The ally Professor Rice's ability is "Place 1 Clue token on each unstable location without an open gate when Professor Rice joins you."

My question is...does this ability also take effect if an ally starts the game with an investigator? In this case, Roland Banks starts the game with an ally as a random "possession", and I drew Professor Rice.

Should I be starting the game with two clue tokens on each unstable location? Or does when Professor Rice "joins you" refer to the professor joining an already ongoing investigation (game)?

Thank you in advance!

Schmiegel,

You would absolutely place a Clue token on every Unstable location. By not doing so, you would sacrifice a significant benefit accorded the Investigator for picking-up this Ally .

Cheers,

Joe

Thank you, Joe! That's what I suspected. This is going to be interesting because the Ancient One is Ghatanothoa (of the Annihilating Gaze).

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Ghatanothoa

Aye. Just remember you are allowed to pick only one clue even if many are present at that location. This makes Ghat one of the easiest boys in town

Hi Julia! Thanks for weighing in on this....actually I did NOT know that. Too late for Skids O'Toole, but it's very good to know. Skids' karma caught up with him early (his first turn). Certainly lives will be spared as a result of this new info. Much appreciated!

You're welcome, my friend Enjoy your game

Aye. Just remember you are allowed to pick only one clue even if many are present at that location. This makes Ghat one of the easiest boys in town

Sorry, but this is incorrect. From the rulebook:

Any time an investigator ends his movement in a location that contains Clue tokens, he may immediately take any or all of those Clue tokens. The investigator may not take any Clue tokens if he merely moves through the location and then continues his movement: He must end his movement in the location containing the Clue tokens.

Ehm, sorry, but the quoted rule states exactly what I said. It's stated here:

Any time an investigator ends his movement in a location that contains Clue tokens, he may immediately take any or all of those Clue tokens

Any means 0, 1, 2 or whatever up to the total of clues present at the location.

My apologies, not trying to be difficult here. But in your first post which I quoted above I believe you stated only one clue could be taken, regardless of how many were in that location. Your second post seems to agree with me and the rulebook in that you may take them all (or only one, two, etc.) but that you CAN take more than one.

Again, not trying to be difficult, but am I missing something here?

My apologies, not trying to be difficult here. But in your first post which I quoted above I believe you stated only one clue could be taken, regardless of how many were in that location. Your second post seems to agree with me and the rulebook in that you may take them all (or only one, two, etc.) but that you CAN take more than one.

Again, not trying to be difficult, but am I missing something here?

I think you misunderstood Julia's first post. She was saying that you are allowed to pick up only 1 clue, even if many are present. As in, you are not required to pick them all up if you don't want to. This is useful for avoiding the effects of Ghatanothoa's Slumber, which is why she pointed it out.

Dalew, now I see your point.

Indeed, Steve-O got what I meant. The point was picking up clues & Ghatanothoa. The AO's Annihiliting gaze forces you to turn one visage token face-up. Considering the fact that you might be devoured if you pick up the wrong one, I remembered the Original Poster he's allowed to pick up one and ignore all the others so that he can avoid flipping the visage token.

This is something that clearly makes Ghat not particularly scary; it's just that you need to spend some more time to gather resources, but considering its extremely long doom track (13), you have plenty of time to do this. It happens that players don't know this nuance of the rules, so that every time they enter a location with 2+ clues, they pick them all up, making the AO a lot more challenging.

Ah. I KNEW I was missing something.