Well, some of the Gears of War figures have been previewed, and I have questions!

Issue the First:

Throw a Grenade: Give the character a power action, decrease the number of grenades in your grenade pool by 1 (if greater than 0), and choose a type of grenade listed on this card. Choose a target square within 5 squares and line of fire (ignoring characters for line of fire purposes). Make a ranged combat attack targeting all characters occupying or adjacent to the target square. Deal damage to each character hit based only on the type of grenade chosen.

Each character that has the "throw a grenade" ability also contributes some number to the player's grenade pool (sometimes 0), and has one or more types of grenade which determines the damage and secondary effects. I'm rather excited about this ability, but the phrasing here bothers me. It's obvious how it is supposed to work, but I hate ruling things on "don't be a dink", and I think the text here is problematic. The parenthetical "if greater than 0" appears misplaced, and shouldn't be in parenthesis (parenthesis implies that this isn't rules text, just a reminder, explicitly so in most of the games on the market albeit not in HeroClix). As written, it seems that the parenthetical text only modifies "reduce your grenade pool by 1", and doesn't act as a limiter on the entire action at all. In short, if you have zero grenades, you can continue throwing grenades, you just don't reduce your grenade pool any, since the reduction doesn't occur if you have zero.

I think that the parenthetical clause should be de-parenthesized, and moved to be the first clause of the sentence. "If you're grenade pool is greater than zero, you may give this character a power action..."

Issue the Second:

My spell checker doesn't have any trouble with "parenthesized"? Really? That's a word? Okay, this isn't really an HCRealms issue.

Issue the Third:

Anya Stroud's trait reads:

Tactical Intel: When Anya Stroud hits an opposing character, choose a keyword possessed by that character. Until your next turn, all friendly characters modify their attack values by +1 when attacking opposing characters that possess the chosen keyword.

Stroud also has "Throw a Grenade" (see above for text), which allows her to hit multiple characters in a single attack. How does that interact with this trait? My reading is that she would get to pick a single keyword for each character hit by her grenade.

If this is the case, and if a friendly character targets a single character with multiple chosen keywords, does it get the bonus once for each relevant chosen keyword or only once? My instinct is that it should be once, but "the" is horribly ambiguous here and I"m not sure.

The first is probably a case of "no you don't have infinite grenades"

Third..I'd think that with it saying "an opposing character" it implies a single? my thinking at least. if it would imply multiple i think "any opposing character" would be the verbiage? I dunno.. good question!

First, either way works. They both result in the same thing happening (AKA, you can't do this if you have no grenades). That said, your wording is probably a tad more clear.

Second, you got me curious enough to check and, yep, my spell check is okay with it, too

Third, as written it would seem she'd pick one for each character hit if she did hit more than one. But nothing says that they'd stack. Say her pal targets a character with three of the chosen keywords: does it possess a chosen keyword? Yes? Then the +1 bonus activates. I see it as a 'yes/no' condition and not a 'how many times does this occur' condition.

I'm not sure how "either way works". My "strict" reading of the text is that the only think dependent on having a grenade count greater than 0 is decrementing the grenade count, you still get to THROW the grenade. Like this:

1. Give a power action
2. Decrement the grenade count, (if it isn't zero already).
3. Pick a grenade type
4. Throw the grenade.

I know this is going to come down to a "don't be a dink" thing, but GRARGH this stuff frustrates me. I'm just a proofreader by nature (if not profession) and the ambiguities are like rubbing a cheese grater over my fingers.

You have to be able to do everything in your list in order to actually complete the entire action. If you get to item #2 and find you can't do it, then the action can't happen.

I think it would be treated like EE and then I would say yes. With the lob rules pick a square, pull the pin, Toss them dice and see who gets hit. Then she gets a keyword for each person hit.

Throw a Grenade: Give the character a power action, decrease the number of grenades in your grenade pool by 1 (if greater than 0), and choose a type of grenade listed on this card. A Choose a target square within 5 squares and line of fire (ignoring characters for line of fire purposes). B Make a ranged combat attack targeting all characters occupying or adjacent to the target square. Deal damage to each character hit based only on the type of grenade chosen.

A charactor in Stealth would still not be a viable target with regards to part B of this power if I'm not mistaken

I'm not so sure about that. I think it would bypass stealth, since, as it says in A, you're targeting the square (kind of like TK, which we know can go through Stealth) and you also ignore characters for LoF purposes, which I would interpret as also ignoring Stealth.

Pretty sure this ignores stealth

The wording for the Grenade attacking the characters is virtually identical to the wording for EE attacking characters adjacent to the primary EE target.

In other words, it is still a ranged combat attack, sure. So stuff like ES/D can kick in and be used to help against the attack. But LOF was not drawn to the characters being attacked. Anything that is triggered by LOF (Steath, hindering terrain, etc) has no effect.

I also noticed this the moment I read it. Essentially, as the power is written,
you decrease the count if it's higher than 0... but you don't if it's equal to zero. And there's nothing else there to stop the action from proceeding after that point.

Everything else appears to be nicely worked out, however.

Okay, I can live with that justification.

***

I'm not sure if I agree with this. (Equally, I'm not sure if I'm going to come off as really griping at this point. : - )

The difference is that Energy Explosion doesn't target the splashed characters, while Throw a Grenade explicitly does target the splashed characters. It is a ranged combat attack and it is targeting and:

Before making a ranged combat attack, you must determine if the attacker can draw a line of fire to the target and if the target is within range.

It's the same as Telekinesis--the wording for the power tells you to draw a line of fire to the square instead of to the character, so that's all you need.

Unrelated, but I'm pleased to see that your magical avatar powers are now listed in your signature.

I agree with how the power should work, but Suttkus does have a point here.

The way ir is worded you decrease by 1 (if it is greater than 0),
but, if it is not greater than 0, you just don't decrease it. This means you just keep throwing, but once you have hit 0 grenades, you just stop deducting the ONE from the pool.

No big deal, but it is a valid point.

But it does target, right ? I mean power like Shapechange would activate, wouldn't they ?