Restricted Vitae Clarification.

Restricted Vitae
Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire successfully hunts.
Vampires cannot hunt unless forced to hunt. A vampire who must hunt may hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a action instead of performing the usual hunt action.

My initial interpretation of this is that if empty a vampire can only hunt from a younger vampire — hence the would instead. Is this the case? or should the card read:

Vampires cannot hunt unless forced to hunt. A vampire who must hunt may also hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a action instead of performing the usual hunt action.

Or similar?

Thanks

Ke. wrote:

Restricted Vitae
Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire successfully hunts.
Vampires cannot hunt unless forced to hunt. A vampire who must hunt may hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a action instead of performing the usual hunt action.

My initial interpretation of this is that if empty a vampire can only hunt from a younger vampire — hence the would instead. Is this the case? or should the card read:

Vampires cannot hunt unless forced to hunt. A vampire who must hunt may also hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a action instead of performing the usual hunt action.

Or similar?

Thanks

An empty vampire must hunt. Therefore, an empty vampire is not affected by the "he can't hunt" text. Thus he can hunt regularly.
Now, Restricted Vitae allows that vampire to hunt via Restricted Vitae's cardext instead of performing the allowed-for-vampires-who-must-hunt regular hunt action.

You're reading it incorrectly, you're reading it as if it read
"Vampires cannot hunt. A vampire who must hunt may steal a blood as a action." (or something similar when performing a hunt action would be allowed and not allowed at the same time).

Thanks, it didn't affect me directly — was just for clarification for other players arguing...

I don't feel this answers the question- what needs clarification is whether a vampire who is forced to hunt has to hunt from a younger vampire.

If there is no younger vampire, where does the vampire hunt from?

The card text reads 'A vampire who must hunt may hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a D action instead of performing the usual hunt action.'

indicating the only hunt option is to hunt from a younger vampire. Similarly, Week of Nightmares card text says

'Ravnos get +1 bleed and +1 strength and do not hunt as normal. A Ravnos may steal a blood from another Ravnos as a +1 stealth hunt action.'

If there are no Ravnos with blood left, would they then be allowed to hunt as normal? No, they hunt and stay tapped on 0 blood.

Like Week of Nightmares, Restricted Vitae removes the 'normal hunt action', leaving Vampires who must hunt the only hunt option of 'stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a action'. The emphasis of the card here is 'instead'- 'instead' indicates the normal hunt option is no longer available. If there are no younger vampires, they hunt but receive no blood.

This would reflect the actual Gehenna event of Vampires only being satisfied by blood from other vampires. Otherwise, if Vampires can hunt as normal, what is the point of Restricted Vitae if you can't force other vampires to hunt from each other and create more chances for int/combat?

@TheRagnarok:

There is a wording difference between Week of Nightmares and Restricted Vitae.

Week of Nightmares
Type: Master
Requires: Ravnos
Master.
Put this card in play with 10 nightmare counters. Ravnos get +1 bleed and +1 strength and do not hunt as normal. A Ravnos may steal a blood from another Ravnos as a +1 stealth hunt action. During each Methuselah's untap phase, he or she may move a nightmare counter from this card to a Ravnos. If this card has no counters, each Ravnos burns a blood for each nightmare counter or is burned, then burn this card and the counters. Only one Week of Nightmares may be played in a game.

Restricted Vitae
Type: Event
Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire successfully hunts.
Vampires cannot hunt unless forced to hunt. A vampire who must hunt may hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a action instead of performing the usual hunt action.

Abactor
Type: Action
+1 stealth hunt action.
Gain 5 blood. After successful resolution, a referendum is called to call a blood hunt on this vampire (independent of the action, just as if he or she had committed diablerie).

Week of Nightmares prevents all Ravnos from taking the cardless +1 stealth undirected hunt action. It gives them an option to hunt from another Ravnos. If they had some other card (e.g. Abactor) which provided a hunt action, they may take that action. If Week of Nightmares AND Restricted Vitae were in play, then Ravnos could hunt from non-Ravnos as a action using Restricted Vitae's hunt action.

Restricted Vitae prevents all vampires from taking the cardless +1 stealth action if they do not need to take a mandatory hunt action. If they have a mandatory hunt action, then the card doesn't not restrict the hunt action and the vampire can take any hunt action available (e.g. Restricted Vitae's hunt action, Week of Nightmare's hunt action, Kyoko Shinesegawa's hunt action, Abactor's hunt action, Vulture's Buffet's hunt action, etc).

Is there an LSJ ruling on this? Because the card text seems pretty clear, I.E.

A vampire who must hunt may hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a D action instead of the usual hunt action

The 'may' here does not indicate an alternative hunt option, 'instead' being the operative word, the only hunt option available being hunting from younger vampires, Just like the Week of Nightmares option, which also reads 'may'.

I'm just reading the card text as it implies. If it was clarified with 'may hunt by stealing a blood... in addition to the usual hunt action' this would be clear, but the card clearly doesn't read that way for a reason?