VTES Advanced Rules

UNOFFICIAL DRAFT This document has not been approved by the Rules Director. It’s an unofficial community effort, contributions are welcome.

About this document

This document supplements the VTES rulebook. It collects the general principles, corner cases and non-obvious interactions established by thirty years of rulings, organized by game mechanic.

It is written for judges and advanced players: it assumes full fluency with the base rules and terminology, and favors precision over accessibility.

Driving principles

Four principles drive most rulings:

Card text governs. Where a card contradicts the rules, the card takes precedence [RBK important-terms-of-the-game]. However odd the result, presume the text applies naturally, as written, in the expected manner (§1.1).

You cannot do what you cannot do. A play barred in whole or in relevant part is not available at all, even just to cycle the card: no adding a value you do not need (§1.6.5), no maneuver from a strike you cannot use (§4.10), no announcement without a legal target (§3.1.3), no play with a cost you cannot afford (§1.7).

There is no stack. Effects are instantaneous and resolve completely before the next opportunity opens; nothing is played “in response” (§2.1.3).

Effects that apply, apply. Unless it has become impossible, a scheduled effect applies: its source leaving play, other effects landing before or after, or the action failing change nothing (§2.5.3, §3.5.3).

1. Cards

1.1 Card text and the rules

Base rules. Where a card contradicts the rules, the card takes precedence. [RBK important-terms-of-the-game]

1.1.1 Mandatory and optional effects

A printed statement of fact applies automatically and its controller has no choice in the matter, e.g. {Writ of Acceptance}, {Enchanted Marionette}.¹ Only a clause the card marks as optional — “may”, “can”, “optional” — is optional. {Changeling Skin Mask} carries both: the bearer has [OBF] whether you want it or not, and burning the card for intercept is your choice.

An ability is mandatory unless the card marks it optional. {Renegade Garou} gets a mandatory additional strike and an optional maneuver on the same line; {Lorrie Dunsirn}’s press and additional strike are both mandatory.²

A cost printed inside an effect is mandatory. {Vast Wealth} equips with the equipment found and you pay for it even if the payment ousts you; {Serpent’s Numbing Kiss} at superior burns 1 blood.³ A printed cost reduction likewise cannot be declined, e.g. {Frondator}.

An opportunity is not a compulsion. A card that lets a minion strike with a weapon does not force the strike, e.g. {Bomb}, {Bundi}; a wake card lets its vampire attempt a block but never requires it, e.g. {Wake with Evening’s Freshness}.⁴

A choice inside an effect is made when the effect resolves, not when the card is played, e.g. the “up to 2 blood” on {Third Tradition: Progeny}.⁵ Who takes or declines an optional effect on a card in play follows the card’s wording, not control of the card: an effect granted to “this vampire” is used by the vampire — hence by its current controller — even on a master card another Methuselah played and still controls, e.g. {Perfectionist}, {Corporal Reservoir}.

1.1.2 Applying a mandatory effect

A mandatory effect is applied at its timing point, before its controller passes the opportunity to play effects, e.g. burning pool to {Anarch Revolt}.⁶ A player who has passed that opportunity does not get it back because the effect was overlooked: {The Coven} still moves to the predator and its controller cannot lock it retroactively.

Where a mandatory choice has no printed default and every player missed it, imposing one of the choices after the fact is not a remedy, e.g. {Leandro}.

1.1.3 “Cannot”

A “cannot” on a card is absolute. Where it names the cards it forbids, those cards cannot be played at all, not even for no effect to cycle them: the {Blood Fury} template (“damage from this strike cannot be prevented by cards requiring Fortitude [for]”) stops the opponent from playing [for] prevention entirely.⁷ “Cannot use any additional strikes” ({Rigor Mortis} and its template) is read the same way, not as a barred outcome: it bars playing an additional-strike card even for a side benefit, e.g. {Acrobatics} for its dodge.

Where the “cannot” names an outcome instead, the play remains legal and only the outcome fails. {Charnas the Imp} is immune to damage from its employer, but the employer may still use effects that would normally damage it.⁸ A vampire under {Legacy of Caine} who cannot gain blood still takes the hunt action; the blood he steals goes to the blood bank.

1.1.4 Reading card text

“This minion” is the acting minion, “that minion” the target, e.g. {Big Game}.⁹ Such referents are re-read as the effect resolves: two {Major Boon} cannot be burned on the same bleed, because after the first “you” are no longer the Methuselah burning pool.

1.2 Wording templates: periodicity, duration, triggers

1.2.1 How often an effect may be used

“Once each turn” means once during each player’s turn. “Once during each of your turns” is the narrower form, e.g. {Maila}. Turn, master phase, unlock phase, action, bleed and referendum all read the same way.¹⁰

A limit keyed to an event is spent per occurrence, and the event can recur in one turn: {Andre LeRoux} may be used on each successful bleed. An ability whose use costs a master phase action is likewise spent per action, so extra master phase actions buy extra uses, e.g. {Nahir}. An ability framed by a phase is spent for that phase: {Nonu Dis} may be used once per master phase however many master cards are played in it.¹¹

Absence of a periodicity clause means no limit — {Maris Streck} may use her ability as often as she can pay for it. A trigger condition is not a limit: {Slake the Thirst} may be played several times on one blood gain.¹²

The limit attaches to the card, not to the effect, so a second copy carries its own use whatever the period, e.g. {Sawed-Off Shotgun}. See §1.15 for multiple copies generally.¹³

The limit travels with the card, not the holder: {Owain Evans, The Wanderer}’s use is spent for that unlock phase even if control of him changes during it; a weapon’s per-combat allowance tracks the weapon; a spent referendum ability is not restored by unlocking. A minion who takes an action over gets no fresh use of a per-action ability already used on it.¹⁴ Per §1.15 a once-per-action limit on playing a card binds the minion instead.

An effect marked “(limited)” is capped by the rulebook, not the card, and is not optional: once a minion has used a limited additional strike this round, he cannot play the card for its other clause, e.g. {Dust Up} [cel].¹⁵ Each cap binds what the rulebook names: a limited bleed increase binds the bleed action — a substitute acting minion cannot use one if one has already been used on the action — while a limited additional strike binds the minion per round of combat, each combatant separately.¹⁶ A canceled use spends no limit.

A referendum ability is usable once per referendum; which states it works from is §3.7.6.4’s.¹⁷

“Only once in a game” survives the card’s return from the ash heap, so a replay effect cannot bring it back, e.g. {Filchware’s Pawn Shop}.¹⁸ “Since your last turn” means between the end of your previous turn and now: the previous turn does not qualify, the current one does.

1.2.2 Trigger and condition wording

“Reduced to X” names an event, not a state. {Anathema} does not fire on a vampire that entered combat already at zero blood, fires on any loss in combat however caused, and does not fire on diablerie.¹⁹

A condition referring to the card’s own effect is not satisfied by another effect producing the same event: {Escaped Mental Patient} is not burned when another card grants him the hand strike.²⁰ An “either A or B” condition needs one branch completed in full; partial progress on both does not combine, e.g. {First Tradition: The Masquerade}.

“When the action/bleed would be successful” is a timing window, not merely a condition (see §3.4.3 for sequencing).²¹ “Would X” with a stated substitute marks a replacement effect; §2.4.1 sequences it.²²

1.3 Card types and multi-type cards

1.3.1 Locquipments

An equipment card printed “represents a location and does not count as equipment while in play” is an equipment in hand, library and ash heap; both equipment and location as it is played; and only a location once in play, e.g. {Palatial Estate}.²³

Cost effects reach it under either wording, since the card is checked in hand and is both types at the moment it is played. An effect reducing the cost of locations applies, e.g. {Therbold Realty}; so does one reducing the cost of equipment cards, e.g. {The British Museum, London}.²⁴ See §1.7 for cost reduction.

A search for an equipment card finds a locquipment in the library, e.g. {Magic of the Smith}; a search for a location does not, e.g. {Danylo}. An effect that moves “the equipment” after an equip action cannot move it, e.g. {Reg Driscoll}.²⁵

A vampire who cannot have or use equipment may still equip with a locquipment, e.g. {Enkidu, The Noah}. {Beast, The Leatherface of Detroit} also cannot play action cards, so a card must put it on him, e.g. {Vast Wealth}.²⁶

1.3.2 Multi-type cards

A card with two types is of the type it is played as, never both.²⁷ {Adana de Sforza} reduces the cost of a [COMBAT]/[MODIFIER] card only when it is played as a combat card; {Conrad Adoula} reads a [REACTION]/[MODIFIER] card only when it is played as a reaction. A card offering a choice of disciplines is of the discipline it was played at, e.g. {Horrock}.

An effect that retrieves or counts cards by type reads the type the card was played as: {Henry Taylor} recovers {Resist Earth’s Grasp} only if it was played as a combat card.

The printed type is unchanged by an unusual play route. A retainer employed through {Pack Alpha} is still an action card; see §1.7.3 for cost reductions.²⁸

Whether a card keeps its type after being used is settled by its own text, not by a general rule. {Shackles of Enkidu} is still an equipment once it has been moved onto the opposing minion. {Enhanced Coagulant} prints replacement text on use and becomes typeless, so it is no longer a weapon.

1.4 Representation and placeholders

Base rules. Several cards put a card into play to stand in for something else — a Master: Discipline card as a 1-capacity Sabbat vampire ({Shock Troops}), a library card as a ghoul ally ({Absimiliard’s Army}), an ash-heap minion as a wraith ally ({Khazar’s Diary (Endless Night)}).

The representing card contributes nothing of its own. Its name, card type, cost, clan, disciplines, text and unique status are all inert (see §1.13.1 for contests); the card is exactly what the effect that put it there describes, and nothing more.²⁹ An {Agent of Power} put into play by {Shock Troops} is a non-unique clanless 1-capacity Sabbat vampire with no discipline, and is not a Master: Discipline card while it is in play.

The placeholder sits in play face up; a card merely stored on another card is out of play and sits face down instead, e.g. {Père Lachaise, France}.³⁰

Once the card leaves play it is read as printed again; what it represented is gone.

Standing in for something else does not launder a play restriction. An ability that lets a minion count as having a required discipline substitutes only for that discipline; clan and other printed restrictions still apply, e.g. {Reality Mirror}.³¹ See §1.6 for requirements and requirement-faking.

1.5 Abilities and card plays

Base rules. Using an ability printed on a card already in play is not playing a card, and is not taking an action.

1.5.1 Ability use is not a card play

Costs and restrictions that attach to playing a card do not reach ability use. The [obe] version of {Safe Passage} raises the cost of reaction cards, not of reaction powers. {Secure Haven}’s surcharge applies to master cards played at the minion, not to using the effect of a master already in play, e.g. {KRCG News Radio}.³²

An ability marked [REACTION] (a marker only imbued powers bear) does not count as playing a reaction card, but it can be used only when reactions can be used — unlocked, or with a wake effect, e.g. {Champion}. Card text overrides the unlocked half: {Vigilance} is only usable by a locked imbued, so it needs no wake and only the reaction window itself — during an action — applies.³³ An effect that merely lets a locked minion block is not a wake, e.g. {No Secrets From the Magaji}.

1.5.2 Locked bearers and torpor

Locking bars acting and blocking; it does not bar ability use. An ability stays usable while its bearer is locked unless its own text requires the bearer to be unlocked, e.g. {Montano}, {Toby}. Where the ability costs a lock, only that part needs the bearer unlocked: {Courier} lets you look at the card while locked and needs the lock only to discard it.³⁴

Torpor bars no ability either: abilities remain usable there, including lock-to-use ones, e.g. {Montano}, {Mariel, Lady Thunder}.³⁵ Action modifiers are likewise not barred: they carry no unlocked requirement; what a vampire in torpor can and cannot play is §5.3.2’s.

1.5.3 Ability use is not an action

A minion barred from acting may still use its abilities. A recruited ally cannot act the turn it enters play, but it can use its abilities that turn, including ones that lock it, e.g. {Draeven Softfoot}, {War Ghoul}. The same holds for a minion influenced out: its ability is usable during that influence phase.³⁶ See §3.7.4 for the recruit action and §5.2 for the lock.

A vampire treated as an ally keeps abilities that let him play discipline-requiring cards, and uses them on an ally’s terms.³⁷

1.5.4 Reuse

An ability may be used any number of times during a single action unless its own text limits it, e.g. {Corpse Minion}.³⁸ Three limits come from the wording. If use locks the bearer or its source, it is once per unlock, e.g. {Forest of Shadows}, {Hukros}. If it is keyed to a phase action, it is once per window available, e.g. {Josef von Bauren}. Any other condition in the text is rechecked at each use: {Osric Vladislav} may repeat only while he is acting and stealth is needed.³⁹

A once-each-turn ability is spent only if it actually applies. {Nergal}’s cost reduction is not used when the action cannot be paid for even with it, or when the card is canceled as played and no cost is paid.⁴⁰

1.5.5 Timing, participation, prevention

An ability that modifies an action has action-modifier timing: usable at any point during the action, including after block attempts conclude, e.g. {Pentex(TM) Loves You!}, {Spiridonas}.⁴¹

An ability whose text is framed by combat requires its bearer to be a combatant, not merely that a combat is occurring, e.g. {Watenda}, {White Lily}.⁴²

An ability granted by a card in play is unavailable while an effect prevents the bearer from using that card: {Drawing Out the Beast} stops the vampire using {Drum of Xipe Totec}, so neither the [CEL] nor the maneuver it grants is available.⁴³

1.6 Requirements

1.6.1 When a requirement is checked

A requirement is checked when the card is played and on each later play: {Undead Persistence} cannot be used twice in one combat.⁴⁴ During an action it is checked continuously; a minion who stops meeting it fizzles the action: the action still resolves and, if unblocked, is successful and its cost paid, but it has no effect. One met at the time of the block stands if the acting vampire is later replaced.

A card already in play stays in play when its requirement lapses.⁴⁵ A trait gained later applies to cards already in play if the card checks for it, e.g. {Orun}’s capacity bonus⁴⁶, not if it’s only checked when the card is played, eg. the discipline level for a retainer like {Raven Spy}.

1.6.2 What counts as meeting a requirement

What “Only usable by …” restricts depends on whether using the card is the same act as playing it. On a card that is played and resolves — action, action modifier, reaction, combat card — it bars the play: {Regeneration} cannot be played by an untorpid vampire. On a card that goes into play it gates only the conferred ability: a capacity-5 vampire can still equip {Seal of Veddartha} and gains its [dom] and [for] levels, but cannot use its bleed action.⁴⁷

Meeting a requirement is not possessing the trait: {Talaq, the Immortal} plays [qui] cards but has no [qui] and gains nothing from cards keyed to having it.⁴⁸

A card printing a clan and its antitribu as alternatives needs only one of the two, e.g. {Defender of the Haven}; a lone clan requirement is not met by the antitribu clan.⁴⁹

1.6.3 Cards entering play abnormally

Only “put … in play” bypasses requirements and cost, e.g. {Summon History}, {Compel the Spirit} [NEC].⁵⁰ Equip, recruit and employ invoke the normal machinery, so requirements and cost apply as printed, e.g. {Concealed Weapon}, {Piper}, {Magic of the Smith}. Such a card has still been played; see §1.8 for what it loses.

Where requirements are bypassed, a required discipline is used at inferior and a cost of X is zero.⁵¹ Card text splits the two checks at will: {Bindusara, Historian of the Kindred} puts in play but prints that cost is paid; {Horrid Reality} equips paying no cost, and burns the weapon if requirements are unmet.⁵²

Bypassing requirements does not bypass prohibitions: {Heidelberg Castle, Germany} cannot move equipment onto {Enkidu, The Noah}. A card placed where it cannot legally sit is burned without cost refund; whether an effect it imposed on placement survives is §2.5.3’s. On-entry clauses firing however the card entered are §5.5’s.⁵³

A clause firing on equipping does not fire when the card is merely put in play: {Helicopter} comes locked when equipped, unlocked when {Alastor} places it.⁵⁴ An ability modifying equipping or recruiting does apply to non-normal ones, e.g. {Little Tailor of Prague} with {Piper}. One keyed to the action applies only where there is an action: {Zhenga} triggers on announcing a recruit or employ action, so {Piper}’s actionless recruit is outside her ability, while a non-standard recruit that is an action is not.⁵⁵

The requirements and cost of a fetched card are not those of the fetching action: {CrimethInc.} cannot be used off {The Summoning} for an ally requiring an Anarch.⁵⁶

1.6.4 Vampires that meet requirements they do not have

{Mata Hari} and her kind are treated as meeting the requirement for all effects of the card played, and only them, including its duration effects — never for what the card does from being in play.⁵⁷

The ability operates only on a card played normally, not for a {Piper} recruit or a {Concealed Weapon} equip.⁵⁸ It operates only where the card prints the requirement, never to match a trait the card merely acts on, e.g. {Sacrifice}.⁵⁹ It does not operate while the vampire is uncontrolled or in the crypt.⁶⁰ Controlling such a vampire does not shut off burn options: a card in hand that only she could meet the requirement to play may still be discarded via its burn option.⁶¹

Title requirements are the special case: sect membership, the choice of city, and {Vidal Jarbeaux}’s printed once-per-game caps are §5.8.3’s.

An ability granting a discipline for playing cards meets one, not both, of a two-discipline requirement, e.g. {Infernal Familiar}, {Grey Thorne}.⁶²

1.6.5 Playing a card that will do nothing

Futility is no bar by default: a card may be played, and an action taken, knowing it will accomplish nothing, e.g. {Absorb the Mind} against a bloodless vampire, {Draba} on a minion already at 0 stealth.⁶³

Three families bar the play. A card whose text names the object it acts on cannot be played when no such object exists, e.g. {Shattering Blow} with no equipment, {Storage Annex} as the only card in hand, an empty crypt to draw from.⁶⁴ Immediate damage prevention cannot be played with no damage to prevent.⁶⁵ Stealth or intercept cannot be gained when not needed, e.g. {Bonding}. Reducing an opposing value already at its floor stays legal.

These bars are on the play only, and only on a play whose whole effect is the unneeded one. A card granting a standing effect may be played before the need exists: {Repulsion} [OBE] may be played though the stealth is not currently needed, and once on the vampire its +1 stealth applies on every action regardless.⁶⁶

1.7 Costs and payment

1.7.1 When a cost is paid

An action’s cost is paid at resolution, not at announcement; any other card burns its cost as it is played.⁶⁷

An additional cost is paid at the same time as the cost it adds to. Where that cost is never reached — the action is blocked or canceled, the referendum fails — nothing is paid.⁶⁸ A charge incurred per combat is incurred anew if a fresh combat begins: {Blithe Acceptance} burns its blood (or itself) again under {Psyche!}.

A cost charged for failing to block burns when the action begins to resolve, and reactions may still be played, and paid for, before that burn.⁶⁹ Costs and triggered burns charged on the block itself are §3.3.3’s; a cost to attempt is per attempt and never retroactive, e.g. {Tenebrous Form}.

The cost of playing a card and the gain that card yields happen in one step, so no oust intervenes — even where another card imposed the cost, e.g. {Secure Haven}’s surcharge on a {Minion Tap}. Where paying does oust a player, resolve the oust before the effects that produced it.⁷⁰

1.7.2 Cost arithmetic

Multiplication and division are applied first, then addition and subtraction.⁷¹ The modified cost is the card’s cost for every other effect that reads it, and a reduction tied to a minion follows the card onto and off that minion.⁷² Modifications apply before affordability is checked, but paying from another source leaves the cost itself unchanged.⁷³ Where a reduction and another cost effect could both fire, the controller chooses the order.⁷⁴

You must be able to pay the printed cost, even when the card returns more than it costs, e.g. {The Eternals of Sirius}, {Villein}; a reduction that brings the cost within reach makes the play legal.⁷⁵

Some cards have a cost of X, chosen by the player when paying. X may be zero, and “X” in the card’s own text means the cost paid for that card. A card put into play rather than played has X of zero, whatever the fetching card announced, e.g. {Summon History}.⁷⁶

1.7.3 Cost reductions

A “lock to reduce the cost” location may be locked at any point from announcement until just before the cost is paid. When the reduction is what makes the card affordable at all, it must be locked at announcement, e.g. {Sunset Strip, Hollywood}.⁷⁷

A reduction reaches what its wording keys it to: one on a card’s cost applies however the card reaches play, including a retainer employed by {Pack Alpha}; one keyed to an action does not apply where no action is taken, e.g. {Charisma}.⁷⁸ A reduction on “cards you play” covers minion cards, which the Methuselah also plays; wording naming pool does not reach a cost paid in vampire blood, and the converse.⁷⁹ Reductions reaching an equipment that is a location are §1.3’s.⁸⁰

1.7.4 Costs and “burn blood” effects

A “burn X blood” clause inside a card’s effect is not a cost. Cost reductions do not touch it, and the card cannot be played if the minion cannot afford the burn, e.g. {Preternatural Evasion}, {Shadow Boxing}.⁸¹ An ability sparing a vampire the cost of a class of cards therefore does not spare a burn-blood effect printed on one, e.g. {Dragos} against {Chiropteran Marauder}.⁸²

An effect that adds to a card’s cost is a cost: other reductions apply to it, and it reaches every card in the class it names, including cards played at end of round, e.g. {Terror Frenzy}.⁸³

1.7.5 Paying what you can

Where a card names an amount to take from a target, take what is there, e.g. {Villein}, {Theft of Vitae}.⁸⁴ Where the amount is a cost the payer cannot meet, the payment is still made as far as it goes and the effect it was to buy does not happen, e.g. {Sword of Nuln}.⁸⁵

An ally has life, not blood, and cannot pay a blood cost at all. Where the payer chooses the source, choosing an empty one does not discharge the obligation, e.g. {Smiling Jack, The Anarch}.⁸⁶

1.7.6 Whose cost, and paid in what

The fetching card’s cost is paid even if its search finds nothing.⁸⁷ Where a card names who pays, that minion pays, acting or not, e.g. {Alastor}.⁸⁸ Where a cost may be paid in blood or pool, or a choice of costs is offered, the player playing the card chooses.⁸⁹

Using an ability of a card in play is not playing a card, so an added cost on card plays does not reach it.⁹⁰ A canceled card’s cost is §1.8’s.⁹¹

The “keep … by repaying their pool cost” template ({Kindred Segregation}, {Peace Treaty}) repays the pool cost only: blood costs are not repaid, and a card with only a blood cost is kept for 0 pool. The controller may instead let the card burn, even where the amount is zero.⁹²

1.8 Playing and canceling a card

1.8.1 The “as played” window

A card played from hand in the normal fashion can be canceled as it is played. The cancellation must be immediate, and cards are not replaced during the window, so a library-search master cannot fetch a canceller, e.g. {The Barrens}, {Dreams of the Sphinx}.⁹³ A wake effect is the one other card playable in the window; a reaction that unlocks to attempt a block is not.⁹⁴ A cancellation from an ability in play is applied before anyone may play a further cancellation, e.g. {Andrew Stuart} pre-empting {Direct Intervention}. A cancellation that is itself a card play opens its own window and can be canceled there first — {Sudden Reversal} on the {Direct Intervention}.⁹⁵

The window opens on an out-of-turn master, on a combat card played at the end of a round or “when combat would end”, and on a modifier played after the action succeeds, e.g. {Voter Captivation}.⁹⁶ A card is cancelable as what it was played as: played with [obe] it does not require [aus], e.g. {Hide the Mind}, {Iron Heart}.⁹⁷

1.8.2 Played, but not in the normal fashion

A card brought into play by another card’s effect has still been played. What it lacks is only the normal-play window: it cannot be canceled as it is played. Cancellation reaches only normal plays, minion cards and master cards alike — from hand, or “as if from your hand” where a card says so, e.g. {Persistent Echo}, {The Erciyes Fragments} — not an ally recruited by {Piper} or a weapon equipped by {Disguised Weapon}.⁹⁸ Requirements and cost still apply.

