jbailey86 asked a question on the CotR Discord which I will modify for the purposes of asking here: you're playing Massing at Osgiliath and haven't crossed the Anduin. You're sitting at 30 threat with a ready Elfhelm ally out. During staging, you flops two consecutive copies of Massing at Osgiliath, then an arbitrary enemy.

Before you've crossed the Anduin, Massing at Osgiliath (the card) grants Doomed 1 to additional cards revealed that phase. So the *second* Massing revealed has Doomed 1 [threat now 31], at which point Elfhelm says "Nope!" [30]. So far, so good.

Now, how about that last enemy? One of the following two things should happen:

* The enemy has gained a total of Doomed 2, so that happens [32], then Elfhelm triggers [31].

* The enemy has gained "Doomed 1. Doomed 1." The first Doomed hits [31], and Elfhelm triggers [30]. Then the second Doomed hits [31], and Elfhelm triggers [30].

As you can see, you end up with a different threat depending on which one you believe to be true.

My immediate thought was that the 1st scenario is what happens: that the Doomed value is a single number associated with a card. But I'm not sure WHY I think that, coming from strict rules text. The closest I can think of is FAQ 1.43, which talks about modifiers of variable quantities, but it's not clear to me that it actually applies here. Although it have a throwaway reference to keywords...

The game state constantly checks and (if necessary) updates the count of any variable quantity that is being modified. Any time a new modifier is applied, the entire quantity is recalculated, considering all active modifiers.

A quantity cannot be reduced below zero: a card cannot have “negative” cost, stats, keywords, etc.

Anyone have any insight here?

Here is a relevant thread on BGG, but there is no official answer. The consensus there seems to be that you would raise it in separate instances and Elfhelm would reduce after each.

Because Elfhelm has a reponse, I would activate it each time Doom hapens.

I always played doomed like archery and other numerical keyword : if more than one instance of the keyword is present, it should be treated as only one instance.

I mean, if I use Grima to play Waters of Nimrodel, it should only be one instance of doom 4, not one doom 3 and one doom 1 for the same card, it seems wrong to me, like ennemies having +1 atk meaning they do an additional attack at 1 atk...

I always played doomed like archery and other numerical keyword : if more than one instance of the keyword is present, it should be treated as only one instance.

I mean, if I use Grima to play Waters of Nimrodel, it should only be one instance of doom 4, not one doom 3 and one doom 1 for the same card, it seems wrong to me, like ennemies having +1 atk meaning they do an additional attack at 1 atk...

The trouble with that analogy is it is two separate things happening. Gaining a bonus to a stat is not the same as doom 1 and doom 2 triggering at the same time. I think even if they are the same keyword, they are different instances of that keyword, each going off separately.

I do seem to remember this being brought up before but it's been a very long time.

I always played doomed like archery and other numerical keyword : if more than one instance of the keyword is present, it should be treated as only one instance.

The issue with analogizing to other keywords is that it's not entirely clear which others would be any different if you treated them as multiple instances of smaller bits vs. one big bit. Archery, for example, works the same way whether you consider an enemy to have "Archery 2" or "Archery 1/Archery 1" (so the fact that this can in fact happen in scenarios like Druadan Forest has never been an issue).

Toughness is a curious case: It's certainly easier to think of Toughness being "additive"... But I think you could argue that a strict reading of the Toughness rule -- "An enemy with the toughness keyword reduces the amount of damage it takes by X each time it is assigned any amount of damage." -- still leaves Toughness 2 indistinguishable from Toughness 1/Toughness 1. (Devilry of Saruman's shadow effect can bring about the stacked situation, BTW.)

Other than the sad case of Surge already well-covered elsewhere, I can't think of other keywords that encounter cards gain in a stacked fashion. Are there others?

In any case, I submitted an official query and will report back.

I always played doomed like archery and other numerical keyword : if more than one instance of the keyword is present, it should be treated as only one instance.

The issue with analogizing to other keywords is that it's not entirely clear which others would be any different if you treated them as multiple instances of smaller bits vs. one big bit. Archery, for example, works the same way whether you consider an enemy to have "Archery 2" or "Archery 1/Archery 1" (so the fact that this can in fact happen in scenarios like Druadan Forest has never been an issue).

Actually, since the Glade of Cleansing has threat equal to the highest archery value in play, it is relevant whether or not it stacks (and I've always assumed that it did).

Actually, since the Glade of Cleansing has threat equal to the highest archery value in play, it is relevant whether or not it stacks (and I've always assumed that it did).

Ah, perfect: since the Glade also adds Archery 1 to all enemies, I personally would find it odd if the intent was for the Archery value to be non-additive. Still theoretically possible but odd.

My train of thought was :

Keyword are shortcut for text.

Doom X is a shortcut for "when revealed, each player raise their threat by X"

The card is revealed just once, so it doesn't seems weird to me that Doom can be additive.

Archery, Toughness, and all other works the same in my mind. If you can increased the X, then just increase the X, don't make two separate instance of the whole things.

Let me find a more obvious example: cost. If you increased the cost of a card, you don't pay separatly (because reducing cost would mean nothing if you had to pay -1). So if, in the future, they release a card that reduce the doom of a card by 1, it would workds exactly the same.

The card is revealed just once, but that doesn't mean that Doom 1 (written) and Doom 1 (added) is additive instead of separate. When a card has surge and the quest grants surge, that happens as two separate surges IIRC.

That something is effectively simultaneous doesn't necessarily make it combined. Suppose you used Boromir's ability to ready with a copy of Local Trouble attached. Ordinarily you'd just raise your threat by five (one for Boromir, two for using his ability, two for readying). But if Elfhelm were ready, you would raise your threat by three (he can use his response twice to Local Trouble, even though both threat gains come from the same card).

But that's clearly two separate invocations of the same ability. There's no question here that Local Trouble is simply triggering twice. The question is whether a card that "gains Doomed 1" while it already has Doomed 1 ends up with Doomed 2 or two separate Doomed 1s. Surge isn't particularly relevant, because Surge doesn't come with an integer argument.

I'm going with Arkham's Razor and choosing the worst possible option until we get an official response.

If a card gains two instances of Doomed, then it has Doomed 2. In the situation you described, the enemy revealed would have Doomed 2 forcing you to raise your threat by 2, then Elfhelm would reduce it by 1.

So, Doomed stacks additively. I think that, unless otherwise specified, the other numbered keywords should be assumed to as well.

(Also, "Arkham's Razor" is the best coinage I've ever seen for that principle!)