Ahhh I see what you mean. Yeah, this line in particular: ...but if a Trooper can declare an ARO and fails to do so, the chance to declare an ARO is lost. I'm not sure if that should be read as meaning an ARO declared at step 4 when you had an ARO at step 2 is invalid or illegal. I feel like it needs to be the former because you can't necessarily know until resolution (for example: a hacker declares 'hack' in response to an enemy in their second short skill because they think they've only moved into ZOC then - but when this is checked at resolution that turns out to be wrong). But IJW seems to indicate the latter. I think that might be a mistake - if you treat this as being an invalid but not illegal ARO then you don't have to rewind anything, but if you treat it as an illegal ARO you can end up having to rewind HD placement, mines detonating, etc. On a related note, I assume the dot point above needs to be read as 'but if a Trooper can declare a valid ARO and fails to do so, the chance to declare an ARO is lost', because otherwise shit's fucked.
Exactly. Reading "valid" into that line is absolutely necessary and how it's understood. The two checks inherit in N4 AROs (for validity and for permission to declare) create a workable and coherent system: they're not entirely spelled out. Ofcourse Stealth is - thanks to the FAQ - an explicit exception to this: Stealth prevents you declaring, but the FAQ makes it invalid if you declare in response to a group activation.
Eh it's their event. They all wanna do something different then whatever that's their deal, if you don't like it they're being up front just don't go to them. It's not like we don't already have two different types of rules being followed based on whether or not you play with intent.
This rule has to change, which I believe you suggest doing in a different thread mentioned in this one: The Reactive Player must declare AROs for all eligible Models or Markers immediately after the Active Player declares his Entire Order or the first Short Skill of his Order (see: Order Expenditure Sequence). Troopers that fail to do so lose their ARO against that Order. If, by declaring the second Short Skill of its Order, the active Trooper gives an ARO to enemy Troopers that did not have ARO against the first Short Skill, then those enemy Troopers can declare their AROs. If this rule isn't changed them every model on the table must declare AROs to the first enemy action, even if they aren't valid (since validity is not a requirement of eligibility), meaning you never reach the second opportunity (aside from stealth).
Added this to the solved section of the unanswered rules tracker and marked it as important, given that the rules team has answered this. To recap: 1. Being eligible for an ARO means you are or have been in a situation where you had a valid skill to declare against the active trooper. 2. You are allowed to declare a skill that you are not eligible for, being mindful that LOF is checked during the ARO step. Why would you do this? 1. You may want to preserve your ARO if you are uncertain about ranges 2. You may want to play mind games 3. You may want to cancel Hidden Deployment which is unfortunately an undesired functionality. Why didn't they fix this? 1. Ultimately, the consequences of the undesired functionality of the hidden deployment interaction doesn't negatively affect game play very much. 2. By fixing this undesired functionality, the rules team have identified several behaviours that strongly and negatively affects game play. Could you give an example of strongly negatively? Sure. I'll use the one IJW gave earlier in this thread because several people missed it. A hidden deployment hacker, of which there are many in the game, could attempt to hack enemies without risk of consequence for misjudging distance against enemies that are close. This can force the active player to spend skills to protect their troopers while the reactive trooper is allowed to return to hidden deployment (and thus be untouchable by the active player) if the distance is found to be too far. Alternatively, since this depends on how the undesired interaction is plugged, it allows the reactive player to measure distances almost ad hoc
"Being eligible for an ARO means you are or have been in a situation where ARO declarations are considered valid and are not otherwise prohibited from declaring an ARO." Not all AROs are declared against the active trooper. It's possible to be in a situation where ARO declarations are considered valid but be prohibited from declaring an ARO: in this situation you are not eligible for an ARO.
You're talking about Stealth? All AROs are against the active trooper (though not necessarily targeting them if using targetless or a skill that has no target) and if the active trooper has an ability preventing ARO against it you may not declare one. I do not quite intend to put the entire rulebook in a short and concise answer ;)
ijw fixed that wording earlier in this very thread: Problem solved! The real issue that that you want the rule to be broken because it gives you an excuse for refusing to follow it. The rule is manifestly not broken. It's been in effect throughout N4. I guess you didn't realize and were still playing N3-style AROs, but lots of us have been playing N4 AROs correctly. They don't have the effect you claim they do - players can and do declare AROs against second short skills in the usual way. Like I said before, you don't have to like the rule, but justifying your dislike by pretending the rule is broken is absurd.
