Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

So this is a really shady scenario and I need a good reason why this would/wouldnt happen.

A level 9 cleric uses Wand of Dowsing then Searches for Divine Intervention. While he's searching, I use steal a level putting him to level 8. Before finding Divine Intervention, he simply sells all his armor for a level (its during his turn) putting him back to level 9. He then claims victory. Does that make sense? His logic is that its his turn and if I can interrupt his dowsing search with steal a level he can sell. Would Dowsing have to resolve first or is her right?

And loud arguments definitely did not solve this one.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

You can't interrupt his dowsing search. One card has to resolve before another is played unless a card explicitly says otherwise.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

so with that said im assuming another level 8 cleric cant use go up a level so that he could share the win?

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Nope! Not unless he did so before he went searching for Divine Intervention.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

gotcha. thanks

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

In this thread Andrew said the following:

So you can make him lose his class.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Hm. I might be wrong. Curses and GUALs can be played at anytime, so I'm not clear on that now that I think about it. I'm almost certain he wouldn't be able to stop Dowsing in order to sell items though.

Edit: reading that thread, I was definitely wrong.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

I think in the scenario mentioned it would have to go like this:

(Level 9 Cleric) Player A plays Wand Of Dowsing. While Player A is searching, Player B plays Steal a Level. Steal a Level does not go into effect until Player A has chosen his card. As soon as Player A picks his card, Steal a Level goes into effect causing Player A to drop to level 8. Then Divine Intervention would come into play and bring Player A back to being level 9.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Nope.

Player goes down the level immediately. It does not wait until the Player A finds his card.
Underlined the relevant, to me, section.

Same end result.
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...6&postcount=14

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Oh, I interpreted that as you could play cards while they were searching, but they wouldn't take effect till after the player selected their card, and since they were played before a certain card was selected, they would take effect first before the card that was chosen would.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

The way I understand it from more recent rulings regarding use of Wand of Dowsing during the reasonable time period at the end of combat, if the player declares they are looking for a certain card that you know is in the discards, then you need to let them find the card before another card can be played. If the player is instead looking through the deck reading cards to find the best one, then you can consider Wand of Dowsing resolved and continue the game as they search.

Thus, this would mean the Level 9 Cleric who played Wand of Dowsing could declare he's getting Divine Intervention and there's little chance to stop him (Annihilation could work, though).

This would seem to be a good way to make the combat rulings consistent with the older ruling of Andrew's...

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Before I start getting quoted out of context by people on both sides of this discussion, let me tell you how I would rule *in this specific case*, because it involves some weird effects. Notably, the "play immediately" and "may be the winning level" clauses on Divine Intervention muck things up -- that's a combination found almost nowhere else in Munchkin.

So, in this specific case, a Cleric who is dumpster diving for Divine Intervention to give himself the winning level must actually find and play that card before the level takes effect, even if he doesn't declare that he is searching for that specific card. (Note that nothing in the Wand of Dowsing text requires its player to reveal the card he's looking for before he finds it, so the other players may have to infer his intent.) Other players may interfere by playing "lose a level" cards before Divine Intervention is pulled from the deck. Once it has been pulled, however, it must be played immediately, so it's too late for other interference cards -- and if the other players DO interfere, the WOD player is perfectly within his rights to change strategies and grab another card instead.

This, to me, strikes the right balance of fairness and cleverness. I welcome comments on the subject.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Works for me for the Munchkinly balance you cited.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

To explain further why I ruled somewhat differently for the Wand of Dowsing in combat example: if a player can clearly articulate within a reasonable time what he intends to do to interfere with a fight, I think it's unpleasantly rules-lawyerly to say that he loses the right to do so because of an inability to complete the physical action within an arbitrarily small time window. "I'll play my Wand of Dowsing to pull Humongous from the discards and play it on the Gazebo" is a clear statement of intent, and actually FINDING the Humongous card is, in my opinion, secondary to being able to say that you're doing it. (If the Humongous card is not, in fact, in the discards, that's a separate issue. At that point, you can't say "Well, I found Ancient, so I'll use that instead" -- that's too close to "I'll play the Wand of Dowsing and find SOMETHING to use against you," which is not at all in the spirit of the "reasonable time" rule.)

Since there's no "reasonable time" stricture on playing Divine Intervention -- in fact, just the opposite, since it must be played immediately -- my in-combat reasoning, above, is beside the point of the original question.

