quicksilver89's page

Another question about the Portable Alter. If you discard it for the d6, do you still get the +1 for that check or just the d6?

Also, if you do not have it displayed and you suddenly have to make a divine check, I would assume you can display it because it effects that check.

I also assume if you have it displayed you can discard it for the d6 because it effects the check.

I also assume that you can display it and immediately discard it because it effects the check, or would that count as playing two items on a check? Does discarding it count as playing an item?

If you play it and immediately discard it for a check? Does that make playing it retroactively illegal because now the +1 went away so it wasn't directly effecting the check?

Obviously if you play it is response to a check it counts as playing an item, but it does not if it is already out, correct?

Are my assumptions correct?

I am so happy with the errata, I think it really needed it. I was worried because my druid friend just got to quest 4. His favorite thing to do is play card draw, so he is going to love Restoration. He also likes playing optimally so he would have gone for this combo if it still worked.

He had done nothing to his deck towards the combo but already was running a major cure (can do the same thing as staff of minor healing if there is another character at your location). He was also running an Augury, meaning he can see the whole location before exploring and keep playing it each time until the card he wanted was on top. Therefore he never had to take any chance of exploring into a card he didn't want.

All he needed to pull of the combo was 1 skill feat into the +2 to wisdom checks or recharges, a cat (which he already wanted), and 2 Restoration. Or just a Robe of Runes and a Restoration. Either way it was not going to be very difficult for him unless we got unlucky and could never find Restorations.

So I am very glad that Restoration has been changed and I don't have to worry about our future quests becoming stupid. Thanks to the developers who put in the time and careful consideration towards this situation. Also thanks to Orbis for bringing the problem to people's attention, otherwise my druid friend would have just started doing this combo mid game (he's too analytical to have missed it for very long).

Character Name: Lini
Role Card: Wild Warden
Skill Feats: +4 Wisdom
Power Feats: Proficiency with weapons, Reveal an animal for d4+3
Card Feats: +1 Weapon, +2 Ally
Weapons: Heavy Crossbow
Spells: 1 Augury, 2 Cure, 1 Holy Light, 1 Inflict, 1 Major Cure
Armors:
Items: Luckstone, Wand of Envervation
Allies: Giant Badger, Monkey, Sabretooth Tiger, 2 toad
Blessings: Calistria, Gozreh, Irori, Lamashtu

Character Name: Kyra
Role Card: Healer
Skill Feats: Strength +2, Wisdom +2
Power Feats: Hand Size +1, Weapon Proficiency, Heal 1d4+2, Recharge Blessing of Serenrae
Card Feats: Spell +2, Blessing +1
Weapons: Flaming Mace +1, Longsword +2
Spells: Aid, 2x Cure, Inflict, Strength
Armors: Magic Full-Plate, Magic Half-Plate
Items: Holy Candle
Allies: Poog Of Zarongel
Blessings: Abadar, Gorum, Lamashtu, 3x Sarenrae, Zarongel

Character Name: Seoni
Role Card: Celestial Sorcerer
Skill Feats: Charisma +4
Power Feats: Arcane +d6 +2, automatic recharge Items, If you would fail a check by 1, you may bury a card to succeed
Card Feats: 2x Spell, Item
Weapons:
Spells: Augury, Frost Ray, Incendiary Cloud, Lightning Bolt, Toxic Cloud
Armors:
Items: Masterwork Tools, Wand of Scorching Ray, Sihedron Medallion, Wand of Enervation
Allies: Father Zantus, Sage, Standard Bearer, Toad
Blessings: Abadar, Irori, Lamashtu, 2x parasma

