HeroClix 2017 Rules 7: Carry and Inherent Abilities

For earlier articles in this series please click here.

Reminder: These rules are not finalized yet and will not replace the current rules until sometime after the  2017 HeroClix World Championship at Origins Game Fair. Email gamefeedback@wizkids.com with feedback on this topic. We will try and read everything on topic but can only respond via articles we write addressing shared concerns.

Hey HeroClix fans,

There’s a new inherent ability to introduce today. It says (essentially) “Characters can carry a smaller character.”

This ability shouldn’t come as a big surprise. We took the existing rule about giants and colossals carrying smaller characters and the existing rule about tiny characters being carried and formed a new inherent ability out of them. An ability that makes carrying a more fundamental part of the game, which cleanly implements something players have wanted.

Here’s your third inherent ability:

Basic Carry

Before beginning movement, you may choose one adjacent friendly character of smaller size that isn’t a Vehicle or holding an object. If you do, modify speed -1 for each character chosen (for this move). When movement ends, place the chosen character adjacent if possible. If you do, the chosen character can’t be given a costed action this turn (and has been ‘carried’).
SIDEBAR: “for each character chosen” – Normally, Basic Carry only lets you carry one character, so this is just a -1 to Speed. But Passenger (see below) or other effects may allow more than one character to be chosen to carry.
SIDEBAR:  When you choose to carry, at the end of movement, if you can’t place the chosen character, you will still have modified your speed -1 (and can’t have picked up an object, see below). But the chosen character stays where it began and is not considered to have been “carried” for any effect.
SIDEBAR: You may move 0 squares and “carry” an adjacent character by placing them into a different adjacent square.

All characters can now do this! Well, they mostly all could before, but it was in two completely separate rules.

There are a few small tweaks here. First, carrying changed from a -2 to -1 (per character). This will let a character carry 1 square farther, which for some characters will be a big deal. Players thought this was more fair and sensible than a “blanket” -2 for everyone, and we agreed.

Secondly, and this will be a lot more important when we talk about Hypersonic Speed soon, movement now can’t be interrupted by an attack in the middle of a single move. Once you stop moving, for whatever reason, that move ends and resolves. You may be able to soon after start up another move, but it’s not the “same move” as before.

What does that mean for carrying? Characters that are carried no longer leave the map and hang out in a ghostly limbo somewhere off the map while being carried. When movement finishes, you place them from where they are (adjacent to a square the carrying character started moving from) into a square now adjacent to the carrying character. They are just instantly placed. If you can’t, they just stay where they started and you’ve lost speed for no gain.

There’s another part of carrying we’re still missing, the ability to carry characters of the same size and more than one character at a time. After talking to players, it made a lot of sense to use the same symbol here that we use for vehicles: :X (called the Passenger symbol).

:X means “This character can use the Basic Carry ability to carry up to X characters that are either the same size but don’t have   or are smaller size.”

: X may be either printed on a character’s base or granted by an effect. Characters with multiple  symbols can carry as many as the highest number allows, unless one of the symbols is :0. A character holding an object has :0 (and can’t later pick up an object in the same move that they’ve decided to carry, per the object rules.)
SIDEBAR: Note that the modifying speed -1 for each carried character is limited by the Rule of Three to -3.
SIDEBAR: The Rule of Zeroes tells us a character with :0 can’t carry.
SIDEBAR: Older game elements may reference the “Carry ability”. This is assumed to be :1 unless the effect specifies a different number of characters.

So, it shouldn’t surprise you to see that   now looks like this:
Flight, :1.

Flight is of course another keyphrase, with the same definition you’re all used to.
:, , , .

Basic Carry, , Flight, and will all be defined on the PAC (as they are now) though a bit clearer. These rules are together shorter than the current Carry ability (one of our longest abilities) and clean up a ton of corner cases that often needed individual answers.

There is a small downgrade or two here worth noting amongst the upgrades. You can no longer carry a tiny character in addition to your “normal” carrying. Tiny characters will count against the limit set by your Passenger the same as any other character. This was not seen by players as a big loss and was necessary to make Basic Carry and Passenger work together cleanly.

You also can’t hold an object while carrying. Now that everyone can carry light objects, it was seen by players as both not very flavorful (how many hands does the character have, exactly?) and it wasn’t necessary to give carrying characters that additional boost in power-level.

This is a good time to review all of the inherent abilities a character has. The complete list is presented below for the first time.

INHERENT ABILITIES

Inherent abilities are abilities that every HeroClix character has. These abilities are always available unless an effect says you “can’t use” them. (Or potentially the actions or attacks or other effects they consist of.)
SIDEBAR: Some of them have an “if” at their beginning, and if you don’t meet that requirement, the ability won’t do anything.