An effect that lets a minion use the ability of a card plays no card: no window opens, and it does not consume his own once-per-action limit on that modifier, e.g. {Inscription}, {Shadow Court Satyr}. A cancellation in the used card’s own text still applies, e.g. {Target Vitals}.⁹⁹

When a card counts as played fixes when the window is. A political action card played from hand by {Charming Lobby} counts as played only at successful resolution and so never becomes cancelable; one retained by {Echo of Harmonies} is played normally and is.¹⁰⁰

1.8.3 A canceled card has still been played

Cancellation stops the effect, not the play. The same reaction or modifier cannot be played again by that minion, and a card limited to one per round cannot be replayed, e.g. {Immortal Grapple}.¹⁰¹ Effects that count or retrieve cards played count the canceled one, e.g. {Dabbler}, {Marthe Dizier}, {Perfectionist}.¹⁰²

The cost is still paid unless the canceling card says otherwise. Most say “its cost is not paid”, e.g. {Direct Intervention}; those that do not, do not, e.g. {Santaleous} — including a blood cost imposed by {Terror Frenzy}.¹⁰³ Where only part of an effect is canceled, bids made are still paid and counters burned stay burned.¹⁰⁴

A canceled limited effect does not trigger its limit, so another bleed or additional strike remains available.¹⁰⁵

A canceled play spends a use that attached to the play itself: the canceled card was still played, so {Vidal Jarbeaux} has spent his once-per-game requirement. A use that attached to an element the cancellation removed is not spent: no cost was paid, so {Nergal}’s reduction never applied and his once-per-turn ability is not used.¹⁰⁶

1.8.4 What a cancellation reaches

Cancellation propagates downward only: canceling an effect cancels what that effect provides, never the effect that provided it. Canceling a strike cancels the rest of the strike card’s effect, and the striking minion chooses another strike.¹⁰⁷ Canceling a maneuver does not cancel the strike that provided it — and that strike cannot be changed, e.g. {Aid from Bats} — but does cancel a press the maneuver provides, e.g. the optional press on {Masque of Judas}’s maneuver.¹⁰⁸ Canceling an aim leaves the strike to resolve on its default target, e.g. {Target Retainer}.¹⁰⁹

1.9 Replacement

Base rules. A card played from hand is replaced immediately unless card text says otherwise, and the draw comes after the “as played” window closes [RBK playing-a-card] [RBK drawing-cards]. With an empty library you do not draw and play continues.

1.9.1 When the replacement is drawn

The action card is replaced before any action modifier is played on that action.¹¹⁰

1.9.2 Delayed replacement

A card printing “do not replace until after this action” is not replaced when the action is blocked; it is replaced when the action ends, after all combats.¹¹¹

A delayed replacement is drawn at the first moment its condition is met, ahead of any other effect triggering then: before cards unlock ({Port Authority}), before other effects keyed to the same torpor ({The New Inquisition} ahead of {Fame}), before a queued combat begins ({Lucky Blow} ahead of {Psyche!}).¹¹² The delay runs to its condition even if the card has since been burned.

“Do not replace” effects stack with a card’s own clause and the longest delay wins.¹¹³ Where two effects each offer a different replacement treatment, the controller chooses, e.g. {Visit from the Capuchin} against {Steely Tenacity}.

An effect tied to the moment a card is played resolves at that moment, and a delayed replacement is simply not there yet. That can reduce the effect — {Troglodytia} after {Wash} sees the hand without the replacement — or negate it entirely: {Agaitas, The Scholar of Antiquities}’ ability applies only as the card is played, so any delay prevents it. An effect keyed to the replacement itself waits for it, e.g. {Learjet}.¹¹⁴

1.9.3 Abnormal entry and cancellation

A “do not replace until after this action” clause governs only a normal play (§1.8.2). A card put into play in a special way is replaced immediately, even mid-action, e.g. {Baseball Bat} played via {Concealed Weapon}; played normally the clause still governs, even when the card reaches play by another route during the resulting combat, e.g. {Gift of Bellona}.¹¹⁵ A card played normally is replaced before its action resolves, so an ally recruited in the normal fashion can be given cards drawn as its own replacement; one entering play by other means cannot, e.g. {Corrupt Construction}.

A canceled card is replaced normally, its “do not replace until” or alternate-replacement clause canceled with it, e.g. {Steely Tenacity}.¹¹⁶

1.9.4 Empty crypt, hand size

A card whose effect draws from or moves a card out of a crypt cannot be played when that crypt is empty — your own for {Illusions of the Kindred}, the blocker’s for {Bear-Baiting}.¹¹⁷ This is §1.6’s missing-object family, not futility.

Cards not yet replaced count against hand size, and an effect that shows you a hand does not show the card drawn to replace a discard from it. See §6.8 for both.¹¹⁸

1.10 Burn, removal from the game, and shuffling back

1.10.1 Burn is not removal from the game

Burning a card and removing it from the game are separate events. A “when burned” trigger does not fire when its object is removed instead: {Soul Gem of Etrius} does nothing when its bearer is removed by {Golconda: Inner Peace}.¹¹⁹

The clauses apply in printed order: where a card is burned and then removed, the burn happened and every when-burned trigger fires — an {Absimiliard’s Army} ghoul is burned first, so {Tension in the Ranks} sees it. Cards controlled by an ousted Methuselah are removed, not burned, so nothing triggers.

Where a card prints removal as its own disposition, an actual burn pre-empts it and the card goes to the ash heap instead, e.g. an illusionary vampire burned in combat, or a {Grasp the Ghostly} equipment burned before its pathos counters run out.¹²⁰

A card removed as part of resolving its own effect never reaches the ash heap, so ash-heap retrieval cannot find it, e.g. {Summon Soul} at [NEC].

Cards removed from the game are public.

1.10.2 “Burned” means burned from play

An effect keyed to a card being burned means burned from play, not any route to the ash heap. A card discarded from hand has not been burned, and neither has an ally card whose recruit action was blocked; {Resurrection} recovers neither.¹²¹

The same test governs a shuffle-back clause: a card that shuffles into its owner’s library when burned is not shuffled back when it is discarded.

Such a card is burned first and shuffled back second, so other when-burned effects still apply — {Set’s Curse} still puts its ally into play when the minion it burns is {Kherebutu}.

1.10.3 Effects conditioned on a burn

A card whose effect is conditioned on a burn may be played when that burn will not happen. The conditioned part simply does not fire. {Set’s Curse} may be played on {Ilomba}, which redirects its own burn, but then nothing is put into play. {Sacrificial Lamb} gains no blood and moves no equipment if the target does not burn.¹²²

A card that burns itself at a stated moment does not burn if that moment is never reached: {Bomb} used as a strike does not burn if combat ends before the strike resolves, and a weapon out of play when a burn would apply escapes it.

A card that burns itself for want of counters is a counter-count question, not a burn question; see §1.12 for it.¹²³

1.10.4 Crypt and library are separate

Crypt cards cannot be put into the library and library cards cannot be put into the crypt. Continuous effects stop tracking a card shuffled back into the crypt, and any effect standing on that card is voided. Where one effect both discards and shuffles the discards back, resolve all discards and draws first, then shuffle.¹²⁴

An effect does not need the minion it names to remain in play. A contract can still be used after its target — or the contract card itself — is burned, e.g. {The Black Throne}; a card keyed to what happened in the combat may be played after the minion it measures was burned, e.g. {Taste of Vitae}; and a prohibition fixed on a card survives even that card’s own trip through the ash heap — {The Eternal Mask} still cannot be burned after its vampire burned and returned. See §2.5 for persistence.¹²⁵

1.11 The ash heap

The ash heap has no order. A player removing or taking cards from an ash heap chooses them freely, e.g. {Trochomancy}, and the choice is visible to every player even when the card is then placed face down, e.g. {Maabara}.¹²⁶

1.11.1 Retrieval: what counts as played

A retrieval effect worded on “a card played” reaches only cards played the normal way. A card brought into play by another card’s effect is not retrievable by such an effect, e.g. {Concealed Weapon}, {Charming Lobby}. That card has still been played; the two tests are separate. A card canceled as it is played counts as played and can be retrieved. The action card of the action itself counts among the cards the acting minion played during that action, e.g. {The Art of Memory}.¹²⁷

Burning a card is not playing it. A card burned from hand for a vote was not played (it is burned, but neither played nor burned from play;), and a card in play burned by its own text was not played to call the referendum that burned it — {Echo of Harmonies} cannot retrieve a {National Guard Support} burned that way.¹²⁸

1.11.2 The ash heap is read when the effect resolves

A card that goes to the ash heap when played and is referred to later has no effect if it has been removed from the ash heap before that moment, e.g. {Melange} when the vampire blocks. A retrieval likewise finds nothing if its target has left the ash heap before the retrieval resolves, e.g. {Echo of Harmonies} after {Delaying Tactics}.¹²⁹

A card diverted before it reaches the ash heap was never there. {Delaying Tactics} returns the political action card to its owner’s hand before it is burned, so a card played from {The Erciyes Fragments} returns to hand rather than being removed from the game. A retrieval naming a card in the ash heap cannot be played at all if that card was moved elsewhere, e.g. {Compel the Spirit}.¹³⁰

1.11.3 What a card is in the ash heap

A card in the ash heap is its own printed card, not what it represented in play. A library card that became a minion in play is not a minion of that type there: {Jake Washington} is no ally in the ash heap, and an action card that created a vampire leaves no vampire there. A crypt card in the ash heap is a vampire whatever it represented in play, so a burned {Spell of Life} mummy can be retrieved by {Possession} but not by {Compel the Spirit} — and an ally that was represented by a crypt card cannot be retrieved as an ally. An effect keyed to a card “burned from play” does not reach a card that was never in play: a discard, or an ally card sent to the ash heap by a blocked recruit action, does not qualify, e.g. {Resurrection}.¹³¹

1.11.4 Whose ash heap

A burned or discarded card goes to its owner’s ash heap. A minion controlled by another Methuselah passes through its owner’s ash heap when burned, breaking all control effects, e.g. {The Capuchin}; a stolen equipment burned in play returns to its owner’s ash heap and is not removed from the game unless an effect says so, e.g. {Grasp the Ghostly}. A retrieval worded “your ash heap” means the ash heap you own — it does not matter who first controlled the card, e.g. {Père Lachaise, France}. Effects may reach any player’s ash heap, and an action targeting one is always undirected ([RBK important-terms-of-the-game]).¹³²

1.12 Cards and counters on other cards

Base rules. Burning a card or removing it from the game burns any counters and cards on it. Moving a minion between regions does not: cards and counters follow the minion and are out of play while it sits in torpor or in the uncontrolled region.

1.12.1 The host leaving play

A card on a host is burned when the host leaves play, whatever sends it away: burned, removed from the game, returned to a hand, library or crypt, or set aside with no printed provision for its cards.¹³³ Cards on the initial target of a card effect burn like any other, e.g. {Memory’s Fading Glimpse} (host to the bottom of the crypt), {Raw Recruit} (host set aside out of play). Two families of departures keep the cards instead, out of play but intact: torpor, the uncontrolled region and contest, where they burn only if the host is yielded or burned; and a set-aside whose own text carries them along, e.g. {Descent into Darkness} (“this vampire and any other cards and counters on them”).¹³⁴ A vampire that burns and returns comes back with nothing on it and is a new minion for every purpose.

A hosted card printing its own “burn this card if this vampire is about to leave the ready region” clause resolves before the move. It burns even under an effect that would otherwise keep cards on the vampire, e.g. {Righteous Aura} under {Banishment}.¹³⁵

Effects the hosted card already produced are not undone when it burns with its host, e.g. {The Eternal Mask}. Counters it placed elsewhere keep working, e.g. {Tegyrius, Vizier}’s allegiance counters. See §2.5 for persistence.¹³⁶

1.12.2 Status of a hosted card

A card put on another card is not in play, even where the host’s text does not say so, e.g. {Shadow Court Satyr}.¹³⁷

A card on a minion is controlled by that minion’s controller, so it stays when the Methuselah who played it is ousted, e.g. {Anathema}.¹³⁸ It follows its host on a change of control, and the new controller may use it. When it would move to an ash heap or library it goes to the owner’s, e.g. {Storage Annex} stolen.

A copy entering play into a contest resolves its enter-play effects before the contest begins: a second {Mokolé Blood} puts its cards on itself first; its standing effects do not apply. See §1.13.2 for entering contest.¹³⁹

1.12.3 Counters on hosts

A card that enters play with zero counters and prints “burn this card when it has no counters” burns immediately, e.g. {Secret Horde} put into play with X=0.¹⁴⁰

A counter moved onto a master card becomes the counter type that card uses, e.g. {Goth Band}.

A threshold of counters “equal to the card’s cost” reads the number, not the currency: {Dominique} burns a location that cost X blood with X vandal counters, the same as one that cost X pool.

1.13 Contests

Base rules. Contested cards are turned face down and out of play for the contest’s duration; a yielded card is burned. A contested title leaves its vampires in play and acting normally, treated as having no title.

1.13.1 What contests what

A contest needs two cards that are both unique and share a card name, whatever the card type. The unique mummies made by {Spell of Life} contest each other and a unique vampire of that name, but never the non-unique {Aabbt Kindred}.¹⁴¹

A card whose text says it does not contest is treated as a different card for everything that reads names, not merely spared the contest. Its duplicate title still votes, and an effect triggered by a second copy of that name does not fire: an illusionary {Jimmy Dunn} from {Illusions of the Kindred} does not make the real one burn himself. {Jimmy Dunn}’s own “cannot be contested” works the same way, so a second copy may be influenced out.¹⁴²

You can never choose to contest yourself. A play or choice that would do so is illegal: a second {Visit from the Capuchin} cannot be played, and {Chain of Command} cannot bring out two copies of one unique vampire. Where an effect forces the contest instead, the incoming copy is burned, e.g. two {Parmenides} influenced in one turn.¹⁴³

1.13.2 Entering contest

Entry costs, cards placed on the card, and “as this enters play” abilities all resolve before it enters contest, and only before. {Dr. Solomon Grey} burns his pool first; a second {Mokolé Blood} collects its cards first; {Anarch Convert} may remove himself from the game, averting the contest entirely.¹⁴⁴

The copy already in play leaves play when the contest starts, so its “if this leaves play” clause fires: {Sonja Blue} is removed from the game, handing the contest to the incoming copy.¹⁴⁵

1.13.3 While contested

A contested card is out of play and nothing printed on it applies. A contested location gives no hand size, whether printed on it ({Elder Library}) or counted by another card ({Guillaume Giovanni}); {Secure Haven} is not burned when its minion goes to torpor; {Byzar}’s burn-replacement does not save him from being yielded.¹⁴⁶

A weapon taken into contest mid-combat is unusable by either side, and a strike already chosen with it has no effect, e.g. {Disguised Weapon}.

An effect elsewhere that reads the contested card is suspended, not ended, and resumes when the contest resolves, e.g. {Betrayer} naming a vampire who becomes contested. A contested card carried by a minion that an effect moves out of play drops out of the contest and re-enters it when the minion returns, e.g. {Descent into Darkness}.¹⁴⁷

1.13.4 After the contest

What a card returning from contest remembers is §6.4.1’s.

A fresh copy of the same name is a different card, and a choice fixed on a copy that was burned or yielded does not move to it. {The Rack} does not pick up the new copy, nor may its controller re-choose merely because the chosen vampire became ineligible.¹⁴⁸

A card that leaves play through a contest is not burned by any minion, so nothing keyed to a minion burning it applies.¹⁴⁹

1.14 Set-aside and announced cards

1.14.1 When the card is named

An action that moves a named card out of your ash heap names that card when the action is declared, not at resolution.¹⁵⁰ This holds whether the action comes from a card, e.g. {The Sargon Fragment}, or from a minion’s own ability, e.g. {Pochtli}.

A search of your library declares nothing: the card is chosen at resolution, e.g. {Magic of the Smith}.¹⁵¹ So is a choice belonging to an effect that only triggers later, e.g. {Ashur Tablets}.

The card providing the current action is not itself available to that action. While it is resolving it is in limbo — neither in hand nor in the ash heap — so it cannot be named among the cards it retrieves, e.g. {Siphon}, {Sudario Refraction}.¹⁵²

1.14.2 Cards named from hand

A card named from hand must be in hand when the naming card is played, before the replacement for that card is drawn.¹⁵³ It need not be shown: you may set it apart face down, e.g. {Disguised Weapon}, {Charming Lobby}. The same applies where the naming card takes a count rather than a name, e.g. {Gift of Proteus}.

Naming does not commit the card. If the action is canceled or fails, the named card stays in hand and is not discarded, e.g. {Jack of Both Sides}.

A card playable “as if from your hand” is not in hand. An effect requiring a card in hand cannot reach it: {Charming Lobby} cannot call a referendum off a political action card held by {Echo of Harmonies}.¹⁵⁴ Likewise, an effect that returns the political action card played to call a referendum finds nothing when the referendum came from a card in play, e.g. {Delaying Tactics}.

1.14.3 Cards out of play

A card set aside face down under an effect is out of play. It is in no zone that discard and burn effects reach, so it cannot be discarded or burned to satisfy another effect, e.g. a card on {The Erciyes Fragments} against {Tension in the Ranks}.¹⁵⁵ See §1.12 for cards placed on cards in play.

An equipment that is temporarily out of play is not burned by a scheduled burn that applies while it is out.¹⁵⁶ {Kerrie}’s ranged strike turns it face down until the end of the action ({Dagger} likewise), so {Baal’s Bloody Talons}’ end-of-round burn misses it; {Cleave}’s burn lands at the end of the action itself, where the acting Methuselah orders it against the weapon’s return.

1.15 Cumulative and stacking effects

Multiple copies of the same card in play each exert their own effect and impose their own cost. Two {Anarch Revolt} burn 2 pool in the unlock phase; two {First Tradition: The Masquerade} burn 4 pool.¹⁵⁷ Burn-pool and burn-blood requirements from any number of sources are cumulative. Where a card offers an alternative to its cost, taking that alternative once satisfies every copy — skipping a turn counts against all copies of {First Tradition: The Masquerade}.

Numeric bonuses from multiple copies add, e.g. {Mass Reality} damage, {Orun} capacity.¹⁵⁸ An absolute value does not add: a card granting “X” rather than “+X” sets its value, so multiple {Legacy of Pander} give a non-titled Pander 1 vote in total, and {Torn Signpost} sets strength to 2 or 3 — which can even reduce it, e.g. a 3-strength {Rock Cat} using it at [pot]. “+X” effects then add to the set value. {Orun} counts its own copies by its own text: one vote per three. A vote bonus that is not a title adds to the votes of a title gained later, e.g. {Xeper, Sultan of Lepers}.

Each copy triggers and resolves on its own. Multiple copies of {Camarilla Exemplary} may each name the same vampire, and multiple {Courier} each look at and discard a card in succession.¹⁵⁹ Copies attached to one minion are never merged: two {Kindred Society Games} on a vampire cost 2 blood to unlock and move separately, and stealing a minion under two {Temptation} burns the counters on only one of them.

An effect conditioned on having any counters is flat and does not scale with the count. A minion with graft counters from {Dr. Morrow, The Skindoctor} gets -1 stealth, not -X stealth; {Kahina the Sorceress} inflicts 1 damage however many corruption counters the minion carries.¹⁶⁰ The same holds for a trigger tied to an event rather than to a magnitude: a vampire with several {Orun} burns one on a successful bleed for more than 2, and each {Scorn of Adonis} costs a given Methuselah at most 1 pool however many “no” votes that Methuselah casts.

Effects from different cards that grant the same discipline do not combine into the superior level. An ally allowed to play [pot] cards by both {Leech} and {Putrescent Servitude} still plays only [pot], never [POT].¹⁶¹

A once-per-action limit on playing a card binds the minion, not the action. Different minions may each play their own copy on the same action, e.g. {Cloak the Gathering}, {Suppressing Fire}.¹⁶²

Two copies of a card that imposes a mandatory directed action can deadlock the bearer: a minion under two {Lunatic Eruption} is stuck and cannot act.¹⁶³ See §3.9.

2. Timing and Sequencing

2.1 Effect windows and impulse

Base rules. The impulse is the opportunity to play the next card or effect. The acting Methuselah plays first and gets the impulse back whenever anyone else uses a card or effect; the window closes only when every Methuselah passes in turn.

2.1.1 Where the impulse exists

An ability worded “when its controller has the opportunity to play effects” is usable at every such point, including inside an action.¹⁶⁴ Mandatory effects are applied before their controller passes the impulse.

Permission to play one card outside its usual window opens no window for anything else: a cancel card usable when there is no action does not thereby allow a wake effect, e.g. {Rewind Time}.

2.1.2 Who may play what

Only the acting minion plays action modifiers; only other Methuselahs’ ready unlocked minions play reaction cards. The window runs until resolution, so a modifier may still be played after all block attempts are concluded.¹⁶⁵

The template “Only usable by a ready vampire other than the acting minion” widens which minion plays the modifier, not which player. The card is still an action modifier, only the acting minion’s controller may play it, and the vampire must be one that Methuselah controls, e.g. {Blanket of Night}, {Siren’s Lure}, {Hidden Lurker}.¹⁶⁶

A reaction card widens its user only as far as its own text goes; the “not involved in the current combat” permission is §4.1’s.¹⁶⁷ A [REACTION] ability — the marker borne by imbued powers, e.g. {Hide}, {Surge} — is not a reaction card play but still needs a reaction window.

2.1.3 Effects resolve atomically

All effects are instantaneous except actions and certain combat effects. Nothing may be played “in response” to an effect, and no window opens between the sub-steps of one resolving effect, e.g. {Heidelberg Castle, Germany} cannot be locked in response.¹⁶⁸ Only a card that prints the exception opens one, and a “for each X” clause resolves once, as a whole, over the X in play when it resolves.¹⁶⁹

So a vampire chosen to go to torpor by {Baltimore Purge} cannot be unlocked between the choice and the torpor by another effect; a vampire changing controller because of {Temptation} cannot be locked between the unlock and the change of control; and life cannot be added in the middle of a single damage resolution step by {Vagabond Mystic}.

Between two actions, including during another Methuselah’s turn, every Methuselah has the impulse, and any effect not bound to an action window is usable there — a card barred “during an action” like {Heidelberg Castle, Germany} only there, an unbarred one like {The Louvre, Paris} or {Dreams of the Sphinx} at any impulse. A combat generated by an action modifier is still part of that action, so no between-actions window opens between two such combats ({Siren’s Lure}).¹⁷⁰

2.1.4 Step windows

A card that changes how a step resolves must be played before that step resolves. {Spirit Claws} affects the current strike only if played before strike resolution; {Rötschreck} is played after a strike is declared and before resolution, in either strike order. A card played on a diablerie may come before or after the Discipline card is taken, but must precede the blood hunt.¹⁷¹

A lock-to-reduce cost reduction may be applied at any point up to payment. A card in play that must be burned on an action is burned before that action resolves ({Melange}).

The “as the action/bleed would be successful” window is the last one before resolution; redirection must precede it.¹⁷²

2.2 “As the action is announced” effects

Base rules. A card worded “only usable as the action is announced” must be played before any regular action modifier or reaction card [RBK summary-of-the-course-of-an-action].

