spending the Decloack token decloaking

[Bilisknir 443]

 

That isn't what the competitive rules FAQ now says. See page 5 of the current FAQ.

This isn't what the competitive rules has ever said. You've never been required to check multiple directions if your desired direction failed.

 

Indeed. Point to the gentleman from the United States. You are correct that my text was less than clear.

The FAQ never said otherwise, so the "now" is superfluous in the sentence. The sentence could also be corrected by changing the "says" to "makes clear".

[Buhallin 4,563]

That isn't what the competitive rules FAQ now says. See page 5 of the current FAQ.

This isn't what the competitive rules has ever said. You've never been required to check multiple directions if your desired direction failed.

Indeed. Point to the gentleman from the United States. You are correct that my text was less than clear.

The FAQ never said otherwise, so the "now" is superfluous in the sentence. The sentence could also be corrected by changing the "says" to "makes clear".

FWIW, in case it might have been unclear, that was posted to strengthen your point, not take anything away from you for making it

[ziggy2000 169]

This is in the Competitive Play section, and only applies there. Does this mean you can back out the boost during competitive play, but not casual play?

The oft-quoted rules on backing out of a barrel roll are also in the Competitive Play section, aren't they?. For casual play what we have is the "measure before you commit" wording, for both boost and BR. So the difference between casual and competitive play has to do with declaring the direction, and being strictly held to your decision if the Boost/Roll is possible.

 

We used to have a specific clarification on whether the same "fail can choose something else" for boost, but it's not in the new FAQ.

I still can't find the wording you're referring to. Of course it's much harder to find for something that's been removed rather than added...

 

Again, I think most of us agree on how Decloaking "should" work, but FFG have muddled it a bit with sloppy wording. Honestly, if the second option said "Perform a boost using the [straight] 2 template", it would pretty much cover the situation wouldn't it? Including Echo's special ability...

Edited June 18, 2014 by ziggy2000

[Forgottenlore 9,838]

Again, I think most of us agree on how Decloaking "should" work, but FFG have muddled it a bit with sloppy wording. Honestly, if the second option said "Perform a boost using the [straight] 2 template", it would pretty much cover the situation wouldn't it? Including Echo's special ability...

Yeah, this. I suspect they worded it the way they did because they thought if they said it was a boost with the straight 2 template that some people would still get confused over whether you could bank boost with it anyway. In doing so they just made it more imprecise.

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

I still can't find the wording you're referring to. Of course it's much harder to find for something that's been removed rather than added...

It actually is there - still down in the Q&A section, despite not one but two full sections on Boost in the first few pages.  Yay for reorganization, I guess?  But totally my bad for missing it, and claiming it was gone.

 

Whether it references Boost explicitly or not, that ruling for Boost does provide a firm precedent.  As, honestly, does the rest of the game.  Can anyone name even a single ability that if you try to do it, but it fails due to range, overlap, etc, you're stuck with?  And the suggestion here is that not only is decloaking the first one of its kind, but a single specific direction of decloaking?  I'm as anti-Intent as anyone around here, and even I think that's crazy.

 

Yes, the wording's sloppy.  So's the entire dang rule set.  We know this.  There's digging into the rules to try and infer things we need to know by reading the half-formed tea leaves we can get from the rules.  And there's bomb-throwing that's actively intended to confuse people on the most obvious issues.  There's zero chance that you can't choose another alternative if you fail to decloak forward - we all know this, and pretending otherwise is actively malicious to the community.

[Sergovan 1,440]

@ Buhallin,

 

My points made were in every attempt to clarify the resolution of the Decloak "effect" and I am certainly not trolling or trying to "bomb throw" in my attempts to find out how this new effect works. Everyone else has chimed in with how irregular this effect is so it is not my fault if I also happen to see something wierd with how the rules pertain to this thing.  Please don't single me out or go passive aggressive with your comments as that is not the point of all this. 

 

The one argument I keep hearing repeatedly from you is the ability to backtrack out of the [2] straight maneuver in decloaking. Please explain (cite helpful source references preferable) by what mechanism you are able to do this. The only 2 mechanisms I am aware of are the boost and barrel roll, and the [2] straight is not a boost (but would have cleared so much up if it was).