Character Name: Harsk
Role Card: Sniper
Skill Feats: Dexterity +4
Power Feats: Hand Size +1, Add 1d4+2 to Combat Check, Recharge Ranged Weapons
Card Feats: Armor, Ally, Blessing
Weapons: Allying Dart, Deathbane Light Crossbow +1, Light Crossbow +1, Longbow +1, Shock Longbow +1
Spells:
Armors: Hide Armor of Fire Resistance, Snakeskin Tunic
Items: Masterwork Tools, Spyglass, Staff of Minor Healing
Allies: Black Arrow Ranger, Shalelu Andosana
Blessings: Calistria, Erastil, Iomedae, Lamashtu, Shelyn, Torag

I would like to see a comment from the Dev team whether infinite loops with this card is intended or not. I think a house rule of no more than 2 Rejuvenations a turn seems fine. Two so if you have 2 in your deck and you draw them at the same time, you aren't penalized, it just keep you from replaying the same one more than once and going infinite. The only 1 in your deck rule is kinda hard because if you have 1 and encounter the other, now you cannot acquire it to give to another player.

Also, Staff of minor healing heals back a random card, so if your discard pile is huge you're not going to be able to cherry pick your healed card. Not sure if that was part of your original "exploit" but anyways.

I am not sure you under stand how it works, you cast staff of minor healing as many times as you want and can draw your entire discard pile into your hand every turn. It doesn't matter if you can't get back the exact one you want, because you get them all back.

A nastier version of that could take out your ability to cure, leaving you doomed.

Not at all, simply use staff of minor healing and restoration to bring it right back to your hand. Also there is no need to cure, it's nearly impossible to die.

You can play a blessing, perhaps a blessing of desna, if you really want to ensure you recharge them. And if you don't recharge and go broken? Not much of a problem, you still drew 2 cards off of it which is great.

If you draw those three cards in your initial hand, you can only discard two cards per turn. It will take 7 turns to discard down to 0 cards left in your deck where you can begin the exploit.

Hmm, if there only some sort of card that could draw through your deck faster, then recharge to the bottom. Perhaps some sort of card that you are already playing in your deck. Some sort of restoration like card.

Also you don't just have to be sitting there the whole game discarding your hand and doing nothing to get to the combo. You could actually be using all those cards to explore and give blessings and whatnot like normal. The fact that restoration is a great card on it's own is what makes this problematic. You can build a great deck, that when it gets low, also says "I beat an entire location every turn".

eventually you will probably hit something makes you bury a couple of cards. And when it does, wouldn't you be dead?

You'll have a 15 card hand, which will give you tons of buffs, taking enough damage to go through that would probably be near impossible. Also you could have armors or armor like things. And even then you could be at the same location as someone else who could cure you. Seems very difficult to die.

Spoiler alert: This deals with the "Here Comes the Flood" scenario.

When my group played through the flood scenario, where you have to save more allies than the snake eats, once we knew we had saved enough that we were guaranteed victory, we didn't bother to save others that we knew about but didn't want for our decks.

We knew there were 15 allies, and you have to save at least as many as the snake eats. We rescued 7, then on the 8th we didn't bother saving him, we just let him go back to the box because we were guaranteed victory whether we saved him or not. We also used Harsk to find another. We didn't want him for our deck so we let the snake eat him because we had already guaranteed victory.

I think it was weird to have a guaranteed victory without the scenario ending. I also don't like how we could just not bother saving people and still have the guaranteed win.

The scenario calls for shuffling X henchmen, X blessings, and X allies together, where X is the number of locations, and then giving 3 to each location. This guaranteed we know the exact ally count.

So I propose a slight change. Start by shuffling 2X allies and 2X blessings together, giving you a pile of 4X cards. Take half of these (2X) and shuffle them together with X henchmen and then give 3 to each location.

This will give the same probability distribution of allies and blessings, but with the added effect that you will not know how many allies there are exactly. Even if you give out more or less allies than normal, it still doesn't change the difficulty. With less allies you find and rescue less, but the snake also eats less. With more allies you find and rescue more, but the snake eats more.

So this just makes it so you don't know how many allies there are, so you have to keep trying to save them throughout the whole scenario, without altering the mechanics of the fight or making it any easier or harder. Do other people like this idea, or am I alone in thinking this is an easy improvement.