BTW, everything I said in the first paragraph is equally true of a physically challenged player who actually just takes a long time to make plays. Someone who tells such a player, "Well, you didn't actually play that card from your hand in a reasonable time, so sorry, I win," is a cad and a bounder and I would back up anyone who tossed that guy out on his derriere. In an actual Munchkin tournament, that sort of Wheaton's Law violation would be grounds for disqualification.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

The only issue I have here is that Wand of Dowsing ends with the text telling you to discard Wand of Dowsing only when you take the other card. I've never really understood why we are allowed to interrupt Wand of Dowsing to play another card (such as a Curse to lose a level or a Race) while still resolving Wand of Dowsing, as you cannot do this with any other card effect.

The combat situation did sort this whole thing out nicely in my head, but now I'm back to being just as confused as I used to be regarding this ruling.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

with regards to the situation, so can he sell stuff in response to steal a level then go back to lvl 9, then find DI for game?

The logic there is that it was during his turn and not in combat so that why he argued for it. How do i argue against it?

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

That is a very good point, if others can play cards and they resolve while the searching player is looking for a card, then the player searching for the card should be able to play a GUAL from his hand or sell Items before he finds a card he wants to draw too.

I doubt the above is the case, but I find it difficult to fault the logic.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

i know but something feels off about it.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

You're searching through the deck, and can't do anything else. Other people aren't searching through the deck. If you want to take your time, you have to deal with the consequences.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

what do you mean taking ur time and dealing with the consequences. I get that taking his time allows us to play steal/lose a level cards, but their logic is it is during their turn so they assume it could be done at any point during their turn (other than combat)

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

The point that I'm responding to is the notion that the player who has chosen to search through the discards can take other actions while they search through the discards. If you're hunting through the discards, that's what you're doing, and you can't do anything else. If you take too long and give people lots of time to pound on you during that, well, that's just too bad. Other people get to do stuff (to you and to others) while you're hunting through the discards because they aren't doing anything at that time that would prevent them from doing so.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Still seems odd that others would get to take actions DURING the resolution of a card, given that the general Munchkin rule is that cards must resolve as they are played before something else can take place, but the ruling is clear, so there it is.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

General rules can be superseded by specific cases, and this is one.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Would this also mean that if I'm searching the discards and someone hits me with a curse, I _can't_ use a Wishing Ring to cancel the curse because I'm still searching the discards? That feels both Munchkinly evil but also kinda wrong...

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

No, it does not mean that.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

what about playing go up a level in response to a curse. If so, how is that different from selling stuff?

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

You cannot play a GUAL in response to the Curse. The reason you can play a Wishing Ring is because it is specifically intended to cancel the Curse.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

But another player would be able to use a GUAL in response to dowsing. Correct?

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Yes. The way I now understand it is that while you are searching a discard pile, other players can do things that could be done 'at any time', but you can't do those things until you are done searching.

The only cards you could play while looking through the discards would be cards that react to something the other players did, such as playing a Wishing Ring to stop a Curse another player just hit you with.

Hopefully I'm not making any more mistakes here, as I'm fairly certain I finally understand the intent.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

That certainly sounds logical enough. It also feels right - playing something in response to an action is certainly different than initiating a new action.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

1. Can I play "Annihilation" or use Mask of Munchkin to cansel the Curse?
2. If I was cursed while I'm searching card with Wand, can I take a Wishing Ring from discards to cancel the Curse?
3. Does the curse go to discards immediately if I haven't finished search a card with Wand? Can I take this Curse from discards?

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

In rereading this thread, I think I'm going to alter my ruling.

Playing Wand of Dowsing and retrieving a card are two halves of a single action, not two separate actions. Any cards played on the munchkin who is dowsing take effect when the dowsing is completed, not during that process.

Playing the card you pull from the discards is a separate action and takes place after the resolution of the Wand of Dowsing action and any cards played during that action, UNLESS the card that you pull is a "play immediately" card such as Hoard! or Divine Intervention. The "play immediately" instruction supersedes the usual sequence and takes effect immediately after the card is retrieved, before any other cards have a chance to act.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

in other words you say NOTHING (except Annihilation maybe) can stop 9 Level Cleric to win the game if he played WoD and DI is in discard?

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Not quite nothing, but pretty darn close. OTOH, the same is true if DI comes up some other way.

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Second Grej question is still important. Can I take a Wishing Ring from discards to cancel the Curse played during my search? (Change Class for example)

Re: Wand of Dowsing to Divine Intervention
 

Use your common sense. If you state you are using Wand of Dowsing to pull a specific card and are digging through the pile for that card, you're bound by what you've declared. If you haven't declared a card and someone decides to hit you with a Curse, then yeah, you can pull a Wishing Ring to cancel that Curse.