One play that came up in our sessions recently made us wonder if we were making a mistake. It’d give us some closure to know if this was indeed legal.
To begin, we’re operating under the assumption that handing off cohorts is okay (even if there is an owner trait), and that other players can activate that cohort’s powers if in hand. Researching this a bit, we didn’t discover anything barring this so far. Kosher?
I should note that our Adowyn is a pretty selfless player. Early on he was pretty happy to recharge most of his hand to examine for other peoples’ explores. But then this evolved into a whole different animal once he started lending Leryn out. The poor wolf turned sheepdog—we being the sheep:
So imagine that we have Imrijka, Adowyn, Enora, Seelah and Seoni at a single location, and the players are playing in that order. Adowyn displays Leryn, collects him and recharges a card to examine. Now Imrijka knows what she is getting into on her turn. She explores. Say Adowyn examines again, and so Imrijika explores again somehow. Imrijka is now done and draws up, and Adowyn could have up to three cards left in her hand. On Adowyn’s turn, she passes Leryn to Enora. Enora uses Leryn to examine for Adowyn’s explores, perhaps 1-3 times. Adowyn concludes her turn and draws up. Enora begins by passing Leryn to Seelah and Seelah wolf-examines for Enora’s single explore. E draws up and Seelah passes Leryn to Seoni. Seoni examines a little for Seelah. Seelah finishes, and Seoni passes Leryn to Imrijka…
Of course, in play this chain would be frequently broken, right? Still doesn’t stop it from proving astonishingly useful. Having to move away or disperse due to the presence of something bad certainly opens the door for either having to blind explore a little or waste valuable time. But having to restart Leryn’s adventurer-shepherding over and over still reduces blind explores considerably. True, bunching up does present an opportunity for a villain to flee into the unknown, or for some other bad thing to happen, but it’s a different case when you know what is going to be there.
Honestly, on paper perhaps this would seem an impractical ploy, granted. But, especially when favoring targets such as barrier heavy locations, we are surprised what effect the border collie maneuver actually yields in the field. –Thanks to our Adowyn being so generous and fine-tuning the technique for unexpected variables.
Again, though, as here was the play whose legality caused in us the most doubt, we remain curious to know…If it’s a thing.
Thanks
This sounds legal to me. I'd be worried about the 'every character at this location' banes. But, since you'd see it coming, you could disperse in that case, I guess.
I think it's legal, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it addressed in a FAQ/errata.
Nothing prevents cohorts from being given with give a card.
Nothing prevents owner cards from being given with give a card. (In fact, there's an explicit rule that suggests otherwise, that an owner AND ONLY AN OWNER can treat an owned card as Basic.)
As the rules stand, the play is legal.