 

This is what I am missing on my understanding; Why their is so much of a difference in effect if you happen to choose one option to decloak over the other option?

 

 

BTW, the last rules furball I got into netted the community the "Once per Activation" rule.

 

P.S. lets keep this at the Premier rules level and resolving it with that ruleset in mind as Casual can by fixed with houserules...

[VanorDM 11,599]

The only 2 mechanisms I am aware of are the boost and barrel roll, and the [2] straight is not a boost (but would have cleared so much up if it was).

The point is, that in all the cases so far (the phantom isn't officially released yet) of an action involving movement in some way, if you are unable to preform the movement you are able to back out of the action.

It's only logical to assume that Decloaking would work the same way, that if you can't preform the movement, that you can back out of the action. No action in this game, that can fail due to range, obstacle or other factor ever causes you to lose your action because it fails.

So why would Decloaking be different?

Especially when it seems that you are making the argument that it only works that way if you chose the 2 straight maneuver.

Edited June 18, 2014 by VanorDM

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

The one argument I keep hearing repeatedly from you is the ability to backtrack out of the [2] straight maneuver in decloaking. Please explain (cite helpful source references preferable) by what mechanism you are able to do this. The only 2 mechanisms I am aware of are the boost and barrel roll, and the [2] straight is not a boost (but would have cleared so much up if it was).

 

This is what I am missing on my understanding; Why their is so much of a difference in effect if you happen to choose one option to decloak over the other option?

 

There is no difference in effect.  A failed decloak puts you back at exactly the same point in the flow regardless of the direction you choose.  The template overlaps, the decloak fails, and the decloak rules tell you what to do, NOT the barrel roll rules.  If the barrel roll rules told you what to do, you could take an action.  The "perform a barrel roll" is telling you how to resolve it, nothing more.  Just as the "execute a maneuver" tells you how to handle the ahead.

 

Now, where you end up after a failed decloak may be up for debate.  But the barrel roll rules do NOT actually let you decloak in another direction.  They may let you do another barrel roll, but once the template overlaps, the decloak has failed.  That's in the decloak rule, and you don't ignore it just because you've jumped into the barrel roll rules.

 

You're trying to follow an explicit path here using the barrel roll rules, and you just can't.  It doesn't make any sense.  There are multiple conflicting rules triggering from the same occurrence.  There are out-of-place instructions in the barrel roll.  You cannot drop the full barrel roll rules into the middle of decloaking and make them work.  Your entire foundational assumption here - that we have back out rules if you go sideways but not ahead - is flawed even before we get to how erratic you are on what you choose to consider explicitly.

 

 

BTW, the last rules furball I got into netted the community the "Once per Activation" rule.

So just to make sure I'm reading you right here, you're claiming credit for the existence of the once per activation rule?

[Otacon 889]

The one argument I keep hearing repeatedly from you is the ability to backtrack out of the [2] straight maneuver in decloaking. Please explain (cite helpful source references preferable) by what mechanism you are able to do this. The only 2 mechanisms I am aware of are the boost and barrel roll, and the [2] straight is not a boost (but would have cleared so much up if it was).

 

Because the Movement and Decloaking are not separate actions, the move is part of the Decloak event. You spend the token to perform the Decloak event, then immediately choose one of the movement options. It then says if you cannot decloak if the movement ends with you overlapping, or if the template crosses a dial. Not being able to Decloak means you can't spend the token means you never moved because the movement is the Decloak event. The token merely grants you 2 Agility, spending it triggers the Decloak movement, and 'backtracking' never comes into it because you never moved.

 

Whether you then get to attempt to Decloak with another movement choice if your first one failed or not is another question, that to me the Boost and Barrel Roll FAQs imply you indeed can make a second attempt if your first movement choice failed, but will probably need an FAQ to spell out completely.

[Parravon 5,217]

 

The one argument I keep hearing repeatedly from you is the ability to backtrack out of the [2] straight maneuver in decloaking. Please explain (cite helpful source references preferable) by what mechanism you are able to do this. The only 2 mechanisms I am aware of are the boost and barrel roll, and the [2] straight is not a boost (but would have cleared so much up if it was).

