Puzzle Strike rulebooks, final print version2

Well, if there is one thing that us anonymous jerks on the internet excel at, that would be pointing out others' mistakes.

On page 14 of the expansion rulebook: it looks like you're missing a line space between Punch, Punch, Kick and Repeated Jabs - those two entries are closer together than the rest.

On page 14 of the expansion rulebook, Option Select and Onimaru's Wartime Tactics use different wording to say that neither can copy an empty bank stack, those should probably use consistent language.

On page 15 of the expansion rulebook, the second sentence of Saving Grace needs to be amended. It currently says "If you do have actions left, playing Saving Grace wouldn't cost an action if you trashed a wound this turn" It should say "If you do have actions left, playing Saving Grace doesn't cost an action if anyone trashed a wound this turn" Alternately, I'd rewrite the whole thing as "If anyone (you or another player) trashes a wound on your turn (due to Radiant Healing or any other effect) you may play the main without using an action to play it. Thus you can play it with no actions left or you can play it before using your action(s) to play other chips."

On page 15 of the expansion rulebook Zane's Max Anarchy could maybe use a clarification for who gains the arrows when if it's played out-of-turn (via Improv or Mistresses Command). I bring it up as MC MA is bugged on the server currently (neither player gets any arrows on their current or next turn) but from those rules it looks like the bug is mainly correct (Zane gets the arrows on opponent's turn when he can't use them, and opponent should get them on following rather than current turn)

This is uber-nitpicky, but It seems just a tad odd that One Two Punch and One of Each entries have pointers to the page where symbols are explained, while other similar chips like Axe Kick, Roundhouse, Button Mashing and It's Combo Time and just have "simple!" or "enjoy" type descriptions. I would think that either:
A> all such chip entries should contain a page reference
B>no such chip entries should contain the page reference - it is earlier in the book and in a big diagram
or C>Only the first entry in each index to use each symbol should contain the page reference

SteeelCoil has 3 e's. I don't think that's on purpose, but it might be.

FAQ entries:
Grave's Reversal still has text related to Stone Wall that doesn't apply anymore.
Thinking Ahead says top of deck and probably mean top of bag.
Mix Master says "You still get
to combine gems in your pile even if the
opposing piles have all 1-gems, and thus
nothing to split."

I would propose adding "You still get
to combine gems in your pile <and opponents still get to react>
even if the opposing piles have all 1-gems, and thus
nothing to split."

With HFF, should it explicitly state that it triggers, even if the <Red Fist> chip doesn't end up attacking (like Gwen's Shadow storm or Jaina's Burning Vigor with no wound to trash)?

I asked about the server implementation of this a bunch of times and was told that it was splitting a 1-gem into one 1-gems, so you do in fact get to react. Which to me seems absurd and not at all what the word "split" could ever be construed to mean, but that's how it's been on the server since forever at least.

Base rulebook:

Page 8 says +gem power, should it use the green icon instead, or have it in parentheses after? I don't think gem power is defined before this point in the rulebook.

So, I don't know if you want to do this, but you could shorten the paragraph about winning the game by taking out all the language about 2p, 3p, and 4p. Because even in a 2p game, when one person loses, the player with the lowest remaining total wins.

Love, love, love the buying tips. Teaching the game is a fine line between letting people figure out how to play and telling them how not to suck.

Page 10: countercrashing in turn order. I think it's unclear if it's in turn order from the crasher or from the target.

Page 10: In 2 v 2 you refer to crashing as an "event" and later on the same page as a "send."

Page 11: Maybe clarify that you can't [purple shield] an ante effect. I notice you clarify this in the FAQ entry for G2G, but if people want to find it quick, they probably won't look there.

It's a Trap: Maybe clarify that people use their own markers for traps, unless this version will include them.

Knockdown: In 2v2 and FFA, can other people react for the knocked down player?

I don't see immunity defined anywhere. I know a lot of people have questions about that term.

Shadows rulebook:

I will skip all the first stuff, since it's the same.

Page 14, if you can bump column 2 down one row, that will get PyP at the top instead of all by itself at the bottom of column 1.

And that's all!

Nitpicks, but might as well say it since someone will anyway:

For the first one, of course you can't react if your hand size is 0, since your hand size is 0.
Pilebunker affects you no matter what.

Does it ever explicitly say in the rules that red fists cannot be blue shielded if the attack targets you but does nothing?I don't recall seeing that, and didn't find it in a quick once-over either. The icon description says that you can only react to attacks that affect you, but that's easily interpreted as "I can't react to one of my opponents attacking another opponent".

Even if excluding the case-by-case stuff, it's probably worth mentioning the general case rule.

