The Politian - Questions

allstar64 wrote:I'm a firm believe that trading is a movement only thing cept during the final battle when it is a upkeep thing.

You made this statement. I am saying this is an incorrect belief as corrected in teh FAQ. Trading occurs whenever 2 investigators are on the same location - even beyond the movement phase. The only time it doesn't occur is during combat, which is why it is limited to the refresh phase int eh Final Battle.

What I was trying to explain though is that during the actual game, there is hardly any distinction between saying trading "only during the movement phase" and trading "anytime except combat." The one issue where they can't be reconciled is during Phase 4. According to the original rules and your belief, you cannot trade if two Investigators are int eh same area of the OW. The FAQ says you can.

That is all I was trying to say

EDIT
Ah, I see what the confusion is. I was talking about "Trading" but typed "Movement." My bad. I'll correct my original post.

ColtsFan76 wrote:
You still only gain Allies through "purchasing" them at Ma's or when an Encounter tells you to do so. There is no game rule that allows you to grab discarded Allies. So in order to be able to do so, a specific rule needs to be written. What is written on Charlie's card is not sufficient to make this change. It is merely stating that when you gain, you can gain from the box; not giving you additional ways to gain Allies.

I disagree. There are other rules that are nixed by other investigator's abilities, so why not this one?

I disagree. There are other rules that are nixed by other investigator's abilities, so why not this one?

1. It would be silly.
2. If that was the intention it would have been worded differently.

However, as with everything else in this game, play it how you want.

tamsyn wrote:

ColtsFan76 wrote:
You still only gain Allies through "purchasing" them at Ma's or when an Encounter tells you to do so. There is no game rule that allows you to grab discarded Allies. So in order to be able to do so, a specific rule needs to be written. What is written on Charlie's card is not sufficient to make this change. It is merely stating that when you gain, you can gain from the box; not giving you additional ways to gain Allies.

I disagree. There are other rules that are nixed by other investigator's abilities, so why not this one?

It's not a matter of "nixing" a rule in this case. What you are suggesting is taking an ambiguous line of text and creating a whole new concept: grabbing discarded Allies. For that to be justified, it would have to be crystal clear wording. This is how it differs.

I wouldn't call the text ambiguous so much as badly written. Charlie Kane's card has been causing problems since Kingsport came out, and FFG still hasn't made any rulings on it :'\ it's really quite annoying. I'd be willing to bet that they didn't mean what they said, but they *did* say what they said :'\

My primary reason for thinking that the card doesn't mean what is printed on it is that that ability would be extremely powerful (and the character totally unbalanced) if it were read in that way. Which isn't to say there are never unbalanced and powerful characters i.e. Mandy, Daisy, Joe ::shrug:: Still, I'd bet money that it was just badly written (causing an unintentional ambiguity).

Tamsyn, just think of it this way, the text is "Any Phase: Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box." If this were intended to be read as him simply being able to get allies that have been returned to the box without cost, that would mean that he would (if you owned all the expansions), start off with 23 allies ;'D this is beyond broken. There's no way the text is intended to be read that way. The average character starts off with about 15 points of stats. Having 20+ extra allies would make a character start off with more than sixty points of stats (plus a number of special abilities and bonus items). There's *no way* that FFG would make a character like that because it wouldn't even need other players (or even weapons) to dominate the game. It's clearly a case of bad writing. With the stack of allies I'm holding he would start off with +11 to combat and +11 to will checks and +6 to speed. This isn't to mention luck, lore, and sneak bonuses. There's no way. There's no way. Maybe if the character was called Charlie Kane the Incarnation of God, but he's only a Politician.

I see what your saying about trading though we'll prolly keep it the way it is. Really the only time that it comes up is if an encounter moves one investigator onto or away from a space another is on. Also we don't want two investigators on the same location to trade items after one has had his encounter but the other hasn't yet. We allow trading in OW but they must both be in the same square during movement. Since you get sucked into gates during the encounter phase this occasionally has some importance. Really isn't that big a deal though.

all his debate is fun, no?

especially since we don't play with charlie due to all the disagreements!

I think we will continue with idea that when the terror level goes up charlie can take the discarded ally, or he can prevent it by spending a clue token. He would only get the 11 though, not all of them.

When the official line comes out we will alter our perception accordingly!

tamsyn wrote:I think we will continue with idea that when the terror level goes up charlie can take the discarded ally, or he can prevent it by spending a clue token. He would only get the 11 though, not all of them.