 

Because the Movement and Decloaking are not separate actions, the move is part of the Decloak event. You spend the token to perform the Decloak event, then immediately choose one of the movement options. It then says if you cannot decloak if the movement ends with you overlapping, or if the template crosses a dial. Not being able to Decloak means you can't spend the token means you never moved because the movement is the Decloak event. The token merely grants you 2 Agility, spending it triggers the Decloak movement, and 'backtracking' never comes into it because you never moved.

 

Whether you then get to attempt to Decloak with another movement choice if your first one failed or not is another question, that to me the Boost and Barrel Roll FAQs imply you indeed can make a second attempt if your first movement choice failed, but will probably need an FAQ to spell out completely.

 

I think Otacon has hit the nail on the head here. Decloaking is represented by the movement effect. It's not a free move that might end in you decloaking. There should be no guessing where you would end up on a "failed" cloak because you only move when you decloak. If you can't decloak in that direction, you can't move in that direction. Everyone is using the barrel roll and boost rules as their basis, which I agree with, but if you try and target lock someone and they're just out of range, you can change that action also. So there's another precedent that supports this. Nothing should be locked in.

I see it like this: the model on the table with a cloak token on it is representing the projected position of the fighter before it vanished. When it decloaks, it pops back into real space somewhere "unexpected", and this is represented by taking the 2-straight template and applying it to the front or side as a measuring tool more than anything else. I don't actually see that decloaking to the side would always include an actual roll, you're just placing the model on the end of the template in the same fashion you would if you barrel rolled. The use of familiar terminology here is meant as a guide, because we all know how to move and barrel roll a ship.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Parravon

[negative9 231]

I think that we have missed what might be the primary difference between boost and decloak.

 

On boost it says:  choose the template, then if you cant do it you cant boost.

 

On the decloak it says:choose ONE of the following, and the ONE is in bold.  So I think there is some argument to be made that if the ONE option you chose is not a legal move, then you cannot go back and choose a SECOND decloak direction.

 

not saying that it is the way it will be ruled, just thought I would bring it up, because it seems potentially a significant wording difference.

[Buhallin 4,563]

On boost it says:  choose the template, then if you cant do it you cant boost.

 

On the decloak it says:choose ONE of the following, and the ONE is in bold.  So I think there is some argument to be made that if the ONE option you chose is not a legal move, then you cannot go back and choose a SECOND decloak direction.

 

not saying that it is the way it will be ruled, just thought I would bring it up, because it seems potentially a significant wording difference.

How many movement options do you choose when you boost?  Two ways to look at it - you're either choosing one of three directions, or you're just choosing "boost".  Either way, you're making one choice.  The fact that they clarify that you can't do both doesn't change that.

 

The flow and wording is basically the same.  If your selected template does not lead to a legal boost, you can't boost...  But then you can try and boost again (presumably with a different direction).  If your selected move for decloaking doesn't lead to a legal decloak you can't decloak, but there's nothing stopping you from trying again, because the first one never happened.

[VanorDM 11,599]

How many movement options do you choose when you boost?

Yeah the one seems to be just there to make it clear you pick one and only one of the options.

[negative9 231]

Maybe, but if you fail your boost, you can go back and take another action.  But on the decloak, you cannot go back and take another action....because it happens outside the action step and is not itself an action.  It is spending a token.  You could not for instance fail to decloak and then take a focus instead.  So I still think it is outside the FAQ regarding what happens with a failed boost/roll.  

 

Like I said, not sure how it will go, but I lean toward ONE, meaning one and only one.  If you fail the first time you cannot try to spend the same token again.

 

P.S.  I like the concept of making it less forgiving, phantom players should have to take risks to fly the things.  If you guess wrong...to bad you can't decloak.  I think you should have to choose, left roll is my best spot to land...but it is a tight fit, 2 forward is safer, but not as good of a strategic point.  I think it would be more fun to fly, and to fly against.  Also adds a "skill" factor onto the ship.

