended right after failing the duel, with the other being that the activation is ended after resolving the action.   Both make sense and could probably be influenced by which side of the combat you are on

  To me this is what the issue with Sloth's trigger is: that we don't have either a hard timing ruling which to apply RAW nor do we have a message from any designer to tell use what the intention of Sloth's trigger is in order to apply RAI.  We would really only need one of these resolutions to be able to consistently apply Sloth's trigger.

[enderwiggin]

I don't think there is really two ways to look at "Ends it's activation", the timing could indeed have been tightened up but it works as-is really, it's just worded slightly off. Anyway ending it's activation has held pretty stable from the old paralyze argument from a flurry, you don't get the remaining actions whatever the trigger or ability states. You go straight to End Activation step and do not collect $200 dollars along the way.

[Bengt]

I'm pretty sure Taelor's triggers was a brainfart/copy paste error by the developer as "After Succeeding" has a clearly defined timing that doesn't make sense for them. As such it's a poor example to bring up for anything. Justin has said that he really don't want the FAQ document to get too large so he is not going to put stuff in there that may be wrong but people understand how it's supposed to be played, like Taelor's triggers.

[baggined]

Bengt, that's completely understandable, but I think the point is that people don't understand how Sloth's trigger is supposed to work.  Does Sloth's Trigger interrupt the action to end the activation, so the attacker would not get to do the damage flip OR does the attack action finish resolving before the attacker's activation ends.  In addition to that, what is the basis for the correct answer being correct?  Is there some rules basis for how "After this model fails" works or is there a developer intended way for this to work?

[Bengt]

1 minute ago, MrDeathTrout said:

I think you misunderstood the intent of the example.  The fact that Taelor's trigger "has a clearly defined timing that doesn't make sense for them." is exactly what makes it the perfect example for RAW vs RAI.  Since we know RAW is nowhere near RAI, this trigger shows that sometimes you just have to throw RAW out the window and apply this line from the FAQ "...when in doubt, please interpret them with a grain of common sense. The easiest way to misinterpret a rule is to overthink it."

Taelor is (IMO) obviously a misprint that Justin consider to insignificant to clutter up the FAQ with. As a misprint it gives no guidance for interpreting anything else.

[Bengt]

2 hours ago, MrDeathTrout said:

Whether or not it is a misprint that is what is written on the card and shows that some times we need to use common sense when interpreting the rules.  We cannot always doggedly adhere to what is printed.  Your opinion is that this is so obviously not what was intended that it is not even worthy of a FAQ entry.  I agree with that.  Why can't the same log apply to Sloth?

If you try to play Taelor's triggers RAW they do absolutely nothing, so you are "obviously" not supposed to play them like that. Sloth's problem is that it has an unknown timing and both the proposed to timings (interrupting the current Attack or taking effect after resolving the current Attack) does something so both are possible answers. Now I think the later is the more likely answer but I don't think it can be argued anywhere near as strongly as in Taelor's case.

[MrDeathTrout]

26 minutes ago, Bengt said:

If you try to play Taelor's triggers RAW they do absolutely nothing, so you are "obviously" not supposed to play them like that. Sloth's problem is that it has an unknown timing and both the proposed to timings (interrupting the current Attack or taking effect after resolving the current Attack) does something so both are possible answers. Now I think the later is the more likely answer but I don't think it can be argued anywhere near as strongly as in Taelor's case.

I agree it is not as cut and dry, but IMHO they did not intend to make Sloth immune to attack and possibly end the attacker's activation if he has a crow.  The rules that justify this interpretation are murky at best.  IMHO the Taylor principle applies: "The easiest way to misinterpret a rule is to overthink it."

 

[solkan]

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that only moderators and/or staff members can click the button to produce the "Best answer to this question" check mark.

So we do actually know that both Sloth and Gluttony's defensive triggers are "After failing" triggers, and that isn't ambiguous.

 

[mythicFOX]

17 hours ago, solkan said:

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that only moderators and/or staff members can click the button to produce the "Best answer to this question" check mark.

So we do actually know that both Sloth and Gluttony's defensive triggers are "After failing" triggers, and that isn't ambiguous.=

Please don't confuse my ability to flail buttons on the user interface with some sort of official decision on a rules matter.

[DocSchlock]

25 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Please take a look at Page 26 of the mini rulebook.

•After failing: These effects are resolved after Step 5, and only if the model with this Trigger fails the duel.

 

You're trying to counter my argument by using the same thing that supports my argument?

Justin already answered this in this month's FAQ - "after failing" and "after this model fails" have the same timing, meaning the rulebook should call out that "after failing" (or in fact all game-defined terms) can be written different ways, which it doesn't. It's a mild oversight that I've seen cause confusion time and again.

But this specific question is done and buried.

[Kogan Style]

To add to that - Ending the Activation doesn't include ending the action itself I don't believe. The way I read it, it stops the enemy model spending any more AP. So Raspy's Owerpower and KillJoys Onslaught triggers would still work (as they are part of the action which caused the Def Trigger) but they wouldn't be able to spend any further AP. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 2/28/2016 at 10:41 AM, DocSchlock said:

I'm putting this here in hopes of starting a strong enough discussion to be included in an upcoming FAQ. This is throwing my local player group for a loop with no good, solid answer being available.

Sloth has a DF trigger that reads "After this model fails, the Attacker immediately ends its Activation."

"After this model fails" is not the game-defined term for triggers "after failing," meaning we have to interpret in common language, so the trigger resolves at success / failure before the damage flip of the Action, meaning there is no damage flip or Action effects. That makes this trigger very, very powerful and we want to know if that was the intent, since writing it as "After failing, immediately end the Attacker's Activation." would adhere to the normal timing rules while still being clear.

I am aware Malifaux is written to be read with common sense, but the intent here is not clear and if a game-defined term can be rewritten like that then defining a specific term or phrase in the context of the game means absolutely nothing.

Please take a look at Page 26 of the mini rulebook.

•After failing: These effects are resolved after Step 5, and only if the model with this Trigger fails the duel.

 

[Flib Jib]

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