I would think that a card that grants an ability like Nightmarish, Ambush, Physical Resistance or any of the others would work in this way:

- If the monster doesn't have the ability, it gains the ability. (A monster with no Nightmarish ability would be treated as having Nightmarish 1 if it was told to gain Nightmarish 1)

- If the monster has a greater or equivalent ability, nothing happens. ( A monster with Nightmarish 1 or 2 would be unaffected if it was told to gain Nightmarish 1)

- If the monster has a lesser ability, it gains the greater ability instead. (A monster with Nightmarish 1 would gain Nightmarish 2 if told to gain Nightmarish 2)

The way I look at it, it is a similar set-up to blessings and curses. If you already have a blessing and are told to gain a blessing, you do not end up with two blessings (having Nightmarish 2 and Nightmarish 1 as two seperate events) and you do not end up with an uber-blessing where 3+ is a success (having Nightmarish 2 + Nightmarish 1 = Nightmarish 3), the new blessing instead supercedes the old one (Nightmarish 2 + Nightmarish 1 = Nightmarish 1).

thorgriom, your interpretation is the same as mine.

 Dam said:

Just to be clear about what I was talking about, I was replying to the statement that stated:
    if they had said 'increase" their Overwhelming by 1' it would have no effect unless the monster already had Overwhelming.

(I think you understood that, but I could see other readers gettings confused.)
As far as the original poster's question, I've always interpreted it the same way as ColtsFan described.

Now, as far as your question, didn't you answer it yourself?
    "A line is not the same as ... 0."

Anyway, as long as the rules don't actually read "increase", there's not much point having a long, involved discussion about it. To be honest, I suspect that if they did word a rule that way, they would also clarify explicitly whether this turned non-overwhelming monsters into overwhelming monsters. For example, by saying "Overwhelming monsters have +1 Overwhelming." (I've used almost if not exactly that wording myself on a card.)

Cheers,
Chris

thorgrim said:

Just noticed I screwed up what I meant to say at the end there.... I meant to say "the new blessing supercedes the old one, but with Overwhelming/Nightmarish, the higher value should be used for as long as the effect is active (Nightmarish 2 + Nightmarish 1 = Nightmarish 2).

Aaaaargh. Need sleep but the ominous whisperings of Cthulhu in my head are keeping me awake.

Thelric said:

 If they wanted it to be based solely on good grammar they would not have used numbers but gave it its own name for each numerical value...

for example Nightmarish(1) would just be Nightmarish...

Nightmarish(2) would be Mindbreaking...

same idea for Overwhelming... 

so if they did name the numerical value its own name then I could get the same ability twice but with different values.

To emphasize my point again...

if you have a encounter that read gain a dollar(1) and you already have a dollar(1) you would not gain it because it says "gain" not "increase" and you cannot gain something you already have...of course this absurd but so is saying if a Monster has Nightmarish(1) and they gain Nightmaris(1) they don't gain it and it's not increased because they already have it.

To emphasize my point again...

if you have a encounter that read gain a dollar(1) and you already have a dollar(1) you would not gain it because it says "gain" not "increase" and you cannot gain something you already have...of course this absurd but so is saying if a Monster has Nightmarish(1) and they gain Nightmaris(1) they don't gain it and it's not increased because they already have it.

Yes, but that is dollars. You can gain any number of dollars by getting them out of a bank or robbing someone or asking your parents for some cash, but we are talking about a skill, an ability. If you teach a child to count to ten, then teach it to count to ten again, does that mean it can count to twenty? No, it can still only count to ten.

thorgrim said:

No where in the rules does it say a Monster can not gain the same skill twice but most of the times is does not matter...Physical Imunity, etc unless one uses that spell (Red Sighn?) that removes a skill! Sense they could have it twice you would just remove one but really this issue should never come a monster with NM gaing NM again, etc.

It doesn't say that. It is my interpretation of the rules as they stand that effects stacking works as I have previously stated. Where in the rules does it state that they DO gain the ability twice?

MrsGamura said:

How would you treat a card that said: 'The investigator gains Focus 3' ?

Would you add it to the investigator's existing Focus?

Or would it replace the existing Focus?

What would happen to Wilson Richards if he would draw the card?

jhaelen said:

I would add it to their Focus and in Wilson's case his focus would be 7 (4+3).

FAQ in KH rule book clears up Wilson's infinite focus.

MrsGamura said:

The only real principle of grammar that is relevant here is, that as you should typically not use the word increase with regard to an attribute that you do not have, it may well be that the author of the card took that into account when he wrote the card.

That doesn't mean the card works in one way or another, it means you would have to ask the writer for his intent in thouse circumstances as the card is not clear.

jadrax said:

As I said in a subsequent post, I wasn't talking about the use of "gain," but only about your hypothetical example of increasing Overwhelming by 1. Whether or not such a statement is valid actually has very much indeed to do with measurement theory (also known as mathematical principles ). But as I pointed out above, the way I interpret the OP's question is the same as ColtsFan (and you, so far as I can tell). And if you accept that interpretation, then statements like "increase Overwhelming by 1" are no longer meaningful. It's just that you can't decide how to interpret the OP's question by arguing about what "increase" means, because whether "increase" means anything at all depends on how you interpret the OP's question (this is the measurement theory part*): it ends up making a circular argument.

Basically, I agreed with what you were saying, just not the way you were saying it.

Cheers,
Chris

* I can explain it if you are interested, but I don't think there's any value to the forum in droning on about it in the thread. Plus I'm lazy.