wkD-027 Felix Faust
ffuxm002 Jean Grey
Can Jean Grey still use TK as a free action even if she has an Energy Dampener token on her?

Ok I am going to go with NO, which is the opposite of what I originally typed up.

I wanted to say She doesnt need to GIVE a POWER Action to activate a FREE Action TK.

But the problem is that it still is wrapped inside the Power Action...
http://win.wizkids.com/bb/viewtopic....872776a3dc012e

You might ask on WIN but I would reference the Doc Oc ruling to see if there is a layer of discussion missed in the original question.

I would say that she can. She doesn't have an action token if Faust uses that ability, she has a power dampener token that prevents her from making a power action.

That's how I would rule it.

I agree with IceHot here. TK is still a Power Action, even when its free.

I'd definitely still double check and ask on the WIN, but given the Doc Ock ruling (which was a reversal of a previously long-standing ruling), she shouldn't be able to.

Just to be clear, in a situation like this, it's both a Power Action and a Free Action?

Similarly, the attack in a Charge or Running Shot would be both a Close/Range Action and a Free Action, respectively?

This is the understanding I'm getting from what you guys are saying, so if I'm wrong, please let me know.

Well, for Charge/RS, that has always been the case. Otherwise, Blades wouldn't trigger when you Charged. Same with EE/RS.

The old ruling was that if a power was specifically named, then it no longer counted as its original type. So, Jean's TK, under that ruling, would not have been a Power Action at all. Same with Ock. General action types as free actions (like in the case of Charge/RS), still counted as whatever they normally were.

The reversal just got rid of a weird, inconsistent ruling that never made a whole lot of sense.

I think it's different with Charge and Running Shot. They are both Power Actions that grant Free Actions that lead to attacks.

In this instance one is a power action and the other is a free action that grants TK.

Ahh..I was unaware of this ruling and now see why you believe what you do. Thanks for providing context.

Yeah. It was an odd corner case originally, I believe stemming from the first figure that could Flurry as a free action during HSS (AA Zoom, I think). I think there was a way to give him Blades, so the rules team made a convoluted ruling at the time to prevent abuse. It stuck around in the Player's Guide until the final iteration in 2014, and was officially reversed with that Doc Ock ruling in Jan.

Not really all that odd. It was actually pretty straight forward: HSS lets you normally make a free close combat attack. Zoom let you use Flurry in place of that attack. At no point does Zoom's power define this as a free close combat action to activate Flurry; the words "close combat action" never appear.

I'LLMAAAAKEYOUBETTTTTERRR: Zoom can use Hypersonic Speed. He can use it normally, or instead of making a close combat attack he can use Flurry; Zoom can continue the rest of his movement (if any) after using Flurry, but he can not move between making attacks using Flurry.

At the time, a distinction was made between effects that allow you to use any action as a free action (Mind Control, Multi-Attack) and effects that granted a specific kind of action (like the free close combat action in Charge). Zoom, with his own unique wording, was determined to be something different from those two established kinds of effects.

That's all. He was new. He was different. Nothing all the convoluted.

And, for the record, Zoom was in AA... before the Topps shutdown, before NECA brought WK back, and before the Rules Team was a thing. I can only speculate, based on conversations here on the realms at the time and some follow-up things that happened after the RT was formed, as to why this was so.

Based on Doc Ock, it seems that free action [insert power here] is now considered to be a free action version of the the action that would usually activate the power. So, yeah, based on Doc Ock, it would seem that Jean's TK is still considered a power action for effects that care about that.

Thanks for weighing in guys. For some reason this one was really tripping me up.

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=326887

How is this any different? And I understand it's an old ruling, but was there anything between then and now that changed it?

Yup, the Doc Ock ruling referenced above.

Which is why a 5 year old ruling is usually useless.

The Win did officially rule on it. Jean may not use her TK in this situation.

http://win.wizkids.com/bb/viewtopic....a8006a7#p25476