113 out of 1000 cards use "then" 

35 out of 1000 cards use "if able"

Brain Transplant, Horrid Dreams, Initiation of Glaaki, Polar Fog, The Endless Investigation, The Underwater Conspiracy use both words

Brain Transplant, Initiation of Glaaki, The Endless Investigation are the only cards that base their "then" execution where previous effect includes if able.

3 cards in the pool of 1000, this combination of effects almost doesn't happen. So those few cards could have been worded clearly instead on basing their mechanics on confusing hard to grasp special words.
 

If albe -> then [How can you get confused by faq to get the opposite of working ruling]

FAQ "Any time two effects are linked by the word “then,” the first effect must resolve in order for the second effect to occur. "

And there is no clear definition of resolves. Does this mean it actually changed the game state? Or it was not cancelled? Or what?
(Example about discarding 2 cards suggests it hes to take full effect, i still think there should be a rule not an example that you have to get the rule from.)

FAQ on if able "If there is no legal target during resolution, there is no effect."

So the resolution of  text with "if able" on not good target is no effect, i can completely resolve "nothing happens" without much problem. So when "then" was based on it i did resolve, so "then …" should also happen.

One of the 3 (sic) cards that have this interaction is in the faq and it doesn't break this interpretetion…

FAQ "For example, with Brain Transplant (Summons of the Deep F111) you may target one insane character and one ready character who are both controlled by the same player, as per the targeting requirement. If the ready character has Willpower or a T icon, it is ineligible for the second part of the card’s effect (“The ready character goes insane, if able”), so that part of the effect is ignored."

It only says that part is ignored, if that part is ignored it did resolve in its whole "no effect happens" way. And cards dont have perfect wording, so thinking this interaction would not have "then" in card text is not enough of an argument.

 There are a few things use of if able changes:

===== "you can play a card for no effect" - great, is this important enough to have a new special word, maybe just write it on a card; and it only affects targetting requirement not eny other effects, so it would be leagues better to have "try to choose" meaning you must choose good target if available, but it there is none this part of effect is ignored; and there are only a few cards like this so why general rule?

===== "all or nothing behaviour" - this is completely unintuivive as literal meaning of "if able" does not suggest it should work this way and needs FAQ for explanation of basic idea; Byakhee Attack is the only card in pool that has this effect…

there are more cards that might, but i think they do just opposite of that

Flare Gun Attachment.
Response: After attached character commits to a story on your turn, pay 1 to choose up to two characters. Those characters must commit to that story, if able.

Initiate of Huang Hun
Response: After Initiate of Huang Hun enters play, each player returns a character he control to its owner's hand if able.

Misguided Dreams
Action: Each character must commit to stories this turn, if able.

I think its not all or nothing here becouse if able refers to the effect that happens for each entity rather than whole each statement. So there is one card that is based on FAQ suggestion… and 3 that directly contradict faqs sugesstion… but its confusing and i dont know if im wrong again. If one of chosen characters becomes unable to commit is the other one forced to? I think yes, but i don't see the rule that clears this. If so this is just the opposite of good use of if able. Initiate enters play fires response (he doesnt have to) and opponent has no characters can he return one of his own? I think yes, so its another ruling the other way than Byakhee. Byakhee is >>>the only card<< that uses this rule. It has special general rule created for it… how awful way of explaining rules is that… [edit] sorry, black goats rage also uses this rule, 2 cards… [/edit]

===== "random confirmation of general rule that if it is not targeting requirement, but some effect cant occur, you can still play the card and this part is ignored" it is generally really bad, as it suggests other cards behave in other way. If it was on all cards that can fail this wouldnt be a problem. This is on a small subset only, and other cards still behave like this… this is really confusing.

If you just throw away all if able and just write in a faq "must commit" - this effect means the player cannot chcoose not to commit this character if character could have been commited; if character is unable to commit he will not commit; for example if he is exhausted or commit window for controlling player is already closed.

TheProfessor said:

TheProfessor said:

… and that's why I've been frustrated trying to get a clear answer how brain transplant works.  There are two interpretations consistent with the FAQ and rules.

Feral Elder Thing is a nightmare to interpret: "Each player does X, if able.  Then, each player does Y."  There are 5 possible interpretations.

1) For each player A: (If A can do X, then A does X and Y.  Otherwise, nothing.)

2) For each player A: (If A can do X, then A does X).  If all players did X, then all players do Y.  Otherwise, no players do Y.

3) For each player A: (If A can do X, then A does X).  All players do Y, regardless.

4) If each player can do X, then all players do X and Y. Otherwise nothing.

5) If each player can do X, then all players do X. All players do Y, regardless.

 What I get now is that "then" means "only if previous effect happened in full extent" and "if able" states that sometimes this effect doesnt happen, but if it doesnt happen "then" does not fire, its there only to clarify… (though i find it hurting more than helping)

So I think when "if able" was used and no character was restored the other character does not restore.

Now i think "if able"'s effect, that is "there is no effect" does meet "then" criteria:

the first effect must resolve in order for the second effect to occur. For example: Julia Brown’s (Summons of the Deep F107) text reads: “Forced Response: After Julia Brown commits to a story, discard 2 cards at random from your hand, then draw 2 cards.” The player must discard 2 cards at random from his hand in order to draw the 2 cards.

And i really think the only reason i was even considering this interpretation is becouse of this entry on Transplantation that stated some useless interaction (generally speaking, on rare occasions you might want to play a card for now effect, but thats usualy not the case, so it should have been noted) instead of usefull one (ignoring then requirement, and i do not think it happens).

Going back to "all or nothing" Is there a single card other than Byakhee attack that has this behavior because of if able?

