Faq rulling and A Por El.

[CustardBomb]

Hey all! A friend of mine pointed out this rulling in the FAQ 

The query is since this rulling specifies that once per activation effects cannot occur outside of an activation. 

And the wording of A Por El specifies that it happens 'after this model ends its activation

That the action generated from A Por El cannot be concentrate, and cannot use the familey values trigger or any other once per activation effect. 

I would realy love any input to refute this as it hurts the family keyword a lot but as it stands the rulling seem consistent. 

[LeperColony]

So just considering the actual text, I agree your friend's position has some merit.  However, this came up in the Swampfiends podcast discord a few weeks ago, and someone there was able to screenshot a post from the Wyrd forums with a ruling that said "after the end of activation" happens during the activation, at the same time as "at the end."  Why they think "after" and "at" mean the same thing is unclear to me, but at least for this purpose, they do.

So the action generated by A Por El! happens during the original model's activation.

[CustardBomb]

I will try hunt down that post! Any idea which part of the forum it was in?

 

Whoops managed to read over discord. 

 

Any chance you could with up the screenshot for me if it's easy to find? 

[LeperColony]

I couldn't find the actual post, but here's the screenshot that was shared on the Swampfiends discord.

 

To me, this is a very poorly thought out ruling.  "After" is not the same as "at," and in my opinion, the better way to resolve these issues is to admit that the cards were incorrectly worded rather than try and pretend the phrases are equivalent.

 

They should have issued an errata that changed A Por El's wording to be "at" rather than after.  By pretending "after" means "at," what they've done is shrunk their own design space and made it harder for us to derive logical resolutions to unclear wordings.

   

[CustardBomb]

Brilliant thanks! 

[Maniacal_cackle]

This has come up before on the forums and discussed at length, but basically the reason some like myself argue it works fine is:

• In several areas, it is pretty clear to me that an activation is meant to be steps 1-4 of step C
  • For example, see on page 35, where you can see from the templating that 'activation' includes steps 1-4.
• Step 3 of the Activation step is when you resolve A Por El (this is still inside the activation step C1-4)

If you still have questions and can't find the old thread on the subject, I can try to dig it up for you.

6 hours ago, LeperColony said:

Why they think "after" and "at" mean the same thing is unclear to me, but at least for this purpose, they do.

In Malifaux, 'after' doesn't have its regular English meaning. It has a special meaning defined on page 34:

Quote

Most Abilities are passive and always in effect, but some occur as a result of another game effect. In these cases, the Ability will use the word “After.” These Abilities happen after the effect in question is resolved.

Essentially the word 'after' primarily exists to ensure you resolve things one at a time. If they introduced the word 'at' as you suggest, then sometimes they'd have to say 'after' and sometimes 'at' for the same rules effect.

[Maniacal_cackle]

If it helps clear things up, some other areas where "after" doesn't actually mean the English "after":

• If something happens 'after' damage, it actually happens in step 5 (page 34) of damage (DURING the damage being resolved).
• If something happens 'after' a model is killed, it actually happens in steps 6a-6c (page 34) of damage (BEFORE the model is actually killed).

So sometimes in Malifaux, 'after' actually means 'before', or 'during', or 'at the end of.' All that 'after' actually ends up meaning is "this happens in a particular point in time, it is a one off ability - not a passive ability."

[LeperColony]

32 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Essentially the word 'after' primarily exists to ensure you resolve things one at a time. If they introduced the word 'at' as you suggest, then sometimes they'd have to say 'after' and sometimes 'at' for the same rules effect.

This doesn't establish anything like what you're claiming.  An ability that says "after this model ends its Activation" would happen after the "effect in question" is resolved.  In this case, the "effect in question" is the "end [of] its activation."  So anything that is "after" the end "end of [its] Activation" would, both by plain English and the text on page 34, be subsequent to the conclusion of the activation.

There's no textual justification for this ruling, it's just a shoehorn.  Pretty much identical to how they ruled "another" works.

36 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Essentially the word 'after' primarily exists to ensure you resolve things one at a time. If they introduced the word 'at' as you suggest, then sometimes they'd have to say 'after' and sometimes 'at' for the same rules effect.

This is also inaccurate.  The rules already use the wording "at the end of this model's Activation."  My point is that @mattc's ruling makes "after this model ends its Activation" essentially the same as "at the end of this model's Activation."  It's true that technically they resolve after "at the end" effects, but since they are still occurring during the model's activation (despite being "after" the activation's end) and before C4, there is very little functional difference.    

