Well, maybe it is.

Here is the setup. I am playing a double barrier team with Nimrod being my heavy.
My opponent has several pieces with ICWO and Oracle is on the card.

I have a barrier around Nimrod to protect him.

He gives Talia a power action to gain outwit from Oracle and outwits my barrier. The barrier comes down.

He then gives Ravager a power action to gain perplex from Oracle. Outwit goes away and I gain Barrier back.

Here is the question, does my barrier come back up or is it gone permanently, for this round anyways?

We left it up to a dice roll because between three of us judges we couldn't come to any sort of consensus.

I just read and re-read both outwit and barrier, and I believe that the barrier does not come back up. The wording at the end of barrier:

These terrain markers remain in place until the beginning of your next turn or until the power is countered or lost.

When the character with outwit loses outwit, the character with barrier can use the power again but the original wall came down and is gone for good. And since you've already given the character an action, no more barrier.

You are most likely right. I am really just super impressed with his strategy on that one. It was a good move.

Sounds like your opponent was using "In Contact with Calculator" . . .

It's a tough call either way. And I agree, good strat.

Doesn't really matter what happens to Barrier becuase Talia *never* lost Outwit.

ICWO specifies that the Power Action must come at the beginning of your turn. Once Talia was given the Power Action, turned Oracle's dial, and gained her token from the Action, the beginning of the turn was over. Since the beginning of the turn was over, Ravager could *not* use the second part of ICWO to gain Perplex.


That said, if Barrier is Outwitted, it comes down as Onestandard pointed out. If that Outwit is lost (perhaps due to pushing or an attack), Barrier is no longer Outwitted, but the Barrier doesn't instantly spring back up. The past use of Barrier was ended when the power was countered by Outwit. To create a new Barrier would take a new use of the power.

See what I get for skimming down to the "meat." Good call NV.

Now, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the 'beginning of turn' phase lasted until the player was finished with all of their begining of turn effects. Also, it is legal to outwit during the beginning of turn, which is why you can outwit defensive powers prior to dealing poison damage.

So it should be legal to give oracle a power action, outwit, and then use another power action on oracle. In fact, I remember a rules discussion back when Legacy came out about how every agent could be given perplex and perplex up a stat or outwit something until someone realized that in most cases this is useless (outwitting barrier being an exception) since outwitted abilities come back when the outwit is lost and perplex wears off.

But Normalview, under your supposition of the beginning of turn ending at the first power action, I could only poison one time then the beggining of turn would end, I could only use leadership once, and I couldn't do any of these together.

ICWO does not say 'Once" at the beggining of your turn, just at the beginning of your turn

The beginning of the turn ends with the first tokenable action. Outwit, Poison, and Leadership (and PC and Perplex) are not tokenable actions.

From the PAC:
OUTWIT (optional): Once during your turn (but not during another action), as a free action this character may counter a power on a target opposing character. Treat the target...

LEADERSHIP (optional): Once at the beginning of your turn, as a free action, you may roll one six-sided die. On a result of 4–6...

POISON (optional): Once at the beginning of your turn, as a free action, this character may deal 1 damage to each opposing character adjacent to this character.

See, all free actions. No power actions. Poison, Outwit, and Lead to your hearts content. But as soon as you give a figure a tokenable action (Move, Power, or Attack), the beginning of the turn is over. Since gaining Outwit via ICWO is a Power Action, and not a Free Action, the beginning of the turn is over you may not use that second part of ICWO any more.

Ok, I wasn't aware that the beginning of turn ended with the first tokenable action, it just wasn't something I'd came across before. Thanks!

Wow, good points all. I will have to bring this up when I see my friend again on Tuesday. Thanks a lot!

From what I remember, though it rarely comes up, is that any effects that MUST be done at the beginning of your turn (ie Earthquake) happen before the 'you may' effects like Leadership. So you couldn't circumvent your roll for Earthquake by assigning an ICWO action, for instance, but you could circumvent your Leadership roll... if you really wanted to.