Well, a check to defeat of none is covered in the rules by telling you to read the powers and do what it says. But that doesn't really seem to help here.
I wonder if perhaps the fact that the instructions for the undefeated villain tell you to get "blessings" from the blessings deck should cover this fact. There a quite a few other scenarios with non-blessings in the blessings deck that might also benefit from such a rule.
This was actually discussed here. There is no official comment yet.
Perhaps the broader question is: what happens when you encounter a bane with a "check to defeat" of "None"?
By the rules - you just read its powers and follow them, which would usually lead you to determine its defeated (card is banished) or undefeated (card is shuffled back into location) status. Some cards (Goblin Raid, Skeleton Horde) don't allow for defeated/undefeated resolution, but then they banish themselves regardless.
All of the above seems to be of exactly zero help with Sandstorm, so you're faced with home-ruling it to either shuffle back automatically (which, however, can make some potential situations too heavily luck based - i.e. you hope to chase the villain on top of the Sandstorm), or you can auto-banish the card (which is how I would play it, due to the above considerations).
I tend to agree with Longshot here. Obviously an official ruling is needed here, but in the meantime, I feel that the correct method is just to consider it defeated and move on from there. It's enough of a penalty to slow you down, and denies you the blessing that could help you catch up from a villain loss.
Like Hawkmoon said, when you fail to defeat a villain, you are only supposed to take blessings from the blessings deck, not Sandstorms. (See the rule cited in Hawkmoon's linked thread.)
So Sandstorms shouldn't end up in location decks.
This is kind of a bummer of an approach, though, because it means you have to look at the blessings you pull from the blessings deck, which gives you information you wouldn't normally have.
...This is kind of a bummer of an approach, though, because it means you have to look at the blessings you pull from the blessings deck, which gives you information you wouldn't normally have.
This is how we do it to avoid that issue:
When a villain is undefeated and escape and you need to draw from the blessing deck (i. e. more than one location the villain can chose from), then:Draw cards from the blessing deck and look at them. Set aside any blessing you find. Reshuffle immediately into the blessing deck any other card.
As soon as have set aside enough blessings, put them back in the box and draw the same number from the box without looking at them. With those, carry on doing the villain escape.
That way you do not gain any knowledge on blessings that get added to locations. One drawback though: you lose the scenario if they aren't enough *blessings* in the blessing deck to let the villain escape (not just if they aren't any card). Makes the game just a bit harder (really rare occasions) but we are OK with it since you may lose on a failure to defeat a villain which thematicaly is OK.
Hey All,
I could see an argument both ways on this but consider this. I think it could end up in a location deck because why would the card have the trigger trait and specifically state that “When you examine this card or discard it from the blessings deck, each character blah blah…” as part of its first line under powers.
This line implies that it could end up in a location deck at which point if you happen to be using a power where you were allowed to examine a card and this popped up then it would trigger. If you just encounter it as part of an explore its check to defeat is “none” so you would simply banish it and move on meaning your character weathered the storm so nothing happened.
Sandstorm is a pain either way even with a check to defeat of “None” because it is an extra card that ended up in the location deck that could either trigger an unexpected sandstorm(by examination) or the sandstorm that you encountered(by exploring) wasted your character’s whole explore action so he/she could weather the storm.
Thematically, with this it means that a sandstorm could happen anywhere at any time especially when your unprepared. Its the fact that it has the trigger trait mechanic attached to it that makes me think it could work this way.
Although, I also see what Hawkmoon is saying about the rules mentioning that you retrieve “blessings” from the blessings deck when you fail to defeat a villain with no additional mention to cover instances like this when you have non-blessings in the deck. I am curious to hear how the designers play it. Probably you guys are right if we are going exactly by rules as written.
Vic chimed in over here. So, it is supposed to be just blessings.
Vic chimed in over here. So, it is supposed to be just blessings.
Thanks Hawkmoon! Thats what I figured even after I wrote what I wrote.
Thematically, with this it means that a sandstorm could happen anywhere at any time especially when your unprepared. Its the fact that it has the trigger trait mechanic attached to it that makes me think it could work this way.
Just keep in mind, the Blessings Deck is a perfectly valid target for 'examine', if the power you're using allows it (S&S Alahazra had such power)
Actually, any deck is valid to examine if the power says so. And each can trigger a trigger. Even examining a character's deck.
Which can include monsters or even boons that have triggers.
Wait.
If I examine my own deck (there's some basic item that let's you do this) and find a card that has a trigger effect, then the trigger happens? Even if that means encountering the card that I already had in my deck?
Actually this makes sense. But we weren't playing it that way.
There are definitely some ways to examine blessing and character decks in Mummy's Mask. The character deck one is slightly more common than people might think (I've seen people frequently mistake "your deck" for "your location deck"). It is possible to leverage or run afoul of triggers in your own deck :)
So if a trigger lets you "acquire" a card that's already in your deck, does that mean you get to draw it?
... and if not, does that still mean you get to suffer negative consequences (that Aspis rogue guy), even if you never had a chance to "acquire" him to start with?
... and now you guys have made me want to build a character around making use of trigger cards in her own deck...
That would be fairly useless in any other AP, though. Why not building a character around examining his own deck, with a role that especially uses the trigger trait?
A gambling character that bets on the next card he would draw comes to mind, similiar to the Fortune Teller ally.
Héhé I was pretty sure most of you didn't see coming the fun of examining your own deck... or someone else's deck.
Btw is this official? I mean I understand that the trigger blurb in the rules doesn't say anything about it having to be location decks but this is a strange enough situation (examining your own deck might for example cause you to acquire Sebti the Crocodile after you already acquired her) where it would be nice to get a "Yep, that's intended".
Interesting stuff! Thanks for the info. I can't wait to get further into the adventures. Really enjoying Mummy's Mask so far!
Well, we're up against the Crypt of Air tomorrow, so I thought I'd bump this, re: OP's question on Sandstorms in location decks for any possible ruling?
Well, we're up against the Crypt of Air tomorrow, so I thought I'd bump this, re: OP's question on Sandstorms in location decks for any possible ruling?
See the FAQ. You specifically only get blessings out of the blessings deck, you can't get a Sandstorm.
Silly me, I was lead to believe we'll be mixing Stroms in the location decks and thought I'd get ahead of things. I just checked to find out that is not the case. Sorry for the pointless necro.
Meh, it happens, no big.