The last power for Raheli's Gravewalker role says:
You may banish a monster displayed next to your cohort to reduce damage dealt to you to 0 ([] or to examine your location).
Does that mean examine the entire location deck, or just the top card? Compare that power to the When Permanently Closed power from WotR's Family Tomb location, where it specifically says to examine the location deck. I'm not sure if the difference in wording is significant or not.
That would be the entire location deck. Remember that cards go back in the same order, no rearranging.
OK, that's what we thought! It just seemed so much more powerful than the extra combat d8 that the default power gives that I figured I was reading it wrong.
Thanks!
And you may want to be careful using this power in Mummy's Mask.
And you may want to be careful using this power in Mummy's Mask.
Pfft, nonsense. If ya ain't dying ya ain't trying.
Is this really what was intended? I don't mind playing it that way but everyone in my group thinks it is a typo, and it should be top card.
Has anyone connected to Paizo chimed in anywhere?
I haven't seen anything official, but I think the intent is the entire deck. It makes the most sense that simply the one word "deck" is missing from the end as opposed to "the top card of" in addition to deck.
I haven't seen anything official, but I think the intent is the entire deck. It makes the most sense that simply the one word "deck" is missing from the end as opposed to "the top card of" in addition to deck.
Hawk, in your 4+ years of PACG you should know better - there have been far more egregious typos, I believe:)
In particular, I seem to recall seeing a card with *this very typo* - where the intent was to actually examine only the top card of the deck. (Because -I'm guessing here- not only players, but designers as well- equate "examine the top card of your location deck" with "examine your location" in their heads. I have to wonder, how many living, breathing people, in a real game around the table have actually pronounced that cumbersome formula, instead of the shorthand...)
The idea that for the cost of banishing *a single monster* you're allowed to examine a whole location deck is simply ridiculous to me in its OP-ness. For reference, in MM there's a single card (AD5 spell Vision) that allows you to do so - and at the price that if you find the villain - he escapes as if undefeated.
If Raheli worked as suggested - she would be able to do that *all the time*, with *no drawbacks whatsoever*.
RAW, there is NO such thing as "examine a location"; you can either "examine a location deck" (as in, the WHOLE of it), or "examine the top card of a location deck" . So an "examine a location" instruction will always be faulty, but there is no way to know which way it should go barring dev input; lacking such, I'd advise you don't home-rule it on the overpowered side (unless that's what rocks your boat, which is cool too).
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And you may want to be careful using this power in Mummy's Mask.Pfft, nonsense. If ya ain't dying ya ain't trying.
Apparently, I'm trying REALLY REALLY hard.
I haven't seen anything official, but I think the intent is the entire deck.In particular, I seem to recall seeing a card with *this very typo* - where the intent was to actually examine only the top card of the deck.
If I were to be pedantic in terms of RAW, I'd say it lets you examine the Location card. My interpretation, however, is that it lets you examine the entire location deck.
I wasn't able to find another ruling involving this type of text, but I didn't do an exhaustive search.
(... I have to wonder, how many living, breathing people, in a real game around the table have actually pronounced that cumbersome formula, instead of the shorthand...)
I try to always speak in terms of "top (x) card(s) of the (whatever) deck". It's very important to specify the whole thing, as it's very easy to see "examine" and skip straight to location deck when something instead lets you mess with your character deck. (It's a mistake everyone in my two groups has made at one time or another. :(
The idea that for the cost of banishing *a single monster* you're allowed to examine a whole location deck is simply ridiculous to me in its OP-ness. For reference, in MM there's a single card (AD5 spell Vision) that allows you to do so - and at the price that if you find the villain - he escapes as if undefeated.
The cost of three Role card feats (the third being "treat monsters you defeat as Undead" if you want to make sure you get displayable monsters), taking a specific Cohort, defeating a non-Villain monster, recharging a card to display the defeated monster, and then choosing to use the monster for this power instead of any of the other uses it would have had. It's powerful, but you're committing a lot for what you get; it's not something you can do "all the time with no drawbacks whatsoever".
For those unfamiliar with Raheli: she is a Witch from the Witch Class Deck. Like all characters in that deck, she has no Arcane skill: she gains the skill by using one of the deck's five Cohorts. Only one of those Cohorts (Flesh Poppet) grants the ability to display banished monsters, and only displays defeated non-Villain Undead monsters.
So, while Raheli can gain the power in question after scenario 4-2 (usually), she can't count on using it much till she gains the treat-all-monsters-as-Undead power (5-2, usually). Unless, of course, you are playing Mummy's Mask (and God help the Raheli player examining entire decks in Mummy's Mask).
Regarding the terminology: I searched the latest Class Deck PDFs. Every other examine power explicitly says "the top card" or "the top N cards" or "the bottom card" or the "bottom N cards".
It's a good point that Raheli's power should have been written more explicitly; and that "examine your location deck" would be more in keeping with game terminology; and that "examine your entire location deck" would have been most helpful.
But in my judgment you can't just assume "Paizo meant to say 'the top card of your location deck'" where it says "your location". As written, it's the entire deck.
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I haven't seen anything official, but I think the intent is the entire deck. It makes the most sense that simply the one word "deck" is missing from the end as opposed to "the top card of" in addition to deck.Hawk, in your 4+ years of PACG you should know better - there have been far more egregious typos, I believe:)
In particular, I seem to recall seeing a card with *this very typo* - where the intent was to actually examine only the top card of the deck.
Sure. I'm not saying its impossible that more than one word is missing. I'm just saying the most likely explanation is that one word is missing (based on my limited experience of textual criticism).
The cost of the power is pretty high too, which makes me think it should be the whole location deck. She'd need all of the following (I think):
1. A particular cohort (I think only Flesh Poppet lets you display monsters).
2. She has to spend a power feat to get the damage reduction first.
3. She has to spend a second power feat to get the examine power.
4. She has to banish the monster, meaning she's giving up other uses of it.
5. To make it more universal, she has to spend another power feat to treat all monsters as if they have the undead trait.
The power is viable without the last thing, but as already mentioned above, only becomes reliable with it.
That leads me towards thinking it is the whole location deck.
All that being said though, I'd find it helpful if such powers did say "your entire location deck". It seems that would also fit the rules a bit better, since the rules about examining speak more about a defined number of cards or examining until you find a particular card. So, defining the number of cards as the entirety of the location deck might be more appropriate. But maybe that's just me.
... All that being said though, I'd find it helpful if such powers did say "your entire location deck" ...
+1... as usual following any of Hawk's comments.
Chief Technical Officer
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It means the entire location deck. (And yes, it should say "deck," but I consider that cosmetic. See also Owlbeartross, which omitted the word "deck" twice, but managed to do so in contexts where nobody gets it wrong.)
(When this question was first raised, we contemplating changing the template to say something like "examine all of the cards in your location deck," but then we realized that we had already published at least a dozen cards that use "examine your location deck," from the RotR Base Set right on through to Mummy's Mask, yet nobody ever asked about it with any of those cards.)