Losing blood during an action

This happened in a game tonight: Arishat attempts to rescue Xeper from torpor. They each have 1 blood so each vamp will pay 1. Tegyrius attempts to block with intercept. Arishat plays Forgotten Labyrinth bringing her to zero blood. The action is not blocked, but there now isn't enough blood to pay for the rescue. So is no cost paid? Or does Xeper still have to burn his blood?

I guess in general, if you lose enough blood during an action that you can no longer pay for it, do you pay nothing? Or must you pay as much of the cost as you can?

You pay as much as you can and the action fizzle (not successfull, no effect but concluded)

If the action wasn't blocked :
- it is successful (for things that check if it is successful, such as Freak Drive, Perfectionist, etc) [edit: some effects cause the action to fail even if unblocked. such effects cause the action to be unsuccessful]
- if the target is eligible, pay cost to apply effect; otherwise (if target isn't eligible), nothing happens ("the action fizzles").
- if cost can't be paid, pay as much as you can, and then nothing happens ("the action fizzles")

- if action is successful, target is eligible, and cost is paid, apply effects.

Ankha wrote:

You must pay as much as you can, and the action fails.

groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/V3uIITe1wug/P-WH48zhoc8J

Timo wrote:

You pay as much as you can and the action fizzle (not successfull, no effect but concluded)

These are both wrong. And to point it out more clearly, "fizzled" does not mean "unsuccessful". A successful action that fizzles is still a successful action, but the effects aren't applied.

[LSJ 20090129]

LSJ wrote:

So, back to the example bleed above, yeah, the action would fizzle, but
(assuming it reaches resolution unblocked) it is still successful (by definition
of "successful action", namely: resolves unblocked).

So you could still play Freak Drive at normal Fortitude to untap after a
successful action that fizzles at resolution.

[LSJ 20090224] that Ankha references doesn't overturn this. It simply states when an action fizzles, not that fizzling means the action failed.

So the funny part is that if you have a perfectionist, you will gain the blood which were needed just a hair after it is needed.