Rule changes I'd like to see in GG3.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Well, I'm sure GG3 will be in the pipeline soon, so here's some of the things that have been on my mind that could be cleaned up.

Hazardous rules.

Remove the word 'through' in hazardous terrain rules on page 37. Currently there's a weird loophole where being pushed into impassable hazardous terrain doesn't do hazardous to you because they forgot to delete the word through in my view.

Pushing into hazardous terrain should have the same effect as walking into it, IMO.

Falling & death, or hazardous & death.

Thanks to the FAQ, we now know that being pushed off a cliff by a model will give them the kill. However, currently the same isn't true of hazardous.

I think these should be consolidated, and falling/hazardous should work in the same way. Either make both count as a model kill, or neither count.

Personally I think they wrote the killing credit rules back when hazardous could kill you in a neutral way (aka, without a model taking an action or having an effect, just by activating). That seems a bit out of date, and I think if a model kills you with hazardous it should get kill credit.

Summon rules.

This is a bit of a hot take, but I think summon rules should be stream-lined into something like "summons are ignored for friendly strategies." You could keep or drop the 'no interacting the turn they're summoned", depending on game balance.

IMO the summon rules are clunkier than it is worth, and it is worth just stream-lining them.

Potentially a change for edition 3.5 or 4, though.

Healing.

This might be more of a thing for the next edition, but I think healing timing rules should follow the same timing as damage timing. It would make it a lot more clear how all healing effects work.

Friendly fire:

Currently if you engage a model that isn't engaging you, you get friendly fire for shooting it. This feels a bit unintended, so would love to see that cleaned up.

What would you like to see?

What would you like to see? Particular FAQs? Little bits of the rules annoying you? FAQ rulings you'd like to see reversed?

[NoisyAssassin]

Can't say I disagree with any of these. 

[touchdown]

I'm fine with the friendly fire rules personally. If you're engaging an enemy that means you're scuffling with them basically, it would be hard to pick out a target in such a situation. Plus, I haven't heard anyone but Perdita players say guns aren't good enough in m3e so I don't think they need a boost.

[Azahul]

I agree with the summoning change so much. The current system of "Summoned models cannot Interact the turn they're summoned, don't count for friendly strats and schemes the turn they're summoned, and can't interact with Strategy Markers" is unnecessarily messy and an absolute mouthful that immediately causes any new player's eyes to glaze over by the halfway point.

 

I'm not sure if there are any schemes or combos that might be broken by allowing summoned models to interact and count for schemes on the turn they're summoned, since a summoned model often gets to be ferried into position by the summoner's AP on the turn they're summoned. Could make some summoners very good at Breakthrough/Outflank. But if it avoids breaking the game cleaning up that verbage would be a huge benefit.

[Maniacal_cackle]

35 minutes ago, Azahul said:

I agree with the summoning change so much. The current system of "Summoned models cannot Interact the turn they're summoned, don't count for friendly strats and schemes the turn they're summoned, and can't interact with Strategy Markers" is unnecessarily messy and an absolute mouthful that immediately causes any new player's eyes to glaze over by the halfway point.

 

I'm not sure if there are any schemes or combos that might be broken by allowing summoned models to interact and count for schemes on the turn they're summoned, since a summoned model often gets to be ferried into position by the summoner's AP on the turn they're summoned. Could make some summoners very good at Breakthrough/Outflank. But if it avoids breaking the game cleaning up that verbage would be a huge benefit.

I think it could be a good tradeoff (summons lose leylines but gain some schemes).

But 100% agree would require play testing.

Many schemes can specify no summons (like let them bleed), so that is another balancing tool available.

1 hour ago, touchdown said:

I'm fine with the friendly fire rules personally. If you're engaging an enemy that means you're scuffling with them basically, it would be hard to pick out a target in such a situation. Plus, I haven't heard anyone but Perdita players say guns aren't good enough in m3e so I don't think they need a boost.

I can agree with that to a degree, except if you're attacking a model that isn't engaging you, why is it making it hard to shoot? Also "friendly fire" isn't trying to capture that IMO.

It is a small issue though, very rare to come up xD

[Maniacal_cackle]

Another option would be to put a rule in each strategy for summons.

Summons are ignored for this strategy could work for symbols, but perhaps you want public enemies for summons to be able to kill for points (and die for points). Could also just do friendly summons are ignored, etc. Lots of options to put it straight into the strategy.