The window opens once the action card has been played and closes as soon as the first regular action modifier or reaction card is played, by any player. No as-announced card may follow it.¹⁷³

The timing is a property of the card’s wording, not of its card type. Action modifiers, reaction cards and cards already in play all carry it, e.g. {Car Bomb} [REACTION] and the location {Yoruba Shrine}. The acting Methuselah has the first opportunity to play in this window, as everywhere else in the action.¹⁷⁴

The action card is played, and replaced, before the window opens. A card drawn as that replacement may therefore be played as the action is announced. See §1.9 for replacement timing.¹⁷⁵

Because the action card has already been played, an effect used in the window that forbids playing cards does not reach it. {Concoction of Vitality} may be burned as the action is announced even though the action was announced with a card requiring a discipline, e.g. {Govern the Unaligned}.¹⁷⁶

The deadline at the action’s other end is §3.4.3’s.

§1.6’s bar on gaining stealth you do not need reaches this window: an as-announced card comes before any block attempt, so the stealth is never needed yet. Stealth granted here therefore prints its own override — {Predator’s Transformation}: “+1 stealth, even if stealth is not yet needed”.

2.3 After resolution and after combat

Base rules. An action resolves before it ends. Cards keyed “after resolution” or “after combat” are played in the gap between the two, while the action is still in progress.

2.3.1 The post-resolution window

A card played after resolution is played during the action, not after it.¹⁷⁷ Durations running to the end of the action are still running: a minion taken control of until the end of the action returns to its controller only once these effects are done, e.g. {Spirit Marionette}. An oust does not close the window either — with {Last Stand} in play, post-resolution effects are played before the turn ends. Being played during the action, such a card can be canceled as it is played, e.g. {Ophidian Gaze} on {Voter Captivation}.

Once a card keyed to resolution has been played, only cards with that same timing may follow. Cards keyed to an earlier point — {Deflection}, {Archon Investigation}, {Conditioning} — must precede it.¹⁷⁸ A printed after-success effect on a permanent works the same way and does not close the window: cards playable after resolution may still be played after {Perfectionist} gains its blood. The window opens at resolution; the “would be successful” window is earlier still and cannot follow it.¹⁷⁹

Modifiers and reactions usable at the end of or after an action survive a failed action and survive an intervening combat, e.g. {Champion}, {Car Bomb}, {Ensconced}.¹⁸⁰ An action that ends closes the window immediately and nothing may follow, e.g. {Change of Target}.

Two post-resolution cards put the action back in progress rather than adding to it: {Follow the Blood} sends the reacting vampire into combat, {Momentary Delay} continues the action as if unblocked. Other “after resolution” cards may be played before them, not after.¹⁸¹

2.3.2 Ordering

The acting player chooses the order of effects played after resolution and after combat, and may play further cards of that timing between them.¹⁸² Cards keyed “after combat” order freely against one another, e.g. {Provision of the Silsila} and {Monster}.¹⁸³

Damage taken after resolution, e.g. {Force of Will}, and blood gained after resolution are both inside the window; cards usable after resolution may be played before or after them.¹⁸⁴ Blood gained there is a gain like any other and triggers gain-keyed cards, e.g. {Slake the Thirst}.

A reaction card that unlocks its vampire may be played after resolution to enable another reaction card, e.g. {Wake with Evening’s Freshness} into {Fast Reaction} after combat.¹⁸⁵

2.3.3 After combat

Cards keyed “after combat” are played once every combat generated by the action has been handled, e.g. {Freak Drive}, {Cats’ Guidance}, {Hay Ride}.¹⁸⁶ The combat a block causes is the resolution of the blocked action, and where the action resolves before combat begins, “after resolution” effects wait for that combat too; the same holds for a success-conditioned effect from a card played earlier in the action, e.g. {The Art of Memory}.¹⁸⁷ With a further combat queued, neither window opens between the combats — both wait for the last one. The impulse between two combats belongs to other effects: a reaction keyed to the coming combat can end the action there ({Obedience}), and a per-combat effect drops and re-applies ({Raptor}’s hand-size penalty is redone for the new combat); cards barred during the action stay barred.¹⁸⁸

2.3.4 What resolution includes

An effect embedded in the action’s own resolution happens before the window opens. A blood hunt referendum called by the action’s text is part of resolution, so “after resolution” cards follow it and {Heidelberg Castle, Germany} — which cannot be used during an action — cannot be used before it.¹⁸⁹ The diablerie blood hunt is different: part of the action but not of its resolution, so after-resolution effects — including a card keyed to the diablerie itself, e.g. {Ritual of the Bitter Rose} — fit between the resolution and the referendum.

2.4 Simultaneous effects and ordering

Base rules. When two or more effects apply at the same moment, the acting Methuselah plays and orders first, then the impulse passes ([RBK sequencing]).

2.4.1 Ordering within a window

The acting Methuselah decides the order of the effects available in a window, and may play further effects in it before passing.¹⁹⁰ Nothing else forces an order: cards playable at the end of the round or “when the combat would end” may be played before or after one another,¹⁹¹ and a limited bleed modifier or limited additional strike may be played before or after an unlimited one.¹⁹²

Order is fixed only where wording fixes it. A replacement effect — “would X … instead” — must be played while the event is still replaceable, so it cannot follow an effect keyed to the event merely happening: {Telepathic Tracking} at [AUS] (“combat would end. Instead, start a new round”) cannot be played after {Psyche!} (“combat is about to end”); played first, combat continues and {Psyche!} waits for the end of the new round.¹⁹³ An effect that reads a value applies after every effect that modifies that value, e.g. {Protected Resources} after all bleed modifiers.¹⁹⁴

Which window a card belongs to is §2.3 and §4.9; ordering runs the same in each. An action that ENDS closes its window at once, leaving nothing to order.

Across Methuselahs, whoever uses an effect first has priority and whoever uses one last has the final say. In the “when a vampire should go into torpor” window the acting minion goes first, and going first can lock the other side out.¹⁹⁵

2.4.2 Order is a real choice

Effects resolve one at a time, so a later one can find nothing left to do: a second {Anathema} is burned unresolved.¹⁹⁶ Ordering also dodges a cost or a trigger — apply a cost reduction before {Jenna Cross}’s surcharge, or burn the last non-Camarilla vampire before {Judgment: Camarilla Segregation} bills you.¹⁹⁷

Where one effect could attach to any of several simultaneous applications, its controller chooses which, e.g. {Slake the Thirst}.¹⁹⁸ The clauses of a single card resolve in printed order.¹⁹⁹

2.4.3 Delayed effects triggered by a block

When a block triggers a delayed effect, no other effect may be used before it resolves, e.g. {Millicent Smith, Puritan Vampire Hunter}, {Unleash Hell’s Fury}. Effects triggering at that same moment are still applied and ordered by the acting Methuselah; modifiers may follow.²⁰⁰

2.4.4 Unlock phase

Held-back replacements and control reversions resolve before unlocking and cannot be ordered among unlock effects.²⁰¹ Within the phase the acting Methuselah orders his own effects freely, but must finish the mandatory ones before another Methuselah gets the impulse.²⁰²

2.4.5 Effects that are not ordered

Some effects are simultaneous, not ordered. Two {Theft of Vitae} strikes net the gain against the loss; no blood wears off.²⁰³ {Deep Song}’s lock and enter-combat are one moment; both are lost if the action ends first.²⁰⁴ Damage is prevented in sequence — acting player first — but all of it is applied at once.²⁰⁵

2.5 Duration and persistence

2.5.1 Effects with a stated duration

An effect granted for the duration of an action runs until the action ends. A combat the action causes is inside it: the acting minion stays the same and effects applied during the action still apply there. They also survive an action continuing as if unblocked.²⁰⁶

An allowance given for one action ends with the action even when the card granting it stays in play: {Eyes of the Beast}’s maneuver serves only that action though the card sits on the vampire until the discard phase. Within the action it is not spent by being available — {Marciana Giovanni, Investigator}’s beneficiary may burn the blood for intercept at any point. A prohibition triggered by attempting to block runs from the attempt to the end of the action, whether or not the block succeeds, e.g. {Valerius Maior, Hell’s Fool (ADV)}.²⁰⁷

2.5.2 Fixed at play versus read continuously

A value a card writes is fixed when the card is played and is not re-read. {Derange} takes the clan and sect from the acting vampire at play; that vampire changing clan afterwards does not move it. Counters added later do not change an X already set, e.g. {Leadership Vacuum}. Removing the card restores the underlying value.²⁰⁸

An effect whose text reads a trait on an ongoing basis re-reads it, including mid-action. A relational referent is re-read at each use — {Victim of Habit} keeps its named card when the prey is ousted and then works against the new prey.²⁰⁹

A requirement is checked when the card is played and the effect continues after the vampire stops meeting it, e.g. {Concordance}, {Cry Wolf}.²¹⁰

An effect granted to a class of minions applies to the members in play when it resolves: {Annabelle Triabell}’s turn-long +1 bleed does not reach a Toreador entering play later that turn. A standing grant is not consumed by use: the Toreador chosen for {Toreador Grand Ball} stays unblockable on non-bleed actions even after attempting a bleed.²¹¹

2.5.3 Effects outliving their source

An effect already applied stands when its source leaves play. {Tegyrius, Vizier}’s allegiance counters keep working after he leaves; {Camarilla Vitae Slave} grants its discipline until the next master phase even if the retainer is burned or stolen.²¹²

An effect equally outlives the player or minion that produced it: {Shatter the Gate}’s counters stay active after the acting Methuselah is ousted, and minions that equipped while {NRA PAC} was in play unlock at end of turn whether or not it still is. A card in play keeps working while its bearer is in torpor, e.g. {Nahir}’s hand size.²¹³

A card reaches only what happens after it is played. {Frenzy} does not undo equipment used earlier in the round; {Kraken’s Kiss} does not count damage inflicted before it; gaining or losing {Sire’s Index Finger} does not reach a frenzy card already played.²¹⁴

Whether a persistent effect ends with its source is decided by the card’s printed duration clause. {Rowan Ring} and {Wooden Stake} tie “does not unlock as normal” to the victim remaining in torpor, so it holds after the weapon is burned or moved. {Rötschreck} states it flatly in its own in-play text, so it ends when that card is burned or removed.²¹⁵

An effect naming a card as its object keeps tracking it across a change of bearer or controller: {Horrid Reality} burns the weapon at end of combat wherever it now sits, and {Imposing Phantasm} returns the blood even if the opposing minion changed controller.²¹⁶

2.5.4 Leaving play

A minion that goes to the ash heap loses every continuous effect on it and is lost track of by cards and effects, e.g. {The Capuchin}. Cards shuffled back into the crypt are lost track of the same way. A minion that changes type loses the continuous effects attached to its old form, e.g. {Demdemeh}’s retainers.²¹⁷

The uncontrolled region suspends rather than erases: cards, counters, titles and continuous effects — even those worded for the rest of the game — resume on return, e.g. {Banishment}; suspended capacity modifiers are §5.1.1’s.²¹⁸

3. Actions and Politics

3.1 Announcement and targets

3.1.1 What is fixed at announcement

Every term the card calls for is named when the action is declared: the target, the counters spent, the card burned, the affected Methuselah.²¹⁹ A lock-to-reduce cost reduction is not such a term: it may be applied at any point from announcement until just before the cost is paid.

A card named as part of the announcement must be in hand at that moment, face down if you wish, and stays in hand if the action is canceled or fails; a card retrieved from your ash heap is named at declaration, while a library search chooses only at resolution. §1.14 owns all of these.

3.1.2 Declaration or resolution

Some effects choose their object at declaration, others at resolution, and both can sit on the same card: {Break the Bonds} fixes the uncontrolled vampire at [pre] on declaration, the locked minion at [obf] on resolution.²²⁰ Which one applies decides what a target-protection or target-changing effect can reach.

An effect worded on the action being successful chooses its object then, e.g. {Keystone Kine}; so does a search that need not name what it fetches, e.g. {Magic of the Smith}.²²¹

3.1.3 Legal targets

An action cannot be announced at all if the card requires an object and no legal one exists.²²² But the object need only exist — it need not be able to yield the full effect. A vampire with no blood is a legal choice for a blood-stealing action; at resolution you take what is there, e.g. {Siphon}, {Villein}.²²³

If some of the intended objects cannot be targeted, the announcement stands; partial application is §3.4’s.²²⁴

An effect granting an action or a block does not lift the normal prey, predator and target restrictions.²²⁵

3.1.4 Choosing is targeting

A directed action that chooses, selects or names a minion targets it: protection effects bar it and cost increases apply, e.g. {Spirit Marionette} against {Secure Haven}, and a master card that chooses a vampire pays its extra pool, e.g. {The Rack}. The same test decides whether a frenzy card is played “on” a minion. An action targeting a retainer, equipment or other card on a minion does not target the minion, and neither does a card elsewhere that merely named him.²²⁶

An effect that resolves outside an action targets nothing: an unlock-phase choice reaches a minion under {Secure Haven}, e.g. {Baltimore Purge}.²²⁷

3.1.5 Directed actions

An action directed at a card controlled by another Methuselah is directed at that Methuselah; it is undirected if you control the target.²²⁸ So an action against an equipment, retainer or location is directed at the Methuselah controlling it, not at the minion carrying it, e.g. {Conceal}, {Haunt}.²²⁹

{Abbot} grants intercept during actions directed at its controller, so it applies to those; {Detect Authority} requires an action directed at a minion or location, so it does not. An ability keyed to directed actions never fires against actions by its own controller’s minions.²³⁰

Acting on another Methuselah’s ash heap is not a directed action — the ash heap is not a card in play, e.g. {Daemonic Possession}. Neither is a referendum, so {Secure Haven} gives no protection against a vampire being chosen by one, e.g. {Banishment}.²³¹

An action with several targets is directed at every Methuselah controlling one of them, e.g. {Sowing Dissension}.²³² A reactive effect keyed to being targeted applies if any one target of the action would enable it, e.g. {Chanjelin Ward}; where such an action’s effect then names a single minion, that minion must be controlled by one of the target Methuselahs, e.g. {Weigh the Heart}.²³³

3.2 Stealth and intercept

Base rules. Stealth may be added only while the action is being blocked by a minion with enough intercept to stop it; intercept only by a blocking minion whose intercept is below the acting minion’s stealth. [RBK stealth-and-intercept]

3.2.1 Adding what is not needed

A card that adds stealth or intercept cannot be played when the value is not needed, e.g. {Bonding}, {Mask of a Thousand Faces} at [OBF]. The restriction reaches an ability that adds it as well, e.g. {Osric Vladislav}.²³⁴ See §1.6 for the rule; this is its main instance.

Need is a threshold, not a cap. Once some intercept is needed the minion may take more than it needs, e.g. {Angelica, The Canonicus}. Printed text waives the restriction where it says so — “even if intercept is not yet needed”, e.g. {Phased Motion Detector}, {Under Siege}.²³⁵

3.2.2 Reducing the opposing value

Reducing is always legal, including against a minion already at 0 or negative, where it simply has no effect, e.g. {Draba}, {Night Terrors}. Such a card may be played by a minion that is not attempting to block. Reducing stealth “to 0” is a -X stealth modifier on the action, X fixed at the time the card is played; stealth added afterwards is added to the reduced value.²³⁶

3.2.3 Duration and re-evaluation

Modifications last for the duration of the action [RBK stealth-and-intercept]. An option to add, granted during the action, likewise stays open until resolution, e.g. {Marciana Giovanni, Investigator}.²³⁷

Having intercept is not permission to block. {Marciana Giovanni, Investigator} may lock to grant herself the option, and may do so from torpor, but still needs a wake to attempt the block.²³⁸

A bonus conditioned on the action’s target is satisfied by any one qualifying target, e.g. {Talley, The Hound}; “directed at their controller” covers actions directed at cards that controller owns, e.g. {Abbot}. A bonus conditioned on a trait is re-read if the trait changes mid-action, e.g. {Ministry}.²³⁹

3.2.4 Who plays it, when, and how often

The window does not close when one side passes. Intercept may still be added after the acting Methuselah declines to add stealth, e.g. {Guardian Vigil}, and playing a modifier that changes neither value leaves it open, e.g. {Inspire Greatness}. Sequencing puts the targeted Methuselah’s declaration first. Failing to block for want of intercept is still declining to block.²⁴⁰

How often a stealth or intercept effect may be used is fixed by its own wording: once per action, e.g. {Phased Motion Detector}; repeatable, e.g. {Matteus, Flesh Sculptor}; once per unlock where locking is the cost, e.g. {Starshell Grenade Launcher}. See §1.2 for the wording templates.²⁴¹

3.3 Blocking

3.3.1 Who may block

An effect that lets a minion ignore the prey, predator or target restriction reaches only that check. Every other condition on blocking still applies, including a prior decision not to block, e.g. {Eagle’s Sight} [AUS], {Anneke}.²⁴² It covers one block attempt; if the action later continues as if unblocked, another is needed.²⁴³ Blocking “as an ally” is the same shape.

The unlock-to-block template ({Guard Duty}, {Second Tradition: Domain}):

• Unusable when that vampire could not attempt to block the action anyway ({Daring the Dawn}).²⁴⁴
• Unlocking to block does not lift the prey, predator or target restriction.²⁴⁵
• Usable by a vampire already attempting to block, including a locked one that woke earlier.²⁴⁶
• If the unlock leaves the action with no suitable target ({Ambush}), the action does not end (§3.4).

3.3.2 Declaring and declining

Sequencing governs the block window: a Methuselah who is not the target must wait until the targeted Methuselah declares whether he attempts or declines to block. Using a card in play is bound the same as playing one from hand, e.g. {Hide the Heart} [VAL], {Draba}.²⁴⁷

Playing a card worded “after blocks are declined” declines the block for its controller, and a block attempt that already failed against stealth counts as declining for those cards, e.g. {Archon Investigation}, {Deflection}.²⁴⁸ Waking or unlocking to block compels nothing: the vampire need not attempt to block nor play further reaction cards.²⁴⁹

A declared attempt cannot be withdrawn — the minion is still attempting to block after a stealth modifier lands ({Faceless Night} [OBF]).²⁵⁰ An effect imposing a blood cost to attempt is the exception: a minion already attempting may resign instead of paying ({Tenebrous Form} [OBT]).²⁵¹

Declining belongs to the Methuselah, not to the minion. Being made to enter combat with the acting minion is not blocking ({Brujah Frenzy}); substituting another minion into the block-induced combat leaves the block standing, so the blocker still locks.²⁵²

3.3.3 The cost of blocking

“Must burn 1 blood to attempt to block” is a cost, so a minion who cannot pay cannot attempt, e.g. {Dominion}, {Tenebrous Form} (§5.5 for allies).²⁵³ “Vampires blocking this vampire burn 1 blood” is an automatic effect: an empty vampire still blocks and burns what it can, e.g. {Archon}, {Dónal O’Connor}. That burn happens immediately on the successful block, whether or not combat follows, and before any card or effect may be used: {Truth of Blood}’s discard is completed before the blocker can answer, {Obedience} included.²⁵⁴

A restriction triggered by attempting to block runs for the duration the card prints, and a failed attempt does not cut it short ({Blessing of Chaos} [dem]). A cost worded as a state — “while attempting to block” — stops once the attempt has failed, so it never reaches the action card’s cost ({Libertas}).²⁵⁵

3.3.4 After the block succeeds

Locking the blocker and entering combat are the two simultaneous consequences of block resolution, not of the attempt succeeding. Cards timed “before block resolution” fill that window ({Change of Target}, {Angel of Berlin}). An effect that ends the action or cancels the block there prevents both consequences ({Clan Loyalty}); canceling only the combat does not.²⁵⁶

Effects triggered by the block fire once the block would be successful; ending the action afterwards does not undo them ({Aching Beauty}, {Unleash Hell’s Fury}). An effect that makes the action resolve as if unblocked instead means no block was successful, so effects conditioned on a successful block never fire ({Lesser Boon}).²⁵⁷ An effect keyed on a block does nothing when none occurred ({Spiritual Protector}).²⁵⁸

Delayed effects triggered by the block are §2.4.3’s. An effect granted for blocking is scoped to the block-induced combat (§3.6.3). Methuselahs who had already declined get no fresh opportunity when the action continues as if unblocked.²⁵⁹

3.4 Resolution, success and effect

Base rules. An action that survives all block attempts is successful; its cost is then paid and its effects take place. [RBK resolve-the-action]

3.4.1 A successful action need not do anything

An unblocked action is successful even when its effect cannot happen. The cost is still paid.²⁶⁰ The usual causes are a target that no longer qualifies at resolution, e.g. {Ambush} when the target unlocks, and a target removed or protected by another effect, e.g. {Warsaw Station}. A stolen target keeps the action pointed at it; the action ends with no effect only if that target has become illegal, e.g. {Temptation}.

An action provided by an equipment the acting minion no longer bears at resolution ends with no effect, though still successful if unblocked, e.g. {Jar of Skin Eaters}.²⁶¹

The target ceasing to qualify does not end the action: block attempts and any resulting combat happen as normal, e.g. {Coterie Tactics}.²⁶²

Riders conditioned on the action being successful fire on such an action. {Forced March} and {Instantaneous Transformation} unlock; {Perfectionist} gains the blood; {Hrothulf} burns the Edge.²⁶³

Where a card names the effect rather than the success, the effect must actually occur. {Abactor} calls its blood hunt only after “successful resolution”, meaning unblocked and blood gained.²⁶⁴ Whether the hunt or bleed itself succeeded is §3.7.1.2’s and §3.7.2’s.

An effect that cannot apply to part of what it names applies to the rest, e.g. {Edged Illusion} against minions another effect protects, or {Enticement} when the Edge is gone before resolution.²⁶⁵

An action card voided as it is played by a standing “no effect” bar produces no action at all — this is not a cancellation, but the card counts as played, the vampire does not lock, and may act again, the same action included, e.g. under {Veil of Darkness}.²⁶⁶

3.4.2 What is read at resolution

The action’s terms are named at announcement; resolution supplies the rest. A choice the wording embeds in the effect rather than in the terms is made at resolution, e.g. the minion taking {The Platinum Protocol}’s corruption counter; an option is exercised then — moving blood onto the progeny or not ({Third Tradition: Progeny}); a state is read then, e.g. the disciplines copied by {Dual Form}.²⁶⁷ A library search provided by an action happens only once the action succeeds, e.g. {Magic of the Smith}; a failed action’s additional cost is unpaid.²⁶⁸

An effect keyed to the action reaching resolution fires even where the action does nothing, or ends before combat, e.g. {Daring the Dawn}.²⁶⁹

An action that puts its acting minion into combat resolves first; “after action resolution” effects wait for the combat, e.g. {Strix}.²⁷⁰

3.4.3 The “would be successful” window

Once all blocks are declined, a card usable “when the action/bleed would be successful” may be played, e.g. {Spying Mission}, {Andre LeRoux}, {Dis Pater}. After one is played the action is about to resolve: only other cards with that same timing may follow.²⁷¹ Anything that changes or defeats the action — {Deflection}, {Archon Investigation}, {Telepathic Counter} — must be played before that point.²⁷² The post-resolution windows sequence the same way.

A bleed reduced to zero is not successful (§3.7.1.2), so a “would be successful” card cannot then be used on it.²⁷³

3.5 Action repetition (NRA) and canceled actions

Base rules. A minion cannot perform an action with the same action card, from hand or in play, more than once each turn, even if it unlocks; a minion cannot bleed more than once each turn. [RBK action-card-or-card-in-play] [RBK bleed]

3.5.1 Reached resolution

The No Repeated Action rule bites once the action reaches resolution. An action that fails, or that is ended by a card or an ability, has reached resolution: the same minion cannot attempt it again this turn, e.g. {Change of Target}, {Champion}, {Krassimir}.²⁷⁴ Being blocked and failing still counts as the attempt. An action continued after a reaction made it fail still fails.

