by Saberj
I've played this game a lot, and I've never really had any rules questions. The game is pleasantly simple, and a snap to teach. However, tonight in one of our games, we had several rules questions that came up almost all at once.The first question involved the cards Reflective Hide + Cannibalistic. It basically meant that everytime one player took damage, they dealt damage to the player that dealt it to them (Reflective Hide), and then healed the damage they received (Cannibalistic). On the other side, we had Lightning Armor. The issue we ran into is a potential loop of damage.
Basically when the player with the duo of cards (Player A) attacked the Lightning Armor player (Player B), Player B would be able to reflect damage back at Player A. In turn Player A would reflect damage back at Player B (And heal the damage he had received). This went on back and forth three times, amazingly, before Lightning Armor missed.
Is that something that should be able to happen? Should it continue back and forth until someone dies? And specifically, did the player with Lightning Armor actually HAVE to try and redirect the damage? Or are evolutions optional? In this case, there was 0 benefit in reflecting the damage back, as the player that it was getting reflected upon was in turn auto-reflecting it back (And then healing the damage he had received as a result). Is there a limit to the number of times a card power can be tripped?
Now forget most of what I just said. What we determined is that we played it wrong. In reality what happened was that Player B was taking his turn, and had attacked Tokyo. He had the evolution that allowed him to automatically deal damage to players outside of Tokyo when he did that. That tripped Reflective Hide for Player A, which then tripped Lightning Armor on Player B. He then proceed to hit with Lightning Armor 3 times. However, what we figured out was that Lightning Armor attacks the player who's turn it is. So basically after going back and forth for a while, we realized that Player B would've actually been attacking himself the whole time (And still tripping Lightning Armor in the process). Is that supposed to be able to happen? It seems right RAW (Rules as Written), but not RAI (Rules as Intended).
What should have happened in this case?
Now a bit of a change-up. In the same game, Player C (Me) had 18 points, and needed two to win. However, Player C only had 1 health remaining. Had an attack been rolled, there would have been two auto attacks back which would have resulted in almost certainly losing that one health. The rules say that if a player gets 20 Victory points, they win. But the rules also say that if a player ever reaches 0 health, they are eliminated. I couldn't find anything stating what happens if both occur at the same time. As it turns out, after rolling the first two rolls, and getting attacks both times, the final roll scored 3 victory points, and no attacks. So it wasn't an issue. But we couldn't figure out what would have happen, had it scored 1 attack AND the 3 VP. Which conditions trumps the other? We assumed death would overrule victory, but it could be argued that victory happened simultaneously with death. Thoughts? A Ruling?