When the official line comes out we will alter our perception accordingly!

I don't think you will have to...Except I don't think its merely "discarded" allies but allies discarded(returned) to the box from the original 11.

My wife played Charlie yesterday and "convinced" me that's what the words say and that's how she was going to play him. OK!?! So we did.

She ended up with 4 allies (including the original) and stopped the terror level once. Mostly because she had difficulty getting the clues and we were playing Hastur and needed all the clues we could get.

It now makes a lot of sense this is how Charlie Kane works. He usually has a choice. He can be self serving and take the boxed ally or be a statesmab and stop the terror level from raising. As you state, he's limited, like everyone else to the 11 starting allies.

Whatever the final answer turns out to be, his rule certainly could have been written more clearly.

Hopefully an answer sooner rather than later. I had a brief email exchange today with Kevin and he is hoping to get to the thread soon. His plate is just too full at the moment with other projects.

I now realise we should have taken him for scenario 3 since we always end up with the terror level at ten!

Note that the wording is "Any Phase: Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box."

"have been" means Charly can get allies that were returned to the box in the past, which excludes the interpretation that he can take them at the moment when they are returned. And if he could take any allies which are in the box at any time, he could take some 34 - 11 = 23 allies at the start of the first turn (NO WAY!!!), so the obvious way to read it is that he is allowed to draw an ally from the box if he is told to gain an ally (not sure if this only applies when a certain ally is named, or even when drawing randomly).

Edit: Sorry, "the obvious way to read it" may sound somewhat arrogant here; of course that's just how I read it, and of course I might be wrong here.

HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R wrote:Note that the wording is "Any Phase: Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box."

"have been" means Charly can get allies that were returned to the box in the past, which excludes the interpretation that he can take them at the moment when they are returned. And if he could take any allies which are in the box at any time, he could take some 34 - 11 = 23 allies at the start of the first turn (NO WAY!!!), so the obvious way to read it is that he is allowed to draw an ally from the box if he is told to gain an ally (not sure if this only applies when a certain ally is named, or even when drawing randomly).

I am interpreting the term "gain" as right after (recent past) it is returned to the box. I think all the arguments have been made and I think your position is probably the majority one. But I think the grammar and word choice is suffiently weird as to require a FAQ.

In addition, although all the Allies are literally "returned" to the box, the statement in Kingsport also reads:
"Although 11 new Allies are included in this expansion,
only 11 total Allies should be used in each game."

In further addition, the two rules for Charilie, when interpreted my way, may perfect sense for a politician as he has to choose between his votes (allies) and reducing the negative score of the game and/or closing stores. Your way produces a (too) weak investigator in two ways. One, there isn't really any soul-wrenching decision on whether to reduce the terror level. If he's got the 2 clues, he'll almost always do it. Why not. He still has ALL the allies available to him if he runs across them.

And it results in one of the weakest investigator skills, because it requires him to run across the allies, which isn't the easiest thing in the world.

If the investigators aren't concerned about the score of the game, Charlie is a next to useless investigator--boring. I'd only use clue tokens to stop the store being closed and only early in the game. And whether an ally is in the game 11 or the out of game 23 is really of no consequence to him. I guess his ability to choose the strongest ally at Ma's vs. everyone else's only 1/3rd chance may be enough to consider him adequate.

Of course, just because my interpretation makes complete polictical sense

and yours creates a weak character shouldn't sway anyone.

We tend to keep score of our games and it made Charlie really interesting and the fact that he gained three free allies made him really valuable. Too valuable? Maybe.

We're going to continue to play him Tamsyn's way because its a lot more fun. If your way prevails, he'll remain my second least favorite investigator, right after Sister Mary.

has any other character raised such discussion?

tamsyn wrote:has any other character raised such discussion?

Oh, I am sure of it. Kate comes to mind. Lily Chen might be in 3rd place. And then there is all the discussion threads about who is better....

I thought they were pretty straight forward.

I thought there was a spreadsheet that told you who was best?

tamsyn wrote:I thought they were pretty straight forward.

Oh heck no. Consider Kate for a moment: there's an encounter at Independence Square in which you see a creepy dude walking off with a kid. If you let that go, the kid turns up dead some time later. If you intervene, the dude transforms into a monster out of the cup and if you win something happens and f you lose something else happens. But when Kate intervenes, the guy's monster transformation fails. Does that count as a win? A loss? Something else? There's no spot on the flow chart for "you intervened and a monster failed to appear because Kate is on the scene."