[Buhallin 4,563]

Maybe, but if you fail your boost, you can go back and take another action.  But on the decloak, you cannot go back and take another action....because it happens outside the action step and is not itself an action.  It is spending a token.  You could not for instance fail to decloak and then take a focus instead.  So I still think it is outside the FAQ regarding what happens with a failed boost/roll.  

 

It's not just what happens with a failed boost/barred roll.  It's what happens with a failed ANYTHING.  It's less explicit in the rules, but everything I've ever seen points to failures resetting it like it never happened.  Garven, Squad Leader, Lando, et al - if you choose something that happens to be out of range, you can pick something else.

 

In effect, X-wing has no rules for "If you pick something invalid you lose your chance."  So if you declare something that you can't complete because of range, whatever, it's like it never happened because it was never a legal declaration in the first place.  You go back to right where you were when you declared it, you haven't decloaked, you haven't spent the token, you're still in the window immediately before revealing your dial, and nothing stops you from decloaking again.

 

I've asked this repeatedly, and nobody has offered up even a single example: Is there ANYTHING in X-wing where if you try something that you can't complete, you're somehow stuck with it, or lose the cost for it?  I can't think of any.  Every precedent we have points to abilities that can't complete never actually going off, even in strange cases like Squad Leader.

 

 

P.S.  I like the concept of making it less forgiving, phantom players should have to take risks to fly the things.  If you guess wrong...to bad you can't decloak.  I think you should have to choose, left roll is my best spot to land...but it is a tight fit, 2 forward is safer, but not as good of a strategic point.  I think it would be more fun to fly, and to fly against.  Also adds a "skill" factor onto the ship.

I think a lot of people are making this mistake, and arguing for what they want it to be - whether because they feel like the Phantom is OP and needs some limits, or whatever...  I can sympathize with this, and I'd even be happier with a more general "If you declare and it's out of range it fails and you don't get it back"...  But as pointed out above it's inconsistent with pretty much every other ruling we have in X-wing.  Like it or not, there's nothing at all that points to the Decloak being so unique in its handling of failures.

[VanorDM 11,599]

If you fail the first time you cannot try to spend the same token again.

 

If that were true, it would be the one and only case I can think of that it would work like this.

For everything else in the game, if you attempt to do it, and fail for some reason, you don' t lose the ability to try doing that same thing again.

If you try to BR but can't, you can still try to BR to the other side. If you try to boost but can't, you can try to boost some other direction.

If you try to TL a target but it's out of range, you can attempt to TL a different ships.

If you try to shoot a target but it's out of arc, you can pick a different target.

If Lando or Craken try to give someone a free action but they're out of range they can try to give that to a different target. Neither of their abilities are actions, so they would function the same as decloaking.

 

Every precedent we have points to abilities that can't complete never actually going off, even in strange cases like Squad Leader.

If there is one, I can't think of it.

Edited June 19, 2014 by VanorDM

[negative9 231]

I will agree that it would be the first instance where you loose the ability to backtrack after a fail.

 

But it is also the first instance where you can spend a token in response to a trigger, and have the chance to fail.

 

Squad leader is an action, Garvin and declaring a target don't apply. See FAQ

 

When a ship becomes the active ship during the combat phase, the active 

player can measure range from the active ship to any enemy ships before 

declaring one as its target.

• When a player declares a ship’s ability that requires another ship (or ships) 

to be at a certain range, the player trying to resolve the ability can measure 

range from their ship to any valid ships before resolving the ability.

Edited June 19, 2014 by negative9

[Buhallin 4,563]

So basically your entire argument comes down to "Decloak is different because it's different."  There are no actual cases where you fail if you start something that you can't complete - which was the point in using everything you "countered" as examples.

 

There's nothing in the game that operates like you're wanting the decloak to operate.  In other words, there's not a single precedent for how you want it to work.  Could it work differently?  Of course - they've gotten better of late, but I long since stopped being surprised when FFG's rulings take a left turn.  But you truly don't have any actual rules to support what you want to happen here, and you're suggesting something that runs counter to the universal standard for the rest of the game.

 

So yeah, we'll see, but in the meantime don't be surprised if you're a one-off there.