Oh god, I didn't even think about staff of minor healing, nice catch! Yes, that gives you back every card in your discard pile whenever you want. Oh my god. Miss that recharge on Restoration? No problem, just staff it back! That also gives you an ally, a blessing, and a spell to help you out each combat. This card seems so insane the more you think about it and realize more stupid things you can do.

It really looks like this card is going to need an errata. I haven't played with it yet, but the scenarios seem mind blowing.

Orbis Orboros wrote:

Restorations give you anything you recharge right back.

How do you figure? Recharging puts it on the bottom of your deck. Restoration lets you draw cards from the top.

I am pretty sure he was talking about having a deck with almost no cards left in it.

If you have a deck with 1 card in it, then you can play any card that recharge's, such as the druid's ally to explore again. You now have a two card deck. Play a Restoration drawing the two cards, getting back the card you just played and recharging Restoration. You now have a 1 card deck. Recharge your ally again for a explore. Cast another Restoration drawing your first Restoration and your ally leaving you with a 1 card deck. Repeat as often as you like.

This seems ridiculously overpowered to me. Even if you take away the extra cards mentioned above, you can still get free explores until you fail to recharge. If you have a very good chance to recharge, then you can still abuse this extensively, probably becoming far more powerful they they intended with no changes to your deck other than just adding Restorations.

Fortunately the spells like strength have been errated to stay in front of you the whole turn, otherwise you could play strength infinite times each turn. As well as taking infinite explores.

As printed I look forward to playing this in my Kyra deck:
1) Start with one card in deck.
2) Play some strengths.
3) Explore.
4) Recharge blessing of serenrae to give me an extra die on the check. (2 cards in deck)
5) Recharge Restoration, drawing blessing of serenrae plus random card (probably another serenrae) (1 card in deck).
6) Recharge a blessing of serenrae to explore again (2 cards in deck).
7) Recharge a blessing of serenrae for +1 die on check (3 cards in deck).
8) Recharge Restoration, drawing Restoration and blessing of serenrae (2 cards in deck).
9) Recharge Restoration, drawing Restoration and blessing of serenrae (1 cards in deck).
10) Recharge blessing of serenrae to explore again.
11) Go to step 4, we are now back in the same station with 1 card in deck.

That gives me infinite explores, plus a blessing to use for a check on each of those explores. Starting with strengths also makes me quite powerful.

Now what are the problems with this? First it takes no unusual cards, I am already running blessing of serenrae for sure. And strength is a pretty good card as well, but isn't even necessary.

I do need to start with 1 card in my deck, but if you are trying to set up this scenario, that is easy to do. This also makes me dangerously low if I do take some unexpected damage and discard my whole hand. However than can be mitigated by having someone with a cure at your location. You'll always have 3 cards in your deck after an encounter so they shouldn't need to cure you a whole lot.

The biggest problem with this is ensuring those Restorations recharge. If you have wisdom maxed, that is a d12+6 to get a 14, which isn't very good. The poster above included all those extra cards to ensure the recharge. This could also be played with the druid, who can add a d4+2 to their recharge attempt, making them more likely to recharge, and their explores can come from recharging an ally. Their ally can also be a cat to help them even more with recharging (if I remember cat correctly). They cannot get the extra die each combat though.

So in summary, yes you can go infinite if you really try. However you can still abuse it greatly even if you don't try. Also, the card is still really good on its own, even without a small deck. Now I have not played with this card yet, but it seems to me that is probably overpowered by a good amount.

Perhaps since the encounter has already started when you do "before the encounter" it could be changed to "at the beginning of the encounter" or perhaps "start of the encounter". Likewise have an end of the encounter instead of after the encounter. This thread makes it clear that the entire sequence is the encounter, so doing before and after effects during is quite confusing, as is doing "when encountering" before "before encountering"

On the card Amiri, you use the term and/or. Why not use it here? In other places such as Harsk's peek ability, you use or to mean one or the other but not both (we know it's not both because he has a later ability to give both). On Amiri you use and/or to mean one or the other or both. Why use or to mean both when you have precedent for using or to be mutually exclusive as well as precedent for using and/or when you mean either or both?

