MM Vaultkeeper Drelm question: Draw a random boon from the box

[Tomael92]

I'm currently playing through Mummy's Mask with Drelm and I'm looking at the following power in his Vaultkeeper role:

Vaultkeeper Drelm wrote:

When you encounter a card, before you act, you may recharge a card that has the Abadar trait to draw a random weapon, armor or item from the box. After you act, banish that card

I'm wondering what happens if the card is no longer in my hand after acting, if there would be any way of bypassing banishing that card. I assume that if I manage to recharge the card or put it in my deck in any way, it may be unaccessible to banish it afterwards, although this may be difficult to achieve with most boons of those types. I suppose that if it's in my discard pile, it's still totally accessible for me to banish afterwards. What if I bury it with something like Effigy of Maat?

In general, is this a good power feat to have? What are its uses and how can it be taken a advantage of?

[skizzerz]

You still banish it. If the play cost is something other than "reveal", set it aside while playing it instead of doing that cost, then banish it after you act.

Here's some rulebook quotes, emphasis is mine.

MM rulebook, p5 wrote:

If cards conflict with one another, then Adventure Path cards overrule adventures, adventures overrule scenarios, scenarios overrule locations, locations overrule support cards, support cards overrule characters, and characters overrule other card types.

MM rulebook, p8 wrote:

When you reveal a card, it does not leave your hand. When you display a card, it leaves your hand immediately. When you play cards by performing any other actions, set them aside while you process their effects.

So, if you play the card by doing anything other than revealing or displaying it, you set it aside. Then do whatever the card power says. It remains set aside until the After You Act step of the encounter, when you banish it per Drelm's power. This is because Drelm's power overrules whatever the card itself tells you to do (such as discard, bury, recharge, or shuffle it somewhere).

[Tomael92]

skizzerz wrote:

You still banish it. If the play cost is something other than "reveal", set it aside while playing it instead of doing that cost, then banish it after you act.

Thanks for the answer! That makes sense. The only thing that makes some noise to me is this part:

MM rulebook, p8 wrote:

When you reveal a card, it does not leave your hand. When you display a card, it leaves your hand immediately. When you play cards by performing any other actions, set them aside while you process their effects.

Is banishing the card part of "processing its effect" even though it's actually part of Drelm's power? Otherwise, wouldn't the cards already have been entirely processed and put in the relevant deck or pile by the time you get to "after you act"?

Aside from that, how would this interact for example with Effigy of Maat?

Effigy of Maat wrote:

On your check, after the roll, reveal this card and bury a card, then remove any number of dice. For each die removed, add or subastar 5; take the new result.

If I bury the card I got from Drelm's power, do I still banish it?

[skizzerz]

The intent of the power is clearly that you don't get to keep the card you drew, so that is how you should play it in any event. If you did manage to find a loophole that lets you keep the card, the power would be given errata to close said loophole.

Exactly how that interacts with the other rules is a bit murky as you've discovered. For Effigy of Maat, I would bury the card, and then banish it from my buried pile in the After You Act step. Normally this isn't relevant, but some cards care about how many buried cards you have, and the card you buried for Effigy of Maat should count for that at least momentarily.

As for the set aside rule, the answer is that It's Complicated(tm) what exactly "process its effects" actually means. The intent for that rule was to prevent weird things from happening when you discarded a spell with a recharge check and something interacted with your discard pile before the recharge check could happen. Normally, you know exactly where a card ends up so you put it there immediately. Here, Drelm doesn't banish it until After You Act, but you know it needs to be banished, so I think setting it aside is also the right play here, just as you would set aside a spell until you get a chance to make its recharge check. I've always interpreted "process its effects" as "read everything that could possibly affect where the card ends up, and determine if any of those things require waiting. If any of them require waiting, set it aside until those things fully resolve. If not, put it where it's supposed to go immediately."

[Tomael92]

Oh, okay. I just assumed the intent of the power was to find the way to abuse it and keep the cards, as it seems too weak otherwise. Maybe I'll take it and check, I may find it not to be that weak after all.

Your explanations were perfectly clear and logical. Thank you for the help!

EDIT: I mean, at least it allows you to quickly remove basic cards from the game so that's useful.

[skizzerz]

He’s a vault keeper; he can borrow things from the vault, but he does need to return them afterwards. :)

Mechanics-wise, grabbing weapons or armor is probably the best use for it. Items are too varied for a random one to be useful for the current encounter. Weapon if he somehow lacks one or you suspect you want to discard it for extra dice; armor if the bane has some BYA/AYA damage you’d like to block.

[Tomael92]

skizzerz wrote:

He’s a vault keeper; he can borrow things from the vault, but he does need to return them afterwards. :)

Yes that makes a lot of sense :).

Grabbing some armor sounds like the best use probably, although it still sounds kind of weak. In any case, I'll take it and check for myself. Thanks for the help!