Which, actually, is probably a positive in this interpretation, because if the practical significance of the timing were substantial, it would be exactly the sort of kitty-corner distinctions that are often difficult for players to master and tend to lead to gotchas.

The entire point of temporal wording is to establish an order of things.  A clear reading (and the actual rules) of "after" places the effect subsequent to another defined event or effect.  In this case, the defined effect is the end of the activation.  If the activation has ended, then under both page 34 and English grammar, we are no longer in the activation.  You cannot be in something that has ended.

But instead, they've chosen to shoehorn it into the activation, and place it after C3 and before C4 (so essentially C3.5).  The ruling has created a new timing step, which was probably inevitable no matter how it was ruled.  But the timing step they did create is so corner case that it's hard to imagine what they've gained by maintaining the incredibly tiny distinction between "after the end" and "at the end."

41 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

• If something happens 'after' damage, it actually happens in step 5 (page 34) of damage (DURING the damage being resolved).
• If something happens 'after' a model is killed, it actually happens in steps 6a-6c (page 34) of damage (BEFORE the model is actually killed).

Neither of these help your case, and we've already gone over why they don't in the other thread.

Just because something happens during the effect's resolution sequence doesn't mean they don't happen "after" the effect has occured.

Step 5 says that anything that "happens after a model is damaged" occurs in this period.  The effect itself could then prevent or eliminate the damage.  That doesn't mean it wasn't resolved "after [the] model [was] damaged."  "After" event X is the timing, not the effect.

It's the exact same for "after a model is killed."  This case is particularly ironic for you, given your attempt to find a distinction between the common meaning of "after" and the text on page 34 (which actually isn't any different from the common English meaning).  Because here, the game is telling us that "killed" does have a special meaning.  It indicates the model has been brought to 0 health (or, presumably been killed through something like Execute, though I don't see that included on page 34).  

"After" being killed doesn't mean the model has actually been killed.  It means subsequent to the effect that brought the model to 0 health, you then generate the "after killed" effect.

For some reason, you seem to believe that a model that is reduced to 0 health and yet lived (for instance because of Demise Eternal) somehow invalidates "after" timing.  But not only doesn't it invalidate "after," Demise effects work specifically because "after" defines a timing step subsequent to another defined event.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I think we've had this exact conversation before.

@CustardBomb, you can look up the old thread if you want to see what it was all about.

[santaclaws01]

8 hours ago, LeperColony said:

I couldn't find the actual post, but here's the screenshot that was shared on the Swampfiends discord.

 

To me, this is a very poorly thought out ruling.  "After" is not the same as "at," and in my opinion, the better way to resolve these issues is to admit that the cards were incorrectly worded rather than try and pretend the phrases are equivalent.

 

They should have issued an errata that changed A Por El's wording to be "at" rather than after.  By pretending "after" means "at," what they've done is shrunk their own design space and made it harder for us to derive logical resolutions to unclear wordings.

   

That looks like a private message, which is probably why you can't find the post.

[solkan]

10 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

If it helps clear things up, some other areas where "after" doesn't actually mean the English "after":

• If something happens 'after' damage, it actually happens in step 5 (page 34) of damage (DURING the damage being resolved).
• If something happens 'after' a model is killed, it actually happens in steps 6a-6c (page 34) of damage (BEFORE the model is actually killed).

So sometimes in Malifaux, 'after' actually means 'before', or 'during', or 'at the end of.' All that 'after' actually ends up meaning is "this happens in a particular point in time, it is a one off ability - not a passive ability."

I agree with the spirit of your definition, but quibble about the details.  I think it would be more clearly stated as "as soon as something has been resolved, before anything else not 'after' it happens."

So you end up with "after resolving an action" things happening during the action resolution steps, "after ending activation" things happening during the action (at the very end of it), and so on.  "after damaging" and "after killing" are probably really good examples in this edition, just because of all of the mess that happened in the previous edition.

"At the end of this model's activation" happen in whatever order during Step 3.  Then, effectively as the last part of Step 3, "after this model ends its activation" stuff happens, because the activation has been "ended".

 

[LeperColony]

10 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

That looks like a private message, which is probably why you can't find the post.

That makes sense.  Not sure why I didn't notice the different formatting.  Or maybe I chalked it up to a mobile version display?  Anyway, thanks for the ID.