Free Triggered Abilities - once per opportunity?

By Akhrin, in Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Ran into a situation last night where a character had access to free triggered ability (Hyperawareness, spend 1 resource for +1 to either Intellect or Agility). They also had several resource available to them. The question came up as to whether they could spend multiple resources to get multiple bonuses on the same skill test.

Took a quick look whether they could trigger that effect multiple times on one test, didn't spot anything at the time so went with The Grim Rule and only did it once. And this does feel like the correct way to treat it. But I'm going back over the rules again this morning and still struggling to figure out whether these abilities are once-per-opportunity, or if you can repeat as long as you can pay the cost.

Will continue running with the once-per-opportunity for now, but would be good to have a confirmation from somewhere within the rules!

Unless it says 'exhaust' to 'use' then fast abilities can be used (if paid for) multiple times. You can burn through as many resources as you want pumping skills via hyperawareness.

I just want to interject that I will always refer to the Grimm Rule by its proper name, "Arkhams Razor: If the rules are ever unclear, stab the Investigators with it."

I just want to interject that I will always refer to the Grimm Rule by its proper name, "Arkhams Razor: If the rules are ever unclear, stab the Investigators with it."

That logic cuts to the bone.

Unless it says 'exhaust' to 'use' then fast abilities can be used (if paid for) multiple times. You can burn through as many resources as you want pumping skills via hyperawareness.

That's not entirely true, although having to exhaust a card to use it obviously limits its use per round. There can be other limitations built into the ability in other ways (Skids can only ever pay off two of his Hospital Debts per round, for instance, by its innate rules).

I had this exact same question. Looking through the rules I didn't see anything that would prevent you from using it more than once per check since it does not have a trigger. If it only is usable once per check, I'm not sure how often I would play it or even include it in future decks.

I had this exact same question. Looking through the rules I didn't see anything that would prevent you from using it more than once per check since it does not have a trigger. If it only is usable once per check, I'm not sure how often I would play it or even include it in future decks.

Yes, you can use things like Hyperawareness and Hard Knocks as many times as you want for a test, so long as you have the money to pay for them.

I had this exact same question. Looking through the rules I didn't see anything that would prevent you from using it more than once per check since it does not have a trigger .

This. To throw the actual rules in for the why:

Most triggering conditions use the word “when” or “after” to establish their relation to the specified timing point.

No when or after, no described game event it responds to, so the once per opportunity doesn't apply.

I played this as described by the first member's post. I had plenty of resources so it seemed too big an advantage to spend as much resources as you wanted to boost a skill. But I was only playing the first scenario so maybe in later ones resources get more scarce.

I remember clearly seeing that as long as it's a free action and you vocab satisfy other costs, then you can play it as many times as you wish. I don't remember where I saw that.

For future reference, this seems like the kind of thing that could be a good contender for an example in rules books (or even specifically called out), or maybe in the FAQ. It's something that seems obvious to veteran players of CCG/LCG but not so obvious to newbs (like myself)! I've played Netrunner before so now it seems obvious but it was not on my 1st play-through of Arkham LCG. :-)

Edited by USP45

Free triggered abilities are a lot like action abilities, in fact. They just have different timing rules.

Holy necro Batman.

4 hours ago, Network57 said:

Holy necro Batman.

Haha sorry. This is what happens when searching the internet for an answer and boardgamegeek is down.