The Politian - Questions

another Analogy:

Rule 1: At the end of your turn, draw a card and put it in your hand.

Rule 2: If you have more than five cards in your hand, you must discard until you have only five cards in your hand.

Bob's Special Rule: Bob may draw two cards.

So when can bob draw two cards? Whenever the hell he damn well pleases? Or when he draws at the end of his turn like everyone else?

Perhaps there's a communication problem. Doing both of the things that you said in the post that I replied to are fine. Only when you restrict yourself to a single one are you entering the realm of House rules.

I don't see the correlation between your example and Charlies abillity, as the gaining of allies is not governed by any rules. Charlie Kane's abillity is not subject to any strictures, and your example with Bob has a stricture (5 cards on your hand).

My example was focused on the language, not the pretend rules I made up.

I just got the KH expansion the other day and I'm still a little confused about Charlie.
So...every time I'm playing with Charlie, I should build up enough monster and/or gate trophies in order to acquire Professor Rice from Ma's...even though he isn't one of the original 11 allies?
I can choose him from the stack of allies in the box that aren't "used in the game"?
Am I reading Option #3 correctly?
Thanks for any help.

Option 3 let's you acquire any ally you want over ma's boarding house, as well as always meeting the "available" requirement when you have an encounter with an ally.

Thanks! I just wanted to be sure that I was understanding it correctly.
Has there been any "official" answer, yet? How long have we been asking this question?

Kevin's looking into it, soon as he gets time.

Thanks FrankT for the recap...

We started to play like option #1. I must admid that we never realised that the others where put to the box. So we actually put them "out of play". Normally I don't think something that is in the box can come back during the game, until Charlie came along, so I think we did that wrong.

As of the wording of Charlies ability I'm not really confused, for me it's clear. He doesn't 'automaticly' gains allies when they are put to the box, but I guess if I'm correct, most of us don't believe that.
(although I do agree it wasn't that far fetched at all, and the little intrigues that came with it where quite interesting

)

So I wait to see what the ruling will be on the "put to the box" issue.

We also have trouble with an other little issue. We kind of house rule it but there is the "lynch mob" mythos card and of course the "Southside Stangler" and if we need to "sacrifice" an ally. Those allies we DO put out of play... ok Charlie's connected but well not to those kind of people I hope

You mean, not connected to people like the one that sacrifices the ally?

I don't think "most people" believe that your way of playing Charly is wrong (besides your house rule, but that's a house rule), i.e. against the intention of the designers. It's just that most people believe the rules to say something else.

Well, first there is no 'phase' at game setup, so those of you who are giving him all the boxed allies in game setup are loopy! -

1) There are no phases there.
2) Theres no way thats the intent, as simple common sense should tell you

And in game, supposing you get Mas blight from KiY. Suddenly Chuck would have an army! No way! There is simply no way he was designed to do that.
Ergo, he gets to choose from any ally in the box or deck only when he legitimately gains an ally through game effects.

Getting the allies during setup is crazy!

deejay wrote:Well, first there is no 'phase' at game setup, so those of you who are giving him all the boxed allies in game setup are loopy! -

Well I don't know that, other abilities of investigators still apply during game setup...

*edit*

tamsyn wrote:Getting the allies during setup is crazy!

That's true, I wonder who was having that idea?

@deejay
I don't think he gets all allies during setup, as you point out, that isn't allowed. He gets them during his first upkeep phase. I agree that it is severely unlikely that his is the intent, however common sense is never "common". There are some other conclusions in this thread which were drawn from the rules which have a chance of being the actual intent of the rules, and though I play it like you suggest, it is not "common sense" to play that way.

deejay wrote:And in game, supposing you get Mas blight from KiY. Suddenly Chuck would have an army! No way! There is simply no way he was designed to do that.