Lily meanwhile has a very explicit power where she can give up her focus to regain a sanity and a stamina. Or she can change her maximum sanity or stamina and get more of whichever. But people whined about how they were using her in games that didn't have Epic Combat enabled (which is supposed to be illegal because she's a Kingsport card, but whatever), and that she automagically defeats Yig in combat (which she does). So they instituted a nerf to her that made her a second or third rate character most likely... but no one really knows what the nerf specifically is. She can now only regain Sanity or stamina, but no one knows if she can still regain 2 points in a turn or not.

I thought there was a spreadsheet that told you who was best?

There's one that tells you who is the best at succeeding at specific kinds of checks. That's not especially similar. For example: the Redeemed Cultist has a Lore of 6, which makes her a very good spellcaster. But Daisy is a much better spellcaster despite her Lore of 5.

-Frank

FrankT wrote:But people whined about how they were using her in games that didn't have Epic Combat enabled (which is supposed to be illegal because she's a Kingsport card, but whatever), and that she automagically defeats Yig in combat (which she does).

Actually, there is nothing illegal about this. Epic is a variant that can be packaged with Kingsport or not, or any of the other ways to play or not. Playing with Kingsport investigators does not mean you must play with every variant in the expansion. Heck, it doesn't even mean you must play with Kingsport itself.

Note, I am not agreeing or disagreeing with the power of her abilities or people "nerfing" her, just this statement alone.

Any Phase: Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box.

There are really only two ways you can rephrase this guy's ability.

1. Whenever he wants, Charlie receives any and all allies he wants that are inside the cardboard box your game came in.

2. At any time in the game, if Charlie gains an Ally, he is able to take that Ally even if it has been removed from play.

Since Charlie's ability to keep the terror level down using clue tokens is MAJOR, I'm guessing his Connections ability isn't supposed to be as crazy-awesome.

The only thing that needs clarifying, really, is whether "returned to the box" refers to characters that were returned to the box before the game started or not.

To say that interpretation #2 nerfs the character and makes Charlie one of the weakest in the game is exaggerating: Amanda Sharpe draws an extra Skill and discards the one she doesn't want. Personally I think Allies are way more useful than Skills, and they are also much rarer and much MUCH more expensive to buy in game. The magician draws an extra spell to choose from. He doesn't even get to keep it.

Charlie does not have Ultimate Cosmic Power. He'd be a GOO if he did. Until a ruling comes down from On High, let's be sensible hmm?

jeffszusz wrote:The only thing that needs clarifying, really, is whether "returned to the box" refers to characters that were returned to the box before the game started or not.

This is pretty clear IMO. DH rules page 4:

When preparing the Ally deck, shuffle it and
deal out 11 cards faceup, returning the others to the box.

They had been returned to the box, so Charly can get them...at least if there is no rules passage that I'm not aware of and that contradicts this passage.

jeffszusz wrote:Since Charlie's ability to keep the terror level down using clue tokens is MAJOR, I'm guessing his Connections ability isn't supposed to be as crazy-awesome.

Amusingly, that's the ability I most often forget, though I admit it's useful (damn you, "Family found butchered"!).

jeffszusz wrote:Any Phase: Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box.

There are really only two ways you can rephrase this guy's ability.

1. Whenever he wants, Charlie receives any and all allies he wants that are inside the cardboard box your game came in.
....let's be sensible hmm?

OK. There ARE other interpretations.

jeffszusz wrote:Since Charlie's ability to keep the terror level down using clue tokens is MAJOR...

Why is this MAJOR? These aren't doom tokens. I don't think most players would really much care about the Terror Track unless you're playing for score or playing with the Blight cards. I think if you look at the statistic thread detail, a great deal of players don't even bother with the score.

The only other concern is the General Store closing and only if you haven't bought yet. For me, that's hardly ever.

@ HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R: it's also clearly stated that only 11 allies can be in the game.

The RAW isn't quite working out in Charlie's case, so an assumption that Charlie isn't supposed to be "The Most Awesomest Guy Ever, Who Wins Automatically Because He's Just That Freaking Cool," leads to the interpretation that he doesn't automagically get all the allies that aren't currently at Ma's Boarding House.

