Everyone knows about Crystal of the Elder Things and Call Ancient One, but I'm not sure if this one's been brought up before... CotET, Crowbar, and Shroud of Shadow.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Call_Ancient_One

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Shroud_of_Shadow

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Crowbar

I discard infinite sanity! I draw the entire common item deck.

Conversely, if one wishes to argue that you can only discard sanity you have, I'd argue that the same should apply to casting spells with sanity costs you can't afford. ::Sigh:: I wish FFG would just make a ruling on this saying that investigators can never spend more than their maximum sanity or stamina... Although that too would make me sad, because I would never get to say "I discard infinite sanity! I draw the entire common item deck." C'mon, you know that would sound awesome.

just my 2 cents but shroud of shadow says to discard sanity. I'd personally rule that as a loss not a cost.

as far as CAO imo you can't set the X to an illegal value. X can only equal a value of sanity that could theoretically be payable, even if the payment will be avoided in some way.

plus you have to have X monster trophies as well which can help as a gating factor.

if nothing else just house rule it so that you have to pay off the negative value with clue tokens before you can start rolling dice... if you have -16 you'd better have 17 clue tokens and 1 very lucky dice

magnumopera said:

Yes, that would make sense if the cards were written consistently with a well comprehended terminology ::laughter:: unfortunately if you reread Shroud of Shadows, you'll see that its sanity cost is listed as special (implying that it's a cost, not a loss— as spells normally are).

magnumopera said:

Sure you can :' you can even cast spells with sanity you don't have (it's an official ruling— which I dislike), they then resolve and drive you insane (so clearly it's not very useful for combat spells).

I'd rather just make a house rule that you can't spend more sanity than a character's max, but, I think it should be an official rule (since it would plug up both these cards' problems, and potentially future problems with or without the Crystal, which I suppose you don't even really need). Oh hell ;') I'm just going to assume my rule is an official rule until it is officially declared against (even though I won't cite it as such). ::Laughter:: it's certainly less strange a house rule than saying "clues can't affect negative modifiers JUSTFORTHISCARD." P.S. it's reeeeally not that hard to get 13 monster trophies.... Actually, it's laughably easy if you make it the purpose of your game. God I hate that card.... :'/

You still have to roll successes. No fair just assuming how long it would take you to roll successes equal to the number of cards in the Common Deck. You just keep rolling for the next fifteen minutes...

jgt7771 said:

;') given infinite rolls one should presume one would succeed, even with cursed Arkham dice.

What about Nightmare Pool and Riots Rumors from DH, would they fit under this Avi Bill as well? Without it, could you have 1 investigator spend 24 Stamina or Sanity in a 8-investigator game to blow the Rumor out of the water in one go?

Dam said:

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Nightmare_Pool

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Riots

The wording is somewhat different here... It's not about sanity cost...

I guess the real problem is normally you can't pay for an effect unless you have whatever it is the effect requires; however, the game designers decided to allow spell costs that were greater than your sanity have effects. This still leaves in place the general framework that you can't spend something you don't have— except with spell costs (iow, it was a horrible ruling in my opinion and it should be negated, or an alternate ruling capping expenditures of san/stam at your max stat should be provided— otherwise you still might have Crystal of the Elder Thing used as a loophole).

I need sleep now :' I just was brutally massacred by my Dracula AO. :Sigh:: I'm annoyed that I removed three doom tokens and *still* lost. A **** new gate opened almost every turn *and* I got a double doom rumor with no positive effects for completing it and horrible starting equipment. Two gate surges. No respite. Ugh. Heh. Fun ;') Maybe I'll be able to pull off a win next time though.

I completely disagree.

Shroud Of Shadow quite clearly says to cast THEN to discard Sanity. The Sanity cost of a Spell is spent as - or even before - you cast it. Therefore I do not accept that this discarded Sanity is part of the Spell's cost at all.

