Selling Items When A Curse/Trap Occurs

[FrogNipple]

Greetings all! My name is Keith and I am a Munchkin Bites and Munchkin Bites Pants Macabre owner.

*For those of you searching the forum to settle a dispute or answer a question, even though the question was born out of Munchkin Bites, the answers apply to other versions that have traps and curses.*

Recently playing we had a dispute about when one could sell items during their turn.

The rules say: "Selling Items: During your turn, you may discard items worth 1,000 gold pieces and immediately go up one level. ... You may not sell, trade, or steal items DURING a fight."

During a zealous player's turn, he kicked down a door and it was a trap/curse to lose one item. He had one item in play and one in his hand whose total gold was worth 1,000 gold pieces. So he tried to sell the item in play and the item in his hand to go up a level to dodge the curse/trap.

His interpretation of the rules took them to mean that anytime except during combat one can sell items to go up a level. So since getting cursed or trapped isn't combat, he could do it.

I said no because when curses and traps come out face up they apply immediately. So logically, the flow of time would dictate that one doesn't decide to sell items until there's a reason, like losing an item from a curse. So the curse applies and then you don't have an item to sell.

Furthermore, if we were to use his interpretation of the rules, then we should be allowed to do other things "in the past" like "oh, I sold those items you're taking now last turn so... my bad, you can't have them... and I go up a level." Which would be garbage.

Thoughts?

[RevBob]

Your interpretation is correct: once the curse hits, it is immediately resolved. After that resolution, if he has stuff he wants to sell for a level, he's more than welcome to do so.

Your friend's interpretation is a popular mistake, typically seen in fans of certain CCGs, and it is the reason you will often see the "Munchkin has no stack" mantra here.

[Andrew Hackard]

In general, one action must be resolved before another action can take place. Pretty much anything that requires you to say "Before you do that, I'm going to do THIS" is not legal by the Munchkin rules.

There are a few cards that are interrupts: Loaded and Reloaded Die can affect die rolls before the event that caused the die roll has been resolved. Wishing Ring negates a Curse or Trap as it happens. Annihilation and similar cards actually say they CANCEL cards, which is a powerful effect found very few times in Munchkin.

[Munchykin]

Logically you can't kick down a door and get hit with a curse or have another player use a curse on you and then tell the curse, "Hold on a minute Mr Curse. Before you actually effect me I'm going to run to the store and sell something and when I come back you can finish effecting me."

[thedag]

If someone tried that trick in one of our games I would seriously consider never inviting them over again. Sure being competitive and doing what you can within the rules to win fine but even some of the most competitive people I've played games with before would not try that trick.

[patapwned24]

so is this the same as levels if you draw a face up monster you cant play a gual or sell items so the combat will make you win the game

[Munchykin]

You can't sell items during combat no matter what. You can play GUAL any time you want as long as it doesn't make you level 10. If you're in combat at level 8 you can play GUAL to get level 9 and then try to win the combat for the winning level.