I understand the legality and reasoning behind the rule. However, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and seems really gamey. i won't be pulling cheesey moves like this.
Read the post? He said nothing changed, my point was that the rule was changed to accommodate his ruling, which you've validated for me. This new declaring invalid AROs business also seems like a great way to clear mines. You can declare a dodge, despite not meeting the criteria, but then if you're in the radius of a mine, it becomes a valid ARO because the mine is triggered. You don't even need hidden deployment to do that by this.
Please don't move the goalposts. THIS rule has not changed IN ANY WAY from what is written in the rules. Personally I'm not a fan of the interactions and I think it should have been explicitly spelled out for players, but as I've said several times in this discussion, that wasn't my decision to make. Yes, as has been discussed several times. EDIT - ninja-attack by QueensGambit...
I feel like the use of Idle is bandaid. And no one was sure where to go after. You said you told them about how gamey it feels, right? Well, it seems exactly like when I was explain why Move should change and only one person at the time over there agreed with me and then here we are with my suggestions in place. The number one thing I hate is that sometimes Ego gets the best of even the best of us and a lot of time and energy is lost over simple things.
Holy cow, I'm not trying to move any goal posts. The rules are written that you lose your opportunity to declare a second ARO if you didn't declare one the first time if you were eligible. You have said that it should read "valid" not only eligible. You are correct in that you haven't gone into the wiki and changed the wording, but you have offered a ruling that people should know to change how the rule is read. I'm saying that is changing the rules. I'm confused and trying to catch up with the logic here so that I can help my community, but right now this feels really negative and allows for a lot of gimmicky game mechanics. It seems that the implications of ruling in this manner, means players are expected to read between the lines in a ruleset which is written as permissive. In this instance they need to know they can do something that isn't explicitly permitted, but implicitly permitted through nuanced wording and how eligible doesn't necessarily mean valid. We don't have a definition in the rules on "eligible to ARO", but we do have definition of "valid to ARO". This opens up dodging mines for free, dropping hidden deployment, and I'm sure other gimmicks that we haven't found yet, which are going to lead to very negative play experiences when used to surprise players. All this is why we won't be playing with this ruling until it crops up in a FAQ. It's an unfair expectation to have of our players that they must read, understand, and internalize significant changes like this to the rules, without it being spelled out in an official publication. If purposely declaring an invalid ARO is meant to be an action a player can perform in the game, then we can wait for it to be explicitly stated, just like any other action you can perform in the rest of the rules currently.
I'm also curious why the FAQ about Controlled Jump was needed at all? How does Controlled Jump work in ARO? A Controlled Jump ARO is considered valid against a Combat Jump Entire Order anywhere on the table, or against any Skill in the Hacker’s Hacking Area. By the logic in this thread that FAQ is totally unnecessary and being considered valid is irrelevant.
My apologies, I think we're posting at cross-purposes. I was talking specifically about AROs no longer being triggered and then declared, but instead declared and then checked. Because that's what was being discussed when I said that this thread didn't change the N4 ARO rules. Because Hacking AROs normally depend on there being an Active Trooper within your Hacking Area to be considered a valid ARO. You could declare the Controlled Jump ARO anyway, but the FAQ lets it be a valid ARO even if the Combat Jump user is outside your Hacking Area/ZoC/LoF. Plus it covered the timing issues to allow the ARO to affect the Combat Jump Roll of the current Order.
Now kiss. As for my opinion on the actual topic of this thread: I think it's worth considering whether or not allowing Hidden Deployment troopers to simply cancel their Hidden Deployment status during the States Phase would be worthwhile. Gets rid of the need for silly interactions like this one and really only allows the benefit of shuffling orders around on a turn when you don't plan to use the HD trooper, but at the cost of revealing them.