And if we set a rule saying "you can't cast a spell you don't have the sanity for anyway", well then what about Agnes Baker? Her text allows her to spend Stamina instead of Sanity to cast a spell, if she had 1 Sanity and 4 Stamina surely she should be allowed to cast a 2 Sanity cost spell?

And once you start introudcing exceptions to the rule, the list of exceptions will just keep growing until it becomes unwieldly ... here's another exception for you, what about Daisy Walker with the Seven Cryptical Books Of Hsan, 1 Sanity and a 2 Sanity spell? etc.

Stenun said:

Note that Avi said:

"I wish FFG would just make a ruling on this saying that investigators can never spend more than their maximum sanity or stamina."

Maximum, not current stat being the limit (unless he typoed in his drowsiness).

Regarding Nightmare Pool/Riots. They only say pay Sta/San on 1-for-1 basis. Nothing about spending it one at a time. So nothing ruleswise should prevent an investigator from declaring they are paying 24 Stamina, even if their max Stamina is 3.

Why don't just turn your logic on and decide the following:

-Casting spells and becoming insane after that is LOGICAL, since it is in Lovecraft's concept.

-Being allowed to overdrain Sanity to pay 24 (for instance) is not logical, since it's simply game-breaking.

After that all I would just play it as "you can't spend more than a resulting -X, cause this is not logical, and noone would recover after that". And set X just as your party feels right (blowing away stupid munchkin passions like "I spend infinity and get all the items in play!" MWUAHAHAHA! WHO's THE ANCIENT ONE NOW, YOU STUPID CTHULHU????").

I don't think you can cast a spell with a higher sanity cost than the sanity you have, just an equal amount. Stenun convinced me that you can cast a spell with any sanity cost if you use Crystal of the Elder Things. Seeing this now, I'm going to have to house-rule that even the Crystal won't allow you to cast a spell with a higher sanity cost than your current sanity. This will solve my Call Ancient One woes anyhow.

>>>I don't think you can cast a spell with a higher sanity cost than the sanity you have, just an equal amount.

I think you wrong. I'm too lazy to look for some rules right now, but I remember from somewhere, that you really can cast spell and go insane afterwards.

If casting a spell makes you go insane, you go insane immediately. The spell will still take effect though, but a combat spell would be ineffective.

I think you're limited by your "current" sanity because it is a sanity "cost." If you can't pay the cost, you can't cast the spell. That's the way I look at it anyway.

Stenun said:

I'm not suggesting that rule. I'm suggesting a max stat cap, FFG'd just have to make sure that the wording works so that it won't cause problems with Agnes. Basically what this would result in (most of the time), is many investigators not being able to put in more than four or five points of sanity into a spell, and someone like the professor being able to put in seven. It would make it so Call Ancient One wouldn't be an alternative (and laughably easy) route to victory, I hate that card so so so so so much (every time I draw it I just refuse to use it and it's a wasted draw).

Shroud of Shadow is worded that way; however, there is a general way spells are cast. I'd be less surprised hearing that it's a bad wording than that it's an FFG slipup. There's no real reason to think that they had a reason for making one spell that was an exception to the rule of sanity costs, than that someone got sloppy writing the card. That's my opinion anyways. Also, according to your reading, one would not be able to use Crystal of the Elder Things with Shroud of Shadow, which I doubt very much would be FFG's intent. I realize that the text supports your reading, but I'm at least somewhat confident that precedent supports mine, of course, FFG being FFG ;') they could say either way, or both, or nothing.

Anyways, the rule could be very simple "You can't spend more than your maximum stamina or sanity." Bam. Several rules holes plugged. ::Shrug:: of course, somewhere out there there will be someone saying ;') "But I liked killing Quachill Uttaus with Call Ancient One!"

Hm.... all this talk of spending stuff for spells vs nightmare pool etc has me thouroughly confused. I guess I just don't see how these two cases are similar. Or what the big deal is, really. Oh man... I'm so confused, I need somebody to sum up this argument in a 'for dummies' kind of a fashion...

