Immunity (while unconscious)

Immunity skill function in unc state is poorly defined. RAW, you can possess an unc Avatar. The possessed Avatar wouldn’t have the Lieutenant special skill, because the active player already has a Lieutenant (i think).

Assuming that we play it RAW, the new owner of Avatar could choose the target of (WIP11) mnemonica from his own troopers. Not really gamebreaking but that’s got to be humiliating for the EI.

 

I think the rules as written are quite clear and simple. Immunity just doesn't do anything when the trooper is unconscious.

Is that intended? Is that good? Different questions.

More important question: does Immunity kick the Avatar out of Possession when it is repaired? We know Infinity rules are often written in a... gatekeeper... style of prevention, not taking into account the question "what if it enters that state anyway". It is fully possible that being immune to entering the state also means being immune to being in the state.
I think we've had this before, possibly something to do with suppression fire and fireteams. I don't recall the details, but I do think it was concluded that being prevented from entering a state is synonymous with being affected by the state full stop.

 

Immunity (game state) says "the Trooper is completely immune to any Comms Attack effect or special rule effect that causes the listed Game State, for example Possessed (POS). The Trooper cannot enter that State." I strongly suspect that "cannot enter that State" is intended to mean "cannot be in that state." We had a similar discussion a while ago about how Camo says that it's cancelled if the trooper "enters silhouette contact" with an enemy but in my opinion if probably meant Camo is cancelled whenever the trooper "is in silhouette contact."

BUT, it's much more fun to think that we can possess Avatars, so I'm all for it.

Possessed says "While they are Possessed, Troopers are considered to be enemies by the rest of their owner's Troopers and are considered to be allies by the Troopers of the player that caused this game state." Ally is "Game elements that belong to the player's Army List" and Enemy is "Game elements that belong to the opposing player's Army List" so I think the Avatar is now on the hacking player's Army List.

Mnemonica says "The user may transfer his own WIP Attribute value, along with the Mnemonica Special Skill and the Lieutenant Special Skill (if applicable), to another Trooper in the same army." If being in the same Army List is the same as being in the same army, then the hacking player gets the transfer.

Problem is that Possessed just says that the trooper can't be activated by its owner and is instead activated by the opponent. Activated usually means spending an order or ARO. Is using Mnemonica an activation? I think probably not, in which case Possessed doesn't affect Mnemonica activation which is still done by the CA player.

Conclusion: If I put your Avatar unconscious and then Possess it, you can then kill it and impose WIP 11 on one of my troopers, your choice which one.

I like it.

 

He will immediately use mnemonica and walk away from the table. So where'll be nothing to Posess. As I see it.

 

Do you really wanna know what happens, if it is possible (and i'm not even sure it is)?

NOTHING

Because the Avatar is Unconscious that is a Null state. If it did forgoe the chance to use Mnemonica, there is no chance to get another for being Possessed (that is a Null state) or later again Unconscious or even Dead. It aldeary is into a Null state. No way to trigger Mnemonica.

 

This is a fun but honestly useless question. I don't know any TO who would rule this way. Its convoluted and bulky. You repair him, he reactivates IMM(POS) and removes the POS. I appreciate the silly running of the RAW, but that's just it. Its absolutely silly.

 

Ah, yes, the discussion was about what happens if a Camouflaged trooper is standing in base contact with a POS TAG and the TAG's POS is cleared and the conclusion was that they would stop be in base contact (probably) when POS was removed.

A Pan-O fellow in the Discord pointed out that Veteran troopers would work in the same way. Knock the Veteran down, it gets E/M or otherwise isolated, then if you Doctor/Medikit the trooper (a Bolt, of course) would it be isolated or would it have the state cleared?
This isn't strictly limited to the Avatar in other words.

 

Questionable whether already being in a Null state would prevent Mnemonica from triggering when entering a different Null state.

Actually a simple solution to the "problem" would be this:

- Player A's Avatar goes Unconscious and he doesn't use Mnemonica because he wants to repair the Avatar.
- Player B, wanting to prevent A from repairing the Avatar, Possesses it.
- Player A says "my Avatar just entered a new Null state so I activate Mnemonica. Since it's now your Avatar, I give WIP 11 to one of your models."

So player B does get to prevent the Avatar repair, but at the cost of taking a WIP reduction to one of his troopers. Seems like a reasonably fair outcome, actually, and avoids the even weirder alternatives.

 

This is when someone points out that Mnemonica is an Automatic Skill and would not have any effect if the trooper is already in a Null State; or if it did have an effect it would work similarly to how No Wound Incapacitation and Remote Presence interacts with each other which is to say it only works when you enter the null state the from a non-null state.
Ready for headaches? Arguably the user of the Mnemonica skill would be Player B in either case - as the alternative would be that Player A's Lieutenant (since likely the CA player won't be in Loss of Lieutenant yet) to one of Player B's units along with the terrible WIP and that means Player B would find themselves in the position of somehow having gotten into a loophole where they have two active lieutenant skills that generate orders.

 

Double Lieutenant situation is also possible with sepsitor. The rules don’t say what happens in this situation.

 

Oops, you're right. That solves most of the "problem." It can only arise if Player B puts the Avatar unconscious, possesses it, then repairs it, then player A puts it unconscious again.

The best solution to that is probably still to read "can't enter the possessed state" as "can't be in the possessed state," so the Avatar stops being possessed the moment player B repairs it (leading to a narratively rich "oh shit what have we done" moment). It's a shame because I still like the idea that there's a convoluted way to successfully steal an Avatar.

Possessing an unconscious Avatar and leaving it unconscious still stands as a method for obstructing the opponent from repairing it (they have to cancel Possessed first since their engineer can't target an "enemy" model). Pretty niche, though.

 

I can put a spanner in that practice as well. =D

Doctor and Engineer do not require a friendly target and an unconscious target does not put them in Engaged state so they can use the skill while in contact with an unconscious and possessed trooper.

And a note for all other TAGs: Possessed isn't a state that can be cancelled by Engineer skill, so cancelling states on an unconscious possessed TAG does not remove possession.
And for anyone trying to be clever with Medikits or GizmoKits: those devices do require an Allied target, so they can't even heal downed Designated Targets as your own DTs are neutral to you.

 

Not sure if the example is good. Engineering removes ALL states. It can be possessed, immobile, isolated and more. One engineering roll removes all.

 

"a Trooper with Engineer may cancel all of their target's States that can be canceled by this Special Skill" (bold emphasis added). Possessed does not have a cancellation line that says Engineer can remove it, Stunned only allows an Engineer to remove it if the target has a STR value, and all beneficial states that I am aware of (e.g. Suppression Fire) have no such cancellation line, either, thankfully.

 

Still, the example is a once every few years type of thing to happen. It needs to be something that happens all the time to make any kind of fix worth it.

 

Yes. It is slightly more relevant with Isolation and Veteran, though, if only because Monkeh.