(no subject)

[feotakahari]

I don’t know if the tabletop version of Sentinels of the Multiverse explains this, but the digital version doesn’t explain it anywhere I’ve seen, and it’s frequently important. So: all abilities are last-in first-out. If the effects of ability 1 trigger ability 2, you put ability 1 on hold and start using ability 2. Then if ability 2 triggers ability 3, you put 2 on hold and start using 3. When all text of ability 3 resolves, you go back to ability 2, and when all text of ability 2 resolves, you go back to ability 1.

Say you’re fighting Gloomweaver, and Tempest electrocutes all his minions. This kills a cultist, which activates Gloomweaver’s ability that plays a zombie when a cultist dies. Gloomweaver’s ability resolves in its entirety and the zombie hits the field. Then, since Tempest electrocutes ALL enemies, he electrocutes the zombie.

Or say you’re using the Southwest Sentinels against Voss. You have Sentinel Tactics out, which activates an SS’s power the first time each turn an SS does damage. You play a card that makes one of the SS damage all enemies, and as your first target, you pick one of Voss’s Gene-Bound Guards, which gives all of his minions damage resistance so long as it’s alive. You damage it, but not enough to kill it. Since you’ve just done damage, Sentinel Tactics activates in its entirety, and you use the Idealist’s power to hit the Guard for more damage and finish it off. Now that’s resolved, the AOE card hits every other minion—but since the Guard is dead, they don’t get its damage reduction. (This saved me once when Forced Deployment put out ten minions at once.)

BTW, if ability 1 activates abilities 2 and 3 at the same time, you choose which one has priority.

Comments

[lb_lee]

Huh, in tabletop I think that stuff is left to player discretion; in my games for instance, Tempest might zap everyone, but only the once; if a new enemy enters the board afterward, even if it's still Tempest's turn, they escape the zap! Since that's what makes narrative sense.

Rogan/Sneak

[feotakahari]

Honestly, I think the reason the digital game does last-in-first-out is because Magic: the Gathering does it. This is the infamous “stack.”

Then again, most reactive abilities in Sentinels activate after an effect, which is simple to understand. Magic has a lot of cards that can be played after another card is played, but before any of the card text goes into effect, which makes everything horrifically complicated. (I think the closest thing to a Magic-style card in Sentinels is Parse’s card that lets you get rid of a villain card right after it’s played, before it does anything.)