So, with the preamble that this is all probably horribly misguided, here's my thoughts anyway.

So.... Avi, you're Harvey, you've *got* 7 max sanity, but you only have 3 sanity right now. Are you allowed to ditch 7 to the nightmare pool? That seems weird and dumb, I've always played it that you can't spend more than you've got for game effects.

Spells are different, because of a specific game ruling that applies only to them. Incidentally, the sanity cost listed on Shroud of Shadows is 'Special' which implies: look at the text. So if you are choosing to use 3 sanity to give yourself +6 sneak, the sanity cost of Shroud of Shadows is 3. It's a variable cost, plain and simple. If you used Crystal of the Elder things to absorb the cost then you're not *going* insane, so then you can't spend more sanity than you've got: IE, the ruling doesn't apply. Ditto for Call AO.

Fact of the matter is that Call AO requires a lot to pull off. First you have to have a crap ton of monster trophies, which is going to take a while to aquire. Second, the only reason to actually cast the spell is if you think the AO is going to wake up before you can seal.... which means you're carrying around a useless spell for the whole game until you decide to use it -or not use it. Spells are valuble things, getting one with very little use during the game is kidna sucky. Thirdly, if you acually have like 13 trophies and want to pull a "for the greater good" kind of thing, then I say go for it! Why the hell not? You got a rare spell, you did a metric ass ton of work for it, you'll be devoured when you cast it but, cool, go ahead and win the game! SO WHAT?

So.... Avi, you're Harvey, you've *got* 7 max sanity, but you only have 3 sanity right now. Are you allowed to ditch 7 to the nightmare pool? That seems weird and dumb, I've always played it that you can't spend more than you've got for game effects.

I would say the limit should be how much you can spend, in the same way that you can't buy a $6 item at a store by spending all of the $3 you have. In this case I'd say that Harvey can spend up to 3 sanity.

Spells are different, because of a specific game ruling that applies only to them. Incidentally, the sanity cost listed on Shroud of Shadows is 'Special' which implies: look at the text. So if you are choosing to use 3 sanity to give yourself +6 sneak, the sanity cost of Shroud of Shadows is 3. It's a variable cost, plain and simple. If you used Crystal of the Elder things to absorb the cost then you're not *going* insane, so then you can't spend more sanity than you've got: IE, the ruling doesn't apply. Ditto for Call AO.

I think Shroud of Shadows was just another of Dark Pharaoh's infamous typos. But the Crystal of the Elder Things says that the part where you pay the sanity cost is ignored altogether, which implies that you can set X to anything, even if you don't have X. Since there is no upper limit to X for either Shroud or Call Ancient One, I still think that the maximum X can be is the maximum sanity you have plus any sanity cost modifiers.

Fact of the matter is that Call AO requires a lot to pull off. First you have to have a crap ton of monster trophies, which is going to take a while to aquire.

If you're dealt CAO at the start of the game, there's little stopping you from gathering weapons from other players and killing only the weakest monsters to build up your trophy collection.

Second, the only reason to actually cast the spell is if you think the AO is going to wake up before you can seal.... which means you're carrying around a useless spell for the whole game until you decide to use it -or not use it.

If you're dealt the spell during setup, it won't take much effort to super-charge it, instead of going through the effort of laying all those seals down. Part of the issue is that CAO is -X to cast, instead of Difficulty: X. All you need is one success, and a few clues can almost guarantee that. It's just too easy.

Thirdly, if you acually have like 13 trophies and want to pull a "for the greater good" kind of thing, then I say go for it!

For the Greater Good is considerably harder to pull off. You need the clues and the available OWs, in order. Leaving them open for long period of time so that the FtGG player can hit them is a bit risky, as is leaving clues alone so that the FtGG character can collect them.

Why the hell not? You got a rare spell, you did a metric ass ton of work for it, you'll be devoured when you cast it but, cool, go ahead and win the game! SO WHAT?

