Poisons

[Malcolm_Reynolds]

I usually make alterations to my cards based on FAQ entries. I sleeve my cards and write errata/clarifications on post-its to avoid actually writing on the cards. While making this current round I noticed some variety in poison use.

There are five "weapon-coating" poisons I readily found: Centipede Venom, Black Marsh Spider Venom, Bloodroot Poison, Wyvern Poison, and Tears of Death.

I noticed three different phrasings of use:

1) "Reveal this card to add...to your combat check with a weapon,"
2) "If you played a weapon on your combat check, reveal this card..."
3) "When playing a weapon on your combat check, reveal this card..."

The first four poisons listed appear in the Rogue deck and use the first phrasing. The other poisons I found use the second. Wyvern Poison from Mummy's Mask uses the third. The new FAQ entry revises Wyvern Poison from the Rogue Deck to use the Mummy's Mask phrasing.

I think the first and second phrasings are functionally the same (the second has better phrasing). The third uses "When playing a weapon," which means it can be played each time that thing (playing a weapon) happens. This means the Mummy's Mask Wyvern Poison (and now the one from the Rogue Deck, but no others) can be used multiple times in a single check. So if a character, like Simoun, plays multiple knives she can use the Wyvern Poison each time she plays one of those knives. I don't have a problem with this thematically and each use will carry the risk of burying a card. My question is, is Wyvern Poison intended to work differently than other "weapon-coating" poisons or should they all be worded similarly?

As an aside, the Tears of Death from the Alchemist deck says "If you used a weapon on your combat check" instead of "If you played a weapon."

[Hawkmoon269]

I think the rule about revealing cards prevents you from playing it more than once per check.

Mummy's Mask Rulebook p8 wrote:

If a power says it may be used when something happens, you may use it every time that happens. Otherwise, a specific card’s power may only be used once per check or step...

Reveal: Show it from your hand then put it back in your hand. You may not reveal the same card for its power more than once per check or step.

The rule about revealing isn't negated by the "when something happens" rule. Basically, the default is you can use a card's power once per check. Unless it says you can use it when something happens. Except when you are revealing the card.

[Vic Wertz]

The earliest template for this had nothing to do with Poison—it appeared on a handful of cards that buffed weapons in different ways, starting with Fiery Weapon in RotR 1 and Masterwork in Fighter and Wizard, and referred to "combat checks using a weapon."

"Combat check using a weapon" and "combat check with a weapon" have the same problem: it isn't clear whether the intent is A) "When any character plays a weapon on a combat check" or B) only "When any character plays a weapon to determine which skill he is using on a combat check."

So we changed to care about "playing a weapon on a combat check," which made it clear that the answer is A. At the time we did that, we had been dealing with a lot of issues related to making sure that things were happening during the correct part of an encounter, and we figured "oh, these powers have to be used during the 'Play Cards and Use Powers That Affect Your Check' step, which is *after* the 'Determine Which Skill You’re Using' step," so we made the tense "if you played." (Tears of Death's "If you used" is clearly just a misapplication of that template.) But later, we ran into cases where this level of specificity became a limiting factor, so we backed down to "when playing a weapon." (The rules already tell you what order 'Play Cards and Use Powers That Affect Your Check' and 'Determine Which Skill You’re Using' happen in, and which powers work in each, so the cards don't need the added precision anyway.)

Which is to say, all of these things should have the same template—"When playing a weapon on [your/a] combat check"—and should all work the same way at the same time. Any indications otherwise were not intended.

[Malcolm_Reynolds]

Thanks, guys!