A canceled action has not reached resolution. It is not performed, the minion does not lock, its cost is not paid, and the same minion may attempt the same action again, e.g. {Tangle Atropos’ Hand}.²⁷⁵ It may not if the action was blocked and then continued before the cancellation.²⁷⁶

The action was nonetheless taken, so it counts against effects that count actions, e.g. {Enkil Cog}, {Veil the Legions}.²⁷⁷

Cancellation undoes the cost of the action: an {Enrage}d vampire canceled mid-action does not burn 2 blood.²⁷⁸ Failure does not — {Mobile HQ, Operation Antigen} stays locked when the action it paid for fails. A minion locked by a card in play to take an action canceled as it is played stays locked, and may act again or let the effect be lost.²⁷⁹

3.5.2 “The same action”

{Change of Target}, {Obedience} and {Red Herring} forbid repeating “the same action”. Two actions are compared as follows.

• Rulebook actions (bleed, hunt, equip, …) are never the same as an action from a card, played or in play.²⁸⁰
• Two rulebook actions differ if their targets differ. Equipping from a minion targets the equipment taken: if any one of them is the same, the action is the same.²⁸¹
• Actions granted by two different cards in play are not the same, even if the cards share a name.²⁸²
• Substituting the acting minion mid-action does not change who took it, e.g. {Malleable Visage}.²⁸³
• A minion that leaves play and returns is a new minion, bound by nothing its previous incarnation did.²⁸⁴
• Putting a card into play, or being made to recruit or employ out of turn, is not performing that card’s action, so the normal action is still available, e.g. {Piper}, {Muricia’s Call}, {Clandestine Contract}.²⁸⁵

3.5.3 Ended and failed

An action that ends ends immediately. No further action modifier or reaction can be played and no other effect intervenes, e.g. {Mirror Walk}, {Tangle Atropos’ Hand}.²⁸⁶ Where the effect starts a combat instead, combat begins immediately with the same window closed, e.g. {Brujah Frenzy}.²⁸⁷

An action that fails also ends, but modifiers and reactions usable at the end of, or after, an action can still be played, e.g. {Detect Authority}, {Mistaken Identity}.²⁸⁸ A failed action was not blocked, so cards requiring a block cannot be played, e.g. {Freak Drive}, {Mirror Image}.²⁸⁹

Effects scheduled for resolution or later are lost if the action ends first: the lock-and-enter-combat of {Deep Song}, the after-resolution combat of {Siren’s Lure}.²⁹⁰ Likewise, an action whose acting minion is not ready when it would resolve simply ends — §3.7.5.1 owns the referendum case.

Damage a card inflicts on its own acting vampire is keyed to the action reaching resolution (§3.4); it does not apply if the action was canceled, e.g. {Daring the Dawn}, {Force of Will}.²⁹¹

3.5.4 Canceled blocks and canceled combats

A canceled block attempt is neither successful nor unsuccessful. It is simply canceled.²⁹²

Canceling the combat that a successful block created leaves the action blocked. The blocking minion stays locked, {Mask of a Thousand Faces} cannot take the action over, and reaction cards pertaining to that combat cannot be played afterwards, e.g. {Venenation}, {Bear-Baiting}.²⁹³ An effect that continues the action as if unblocked still works, e.g. {Crypt’s Sons}.

3.5.5 Scope of cancellation

A canceled card is still played, so a cancellation does not give back the play.

Canceling a card that carried a choice returns the choice, and the same choice may be made again — a minion whose strike is canceled must still choose a strike and may play the same card.²⁹⁴

Cancel effects reach every action card, including employ retainer, recruit ally and political actions.²⁹⁵

Multiple copies of one action modifier played by different minions on the same action are a stacking question, not a repetition one.

3.6 Continuing an action as if unblocked

Base rules. A successful block locks the blocker and sends both minions into combat; the action card is set aside out of play until the action resolves. Once a Methuselah declines to make further block attempts, that decision is final. [RBK summary-of-the-course-of-an-action]

3.6.1 What continuation restores

Continuation moves the action card from the ash heap, where it went when the action was blocked, back to limbo. If the action card is not in the ash heap, the action cannot be continued.²⁹⁶

All action modifiers and reaction cards played earlier in the action remain in effect, including those that pertained to the successful block.²⁹⁷

Methuselahs who had already declined to block get no fresh opportunity. A Methuselah who had not yet passed may still attempt to block, and a minion who blocked may block again.²⁹⁸

An effect that penalises a minion for not blocking ignores blocks made before it was played, e.g. {Forced Awakening}, {WMRH Talk Radio}.²⁹⁹

A card whose effect is one block attempt is spent by that attempt; another copy is needed to attempt the second block, e.g. {Eagle’s Sight}, {Falcon’s Eye}. Effects that apply for the duration of the action are not spent this way.³⁰⁰

3.6.2 When the action cannot be continued

Only a combat induced by a block can be left this way. An action cannot continue as if unblocked after a combat that resulted from the action succeeding, e.g. {Bum’s Rush}.³⁰¹

Continuation is an “after combat ends” effect: if the combat continues or a new combat begins, it is lost (§4.9.2).³⁰²

A combat queued during the action is still part of that action (§4.9.3), so a continuation effect played after that combat ends works normally, e.g. {Form of Mist} after {Psyche!}.³⁰³

No combat need have occurred: a canceled combat leaves the action blocked (§3.5) and it can still be continued, e.g. {Crypt’s Sons}, {Momentary Delay}.³⁰⁴

3.6.3 Effects scoped to one block

An effect a reaction card provides on a successful block applies only in the combat that block induced. It does not carry over to a follow-up combat, e.g. one queued by {Psyche!}. This holds whatever the effect is — a maneuver, damage prevention, a strike or a strike restriction, e.g. {Guard Dogs}, {Precognition}, {Night Terrors}.³⁰⁵

If the action continues and a minion blocks again, that effect is provided afresh.³⁰⁶

3.7 The action types in detail

The rulebook actions, one subsection each. Rules that are not specific to an action type live in §3.1-§3.6 and §3.8-§3.10.

3.7.1 Bleed

Base rules. A bleed’s default amount is 1 and its default target is your prey; if the action succeeds with an amount of 1 or more the bleed is successful, the target burns that much pool, and the acting minion’s controller takes the Edge. [RBK bleed] The “(limited)” rule caps increases only: one limited action modifier may increase the bleed amount per action, while modifiers printed as not counting against the limit, and all reductions, are unrestricted.

3.7.1.1 Bleed amount

The limit counts an increase only while that increase is actually applying.³⁰⁷ A conditional limited modifier played when its condition is not met does not count against the limit and lingers, applying if the condition is later met — {Foreshadowing Destruction} at [DOM] against a target with 10 or more pool. A bonus lost during the action stops counting and a further modifier may be played; redirection to another target is the usual cause.

“Only usable during a bleed action” bars the play in every other action, e.g. {Confusion}. Where a card in play instead grants a bonus “during a bleed action”, the bonus reaches only the minion performing that bleed, e.g. {Haqim’s Law: Retribution}, {Anu Diptinatpa}.³⁰⁸

A vampire’s “current bleed” read outside a bleed action is the amount he would bleed his prey with, e.g. {Justicar Retribution}.³⁰⁹

3.7.1.2 Reduction and pool burned

A bleed reduced to zero is not successful. An effect keyed to a successful bleed does not fire either, e.g. {Protected Resources} is not burned by a bleed that resolves at 0.³¹⁰

An effect capping the pool a target burns does not change the bleed amount; it applies after every modifier, e.g. {Protected Resources}.³¹¹

3.7.1.3 Redirection

Redirection changes the target of the bleed, so the new target is the target for every purpose: a reaction keyed to a bleed against you is usable by whoever the bleed ends up against, not only by the Methuselah it was declared against, e.g. {Elder Intervention}.³¹² Block attempts reopen. [RBK summary-of-the-course-of-an-action]

The new Methuselah must be a legal target for that bleed. A restriction on whom a minion may bleed also bars redirecting that minion’s bleed to the protected Methuselah, e.g. {Minor Boon}.³¹³

Redirection affects the acting vampire, so an effect stopping reaction cards from affecting him stops {Deflection}, e.g. {Perfect Clarity}.³¹⁴

Mandatory bleeds are §3.9’s.

3.7.2 Hunt

Base rules. The rulebook hunt action is undirected, at +1 stealth, and gains the acting vampire blood from the blood bank equal to their hunt amount, by default 1 [RBK hunt]. Cards also grant hunt actions of their own.

3.7.2.1 A successful hunt and a successful hunt action are different conditions

A hunt action that resolves unblocked is successful even when no blood is gained. The hunt is not: with zero blood gained the hunt is not successful, so effects keyed to a vampire “successfully hunting” do not fire, e.g. {Hunger Moon}. A card that lets a vampire escape an effect by hunting applies the same test and still hits him, e.g. {Thirst}.³¹⁵

Each card names one of the two: {Triole’s Revenge} burns a Ventrue who hunts at full capacity: it names the hunt action, so it fires although the hunt gained nothing. It does not fire if the action was blocked.³¹⁶

See §3.4 for the general rule that an unblocked action is successful even when its effect cannot occur.

3.7.2.2 Card-provided hunt actions

A hunt action granted by a card is a hunt action for every purpose. It takes hunt bonuses and increases to hunt value, e.g. {Kyoko Shinsegawa}. A restriction or permission worded around hunting reaches it: {Pariah}, who cannot take undirected actions other than hunting, may take a card-provided undirected hunt action such as {Vulture’s Buffet}. Where a vampire has more than one granted hunt action, his controller chooses among them.³¹⁷

An effect worded against the normal hunt reaches only the rulebook hunt action. A card removing “the normal +1 stealth when hunting” does not touch the stealth printed on a card-provided hunt action, e.g. {Igo the Hungry} against {Loki’s Gift}.³¹⁸

Where the hunt action takes blood from a target, blood added by a hunt bonus comes from that target, not from the blood bank.³¹⁹ A bonus that grants blood from the blood bank is a separate gain, not hunt blood, and comes from the bank as printed, e.g. {Festivo dello Estinto}.

3.7.2.3 Hunts that steal from a vampire

A card granting a hunt that steals from a named vampire licenses that targeting for its own hunt action only. Its bearer taking a different special hunt action cannot name a vampire, e.g. a {Legacy of Caine} bearer taking {Abactor}.³²⁰

Blood the hunting vampire cannot gain goes to the blood bank rather than staying with the target.³²¹ A bonus that is not the hunt amount does not scale with hunt modifiers: {Loki’s Gift} [PRO] burns 1 blood from any vampire whatever the hunt value.³²²

3.7.2.4 Full capacity and mandatory hunts

A vampire at full capacity may still hunt; the excess returns to the blood bank as normal. An effect that moves blood the hunt gained takes it before that return, e.g. {Rabbat, The Sewer Goddess}. A card offering an alternative satisfies a mandatory hunt, e.g. {Undying Thirst} permits diablerie instead.³²³ See §3.9 for mandatory actions.

3.7.3 Equip actions

Base rules. Equipping from hand is an undirected +1 stealth action and pays the card’s cost; equipping from another minion you control is free, and the equipment taken is announced with the action. [RBK equip]

3.7.3.1 What counts as an equip action

A card that has a minion attach an equipment provides an equip action, whatever verb it prints, e.g. {Magic of the Smith}, {Bloodstone}.³²⁴ Effects that modify equip actions therefore reach it, e.g. {The British Museum, London}. One card may provide an equip action or an employ action depending on what it fetches, e.g. {Jack of Both Sides}.

Being an equip action does not settle requirements and cost. Only the wording “put … in play” bypasses them: {Magic of the Smith} prints that requirements and cost apply.

An equip granted by another card’s effect is still an equip, so an ability reading “when this minion equips” fires, e.g. {Topaz} with {Concealed Weapon} or {Pier 13, Port of Baltimore}.³²⁵ An equipment’s own on-equip clause fires the same way, e.g. {Dagger}’s second copy. An ability keyed to an equip action is not satisfied by an equip that is not an action, and {Pier 13, Port of Baltimore} prints that it is not an action.

Being put into play is not equipping. A clause conditioned on the card being equipped does not fire when an effect merely places it, e.g. {Incriminating Videotape} chooses no minion when put on a vampire by {Alastor}, but does when equipped via {Magic of the Smith}.³²⁶

3.7.3.2 Equipment already in play

Moving equipment between minions is neither playing nor equipping it, so a restriction worded against playing or equipping does not reach the move, e.g. {Heidelberg Castle, Germany}; a card may be moved onto a vampire in torpor.³²⁷ A card already played or equipped can still enter play through an effect that is not an equip, e.g. {Kiss of Lachesis}. Another of your minions may instead take it with an equip action from its holder; that rulebook action is not a card play, so no requirement is checked — a clan equipment may be taken by a minion who does not meet its requirements.³²⁸

A locquipment’s immunity to equipment movers and equipment prohibitions is §1.3’s.

One equip action may take several equipment from another friendly minion. It is an action to equip with each of them, so each one’s own bonus for the action to equip it applies, e.g. {Unlicensed Taxicab}’s +1 stealth, and {Gift of Bellona} may be played.³²⁹

Whether two equip-from-minion actions are the same for the No Repeated Action rule is §3.5’s.

3.7.3.3 Minions who cannot equip

A vampire who cannot have equipment cannot attempt an equip action at all, e.g. {Enkidu, The Noah}, {Beast, The Leatherface of Detroit}, and cannot strike to steal one.³³⁰ The bar does not reach locquipments: Enkidu may still equip with one.

3.7.4 Employ retainer and recruit ally

3.7.4.1 The action

The cost of an employ retainer or recruit ally action is the cost printed on the retainer or ally, and its requirements must be met to take the action.³³¹

Those requirements and that cost belong to the card, not to the action. An effect keyed to the requirements or cost of the action does not read them — {CrimethInc.} is not usable after recruiting an ally that requires an Anarch.

A minion whose text says it cannot have equipment or retainers can neither take the action nor steal one with a strike, e.g. {Beast, The Leatherface of Detroit}.

Employ retainer and recruit ally are ordinary actions for cancellation.

Cost reductions read the card as announced. {Ghouled} makes the ally a ghoul only on resolution, so a reduction for recruiting a mortal still applies.

3.7.4.2 Entry into play other than by the action

Two templates bring an ally or retainer in without the action: a card under which a minion recruits or employs outside an action, e.g. {Piper}, {Pack Alpha}; and a card that puts the card in play, e.g. {Summon History} — §1.6 governs requirements and cost under each.³³²

Neither is an action, and effects worded as attaching to an action do not attach:

• Cost reductions naming an action, e.g. {Charisma}, {Erichtho}.³³³
• Abilities triggered by announcing the action, e.g. {Zhenga} does not work with {Piper}.

Effects keyed to the recruit or employ itself, or to the cost of the card, do attach however the minion arrived, e.g. {Soul of the Earth}, {Little Tailor of Prague}.³³⁴

Cancellation of the fetched card is §1.8.2’s.

Where a minion recruits or employs, its own disciplines are read as normal to set the card’s level; where the card is merely put in play, use the basic version.

The action card of a normally recruited ally is replaced before the ally enters play. A card brought in by an effect is not, so an ability triggering on entry has only the hand and ash heap as they stand, e.g. {Corrupt Construction}.³³⁵

Whether the new minion may act that turn is §5.5.4’s for allies and §5.6.5’s for retainers.

3.7.5 Referendum procedure

3.7.5.1 The referendum is part of resolution

The referendum is part of the action’s resolution, not something that follows it. Cards played “after a successful action” or “after resolution” wait until the referendum is concluded, e.g. {Heidelberg Castle, Germany}, {Sargon}.³³⁶ Among those cards the order is free, but none of them can forestall an oust the referendum itself causes.³³⁷

The referendum is conducted only if the acting minion is still ready when the action would resolve. If combat leaves him no longer ready — in torpor or out of play — the action ends and no referendum happens, e.g. {Yawp Court}.³³⁸

Action modifiers and reaction cards may be played during the referendum and after it, and vote-affecting cards before, during or after votes and ballots are cast. An effect keyed to the tally reaches votes already cast: {Scorn of Adonis} makes every Methuselah who voted against burn pool, whenever they voted.³³⁹

3.7.5.2 Terms

Terms are chosen once the action is successful, before polling. A card usable “during the polling step” cannot be played before terms are set, e.g. {Business Pressure}.³⁴⁰

What the terms designate is fixed then: {Revolutionary Council}’s chosen Anarchs still count if they lock during the vote, and pool moving during the referendum does not alter {Parity Shift}’s outcome. A quantity named in the effect clause instead of the terms is counted when the effect applies — {Domain Challenge} counts locked minions after the referendum completes.³⁴¹ Where the terms cannot be carried out in full, the calling Methuselah chooses within them. A cost inside the effect is paid by whoever the terms name (§1.7.6).³⁴² A referendum may be called with no eligible subject in play, e.g. {Peace Treaty} with no weapons out.³⁴³

3.7.5.3 Polling and the tally

Where the effect lets Methuselahs burn pool or blood for votes, the amounts are decided during that effect’s resolution, and sequencing does not lock them in: there is give and take, each Methuselah free to burn one at a time and wait to see what the others do, e.g. {Business Pressure}, {Mob Rule}.³⁴⁴ The ability does not persist for the rest of the action.

An ability worded “during a referendum” is usable once per referendum; unlocking mid-vote does not restore the use, e.g. {Michael Luther}, {Ellison Humboldt}.³⁴⁵ An ability keyed to the tally fires when votes are tallied, e.g. {Astrid Thomas}.³⁴⁶

A cost keyed to “when the votes are tallied” is paid at the tally, before the referendum’s effects; a cost keyed only to the referendum passing is paid after all of them, including any oust and any pool gained. {Treachery} prints both clauses.³⁴⁷ So an effect keyed to a passed referendum still applies when the predator is ousted, e.g. {Donald Cargill}, but not when its own controller is ousted, e.g. {Lutz von Hohenzollern}.³⁴⁸

3.7.5.4 Automatic pass, cancellation, failure

A referendum that passes automatically has no polling step. No “during a political action” or “during a referendum” effect may be played, and no card may be burned for a vote during it.³⁴⁹ Effects reading the number of votes it passed by have no effect. A card usable after the referendum may still be used, with X = 0, e.g. {Voter Captivation} after a {Cryptic Rider} referendum.³⁵⁰

Canceling the referendum stops the tally, so cards keyed to the results do nothing, e.g. {Scorn of Adonis} under {Delaying Tactics}.³⁵¹ A referendum that fails produces none of the calling card’s effects, including a self-inflicted part, e.g. {Aura of Invincibility}.³⁵²

The political action card is set aside out of play until the action resolves, so effects reading cards in play or in an ash heap do not see it, e.g. {Luna Giovanni}.³⁵³ The blood hunt referendum is not a political action and is not called by a vampire, so “during a political action” effects and effects keyed to the calling vampire do not apply, e.g. {Power Structure}.³⁵⁴

3.7.6 Votes and ballots

3.7.6.1 Votes are not ballots

An effect worded on “votes” never reaches ballots or the prisci sub-referendum. That holds whether the effect reduces a title’s vote value, e.g. {Rastacourere}, subtracts votes outright, e.g. {Condemnation: Mute}, or counts the votes a vampire has, e.g. {Leadership Vacuum}, {Island of Yiaros}.³⁵⁵

An effect that acts on the vampire rather than on its votes reaches both. Forcing a vampire to abstain removes its ballot from the sub-referendum as well as its votes, and cancels votes and ballots it has already cast, e.g. {Arishat}, {Kateline Nadasdy}.³⁵⁶

What a stripped title leaves behind — printed ballots, the referendum structures it defines — is §5.8.2’s; a printed bonus ballot is cast on the same side as its vampire’s votes, e.g. {Gratiano}.³⁵⁷

3.7.6.2 Which votes count

An effect counting the votes a vampire has counts its title and any unconditional bonus votes from cards or abilities, e.g. {Eze, The Demon Prince}, {Firebrand}. It does not count votes the vampire could obtain only by paying a cost or meeting a condition, e.g. {Sundown}, {Aura of Invincibility}.³⁵⁸

Multiple copies of a vote-granting card do not multiply votes, and an untitled vote bonus adds to a title gained later; see §1.15 for both.

3.7.6.3 Changing votes, canceling votes, abstaining

Where two effects alter the same vampire’s votes, the last one used governs, e.g. {Mustafa, The Heir}. An effect keyed to the act of casting fires only on the first cast and not again when the votes are changed, e.g. {De Sade}.³⁵⁹

An effect keyed to how a vampire voted reads the disposition at tally. {Madrigal} does nothing if its player ends up abstaining, forced or not. {Scorn of Adonis} reaches Methuselahs who voted “no” before it was played, and costs each of them 1 pool however many “no” votes they cast. Votes granted only against the referendum are silenced, not recast, when the bearer’s votes are changed in favor, e.g. {Loyalist}. A vampire that acquires a disqualifying trait after casting has its votes canceled and abstains, e.g. {Khay’tall, Snake of Eden}.³⁶⁰

An effect that changes votes cannot compel an abstaining vampire to vote; it only restricts its choice if it votes, e.g. {Kindred Coercion}, {Neferu}. A force-abstain effect may be used on a vampire that has not yet voted, keeping it abstaining. A vampire that has not yet voted may always choose to abstain, escaping an effect worded on non-abstaining vampires, e.g. {Astrid Thomas}; canceling that vampire’s own votes does not undo votes others already cast with it.³⁶¹

Polling-step timing, and referendums that pass automatically, are §3.7.5’s.

3.7.6.4 Locked and torpid vampires

A card that locks a vampire for voting locks it as it casts — a lock imposed as an effect, not a cost (§5.2.4), e.g. {Disarming Presence}. A referendum ability printing no lock cost is usable while locked, once per referendum (§1.2.1); an unconditional one is usable in torpor as well. A vampire in torpor casts no votes, but an effect keyed to its abstaining still applies, e.g. {Alvaro, The Scion of Angelica}.³⁶²

3.7.6.5 The political action card’s own vote

A political action card provides its inherent vote whenever it is played, including when another card plays it from hand, e.g. {Charming Lobby}, {Echo of Harmonies}. Burning a political action card during a referendum for a vote is not playing it (§1.11.1), so a once-per-game play limit is untouched.³⁶³

Pool paid, gained or lost as a consequence of a referendum, simultaneous ousts included, is §6.5’s; terms that cannot be carried out in full are §3.7.5.2’s.

3.7.7 Leaving torpor and rescuing from torpor

Base rules. Both default actions cost 2 blood, and the rescue cost may be paid by the acting vampire, by the rescued vampire, or split between them. A blocked leave-torpor produces no combat: a vampire blocker may diablerise the acting vampire instead, otherwise the action simply fails and no cost is paid.³⁶⁴

3.7.7.1 Cards that supply their own action

A card granting a leave-torpor or rescue action supplies its own action, not the rulebook one, so the default 2 blood is not paid — e.g. {Resume the Coil}, {Rapid Healing}, {Healing Touch}. It is still a leave-torpor (or rescue) action for anything keyed to one.³⁶⁵

3.7.7.2 A blocked leave-torpor

Leaving torpor produces no combat when blocked, however the action was supplied. Cards conditioned on entering combat therefore cannot be used, e.g. {Ghoul Escort}.³⁶⁶

The blocker’s diablerie opportunity arises at block resolution. An effect that ends the action before block resolution, or unlocks the acting vampire, denies it, e.g. {Change of Target}, {Mirror Walk} at [THA], {Blood Brother Ambush}.

3.7.7.3 Cost and payer

The rescue cost belongs to the action, not to whoever pays it. A reduction printed on the acting vampire applies even when the rescued vampire pays, e.g. {Frondator}.³⁶⁷ The reduction is mandatory and cannot be declined to keep the higher cost.

