Hi all and sorry for making a new thread for such a simple question, but I couldn't find an official answer to this.

What happens when a monster that already has Nightmarish 1 gains Nightmarish 1? Does it now have Nightmarish 2, or is the second ability just lost (like when a monster that already has Magical Resistance gains Magical Resistance)?

This can happen for example with cards like the "Strange Murders" Environment (Urban) from The King in Yellow Expansion that gives all flying monsters Overwhelming 1.

Thanks for your answers!

-Villain

I'm going to go with yes...mainly because its a numerical value.

I am going to go with NO, they do not stack.

The only card that adds this is the Mythos card, Strange Murders . The answer only affects 2 flying monsters that already have Overwhelming 1.

The card basically states that they "increase" their toughness by 2 but only "gain" Overwhelming 1. Since the toughness is clearly a +2 bonus by the way it is worded, Overwhelming is only gained and not added. So if a monster already has O1, it can't increase by getting another O1. Your example of Magical Resistance is spot on.

Yes but if the magical resistance hand a numerical value for example magical resistance (2), etc and a card gave magical resistance (1). I think it should be a total of magical resistance (3) but we all know magical resistance doesn’t have a numerical value so something that give a monster magical resistance that already has it doesn’t do anything but I would think a card that gives a monster with overwhelming(1) another overwhelming(1) the final should be an overwhelming(2).

This is what makes sense to me.

I think I would argue that the monster would have "overwheling 1" twice. Thus when you defeat it it would do 1 damage to you and then do 1 damage to you. This is an important difference from "overwhelming 2" when you consider abilities that could reduce the damage taken. I'm specifically thinking of the ability to reduce damage from all souces by 1 to a minimum of 1.

Then it would say increase Overwhelming by 1. It does not. It's simple English. You cannot gain the same ability twice. Feel free to play it how you want, however.

True it is simple English but the sprit of the card(s) (at least to me) means it's cumulative due the simple fact there are numbers involved. Nightmarish(2), Overwhelming (1), etc

So if a monster had Overwhelming(2) then gained Overwhelming(1) would there be two separate events of overwhelming, one event of overwhelming(3) or your choice of the two overwhelming because surly overwhelming(1) and overwhelming(2) are different.

Interesting thought: If something has, for instance, Nightmarish 2 and gains Nightmarish 1, does the Nightmarish 1 replace the Nightmarish 2? I don't know of any examples yet, but it's still something to consider.

One of Abboth's spawn monsters has a Nightmarish(2) and another Overwhelming(2).

MrsGamura said:

Good call, but I meant that I didn't know of a case where a monster had n x and gained n y for x>1, y<x, and n = Nightmarish or Overwhelming (I'm not doing set theory in this thingy).

The only cards I have noticed that give Nightmarish x and Overwhelming x are...

Madness Card ~ Necrophobia , gives Undead Nightmarish 1

Mythos Card ~ Strange Murders , gives flying monsters Overwhelming 1

Looks like the only monsters effected by these cards that already have Overwhelming and/or Nightmarish are the Flying Polyp and Wraith .

MrsGamura said:

I'd say yes, they stack. Technically the rules and wording would indicate not, but remember the golden rule of arkham horror.

ColtsFan76 said:

Why not? Monsters that don't have a listed Overwhelming score are Overwhelming 0.

Cheers,
Chris

Thelric said:

Do you see that as being the same as having a "-" in the Horror check/damage part of the monster chit? IIRC there are Mythos cards that increase "...sanity damage (if any)". Line is not the same as having Sanity damage of 0 in this instance, so why would Overwhelming/Nightmarish be treated differently?

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.