This feels like such a simple rule but I don't remember where the rulebook specifies where check-independant (not "on x checks") and non-reaction (not "when you x") cards can be played or not played, for example, powers that display, heal, or examine.
I know that during encounters, check-independant cards generally can't be played
I have been running the game with the idea that check-independant cards can't be played after the end of turn phase has been started until the hour has been drawn and resolved, because that feels like it's "in-between turns", where only boardgame admin should be occurring (otherwise you could do weird stuff like interrupt halfway through a reset with a heal that shuffles the deck and changes what cards are drawn). So, for example, if I draw an armor or a healing potion during reset, I can't play it until the next player has drawn the hour and all the Start of Turn effects have resolved (like ones that cause encounters)
But tonight we played CotC 4A with 6 x Collapses in the hourglass 😬, and it seemed pretty cruel to rule "no instantly playing drawn armour" if I didn't have a definitive explanation of why a player can't play their armour card they just drew for a pertinent event that was about to occur
You are essentially correct in your interpretation of the time span during which you can't play check-independent and non-reaction cards. (Well-described!)
The Core Rulebook added the following to its definition of Display: "Displaying a card and immediately activating a power on it counts as playing it once, not twice." So, you can display a card and immediately activate one of its powers any time it's appropriate. It doesn't have to be displayed before you want to use it. Thus, if you took damage, you may display and use your armor to reduce that damage.
Cards can be played:
1. Without limitation in between steps of a turn as long as it directly affects the situation
2. During an encounter, check, or when suffering damage: whenever it directly affects the situation and no more than one card of each type is played (not counting those played “freely”). Whipstitch raises a salient point of you being allowed to display and immediately use an armor card due to that only counting as playing it once.
3. During a step of a turn but outside of an encounter/check/damage only when the card has explicit timing allowing you to play it at that time.
Cards can never be played:
1. Between turns
2. Between steps of an encounter
Remember that cards can only ever be played if they affect the situation. So even if you’re between steps of a turn you can’t play a card that wouldn’t do anything. For example, no playing Cure on yourself when you have no cards in your discards and no scourges that can be removed in place of healing.
I have to revisit this because I suspect I may still be ruling "check-independant" powers too strictly.
"Whenever it directly affects the situation" is unclear.
I was reading it to refer to keywords, such as on your combat check against a monster, you could only play powers that refer explicitly & inclusively to your combat checks against monsters, and those traits could be chained by what cards are played ("on your combat check, reveal to use strength" then would allow you to play cards that affect strength) but no other cards that do not refer to these traits.
My question is this:
Would I be able to play an Ambrosia to heal a character Drained during that combat check? Provided no other items had been played during that check?
I am beginning to think that the rule specifically means that you can't play Ambrosia if there are no scourges to heal
Discard to move another character to your location
Would I be able to play The Desert in order to bring another character to me so they could assist me with ally cards for the check? (But no blessings because I have just played one)
I am beginning to think that the rule specifically means that you can't play The Desert if there are no other alive characters
Discard to draw 3 cards, then recharge 3 cards. Then you may explore
Would I be able to play The Lady of Mysteries in order to get a more appropriate hand for the combat check? (I am assuming he rules say you cannot explore during an encounter somewhere)
I am beginning to think that the rule specifically means that you can't play The Lady of Mysteries if you have no cards in your deck and there are no cards in your location
Many cards that allow you to move, examine, or explore explicitly say that you cannot do so during an encounter. The fact that these two do not made me start to wonder if they could be played during one, and that I have been ruling this incorrectly.
I'll start with healing. It's been stated over and over that you can't heal in the middle of an encounter, combat or otherwise, even if failing the combat will kill you.
I seem to recall reading that cards that are one step removed from affecting your check aren't allowed. Thus, playing a spell that lets you search your deck for a weapon to use on your combat check wouldn't be allowed, even though you could argue it relates to the combat, because it's one step removed. The spell itself doesn't affect the combat. Same argument for cards that let you draw cards. Same with moving someone to your location so they can play cards that help locally. Their movement itself doesn't affect the combat, so I don't think it's allowed.
However, in the latter case, let's say you're alone at a location with the power, "If you are the only local character, the difficulty of combat checks is increased by 1d4." Then, moving someone to your location would affect the check. (If they can subsequently provide further help, that's a bonus.)
Someone else may be able to provide a line to the "one step removed" rule. (Or, they may tell me I'm wrong. That happens too.)
The card you play must directly impact the check itself, either by adding/removing traits, adding/removing dice or modifiers, adjusting the check’s difficulty, or automatically succeeding at the check. Those are the only* 4 things that count as affecting the check (* I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss anything). If the card requires a follow-up action to do one of those things (whether by you or someone else), or the card is unrelated to any of those things, then it cannot be played on a check.