Now sure some players may have a question about being forced to do it twice, however I think the confusion would be far less. I think as it is currently worded, the majority of players would get it wrong, while if worded with an and, only a minority would even question it. Of course you could easily have used and/or to have no confusion at all.

The fact that you used and/or in another place made me positive that if you had meant and/or you would have used it here, and thus the only valid interpretation of this must be an exclusive or.

How is a player suppose to know, beyond random guessing, when you mean or to be mutually exclusive or not when you use or in different ways with absolutely no way to be able to tell which way you are using it?

It's not a temporary character. I play with different people who can't all meet at the same time, so I am often jumping around helping people get quests that they need. I would prefer a more linear progression, but if I do go back to help someone else get the quest, I was wondering how legit it would be to get the weapon I could not use when I did it the first time. I'll probably just play it safe and not get the weapon, it was only a slight upgrade for me and I'll probably get another one soon enough.

What about a scenario that give you loot cards. For example if you passed on a weapon that required proficiency and you later got proficiency. Then you went back and redid the quest that gave the weapon with someone who has not done it before. They then get the weapon as their reward and trade it to you. Is this violating the spirit of the game?

Just as a little mental exercise, let's take a hypothetical item that says: "Discard for +X to combat where X is the number of cards in your deck". Don't worry if this is balanced or not, it's just a hypothetical card. Now from a rule's standpoint, this card is fine right? Pretty straight forward about what it does.

However if you were to Cure yourself before using the item, it would change your attack power. So now Cure effects the check. Would having an item like this allow Cure to be played during a check? Cure effects the check, but only indirectly. Strength also effects the check, but also indirectly (although not as indirectly as the scenario above).

I know the above scenario is made up, but there will be new cards in the future and theoretically some of them could effect combat very indirectly like this. It would be nice to get a more precise definition about what effecting a check means. It would be very odd to not be able to play a card during a combat check normally, but if using a specific card you could (like in the scenario above).

It seems odd to me to have a rule that during checks only cards that effect that check can be played. I am not sure about what scenarios it is trying to prevent. Sure it makes cure ever so slightly less powerful but that hardly seems like it needs this special rule. All this rule does is seem to add unnecessary ambiguity.

It is ambiguous. Unfortunately a lot of the rules in this game are and you need to figure out what the intentions of the developers were.

It seems most people have come to the consensus that it can be played both inside and outside a check.

I do wish the rules for this game were better defined and less ambiguous.

I do not know where you are getting this idea that "or" means "and". They are two very separate words and do not mean the same thing.

The statement "I can have milk with breakfast or dinner" means that you can have it with one, but not both. If you wanted to say you could have milk with both, the correct way would be to say "I can have milk with breakfast and dinner". If "or" was correct here, then being more specific like "I can have milk with both breakfast or dinner" would be correct, which obviously makes no sense, in the same way that "I can have milk with either breakfast and dinner" makes no sense.

"Or" means one or the other. "And" mean both. There isn't really any ambiguity here. To use "or" when you mean "and" is simply incorrect.

If you look at the Barbarian, who's movement is very similar to Lem's exchange in timing. It clearly uses "and/or" to be very specific that you can do one or both. One would imagine that if Lem's exchange was one or both they would have used the same wording here.

