Something came up in a game last night. Relevant Special Power on the LotRclix character Sauron:

ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL: Sauron can use Pulse Wave as if he had a range value of 10. When he uses Pulse Wave and hits, you may give the hit character an action token instead of dealing damage.

I wanted to Pulse Wave a single character with the attack, so my goal was to reduce Sauron's range. So I had Sauron Perplex down his range.

I was thinking the 10 range was a Replacement Value, so then it is halved (Replaced again with 5) and modified -1, to Range 4.

Others weren't sure that was kosher, suspecting the "as if" use was not subject to modifications, behaving more like a "locked" Replacement combat value.

It was a casual game, so it was permitted to work like I intended, but we all wanted to get confirmation, in case it is a controversy in more formal competitions.

I believe it works like you said. You treat him as if he has 10 range. Then half it to 5 then apply any modifiers to his range. As long as the piece doing the modifying is not also a target of pulse wave than it works like you said. Half to 5 range then modify to 4

You were correct. "As if" is a replacement. So in this case Sauron has two instances of replacements and then the modifier.

This.

He has two Replacements, the order determined by the active player:
- Replace Range Value with 10.
- Halve Range Value.

So you could either Halve then Replace with 10, or Replace with 10 then Halve.

What you did was fine.

I don't think the bolded part is right.

You treat him as if his range was 10. Sow hen you go to halve his range and ask, "what is his current range?" the answer is 10.

I believe this is correct otherwise Sauron is one of the best PW in the game! lol

Somehow I doubt the goal in giving him 10 range was to give him a 10 range PW instead of halved to 5

They really have to come up with some way to change the timing on this issue, like you cannot halve a 0 range, i.e. you must replace with a halve-able (not a real word) value first

I am not saying I know GD's intent - because based on figures like Spiral, team bases, resources and H4H - they obviously have no idea on how to ensure balance in the game

Harpua has stated that's not the intent...

And, as VanisherPunisher points out later in that thread, the wording on Pulse Wave has changed...

So, you determine your final range value--applying any replace then modify effects--then target characters within half that value. So a character with 8 range, and +2 range modifier targets everyone within 5 squares (half of 10), not 6 (half of 8, then +2).

...filler...

EDIT: Ninja'd!

I always had an issue with why he couldn't use 10 as his PW range because to me it seemed like a double replacement. It was vague at the least.

That said, this isn't an issue anymore. PW does not replace range anymore. The area of effect for the attack is half your range, so there is no way around it.

PULSE WAVE
Give this character a ranged combat action even if it is adjacent to an opposing character; the area of effect for this attack is half the character’s range. Draw lines of fire to all other characters within the area of effect, including at least one opposing character; these lines of fire ignore all game effects except for walls, blocking and elevated terrain. Game effects possessed or used by characters with a line of fire drawn to them are ignored until the action has been resolved. If a line of fire is drawn to more than 1 character, this character’s damage value becomes 1 and is locked. Each character hit is dealt damage.

You may be correct:

When one value becomes or is used instead of the value printed on the dial, it is a replacement value.

I may have gotten carried away with myself, since I know that applies to Nerkkod when in water:

UNDERSEA: When Nerkkod occupies water terrain, modify his damage value by +1 and his range becomes 10.

"as if he had a range value of 10" is not clearly becomes or used instead of, so it may not apply. However, if "as if" is not a Replacement, it may be nice to have it clearly defined as to what it is or is-not.

Under the old rules I agree. I think these type of powers were ruled wrong, Sauron being a good example, Nerkod another. It was a replacement, so the order of replacements should have been left up to the attacker.

Oh yeah. So there's only one instance of replacement for Sauron with the new PW. The calculation on the PW AoE is equal to half the range but it doesn't actually replace the range.

So in the case of Sauron getting a Perplex'd by +/- 1, his actual AoE will either be 5 or 6. You replaced 0 with 10. Then you modify it by the Perplex. Then you check what half would be for the purpose of PW and round up the fraction per the rules.

So, is Range considered to be different than Range Value, thus not a Value? How am I supposed to know that from reading the Rulebook?

COMBAT VALUES
A character has five combat values. Four of them appear through the stat slot next to the symbol of the same type: speed, attack, defense, and damage. These values may change when you turn the character’s combat dial. The fifth value is the character’s range for ranged combat attacks

Right. Something being within range won't always mean it's within your range value. Mind Control, PC, Outwit, Perplex and other similar abilities have a specific range without using a range value (most of the time).