Proposed rule for March

[awall]

I'm posting this here before the March round begins in order to garner a bit of feedback on this rule. Feel free to make criticism and I'll take it into account before we officially start March.

I originally wanted to submit a rule to nerf paraFoD. However, since we just finished a league round in which FoD was banned, I feel that the rule I was going to propose would have been too similar. So instead of going after paraFoD, I think I'll just go after para instead, which I figure most people shouldn't complain about (does anybody actually like this spell?).

My first instinct would be to use the league as a testing ground for a variant/replacement to paralysis, as has been discussed a few times in the strategy forum. This would give a variant some much-needed playtesting so that we could be sure that it was a robust change before we started looking at it seriously with respect to implementation. However, the two problems with this are 1) We don't really have a fix yet; and 2) Any proposed changes we made wouldn't be implemented server-side, and would have to be handled entirely by the honor system. While this generally works okay for VF's, I'm not sure about running a league this way. So, with all that said, here's the change I'm thinking about for March:

You may not cast paralysis more than for every three F's you gesture (per hand).

Explanation
The plain English equivalent to this rule is that you may not chain paralysis. For example, if you gesture a string of F's, you may cast para only on the bolded turns:
FFFFFFFFF...

Casting para at nobody doesn't count as casting it, so instead you may target it at nobody on turn 3 and wind up with...
FFFFFFFFFFFF... or similar

Switching hands also gets around this rule:
FFFx
xFFF
is valid. So is casting a banked paralysis whenever you like, should you happen to have one (but remember, you can't gesture FFFF, use the third one to bank para, and the fourth to cast para).

If you get charmed while you have FFF, it is your responsibility to target that hand at nobody to prevent accidentally casting an illegal paralysis. That said, charming your opponent to F for the sole purpose of trying to get him to mess up and have to surrender is an ugly play and is strongly frowned upon. If it's actually important to you that the hand be directed at nobody (i.e. you want to charm the other hand, but are worried about being stabbed) then yes, it's acceptable to take a risk and charm to F... but please don't do this just for the sake of causing your opponent to trip up and have to concede.

Any comments/suggestions?

[BioLogIn]

"but remember, you can't gesture FFFF, use the third one to bank para, and the fourth to cast para"
please explain

"charming your opponent to F for the sole purpose of trying to get him to mess up and have to surrender is an ugly play and is strongly frowned upon"
but why?

[awall]

biologin said:

"but remember, you can't gesture FFFF, use the third one to bank para, and the fourth to cast para"
please explain

The act of banking a spell counts as casting it. Therefore, if you gesture FFF and bank the resulting paralysis, you must gesture 3 more F's with that hand before you can cast paralysis again (so you could, for example, do FFFFFF and bank on the underlined turn, cast at your opponent on the bolded turn).

"charming your opponent to F for the sole purpose of trying to get him to mess up and have to surrender is an ugly play and is strongly frowned upon"
but why?

When Exdeath instituted his rule preventing summons, there were several cases where people entered SF and got charmed to W, resulting in wins for their opponent. Most of the victims were pretty unhappy with having lost this way, so while it's technically valid, it's not particularly nice. Since the victim can avoid this by targeting nobody with the hand in question, there isn't really a strategic reason to charm them into casting a forbidden spell (except in rare cases), so the only reason you'd really do it is to hope to catch them asleep.

[Dubber]

So basically, you're saying:

In an FFFF string of any length there mut be at least two Fs targetted at "Nobody" after an F that targets any warlock or summoned creature.

Right?

*sigh* obviously, any other gesture may also be used instead of an F at any time (which would also break the chain)

[awall]

That's essentially correct.

I'd also say that targeting at a monster that is not summoned is NOT the same as targeting nobody, so your sentence should be amended to...

"...any warlock or summoned creature or potential creature"

[xade]

oh ah, nice little varient awall...

Though man, there is going to be a lot of concieding going on as the month wears on...

[toyotami]

Basically what this rule tells me is: no para after the first one. Horray to that. The rich get richer.

Oh i also had a little thought experiment that went with Biologin's wonder about charming people to break the rules. Here is an instance where it is a distinct advantage for the ability to do so exists:

Warlock Toyode has
123456789 (charmed)
FFF
DDP

He just smacked Xatami with a lightning bolt and is trying to defend a charm with paralysis

But Xatami has this:
123456789
SDF (Paralysed) Bonecrunching Breakdancing Giant (4 health)
xxx

So usually in this situation Xatami might risk giving Toyode a P in the hopes of a tricky surrender (as Toyode might try to sneak one in to avoid having his shin bones splintered for 4 hit points)

HOWEVER: If Xatami charms Toyode's LH into a P he cant lose. Even if Toyode DOESN'T present a P on the right, he still won't be shielded by the LH: P given to him because he will target it at NOBODY, to avoid the equally crafty F that Xatami might have given him, forcing him to inadvertantly break the rule.

Anybody keep up with that? You're sure it will never happen? I will go out of my way to make it happen.

[Dubber]

Toyo, that's altogether too many levels of 50-50 coin-tossing on a Friday night/Saturday day.
That's it, I'm going to bed.

[awall]

Toyo, in a situation like that I find it acceptable to charm to F. What I was getting at was charming to F when there was no real reason to do so just in the hopes of catching your opponent asleep and getting a free win. In any case, charming to F isn't illegal, and if doing so is the difference between a win and a loss, then by all means go for it.