[Parravon 5,217]

But you spend the token to decloak. If you can't decloak, there's no movement to represent it, and the token can't be spent.

Why would FFG come up with a game mechanic that goes against EVERY other one in the game? I think we've got a pretty good idea of the way the game designers expect the game to be played, so it makes absolutely no sense to me that if you declare a decloak that can't be completed, then you lose the opportunity, when EVERY other action/opportunity is allowed to reset as though it didn't happen.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Parravon

[negative9 231]

No, I won't be surprised.  My whole train of thought came from my impression of the card, and the ONE being in bold letters.  I assumed that it was important.  My logic was that if it operated exactly the same as boost, they would just use the same wording as boost.  But it seemed to me that they wanted to accent that word for a reason.  Once again, you are right that it seems counter to the way things have worked in the past. I guess I just got caught up on a minor point of bold lettering that most likely means nothing.

 

btw, it works different because it IS different is a valid argument.  Just maybe not in this case.  lol

[Buhallin 4,563]

Expert Handling provides a good example too.  The barrel roll there is "nested" just like the decloak - you take some action, that allows you to perform a barrel roll - and if you can't do the barrel roll for Expert Handling you can pick a different action.

 

Yes, it's an action, but it's a very explicit case of backing all the way out if some sub-piece fails.

[Buhallin 4,563]

btw, it works different because it IS different is a valid argument.  Just maybe not in this case.  lol

Not really ever, honestly.  Differences may or may not matter; the mere fact of differences does not correlate to different handling or different rules.  Barrel Roll and Boost may use different templates, does that mean you can do Barrel Roll actions twice in a turn because you can't do Boost twice in a turn?  Any two game elements will have differences.  Those differences may matter, or they may not, but the default is "not" until proven otherwise.

 

 

No, I won't be surprised.  My whole train of thought came from my impression of the card, and the ONE being in bold letters.  I assumed that it was important.  My logic was that if it operated exactly the same as boost, they would just use the same wording as boost.  But it seemed to me that they wanted to accent that word for a reason.

It's important to appreciate here that X-wing is on either its 3rd or 4th iteration of design teams.  This makes it very risky to get overly picky with small elements of phrasing (or bolding) when comparing new abilities to existing ones, and trying to infer too much from it.

 

As someone mentioned a few pages back, I think if they'd used Boost it would have raised the question over whether you could use the bank template, because the first step of performing a boost is explicitly to select the template.  For what they were trying to do, there really wasn't any perfect solution.

[Nazull 0]

Still alot are still seeing the decloak as an action when its not. if it were you could get a 2nd chance but as its been pointed out its not an action and its not in the action phase.

 

I like the idear that the ONE means you pick to DC and the Direction. if you canr DC then you then move on to reveiling ur Dial as u had tried ur one direction so now need to move on the normal reveling of ur diel then your normal action.. BUT remain cloaked.

 

I like that thought. the ship still gets the 4 Dice for defence and will have a focus token or evade on it too.

might have to try it like that next time i use it to see if that works better.

[Sergovan 1,440]

I received a response from Frank.

 

Rule Question:

When decloaking, can you attempt the [2] barrel roll , and if it overlaps, backtrack out of it like the barrel roll rules state and opt for the [2] forward instead?

 

When decloaking, if you overlap doing the [2] straight, there is no mechanism to backtrack out and try the barrel roll (as the [2] forward is not a boost) so can you explain the resolution of a [2] straight that overlaps vs the [2] barrel roll that overlaps?

 

Similar to failed attempts to barrel roll or boost, if a ship attempts to decloak but cannot (either because its final position would overlap an obstacle token or another ship, or if the maneuver template would overlap an obstacle) that player may attempt to decloak in another direction or choose to not decloak. Also like barrel roll and boost, if a player declares to decloak in a direction, if it is measured and is possible, that player must do it.

 

Thanks for playing,

 

Frank Brooks

Associate Creative Content Developer

Fantasy Flight Games

Edited June 20, 2014 by Sergovan

[VanorDM 11,599]

Thanks for that Sergovan.

I guess that means you treat the 2 forward like a Boost, and not a maneuver then, because you don't slide backwards if you overlap.