Basic MOVE action
MOVE: Move (up to your speed value).

Basic CLOSE action
CLOSE: Make a close attack.

Basic RANGE action
RANGE: Make a range attack.

Basic Carry
Before beginning movement, you may choose one adjacent friendly character of smaller size that isn’t a Vehicle or holding an object. If you do, modify speed -1 for each character chosen (for this move). When movement ends, place the chosen character adjacent if possible. If you do, the chosen character can’t be given a costed action this turn (and has been ‘carried’).

CLOSE Destroy
CLOSE: If this character’s damage value is 3 or more, destroy an adjacent piece of blocking terrain or KO an object in this square or an adjacent square. (This isn’t an attack.)

RANGE Destroy
RANGE: If this character’s damage value is 3 or more, destroy a piece of blocking terrain or KO an object, within range and line of fire. (This isn’t an attack.)
SIDEBAR: These two actions are known as the “destroy actions”.

The four inherent abilities below all involve interaction with objects other than destroying them. Vehicles can’t use any of the four abilities below.

Object Pick Up
Once per move, this character may either pick up one light object (holding it) or put down one held light object in a square it moves through or adjacent to.

CLOSE Object Action
CLOSE: If this character is holding an object, make a close attack and modify damage +1 if the object is light or +2 if the object is heavy. Immediately after the attack resolves, KO the object.

RANGE Object Action
RANGE: Minimum range value 6. If this character is holding an object, make a range attack targeting a single character that, instead of normal damage, deals 2 damage if the object is light or 3 damage if the object is heavy. Immediately after the attack resolves, KO the object.
SIDEBAR: These two actions are known as the “object actions”. Effects looking for an “object attack” identify when a character makes an attack using either of these actions.

Hide
At the end of your turn, if a heavy object is in this square and this character is or , you may place a hindering terrain marker here. At the beginning of your next turn, or immediately when no heavy object is in this square or no character occupies this square, remove the marker. (You do not need to physically place the marker. The heavy object serves as a reminder of it.) 

Note that you’ll be seeing a few parentheses in game text here and there to help explain any confusing bits or relevant bits that are part of other rules.

Above are the 10 inherent abilities that every character has (only 6 if you’re a Vehicle). These will be on the PAC to help new and veteran players to understand what their characters can do. They’re essentially “traits that every character has”, and combined with the powers and abilities on a character card, provide an (almost) complete picture of what a character can do. (Almost, only excluding things like abilities from resources, ID cards, equipment, or those granted by other characters, etc.)

Basic MOVE action, Basic CLOSE action, Basic RANGE action
We’ve found that new players are often understandably confused by the difference between RANGE actions and range attacks, and similarly for CLOSE and MOVE. While capitalizing RANGE when talking about actions should help, one thing that proved particularly confusing was the way we formatted some standard powers like Penetrating/Psychic Blast.

Current (2015) rules:
Give this character a range combat action. Damage from the attack is penetrating damage.

What attack was that, exactly? It’s implied, but certainly not clear.

New (2017) rules:
RANGE: Make a range attack that deals penetrating damage.

Now we no longer assume the range attack. Even though it sometimes adds more words, testing showed that HeroClix language is easier to understand if we were explicit about when you “make a range attack”. The worst offender was Pulse Wave, where it was very unclear at what point the attack is actually made and led to a lot of questions, and you’ll see the results of that soon.

Now, the general definition of a RANGE action (RANGE:) is that it’s an action that will have the character make a range attack somewhere in its text. Similarly for CLOSE and MOVE. Note that there are two exceptions, CLOSE Destroy and RANGE Destroy. Speaking of those…

CLOSE Destroy, RANGE Destroy, CLOSE Object action, RANGE Object action

At the moment, you can “combo” these effects with any kind of close or range attack. That led to plenty of rules questions about how destroying or throwing objects interacted with a wide variety of standard and special powers. These other powers may have all kinds of complicated effects, and fitting destroying or throwing objects into them was just piling on the simultaneous effects and need for individual rulings. One of our shared goals is to remove as much of this from the game as we reasonably can.

Making these their own CLOSE and RANGE actions cuts out a lot of the complication and confusion. They still “combo” with Charge and Running Shot like they always did, but can’t “combo” with most other effects anymore. Most notably, Hypersonic Speed, which we’ll talk about very soon.

Note that we have a new term “piece of blocking terrain” that means either a wall or square of blocking terrain. Also, the specific rules for how to use RANGE Destroy to destroy walls are still the same, so don’t worry. We’re trying to hit the most interesting highlights in these articles. Stuff like drawing lines of fire and the effects of terrain will be only slightly tweaked in the rulebook when it arrives.

Ok, Carry on! (Hard to resist that one…)

Keep on Clixin’!