1. „A check against an animal card“. Does this also mean checks to acquire animal cards, such as allies?
2. „Heal a weapon“. Heals usually heal random cards. Now it specifies a weapon. If I have several weapons in my discard pile, do I pick them randomly then?
3. If I have a power that lets me ignore before acting powers and I encounter a monster that says something like „before acting each character suffers 1 damage“, is the whole before acting sequence ignored for everyone, due to my power ignoring the whole before acting part or is it just me who will avoid the damage?
4. In scenario 2A in Curse I’m supposed to build the location „Ship“. However, there is no such location. Am I supposed to build the location „Boat“ instead?
1. „A check against an animal card“. Does this also mean checks to acquire animal cards, such as allies?
2. „Heal a weapon“. Heals usually heal random cards. Now it specifies a weapon. If I have several weapons in my discard pile, do I pick them randomly then?
3. If I have a power that lets me ignore before acting powers and I encounter a monster that says something like „before acting each character suffers 1 damage“, is the whole before acting sequence ignored for everyone, due to my power ignoring the whole before acting part or is it just me who will avoid the damage?
4. In scenario 2A in Curse I’m supposed to build the location „Ship“. However, there is no such location. Am I supposed to build the location „Boat“ instead?
1. Yes. It's any check against any card with the Animal trai.
2. I would go with Yes, but I admit there's some dissent on my table. These effects could be worded differently in either direction ("of your choice" or "random"), but the fact is - such powers are a lot less useful you're healing a random card of Type. Still, RAW seems clear:
"When a power heals you, shuffle the specified number (and, if specified, type) of random cards from your discards into your deck"
3. Just you. Yes, it sucks.
4. Yes, there is FAQ to this effect..
1. „A check against an animal card“. Does this also mean checks to acquire animal cards, such as allies?
Correct! A check against an animal card is any check required by an animal card, which means all of the following examples are 'checks against an animal card'....
2. „Heal a weapon“. Heals usually heal random cards. Now it specifies a weapon. If I have several weapons in my discard pile, do I pick them randomly then?
Correct; the 'heal' keyword always means "a random card from your discards", unless further modified. In this case, it specifically says to modify it to only consider Weapons, but it's still a random weapon.
3. If I have a power that lets me ignore before acting powers and I encounter a monster that says something like „before acting each character suffers 1 damage“, is the whole before acting sequence ignored for everyone, due to my power ignoring the whole before acting part or is it just me who will avoid the damage?
Excellent question, and I can link some other forum threads talking about it. The short of it is...
"If you are told to ignore something, only you ignore that thing."
In other words, if any character encountered a monster that said "Before Acting, each character suffers 1 Combat damage" and you have a power that lets you ignore before acting powers, then you don't have to take the damage but everyone else still does. You can't protect someone else with it.
4. In scenario 2A in Curse I’m supposed to build the location „Ship“. However, there is no such location. Am I supposed to build the location „Boat“ instead?
Correct; this was added to the the FAQ.
Longshot11 - ad 2, it might not be always "worse" to heal a card of a specified type. At least if that's what you meant (I might have mistunderstood). For example, warriors aren't so happy if they recharge a spell instead of that weapon or armor, similarly Kess likes recharging allies - and has even one power feat upgrade to that effect.
Otherwise, both of you wrote perfect explanations :)
No, I didnt mean "heal type" is worse than "heal", I meant that "heal RANDOM card of the type" is worse than "heal SPECIFIC card of that type". As in, for powers like the quoted Kess upgrade, I would actually expect to be able to choose which ally to heal.
To be clear, the confusion -and the feeling that there's been sweeping nerf to such powers- comes from the way thing would be worded pre-Core:
"Shuffle X random cards from your discard pile into your deck"
Vs.
"Shuffle a weapon from your discard pile into your deck" - which would mean you CHOOSE the weapon to heal. Basically, the very same written terminology ("a [Type] card" ) has exactly opposite meanings in pre- and post- Core in this context.
Now, since "random" is hard-coded into "heal" - you never get to choose what you heal from a type, and there's always suspicion that designers maybe forgot the change of template, or they just don't feel like adding a "of your choice" to the wording is worth it.
Thanks for your answers so far! I have one more:
In our game one of us tried to defeat a monster. We had Valeros in our party, who would have liked to help with the check, but he was at another location. However, he had the animal ally "Horse" in his hand. Was he able to play it during that other character's encounter to move to the encounter's location to help?
Thanks for your answers so far! I have one more:
In our game one of us tried to defeat a monster. We had Valeros in our party, who would have liked to help with the check, but he was at another location. However, he had the animal ally "Horse" in his hand. Was he able to play it during that other character's encounter to move to the encounter's location to help?
Horse *specifically* says "You may not use this power during an encounter. " - so the answer is no.
Whoops! I'll chide my friend for not reading the card properly. Thanks though :D
Simple.
If it says :
"Shuffle a weapon", it isn't random
"Heal a weapon", it is random
"Shuffle a random weapon", well, guess what, it is random
Why the debate?