The same split works the other way: an effect keyed to “an action costing blood” sees the rescue even when the acting vampire paid none of it, e.g. {Cavalier}.

3.7.7.4 Torpor and the action window

A vampire in torpor is not ready, but an effect granting extra action opportunities still reaches it. Its only available action is leave torpor, e.g. {Madness Network}.³⁶⁸

A card effect that moves the vampire out of torpor after a rescue or diablerie action is announced leaves that action successful if unblocked, but with no effect. One that brings back a vampire sent to torpor during the action ends that action instead, and it cannot be continued. Both, e.g. {Warsaw Station}.³⁶⁹

3.7.8 Diablerie and the blood hunt

Base rules. The steps of diablerie resolve as one unit and cannot be interrupted; effects are played before or after, never between them [RBK diablerie]. The blood hunt referendum is automatic, is not an action, cannot be blocked, and takes no action modifiers or reaction cards [RBK the-blood-hunt].

3.7.8.1 The window before the blood hunt

There is a window after the diablerie resolves and before the blood hunt referendum, and effects may be played in it.³⁷⁰ An action modifier keyed to the diablerie may come before or after the discipline card, but must be played before the blood hunt, e.g. {Draught of the Soul}, {Ritual of the Bitter Rose}.

Where the diablerie happened decides which card types fit the window. A diablerie action takes action modifiers; an {Amaranth} diablerie happens in combat and takes combat cards. {Slake the Thirst} covers both cases at its two levels.

The blood hunt is part of the action, though independent of it — the window before it is inside the action. A card that cannot be used during an action therefore never fits before the blood hunt, e.g. {Heidelberg Castle, Germany}.³⁷¹

What the action itself grants lands before the referendum: votes from {Political Struggle}, and a {Trophy: Diablerie} retrieved for a Red List victim, which then protects the diablerist in that same referendum.

3.7.8.2 The referendum

The blood hunt referendum is not a political action and is not called by a vampire. Effects keyed to either do not reach it, e.g. {Charming Lobby}’s follow-up referendum, {Power Structure}.³⁷² It is otherwise an ordinary referendum, so effects keyed to one that passes resolve normally, e.g. {Gangrel Conspiracy} after votes and ballots are cast.

When the referendum follows an {Amaranth}, it happens during combat, so that burn is a burn in combat, e.g. {Hector Trelane}.³⁷³

3.7.8.3 What counts as diablerie

{Amaranth} commits diablerie but is not a diablerie action. {Abactor} is not a diablerie at all and only calls the referendum. A card requiring a diablerie action is unusable after either, e.g. {Rebirth}; an effect keyed on having committed diablerie does not see {Abactor}, e.g. {Carlton Van Wyk}.³⁷⁴ The referendum either one causes is a real blood hunt, so blood-hunt effects apply, e.g. {Lay Low}, {Trophy: Diablerie}.

A diablerie the victim survives is unsuccessful: the diablerist gets nothing, blood and equipment stay on the victim, and no blood hunt is called, e.g. {Reform Body}, {Byzar}.³⁷⁵ If the victim is in torpor again, another {Amaranth} may be played. Bringing the victim out of torpor after the diablerie action is announced does not end the action: unblocked it resolves successfully with no diablerie, e.g. {Warsaw Station}.

3.7.8.4 Who may commit diablerie

Only a ready vampire may commit diablerie [RBK diablerie]. An ally granted the use of a card still cannot, e.g. {Shadow Court Satyr} with {Amaranth}.³⁷⁶ A vampire barred from diablerie ({Humanitas}, Blood Cursed) cannot be compelled to it, so {Undying Thirst} does nothing to him. Cards compelling diablerie impose a mandatory action.

A blocker of a leave-torpor action gets the opportunity to diablerize the acting vampire [RBK leave-torpor]; when that opportunity is lost is §3.7.7.2’s.

3.8 Actions provided by cards

Base rules. A minion cannot take the action of a given action card, from hand or in play, more than once each turn, even if it unlocks [RBK action-card-or-card-in-play].

3.8.1 One source, one action

That limit attaches to the card, not to the minion. Each copy in play provides its own action, so a minion that unlocks in between may take one action per copy, e.g. two {Archon} on the same vampire.³⁷⁷ Actions provided by two different cards in play are never “the same action”, even at identical wording, and no card-provided action is ever the same as a rulebook action. The same per-copy accounting governs a limited ability granted by a card in play.

One card provides its action once a turn, even where the action would fetch a different card each time, e.g. {Bindusara, Historian of the Kindred}.³⁷⁸ Where one card provides two different actions they are not cross-restrictive: the same minion may take each once in the turn. The action taken to put a card into play and the action that card provides once in play are two different actions, so a minion that unlocks may take both, e.g. {Clandestine Contract}.

3.8.2 What kind of action a provided action is

A provided action has the properties the providing text gives it, and no others.

Where the providing text limits who may take the action, that limit is the action’s requirement. {Haqim’s Law: Judgment} provides an action requiring an Independent or Anarch, so {CrimethInc.} can be used after it.³⁷⁹ This is not the fetched-card case: the requirements of a card brought into play are not the fetching action’s.

A provided action of a named type counts as that type for every effect keyed to the type. A card-provided hunt is a hunt, so {Pariah}, who may take no undirected action but hunting, can take one. A vampire who called a referendum has taken a political action and can take no other that turn, even if the referendum is canceled.

A card-provided action is not an action card, and neither is a cardless action. Costs and cost reductions worded against action cards reach neither, e.g. {Ravnos Carnival}’s counters.³⁸⁰ Conversely, an [ACTION] card can provide a political action without being a [POLITICAL ACTION] card: {Charming Lobby} calls a referendum, but effects naming a political action card do not see it and it cannot be discarded for a vote.

A provided action that resembles a rulebook action is not that action, and only the cost the card prints is paid: {Go Anarch} makes the vampire Anarch with no blood paid, unlike the rulebook become-Anarch action [RBK become-anarch].

3.9 Mandatory actions

Base rules. A mandatory action is performed before any non-mandatory action, and a minion required to take one can perform no other action. A minion with two different mandatory actions, or with one it cannot take, is stuck and performs no action.³⁸¹

3.9.1 When the obligation attaches

An effect makes an action mandatory only while the condition its text states holds. A vampire whose text compels diablerie when there are torpid vampires he may diablerize is under no obligation when there are none, and is free to take any action.³⁸²

Whether another action of the same type discharges the obligation is decided by the mandating card, not by the card used to satisfy it.

• The card provides the action. The obligation is to that action, and another action of the same type does not discharge it however it was obtained. {Elen Kamjian} must take the +1 bleed her ability gives her; a bleed from {Flurry of Action} does not count.³⁸³
• The card requires an action of a type. Any action of that type discharges it, including one taken by playing a card. A minion compelled to bleed by {Spirit Marionette} [OBE] may bleed by playing {Computer Hacking}.

Where the mandate names alternatives, either branch discharges it: an empty vampire under {Undying Thirst} satisfies his mandatory action by hunting or by diablerizing.

3.9.2 Discharge and recurrence

Taking the action discharges the obligation; the action need not succeed. A minion that has performed its mandatory action and then unlocks is free to take any action — the obligation does not re-attach, e.g. {Cry Wolf}, {Lunatic Eruption}.³⁸⁴

A card that requires an action of a type rather than providing one keeps demanding it while the condition holds. {Phillipe Rigaud} must attempt diablerie again after unlocking as long as an eligible torpid vampire remains.

3.9.3 Stuck

A minion whose mandatory action cannot be taken is stuck: he takes no action at all, not merely no mandatory one. Three cases recur.³⁸⁵

• The action was already performed this turn, before the obligation attached. {Elen Kamjian} whose ability turns on after she has bled is stuck.
• An effect barred the action. {Change of Target} ends the mandatory action and forbids repeating it, so the acting minion is stuck.
• Two copies of the same mandatory-action card sit on one minion, e.g. {Lunatic Eruption}.

3.9.4 Masking

{Mask of a Thousand Faces} can take over an action that is mandatory for the acting minion but not for the masking vampire. The masker must be capable of the action, not under the same obligation, e.g. a hunt.³⁸⁶ See §3.10 for masking eligibility.

3.10 Changing the acting minion

3.10.1 Substituting the actor in an announced action

An effect that hands an announced action to a different minion leaves the action itself unchanged; it continues from where it stood. Action modifiers already played stay in effect and every other effect on the action carries over. The original actor’s inherent modifiers do not, e.g. an inherent +1 bleed.³⁸⁷

The substitute must independently be capable of taking that action, and nothing may have been played on the action that could not have been played with him as the acting minion. {Force of Will} requires a locked acting vampire and {Mask of a Thousand Faces} requires an unlocked one, so a {Force of Will} action cannot be taken over.³⁸⁸

Blood already spent is disregarded in that test. It is not refunded and the substitute does not pay it again.

A mandatory action may be taken over by a minion for whom it was not mandatory, provided he could perform it, e.g. a hunt.

The substitute may play a modifier the original already played: that limit binds the minion, not the action. He cannot use a limited effect if a limited effect has already been used on the action.

The replaced minion unlocks, but it remains the minion that took the action.

3.10.2 “Is considered the acting minion”

Only text stating that a minion is considered the acting minion rewrites the designation, e.g. {Deep Song} [ANI], {Nar-Sheptha}. Putting a different minion into the combat does not. A slave locked to enter combat in place of a blocked clan member is not the acting minion, and {Malleable Visage} leaves the designation with the original.³⁸⁹

A card that reads “the acting minion” reads the current designation, for its own legality and for its triggers alike. {Obedience} cannot be played once a slave has taken the acting vampire’s place. {FBI Special Affairs Division} does not trigger when the ally burned is the acting minion.

Where two effects write the designation, the later governs, e.g. {Nar-Sheptha} over {Deep Song}. When the later source leaves play its effect ends immediately and the designation reverts for the rest of the combat, e.g. {Nar-Sheptha} burned. See §5.9 for the general trait rule.³⁹⁰

4. Combat

4.1 Combat sequence and rounds

4.1.1 Combat begun outside an action

The acting minion acts first at every step of combat. A combat begun by a card or ability rather than by a block has no acting minion of its own, so the minion the effect sends into combat takes that role: he declares maneuvers, strikes and presses first and plays his combat effects first, e.g. {The Guardian}, {Blissful Agony} [VAL]. Where the initiating player controls neither combatant, the card says which side goes first — {Taunt the Caged Beast} [ANI] gives it to the prey’s vampire.³⁹¹

The minion using such an ability is not acting. He plays no action modifiers, and a card whose requirement names an acting minion cannot be played against him, e.g. {Obedience} against {Marie-Pierre}. Effects that end the combat and then do something afterwards — including continuing the action as if unblocked — are lost, because there is no action to return to. Unlock effects still apply.³⁹²

4.1.2 Combat inside an action

A combat that arises during an action is part of that action. The acting minion designation does not change and effects applied during the action stay in force through the combat. This holds even when the effect that caused the combat also failed the action, e.g. {Champion}: the action continues until combat ends.³⁹³ See §3.4 for the ordering of after-resolution effects.

A window exists between a successful block and the start of combat. A card barred “during combat” may still be played there, e.g. {Angel of Berlin}.³⁹⁴

4.1.3 Who may play cards during combat

A combat card printing permission to be played by a minion “not involved in the current combat” may be played by a minion of any Methuselah, including one with no minion in the combat, e.g. {Nosferatu Putrescence}, {Bliss}.³⁹⁵ Using an ability is not playing a card and does not get this latitude.

A reaction card printing “usable even if there is no action” gains no window during combat: it still cannot be played there.³⁹⁶

4.2 Range

Base rules. Range is determined once per round, defaults to close, and a minion needs a card or effect to gain a maneuver. [RBK determine-range]

4.2.1 Setting the range

Many cards set the range outright instead of granting a maneuver. Once such an effect resolves, the determine range step is skipped for that round and no other effect can reset the range.³⁹⁷ Other before-range effects may still be played afterwards. Some setters fix the next round’s range instead; the same exclusivity applies to that round, e.g. {Immortal Grapple} [POT], {Grasp of the Python} [SER].³⁹⁸

Where two effects would set the same range, the first to resolve has priority and the later one does nothing.³⁹⁹ Order follows when each effect actually resolves, not when its card was played: a setter that fires on the block ({Squirrel Balance}, then the blocker’s {Asanbonsam Ghoul}) resolves before a standing “each round is at long range” effect that applies at the determine range step ({Neutral Guard}).

A range-setting ability triggered by blocking is checked at the moment of the block and belongs to the minion that actually blocked, e.g. {Sniper Rifle}. A combat queued by {Psyche!} did not arise from that block, so the ability is not available in it.⁴⁰⁰

4.2.2 The before-range window

Effects usable “before range is determined” must be played before the acting minion decides whether to maneuver. [RBK before-range] An effect that changes the range in this window takes effect at once, so range-dependent plays immediately follow the new range: once {Fear of the Void Below} [dai] has made long the round’s default, a close-range card such as {Disarm} cannot be played.⁴⁰¹

Damage inflicted in this window is resolved in it. Both minions may play prevention and non-prevention before-range effects, and simultaneous before-range damage is prevented and mended together, e.g. {Outside the Hourglass} [TEM].⁴⁰²

4.2.3 What the range gates

The range is fixed when the determine range step ends. Effects conditioned on the range apply before strikes are chosen and cannot be dodged by the strike chosen, e.g. {Vampiric Disease}; a card “only usable at close range” may be played before or after strikes are chosen, e.g. {Blood to Water}.⁴⁰³

A card triggered by an incoming effect needs that effect to reach at the current range: {Rötschreck} cannot be played against aggravated damage that is not effective at the current range.⁴⁰⁴ The trigger is unmet; futility itself is no bar.

Range gates strikes and strike resolution, not damage from other sources. Damage that is not strike damage is inflicted whatever the range, e.g. {Burst of Sunlight}’s damage to the striking vampire. An effect riding on a strike applies at the range at which that strike resolved, e.g. {Riposte}. Making a strike ranged does not extend its hand-strike or melee-weapon portion beyond close range, e.g. {Blood of the Cobra} [QUI].⁴⁰⁵

At long range a strike may be aimed at a retainer, and a restriction keyed to the opposing minion’s own traits does not bar it, e.g. {Earthshock} against the retainer of a minion with [FLIGHT].⁴⁰⁶

4.3 Strikes

4.3.1 Choosing a strike

Using the maneuver from a strike card or weapon chooses that minion’s initial strike [RBK determine-range]; a few cards let him instead strike with the weapon he maneuvered with, e.g. {Blessed Blade}.⁴⁰⁷ A strike card played in determine range for its maneuver counts as played; a card merely granting the ability to strike does not, e.g. {.44 Magnum}.⁴⁰⁸ A cost an opponent imposes on striking is incurred at that point, and it is a cost of the strike, not of the card played, e.g. {Lucian, the Perfect} against a {Thrown Gate} played for its maneuver.⁴⁰⁹ A restriction on playing strike cards reaches strike cards played in determine range for their maneuver, e.g. {Thoughts Betrayed} [DOM].⁴¹⁰

An aim or other strike modifier is played in the strike step even when the strike was committed during determine range, and cannot be played once the strike can no longer be chosen, e.g. {Target Vitals} after {Immortal Grapple}. A minion committed to a strike an effect then bars gets no strike at all.⁴¹¹

“Strike: make a hand strike” cannot take another strike card as that hand strike; “strike: use a weapon strike” can, and the result is still a hand strike, e.g. {Bundi}. A nested strike inherits the base strike’s properties. A card that is two strike types needs both available, e.g. {Stutter-Step}.⁴¹²

A provided strike carries its card’s discipline: {Heroic Might}’s are [pot] strikes. Making a strike ranged leaves an inner hand or melee portion effective only at close range, e.g. {Blood of the Cobra}.⁴¹³

4.3.2 Before strike resolution

“Before resolution” means after both strikes are declared and before they resolve. A modifier that must affect the current strike is played in that window, ahead of damage prevention, e.g. {Blood Agony}, {Backstab}.⁴¹⁴

A maneuver printed on a strike card or weapon is unavailable to a minion who cannot strike, e.g. against {Lapse} [TEM] or {Hidden Lurker}; this includes optional weapon maneuvers.⁴¹⁵ A maneuver granted by a strike card is usable only during the round the card was played, e.g. {Rigor Mortis}.⁴¹⁶

Cancellation is §1.8.4’s. A minion whose strike is canceled chooses a new one and may choose the same again, e.g. {Supernatural Resistance}.⁴¹⁷

4.3.3 Strike resolution

Everything printed on a strike happens at strike resolution, and none of it if the strike does not resolve: {Contagion}’s steal is dodgeable, {Escaped Mental Patient} does not burn, and burning a committed weapon leaves that strike with no effect.⁴¹⁸

The strike’s effects apply, then damage is resolved. Blood a strike moves is moved before damage is mended, e.g. {Darkness Within}; blood from burning a minion with a strike arrives after strike resolution and cannot mend that strike’s damage.⁴¹⁹

A damage add-on may be played on any strike and does nothing on one dealing no damage, e.g. {Target Vitals} on a dodge. Whether the strike deals damage decides, not when — a strike inflicting damage after combat is still damage-dealing, e.g. {Catatonic Fear} [PRE]. A strike naming the object it acts on cannot be chosen when none exists.⁴²⁰

An effect worded “after strike resolution” resolves before any further pair of strikes and before the press step, e.g. {Shoulder Drop}.⁴²¹

4.3.4 First strike

A strike done with first strike has its own earlier resolution, so an effect biting when a strike resolves misses it: {Soul Burn} does not stop a weapon strike made with first strike, and nullifies weapon damage only at resolution.⁴²² Conversely a modifier excluding “the current strike resolution” reaches the opponent’s later normal resolution — {Scorpion’s Touch} with first strike reduces a strength-based strike, as does damage inflicted with first strike, e.g. {Shambling Hordes}.⁴²³

4.3.5 Additional strikes

Additional strikes are announced after the normal pair resolves, but the card granting a limited additional strike may be played before or after it, e.g. {Quickness}.⁴²⁴

4.4 Damage

4.4.1 How much damage

An effect granting “a strength of X” replaces the base strength; modifiers, including inherent ones, then apply to the new base. A later set overwrites the earlier one, e.g. {Erosion} then {Torn Signpost}. A “+X strength” effect adds to whichever base is current. A weapon’s “current damage” is what it would inflict as a strike by its bearer against a generic opponent, so strength and other bonuses in play are not part of it. A strike’s damage is fixed when strike resolution begins, e.g. {Shambling Hordes} loses no damage to life burned during that resolution.⁴²⁵

Additional damage inherits every property of the base damage: type, preventability and source. Aggravated stays aggravated when {Target Vitals} adds to it, and a gun’s added damage is still weapon damage, e.g. {Glaser Rounds}.⁴²⁶

{Oubliette} burns blood rather than inflicting damage, so a damage add-on adds nothing to it.⁴²⁷

4.4.2 Source of damage

The source is read off the card’s own wording. Text naming a minion — “this vampire inflicts …” — is minion-inflicted; text naming the weapon is weapon damage; text naming no one is environmental.[RBK damage-resolution]

• A strike that lands its damage after combat is still minion-inflicted strike damage: strike modifiers and damage reduction reach it, e.g. {Catatonic Fear}, {Outside the Hourglass}, {Riposte}; whether it survives combat continuing is §4.9.2’s.⁴²⁸
• Equipment backfiring on its bearer ({Grenade}), a reaction damaging the striking minion ({Burst of Sunlight}) and a printed vampire ability ({Shemti}) are all environmental.⁴²⁹
• Damage a weapon inflicts outside a strike is the weapon’s, neither the bearer’s nor environmental, e.g. {Talbot’s Chainsaw} during the unlock phase. Retainer damage is environmental with the retainer as its source.⁴³⁰

4.4.3 What sees environmental damage

Environmental damage is not inflicted by any minion, so effects that count, add to or reduce damage a minion inflicts do not see it, e.g. {Pulled Fangs} counts none of it and {Target Vitals} does not add to {Necrosis}’s press-step damage. See §4.5 for reduction and prevention.⁴³¹

A card worded on damage generally does reach it. {Dam the Heart’s River} boosts “each strike or damaging effect”, so it boosts the environmental damage as well as the strike; {Dawn Operation} turns environmental and retainer damage aggravated too. An effect limited to damage “in combat” reaches neither after-combat damage nor anything outside the combat, e.g. {Domain of Evernight}.⁴³²

What environmental damage survives — dodges, combat ending early — is §4.6.3’s and §4.7.2’s.

4.4.4 Aggravated damage

“Treats aggravated damage as normal” changes only how the damage is applied to that minion. The damage is still aggravated at its source, so {Rötschreck} still works against it; how prevention and immunity read it is §4.5’s. {Rötschreck} nonetheless requires a strike: it cannot be played against aggravated damage from a non-strike effect, even one a minion inflicts.⁴³³

A minion burned by damage is burned during damage resolution; damage beyond that is lost, e.g. {Byzar}. An effect keyed on the vampire’s blood reaching 0 does not fire when aggravated damage burns them instead, e.g. {Anathema}.⁴³⁴

4.4.5 Damage resolution is one block

Damage inflicted at the same moment is prevented and applied together, after all prevention. A single instantaneous prevention card covers all of it, e.g. {Tunnel Runner}’s theft damage alongside the strike damage. No ability may be used part-way through, e.g. {Vagabond Mystic}. Damage still applies if the minion inflicting it goes to torpor from the opposing strike, e.g. {Blood of Acid}.⁴³⁵

4.5 Prevention and immunity

4.5.1 Playing a prevention card

Damage prevention cannot be played when there is no damage to prevent, e.g. {Soak}, {Glancing Blow}.⁴³⁶

A prevention effect that lingers past a single strike is exempt, and may be played before any damage exists, e.g. {Apparition}, {Brother’s Blood}.⁴³⁷ The restriction reaches the play only (§1.6.5).⁴³⁸

4.5.2 How much is prevented

Printed “Prevent X damage” means up to X, e.g. {Soak}, {Nightstick}.⁴³⁹ Where a cost sets X, X may be set higher than needed, but never negative, e.g. {Hidden Strength}, {Martyr’s Resilience}.⁴⁴⁰

Unused prevention does not carry over.⁴⁴¹ An allotment printed per round is spendable across that round’s strikes: {Armor of Caine’s Fury} prevents 2 per round from any strike, or 1 from each of two strikes.⁴⁴²

Prevention worded against non-aggravated damage cannot prevent aggravated damage, even when the minion treats aggravated as normal, e.g. {Flesh of Marble} against {Skin of Night}. Where both kinds are inflicted, the preventing minion chooses which points go unprevented.⁴⁴³

4.5.3 What can be prevented

Prevention granted for blocking is scoped to the block-induced combat and regranted on a second block (§3.6.3).