The main reason is that it's not really in the spirit of the game, nor of the MYthos in general. You're supposed to be avoiding final combat at (almost) all costs. If the spell simply awoke the AO that would be fine; it would be like Messa di Requiemawake the AO (near the end of the game) before things get any worse. But having Ancient Language and CotET is like the ultimate cheap combo. Again, if the spell required X successes to cast, that would be much more fair. A -X modifier is easy to circumvent, making the spell just too EASY. Really, you're supposed to have an epic showdown to remove a single doom token; with Call Ancient One you could do it by giving up a Cultist trophy and a sanity.

This is part of why a more-difficulty-from-less-seals rule is always welcome, as it would further discourage severe abuse of this spell. So would limiting ability to cast a spell by your current sanity (plus cost modifiers), regardless of Crystal of the Elder Things.

Tibs said:

Dammit Tibs, why'd you go and say that ? I was going to argue that point for Stenun. Like, well, if you can spend more Sanity than you have, why can't you spend more money than you have ?

Avi_dreader said:

Fair enough.

I'm not arguing that you should be allowed to cast a spell you cannot pay for, I am arguing that as there are several ways to pay for a spell then you can't limit the prerequisite to just how much Sanity you have. Given Agnes Baker, Daisy's text, Crystal Of The Elder Things, etc, there are many ways you can pay for a spell if you don't have the Sanity for it.

So no, I don't agree you can pay $3 for a $6 item *g*. But I do agree that you can use Credit Rating and $4 to pay for a $6 item, not that you need the full $6 to even consider buying it and then just happen to use Credit Rating instead of all your cash.

And yes, spells are generally cast a certain way but the wording of Shroud Of Shadow obviously makes it a clear exception. You cast the spell THEN discard Sanity, you don't use Sanity to cast the Spell. After all, you can spend 0 Sanity on it if you want, so obviously it doesn't need to Sanity to be cast in the first place. And if you want to talk precedent, well I think ir's very obvious that there is precedent that if a rule contradicts the card then the card takes precedence - Shroud Of Shadow's wording contradicts the rules, ergo ...

again, I disagree about shroud of shadow. If it were as you say, then Shroud of Shadow would certainly have a sanity cost of "0". Instead, it has a sanity cost of "special" , it's clearly the intent that the spell has a variable sanity cost.

Stenun said:

The problem with this argument, from my point of view, is that there's no reason to think that the card should operate against precedent. I just don't believe that the game designers worded it so it could be exploitable two years later with some expansion components. From what I know of FFG, it's just that they had loose terminology at the beginning of the game, and they were able to get away with it, because Arkham was fairly simple, but as they added in more and more cards, their loose terminology came to bite them in the ass, and they tried to ad hoc certain rulings into the game, which occasionally create further problems.

Ultimately, in my view, the issue is how deeply do you believe that FFG did careful advance planning when designing their card language. I don't think they did at all, which is why Shroud of Shadow is written as it is (keep in mind, it was part of the first expansion). I can't definitively prove this, but I strongly suspect it.

--

Again, I'm not suggesting that all payments are attached to your maximum stats, just spell casting for X costs (and yes, an added note could be made that Agnes can still use her Stamina as part of her max, that'd probably be the easiest way of doing it— especially if it isn't phrased too specifically). Or a particular ruling could be made for shroud and Call Ancient One— but I think it's generally a better idea to have a general rule than a particular one— had FFG been more careful about setting out general rules and distinct terminology at the beginning of the game, they wouldn't need to release a 30 page FAQ ;'D

---

Also, the arguments about CAO have been pretty much made so I'm not going to repeat them, except to say yet again, that if you get it early game or get it by Livre, it's really not that hard to gather 13 trophies. Hell, even if you only get ten, it'd be pretty hard to not be able to manage to knock off three doom tokens with a clue token shot burst.