I think a lot of the confusion is due to server implementation being different, but yea "if the attack doesn't affect you in any way, then you can't react" seems pretty simple.

The question that has been asked of me multiple times is does it make you immune to that chip for the rest of the game. That may seem ridiculous, but there you go.

I asked about that Mix Master thing like a month ago and someone said that thing about it breaking my one gem apart into one one gem so it affected me which sounded pretty bonkers. So I'm glad that's straightened out in a way that makes sense.

The server implementation currently allows you to react to a Mixmaster that splits a [1] into a [1] but does not allow you to react to a Mixmaster when you have no gems in your pile.

I didn't read every single sentence this time, but looked at every page (in both books) and all the formatting mistakes seem to be gone.

While the "if a red fist affects you" part has some grey areas, in 99% of the situations it should be clear what this means and if you can blue shield or not.

Do you actually think about making Rook's Stone Wall "Reflect one gem sent to a player back to the sender and trash the rest"? To give Rook a buff? That would be fine by me.

I agree that the characters are pretty close in power level, even if there are better ones and weaker ones. But getting 20 characters to the point where they have exactly the same power level seems impossible anyway. So it's fine as long as they are close enough together and everyone has a chance to win. Changing a character - that is absolutely playable, if a bit weak - at this point is just asking for trouble.
On the other hand, the mean thing of pre-nerf, post-Combine-change Stone Wall was that reflecting 2s and 3s could absolutely break your neck. You could basically only crash at Rook if Stone Wall was in his discard pile or if you crashed a 4. Reflecting a 1 was much fairer.

Or if you had a counter-countercrash or were in Dragon Form. Currently we also have a version of Knockdown that prevents Stone Wall's reaction.

As for crashing counterable non-[1]s, the expansion and revision adds Double Slash, Deathstrike Dragon and the more recent versions of One True Style, and Mixmaster (where if the opponent also has it you often want to crash the [2] it mixed as a defense) so it probably will happen more than it did in the old set.

I would like to see it tried out, but I also would like to be done, so my suggestion is that we maybe try a handful of games to test it in ruleless over the next day or three.

Tested and works. I suggested this change a while back, and since then have been using it in the physical copy because we don't like either the new blander one, or the original that basically forces you to do one strategy on Rook. It's a good compromise

I highly recommend this change

Why is the ability to x-copy a crash out of pile unbeatable?

I don't think your testing is a very good metric, since you have clearly stated in the past that you change chips to match what your group likes better. If you're not testing in the same environment (ie official chip text), then the impact of this change is necessarily different from that when using the official set.

Stone Wall reflecting one gem back sounds good to me too, and I hope it pans out. Unless you've changed your ways though, I don't believe your tabletop experience is a viable justification for implementing.

Well, Iron Defense should be really hard to rush down. Defense beats rushdown after all, and a defense that is iron is a very strong defense indeed. We don't want to turn Iron Defense into Wooden Defense or something.

Also, if the opp managed to buy an Iron Defense, use it and also got an x-copy, you probably either shouldn't have been rushing the first place or weren't rushing hard enough (unless it's Setsuki :-P).

I am completely fine with the good X-Copy / Iron Defense interaction. Pulling off awesome combos with puzzle chips is fun and part of the game.

And that is why your Super Ouch! example isn't that fitting: You're proposing a single ridiculous chip that will unbalance every game where it is in the bank, while the ID/X-C combo (which is spread over base set and expansion, btw) needs to have both chips in the bank to work.

Just had a dozen games with Persephone agains Rook. He doesn't seem that bad in his current form.

CoH+MP isn't a fair comparison, either. Sure, ID + X-Copy is a great combination, but you need to buy two chips for it and not one that lets you win the game turn six or seven.

Well X-Copying Iron Defense just to have a pair of Crash Gems on hand is already really strong defense, so it's not like disallowing X-Copy of a Crash Gem not completely actually in hand renders the X-Copy Iron Defense combo worthless.

But back to rulebook issues rather than rules balance issues,

There are a couple of formatting nitpicks in the Special Thanks name list: Some of the entries have spaces around the quotation marks, some don't, some of us get slanty quotation marks while others get straight quotes and SteelCoil gets an ending apostrophe instead of a proper ending quote. Also, with the split up of the sites, should we be listed as the "sirlin.net crew" or the "fantasystrike.com crew" ?

No opinion on X-Copy + ID, but if the final decision is to eliminate the interaction with crashes in pile, here's my suggested retemplating:

Put a Crash Gem from the bank into your gem pile. You may play it at any time you could normally play a [purple orb] or [purple shield].

Whether X-Copy works with the gem pile Crash or not, I'd agree it's a good idea to explicity cover the interaction.