[PiersonsMuppeteer]

I like dealing with summons in the Strategy text, that way each Strategy can be individually balanced for how much summons warp it. I think keeping summons ignored by schemes the turn they enter is good. Hidden Martyrs would be stupidly easy to get the end point for by summoning into engagement as last activation, and I'm sure some others are made pretty trivial by summoning a scheme-able body at the end of the 5th turn. Interacting the turn they enter is probably less impactful, but I think it should still take a turn to come online as well. I think giving the opponent a chance to plan for what the summon will do next turn is needed.

Also clean up the "targeted" mess the previous FAQ has created.

[fire5tone]

5 hours ago, touchdown said:

I'm fine with the friendly fire rules personally. If you're engaging an enemy that means you're scuffling with them basically, it would be hard to pick out a target in such a situation. Plus, I haven't heard anyone but Perdita players say guns aren't good enough in m3e so I don't think they need a boost.

So it happens with stuff like piggyback ride, where if your shooting a guy engaging you you count yourself for friendly fire, it makes some sense but a tad confusing

[Rufess]

5 minutes ago, fire5tone said:

So it happens with stuff like piggyback ride, where if your shooting a guy engaging you you count yourself for friendly fire, it makes some sense but a tad confusing

There is a special spell out that a model does ignore itself for the purpose of friendly fire when it shoot an enemy engaging or engaged by itself.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Rufess

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, Rufess said:

There is a special spell out that a model does ignore itself for the purpose of friendly fire when it shoot an enemy engaging or engaged by itself.

I think that rule is only for models engaging the shooter (not for models the shooter is engaging).

[Maniacal_cackle]

It makes it especially awkward.

I shoot you and I'm holding a sword/engagement range? Friendly fire.

I shoot you, but I don't have a sword/engagement range? No friendly fire.

[Rufess]

9 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think that rule is only for models engaging the shooter (not for models the shooter is engaging).

You are right. The wording makes the shooting model must be engaged in order to ignore itself, but not the opposite.

Also it is weird that a model would suffer friendly fire when shooting an engaged friendly model...because worrying of hitting the friendly model?

[Adran]

11 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Well, I'm sure GG3 will be in the pipeline soon, so here's some of the things that have been on my mind that could be cleaned up.

Hazardous rules.

Remove the word 'through' in hazardous terrain rules on page 37. Currently there's a weird loophole where being pushed into impassable hazardous terrain doesn't do hazardous to you because they forgot to delete the word through in my view.

Pushing into hazardous terrain should have the same effect as walking into it, IMO.

Falling & death, or hazardous & death.

Thanks to the FAQ, we now know that being pushed off a cliff by a model will give them the kill. However, currently the same isn't true of hazardous.

I think these should be consolidated, and falling/hazardous should work in the same way. Either make both count as a model kill, or neither count.

Personally I think they wrote the killing credit rules back when hazardous could kill you in a neutral way (aka, without a model taking an action or having an effect, just by activating). That seems a bit out of date, and I think if a model kills you with hazardous it should get kill credit.

Summon rules.

This is a bit of a hot take, but I think summon rules should be stream-lined into something like "summons are ignored for friendly strategies." You could keep or drop the 'no interacting the turn they're summoned", depending on game balance.

IMO the summon rules are clunkier than it is worth, and it is worth just stream-lining them.

Potentially a change for edition 3.5 or 4, though.

Healing.

This might be more of a thing for the next edition, but I think healing timing rules should follow the same timing as damage timing. It would make it a lot more clear how all healing effects work.

Friendly fire:

Currently if you engage a model that isn't engaging you, you get friendly fire for shooting it. This feels a bit unintended, so would love to see that cleaned up.

What would you like to see?

What would you like to see? Particular FAQs? Little bits of the rules annoying you? FAQ rulings you'd like to see reversed?

Interesting take. 

The Hazardous rules were erratad last time, to include base contact at all ( so if you resolve an action whilst in base contact or the marker is pushed into you you take it now). It does seem a little loop holey that me pushing you into a impassable hazardous marker doesn't instantly damage you. But there are only a few instances where this is likely to happen, and they pretty much all came in explorers (or later) which is when the Errata happened. 

 

Kill credit - I wouldn't have objected to falling damage not giving you kill credit, but I don't mind that it does. 

From a strictly rules point of view it can get very hard to assign credit when the death happens outside of an action, which is sort of when Hazardous happens. There is also the complication about who gets the kill, is it the model that pushes the other into the hazardous, or should it be the model that causes the hazardous? There are certainly arguments for both.  (I have a model that makes scrap markers hazardous and then another model pushes that scrap marker into a model -who gets the kill?) Yes we can rule all these cases (and any other niche occurrences), but then people will think it looks like loop holes. Cleanest (and shortest) is certainly that Hazardous kills don't give credit to anyone. I would want to see a strong argument to justify why you would go from something simple to something much more complicated. 