RULES: AFFECTING THE SITUATION
In some situations, you are limited to playing cards or using powers
that affect or otherwise relate to the current situation. In these
cases, the things you do cannot require anyone to do something
else for your action to be meaningful—the things you do must
directly affect the situation. For example, let’s say that a character
is attempting a check using a power that adds 1 to her check for
each blessing in her hand, and a second character has a power that
allows him to give the first character a card. He could give her a
blessing, because that doesn’t require any other action to affect the
check. But he could not give her a card that can be played to draw
a blessing from the vault, because she would have to do something
else—in this case, play the card he gave her—to affect the check.
To go over the examples:
- Getting rid of a scourge MIGHT do one of the 4 things (e.g. getting rid of Drained affects the modifiers on the check provided at least one die is being rolled, and affecting the modifiers is one of the 4 allowed things). So you can play Ambrosia to get rid of Drained on the character making the check. They do need to actually be Drained or have some other scourge whose removal impacts one of the 4 things I listed. If you use Ambrosia for relevant scourge removal you are also allowed to heal during a check since the card specifies and/or. This is one of the rare cases where healing during a check is allowed; normally healing isn’t relevant to a check because it doesn’t impact any of the 4 things I listed.- Moving to let an ally provide local help requires a follow-up action by someone else so that fails the requirement that the thing directly affects the check
- Drawing cards requires a follow-up action to play any cards that you draw, so again it doesn’t directly do one of the 4 things I listed and cannot be played during a check.
There are some exceptions. For example, the location Trail has the power “The difficulty of checks to defeat is increased by the number of distant characters.” If you are at the Trail, making a check to defeat a bane, and at least one other character is distant, then you can play The Desert to move a distant character to the Trail since the act of moving itself will cause the difficulty of the check to change with no further follow-up actions needed.
That all sounds very annoying and I would probably rule that people can play The Desert, Lady of Mysteries, Djinn, etc,
during an encounter anyway if that character would have reasonably thought to have used it before the encounter because of how bogged down the game can get with power upkeep (sometimes we start our turn before the previous player has finished EoT/Recovery/Reset because of how long some sessions can drag on for) which isn't necessarily a flaw with the game but because I am not playing with hyperefficient rules-minded players who don't always remember every situation their cards can and can't be used in. But it's good to know in general how the RAW is supposed to work, and that's cool how scourge healing interacts with the check like that.
That all sounds very annoying and I would probably rule that people can play The Desert, Lady of Mysteries, Djinn, etc,
during an encounter anyway if that character would have reasonably thought to have used it before the encounter because of how bogged down the game can get with power upkeep (sometimes we start our turn before the previous player has finished EoT/Recovery/Reset because of how long some sessions can drag on for) which isn't necessarily a flaw with the game but because I am not playing with hyperefficient rules-minded players who don't always remember every situation their cards can and can't be used in. But it's good to know in general how the RAW is supposed to work, and that's cool how scourge healing interacts with the check like that.
It's a reasonable house rule to speed up gameplay, but I would suggest that if you use that house rule, that you play it exactly as you worded the reasoning: make those plays retroactively take place before the encounter instead of during it. If someone draws a card that provides local-only support and you're like "well shoot if I knew that before I explored I would've played The Desert to bring you over here" then retroactively say that you played The Desert before exploring to move them. Said play wouldn't count as your blessing during the encounter step or check, and any powers that interact with cards being played during an encounter or check wouldn't interact with you playing The Desert (because it was played "before").
That way you can have the flow/speed you desire without introducing mind-bending corner cases. There are some very good reasons why moving during an encounter is generally not allowed, particularly if the character doing the encounter is the one moving. Other cards, if allowed to be played during encounters when they are not meant to be, may cause interactions with characters to allow for game-breaking things like infinite free additional explorations or examining every card in every location.
The other reason to not allow free play during encounters themselves is the ability to "cheese" damage by playing a bunch of unrelated cards to empty your hand, knowing that they will be potentially recharged instead of discarded (e.g. recovery checks) if you come across something you're pretty sure you won't win against.
If you want a good "rule of thumb" for whether you can play a card during a check, here it is:
If I play this card and then immediately roll the dice, have my chances of success changed? If yes, you can play the card, if no, you cannot.
The rule of thumb above covers 99% of things you'll actually care about doing during a check
The "rule of thumb" for whether you can play a card during an encounter step (but outside of a check) is a bit different, and easier. The cards you can play outside of a check but still during an encounter need to directly relate to that step somehow, which should be obvious just by looking at the card. For example, you can play armor to reduce damage if you're suffering damage, or you can play a card that lets you evade if you're in the evasion step, or you can play a card that lets you ignore before/after acting effects if the bane has any such effects.
Affecting the Situation
In some situations, you are limited to playing cards or using powers that affect or otherwise relate to the current situation. In these cases, the things you do cannot require anyone to do something else for your action to be meaningful—the things you do must directly affect the situation.
This rule says that this is a limitation applied to the act of playing cards in some situations making this a conditional rule.
Your Turn
Take your turn by going through the following steps in order. You can play cards and use powers without limit in between these steps, as long as they don’t say they can only be played at certain times. You cannot play cards or use powers between turns.
But then interestingly, this rule says that outside of steps, check-independant and non-reaction cards can be played without limit.