Suppose that The Sentinels, Guise, and Malpractice Medico are in a game. Guise uses the power on Medico, and then high-fives the Sentinels, who have Hippocratic Oath out. When he would deal damage, he heals instead, and when he would heal, he deals damage instead. How is this resolved?
It hasn’t come up or anything, I’m just curious.
Guess you’ll find out with the video game release I don’t want to be the one making official notice of the ruling. Also, this can be accomplished in the Celestial Tribunal not jut Guise
Currenlty, I’d say choose one to override the other at the moment.
Read Red Right Hand closer.
When any hero target would regain HP..
Yes, so? Hypocritical Guise/Expert Witness Medico attempts to damage a target and, instead, he's prompted to instead heal a target for the same amount. He tries to heal a hero target and is prompted to instead damage a target for the same amount.
You could break the cycle by healing a villain or environment target instead, if there is one, or by attempting to damage a target that's immune to the damage or would reduce it to zero, or by attempting to heal a hero who's at max HP, but it's possible for none of those to be options.
I would imagine it's like stacked Twist the Ethers and damage type, or multiple back and forth redirects: You just pick one state to be true at the end of the resolution, and it goes through the list of possibilities first.
It's an infinite loop you can't get out of in some situations, and can be initiated by a non-player action. So it will be fixed with a text change. Feel free to play it on the tabletop however you like, of course!
Void Guard Dr. Medico - Malpractice’s power text is updated to read: “Until the end of your next turn, the first time each hero target would regain HP each turn, Dr. Medico deals 1 target that amount of energy damage instead.”
Interesting. That certainly fixes the problem, but it does allow for an interesting shenanigan.
Say Hypocritical Guise is getting +1 damage from somewhere, even to just one target. He tries to deal 1 damage (doesn't matter to what, as long as he nets at least +1 damage), and it becomes 2. He tries to heal himself for 2, so then he then tries to deal 2+1=3 damage. Repeat for every eligible hero target who's currently damaged for at least that amount. Considering The Sentinels have to be there, this could be +9 damage for an H=5 game, more if there are more injured hero targets (via Captain Cosmic, Unity, Luminary, etc).
Thanks for flipping that bit for me. But your wording makes me concerned. Are there infinite loops that can;t be broken, but can be initiated by player actions? If so, I will make it my eternal quest to find them!
I believe they've gone on record before to say there does exist an infinite loop that noone has asked them about yet. I don't think it counts the guise self-contained infinite.
Hmm, that fixes the infinite loop, but it's also a significant nerf when, eg, playing with The Scholar. Is there no way to fix the loop without nerfing the power?
I’m sure they were discussed but considering some other issues this is the simpler overall that I can see. I’m not thrilled with it but as to being a nerf it’s not as big as a I thought it might be.
That is a bit of a disappointment. When I read the power I assumed it would be ruled like friendly fire in setback’s deck where the same instance of healing/damage cannot be modified be those cards more then once. I think this was the first combo I thought of when o heard about the power.
so guise initiates 1 damage oath turns it into healing, malpractice turns it into damage guise deals 1 damage to a target.
guise heals 1 malpractice turns it into damage, oath turns it into healing guise heals a target 1.
I would feel better if the change was a balance issue because malpractice was a damage monster. (Still need to play it in physical)
He can be a damage monster within his own deck with the original wording. You just need one hero at two or less health and to trigger From The Brink. With one instance of damage hitting that low health hero you can trigger From The Brink as much as you want. If you have Experimental Medicine out then that damage is increased and irreducible
Well that makes me feel better about the new wording. The card effects really get into trouble when they say every time anyways. I may try playing a physical game with the old wording just to see how it feels for comparison.
Aww, why couldn’t it be fixed with more player choice? “Until the end of your next turn, whenever a hero target would regain HP, you may have Dr. Medico deal 1 target that amount of energy damage instead”.