 

Summon rules. I like that the current change is in gaining grounds rather than an errata, as it makes it much easier to play around with. I think that there should be some restriction on summoned models, and scoring is a relatively easy one to implement. 

I wouldn't object to different rules for each strategy/scheme, but that isn't really clearer. And I am happy for some to have no summoning downside, but I also know I have a relatively high tolerance for complicated rules, that, reading the rules forum, I would suggest isn't universal. 

 

Healing - I must admit on the few occasions that healing timing matters I do assume it follows a similar track to damage, but it would be really nice if that was confirmed now that there are a lot more healing timing questions (thank you Chronicles and We are Legion)

Friendly fire. I must admit its such a rare occurrence that I haven't been bothered by it. If you are engaging them with a melee weapon, then you have the choice to use that weapon anyway. 

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

10 minutes ago, Adran said:

Interesting take. 

The Hazardous rules were erratad last time, to include base contact at all ( so if you resolve an action whilst in base contact or the marker is pushed into you you take it now). It does seem a little loop holey that me pushing you into a impassable hazardous marker doesn't instantly damage you. But there are only a few instances where this is likely to happen, and they pretty much all came in explorers (or later) which is when the Errata happened. 

My personal take is they literally just forgot to remove the word 'through'. Suddenly all the rules work smoothly if they delete that one word.

10 minutes ago, Adran said:

Kill credit - I wouldn't have objected to falling damage not giving you kill credit, but I don't mind that it does. 

From a strictly rules point of view it can get very hard to assign credit when the death happens outside of an action, which is sort of when Hazardous happens. There is also the complication about who gets the kill, is it the model that pushes the other into the hazardous, or should it be the model that causes the hazardous? There are certainly arguments for both.  (I have a model that makes scrap markers hazardous and then another model pushes that scrap marker into a model -who gets the kill?) Yes we can rule all these cases (and any other niche occurrences), but then people will think it looks like loop holes. Cleanest (and shortest) is certainly that Hazardous kills don't give credit to anyone. I would want to see a strong argument to justify why you would go from something simple to something much more complicated. 

 

I don't mind either way, but I think hazardous is as clear-cut as falling when there's an action or ability causing the hazardous to generate (which I think covers 100% of cases). So it seems most straight-forward to me that 'if you push someone, you cause the hazardous' should sort it out. I think someone told me that in last edition or early in the beta for this one, you took hazardous at the start of activation (which would have had a good argument for being a neutral effect).

It also creates really clunky areas of the rules not having credit (for instance, turf war, public enemies, etc where it matters if you get the kill). It creates a really strange (and probably unintended?) penalty for hazardous-generating models that no one gets credit when the kill happens in hazardous.

10 minutes ago, Adran said:

Summon rules. I like that the current change is in gaining grounds rather than an errata, as it makes it much easier to play around with. I think that there should be some restriction on summoned models, and scoring is a relatively easy one to implement. 

I wouldn't object to different rules for each strategy/scheme, but that isn't really clearer. And I am happy for some to have no summoning downside, but I also know I have a relatively high tolerance for complicated rules, that, reading the rules forum, I would suggest isn't universal. 

I like 'depth' to rules, but I think you have to balance depth with convoluted. I do think the simplest thing would be to say 'ignored for friendly strategies' and then balance to that, but that may be an edition change thing.

10 minutes ago, Adran said:

Healing - I must admit on the few occasions that healing timing matters I do assume it follows a similar track to damage, but it would be really nice if that was confirmed now that there are a lot more healing timing questions (thank you Chronicles and We are Legion)

Yeah, it would just clarify it into the detailed timing chart that already exists, and would solve a lot of issues for the new titles as well I think.

10 minutes ago, Adran said:

Friendly fire. I must admit its such a rare occurrence that I haven't been bothered by it. If you are engaging them with a melee weapon, then you have the choice to use that weapon anyway. 

Mostly it is just a pet peeve, I'm not sure it actually creates any mechanical imbalance that the rules happen to work out this way xD It just feels very unintended.

 

Great to hear your insights, as always!

[Adran]

1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I don't mind either way, but I think hazardous is as clear-cut as falling when there's an action or ability causing the hazardous to generate (which I think covers 100% of cases). So it seems most straight-forward to me that 'if you push someone, you cause the hazardous' should sort it out. I think someone told me that in last edition or early in the beta for this one, you took hazardous at the start of activation (which would have had a good argument for being a neutral effect).

It also creates really clunky areas of the rules not having credit (for instance, turf war, public enemies, etc where it matters if you get the kill). It creates a really strange (and probably unintended?) penalty for hazardous-generating models that no one gets credit when the kill happens in hazardous.