So you say Harsk is understandable by context, because "it's hard to imagine a situation where you'd NOT want to look at both if you could". I could just as easily apply that logic to Lem, he would always want to be able to use that ability twice. I think reasoning that Lem can use the ability twice just because it wouldn't be very good if he could only use it once per turn, is not the proper way to figure out what it would mean. Cards do what they say and don't do what they don't say. Don't add the word "and" to the card just because you think the ability would be better. "Don't add words to the cards :P"

However Mike Selinker does not say that "or" means "and" here. "Or" means one or the other but he is making this ruling on the basis of card memory. Now the "or" states that you can choose one but not both. Which means that in order to function as written it needs to have memory. However, despite saying that it needs memory, they are arbitrarily deciding that it doesn't. I do not understand how you are supposed to tell when something should have memory and when it doesn't.

Now I think the ability would be great if it was usable twice a turn. And I would be fine with them saying that it was a typo or something. What I cannot understand is arguments saying "or" means "and" or this card arbitrarily has no memory while other similar cards do.

Mammy Graul does not state that she has memory, and I don't think any card does.

Are we just supposed to guess when a card has memory and when it doesn't?

Also I guess this brings up Harsk's ability to look at the top (or bottom) card. This is worded identically to lem's ability. So am I correct that Harsk can look at the top, then since the card forgets he looked at the top he can look at the bottom?

Yeah, I don't get that cards have no memory.

So if your at the academy, do you get multiple free explores, since the card can't remember if you have explored here or not yet?

Is it impossible to defeat Mammy Graul, since the card has no way to remember if it has been defeated before?

The "cards have no memory" statement just doesn't make sense to me. Sure they are just paper, but players have memory. In fact it seems like it is necessary for players to remember the state of certain cards, even some cards like Mammy Graul that get shuffled away and encountered many turns later.

It seems like invoking the "cards have no memory" rule here and not other places is completely arbitrary? How do you expect people to be able to know the rules when the rules are arbitrary with no way to know when the developers want to say it follows a rule or not?

I also have a question about Lem's power feat. On the ability that allows you to exchange a card at the beginning of your turn, it is upgradeable to "or end of your turn". There is some disagreement within our group about what this means. Does it mean you get to do it twice, at both the beginning and end of your turn or does it mean you can only do it once, at the begging or end, but not both.

Thanks, that does clear that up.

While you can choose to fail any check to acquire a boon, getting blessing of the gods is not a check, it specifically says none. So I am still confused if you can choose not to acquire it.

You can't play spells during the reset phase or start of turn phase? Where does it say that? I do not remeber seeing it written in the rules, FAQ or any threads.

I see it mentioned that spells can be played anytime, but apparently that excludes while exploring, or start or turn, or end of turn. That's pretty much all there is to a turn. I have to ask myself when CAN you play spells? It seems like you never get the option to since every time is an exclusion to the "anytime" rule. Is there ever a legal time to cast cure?

Also this did not clear up my strength question. Is strength's ability a restriction since it modifies a check? Or is it not because it doesn't modify a specific check.

I have read lots of threads and similar things have been brought up but it is still not completely clear when exactly you can play certain things. I just wanted to go over several examples to ensure I am understanding it correctly.

Cure:

Can Play:
Anytime that is not during an encounter.
Before, between, or after start or end of turn effects.
Multiples in a row, since the "multiple of one card type" only applies during encounters and for checks.

Cannot Play:
During an encounter.
After you explore and see a monster, but before you roll for the check.
After you roll for the check, but before you discard for damage.

Strength:

Can Play:
During an encounter when that character is about to make a strength check.
Even if one is already in effect from a earlier check.

Cannot play:
Multiples during a single check.
On a check that does not use strength.

Not Sure (need some clarification on these):
Can this be played when not making a strength check since it does not apply to a specific check? For example could you play one before your first explore, thus allowing you to play another spell during a check while exploring? Can you play multiples of these before your first explore? Reading the threads it was rather ambiguous about if this spell could be played outside of a check or not.

So for example, could my turn consist of, cure myself, strength myself, strength myself again, explore, use aid to defeat?

Can you choose to fail at getting a Blessing of the Gods if you encounter it? I know you can choose not to attempt to acquire boon, but it has no check to acquire and instead says you automatically acquire it. This could be useful once you are able to banish basic cards.