Pre-Range

This has very likely been brought up before, but reading the rules it would appear the following is true :

If Player A Plays a Maneuver and no Pre-Range Card, Player B cannot play a Pre-Range Card under the current rules.

In addition, what phase are you technically playing Immortal Grapple in? Until reading this combat section I never realized how badly worded the ability to play these Pre-Cards really is.

I think it would makes a lot more sense to simply make these steps instead of having some arbitrary and badly worded NOTE:.

It would also simplify things to be able to simply stamp Pre-Range or Pre-Strike on a card to tell people the step it is played in and new players could stop trying to grapple before range.

Please keep in mind these are just opinions and I could easily be missing something simple about this, but I feel that anyone reading the rules would immediately tell me that there is no place to play some of these cards.

TheLich wrote:

This has very likely been brought up before, but reading the rules it would appear the following is true :

If Player A Plays a Maneuver and no Pre-Range Card, Player B cannot play a Pre-Range Card under the current rules.

No, and your next bit explains it quite clearly

TheLich wrote:

Note: Effects that are played "before range is determined" must be played before the acting minion decides whether or not to play a maneuver at the start of this phase.

Impulse as determined above is as follows
1) Combat starts, impulse is with acting player (AP) to play pre range effects
2.1) AP plays a pre range effect; GOTO 2.1
OR
2.2) AP passes pre range impulse
3) Once 2.2 is TRUE, reacting Player (RP) impulses has impulse to:
3.1) Play any pre range cards GOTO 2.1
3.2) passes impulse to AP, GOTO 4.1
4.1) AP has impulse to play manuevers, GOTO 4.1
etc.etc

TheLich wrote:

In addition, what phase are you technically playing Immortal Grapple in? Until reading this combat section I never realized how badly worded the ability to play these Pre-Cards really is.

I think it would makes a lot more sense to simply make these steps instead of having some arbitrary and badly worded NOTE:.

Immortal grapple is in prestrike, which is in between maneuvers and strikes, following same impulse sequencing as above

TheLich wrote:

It would also simplify things to be able to simply stamp Pre-Range or Pre-Strike on a card to tell people the step it is played in and new players could stop trying to grapple before range.

Please keep in mind these are just opinions and I could easily be missing something simple about this, but I feel that anyone reading the rules would immediately tell me that there is no place to play some of these cards.

Agree, pre range and pre strike would make a lot of sense, syntactically

Blooded wrote:

TheLich wrote:

This has very likely been brought up before, but reading the rules it would appear the following is true :

If Player A Plays a Maneuver and no Pre-Range Card, Player B cannot play a Pre-Range Card under the current rules.

No, and your next bit explains it quite clearly

TheLich wrote:

Note: Effects that are played "before range is determined" must be played before the acting minion decides whether or not to play a maneuver at the start of this phase.

No. It doesn't. The text intimates that the acting player can play a maneuver to skip the "pre-range" step. The text should say:

Effects that are played "before range is determined" are played before this step.

That wording is not actually very clear though, because Pre-Range is not a step. The wording listed there implies in very specific English that you have a time requirement to play Pre-Range cards before the acting player chooses to play a maneuver. This does not indicate that there is a step in between. It implies a contrary idea that Pre-Range cards can only be played if the Active Player has not yet played a maneuver.

Impulse as determined above is as follows
1) Combat starts, impulse is with acting player (AP) to play pre range effects
2.1) AP plays a pre range effect; GOTO 2.1
OR
2.2) AP passes pre range impulse
3) Once 2.2 is TRUE, reacting Player (RP) impulses has impulse to:
3.1) Play any pre range cards GOTO 2.1
3.2) passes impulse to AP, GOTO 4.1
4.1) AP has impulse to play manuevers, GOTO 4.1
etc.etc

This text is not in the rules as written.

Making this more rational would take 4 lines of text. Unless the rules are also not open to changes due to some crazy random secret society copyright. Clear indication of steps is what has aided every tcg ever printed in it's ease of drawing in new players with more clear and comprehensive rules. If the plan for a remarketeering of this game is going to occur, this is an area I would recommend for need of a change.

TheLich wrote:

That wording is not actually very clear though, because Pre-Range is not a step. The wording listed there implies in very specific English that you have a time requirement to play Pre-Range cards before the acting player chooses to play a maneuver.

The basic rule, which is more pervasive than just Pre-Range, comes as a result of the Sequencing rules, 1.6.1.5.

Leaving the details aside, the basic rule is that I can't deny you the opportunity to play a card just by jumping ahead and playing a card that would come at a later step. So say I'm acting. I play Govern the Unaligned as an action card and then immediately say I'm playing seduction as the action is announced. You wanted to play Direct Intervention on Govern. What happens? Well, DI goes as the card is played, and I can't stop you doing that just by hurriedly playing Seduction. Same with Pre-Range - I can't just skip it by playing a maneuver.

Of course, we don't always announce every single possible timing phase. So players should try to be helpful. If you know another player might use Enkil Cog or Madness Network to act, ask before going into your influence phase. If you're thinking of playing Sudden Reversal on my Villein, ask me to pause a moment before I try to play Ventrue HQ or go into my minion phase. If you want to use Heidelberg Castle between my actions, jump in and grab my attention so I don't finish one action and roll straight into the next.