That's a fair question.

First of all, if Relay Orders did apply to Bail's commander effect, you would still place the affected character adjacent to Bail, not next to the character (e.g. Mouse) with Relay Orders. Adjacency is not a range and Relay Orders can only apply to the range part of a commander effect.

Now the "ally within 6 squares" part of Bail's commander effect obviously is a range in the usual sense of the term, so the reason why Relay Orders doesn't apply is a bit more complicated.


The classic example is the interaction (or lack thereof) between General Obi-Wan Kenobi's commander effect and Booming Voice (Mas Amedda). It's not exactly the same but shows the general principle.





If you assume that the "ally within 6 squares" part of GOWK's commander effect is a range, then if you have Mas Amedda with Booming Voice in your squad, the limit of 6 squares should become unlimited range. So as long as a follower can count to an ally somewhere on the map (no matter how far), they would get the +4/+4.

However, the requirement to have an ally within 6 squares is actually not a range in that sense. It's a condition. GOWK's commander effect does not have a range; it applies to followers regardless of where they are on the board and whether they can count to GOWK or not. The condition is not extended by Booming Voice. (This is the ruling which has come down to us from the official rules interpreters of Wizards of the Coast, the creators of SWM, so it's about as ironclad as it gets.)


The relevant part of Senator Bail's CE was intentionally written as a condition like GOWK, rather than a range like Thrawn. His CE doesn't have a range, it has a condition which requires him to have an ally within 6 squares to use it. It's a very fine distinction, and is obviously something that requires explanation. Perhaps it could be worded more clearly, but that is how we have done it. It's certainly useful to have a type of "range" that cannot be extended by Relay Orders or Booming Voice so the commander actually has to be close to the action.

I do think that Bail's CE as written is extended by Relay Orders. Here is why I think this is the case:

GOWK CE States:


This is essentially granting followers Synergy. Synergy (for example on Barris Offee, Jedi Knight) reads:


When you look at how GOWKs commander effect works, it works in two parts. He is granting other characters a buff, so long as they are within 6 of another ally. That is why the range cannot be buffed or relayed, because the range is dependent on the non-commanders being within range of each other, like synergy.

Now let's look at Thrawn:


Now over to Bail:


In summary:

In both cases the ability hinges on a range of 6 from the commander for the ability to pop off, which is why you can use relay orders, because the range is being counted as if the person were the commander. In the case of GOWK, the range is unlimited to the followers, but then they are restricted to the same rules of Synergy. GOWK cannot be extended because the condition of 6 is based on the follower's range, not the commander's. GOWK is not a valid comparison to Bail.

I understand that the "if" creates a condition. "if he has a Medium ally with a Force Rating within 6 squares," but that does not address the fact that Relay Orders is worded in such a way that Bail's commander effect would carry over to the Mouse Droid and then create those "if" conditions.

Relay Orders:
Relay Orders (Each allied commander can count distance from this character as well as from itself for the purpose of commander effects)

That's why I think the argument hinges on the "he," because then at least you can say that it's relative to Bail. But even then, "he" can be the person with Relay Orders, too.
Why does this not apply to the character with relay orders then, given the character with Relay Orders?

The main reason here being the rules, rules committee, the designer intent, all of the above say that is how it works.

But more to the point. There are lots of CEs, Special abilities, Force Powers, etc that can be somewhat confusing and have very complicated interactions when in use with other abilities. I think all of us that have played things incorrectly at times because we thought it worked one way and it worked a slightly different way.

At this point with Bail, it has been stated how the rules work with him His CE was designed (and worded) to be the same as the twilek jedi generals. And the Twilek jedi generals CE wording was designed and worded very specifically to not allow it to be extendable by mas/mouse/whatever.

I can see where it could be confusing, but it seemed that gandalf did a pretty good job of explaining it. And at the end of the day it just works how it works. WOTC left us a mess on some of the rules (even contradicting themselves on a few occasions), but as the rules committee we try and use precedents set by WOTC and build from there, although the game keeps getting more and more complicated with timing and the stacking of abilities and such.