I was certain faq clarified Black goats rage to do it, but it was also not explicitly clarified and i extrapolated next example… so does Black goats rage make a single character go insane, if hes the only legal target? If it doesn't this "all or nothing" is for one card…

 FET i believe to work like: 2) though i tend to be really wrong about those rules lately.

 And even Byakhee is not clear in multiplayer when opponent A has 2+ cards and oppponent B has 1 or 0. Does A still discard his cards even though B cant, or is "if able" per player… i cant find it in faq.

 It is number 2. For what it is worth, I sent Damon the links to the If Able discussions and he did confirm that it is an all or nothing tatement. He also said he does understand that conversational English does make some wordings in the game difficult to understand (his example was action and Action:) which is why they have a firm definition in the FAQ. He also said two interesting things, I am going to paraphrase because I got bitched out for doing direct quotes by some random admin guy, he has been slowly trying to make the game more intuitive and better defined for both casual and competitive players, and if the defintion of "if able" is causing this much of a problem he'll take a look into how much of an impact altering the definition will have on the game. And then, all cards with a "then" statement are intended for all parts of the previous sentence to have successfully resolved, this means with the effect  having effecting all cards or the game state as outlined. There was no intention from Eric Lang's design all the way through his for any other interpretation, with the possible exception of the designer immediately before him [I'm assuming he means Hata here]. He will try and make this more clear in the FAQ.

So he is willing to at least assess the "if able" definition, but confirms that everything before the then statement must have resolved 100% on all cards and game state in order for the second part to resolve.

Penfold said:

That's all reasonable.  Thanks.  (Besides, I think 1 and 2 made the most common sense, but 1 didn't make as much logical sense.)

For what it's worth, I don't think the problem is the definition of "if able" so much as how "if able" and "then" and "each player" all interact.  Part of that problem is that English does not group clauses with parenthesis -- "(Each player, do X), if able" /= "Each player, (do X, if able)" but both are written the same way "Each player, do X, if able."

But at least we know that *all* parts must have an effect for the "then" clause to take effect.

Hi everyone,

I'm new to CoC, and the "if able" clause got me a bit confused, too ;-) Thanks to all people in this thread, it cleared things up for me, I think. To summarize (and please correct me if I'm wrong), there are 3 different cases how to deal with "if able":

• On cards with only 1 directive like Y'Golonac and Nightmares!, "if able" doesn't change anything, because players have to fulfill as much of the card text as possible, anyway (last FAQ entry about Julia Brown).
• On cards with 2 or more directives like the Byakhee Attack, "if able" has a meaning. If one or more of the directives cannot be (successfully) resolved, resolve no directive at all (FAQ entry about if able - Byakhee Attack).
• On cards where directive(s) are connected via "if able" and followed by "then, …" like on Feral Elder Thing, check if all directives can be resolved. If at least 1 player cannot obey 1 directive (e.g. only has 1 card in his hand), neither he nor other players must obey the directive(s) (e.g. discard 2 cards). Only if all players discarded 2 cards, each draws 1 card.

Is this right?

 AD1 Generally yes (Y'Gollonacs case), but with cards like Nightmares! and all cards that drive insane or wound remember that any card that seeks to
-choose more things that are available
-drive insane character with T (or willpower)
-wound character with invulnerable
cannot be triggered (or sth like that, i don't get it all yet, but there was some kind of problem of this sort with Khopesh for example) so it changes behavior a bit.

AD2 Yes, but I dont see other cards than "byakhee attack" with this kand of effects, can someone name other card that works like this because of "if able"? (and is not FET, ok 2 cards)

AD3 Then fires if previous effect occured, so "if able" emphasises it can fail sometimes. With "Each player does X if able"  im still not sure, is it

3a) Each player resolves independently: "do X if able"

3b) Each player does X. But if any player cant to X no one does X.

This "if able" scope question i didnt find any hints in FAQ, FET debete seems to say its 3b.

Hopefully there aren't many cards with this wording. But if general convention is scope like 3b cards like:

Misguided Dreams Action: Each character must commit to stories this turn, if able.

Becomes really awful cards if really having an exhausted or insane character breaks this effect (i don't think its intended to work like this)
 

PS

Action: i find a good convention - its on all the cards so you get uset to it really fast; if ables main problem is that it is used so rarely you cant really get used to it and it modifies effect but doesn't specify what is the scope - what exactly is the effect that it modifies.

Thanks for your answer!

.Zephyr. said:

Ah, so if Nightmares! didn't have "if able", then I couldn't even trigger the effect on a T/willpower character. But with "if able", I can trigger it, and the character is put on top of the deck. "if able" is used in the standard if-else way known from programming in this case. Ok, Nightmares! has been a pretty bad example in my first dot

.Zephyr. said:

Yes, I think so: The Black Goat's Rage (drive insane 2 chosen characters if able) and Small Ghouls (put 3 cards from discard pile on the bottom of the deck if able). If there is only 1 character to drive insane, or only 1 card in the discard pile, those effects should be completely ignored, because the effects cannot be fulfilled in their entirety, I think.

.Zephyr. said:

Good point! Just by reading Misguided Dreams, I would never have come to the conclusion that no character must commit at all, if at least 1 cannot commit… And it makes me wonder about Underwater Conspiracies, too…

Other cards from the 3b / 3a question are Initiate of Huang Hun (each player must return a character to hand if able) and Many-angled thing (each opponent must choose+sacriface a character if able). Perhaps there are even more cards.

HilariousPete said:

That was not the conclusion above.

Penfold said:

karat said:

It's a bit ambiguous.  If I could use parentheses, the interpretation is between "Each player, (do X, if able)" versus "(Each player, do X), if able."  The discussion above favored the former.