A protection effect stopping the opponent’s weapon strikes does not stop weapon damage the opponent inflicts on itself, e.g. {Blood Fury}.⁴⁴⁴ Neither prevention nor protection applies where the damage would not be effective at the current range, e.g. {Bollix} at long range.⁴⁴⁵

Unpreventable damage still yields to damage reduction, e.g. {Nephandus}.⁴⁴⁶

4.5.4 Sequencing

A card modifying a strike must be played before strike resolution, hence before prevention, e.g. {Chiropteran Marauder}. Mending damage and burning blood to prevent destruction are uninterrupted: no mending part of it, generating blood, then mending the rest, e.g. {The Coven}.⁴⁴⁷

One instantaneous prevention card covers two damage events only if they are simultaneous, e.g. {Tunnel Runner}; where the second follows strike damage it does not, e.g. {Blood of Acid} — a lingering prevention covers both. Strike damage is prevented first, acting player first; all damage applies at once afterwards.⁴⁴⁸

Pre-range damaging effects resolve together: both minions may play prevention and further pre-range effects before mending, and damage added then is prevented and mended with the rest, e.g. {Outside the Hourglass}.⁴⁴⁹

4.5.5 Immunity

Damage from a source a minion is immune to is inflicted unsuccessfully — no mend, no wound, no destruction ([RBK damage-resolution]). Immunity holds against unpreventable damage and outside combat, e.g. {Bloodform}.⁴⁵⁰ Unlike prevention, immunity to non-aggravated damage does cover aggravated damage the minion treats as normal, e.g. {Ex Nihilo} with {Skin of Night}.⁴⁵¹

Immunity stops the damage, not the play: the source may still use an effect that would damage an immune minion, e.g. {Charnas the Imp}. Immunity to a class of source reaches environmental damage from that source, a retainer’s damage included.⁴⁵²

Prevented damage was still inflicted, so a secondary effect keyed to inflicting damage fires anyway, e.g. {Improvised Flamethrower}, {Weighted Walking Stick}; it does not fire where the damage was reduced away or never inflicted. A strike’s secondary effect conditioned on its damage landing survives prevention but not a dodge, e.g. {Fleshcraft}.⁴⁵³

A strike that sends a vampire to torpor leaves that vampire wounded; {Undying Tenacity} defers the torpor to the end of combat but not the wound, e.g. {Coma}.⁴⁵⁴

4.6 Dodge

Base rules. A dodge is a strike that deals no damage and protects the dodging minion and their possessions from the effects of the opposing strike; retainers are not protected.

4.6.1 A dodge negates the whole strike

A dodge stops the strike, not merely its damage: {Serpent’s Numbing Kiss} places no card and locks no one; {Blissful Agony} [VAL] starts no new combat.⁴⁵⁵

A strike that would move its own card onto the opposing minion leaves that card where it was: a weapon so worded stays equipped on the bearer, e.g. {Rowan Ring}, {Enhanced Coagulant}.

An effect worded as a step following strike resolution is still part of the strike and is dodged with it, e.g. {Contagion} [DAI] steals the minion only if the strike resolves.

A secondary effect that disables the opponent’s weapons fails too. Dodge the {Blood Fury} template and the dodging minion’s weapon strikes inflict damage normally that round.⁴⁵⁶

4.6.2 Dodge against prevention

Preventing the damage leaves the strike resolved, so the rest of the strike’s effect still applies. Dodging means the strike never resolved and none of it applies. {Fleshcraft} prevented still places the card; {Fleshcraft} dodged does not.⁴⁵⁷ See §4.5 for prevention.

4.6.3 What survives a dodge

Only what the dodged strike itself delivers is stopped.

• Damage from anything but the dodged strike. A card in play or a combat card inflicting damage on its own schedule is unaffected, e.g. {Conscripted Statue} [vis], {Darkling Trickery} [MYT].⁴⁵⁸
• But environmental damage printed as part of the strike is dodged like the rest of it, e.g. {Necrosis} [THN].⁴⁵⁹ The label does not decide it; the source does.
• Combat ends, which the base rules exempt from dodges. An effect ending combat after strike resolution still ends it, e.g. {Anesthetic Touch} [obe].⁴⁶⁰
• Effects keyed to the attempt rather than to the damage, e.g. {Rötschreck} against an announced dodge or combat ends.
• A cost or self-burn the strike card imposes. {Flash Grenade} burns even though its lock is dodged.⁴⁶¹
• An ability of the weapon that is not part of the strike. {Garrote}’s burn-instead-of-torpor is usable when the opponent dodged but goes to torpor anyway.

4.6.4 Dodging when it will accomplish nothing

“This strike cannot be dodged” does not stop the opponent choosing a dodge; the dodge simply has no effect against that strike, e.g. {Scorpion Sting}, {Projectile}.⁴⁶² That is the permissive default, not an exception to it, and it does not carry over to damage prevention, which cannot be played with no damage to prevent.

A card that is a dodge and another strike at once needs both to be legal choices. Its dodge half protects, including against a strike made with first strike, while the other half resolves normally — {Stutter-Step}.⁴⁶³

4.7 Strike: Combat Ends

Base rules. A strike: combat ends always resolves first, before a strike done with first strike, and it ends combat before any other strike or strike resolution effect resolves [RBK strike-effects]. A dodge does not stop it.

4.7.1 An unresolved strike does nothing

A strike that never resolves produces none of its effects and pays none of its costs. A weapon or ally whose text burns it for striking is not burned, e.g. {Bomb}, {Waxen Poetica}.⁴⁶⁴ The same holds for every other consequence of the strike: blood is not taken, a card the strike would place is not placed, an unlock it carries does not fire.⁴⁶⁵ The strike stays unresolved even if combat then continues through another effect, e.g. {Relentless Reaper}.

A card that is itself a strike: combat ends does resolve when the opponent also plays one: both are combat ends, so both resolve. Its burn-after-use clause therefore applies, e.g. {Flash Grenade}, {Smoke Grenade}.⁴⁶⁶ The burn attaches to the strike, not to the combat: it is skipped only when the card’s own strike fails to resolve.

An ability keyed to the strike resolution step is likewise unavailable, e.g. {Gianna di Canneto}’s lock-to-damage ability. The same is true whenever combat ends during first strike — a combatant sent to torpor by first strike aggravated damage ends combat before the strike resolution step completes.⁴⁶⁷

An effect barring strike: combat ends that arrives after the strike was announced leaves the announced strike with no effect, e.g. {Dog Pack} put on a minion mid-combat.⁴⁶⁸

4.7.2 Combat ended outside strike resolution

An effect that ends combat outside the strike resolution step beats an announced strike: combat ends. {Rötschreck} may be played after the opponent has announced a strike: dodge or a strike: combat ends, and is effective.⁴⁶⁹ Combat ends immediately, no strike resolves — including the announced strike: combat ends — and damage prevention cannot be played. Self-burning weapons are not burned, exactly as in §4.7.1. Environmental damage, which survives a dodge, does not survive this: a strike: combat ends ends combat before it is applied.

See §4.9 for what else is lost when combat ends early.

4.7.3 “Combat ends after this strike resolves” is not a strike: combat ends

A card reading combat ends immediately after this strike resolves provides an ordinary strike, not a combat ends. Both strikes resolve normally and simultaneously; the opposing strike inflicts its damage, which can be prevented or mended as usual, and combat ends afterwards, e.g. {Anesthetic Touch} [obe], {Autonomic Mastery} [DOM].⁴⁷⁰ A dodge protects against the opposing strike but does not stop combat from ending, unless the card itself says so — {Autonomic Mastery} prints “unless it is dodged”, {Anesthetic Touch} does not.

4.8 Presses

A press provided by a card is usable only during the round in which that card was played; an unused press is lost at the end of the round.⁴⁷¹ This holds regardless of how long the rest of the card lasts: a press riding on a strike, a maneuver or a range lock expires with the round even where the card’s other effect runs for the whole combat, e.g. {Immortal Grapple} [POT], {Dust to Dust} [thn]. A card whose effect spans several rounds likewise grants one press, for the current round only, e.g. {Undead Persistence}.⁴⁷²

A press granted by a minion’s own ability is usable only during the press step.⁴⁷³ This applies both to an ability that gets the bearer a press, e.g. {Aeron}, and to one that gives a press to another minion, e.g. {Don Caravelli}. Such an ability cannot be used earlier in the round to bank a press.

A press is mandatory unless marked optional: {Talbot’s Chainsaw} prints “1 press (mandatory)”; {Chameleon’s Colors} [spi] prints “an optional press”. A mandatory press must be used, and where the card restricts its direction — continue only, or end only — it is used in that direction.⁴⁷⁴

An existing press to continue must be handled before another press can be used to continue.⁴⁷⁵ A second press to continue cannot be stacked on the first: the opposing minion’s only reply is a press to end. So {Trap}’s automatic press must be answered before a press to continue such as {Boxed In} becomes playable.

Providing a press is not using one. A minion that cannot use presses may still play a card that supplies them, e.g. {Mukhtar Bey} playing {Trap}: the card provides the press and the minion is not the one pressing.⁴⁷⁶

Canceling a maneuver that provides a press cancels the press.⁴⁷⁷

Damage inflicted during the press step is environmental damage, e.g. {Drawing Out the Beast} [ANI].⁴⁷⁸

4.9 End of round, end of combat, and new combats

Base rules. The end-of-round step follows the press step and occurs even when combat ends prematurely. [RBK end-of-round]

4.9.1 The end-of-round window

Effects usable at the end of a round wait for presses to be handled, then apply even if the round ended prematurely.⁴⁷⁹ This governs triggered effects, not only card plays, e.g. {Ossian}’s life gain, {Masochism}’s counter.

Ordering within the window is §2.4.1’s: occupants may be played before or after one another, e.g. {Taste of Vitae}, {Disarm}, {Telepathic Tracking}.⁴⁸⁰

Ending combat does not close the window — end-of-round and end-of-combat cards can still be played, e.g. {Elysium: The Arboretum}.⁴⁸¹ Conversely, a card usable at the end of combat may be played before combat ends, e.g. {Amaranth}.

A card played in this window has been played during that round, so cancels and cost modifiers keyed to the round or to combat cards reach it, e.g. {Death Seeker}, {Terror Frenzy}.⁴⁸² A cost payable until the end of combat may still be paid after other end-of-round effects, e.g. {Loving Agony}’s unlock blood.

{Psyche!} is played after presses, when combat is about to end; end-of-round and “at the end of combat” effects may be played before or after it.⁴⁸³ A “would end” replacement such as {Telepathic Tracking} played before it continues the combat, and {Psyche!} becomes playable only at the end of the new round.⁴⁸⁴

The shape of the step: presses first; then a single shared window — end of round and end of combat are the same window when no press is taken and combat is about to end — whose occupants order freely, with one fixed point: a “would end” replacement must be played before the window’s “about to end” effects. Effects keyed “after combat” sit outside it and wait for combat to actually end.

4.9.2 What survives a continued combat

An effect that ends combat and then does something else after combat loses the after-combat part when the combat continues or a new combat begins, whether the continuation comes from a card or from a minion’s ability, e.g. {Psyche!}, {Akram}.⁴⁸⁵

Unlock effects are the exception. The unlock half of a “strike: combat ends” resolves when the strike resolves, before combat ends, so it survives; the rest resolves after combat ends and is lost, e.g. {Mummify}, {Meld with the Land}.⁴⁸⁶ {Flash Grenade}’s own lock is not conditioned on the end of combat: it lands even on a vampire whose simultaneous strike unlocked him — unlocked by {Earth Meld} [PRO] first, then locked by the grenade.⁴⁸⁷

Only the after-combat half is lost; what already resolved stands. {Smoke Grenade} still burns. {Flash Grenade} burns but its lock is lost. {Rötschreck} is still put on the vampire, who does not go to torpor but still does not unlock as normal.⁴⁸⁸

Damage, blood burn and card placement scheduled after combat do not happen, e.g. {Catatonic Fear}, {Riposte}, {Serpent’s Numbing Kiss}.⁴⁸⁹ An effect keyed to blood reduced to 0 in combat is not triggered by after-combat damage ({Anathema}).⁴⁹⁰

An effect timed before range is determined still applies when combat ends at that point, e.g. {Weather Control}.⁴⁹¹

4.9.3 Queuing a new combat

At most one combat may be queued at a time. A card or ability that queues a combat cannot be used while one is queued, and no other queueing effect may be used until the queued combat begins, e.g. {Psyche!}, {Akram}, {Siren’s Lure}.⁴⁹² A queued combat does not occur if the action ends first.

A vampire in torpor cannot enter combat [RBK leave-torpor], and a combat-starting effect cannot reach a minion in torpor or on his way there, whatever the card’s wording: neither {Hidden Lurker} nor {Blissful Agony} [VAL] may be played on a vampire going to torpor. A queued combat one of whose combatants is in torpor when it would begin does not happen at all. An effect forbidding further combat bars combat-starting cards, e.g. {Heaven’s Gate}.⁴⁹³

The new combat is part of the same action: the action may still be continued, and effects barred during an action stay barred between combats, e.g. {Heidelberg Castle, Germany}.⁴⁹⁴

Per-combat conditions reset. A cost keyed to entering combat is paid again ({Blithe Acceptance}). Permissions tied to the blocked combat do not carry over ({Sniper Rifle}, {Scry the Hearthstone}). Cards replaced only after combat are replaced before the new combat begins.⁴⁹⁵ An effect triggering after combat triggers once per combat when several occur in one action, e.g. {Amelia, The Blood Red Tears}.⁴⁹⁶

4.9.4 After combat

An ability usable after combat has ended comes after cards played when combat “would end” or is “about to end”, e.g. {Marie-Pierre}.⁴⁹⁷

Where a new combat follows, effects sequenced between combats apply between them, and effects waiting on the action wait for the last combat, e.g. {Yawp Court}.⁴⁹⁸

A “go to torpor” postponed to the end of combat is postponed again by a new combat, and the postponing card’s protection does not extend into that combat, e.g. {Undead Persistence}.⁴⁹⁹

4.10 Weapons and equipment in combat

4.10.1 Using a weapon without striking with it

Most weapons print functions besides their strike: an action, a maneuver, a press, a stealth reduction, damage prevention. Using one never commits the bearer to strike with that weapon, e.g. {Talbot’s Chainsaw}’s enter-combat action, {Starshell Grenade Launcher}’s stealth reduction.⁵⁰⁰ Nor does it spend the strike: a minion who maneuvers with a gun may still strike with that gun that round. An additional strike the weapon grants is had even if the weapon’s own strike is not used, e.g. {Sword of Judgment}.

An ability keyed to blocking needs the weapon equipped at the time of the block; equipping mid-combat arrives too late, e.g. {Sniper Rifle}’s range-setting after a {Disguised Weapon}.⁵⁰¹

4.10.2 Once per combat, once per round

The “once each combat” or “once each round” allowance tracks the weapon, so it is not renewed when the weapon changes hands — {.44 Magnum} gives one maneuver each combat however many bearers it passes through.⁵⁰² A strike a card merely grants for the round carries no such limit unless its own text prints one, e.g. {Hunger of Marduk}.

4.10.3 Weapon damage

A weapon’s “current damage” is the damage it would inflict as a strike by its bearer against a generic opponent at the appropriate range.⁵⁰³ Strength and bonuses from the minion or from other cards in play are excluded, and the value is fixed when the card naming it is announced, e.g. {Machine Blitz}, {Illegal Search and Seizure}.

Reading a weapon’s damage value is not using the weapon: no restriction or side effect of the weapon applies, so a burn-after-use weapon is not burned and a once-per-combat weapon is not spent.⁵⁰⁴ Such damage is not aggravated even when the weapon’s own strike is.

A weapon that provides a ranged strike is a ranged weapon whatever its printed type, e.g. {Kerrie} under {Anachronism}.⁵⁰⁵ Damage from a weapon is weapon damage whatever delivers it: the ranged option on a melee weapon still does that weapon’s damage, and {Talbot’s Chainsaw}’s unlock-phase damage is weapon damage, neither inflicted by the bearer nor environmental.

4.10.4 Weapons that leave or become unusable

A weapon already committed as the strike but unavailable when that strike resolves makes the strike have no effect — burned by an opponent’s effect, or contested because a {Disguised Weapon} equipped a second copy of the same unique weapon.⁵⁰⁶ Up to that point the weapon is still usable [RBK strike-effects].

Once a weapon’s strike has resolved, its self-burn and bearer damage happen as printed, even if combat continues or a new combat begins, e.g. {Smoke Grenade}.⁵⁰⁷

An effect that prevents a minion from using equipment reaches only what the bearer uses; an equipment effect that triggers on its own still functions, e.g. {Soul Gem of Etrius} when the bearer is burned.⁵⁰⁸

Ammo and other cards improving a weapon before strike resolution can only be played on your own minion’s weapon.⁵⁰⁹

5. Minions and Their States

5.1 Vampires: capacity, identity and merging

5.1.1 Capacity

A vampire’s capacity can never be reduced below one. A reduction printed as lasting until the end of the game survives the burning of the card that imposed it, and still applies if the vampire returns to the uncontrolled region.⁵¹⁰

Cards on an uncontrolled vampire are out of play, so a capacity modifier from one of them does not apply there. It resumes when the vampire is controlled again, and blood held for the raised capacity does not drain off in the meantime.⁵¹¹ With the floor of one, a vampire whose capacity comes entirely from cards on it is a 1-capacity vampire while uncontrolled, e.g. {The Becoming}.

Blood above capacity drains off as the vampire is moved to the ready region, before anything else happens to them. It drains before the vampire’s own entry text fires, e.g. {Hermana Hambrienta Mayor}’s forced 2-blood burn, and before the vampire can be merged: {Tariq, The Silent}’s printed capacity reduction applies the moment you control him, so the blood is lost even if you merge him immediately after.⁵¹²

5.1.2 Merging

Merging is not entering play, so effects keyed on a vampire who entered play or entered the ready region in a given window do not see it, e.g. {Chameleon}, {Legendary Vampire}. It is not moving a vampire from uncontrolled to controlled either, so a tax on that movement does not apply, e.g. {Masquerade Enforcement}.⁵¹³

The advanced card’s sect is written onto the vampire as it merges, including when the base version was the one in play, e.g. {Goratrix} becomes Camarilla. Any anarch token on the vampire is burned, unless the merged sect is itself Anarch, e.g. {Dancin’ Dana}.⁵¹⁴ See §5.9 for trait change and its precedence.

The advanced card need not come from your uncontrolled region. A copy you come to control by any means may be merged, e.g. one stolen with {Graverobbing}.⁵¹⁵

5.1.3 Created vampires and crypt card identity

A library card put into play as a vampire is a vampire card for every purpose from then on, e.g. {Creation Rites}: sent to the uncontrolled region it stays a crypt card — out of play like any uncontrolled card — and can be influenced out again. Only in the ash heap is it the library card again, so effects reaching a vampire in the ash heap cannot see it.⁵¹⁶

Such a minion is non-unique unless its card says otherwise, e.g. {Hatchling}. Where the card does make it unique, uniqueness runs on the card name and crosses minion types: a mummy ally created by {Spell of Life} contests a vampire of the same name.⁵¹⁷

{Dual Form} copies what its text lists — clan, sect, capacity and Disciplines — so titles and other traits such as Infernal or Scarce are not copied; there is no generic copy rule beyond the card’s own words. The copy is a snapshot taken at resolution: disciplines held then are copied, including those granted by cards in play, and are kept when the granting card leaves; disciplines gained later are not. The capacity reduction the card itself imposes applies first, so the copy has the reduced capacity.⁵¹⁸

A vampire brought into play to replace a burned one is a new vampire for all purposes even when it is the same vampire, e.g. through {Soul Gem of Etrius}: it may bleed although the burned version already bled that turn.⁵¹⁹

5.2 Locking and unlocking

Base rules. Ready means in the ready region, i.e. not in torpor; unlocked means not turned sideways. A vampire in torpor is not ready but still unlocks each unlock phase — hence “ready, unlocked” in card text.

5.2.1 What a lock prevents

Locking bars acting and blocking, not ability use.⁵²⁰ An action modifier carries no unlocked requirement of its own — even one played by a minion other than the acting minion, e.g. {Cloak the Gathering}, {Make an Example}.⁵²¹ Locked vampires still vote, and casting votes does not lock.⁵²² A locked minion remains a legal target, even of an effect that locks it, e.g. {Puppet Master}; a lock-to-use cost, by contrast, requires the minion unlocked.⁵²³

5.2.2 The unlock phase and its suppression

Unlocking is the first thing in the phase; every “during your unlock phase” effect follows, in its controller’s chosen order, e.g. {Baleful Doll}.⁵²⁴ A condition on what a Methuselah controls during that phase is checked when the phase ends: meeting it earlier does not help, e.g. {Anarch Revolt}.⁵²⁵ A “for each” unlock-phase effect instead resolves once, as a whole, over the objects in play at that moment: objects acquired after it resolves are unaffected until the Methuselah’s next unlock phase, e.g. {Arika}, {Nightmares upon Nightmares}.⁵²⁶

“Does not unlock as normal” suppresses only that automatic unlock; wakes and unlock effects still reach the minion, e.g. {Sensory Deprivation}, {Cry Wolf}.⁵²⁷ A card saying minions cannot unlock reaches unlock effects too, but still not wakes, e.g. {The Sleeping Mind}.⁵²⁸

Two burn-at-unlock templates differ. “Choose not to unlock as normal and burn this card” is an independent act, still available to a minion already prevented from unlocking, e.g. {Putrefaction}. “Burn this card instead of unlocking as normal” is a substitution: open to an already-unlocked minion, closed to one prevented, e.g. {Fata Amria}.⁵²⁹

5.2.3 Wakes, unlocking and blocking

A wake opens the reaction window; it does not unlock. A woken locked minion may play reactions and attempt to block, but cannot use an effect requiring an unlocked minion or costing a lock, e.g. {Familial Bond}.⁵³⁰ Paying a lock leaves the minion unable to block without a wake or an unlock, e.g. {Starshell Grenade Launcher}.⁵³¹ An effect merely letting a locked minion block is not a wake and grants no reaction cards, e.g. {No Secrets From the Magaji}.⁵³²

The unlock-to-block template ({Guard Duty}, {Second Tradition: Domain}) is §3.3.1’s.

A block locks the blocker only once it succeeds (§3.3.4) — a reaction usable on a successful block thus finds its player locked, e.g. {Hard Case}. {Faceless Night} [OBF] locks failed blockers by its own text, just before action resolution.⁵³³ A lock from another card is not the block’s lock, so an exemption from locking to block does not stop it, e.g. {Mirror Walk}; locking a minion attempting to block makes the block fail, e.g. {Alexandra}.⁵³⁴ See §3.5 for the canceled-combat case.

5.2.4 Locking the locked, unlocking the unlocked

Both are legal, e.g. {Anarch Troublemaker}, {Under Siege}, and locking an already-locked minion can be useful: it satisfies a lock-or-discard effect that an infernal trait then undoes, e.g. {Nightmares upon Nightmares}.⁵³⁵ No state changes, so an effect triggered by unlocking does not fire, e.g. {Vampiric Disease}; a mandatory unlock ability is still applied, e.g. {Eze, The Demon Prince}. Any genuine unlock triggers, including one that already cost blood.⁵³⁶ A minion returning to play unlocked has not unlocked, e.g. {Banishment}.⁵³⁷ Where a card locks a minion as part of its effect, nothing need be unlocked and no cost is paid, e.g. {Disarming Presence}.⁵³⁸

5.3 Torpor

Base rules. A torpid vampire is controlled but not ready; it unlocks normally, cannot block, play reaction cards or vote, and acts only to leave torpor [RBK torpor].

5.3.1 Going to torpor

“When a vampire is going into torpor” and “when a vampire should go into torpor” are one window. Both players may play in it, the acting minion first, and the first card played can strip the other’s requirement: once torpor is averted, no card needing the vampire to be going to torpor may follow — {Undead Persistence} denies {Amaranth}, and the reverse — including a second copy of the card that averted it.⁵³⁹ A clause that chooses vampires and sends them to torpor opens no window in between.

A vampire on its way to torpor is still in play and still ready, and may use its abilities and play cards until it arrives, e.g. {Watenda}, {Revelation of Wrath}.⁵⁴⁰

A new combat cannot reach a vampire on his way to torpor. A combat already queued still occurs when the vampire going to torpor is its queuer rather than a combatant, e.g. {Illusions of the Kindred}.⁵⁴¹

Delayed torpor. The {Undying Tenacity} / {Undead Persistence} template pushes torpor to after combat; the vampire stays wounded and remains burnable.⁵⁴² Everything else that trigger produced still happens — combat ends, and an unlock or blood gain in the same clause occurs, e.g. {Ashes to Ashes}. Where torpor is instead bundled with ending combat and the combat does not end, the vampire unlocks but stays out of torpor, e.g. {Mummify}.