Another example would be failing TTE. Not only would he gain all 10 remaining allies in game (unless others gained them earlier), but also get the items the allies drop - clues, weapons, spells and other things. He could cancel an entire AO attack, drop the messenger to avoid being devoured and gain several other boni...

I fully agree we need some clarification on the difference between allies that get "discarded from play" and those which get "boxed". And I probably agree with the need for some special attention for Chuck. But while my phrase 'common sense' implies that those who are doing things otherwise (i.e. not like I do things) are dolts, I meant no such inference and apologise for any offense. I simply meant to say, that most such issues in AH can and indeed must be resolved on a case by case basis, taking into account the most obvious forms of abuse and wonkery. Richard/Kevin/Lovercraft cannot watch over us all, all of the time. We need to understand that and make our own decisions. As the game expands, it becomes more *our* game, not FFGs, and this stance becomes more relevant.

Wow I can't believe that this topic is still alive or alive again. And that it's reached over 100 posts. We really need some official answers for several of the new things from Kingsport.

I had just assumed it was option #3. Well, I thought it was #1 at first, but then I saw the "returned to the box" language for the 11 ally limit and decided that it seemed pretty straightforward. Silly me.

It may be because we're novices, or because we're only playing with 3 players, but we always have trouble with the terror level. It's rare that we finish a game with the Curiositie Shoppe still open, and we've lost more than once because of the absolute monster limit at Terror Level 10--unless we have Charlie Kane. In my perhaps limited experience, Settle Down is a very useful ability. And that's not even counting when Glaaki is the GOO.

MindWanderer wrote:I had just assumed it was option #3. Well, I thought it was #1 at first, but then I saw the "returned to the box" language for the 11 ally limit and decided that it seemed pretty straightforward. Silly me.

It may be because we're novices, or because we're only playing with 3 players, but we always have trouble with the terror level. It's rare that we finish a game with the Curiositie Shoppe still open, and we've lost more than once because of the absolute monster limit at Terror Level 10--unless we have Charlie Kane. In my perhaps limited experience, Settle Down is a very useful ability. And that's not even counting when Glaaki is the GOO.

Are you making the same mistake that I did? Until recently I increased the Terror Track every time there was a monster surge. I still only reached 10 once (failed Terrible Experiment), but the general store always closed & the curio shop in 50-60% of games.

-mariana the ex-nun cultist

cw67q wrote:Are you making the same mistake that I did? Until recently I increased the Terror Track every time there was a monster surge. I still only reached 10 once (failed Terrible Experiment), but the general store always closed & the curio shop in 50-60% of games.

Do you mean a rules mistake or a tactical mistake? We usually have 5-6 gates open for most of the game, which means that yes, the terror track will go up nearly every time there's a monster surge. We also fail the Terrible Experiment more often than not. We usually go for a spat in the middle of the game where there's a monster surge every round or nearly every round for half a dozen rounds.

ColtsFan76 wrote: I think he should be able to get any of the 34 Allies regardless of which 11 actually started the game.

I need feedback on the “correctness” of using all 34 Allies in a game, removing 3 Allies for each Terror level with the rule of never having more than 11 Allies total in all investigators’ possession. Is this a good way of using Allies since my crew doesn’t feel like being deprived of certain favorite Allies just because we have to discard 23 randomly at the start of game? We really appreciated the Curse of the dark Pharaoh rule on Allies.

And I somehow have the feeling there are 33 Allies total not 34, can I get a confirmation on that? I'm a bit confused and looks like I've lost one.

Violeta wrote:

ColtsFan76 wrote: I think he should be able to get any of the 34 Allies regardless of which 11 actually started the game.

I need feedback on the “correctness” of using all 34 Allies in a game, removing 3 Allies for each Terror level with the rule of never having more than 11 Allies total in all investigators’ possession. Is this a good way of using Allies since my crew doesn’t feel like being deprived of certain favorite Allies just because we have to discard 23 randomly at the start of game? We really appreciated the Curse of the dark Pharaoh rule on Allies.

