Ignore Terrain and Climbable (again)

[Zebo]



Point 7, if a model ignores terrain, it ignores ALL terrain traits.

 

 

Height is a terrain trait. 

Climbable: if a model ignores this trait it MAY still move vertically up and down along the sides of the terrain. It is not forced to move up an down, it's an option. 

 

So if a model ignore terrain (like Desper Laroux's Expert Getaway or Von Schill's Diving charge) it could climb to the top of a building without spending movement. 

Right? They ignore the Height and Climbable traits. 

Or am I wrong? 

[santaclaws01]

If that last sentence in climbable wasn't there models that ignore terrain would never be able to move up and down terrain in the first place, so no, they don't get to place on top of terrain without spending any movement.

[solkan]

7 hours ago, Zebo said:

Climbable: if a model ignores this trait it MAY still move vertically up and down along the sides of the terrain. It is not forced to move up an down, it's an option. 

 

So if a model ignore terrain (like Desper Laroux's Expert Getaway or Von Schill's Diving charge) it could climb to the top of a building without spending movement. 

How are you planning on climbing while you're ignoring Height?

Please take a moment and notice that the rules are organized (mostly) as:

* The big list of terrain traits.  This specifies the terrain traits and what they do.

* The callout box that specifies what happens when a model is unaffected by terrain.  

The end result is that you have a situation where if you have a rule that ignores this terrain trait, you ignore these specific parts of that terrain trait.

The FAQ doesn't currently do a great job of explaining this situation, but that's what's supposed to be happening.

In other words, if you have Incorporeal and you're about to deal with a Wall (Ht 2, Blocking, Climbable), the wall still exists.  When you try to figure out how the Incorporeal model interacts with the Wall, you go through each of the terrain traits, seeing what the effects are and which of those effects are removed when you ignore it (the callout box after the terrain traits).

The end result for Incorporeal vs. a wall is:

* You can move through the Impassible terrain if you have enough movement to do so.

* You can climb onto the wall like normal, because Climbable still functions even if you try to ignore it.

* There are no rules which are negated by attempting to ignore Height or Climbable.  Climbable has a statement reinforcing that position; Height doesn't.

In other words, in order to use the Climbable trait you have to use the Height trait.  That makes it sort of impossible to claim that Height has no effect.

Quote

What does “ignoring Terrain” mean?

a) A model that ignores Terrain ignores and is unaffected by all of that terrain’s traits. If the Terrain is Impassable, the model may move through (but not end in) the terrain as though it weren’t there.

or perhaps

Quote

What does “ignoring Terrain” mean?

a) A model that ignores Terrain ignores (that is, is unaffected by) all of that terrain’s traits. If the Terrain is Impassable, the model may move through (but not end in) the terrain as though it weren’t there.

and used the errata to put a reworded version of the last sentence in the "Unaffected by Terrain" callout.  (Or put a line somewhere also stating that ignoring Height doesn't change anything...)

In short, the Height terrain trait doesn't care whether you try to ignore it, it still does exactly what it says it does.

Edit:

The TLDR for the above is really "The FAQ saying 'ignores and is unaffected by' is essentially a typo.  It really should just say 'is unaffected by'".  

That 'ignores and' isn't really needed by anything, and any of the rules that want to ignore specific traits like Hazardous (*cough* Incorporeal *cough*) call those traits out specifically.

Hazardous, Climbable and Impassable should each have been added to the "Unaffected by Terrain" callout box, with pretty much obvious entries:

* Hazardous:  A model unaffected by Hazardous Terrain does not suffer any of the specified effects of that terrain.

* Climbable:  This trait cannot be ignored and models cannot be unaffected by it.

* Height:  This trait cannot be ignored, and models cannot be unaffected by it.

* Impassible:  The model can move through the terrain if it moves through the terrain completely and does not end in a position overlapping the terrain.

 But schedules, budgets, and multiple authors. 🤷‍♀️

 

[Zebo]

2 hours ago, solkan said:

Climbable:  This trait cannot be ignored and models cannot be unaffected by it.

I think this shouldn't be that way, because in Climbable trait models cannot move through Climbable terrain, and I think models ignoring terrain should be able to move through it. 

 

Then models cannot ignore terrain to climb for free, nor with Expert Getaway nor Diving Charge? 

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

 

Then models cannot ignore terrain to climb for free, nor with Expert Getaway nor Diving Charge? 

No model climbs for free.

And the rules you want to ignore aren't in the height terrain rules, so ignoring the height trait doesn't help you at all during movement. 

[Zebo]

Just now, Adran said:

No model climbs for free.

Flying models do. 

[santaclaws01]

13 minutes ago, Zebo said:

Flying models do. 

They don't climb for free. They place. Place is a movement effect that explicitly ignores height.

 

4 hours ago, solkan said:

* Climbable:  This trait cannot be ignored and models cannot be unaffected by it.

Climbable can be ignored, it just has a provision to it that makes it so that models that ignore terrain can choose to not ignore the climbable trait.

[LeperColony]

The specific controls the general.  That's a basic concept of rules analysis.

The climbable rules specifically allow models that ignore terrain to "move vertically."  It doesn't say for free (which, to be fair, isn't language Malifaux uses), there's no reason to believe it doesn't operate under the standard movement rules.

On 4/5/2020 at 12:39 PM, santaclaws01 said:

Climbable can be ignored, it just has a provision to it that makes it so that models that ignore terrain can choose to not ignore the climbable trait.

This is actually not accurate (though it's possible you were only referring to what ignore means in regards to verticality).  Climbable is still ignored, but the section under climbable explains how that interaction works for vertical movement.  Models that ignore climbable can still ignore the other aspects of it.  For instance, they can charge through it, even though ordinarily Climbable prevents charging through the terrain piece.