Poison: Once at the beginning of the turn, as a free action this character deals 1 damage to each opposing character

Outwit: Once during your turn (but not during another action), as a free action this character counters a power or an ability (other than a team ability) possessed by a single target opposing character. Treat the target as if it does not have the countered power or ability, which remains countered until the beginning of your next turn. A character using this power must be within 10 squares of the target and have a clear line of fire to the target. If this character loses Outwit or is defeated, the countered power or ability returns immediately.

At a tourney last night the following happened:

-Round 1: Ghost Fox Killer, on her Poison click, moves adjacent to Sasquatch, who has Toughness on his Dial. Mandarin, showing Outwit, has line of sight to Sasquatch, but has used his Outwit on another character this round.

-Round 2: At the start of the round, the opposing player Outwits Sasquatch's Toughness. The opposing player claims I must now take the Poison damage since using the free action to use Outwit takes place before the Poison damage is triggered. The judge backed him up on this, saying it was a weird, little-known rules loophole.

No big deal, since ol' Walt was dead meat at that point anyway, but I still don't understand how this makes sense. It seems to me things that are stated as taking place at the beginning of the turn (Poison) would trump something a player chooses to do (Outwit) at the beginning of the turn. Any clarifications?

xjoshx

Yes you can outwit first and then posion kicks in.

Jesse

That's two "yes" (with the voice of Simon Cowell)

Until you take you first "tokenable" action, it is still the being of your turn. So using outwit and poison can both occur at the begining of your turn.

To take this one step further, "at the beginning of your turn" is still part of your turn. Outwit can be used anytime during your turn. So you can use Outwit at the beginning of your turn. When there are multiple effects that happen at the same time, the active player chooses the order in which they happen. In this case, your opponent uses Outwit at the beginning of his/her turn, and poison at the beginning of his/her turn. Because they are both occuring at the beginning of his/her turn, he/she can choose the order in which they happen. Outwit, then poison.

This seems like BS to me, free action or not.

I've always found it a little questionable, too, but it's been ruled this way for quite a while.

i really don't see whats so questionable about it.

Poison does not say before you do anything else it activates.
Outwit does not say that it has to be after the start of your turn.

so if two things happen at the same time the active player chooses what order they go in.

I'm surprised to hear somebody not know this. And I don't mean that sarcastically. It's been a very popular tactic since the LAMP days. Lockjaw carries Joker who outwits superman's hypersonic, then next turn he OW's the impervious and poison's supes. Any damage is masterminded to Lockjaw. Rinse and repeat! Otherwise, that would have been one bland tasting block of cheese!

That's also why LE Whitney Frost was so effective, back in those days.

Quoted for truth. I have a few responses, but I can't seem to find a way to phrase them so they don't come off sounding sarcastic, in a mean way.

I would want more information before I took this as a rule, too bad WK doesnt exist to rule on it. It seems like the kind of situation that would be helped by a set order of events (like magic with the different phases and very defined parameters as to when things take place) then it would be alot easier to get around this wording, example: 1.Beginning of the turn actions activate. 2. Free actions can be activated.

Okay. Look here or here(complete with an nbperp and harpua!) or here or here or here or here

I can go on and on and on and on and on...

Thanks for the replies, everyone. In all the years I've been playing last night was the first time this has ever come up, believe it or not...

To me, "at the beginning of your turn" sounds like it would trump everything else, signifying that the free action for poison has to take place before any other free actions. But hey, a ruling is a ruling.

Thanks again!

xjoshx

[EDIT: Looking at the links provided by BigDaddyHub, I understand it a little better--the key is in the "at any time during your turn" wording of Outwit.]

Hmm...its as if the ruling has been around for quite awhile now or something. But let's wait till the PTB reform and we can get another ruling that says the exact same thing before we jump to any conclusions. Yes....sarcastic...and yes...it sounds mean so I will say now that I am sorry if it offended anyone, but really...since at least Icons....ICONS.