Start of Turn *HELP*

Ok, a buddy of mine and myself can not figure out how these things work with the new manual wording.

http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/system/files/downloads/Sentinels%20of%20the%20Multiverse%20Enhanced%20Edition%20Rulebook.pdf

Above is the PDF for the manual for the updated version of Sentinels. To follow and see for yourself what i'm seeing to help me.

 

Page 9 of 24 from the PDF (or page 6 of the manual) states in the same format the " Start: . . . " " Play: . . . " and so on. Not making any different look or format style for "Start" and "End". So in the description of "Additional Card Draw:" the last sentence states: "If by contrast, a player skips their turn for any reason, they have skipped every phase of their turn and cannot draw any cards."

That says to me that Every phase includes the Start phase and End phase of the specific hero's turn. HOWEVER, page 2 of 24 from the PDF (or the Quick Reference page in the manual) the 6th bullet states about the hero's turn: "Hero turns have Three phases: Play a card, Use a power, Draw a card. All phases are optional. If you neither play a card nor use a power, then you may draw two cards instead of one."

These two sections of the book speak about the same thing however format it to be different inclusions of pieces of the game.

My question then is: Is the start of Turn another phase of the hero's turn, to which would be skipped if the player would SKIP their entire turn, thus NOT causing "At the start of turn" effects on cards in play by the character or is it not included in the skipping of a hero's turn and Start of Turn and End of Turn effects still occur with "skipping" the hero's play, power, and draw phases?

 

To try and put an example for how we have used it, wording it as including Star of Turn and End of Turn as phases:

Mr. Fixer's card, Grease Gun, prevents Villain targets from doing damage while in play. At the start of his next turn the grease gun card is removed from play.

It seemed completely like breaking the game but the way we read the manual seemed like it was a legitimate approach and skipped ALL of Mr. Fixer's turn and not drawing any cards thus not having his "Start of Turn" incur, keeping Grease Gun in play and preventing Villain damage the entire match. This is obviously a massive bonus to the heros as they could only take damage from Environment cards. HOWEVER, the way we justified our decision is that Grease Gun is an equipment and thus if the Villain or Environment pulled a card that wiped all equipment cards, Grease Gun would leave play so it was fair to skip all of Mr. Fixer's turn.

 

Another example is Legacy's card: Take Down which states " Villain cards cannot be played. At the start of your turn, destroy this card."

So skipping a legacy with this card out would not incur the start of his turn keeping it out and preventing the villain from ever playing cards ever. But same as fixer, that Take Down card is an ongoing therfore the environment can pull a "Remove all ongoing cards" and Take Down would then leave play allow the villain cards to be played again.

Here are some examples of different people stating the Start of Turn as a Phase:

https://greaterthangames.com/comment/24358#comment-24358

Spiff States in the very first line " . . . which itself is taken during the start-of-turn phase. . . "

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/783139/start-of-turn-vs-end-of-turn

The third post guy says, "Start of Turn is actualy a phase within a turn"

https://greaterthangames.com/comment/19041#comment-19041

The above comment is from an Admin of this forum describing the Start of Turn as a phase. And If this Christopher is who I think he is, he is the creator of Sentinels...... kinda trumps all words from anyone else.

It depends when you skip your turn.

 

The first thing to realise is you may not skip your turn 'just because', you have to be doing it because of an instruction/cost from one of the cards in play. Choosing not to play a card and not to use a power to get an extra card draw at the end of your turn is very different to skipping your turn. If you choose not to play/draw then all phases of the turn still happen, you have just chosen to sit there and do nothing, the start of turn and end of turn phases still happen, and would still trigger any cards with start of turn/end of turn effects.

Secondly card wording and card order are very important in Sentinels.

  • Card wording

If a card does not say may on it then even if you don't want it to, it triggers off. In your Take Down example the card will try to trigger its destruction every time it reaches Legacy's start of turn, even though you would rather have it stick around.

  • Card order

When you have multiple cards that act off the same trigger you process them in the order in which they entered play, so if it is hero2's turn and both hero1 and the environment played a card last round with start of turn effects then hero1's card would trigger first, then the environment card would trigger. If the environment had played a card on round 3 and hero1 had played a card on round 4 then the environment card would have been in play first and you would trigger that card first, then hero1's card.

 

OK, so what does this mean for your Take Down example?

Well, the only way for Legacy to keep Take Down in play is if he is skipping his turn due to a card that was played before he played Take Down, for example if during the environment turn of round 2 the Environment played The Pillars of Hercules and on round 3 Legacy decided to play Take Down. When it arrived back at Legacy's turn on round 4, the decision to skip Legacy's turn to pay the cost to discard The Pillars of Hercules would happen before checking for any start of turn effects from Legacy's cards but after playing the extra villain card due to The Pillars of Hercules (which would not get played due to Take Down) if Legacy chooses to skip his turn then none of his play, power or end of turn phases phases happen, nor does the rest of his start of turn phases, so he would not be forced to destroy Take Down. Given that we're using The Pillars of Hercules as the example card here and it allows you to play two cards, you could extend Legacy's turn further and have him play Heroic Interception during round 3 as well, and when he skips his turn in round 4 neither of his cards would check to be destroyed and you would have 2 turns of both!

 

Does that help?

I think the most problematic line is 'all phases are optional'. All phases are not optional; they happen no matter what, you can just choose not to take the action. If something tells you that you have to do something in a phase, you have to do it, and like Matchstickman says, you can never skip your turn just because you want to.

Oh, that does give me an answer. Never thought you had to perform your turn, always read the rule book as you could actualy skip your turn whenever you wanted to (even though it will keep a hero in the game counting towards cards based off of H players, but you're not doing anything to help).

That one sentence I just can't seem to get out of my head though. The page 9 of 24 from the PDF, that I described in my first post, when it says " . . . A player skips their turn for any reason, they have skipped every phase of their turn. . ."

Any reason to me would say that, for example, if an environment card(s) and villain card(s) are out that say "something happens every time any card is played, a power is used, and a card is drawn" (i know i've had a game with at least two of those but I can't remember the villain and environment, maybe not all three at once though) then if the group really can't afford any one of those triggering, then people would skip all of the phases of their turn as described and thus kinda portraying back to my question of: Are Start of Turn and End of Turn items "phases" of someone's turn, being skipped?

It just seems to me then, why even state the last sentence from that description if one must perform their turn with start of turn and end of turn executing and just have the first sentence only in the Additional Card Draw description; describing that if one does not play nor use a power they then pick up 2 cards in their draw phase?

You're not quoting the whole sentence there. The whole sentence is

"If, by contrast, a player skips their turn for any reason, they have skipped every phase of their turn and cannot draw cards"

And even then it's out of context. It's in a paragraph explaining about drawing extra cards due to not playing a card and using a power in the turn, it's highlighting the difference between a) skipping your turn and b) choosing not to play and use a card and power to get an extra card draw. It is not suppose to be applied to any other part of the game when you're not paying the cost of skipping your turn to generate an effect.

 

However, I do agree that it could be with some cleaning up, I for one am hoping that Vengence will have a brand spanking new rulebook with all of the rules set out in clear unequivocal terms, and the missing bits filled back in (like if/when to reshuffle a deck).

Yea, I guess that should be the way it's read.

Cool though, thanks for all the input and clarification.

Just to clarify also, once a game starts H never changes. H is set to the number of heroes that start the game.

Yea that I know, just used that H thing to enhance that with skipping someone entire turn, doing ANYTHING is better because he is adding to H cards.

You are right about who Christopher is.