Stacking abilities rules

[Captain Marius]

8 hours ago, Thomas Lyons said:

I think you are mixing up the linguistic function of definite and indefiniteness.  Both "a" or "an" are indefinite articles; you're asking if any very of this thing is in range.  Both "the" and this" are definite (one is an article, one a demonstrative pronoun), and asking the question with regards to a specific instance of that thing.  The rules with indefinite articles don't care how many of that thing are within range, just that they are within range.  Rules using definite articles/pronouns are asking about particular instances and need to be checked for each of those things.  

I agree its an issue of 'an' vs 'this'. GW dont seem to use 'this' very often, which would clearly indicate effects from a specific model, and thus would stack. I interpret 'an' as meaning 'one or more' in GW rules terms. Maybe im wrong?

[Thomas Lyons]

13 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

I agree its an issue of 'an' vs 'this'. GW dont seem to use 'this' very often, which would clearly indicate effects from a specific model, and thus would stack. I interpret 'an' as meaning 'one or more' in GW rules terms. Maybe im wrong?

The indefinite article "an" definitely means you could have one or more, but it only needs one.  It asks if "any" of those things are present, if yes, then it triggers.  But "this" talks about each specific version of that thing, so it can have multiple things.  

[rokapoke]

They could really clear this up by replacing "an" with "one or more", but it appears that most of us already read it that way anyway. 

[Squirrelmaster]

@rokapoke

I don't think that would help. The problem as I understand it is that although people are reading "an" as "one or more", they are arguing that there are multiple copies of this effect in play — each copy checks for "one or more", and applies the bonus if it is met. If GW wanted to add clarification, something along the lines of "multiples of this rule have no additional effect" would probably be the easiest way to stop these arguments.

[Sedraxis]

I've read through this entire thread and it seems it's still a matter of personal interpretation and opinion.

We have a very specific official answer in the faq that basically says:

Everything stacks unless specifically stated otherwise.

Now a ton of arguments can be made about balance and RAW per instance, but the faq is pretty clear in my opinion. Bloodsecrators or Infernal Standards, "a", "an" or other indefinitive words aren't specifically stating anything.

This interpretation can absolutely be abused, but then again the game isn't made with competitive balance as it's main focus. There are already plenty of legal lists that destroy most of the balance.

I think this game is still meant to be house ruled, so don't be afraid to do so. Just don't expect everyone to share your opinion and keep an open mind.

 

 

[Dee big man]

Okay so I believe this should clear up the issue of whether the banner ability stacks or not. So if you have two banners which have the same rule they will then both trigger at the same time, therefore if they did grant more than one save they would both be made at THE SAME TIME. Since rolling both at the same time could cause a contradiction you would then select which banner to activate first to try and ignore the damage that is going to kill your model so you roll if you pass great move on to the next damage and start the process again if you fail however the model is now dead and you can't use the other banner as you have already gone past the point at which it triggered it's ability. So to summarise you may well activate 10 different banners but you can't roll ten at the same time and by the time you have tested one banner the others have lost priority as you have gone past their time to activate. I hope this helps. 

[Captain Marius]

:-o That is extremely logical! I had not thought of it that way!

[Squirrelmaster]

@Dee big man Hmm… no, I don't think that's it. That logic would make the Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade's Infernal Standard (for example) completely useless, as it wouldn't stack with Deathless Minions.

Besides, that wouldn't solve the issue of abilities that grant things like +1 attack, etc.

Effects from completely different sources do stack, but whenever a rule talks about "an", "a", "one or more", instead of "this" or "for each", it should be regarded as a single rule that applies once, globally, regardless of how many units on the table have that rule on their warscroll.

Otherwise, you could take 6 Infernal Standards and then claim you get 6 separate saves if you are in range of any of them, regardless of how many you are in range of. Because there would be 6 copies of the rule in play, and each copy only specifies that the model must be slain within 9" of "an" Infernal Standard, not "the Infernal Standard belonging to the model that invoked this instance of this rule".

Which is clearly just ridiculous.

[Dee big man]

I agree that it stacks I am simply saying that you can not make all the stacked saves as making them all at once could cause a contradiction, ie one roll passing and the other failing giving you one banner that says it dies and the other that it lives,  and doing them one at a time looses the opportunity to activate the rest of the banners as the wording is very specific about the condition under which you use the ability.. The deathless minions save is different as it is a blancket amount of damage dealt to a unit which you attempt to save before you allocate to individual models in unit so rolling all deathless minions at once does not cause any contradiction. 

With regards to stacking +1 attack, GW have already stated in FAQ that +1 modifiers do stack, a perfect example being the lord castellants granting a +1 to the save of another eternal unit. The reason +1 stacking abilities work is because you are altering a stat line on the unit not granting a new ability. 

So I stand by my reasoning in this debate. 

[Squirrelmaster]

@Dee big man the banners don't say it dies though. A failure just means the banner does nothing. If four banners each do nothing and one negates the wound, the wound is negated, there is no contradiction. Dying is just the default option when the wound isn't negated by anything.