When I pulled out the Druid class deck, one of Gronk's power feats immediately caught my eye:
"When you rebuild your character deck after a scenario, you may treat each ally that
has the Animal trait as either an armor or an item (□ or a blessing)."
This is a very interesting ability. But I want to make sure I understand how it works in OP.
So let's say I want to rebuild my deck after a AD4 scenario and have the standard +4 Card Feats, which I put into armor, item, and 2 blessings. I also have a power feat after I get my role card, and another one on top of that, which gives me the power feat to replace blessings.
So my deck is 2 Weapons, 3 Spells, 2 Armors, 2 Items, 4 Allies and 7 Blessings.
1) I can only replace the slot with something I have, right? So if I wanted to have 5 Animal allies in my deck, then I'd have to take an Ally deck upgrade to do that, right? If so, the power is a lot less interesting since you have to shape your deck gradually rather than all at once.
2) Can you choose not to utilize the power if you don't want to? It does say "may" - so let's say I banish an armor, but then take an Ally deck upgrade. I can still keep my deck with 2 Armors and 4 Allies instead of being forced to put in the 5th Ally, right?
If I read you correctly, #1 and #2 are both right. You can only swap in allies with the animal trait if you have them to swap in. You never need to, however; "you _may_ treat..."
So say I had to banish a blessing during the scenario and I come up short on that (it is AD4 with the feats zeroth_hour mentioned). I choose to not have any of the allies with the animal trait currently in my deck to count as a blessing, so I still come up short even after the deck upgrade and scenario reward. Could I then take an AD2 ally with the animal trait from my class deck box to fill the empty blessing slot?
Assume you are in AD4 and you take an ally card feat (total 5) and the above power feat. Rebuilding your deck will be fun! Declare all animal allies that you don't want to be items. This leaves the Apprentice and the three Druids as cards you are forced to treat as allies. Now you have an empty ally slot that can only be filled by a card that you want, even if is a deck 4 card.
I suspect Tanis is going to need to be explicit on how to handle Gronk and rebuilding in OP because of edge cases like that.
I would think that just because you can treat the card as an armor or item, doesn't mean it isn't also an ally. That lets you put it into you deck list as an armor or item, but doesn't mean you can claim it isn't really an ally so that you can make yourself come up short.
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I agree with Hawkmoon here. The power doesn't say you treat those allies as armor or items in general. It says that while rebuilding your deck, you can treat them as such … in your deck. The idea is that these Animal allies can occupy card slots normally allocated to armor, items (and blessings). They are still allies but take the place of the other card types. They don't take on the other card type.
I'd say what mlvanbie described above would be incorrect.
But what skizzerz describes is more accurate. The Animal ally could occupy the blessing card spot in your deck if you checked off the extra power.
The power doesn't say 'in your deck', just 'when you rebuild your character deck'. It also isn't clear if you can reclassify cards more than once given that rebuilding your deck isn't a step (perhaps you don't want all the non-Animal allies in your deck when you are done getting AD4 allies). I assume the power needs errata, but wording things to work with the OP rebuilding rules may be tricky.
Things would be even weirder if getting upgrades is part of rebuilding your deck ('I take an AD4 Animal ally as an AD4 item'), but that doesn't seem to be correct.
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But I think you're reading far too much into this power. This power isn't turning one card type into another. It's allowing you to fill certain card slots allocated for specific card types with, in this case, Animal allies. The word that seems to be in contention is "treat". Also, the power only occurs during the rebuilding of your deck which occurs after a scenario is done. Maybe what happens during "rebuilding" needs to be redefined for OP. I think in this case, it may need to include upgrades and rewards.
If rebuilding includes upgrades (it seems to come afterwards), then the upgrade process needs to be FAQed as to whether upgrade cards have types.
If 'treat' doesn't mean 'change the boon type for all purposes' then we need errata to reword the power to explain what it does (gifting and negotiating don't make sense in this context).
The power on the card doesn't say 'if you have a shortage of armors or items (□ or blessings) you may fill those cards slots with Animal allies instead', so you should be able to temporarily exceed your card count for a boon type. Actually, the OP rules don't seem to handle the situation where you have too many cards of a type, either due to Gronk or something removing a card feat. We know you should remove cards down to your limit, but that part of the base rules is overridden.
Yeah. I get what you are saying. I just think it means that the card counts as multiple types while rebuilding, if you want it to. It remains an ally, but is simultaneously an item (or armor, or blessing which ever slot you are trying to fit it in). It doesn't say "instead of", so I don't think it stops being an ally. It just also becomes the second type based on your choice at that moment.
But I could be wrong. Even if I'm not, you can still actually abuse it a bit to get better choices of items, armors and blessings if you put a few card feats into those types. After you've loaded them all up with allies, then after the next scenario while rebuilding don't treat those allies as anything but allies. You'll be way short on armors, items and blessings.
Not sure if there are few enough basics in the class deck to make that worth it though.
I think that you would end up short cards if a card was simultaneously two types. That interpretation leads to suffering.
If 'this card is an item' doesn't need to last the entire rebuild then you could suck in items and then purge some of them later. However, the Druid deck seems to have so many B items and armors that this isn't relevant for Gronk (who doesn't actually have many item and armor slots). Maybe works with blessings.
The printed sheets for Gronk have two feats for 6 blessings.
That interpretation leads to suffering.I thought hate leads to suffering. You dare contradict Master Yoda?
Yoda and I agree that that interpretation, hate, apprentices and Humpty Dumpty's approach to language lead to suffering. We suspect that bikini waxes could be added to that list, but too chicken we are to do (or even try) that.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they're the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
'Would you tell me please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'
'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'
'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'