This is why we can't have nice things.

I completely agree with the Copycat swapping to be akin to Mind Control. I even mentioned that in my email. And I totally see and understand that anyone getting an email but not made public by the orange in a ruling thread somewhere is very sketchy. All I can say is I have gone back and forth with Chrisdosmil a couple of times just to understand the ruling, and that was what he came back to me with. He mentions that Mind Control is an "exception" to the rule, although I don't see why it would be (there is no precedent for it, but Mind Control IS a precedent for having 2 Primes). The fact that they are being silent on these issues really messes things up for people and we have to "rule on our own." I don't know what else to say if they don't post rulings, and just respond to inquiries privately, but I guess I would follow what an RD says.

Actually it does on page 4 say that Primes are checked at force construction.

If they wanted to clarify that to be a constant check then fine. I've never said that this would be bad. What I did say was they can't have it be a rule just for Copycat with no justification. There are tons of powers that this would impact but apparently some of them are an exception even though nothing supports this in any of the rules documentation.

The rules also say that a deputy cannot overrule the rules documents.

This means it is one or the other not both as it is being suggested.

As such we are supposed to go with the written rules period. Those rules say that prime status is checked at force construction.

It does not say only checked at force construction. And the glossary is much more vague in that "only one prime character may be added to a force."

For all we know, the oranges are aware of a wording change in the Prime rules, and ruling based on intent rather than the letter of the law. This is not new, and has been the stated policy since Necromagus ascended to the RA position. Even that is not a case of the email (or a month ago, the orange post) changing the rules, but still clarifying it based on as-yet unreleased info.

Can you provide an example of one of the ton of powers this contradicts?

Copycat does not add the figure to your force though. If she did then yes it would not be legal. She only makes the figure friendly to your force, just like Mind Control, X-Men Gold, Mistress Death, Hela, Zombies Virus, Deadman, Jericho, etc...

Again this would be a large scale change. If they want to make a change like that then it cannot be done by emailing one person. It should be like the first Copycat Errata/clarification with a post on their website.

I absolutely agree. I just want to make that clear.

But I don't consider this fundamentally different than any of the many forum rulings that were considered by some here to be "rule changes" and by WK to be "clarifications" and I personally am holding the email in the same light as forum posts being as that seems to be the majority of the answers we're getting at the moment.

I don't know what you are referring to by rules changes vs clarifications. So far (and I've made it a point to try and read every single rules email thread since the email system came to being) I have not seen a single issue that has changed one of the rules of the game. Especially one to this degree.

The closest I can think of is actually a ruling that was made at Origins, but that was made at Origins not via email.

This would be a fundamental change that would have much bigger applications. As I have read it this would change all instances (other than Mind Control for some reason which has yet to be explained) of a character who would become friendly to a force to instead become part of that force.

This is not a change that can be taken lightly and it would make a lot of various interactions that are currently legal to being illegal. This should not be taken lightly and we must tread carefully here due to the ramifications.

So what was the ruling on Pulse wave through the falcon? My ROC team next week depends on it

If you're willing to consider responses from the rules team sent to an individual via email, then it seems like response #71 of this thread says you can PW through the Falcon.

I think we can agree with this... it's a great way to help with rules to a single person, but it doesn't help with the masses and it's REALLY easy to manipulate an E-mail when telling other people about it (whether forwarding, copy/pasting, or whatever).
I'm all for sending an E-mail to get an answer... but when that's the only option and you can't show it to other players (with little exception and having a good signal on a smart phone), it really hampers the availability to share it (and even more so with how many people are asking the same question). :-s

I would accept an errata saying copycat is prime before making things more convoluted by not allowing a prime as friendly with some abilities and not others.

What is currently legal that would be made illegal?

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showpo...4&postcount=11

the full thread http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showth...14#post7680514
this is a post on the forum. there was never a need for the iron pharaoh discussion. it was answered before it was asked.

email, email, email, but there was no need.

Or this.

Which brings me to the conclusion that rules clarifications should be centralised somewhere rather than having to search through message boards to find them. This would greatly assist judging because at the moment as a judge you do not have the time to search for an answer mid-game, if all the rulings for each character were listed somewhere easy to find it would be possible. I appreciate this is a bit of a pipe dream at the moment.