Such a vampire may play cards a vampire going to torpor could not. The protection does not reach a fresh combat (§4.9.3).⁵⁴³

5.3.2 What a torpid vampire can still do

Abilities printed on cards in play remain usable in torpor. Printed effects that merely apply do so too, e.g. {Nahir}’s hand size, as does a trigger keyed to the end of combat, e.g. {Amelia, The Blood Red Tears}.⁵⁴⁴ Referendum abilities from torpor are §3.7.6.4’s.

Torpor bars reaction cards — absent the card’s own printed permission — but not combat cards. A combat card requiring an unlocked vampire not involved in the combat may be played from torpor, since a torpid vampire unlocks as normal — e.g. {Save Face}, {Martyr’s Resilience}.⁵⁴⁵ A requirement naming a ready vampire is not met, and a reaction stays barred even where the vampire reached torpor during the combat that followed his block, e.g. {Cats’ Guidance}.⁵⁴⁶

A vampire acting from torpor — necessarily the leave-torpor action — plays action modifiers as normal, e.g. {The Kiss of Ra} on the leave-torpor action itself; a torpid vampire plays no action modifier during another minion’s action, e.g. {Make an Example}.⁵⁴⁷ Modifiers usable after combat may also be played from torpor, e.g. {Freak Drive}.⁵⁴⁸

5.3.3 Torpid vampires as objects

Torpor removes readiness, not control. A burn option opens when you control no minion meeting the card’s requirement, so torpid vampires open it where the requirement names a ready minion, e.g. {Emergency Powers}, but not where it names only control of a vampire with a trait, e.g. {High Orun}.⁵⁴⁹

A card may be put on a torpid vampire unless the operating clause requires readiness: {Fear of Mekhet} cannot be played on one but can be moved to one.⁵⁵⁰ A “burn this card after this minion goes to torpor” clause fires on the event, not the state, so a card entering play on a vampire already in torpor is not burned.⁵⁵¹ An ongoing effect whose subject was chosen while ready keeps applying in torpor, and stops only if that vampire leaves your control, e.g. {The Rack}.

A change of controller does not change torpor: a stolen or defecting vampire stays in torpor [RBK 8-glossaries].⁵⁵² Allies have no torpor state: an effect that would send an ally to torpor burns it instead, and one sending vampires to torpor leaves an opposing ally unaffected.⁵⁵³ Incapacitation is the imbued analogue, and abilities stay usable there too, e.g. {Abjure}.

5.4 Burning minions

Only a controlled minion in play can be burned from play. Uncontrolled vampires and contested cards are out of play and do not qualify, so effects that retrieve a minion “burned from play” never reach them, e.g. {Blessed Resilience}.⁵⁵⁴ What was burned is read off the card, not off the role it filled: a crypt card put into play as a wraith ally by {Khazar’s Diary (Endless Night)} is not an ally burned from play, and a card treated as a vampire only while blocking is not a minion when it burns, e.g. {Unleash Hell’s Fury}. A burned minion goes to its owner’s ash heap, and a pending instruction to move it elsewhere lapses — a vampire put into play by {Chain of Command} and then burned is not moved to the crypt.

5.4.1 Who burned it

If a minion is burned in combat, its opponent is always considered to have burned it, whatever the cause.⁵⁵⁵ This holds when the minion burns itself: an {Escaped Mental Patient} burned at the end of combat is still an ally burned in combat by its opponent. It also holds when the card’s controller is not the combatant — the vampire playing {Blood Brother Ambush} has not burned a minion, but the opposing minion has.

Outside combat, the acting minion burned it only when the action’s own effect did: damage inflicted, or blood or life taken, by the action. An ally that burns as a result of a directed action is burned by that action, so Trophy cards and {Predator’s Transformation} trigger, e.g. {Brick Laying}, {Cryptic Mission}, {Succubus}.⁵⁵⁶ A minion burned for any other reason — a referendum result, a cost paid, its own ability, its last life spent — was not burned by the acting minion, and cards keyed to “when this vampire burns a minion” do not fire, e.g. {Taking the Skin: Minion}.⁵⁵⁷

5.4.2 Effects triggered by the burn

An effect keyed to a minion being burned fires however the burn came about, e.g. {Political Struggle}.⁵⁵⁸ Blood or pool awarded for burning a minion with a strike is awarded after strike resolution, so it is not available to heal damage from that same strike, e.g. {Young Bloods}.

5.4.3 Burns that do not happen

A replacement effect worded “if this minion would be burned, instead …” means the minion is not burned: effects that trigger after the burn do not fire, e.g. {Sacrificial Lamb} gains no blood off {Byzar}.⁵⁵⁹ An instruction or condition to burn a minion is still satisfied — {Byzar}’s controller may still burn him to burn a {Judgment: Camarilla Segregation}. Such a replacement takes effect before anything triggering on the burn, e.g. {Soul Gem of Etrius}; a competing replacement may still be played first, by normal sequencing.

An effect that saves a minion by ending combat cannot reach a burn that occurs as combat ends, e.g. {Heaven’s Gate} and {Left for Dead} cannot save an {Escaped Mental Patient} whose strike resolved. A minion so saved was never burned, so burn triggers do not fire.

5.4.4 The “would be burned” window

A minion on its way out of play is still in play and may still play cards, e.g. {Revelation of Wrath}.⁵⁶⁰ A burn from a blood hunt referendum opens no such window: {Reform Body} and {Abandoning the Flesh} cannot be played against it.

5.5 Allies

5.5.1 Life, not blood

An ally has life, not blood, and can never pay a blood cost. A card or ability whose cost is in blood is unplayable by an ally, e.g. {Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers}. An effect that demands blood from the acting or blocking minion fails for an ally: an ally’s action is lost to {Hide the Heart} [val], and an ally cannot block through {Tenebrous Form} [OBT] or take a directed action against {Étienne Fauberge}. A cost reduced to zero is payable — {The Shard, London} lets an ally play a blood-cost card that does not otherwise require a vampire.⁵⁶¹

A card whose effect names the opposing vampire has no object in an ally and cannot be played against one, e.g. {Taste of Vitae}, {Enhanced Coagulant}. Where the blood is only a side effect, the rest still applies: {Shackles of Enkidu} holds an ally but burns nothing. An effect worded on vampires passes an ally over — {Legacy of Power} sends the vampires to torpor and leaves the ally where it stands.⁵⁶²

5.5.2 Life totals

An ally’s life is not capped by its starting life; life gained above it stays. “Starting life” is the printed value of the card that entered play, and later change does not move it: {Ghouled} adds a life but the ally’s starting life is still the mortal’s, and an animal retainer moved to the ready region by {Demdemeh} keeps its counters and its original starting life while losing its abilities and any continuous effect on it. A vampire treated as an ally has no starting life at all, so {Vagabond Mystic} cannot give it life; its blood is its life, and an “as if he had the Discipline” ability still works while it is an ally.⁵⁶³

5.5.3 Acting “as a vampire”

An ally that can play cards as a vampire may play any card its own text admits, not only Discipline cards, e.g. {Shadow Court Satyr} playing {Taste of Vitae}. It may call a referendum listed on a political action card in hand, e.g. {Herald of Topheth} with {Charming Lobby}. It cannot commit diablerie, e.g. {Amaranth}. The Discipline grant is whatever the ally’s text says: {Shadow Court Satyr} uses his stored card as a vampire with the basic level of one of its Disciplines, chosen at each use, so an option requiring two at once is out of reach.⁵⁶⁴

The treatment covers only the effect generated by playing the card. An outside effect keying on “a vampire” does not see the ally: {Veil of Darkness} ignores it and {The Line} cannot reduce its cost. Neither does the played card’s own in-play text, so an ally that plays {Descent into Darkness} never returns. A card that lets a minion act or block “as an ally” likewise changes only the check it names — {Sonja Blue} blocks as an ally and still plays Discipline cards.⁵⁶⁵

Life pays for the card, so spending the last life burns the ally mid-play. An action modifier played with the last life fails; a strike played with the last life ends combat before strike resolution; but a cost paid for an action still resolves the action fully, and the oust order is §6.5.2’s.⁵⁶⁶

5.5.4 Entering play and acting

A recruited ally cannot act the turn it enters play; one brought into play by other means can [RBK recruit-ally]. The keyword decides it: cards that make a minion recruit an ally leave it unable to act that turn, e.g. {The Summoning}, {Piper}; cards that put it in play do not, e.g. {Summon History}, {Khazar’s Diary (Endless Night)}.⁵⁶⁷

An ally whose text lets it act the turn it is recruited still acts only in your minion phase, so recruiting it on an opponent’s turn gives it no action, e.g. {Nocturn}, {Infernal Servitor}.⁵⁶⁸

An effect triggered by the ally entering play applies however it entered. {War Ghoul} burns one of your allies or retainers on entry, and burns itself if you control none, even when put into play abnormally — it is an on-entry effect, not a recruit requirement, so §1.6’s bypass does not apply. Abilities keyed on an ally being “recruited” cover non-standard recruitment routes, e.g. {Sébastien Goulet} with {Piper}.⁵⁶⁹

5.6 Retainers

5.6.1 The retainer is not the bearer

A retainer that uses a weapon is not its bearer; the employing minion remains the bearer.⁵⁷⁰ Damage or costs the weapon puts on the bearer therefore fall on the employer, e.g. {Zip Gun}’s 1 damage during strike resolution. An option the weapon grants the bearer is not available when the retainer used it: {Garrote} does not let the employer burn the opposing vampire. A limit on the bearer’s use does not limit the retainer — {Ghoul Retainer} may use {Jar of Skin Eaters} with nothing on it.

A card that restricts a minion’s use of equipment does not reach that minion’s retainers, e.g. {Spiritual Protector}.

5.6.2 Using a weapon is not a strike

The retainer’s use resolves the weapon’s whole text, not only damage: {Rowan Ring} sends to torpor, {Flash Grenade} ends combat, {Weighted Walking Stick} burns its counters.

It is not a strike. It gives the employer no maneuver, no press and no additional strike, e.g. {Meat Hook}. A retainer that does strike gains no additional strikes from its employer.

A retainer cannot play ammo cards, not even through a {Magazine}. It does benefit from ammo the employer played in an earlier round, e.g. {Scattershot}.

5.6.3 Damage from a retainer

Damage inflicted by a retainer is environmental damage and the retainer is its source. Immunity to retainers, or to that type of retainer, stops it.⁵⁷¹

An effect conditioned on the retainer being ready still resolves if the opposing strike burns the retainer that round, e.g. {Bestial Vengeance}.

5.6.4 Retainers as targets, and effects outliving them

Cards keyed to actions directed at a minion do not apply to an action targeting its retainer, e.g. {Detect Authority} [ani].⁵⁷²

A secondary effect keyed to a minion does nothing when the target is a retainer, e.g. {Shadow Twin} at [OBT].

An effect the retainer has already produced survives the retainer being burned or stolen: {Camarilla Vitae Slave}’s chosen Discipline lasts to the controller’s next unlock phase.

5.6.5 Entering play

A retainer is usable the turn it is employed; the “cannot act this turn” restriction is on recruited allies (§5.5.4).⁵⁷³ A retainer whose card has inferior and superior versions is the version matching the Discipline level used to employ it, and that does not change once it is in play, e.g. {Raven Spy}.⁵⁷⁴

5.7 Special minion classes and traits

5.7.1 Subtypes

A minion’s subtype is what its type line prints, and nothing else. Ghouls are monsters and are not mortal; animals are neither mortal nor monster.⁵⁷⁵ The card name is not a subtype: {Camarilla Vitae Slave} is a retainer with no subtype, and {Gargoyle Slave} is an ally, neither a slave nor a Gargoyle. An effect naming a subtype, e.g. {Abjure} ending a combat between a monster and a mortal, reads only that line.

5.7.2 Slaves

A slave locking to take a blocked clan member’s place cancels the combat, unlocks the acting vampire, and enters a new combat with the blocker ([RBK traits]). The slave becomes the combatant but never the acting minion (§3.10).⁵⁷⁶ It cannot play a card whose use requires it to be acting, e.g. {Shadow Boxing} at [OBF][POT], and the blocker cannot play a card requiring the opposing minion to be the acting vampire, e.g. {Obedience}. Effects naming the canceled combat are dead, e.g. {Sniper Rifle} cannot set the range. The acting vampire keeps what it independently qualifies for after resolution, e.g. {Momentary Delay}.

5.7.3 Infernal

The infernal unlock — the controller burning 1 pool during their unlock phase — is not normal unlocking, so an effect preventing normal unlocking leaves it available.⁵⁷⁷ It is not tied to the unlock step: a minion locked by another effect during that phase can still be unlocked by paying, e.g. {Nightmares upon Nightmares}. An effect keyed to unlocking with the infernal trait does not fire on any other unlock effect, e.g. {Ruins of Charizel}. A card in play requiring an infernal vampire is satisfied by one in torpor.

5.7.4 Black Hand

Black Hand is a trait, not a title, and is unrelated to sect: a vampire printed Black Hand keeps it through a sect change.⁵⁷⁸ A card that confers the trait writes it on a Sabbat vampire, so the grant stops applying if he ceases to be Sabbat, e.g. {Cadet}, {Mustajib}. A vampire who gains the trait by resolving an action has it for cards played after that resolution, e.g. {Seraph’s Second}.

5.7.5 Imbued

Imbued are mortal allies with life rather than blood, and their cost is their starting life ([RBK appendix-imbued-rules]). Effects reading a minion’s cost read that starting life, e.g. {Keystone Kine} at [obf]; effects reading a cost to recruit read zero, since an Imbued is influenced, not recruited, e.g. {Kindred Segregation}.⁵⁷⁹

An Imbued in the uncontrolled region takes no blood, e.g. {Dreams of the Sphinx}.⁵⁸⁰ An effect moving a crypt card to the ready region with blood gives an Imbued nothing: it arrives with no life and is incapacitated at once, e.g. {Soul Gem of Etrius}. Where such an effect compares capacity blind, read the starting life as the capacity.

Incapacitation is neither burning nor torpor, so effects keyed to either do not fire, e.g. {Tension in the Ranks} burns no pool.⁵⁸¹ An incapacitated Imbued is still in play and may be locked to play a card, e.g. {Abjure}. A card that rewrites the minion’s subtype ends the class outright: an Imbued returned as a zombie ally by {Pressing Flesh} has no creed, gains no conviction and cannot use virtues.

5.7.6 Other traits

Scarce counts the apparent clan while the vampire is controlled, so a clan override changes what the influencing player pays, e.g. {Clan Impersonation}; that same override does not remove slave status, which is a separate trait.⁵⁸² Sterile bars any action to put a vampire into play, including the last step of a multi-action process: the action placing the counter that completes {Call the Great Beast} is such an action, and {Blood Cult Awareness Network} reads it the same way. A restriction on cards requiring a discipline reaches only the option actually used, so a True Brujah may play a multi-discipline card for a non-[cel] option.

5.7.7 Blood Brother circles

A vampire with no printed circle is in his own circle of one, and vampires sharing a name do not share a circle and never contest one. Two uncontrolled copies of {Angelo} or {New Blood} are therefore in different circles, so an effect reading “the same circle” requires choosing one; a vampire created by {The Embrace} is likewise in a circle of his own.⁵⁸³

5.8 Titles

5.8.1 Printed titles, granted titles, contests

An Independent vampire’s printed “N votes (titled)” is a title of its own and is tied to no sect. It and its votes survive any sect change, e.g. {Ambrogino Giovanni}, {Xaviar}.⁵⁸⁴

A title granted by a library card is tied to that title’s sect. While the bearer is off-sect the title is dormant: he counts as untitled and cannot use the title to make himself titled, e.g. {Fee Stake: Perth} on a vampire who is no longer Anarch.⁵⁸⁵

A card-granted title and a printed title of the same name are one title and contest each other: {Imperator} grants the same unique Camarilla Imperator title that merged {Karsh} prints.⁵⁸⁶

Contesting a title costs 1 blood, paid by the vampire. Effects that raise the pool cost of contesting a card do not reach it, e.g. {Democritus}.⁵⁸⁷

A contested title-providing card is turned face down out of play, and any action it provides is unusable while the contest lasts, e.g. {Fee Stake: Boston}, {Regent}.⁵⁸⁸

Effects keyed to a title are re-evaluated continuously. Capacity granted by a title is lost with the title. A card keyed to its bearer’s title stops working when the title goes and resumes if it returns, e.g. {The Treatment}. An effect conditioned on the vampire being untitled is suppressed while he holds a title, e.g. {Bloodbath}.⁵⁸⁹

Votes granted by an ability are not a title. The vampire remains untitled, so an ability conditioned on his being untitled keeps working, e.g. {Gerald Windham}, {Xeper, Sultan of Lepers}.⁵⁹⁰ See §1.15 for how such votes combine with a title gained later.

A vampire who leaves play and returns remembers titles gained and lost.⁵⁹¹

A representation of a titled vampire uses that title’s votes even while another instance of the title is in play; it does not contest.⁵⁹²

5.8.2 Off-sect and off-clan titles

A vampire whose sect becomes inappropriate for his title loses its benefit: he gets no vote, is not considered titled, and yields the title immediately if it is contested or if he receives a new one. The benefit returns when his sect becomes appropriate again.⁵⁹³ The rule is trait-general — an inappropriate clan change does the same, e.g. {Clan Impersonation}, {Derange}.⁵⁹⁴ §5.9 governs which of two competing trait changes stands, and the “is considered” override that {Writ of Acceptance} applies.

Mass sect-removal events apply the same rule to every holder, e.g. {Fall of the Camarilla}.⁵⁹⁵ Losing the benefit strips the title’s votes and ballots but not the referendum structures the title defines: under {Fall of the Sabbat} the priscus subreferendum still happens, and a printed bonus ballot not granted by the title still applies, e.g. {Gratiano}.⁵⁹⁶

An ability that grants its bearer a title cannot be used once he is off-sect: {Horatio Ballard} cannot call the referendum to become Prince of Chicago while Independent.⁵⁹⁷

5.8.3 How requirements read titles

A requirement naming a sect-restricted title is also a requirement for that sect. A card requiring a baron is a card requiring an Anarch, so {Open War} counts as Anarch-requiring for {Powerbase: Los Angeles}.⁵⁹⁸

A title inside a vampire’s name is not a title: {The Baron} cannot play cards requiring a baron.⁵⁹⁹ A permission a card extends to Anarchs does not make the action one “requiring an Anarch”, e.g. {Club Illusion}.⁶⁰⁰

A title is a vampire trait, so a card that fakes vampire traits reaches title requirements, e.g. {Vidal Jarbeaux}.⁶⁰¹

A vampire who can meet title requirements ({Vlad Tepes}, {Vidal Jarbeaux}, {Kemintiri}) is also considered a member of the title’s underlying sect; the controller chooses how each requirement is met — any city, even an invented one.⁶⁰² {Vidal Jarbeaux}’s own text additionally caps each requirement at once per game: required to be “a titled vampire” he must name a title, may use each title only once, and may choose the generic “X votes” title only once. A card canceled as it is played has still spent that use.⁶⁰³

Such a requirement can be met after the sect has ceased to exist, e.g. a Camarilla or justicar requirement under {Fall of the Camarilla}.⁶⁰⁴

Meeting a title requirement to call a political action grants none of that title’s votes in the referendum.⁶⁰⁵

Whether the ability reaches cards the Methuselah plays is per card: {Vidal Jarbeaux} meets requirements on master cards too; merged {Kemintiri} does not enable master card plays.⁶⁰⁶

See §1.6 for the limits of requirement-faking: it substitutes only for the effects of the card played, only on a normal play, and only where the card prints the requirement ({Mata Hari}).

5.9 Traits and trait changes

5.9.1 Actual change and temporary override

A card that says a vampire becomes a sect changes the actual sect, e.g. {Into the Fire}, {Go Anarch}. A card that says a minion is considered a sect while the card stays in play is a temporary override on an unchanged underlying sect, e.g. {Writ of Acceptance}. The override has precedence over the actual sect. A card that made the actual change and burns itself on a sect change burns when an override lands, e.g. {Field Training}.⁶⁰⁷

The value an override writes is fixed when the card is played, and the underlying trait resurfaces when the override leaves play. An effect writing one trait does not write another — {Clan Impersonation} changes clan and leaves sect alone.⁶⁰⁸

5.9.2 Which effect governs

Where two effects write the same trait, the most recent governs. This is not sect-specific: {Clan Impersonation} and {Derange} yield to whichever was played later, and {Nar-Sheptha} supersedes an earlier {Deep Song} on who is the acting minion.⁶⁰⁹ If the governing override leaves play while an earlier one is still live, the earlier override resurfaces as governing; the underlying trait returns only when no override remains.

An override survives a later change to the underlying trait. A vampire with {Writ of Acceptance} who takes the rulebook action to become anarch is still Camarilla; so is an Assamite carrying a {Tegyrius, Vizier} allegiance counter.⁶¹⁰

{Fall of the Camarilla} overrides sect but also redirects: a later effect that would set a vampire to Camarilla sets him Independent instead while the Fall is in play. Such cards remain legal to play. When the Fall leaves play, underlying sects resurface. {Fall of the Sabbat} is the mirror case.⁶¹¹

5.9.3 Reading a changed trait

A changed trait is the trait for all purposes, and effects keyed to it re-evaluate as it changes. Requirements are checked continuously while an action is in progress: if {The Red Question} makes the acting vampire Anarch during an action that required another sect, the action fizzles — successful but with no effect. {Ministry} grants its extra intercept only while the acting vampire is Sabbat, gained or lost mid-action; {Teresita, The Godmother} likewise. An effect applied after resolution reads the trait at that moment — {Warsaw Station} does not unlock an acting vampire who is no longer Nosferatu when the unlock applies.⁶¹²

A vampire who plays cards “as if” he had a sect or title meets those requirements even when the sect has been abolished: {Vlad Tepes} still plays Camarilla cards under {Fall of the Camarilla}. Conversely, writing a trait onto a vampire does not make the action one described by that trait — {The Red Question} is not an action that “makes this vampire anarch”, so {CrimethInc.} cannot follow it.⁶¹³

Allies have no sect. An ally permitted to play cards “as an Anarch vampire” is not Anarch and gains nothing from cards keyed to the trait, e.g. {Grey Thorne}, {Vivienne Géroux} do not benefit from {An Anarch Manifesto}.⁶¹⁴

6. Methuselahs and the Game

6.1 Owner and controller

Base rules. Ownership fixes which library, hand and ash heap a card belongs to. Control fixes who plays it, who chooses, and what an oust removes. [RBK important-terms-of-the-game]

6.1.1 Zones belong to the owner

A card leaves play to its owner’s ash heap, hand or library, whoever controlled it.⁶¹⁵

• A minion put into play from another Methuselah’s ash heap returns to that ash heap when burned, e.g. {Khazar’s Diary (Endless Night)}.
• A card held face down under a stolen card travels with the card, but still goes to its owner’s library or ash heap if an effect moves it there, e.g. {Storage Annex}.
• A card drawn from another Methuselah’s library returns to its owner’s zone even if played or discarded by you, e.g. {Agaitas, The Scholar of Antiquities}.
• A vampire burned while under another Methuselah’s control goes to his owner’s ash heap, breaking every control effect, and from there to his owner’s uncontrolled region. An effect printed for “you” still pays the Methuselah who controlled him when he burned, e.g. {The Capuchin}.