It was probably me that told you that last edition Hazardous happened when you activate in it. (or if you were pushed, moved or placed within it, but you are only affected by each piece once per turn).

Last edition also had an FAQ saying that if you created a hazardous aura you got the kill credit for that aura. (I didn't like it, but it was there) because it was your ability that killed them. Some people have certainly tried to argue that models that generate hazardous auras should get the claim for the kills caused by their aura this edition (probably because that was what they were used to).

Probably the most complex example I can currently think of would be if I pushed a corpse creator who them dragged along a scrap marker into Sparks aura and placed it on a model, that died to the hazardous damage from that scrap marker that was being treated as a pit trap, who gets the kill credit ? The Model that pushed the corpse curator being the model that took the action that caused it all? The corpse curator for being the model that moved the marker that caused the hazardous damage, or Sparks for being the reason that the marker was hazardous in the first place? 

 

It also had people deliberately killing their own models in hazardous terrain (or with conditions) to deny kill credits. Since very early in first edition people have been killing their own crews to deny schemes and strategies. It has caused a lot of modifications to things to try and stop it (Its understandably a very negative experience when you discover you can't win because your opponent kills their own model to deny you points).  So I don't think its unintended, or at least I think that its a known occurrence and is therefore considered when the rules are written. 

Hazardous generation is a double edged sword. It creates an easy source of damage, but you don't have control over that damage. Sometimes the fact that you die causing no kill credit is a good thing, and people will use it as such.  If I'm about to lose a model that will flip a turf marker and preventing me scoring, then I will do what is needed to kill the model first (Assuming I know I can't save it).  Sure, in that case it doesn;t matter if I kill it myself, or I get it killed by a neutral mechanism. A scheme like Take prisoner/Deliver a message becomes a much riskier scheme if your opponents crew has hazardous terrain generation, as they can kill it to deny the points. 

I don't see these as clunky areas, I see them as extra challenges/options to make use of in the correct circumstances. But then I have had 10+ years of playing with that mindset, so any clunkiness I might have felt is long gone  But I am also glad that this edition actually has hazardous terrain being used. It was really rare to see it being used last edition. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, Adran said:

It was probably me that told you that last edition Hazardous happened when you activate in it. (or if you were pushed, moved or placed within it, but you are only affected by each piece once per turn).

Last edition also had an FAQ saying that if you created a hazardous aura you got the kill credit for that aura. (I didn't like it, but it was there) because it was your ability that killed them. Some people have certainly tried to argue that models that generate hazardous auras should get the claim for the kills caused by their aura this edition (probably because that was what they were used to).

Probably the most complex example I can currently think of would be if I pushed a corpse creator who them dragged along a scrap marker into Sparks aura and placed it on a model, that died to the hazardous damage from that scrap marker that was being treated as a pit trap, who gets the kill credit ? The Model that pushed the corpse curator being the model that took the action that caused it all? The corpse curator for being the model that moved the marker that caused the hazardous damage, or Sparks for being the reason that the marker was hazardous in the first place? 

I think the simplest thing is to say the model that caused the push (as is currently the case with falling damage).

Basically the logic would be:

Was the model killed by an action or ability (even if other circumstances made that action more deadly)? Then that model gets kill credit.

If something dies without an action or ability (like conditions in end phase), then it is neutral credit.

Although again that's just how I think it should work.

[Adran]

4 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think the simplest thing is to say the model that caused the push (as is currently the case with falling damage).

Basically the logic would be:

Was the model killed by an action or ability (even if other circumstances made that action more deadly)? Then that model gets kill credit.

If something dies without an action or ability (like conditions in end phase), then it is neutral credit.

Although again that's just how I think it should work.

Unfortunately this logic doesn't apply everywhere else in the game. If I hit a model with Black blood, and the black blood kills another model,  then I don't get the kill credit, the black blood model does. Which is even stranger, as the damage is resolved whilst I'm still resolving my action. 

What about if I'm obeying a model in hazardous terrain? The action resolved was that of the obeyed model, but it was only taking the action because it was controlled by the obeyed model. Currently it doesn't work that way, but lets look if I'm obeying a model to push another model. The obeying model is the one controlling the push (even though its not the one that caused the push). The FAQ is at least clear that the game considers the pushing model to be the killer even if it wasn't the model that controlled the push to cause the falling damage. 