The ability is called "Connections" not "I am Legion."

*edit*: sorry HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R, only the first sentence was directed to you specifically, in regards to the rules on DH page 4.

jeffszusz wrote:@ HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R: it's also clearly stated that only 11 allies can be in the game. The RAW isn't quite working out in Charlie's case, so an assumption that Charlie isn't supposed to be "The Most Awesomest Guy Ever, Who Wins Automatically Because He's Just That Freaking Cool," leads to the interpretation that he doesn't automagically get all the allies that aren't currently at Ma's Boarding House.

The ability is called "Connections" not "I am Legion."

Sorry for the confusion: I first inserted a quote from you that didn't make much sense in that context, and then corrected it. I suppose you refer to the initial post here?

FrankT wrote:

tamsyn wrote:I thought they were pretty straight forward.

Oh heck no. Consider Kate for a moment: there's an encounter at Independence Square in which you see a creepy dude walking off with a kid. If you let that go, the kid turns up dead some time later. If you intervene, the dude transforms into a monster out of the cup and if you win something happens and f you lose something else happens. But when Kate intervenes, the guy's monster transformation fails. Does that count as a win? A loss? Something else? There's no spot on the flow chart for "you intervened and a monster failed to appear because Kate is on the scene."

Does the test say "transforms into" or appears? If it says transforms into then I'd be tempted to rule that in this instance the monster isn't appearing at all, it was already there in disguise when Kate arrived. Kate has to face the monster. That's how I'd go with that particular card (if that is indeed the text). But I agree with your main point : Kate does run into confusing situations.

Lily meanwhile has a very explicit power where she can give up her focus to regain a sanity and a stamina. Or she can change her maximum sanity or stamina and get more of whichever. But people whined about how they were using her in games that didn't have Epic Combat enabled (which is supposed to be illegal because she's a Kingsport card, but whatever), and that she automagically defeats Yig in combat (which she does). So they instituted a nerf to her that made her a second or third rate character most likely... but no one really knows what the nerf specifically is. She can now only regain Sanity or stamina, but no one knows if she can still regain 2 points in a turn or not.

I'm a whiner. Not just because of the final battle. I really dislike the idea of toggling the Sanity/stamina slider back & forth during one upkeep to gain 1 point back of each. Similarly I dislike the idea that +2 in either direction = two increases. My preference is to compare starting & ending position : (a) slider in same spot = no increase; (b) sanity or stanina max increased by 1 or 2 spots = +1 to that stat. I think I'll stick with playing Lily that way pretty much reagrdless of what the official line becomes. That's my preference yours may vary. Feel free to whine away about the other point of view as I have about mine.

However, IMO as a general rule all character special abilities should no longer be available following the pre-final battle upkeep. Similarly that should be the last chance to use your focus. That cuts out the problem with Lily & ridiculous rolls from characters such as Joe & Mandy. Again that is only my preference, i'm sure many (everybody?) will disagree.

Cheers -Mariana the ex-nun cultist

*edited to fix a problem with the quote highlighting*

cw67q wrote:

FrankT wrote:

tamsyn wrote:I thought they were pretty straight forward.

Oh heck no. Consider Kate for a moment: there's an encounter at Independence Square in which you see a creepy dude walking off with a kid. If you let that go, the kid turns up dead some time later. If you intervene, the dude transforms into a monster out of the cup and if you win something happens and f you lose something else happens. But when Kate intervenes, the guy's monster transformation fails. Does that count as a win? A loss? Something else? There's no spot on the flow chart for "you intervened and a monster failed to appear because Kate is on the scene."

Does the test say "transforms into" or appears? If it says transforms into then I'd be tempted to rule that in this instance the monster isn't appearing at all, it was already there in disguise when Kate arrived. Kate has to face the monster. That's how I'd go with that particular card (if that is indeed the text). But I agree with your main point : Kate does run into confusing situations.

To be fair, this is not a Kate-only problem. It also applies if a Elder Sign is at the location.

jeffszusz wrote:Any Phase: Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box.

There are really only two ways you can rephrase this guy's ability.

I disagree, I think there is a third way.

3. From the rules 'For every point the terror level goes up, select one ally card at random and return it to the box'. Charlie may gain this ally, as it has been 'returned to the box'.

(this would being up the concious decision to let the terror level increase or not as I have described earlier in this thread).