6.1.2 Control decides what an oust removes

An oust removes what the ousted Methuselah controlled. Cards he owns but does not control stay in play. [RBK important-terms-of-the-game]

Only printed text keeps control elsewhere. {Shackles of Enkidu} goes on the opposing minion but stays with the controller of the vampire that used it, and changes hands with that vampire. Taking control of a card already in play is §6.3’s.

A vampire in the uncontrolled region belongs to his last permanent controller, who need not be his owner; see §6.5.3 for what an oust then removes.

6.1.3 Control decides who plays and who chooses

The acting minion’s controller makes the choices the action calls for, even when another Methuselah steals its outcome: on a blocked recruit or employ action the acting minion’s controller still decides how the ally or retainer enters play, e.g. {Set’s Call}.⁶¹⁶

A minion card is played by the Methuselah as well as the minion, so an effect reducing the cost of “a card you play” reaches it, e.g. {The Shard, London}. That Methuselah pays.

6.1.4 Cards no one controls

A vampire in the uncontrolled region, or yielded in a contest, is not controlled and his abilities do not apply, e.g. {Byzar}.⁶¹⁷ He is not in play either — in play means controlled, and card effects reach the uncontrolled region only when their text names it [RBK targeting-of-cards] — so an effect keyed to a vampire burned from play does not reach him, e.g. {Blessed Resilience}.

Card text naming cards in play is not limited to cards you control unless it says so, e.g. {Spell of Life} burns copies controlled by anyone.

6.2 Taking control of minions

Base rules. An ousted Methuselah’s cards are removed from the game; cards he owns but does not control stay in play. [RBK 5-ending-the-game]

6.2.1 When the control change happens

A card that lets you burn counters to steal a minion offers the steal only at its own timing; placing a counter does not open the opportunity, e.g. {Velvet Tongue}.⁶¹⁸ Where the card names a phase, the taking may happen at any point in it, including after other actions, e.g. {Puppet Master}.

A reversion running until the unlock phase happens at the start of that phase, before unlocking. It cannot be ordered among unlock effects, and the minion does not unlock that phase, e.g. {Malkavian Dementia}.

A steal does not change the minion’s lock state; a card that wants it unlocked prints the unlock, e.g. {Temptation}. Cards on the minion travel with it.

6.2.2 Stealing mid-action and mid-combat

Stealing a minion that is acting does not end the action. It continues against the same target, and Methuselahs who already declined to block get no second opportunity; the new controller, if eligible and not yet declined, may still block with the stolen minion.⁶¹⁹⁶²⁰

If the target no longer qualifies after the steal, the action still resolves, succeeds and is paid for, with no effect. The same holds when the target empties the action in response — {War Ghoul} locking and burning itself to burn a location.

Stealing a minion that is attempting to block makes the block attempt fail. Stealing the acting minion instead leaves the block standing, e.g. {Revelation of Despair}. Stealing a minion in combat ends the combat, but damage still to resolve resolves before control changes, e.g. {Temptation}.

An effect that stops the control change stops only that: the cost paid to attempt the steal is not refunded, e.g. {The Diamond Thunderbolt}.

6.2.3 Return to the previous controller

The minion returns in the state it is in, including torpor, and stays in torpor, e.g. {Temptation}.⁶²¹ Canceling an action the stolen minion was forced to take does not keep it under the new controller; it still returns, e.g. {Spirit Marionette}. “After resolution” effects apply before the return.

“Breaking any temporary control effects” hands the minion to its last permanent controller, who then receives the rest of the effect and any card placed on it — {Lay Low} into that Methuselah’s uncontrolled region, {Descent into Darkness} out of play.

6.2.4 An ousted Methuselah

A minion held on temporary control is removed from the game if its temporary controller is ousted, e.g. {The Ailing Spirit}.⁶²² It is likewise removed at the moment it should return to a Methuselah who has been ousted, e.g. {Temptation}.

If that return can no longer occur, control never reverts and the temporary controller keeps the minion indefinitely: {Parmenides} returns at his owner’s next unlock phase, which an ousted owner never has.⁶²³ What an oust removes under permanent control is §6.5.3’s.

6.2.5 Effects after a control change

An effect that charges or credits “the controller” follows the new one: {Betrayer}’s pool loss is taken by whoever controls the named vampire.⁶²⁴ Who takes or declines an optional effect follows the card’s wording, not control of the card: {The Rack} lets the chosen vampire gain blood, so the new controller of a stolen vampire decides whether it gains.

A duration or use limit written against “your” turn or unlock reads against the current controller and is not refreshed by the control change: {Rutor’s Hand} grants no extra unlock until a Methuselah begins a turn controlling the bearer, and a spent per-phase use stays spent. An effect already generated survives the change: {Imposing Phantasm} returns the blood lost to damage even if the opposing minion has changed controller.

6.3 Taking control of a card in play

6.3.1 Requirements are not checked

Taking control of a card already in play is not playing it, so the card’s requirements do not apply to the new controller.⁶²⁵ A vampire may steal a retainer whose discipline requirement it does not meet, e.g. {Far Mastery}, and a Methuselah may take a location whose requirement no minion of his satisfies, e.g. {New Management}. The card stays in play and works normally.

6.3.2 Where the card is placed

An equipment, retainer or location on a minion whose control changes is placed on a minion the new controller controls; the new controller chooses which one.⁶²⁶ If the new controller has no minion to take it, it is burned. This is the rule for locations that are equipment — the {Dartmoor, England} template — as much as for ordinary equipment and retainers.

Placement happens only on an actual change of controller. A card “taken control of” by the Methuselah who already controls it stays where it is and cannot be moved to another of his minions.⁶²⁷ Naming your own card is still a legal play, e.g. {New Management} on your own location.

6.3.3 Cards carried along

Control of a card on a minion follows control of the minion: take the vampire and you take its equipment and retainers.⁶²⁸ A card hosted on another card goes with its host, e.g. the face-down card on {Storage Annex}, and the new controller may use it. A stolen master Discipline card is controlled by the Methuselah of the vampire that took it, e.g. {Ethan Locke}.

Where a card goes when it later leaves play is set by ownership, not control.

6.3.4 What does not move

A minion written into the card’s effect when it was played is fixed and is not re-chosen.⁶²⁹ {Incriminating Videotape} keeps the minion chosen at play: once the equipment is stolen, that minion cannot block the new bearer and can block the old one. Only the minion the card sits on is re-designated (6.3.2), never a choice already made by the effect.

6.3.5 When a forced transfer happens

Some cards hand themselves to another Methuselah during the controller’s discard phase. Where the transfer rides on an optional choice being taken, the card moves as soon as that choice is made, ahead of any mandatory effects still pending, e.g. {Scourge of the Enochians} when the burn option is used.⁶³⁰ Otherwise the receiving Methuselah takes the card at his first opportunity to play effects, after the acting Methuselah’s other mandatory effects have applied. A controller who declares the end of his turn cannot then use the card, even where the transfer was overlooked and the card is still in front of him.

6.4 Leaving and re-entering play

Base rules. Contested cards are face down and out of play; a vampire in the uncontrolled region is not in play and is not a legal target. [RBK contested-cards]

6.4.1 Set aside out of play — the card remembers everything

A card moved out of play without reaching the ash heap keeps its state. The wording template is {Lay Low} and {Banishment}: cards and counters stay with the vampire but are out of play while it is.

On return the vampire remembers every effect that had been applied to it, exactly as a contested vampire does, including gained or lost titles.⁶³¹ Cards on it return unlocked, and a contested card on it drops out of the contest until it comes back. A vampire brought out of the uncontrolled region keeps its blood and its cards.

Leaving play breaks temporary control effects: the vampire goes face down to its permanent controller, and so does the card that removed it.⁶³² See §6.2 for control changes; if the permanent controller is ousted before the return condition is met, the current controller keeps it.

6.4.2 Through the ash heap — a new card

A card that reaches the ash heap and comes back is a new card: continuous effects applied to it before are lost, e.g. {Possession}, and a returned ally or retainer is a new ally or retainer for all game purposes, e.g. {Compel the Spirit}.⁶³³ See §3.5 for the No Repeated Action consequence.

6.4.3 Effects aimed at a card that has left play

An ongoing effect pointed at a card is suspended, not lost, while that card is out of play, and resumes if and when it returns. This includes effects worded “for the rest of the game”. {The Rack} tracks its chosen vampire through a contest or a {Banishment} and gives blood again on the vampire’s return.⁶³⁴

While the card is out of play the effect does nothing, because the card is not controlled. Torpor is not out of play: an effect naming a controlled vampire still reaches one in torpor. A pending effect that would land after the card has left play does not land, e.g. the {Daring the Dawn} damage on a vampire already removed by {Descent into Darkness}.

Effects the card already produced survive it leaving play (§2.5.3). Conversely a card in play reaches only events after its arrival: {NRA PAC} does not affect equip actions performed before it entered play.⁶³⁵ An in-play effect card is removed when the Methuselah who played it is ousted.

6.4.4 Leaving the ready region as a trigger

An effect keyed to a minion leaving the ready region fires whatever the route out — burned, or the controller ousted — and fires even if the triggering card is burned in the same event, e.g. {The Black Throne}, {Priority Contract}.⁶³⁶

6.4.5 Entering play

A card returns at the moment its own text names and is not in play before then. {Parmenides} returns as the unlock phase begins and unlocks as normal; a contested unique won face down turns face up during the next unlock phase.⁶³⁷

6.5 Pool, the Edge and ousting

6.5.1 Gaining and losing pool

Any decrease in pool — burning, paying a cost, a rival taking it — is losing pool; any increase is gaining pool.⁶³⁸ An effect measured on pool actually lost counts nothing when none was lost, e.g. {Dirty Little Secrets}.

A gain never offsets a loss: where one effect grants then takes pool, a card keying on pool lost sees the loss, not the net, e.g. {Poison Pill} against {Ancient Influence}.⁶³⁹

A Methuselah obliged to pay more pool than she holds pays all of it and is ousted; the effect still happens, e.g. {Thanks for the Donation}. The shortfall is real: an effect saving her must cover the whole amount, not bring her to zero, e.g. {Life Boon}. A mandatory cost is paid even when paying ousts you.⁶⁴⁰

Withdrawal fails on any pool loss, including pool spent as a cost, and a later gain does not repair it [RBK 5-ending-the-game].

6.5.2 When the oust resolves

An oust resolves as soon as pool reaches zero, ahead of anything else the same event triggers. A minion spending its last life to pay for an action still resolves it in full, e.g. {Herald of Topheth}, and the oust precedes the effects triggered by the minion burning. If a cancel’s cost ousts a player, handle the oust before the canceled card.⁶⁴¹

Referendum-caused ousts, and what effects keyed to the referendum may do around them, are §3.7.5’s.

When a card ends the turn on an oust ({Last Stand}), the turn ends after the current action concludes: effects usable after action resolution are still played, e.g. {Freak Drive}. The next turn then begins immediately, with no discard phase and no replacement.⁶⁴²

6.5.3 Cards of an ousted Methuselah

Cards controlled by an ousted Methuselah are removed from the game, not burned, so burn triggers do not fire (§1.10.1), e.g. {Charnas the Imp}; an ongoing effect such a card imposed is canceled with it, e.g. {The Meddling of Semsith}. A vampire in another Methuselah’s uncontrolled region is removed if that Methuselah is ousted and stays if only its owner is, e.g. {Lay Low}; a stolen minion due to return to an ousted one is removed.⁶⁴³ See §6.4 for control and §6.2 for theft.

Leaving the ready region because your controller is ousted is still leaving the ready region, so effects keyed to that fire, e.g. {Priority Contract}. The minions are gone at once, so a later effect needing one has no object: {Revelation of the Serpent} cannot unlock when the target is ousted by the bleed.⁶⁴⁴

6.5.4 Victory points and the Edge

A Methuselah ousted at the same moment as her prey still scores the victory point but takes no pool, and pool comes only from your own prey, never a grand-prey. Where two effects are available at once you choose the order: the victory point before or after the 6 pool, or your unlock-phase Edge pool before burning the Edge, e.g. {Sabbat Threat}.⁶⁴⁵

A restriction on gaining pool is tested when the pool is gained, not when the action is announced. The Edge follows the bleed’s resolution: pool granted as part of the bleed arrives before it, pool from a separate post-resolution effect after it. That decides both halves of {The Rising}.⁶⁴⁶

The moment an action moves or burns the Edge is its card’s. {Sargon}’s Edge gain is worded after the action and applies after resolution — after the referendum concludes, for a political action; {Hrothulf} burns the Edge at resolution, only if the action succeeds. A steal of the Edge is not thwarted by the holder burning it after announcement, e.g. {Tereza Rostas}. A card that burns your own Edge does nothing if you no longer control it at resolution, while the rest of its text still applies, e.g. {Enticement}. Legality is checked on announcement: the Edge cannot be stolen while uncontrolled. “A new Methuselah gets the Edge” means one who did not have it, e.g. {Curse of Nitocris}.⁶⁴⁷

6.6 Master phase

Base rules. You receive one master phase action per master phase, unused actions are lost, and you choose the order in which your master phase actions and any other master-phase effects happen [RBK master-phase]. An out-of-turn master card spends an action from your next master phase [RBK master-cards].

6.6.1 Master phase action accounting

Cancellation does not unwind the accounting. A canceled out-of-turn master still costs its player the master phase action against their next master phase, and that player still cannot play a second out-of-turn master before that phase.⁶⁴⁸ A canceled trifle grants no additional master phase action.⁶⁴⁹

An additional master phase action handed to a Methuselah by a card effect is not that Methuselah’s trifle bonus. A trifle they play afterwards still grants its one, e.g. {Wash}.⁶⁵⁰ The one-per-phase cap counts only actions gained from trifles [RBK trifle].

6.6.2 Out-of-turn masters

One out-of-turn master card between two of your master phases, regardless of how many master phase actions you have [RBK master-cards]. An ability that grants access to out-of-turn masters, or that pays for an extra master phase action, does not raise the cap, e.g. {Synesios}.⁶⁵¹

An out-of-turn master played during your own turn under a card’s own permission counts against your next master phase, and bars a second out-of-turn master until then, e.g. {Proxy Kissed}.

An out-of-turn master is played from hand in the normal fashion and can be canceled as it is played, even where the card’s text sends it from hand to the ash heap rather than into play, e.g. {Vox Senis}.⁶⁵²

6.6.3 Master cards on minions

A master card in play is controlled by the Methuselah who played it, even when it sits on another Methuselah’s minion [RBK master-cards]. Who takes or declines a choice its effect offers follows the card’s wording, not control of the card, e.g. {Perfectionist} (§1.1.1).

An upkeep printed as an alternative is a real choice, even when one branch burns the minion: {Ex Nihilo} lets the vampire’s controller burn 1 blood or burn the vampire during the master phase.⁶⁵³

6.7 Influence phase and the uncontrolled region

Base rules. Transfers are granted at the start of your influence phase and cannot be saved. The uncontrolled region is not in play.

6.7.1 The uncontrolled region as a zone

A vampire in the uncontrolled region is not a legal target unless the card names the region, and it cannot play cards, e.g. {Reform Body}.⁶⁵⁴

An effect that adds blood to “a vampire in your uncontrolled region” cannot be used on an imbued there — an imbued is not a vampire, e.g. {Dreams of the Sphinx}. When the crypt card is chosen blind, from a crypt or from another Methuselah’s uncontrolled region, the effect works with whatever is found, and an imbued’s cost counts as its capacity.

Suspended capacity modifiers are §5.1.1’s; created-vampire identity in the uncontrolled region is §5.1.3’s; what else the vampire remembers is §6.4’s.

A vampire moved to the uncontrolled region while under a temporary control effect goes to its last permanent controller’s region, which need not be the owner’s, e.g. {Banishment}, {Lay Low}; ousts are §6.5.3’s.⁶⁵⁵

6.7.2 Influencing out

A vampire whose blood equals or exceeds its capacity may be moved to the ready region at any moment during its controller’s influence phase, not only at the end.⁶⁵⁶

Excess blood drains off as it enters play — before a contest is entered, and before any “as he enters play” effect is played. A vampire may be influenced out into a contest it will lose.

6.7.3 Transfers and the influence-phase window

The number of transfers is fixed when the phase begins. A vampire influenced out during the phase adds no transfers to it, e.g. {Ingrid Rossler}.⁶⁵⁷ Its other abilities are usable for the remainder of that phase, e.g. {Angela Preston}.

An effect granting an extra transfer may be used at any moment during the phase, not only before the first transfer is spent, e.g. {Ennoia’s Theater}.

“During your influence phase” restricts a card to its controller’s phase; “during the influence phase” makes it usable in any Methuselah’s, e.g. {Gather}.

Transfers and card effects are independent. A Methuselah who takes no transfers, or who has lost them all, may still use effects that add blood to uncontrolled vampires, e.g. {Powerbase: Montreal}.

6.7.4 Cards that require an uncontrolled vampire

A card whose play clause names a vampire in the uncontrolled region cannot be played with no qualifying vampire there; the vampire is chosen on announcement, e.g. {Undue Influence}, {Break the Bonds} at [pre].⁶⁵⁸ The same bars an ability worded that way, e.g. {Lázár Dobrescu}.

A clause that only describes what the effect does to the region is not a play requirement. {Social Ladder} may be played with no older vampire in the uncontrolled region; its influence-phase clause then removes the ready vampire and the blood is lost.

6.8 Hand, draw and discard

Base rules. Default hand size is seven. Whenever an effect changes your hand size, or adds or removes cards from your hand, you immediately discard down or draw up to match [RBK drawing-cards].

6.8.1 Hand size

Cards you play but do not replace count against your hand size, so a “do not replace” clause works as a hand-size reduction: any further draw forces a discard, e.g. {Hagar Stone}.⁶⁵⁹ Non-replacements accumulate while the effect lasts. A hand-size change that comes and goes repeats the adjustment each time, e.g. a fresh combat against {Raptor} makes the opponent draw up, then discard again.

A hand-size bonus can be taken more than once in a turn if you have more than one master phase action, e.g. {Edward Neally}.⁶⁶⁰ It lasts as long as its source is in play: {The Meddling of Semsith} keeps reducing your hand size after the chosen Methuselah is ousted, and {Nahir}’s bonus survives her going to torpor. A card in play that draws or raises your hand size may be used during an action, e.g. {The Barrens}, {Dreams of the Sphinx}.

6.8.2 The discard phase

“Until end of turn” durations expire in the discard phase. The acting Methuselah orders that expiry against other discard-phase effects under normal sequencing, e.g. {Dreams of the Sphinx}.⁶⁶¹ Discard-phase effects apply before an ally taken until end of turn goes back; an ally you already lost control of does not go back at all.

Each discard phase action carries its own use of an ability keyed to one, e.g. {Josef von Bauren}. A Methuselah ousted during their turn gets no discard phase. A discard imposed by an action card lands after the action resolves and after any combat it caused.

6.8.3 Draw and discard mechanics

When an effect discards several cards, all discards are made at once and replaced afterwards, e.g. {Ruxandra}.⁶⁶² Replacement draws therefore cannot be fed back in as further discards. An effect that repeats a draw-and-discard resolves one card at a time, e.g. {Infernal Pursuit}. An effect that redirects the discarded cards acts only once every discard and redraw is done, e.g. {Rachel Brandywine} shuffling them back. A discard you cannot make in full is made as far as you can.

“Draw, then discard” does not restrict the discard to the cards just drawn; discard any card in hand.⁶⁶³ A trigger reading “each time you replace a card” sees every replacement draw, whatever took the card out of hand, e.g. {Infernal Pursuit}. A trigger keyed to replacing a card you played does not see extra draws granted by other cards: {Agaitas, The Scholar of Antiquities} does not redirect a {Learjet} additional draw. Cards returned to an empty library are drawn at once if your hand is below hand size, e.g. {Waste Management Operation}; that refill precedes any random discard the same card imposes.

6.8.4 Visibility

Library searches and replacement draws are private. You do not show the cards you look at while searching, e.g. {Vast Wealth}, and no one sees a card drawn as replacement, e.g. {Vaticination}.⁶⁶⁴ Where the cards are already public knowledge, you show which one goes to hand, e.g. {Ashur Tablets}. An effect that reads a hand after the replacement draw sees it without one when the replacement is delayed, e.g. {Troglodytia} against a master card canceled by {Wash}; an optional extra draw is decided after the normal replacement has been seen, e.g. {Learjet}.

Appendix A. Glossary of card wordings

Idiomatic card wordings, each with the section that governs it. Quotation marks mark printed wording; “e.g.” names exemplar cards.

• “as if from your hand” — a normal, cancelable play, but the card is not in hand and effects requiring one there cannot reach it. §1.8.2, §1.14.2
• “as if he had that required title” — {Vlad Tepes} and {Kemintiri} meet title requirements and count as members of the underlying sect, any city (even invented); only {Vidal Jarbeaux}’s printed text caps each requirement, each title, and the generic “X votes” title at once per game. §5.8.3
• “as if she were of that required sect and/or clan” — treated as meeting the requirement for all effects of the card played, and only them: never for in-play text, never on an abnormal play, never for a trait the card merely acts on (e.g. {Mata Hari}). §1.6.4, §5.8.3
• “as long as … / until …” — the printed duration clause decides survival: tied to a condition (“as long as he or she remains in torpor”) the effect outlives its card; stated flatly in in-play text it ends when the card leaves (e.g. {Rowan Ring}, {Wooden Stake}). §2.5.3
• “cannot be prevented by cards requiring …” — a “cannot” naming the cards it forbids bars playing them entirely, even to cycle (“cannot use any additional strikes” is read the same way); dodging the strike defeats the disabling (e.g. {Blood Fury}, {Rigor Mortis}). §1.1.3, §4.6.1
• “do not replace until” — the delayed card is drawn at the first moment its condition is met, ahead of anything else triggering then, even if the card was since burned; canceled with the card, and governing only normal plays. §1.9.2, §1.9.3
• “does not unlock as normal” — suppresses only the automatic unlock; wakes and unlock effects still reach the minion. §5.2.2
• “even if stealth/intercept is not (yet) needed” — the printed waiver of the not-needed bar; as-announced stealth always carries one. §3.2.2, §2.2
• “gets X” vs “+X” — an absolute value sets (copies do not stack, and a set can reduce); “+X” adds to whichever base is current. §1.15, §4.4.1
• “is considered the acting minion” — only such text rewrites the designation; entering the combat does not, a later writer supersedes an earlier, and the designation reverts when the writer leaves play. §3.10.2
• “put … in play” — the only wording that bypasses requirements and cost (required disciplines at inferior, X = 0); prohibitions still apply and the card has still been played. §1.6.3, §3.7.4.2
• “represents a location and does not count as equipment while in play” — equipment in hand, both types as played, only a location in play, so equipment-movers and equip bars miss it; on a change of control it is re-placed on a minion of the new controller (or burned), like ordinary equipment (e.g. {Dartmoor, England}). §1.3.1, §6.3.2
• “this vampire can” vs “you may” — the wording names the decider of an optional effect: “this vampire” → the vampire’s current controller, “you” → the card’s controller. §1.1.1
• “unlock and attempt to block” — unusable when the vampire could not attempt anyway; lifts no prey/predator/target restriction; usable by one already attempting; the block stands even if the unlock removes the action’s target (e.g. {Guard Duty}, {Second Tradition: Domain}). §3.3.1
• “will not go to torpor until combat ends” — pushes torpor to after combat: the vampire stays wounded and burnable, the trigger’s other effects still happen, and the protection does not reach a fresh combat (e.g. {Undying Tenacity}, {Undead Persistence}). §5.3.1
• “would X … instead” — a replacement effect: played only while X is still pending, so it cannot follow an effect keyed to X “about to” happen or having happened. §1.2.2, §2.4.1

References