Hope that helps

The glossary of Relay Orders is more detailed than the card text:



The distinction is between a range and a condition (which can include a range) which is well established in the game. Only ranges simplex can be extended by Relay Orders, and conditions (or the ranges in them) cannot be. At the end of the day, it does just come down to common consent in how the community has played the game even if an individual thinks it should work differently. Which can be frustrating for the individual, but we probably all have one rule or another we think should be different.

I would like to use better wording in the future though. Perhaps a clearer way for the CE to work would be "If a Medium ally with a Force rating has this character within 6 squares, once per turn on this character's turn, you may place that ally adjacent to this character." That would make the condition that you can count from the ally to Bail, rather than from Bail to the ally. They are the same in effect, but with the range from the ally it would be more intuitive that Relay Orders doesn't do anything, since it extends a range from the commander.

You do though because you understand how come GOWKs CE isn't extended by mas. Conditions aren't extendable by mouse droids or mas or any other way to extend things.

I think Gandalf does a great job of explaining it multiple times.

I also agree that it could have much longer more explicit wording, but that creates fitting on the card issues and such. If it were a special ability it could have a more explicit glossary entry, but the fact that it is a CE does limit how much info can currently be put out about it.

I appreciate that you can see that the wording is causing confusion. I'm really not trying to be malevolent.

All this said, we've played probably 6 games with Bail in the last week and he is pretty freakin good

Thanks.

I've been thinking about this and I think the confusion is a common one when there are exceptions like this: namely, that some people assume that every instance of "x" in a CE will be transformed to "y." It reminds me of the Yammosk's ability, which makes "faction-specific EFFECTS" into Yuuzhan Vong specific effects. Some people, seeing that, assume that any mention of a faction in a CE becomes Yuuzhan Vong. But if a faction is mentioned in a "condition," that doesn't get changed. So like Talon Kardde's CE doesn't apply to an all-YV squad, because that Fringe is in a condition and doesn't get changed.

Similarly with Relay Orders. It essentially replaces mentions of the commander directly related to the provision of the CE with "a character with Relay Orders." But the language in question is not directly related to who the CE is being provided to--it's a requirement for being able to use the CE. Therefore, the text doesn't get replaced.

I get that some people are confused about this--I suppose my frustration comes from the assumption that something needs to be changed because those people are denying that a thing works the way they've been told it works. As Jason said, this game is incredibly complex. There are lots of avenues for confusion. One reason we have the Rules Committee is to be a body that clears up the confusion so the people writing the abilities don't have to be perfect all the time. Would it be ideal if the designers were all well versed in the intricacies of the rules language so they never wrote things that are unclear? Absolutely. That's not the community we live in. We're always trying to figure out if something can be left alone with clarification or if something has to be errataed. We try to avoid errata, since that DOES cause more confusion. We strive for consistency, which is why we based wording on abilities that we know already work the way we want the ability to work. We don't always succeed, of course. But I want to acknowledge that it's a lot of responsibility and something we take seriously. We're not over here making up rules just because. We're trying to balance power levels with designer intent with the established meanings of words in the game. It's not magic, it's not a proclamation from on high. It's the result of careful consideration between two or more committee members thinking through the implications of each interpretation and making the best interpretation they can. We're not doing things to be confusing. We're trying to exist within a confusing world without having to rewrite every ability in the game.

In summary, the argument so far has been this:



Everyone acknowledges the wording is 'confusing', which I take to mean as not being clearly stated. Instead of making the wording crystal clear which would only require minor adjustments to Bail and Twi'lek General, the consensus seems that the lack of synergy between RO and Bail is because IF is acting as a modifier.

In English, the word IF does not actually change the interaction of Relay Orders and Bail, because of how RO is clearly worded.

For example: If you have 4 quarters, you have one dollar. vs. When you have 4 quarters, you have one dollar. vs. 4 quarters equals one dollar.

In any of the statements, how one acquires a dollar does not change because you put a modifier prior to it. If doesn't bring specific implications unless there is a clearly stated rule for that. Not attacking anyone, but words mean things.

Can we please add 'If' to the glossary terms to explain this interaction and others like it with examples?