If reducing the healing-to-damage conversion is too anti-thematic, there could be a “, and the first time each target would regain HP, you must deal damage instead” rider… but if reducing healding-to-damage conversion was actually an issue, going from “replace every time” to “replace only first instances” forces a bigger drop than “replace every time unless you choose not to”.
Ranking the min and max redness (Pink (no instances) < Red (first instances) < Crimson (all instances)) of Medico’s right hand by wording:
Max Crimson , min Crimson: Power as printed - whenever a hero would regain, Medico [must] deal damage instead
Max Crimson , min Red : Player choice with fist-time rider - whenever a hero would gain, Medico may deal damage instead, and must do so on first instance.
Max Crimson , min Pink: Player choice - whenever a hero would gain, Medico may deal damage instead.
Max Red, min Red: MigrantP’s posted update - the first time a hero would gain, Medico [must] deal damage instead.
Because there’s currently no condition on either card that allows for player choice, if the he attempts to heal he deals damage, which turns into healing, which makes him deal damage, which becomes healing, etc.
Most stuff involving player choice has may, or a conditional requirement, neither malpractice medico or hippocractic oath have a condition under which they don’t take effect.
bluedark, are you saying the problem can't be fixed by adding player choice because there's currently no condition on either card that allows for player choice and there is no condition under which the replacement doesn't take effect? Or just that the loop exists because there's no condition under which the replacements don't take effect?
I totally agree with the latter. If you meant the former, however, then by the same reasoning itt would also be the case that the problem can't be fixed by limiting the number of times the replacement happens because there's currently no condition on either card that limits the number of times the replacement happens and there is no condition under which the replacement doesn't take effect. But that's exactly the solution MigrantP announced (going from "no conditions under which replacement doesn't take effect" to "having conditions under which replacement doesn't take effect"), so I think there's good evidence that such a change is allowed on the table.
Malpractice Medico is already arguably overpowered. That change would make him vastly moreso. The power is supposed to take away his option to heal.
I agree entirely here. It’s also really contrary to the theme of the character to be able to heal.
I was wondering about that, myself.
Letting Guise break the power (i.e., either Guise deals damage or heals someone) seems fitting as an edge case where we expect shenanigans in the first place.
Thinking about this I agree with the decision to limit the power while sad we lose some theme I.e. that he is damage instead of healing. The new wording makes infinite and unbounded loops impossible as it is limited by the number of hero targets. The old wording had an unbounded loop in his own deck and an infinite loop with guise and the sentinels. I think one change that would have made the unbounded loop much harder would have been to change the damage to be a non hero target, but you would still have to resolve the guise infinite loop with that rewording. The new wording is really the simplest solution and I want the void guard in the app sooner
On the table that sort of solution is fine because we’re able to see the problem, the video game on the other hand is a different matter because of how it enforces card rulings, hence why certain cards have had to be rewritten for the video game,
It’s also arguable that a being of pure energy who is host to both an OblivAeon shard and an extraplanar Demon God is entitled to some amount of power creep. But since the card’s been out, printed, and playtested for many months now, both arguments ought to be moot.
I also agree. So why change it from “no healing available” to “all healing is available except for the first instance”? At least with a player choice option, a player wanting to stay on theme could entirely take away healing. With the first-instance approach, you cannot stay on theme after the first instance.
That said, I also dislike that a player could also let all the healing still happen (which is even less thematic than “all, after the first instance”), so here’s a revised player-choice based option that’s even more on theme:
Until the end of your next turn, whenever a hero target would regain HP, prevent that healing. You may have Dr. Medico deal 1 target the prevented amount of energy damage."
No infinite loop. No healing. No nerfing. Only minor power creep in making the dealing of damage optional rather than mandatory.
You are literally saying the same thing twice.
