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Hero Card versus Hero Character Card

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Rabit
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Hero Card versus Hero Character Card

So, this is a question that was answered a long time ago, but not sure if that answer has stayed the same over the years. :-) 

Way back when, it was agreed by the-powers-that-be that a hero character card was not a hero card. Here are the related definitions from the rule book: 

Sentinels of the Multiverse Enhanced Edition rulebook, page 13 wrote:
  • Hero: A hero is a character played by a player. Heroes have character cards, which list the maximum HP of the hero and their innate power on the front, and their incapacitated abilities on the back. All heroes have a deck of 40 hero cards.  
  • Hero card: Any card from a hero deck.
  • Hero character card: the "main" card for a hero. Heroes have character cards, which list the maximum HP of the hero and their innate power on the front, and their incapacitated abilities on the back.
  • Hero target: Any target that is also a hero card or a hero character card. If a card affects non-hero targets, it can affect any targets that are not hero cards or hero character cards. 

So if a card has a back from a hero deck, it's a hero card. If it's one of the character cards (cards without card backs, i.e., two-sided cards) for a hero, it's a hero character card. Things that affect hero cards don't affect hero character cards and vice versa. 

Are there concerns or disagreements on this? :-) Asking because it recently came up, and I was curious what folks thought. (And because rules discussions can be fun! :-D )

(Villain details work similarly.)

 

Note: These definitions likely will need to be updated to cover the Sentinels and the Ennead in the Definitive Edition, but it works well enough in general. ;-) 


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Powerhound_2000
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Rulings in Fireside Chats would agree that the Hero Character is not a hero card like this one

Fireside Chats wrote:

Any cards that let a hero “destroy one of their cards” may not allow the hero to destroy their character card.


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MigrantP
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I believe the digital version does not make that distinction (aside from the specific item that Powerhound_2000 mentioned). Also note that your character card(s) are counted when looking for the hero with the most/least cards in play.

Cards where this could make a difference are:

  • Ground Pound: "Non-Hero cards cannot deal damage."
    • I'm pretty sure nobody ever would consider this to include hero character cards.
  • Glamour: "If Tachyon is active in this game, hero cards cannot redirect damage."
    • This is a rare effect but would apply to XPW Fanatic for instance.
  • Maze of Mirrors: "Treat every instance of the word “villain” on hero cards as if it were the word “hero” instead."
    • I don't think there's hero character card that has "villain" on it in the power text, but Parse, Ra, Tempest, and Guise have it in their incapacitated ability text. I would expect it to apply to them.
  • Isolated Hero: "That hero and that hero’s cards cannot affect or be affected by any hero card or effect from another hero deck."
    • I'm pretty sure nobody would say that Isolated Hero allows hero character card effects to get through to the affected hero.

Also note that "Threat To The President" specifies "non-character Hero cards". If hero character cards were not Hero cards, why would that distinction exist?

Edit: Oh, and saying that villain character cards don't count as villain cards would break several more things, including some core villain mechanics:

  • Sub-Zero Atmosphere: "Any Villain card which would act at the end of the Villain turn instead acts at the start of the Villain turn."
  • La Capitan: "Whenever a hero card is destroyed by a villain card, it is placed under this card."
  • Lead from the Front: "Whenever a hero target would be dealt damage by a villain card, you may redirect that damage to Legacy."
  • Police Backup: "Whenever a Villain Card would make a player discard a card, destroy this card."
  • Smoke Bombs: "Whenever a Villain card would deal damage to the Hero target with the lowest HP, redirect that damage to the Hero target with the highest HP."

That's not mentioning some weird edge cases with villain character cards that can be destroyed and played again (The Chairman).


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Powerhound_2000
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It's a complicated relationship it would seem.  


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TakeWalker
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As far as I know, hero character cards count as hero cards, especially when looking for who has the most in play (so the Sentinels are almost always it), but when you have an effect that makes you destroy one of your hero cards -- and this I specifically remember as a ruling from when the Freedom Six variants were released digitally -- you can't choose to destroy your hero character.

Rabit
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Yeah, at the original time of the ruling, cards in play only included actual hero cards (by that definition at the time) -- but then SW Sentinels came along and the ruling was made that character cards counted... :-\ 

Powerhound_2000 wrote:
It's a complicated relationship it would seem.  

I think it's definitely an area that can be cleaned up in the Definitive Edition. :-) 


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Powerhound_2000
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Would require a lot of rewording to match up with ruling given through Fireside chats.  


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MindWanderer
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TakeWalker wrote:
As far as I know, hero character cards count as hero cards, especially when looking for who has the most in play (so the Sentinels are almost always it),

Benchmark and Parse might beg to differ. These are the two which, when playing on TTS, I frequently run out of space for. (It only has room for 10 cards per hero besides the character card.)


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Trajector
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An interesting thing, Rabit, is that the definitions you quoted don't distinguish character cards as double-sided cards. I think that was a later determination. According to those definitions, you could have a double-sided card that is part of "a hero deck" with 40 cards, and it would not be a character card as it's not the "main" card with HP and an innate power on the front, and incapacitated abilities on the back.

A really funny thing, to me, about these definitions is that NONE of the Southwest Sentinels' character cards meet the original definitions! Their rules card doesn't have HP or an innate power, their individual cards don't have incapacitated abilities on the back.

This is definitely a case where the intent was clear, but the specifics of the rules sure do get muddled. It'll be interesting to see how the Definitive Edition resolves this.

Hmm...musing: given the original definitions, is there a case where Maze of Mirrors makes some effect able (or not able) to affect character (or non-character) cards, when it originally didn't?