 

"How things should work is fine", but its hard to justify in the same post as you complaining about things that look like unintended loopholes 😜 (giving kill credit to the person that pushes isn't enough for all cases (whilst it is probably enough for 95% of the cases) so you need a little more detail in the rule, and you will get people saying it looks like a strange loop hole that the owner of the ability isn't getting the credit for the kill, when they would normally. ) Its not really closing a loophole, its just changing which bits look like they were a loophole.

 

That said, I think I've probably diverted the thread plenty. I promise not to talk about hazardous rules again in it (unless everyone else does) 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, Adran said:

Unfortunately this logic doesn't apply everywhere else in the game. If I hit a model with Black blood, and the black blood kills another model,  then I don't get the kill credit, the black blood model does. Which is even stranger, as the damage is resolved whilst I'm still resolving my action. 

What about if I'm obeying a model in hazardous terrain? The action resolved was that of the obeyed model, but it was only taking the action because it was controlled by the obeyed model. Currently it doesn't work that way, but lets look if I'm obeying a model to push another model. The obeying model is the one controlling the push (even though its not the one that caused the push). The FAQ is at least clear that the game considers the pushing model to be the killer even if it wasn't the model that controlled the push to cause the falling damage. 

 

"How things should work is fine", but its hard to justify in the same post as you complaining about things that look like unintended loopholes 😜 (giving kill credit to the person that pushes isn't enough for all cases (whilst it is probably enough for 95% of the cases) so you need a little more detail in the rule, and you will get people saying it looks like a strange loop hole that the owner of the ability isn't getting the credit for the kill, when they would normally. ) Its not really closing a loophole, its just changing which bits look like they were a loophole.

 

That said, I think I've probably diverted the thread plenty. I promise not to talk about hazardous rules again in it (unless everyone else does) 

Black blood fits what I said, because it is an ability causing the damage.

If there was an ability called

Example: when a model suffers damage from hazardous damage, it suffers 1 damage.

 

Then if a model died from the Example damage, the Example model would get kill credit.

[PiersonsMuppeteer]

Removing "through" wouldn't fix the rule Hazardous rules. If you cut out resolving an ability it reads like so: "when a model moves through ... Hazardous Terrain". Removing through would make it: "when a model moves ... Hazardous Terrain". I think changing it to "when a model moves through, ends a move in base contact with, or resolves an Action while in base contact with or while in Hazardous Terrain." would fix the issue you specify.

[SEV]

36 minutes ago, PiersonsMuppeteer said:

when a model moves through, ends a move in base contact with, or resolves an Action while in base contact with or while in Hazardous Terrain.

I agree with the intend, but my eyes bleed... Malifaux rules are already really convoluted, so, imo, any changes to the rules needs to be as streamlined as possible.

[Paddywhack]

4 hours ago, PiersonsMuppeteer said:

Removing "through" wouldn't fix the rule Hazardous rules. If you cut out resolving an ability it reads like so: "when a model moves through ... Hazardous Terrain". Removing through would make it: "when a model moves ... Hazardous Terrain". I think changing it to "when a model moves through, ends a move in base contact with, or resolves an Action while in base contact with or while in Hazardous Terrain." would fix the issue you specify.

Are people really arguing that the word 'through' means all the way through the physical piece of terrain? That seems reaaaaallll rules lawyery. A quick FAQ would squash that, but I've never seen anyone argue for that strange interpretation. 

 

[touchdown]

I always interpreted through to mean any portion of a base moves through the other one.

[PiersonsMuppeteer]

36 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Are people really arguing that the word 'through' means all the way through the physical piece of terrain? That seems reaaaaallll rules lawyery. A quick FAQ would squash that, but I've never seen anyone argue for that strange interpretation. 

 

Not what is being said. The issue is that Impassable says a model can’t move through terrain and Hazardous only applies to a model that moves through the terrain. So the only movements that can trigger damage from Impassable Hazardous terrain are effects if Actions generated by the model itself (Walk for example) that end in base contact because of the resolve Action portion of Hazardous. The want is to be able to Push an enemy model into Hazardous Impassable terrain/markers and be able to damage them.

[Adran]

56 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Are people really arguing that the word 'through' means all the way through the physical piece of terrain? That seems reaaaaallll rules lawyery. A quick FAQ would squash that, but I've never seen anyone argue for that strange interpretation. 

 

No. That's not what they are saying.

Moving to base contact with terrain doesn't cause hazardous damage but resolving an action in base contact and a hazardous marker moving to base contact both do. 

[Paddywhack]

2 hours ago, Adran said:

No. That's not what they are saying.

Moving to base contact with terrain doesn't cause hazardous damage but resolving an action in base contact and a hazardous marker moving to base contact both do. 

Ah... Gotcha. There aren't very many Hazardous, Impassible are there?  So not a huge problem, more like an annoyance.