I believe so. She already paid a partial cost towards SS so she's in effect gaining less from Gauntlet but still paying the same points as someone with no defensive powers at all.

On the Grey Gargyole/ Freeze Gun issue- Why wouldn't he be able to use the freeze gun?
Yes, he has an SP that grants barrier- it's barrier with conditions.
The freeze gun enables Barrier- period. It also allows use of Incap as a free action (which isn't the way incap normally would trigger), targeting characters adjacent to one of the freeze-gun produced barrier tokens.

I don't quite read this as having two uses of the same power but I suppose many or perhaps most might. The Petrifying touch power occurs one way. The Freeze Ray erects the barrier, then allows the incap as a result of a different action type, against a number of targets that a normal close combat incapacitate wouldn't allow (memory may be fuzzy but anyway)...

And I think maybe the catch here lies in the " have no effect if the recipient can already use the new effect." part. Gargoyle's barrier ability is a conditional barrier. The Freeze Gun is Barrier in its entirety- no limitations. So here's the question- for this particular case: Is the character already able to use the new effect via what's already on its dial?

I read it as no- it's can use "barrier, but" as opposed to "barrier."

or am I just making no sense at all?

This might be the least troll/cat like thing I have ever seen my you Chrisdomil. I back it 100%!

This is covered in the player's guide.

Powers and abilities which allow a character to use a standard power in an altered way are still considered to be standard powers for other game effects.

Here is my two cents:

Figures shouldn't be allowed to stack passive powers unless explicitly stated to work. You have shape change and the gauntlet is giving you shape change? You only get it once. Likewise, powers that require non-free actions can only be used once per turn. You have charge and the gauntlet is giving you charge? Well its not like you can charge twice.

I'm not really seeing a problem letting people choose which power they would like to use. You are paying the points for both powers. Are you getting around limitations set in powers you may already have? Yes, but that is the point of extra things that you pay for.


I think the only limitation should be this:

If a figure has a power that says, "Character can use X and Y, when character uses X, then Z happens," and then they have some sort of item granting them a modified version of X, the "when character uses X, then Z happens," only applies when they are using X from their dial. If they choose to use X from their special item, they would not get any benefits from their dial power.


In the end though, what I want does not matter. I think even if the entire board agreed with me, the deputies cannot just change this rule, and the game designers are going to do what they think is best for the game.

Well said, and I like the limitation. I'm not sure it works that way, though.

This thread is making me extremely frustrated with the awful arguments being bandied about back and forth. For anyone saying Phoenix is more broken by getting to use Senses without restriction, or ANY figure being able to use a power they previously could use with restriction but now without restriction, you make 0 sense at all. Being able to use a power in a restricted way is BETTER than not being able to use it at all. If you gain a different way to use said power it CANNOT be more broken than giving that power to a figure that could not use it in the first place. The example used before is apt: If it is OK to give Thanos super senses, it is by defintion OK to give it to Dark Phoenix.

Rowdyoctopus hit the nail on the head. Disallow stacking of passive powers, you can only use one version of a power (should be your choice at time of use), and the special effects of using one power should not cross over to uses of other sources of the power. Example, poison ivy should be able to use gas pellets, but the damage from her printed special should not be applied to those markers, and the damage from smoke pellets should not be applied to her regular smoke. There is literally no way for there to be a "broken combo" or whatever you guys are fearing by doing this, any more than allowing someone who didn't have the power in the first place to use it. If gas pellets arent broken for galactus, they wouldn't be broken for poison ivy either.

Edit: On a second thought, the only time I can conceive of which would lead to a "broken" combo is if a figure had either a special power or a separate trait which triggered off using a power, then the use of that power was restricted with the intent that only the restricted version would trigger said effect. An example of what i mean: Suppose a figure had a trait which said "When this fig uses smoke cloud, heal it of 1 damage", and then the actual smoke cloud only was usable after a successful attack. Granting the heal off gas pellets could be considered broken. The easy fix for this would to simply say that any reference on a card-printed power to "use" of a power by that figure refers to a use of the card-printed version. This rule would prevent the poison ivy scenario as well as scenarios where traits or other powers are triggered off the use of standard powers.

I agree 100%. The most common argument is-

"What if (insert already amazing figure) is using (insert already amazing resource)? They'd be too good! Would you want to play against that?!"

This argument is terrible. It doesn't represent 99.9% of the figures out there. It is an alarmist's response to the possible effect in highly-competitive game situations.

Right, but the most important thing is not that it doesn't represent 99.9% of the figures out there, but that it has absolutely nothing to do with this rule. This rule is not preventing broken combos, it is just counter-intuitive and restrictive for no good reason. There will still be certain figures which combo with resources well, some of them great made greater, some of them good made great. If you allowed crossover between power usage, such as letting poison ivy's damage apply to smoke pellets as well, then yes, there is potential for abuse. So...don't allow that...and that's it. No more abuse potential.

"Awful arguments," huh? I'll get right on worrying about the validity of that statement.

Actually...no, I won't. Because they aren't awful arguments. At all. Feel free to go round and round with me if you'd like to discuss them further.

Terrible argument my ###. Bottom line, I'm not a fan of creating more loopholes. This, IMO, would undoubtedly create more loopholes. As for the 99.9% of figures out there or whatever, yeah. Great. You can play Union Jack or whoever to their utmost capacity. I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about competitive play, which pretty much encompasses any prize-supported tournament anywhere. Not really interested in changing a rule so folks can get around Metron's pesky limitations, or so they can weather the horrible hardship that is Phoenix's Super Senses trait.

OP, you said you're mainly a home game player, right? Great. House rule it. Problem solved.

See, now this is how you state an argument: you state the damn argument. No need for the "awful argument" crap, as it is useless for any other purpose than attempting to rile folks.

In summary, I'm going to go ahead and file this under "yeah, not an issue."

If someone would like to tell me, here and now, specifically how this ruling has adversely affected their gameplay, team construction, etc., on a consistent basis, then I'll shut my mouth.

All I'm seeing, in this and the past thread, is a lot of "I'd like to optimize my figures to the utmost capacity and am upset that this ruling does not allow me to do so."

This is pretty much all I'm seeing as well.

I also noticed that this thread is in the rules forum and there isn't really a rules question, so I no longer care anymore. If there's an actual rules question, then please create a new thread.

Sorry for hurting your feelings saying you are making bad points :-( I wish you had actually addressed any of my points rather than just challenging me to go "rounds" with you. Origami and I are making different arguments I think. He is saying it usually won't matter, I'm saying it will never matter / be broken / create loopholes. As for an example other than min-maxing? How about any batman with natural smoke cloud is barred from using gas pellets. I think I'll go check the multitude of other threads currently going on about this non-issue while I wait for your response :-)

Hurt feelings? Heh. You're not up to that, bro.

Maybe lead with an argument instead of an inaccurate/biased assessment of other folks' arguments and I'd be glad to.

But, hey, I work with what you give me.

So you're saying that you know, now and forever, in perpetuity, that this sort of rule change will categotically NEVER result in a new loophole, exploit, etc.? And you're saying I'M making bad points?

Here's a hint: don't profess to know the future. Might want to throw the whole "I am not privy to every possible combination in this game" thing on top of that.

So you don't use the Gas Pellets. That'd be a choice you make during team construction.

A lot of noise over not much of anything still leaves not much of anything when the noise clears.

You can't have it all. Never could. And, in this case, I think there's a decent reason for it. YMMV.