You can play this way. It shouldn't alter things too much. it just increases your chance of finding an available ally. As the game progesses and the terror level increases it will start to even out again.

And I somehow have the feeling there are 33 Allies total not 34, can I get a confirmation on that? I'm a bit confused and looks like I've lost one.

There are 34.

11 in Arkham
Anna Kaslow
Duke
Eric Colt
John Legrasse
Professor Armitage
Richard Upton Pickman
Ruby Standish
Ryan Dean
Sir William Brinton
Thomas F. Malone
Tom "Mountain" Murphy

7 in CotDP
Sarah Danforth
David Packard
Erica Carlyle
Dr. Ali Kafour
The Messenger
Father Iwanicki
Erich Weiss

5 in DH
Ammi Pierce
Professor Rice
Corinna Jones
Zebulon Whateley
Earl Sawyer

11 in KH
Sorry, don't have my updated file at work. But I am positive there are 11 here making it a total of 34 Allies.

I need feedback on the “correctness” of using all 34 Allies in a game, removing 3 Allies for each Terror level with the rule of never having more than 11 Allies total in all investigators’ possession.

You can do this. It would in all ways make the game somewhat easier since you would always have access to approximately 3 times as many allies to choose from as otherwise.

However, since allies being available or not rarely seems to be that much of a liability one way or the other, I think the extra ease would be somewhat attenuated.

-Frank

While at this point I don't think there is a "correct" approach to the allies, it seems something of a betrayal of theme to include all of the allies at Ma's just for the sake of not depriving the players of their favorites. Sometimes people aren't in town. Realistically, it would be absurd to assume that everyone of that particularly motley crew was going to be available any time the Terror track hadn't sent them out.

Welcome to the Carnival, Violeta.

For the benefit of those that are unaware of it, I'm gonna throw in my Ally method, which I got from a BUNCH of other people that play it the same way. This method was developed because people were tired of missing out on Encounter Allies because the Ally they were looking for was not part of the 11.

Grab all Allies you wish to have "in the game", shuffle them into two piles (removing Duke first if Pete in play): one pile is the official 11 Allies in the game ("Ma's Allies" or "The Boarders") (and make it 10 if already using Duke with Pete), the other pile is everyone else ("Arkham Citizens").

Random Allies are drawn ONLY from the Boarders. If an Encounter allows you to search for a SPECIFIC Ally, you may search both decks. If an Ally is taken from the Citizen deck, an Ally from the Boarder deck must be drawn and placed in the Citizen deck, as there can be only 11 Allies "in the game" at any time.

When Allies are returned to the box (as from the Terror Track going up, or the Southside Strangler Rumor), remove 1 Ally from the Boarder Deck. The Boarder Allies removed in this manner are the ONLY Allies that count as "returned to the box" (as with Glaaki or Charlie). Optionally, you may remove 1 or 2 Allies from the Citizen Deck as well, to keep Ally removal "level" through both decks; if you currently play with all Allies available, 2 Citizens discarded per Terror Track will balance nicely.
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Of course, I'm still waiting for ANYONE in FFG to defuse the current Politician Bomb, but I find it ridiculous for Charlie to be able to act upon cards that are outside the game rules. 11 Allies in play...that's it. Just because I house-rule the rest of them to be available for Encounters doesn't mean the game recognizes them as "in play"...because it doesn't.

And CLEARLY, this is another example of FFG using "words" while OBLIVOUS to the possibility that EVERY WORD THEY USE is bound to be feasted upon as "official game language", and therefore should STOP using words like LOCATION and BOX unless that's what they MEAN in GAME TERMS.

jgt7771 wrote:Of course, I'm still waiting for ANYONE in FFG to defuse the current Politician Bomb, but I find it ridiculous for Charlie to be able to act upon cards that are outside the game rules.

I have it listed in my open question thread. Both JR and Kevin know it's there and promise to get to it soon.