You seem to have missed my question. Allow me to restate it. Ideally, your answer would start with “I meant A”, or “I meant B”, or “Neither, please let me clarify what I was saying”.
bluedark, are you saying
or
They’re similar, yes, but there are some important distinctions - B would be a claim about conditions of a situation (that make a problem exists), while A would be a claim about why a problem can’t be solved (by changing the conditions of the situation).
If you are claiming B, that the conditions which are problematic are some inescapable replacements which generate an unconditional loop, then I agree with you! I’ve been on that page since reading the first post of the thread, and I hope everyone else has been too. In this case, I’m guessing your original post wasn’t directed at me at all, and I just kicked off a pointless round of confusion by assuming it was?
If you are claiming A, that the problem can’t be solved by adding some feature (by rewriting the cards) because there’s currently no condition on the cards that allows for that feature, then your position makes no sense to me:
Does that help clarify my question? I’m trying to figure out if you’re making a claim about why there’s a problem in the game, or a claim that the problem in the game is impossible to fix, or a claim that the problem is impossible to fix using an approach involving the addition of player choice.
Just throwing this out there. 2 things that defeat the infinte loop. 1st Christopher stated (during the Void Guard card reveal stream) that the card Second Opinion only works IF the hero recovers 3 or more HP. if they only recover 2 hp because Knyfe is at 28/30 hp, she cannot use a power instead of being healed. so even if you played where it would loop (thus ignoring the 2nd point) once no more MalGuise would run out of Hero target to regen once their hp is capped out the bonus would be lost and once all hero targets are at full hp the loop would end. Christophers words not mine.
2nd. There is a ruling that damage converison can only be applied once in Order of Activation. This mean in the case of Megaoplis and RA. RA plays imbue fire (coverts all hero damage to Fire and then increases fire damage by +1 even though not printed in that order it is applied that way), now 2 turnes later Close Combat comes into play. ALL damage is coverted to melee. Now when it is RA's turn his damage is converted to Fire (even though it already was) then it is coverted to Melee, now he doesn't get the +1 damage to fire because the damage is no longer Fire when +Damage is applied). Now applying this to converting damage to healing and back again. This ruling would basically run like this: MalGuise after using Malpractices power and High Fiving Hippocratic Oath, then some how deal damage (assume AA letting use power or play a card) it would follow the following checks using Order of Activation:
Order 1: Character Card: Regen=Damage
Order 2: Apply Damage/Regen mods
Order 3: Hippocratic Oath: Damage=Regen
Order 4: Recalculate damage/Regen mods
Order 5: Resolve
Therefore there is no infinate loop. as you never travel backwards on the order of activation. Order of Activation was created to prevent infinate loops. Sory for the wall of a post.
Wording of Imbued Fire and Close Quarters is not the same as what Red Right Hand and Hippocratic Oath is. They say to change a damage type but don’t when ever X occurs do Y instead. The only way this loop is broken is if all hero targets are already at full health.
Order of Activation would still apply though regardless of anything else.
https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/timing-and-order-of-operations-4347
now granted in most game played, people will use Shield Winds before the -1 DR in tempest deck, when taking 5 damage so you can apply both, but if the damage is like 8 you can only apply shielding wind once, can't bounce back to that card once you apply the card affect. All I am saying, is apply the card once. That is the rule intention.
I don’t see how that applies exactly to this situation. We have two cards that trigger when healing or damage is done. They don’t act simulatenously but independent of each other. Lastly, this was reviewed by Christopher and Handelabra so it doesn’t meet that criteria set by Christopher.
As I understand, Dr. Medico Malpractice's power was changed for the video game. Does this mean our physical character cards are now wrong?
Yes, it wouldn’t have the updated wording from the video game.
Mine has the updated text, but I'm also fine with inking my cards... ;-)
Wow... that exploded. For what it's worth, I was satisfied by the official solution. Very rarely do heroes regain HP multiple times a turn, and it makes a fun minigame to try to heal past the Red Right Hand.
Completionist Guise has words for you!