Justicar Retribution

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Yes. You can't modify a bleed that doesn't exist, and bleed modifiers are temporary for the action.

What is "bleed" exactly?

Bleed is a kind of action.

Bleed is also the amount of pool burned by a bleed action.

Bleed is also a characteristic of some or all minions, depending on how you interpret card text and the rulebook. According to the rulebook, all minions have a "bleed amount". According to card text, allies have "bleed". Many effects that give +/- bleed do not say "during a bleed action", implying that bleed is a minion characteristic the same as strength, intercept, or stealth.

Minions have strength, intercept, and stealth. Do minions have bleed or do bleed actions have bleed?

AaronC wrote:

Minions have strength, intercept, and stealth. Do minions have bleed or do bleed actions have bleed?

Both - every minion has a base bleed of one, for example.

Modifiers that modify the action's bleed require the action to actually have a bleed element. That is, bleed must exist for the action. [LSJ 20020106] (linked previously) If there were some sort of hybrid bleed/hunt action, you could modify the action's bleed because the bleed element would exist. You can't play Threats on a Choir action, because it doesn't have a bleed element.

I can't think of any modifiers (that you could activate during the action) that aren't just ones modifying the current action, rather than the underlying minion.

Divine Image, If played on a non-bleed action at superior, could be this 'I can burn myself with a Justicar Retribution' modifier in conjecture.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

I can't think of any modifiers (that you could activate during the action) that aren't just ones modifying the current action, rather than the underlying minion.

Stealth and intercept modifiers modify a minion, according to the rulebook.

From 6.2.2. (emphasis mine):

To see if a block attempt succeeds, compare the acting minion's stealth to the blocking minion's intercept. The action is blocked if the blocker's intercept is equal to or greater than the acting minion's stealth. By default, minions have 0 stealth and 0 intercept. So a block attempt will normally succeed unless the action has inherent stealth (such as hunting) or a card or effect is used to increase the acting minion's stealth.

Some actions have an inherent stealth, as noted in the action list (sec. 6.1) and on some action cards. The minion taking such an action starts with greater stealth than normal. Additionally, some cards and other effects can be used to increase a minion's stealth or intercept, as noted on card text.

Please also consider that action modifier cards to not "modify an action", per se. Action modifier cards are simply played during an action by the acting Methuselah's minions. According to the rulebook, action modifiers that increase stealth or intercept modify a minion, not an action.

One wonders why it works differently for a minion's "bleed".

AaronC wrote:

Stealth and intercept modifiers modify a minion, according to the rulebook.
...
One wonders why it works differently for a minion's "bleed".

Yes and no.

Regarding stealth and intercept, the distinction is somewhat less relevant these days than it was. In the distant past (1995 or so), action modifiers were held to modify the action, but certain other effects - such as Backways - were not. This was important for the interaction with Mask of a Thousand Faces. What carried over to the new acting vampire, and what didn't? Lost in Crowds did, Backways didn't. Rules Team Rulings: 11/10/95 (Note that there has been a substantial reversal of this RTR.)

These days, the distinction is pretty much irrelevant, since pretty much all non-inherent effects are carried over. (There is an annoyance involving inherent bleed vs inherent stealth, and when they're applied to the action.) However, this pretty much isn't something that the rulebook is likely to go into - it's really corner-case stuff.



As to what might motivate a designer to treat them differently? Jyhad was designed with several mechanisms to (hopefull) make deck construction non-trivial in a no-limits environment. One such example is the fact that you can't play stealth uselessly, aside from a brief hiatus in a spectacularly odd WotC ruling. (You were prevented from playing unnecessary stealth during a block attempt but could then dump as much as you liked afterwards. Rules Team Rulings - 04/25/97 Again, reversed later.) Ditto, intercept.

It strikes me that designers who didn't want you to dump stealth unnecessarily or intercept unnecessarily - though they can potentially be played on more or less any action - might also think that not being able to dump Threats or Bonding on an equip action would be kinda groovy.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

It strikes me that designers who didn't want you to dump stealth unnecessarily or intercept unnecessarily - though they can potentially be played on more or less any action - might also think that not being able to dump Threats or Bonding on an equip action would be kinda groovy.

Hmm. I guess we don't really know, since no rule or explicit ruling exists that says that bleed modifiers may not be played during a non-bleed action.

One would think it would be an easy enough rule to add or to explicitly state, but apparently not.

When we talk about a vampire's bleed, it seems that we are talking about what the rulebook refers to as bleed amount. I say that it is better design to talk about bleed in terms of being a minion characteristic as opposed to an action characteristic. That is because minions carry inherent bleed amount and bleed modifiers even while not acting. The rulebook supports this, even though some isolated and contradictory rulings do not. Just as minions have bleed amount when not acting, they have stealth and intercept when not acting. They also have strength when not in combat.

This is a useful, since it allows cards, such a Justicar Retribution, that may give certain effects based on minions' bleed amount, stealth, intercept, or strength. However, this kind of effect is almost unknown in the game outside of Justicar Retribution.

When I read Justicar Retribution, my understanding is that I add the minion's inherent bleed amount plus any modifiers that are in effect during the Justicar Retribution action, since, by the definition of the word "current", they are current. Even though it uses the word "bleed", which is a kind of action, it must be referring to "bleed amount", since Justicar Retribution is not a bleed action. If a bleed modifier is only "current" during a bleed action against a specific Methuselah, by definition that modifier is not current and therefore not part of the minion's bleed amount at the time of the vote.

It seems simple enough, but whoever made the ruling about Justicar Retribution decided that "bleed" must be referring to an action, not a minion characteristic, when it seems clear enough that "bleed" in this context is referring to "bleed amount" not "bleed action".