Hello fellow EH lovers,

Ian and I were playing using Father Mateo and we got to a point where everyone had a blessed condition. All the other boon conditions have been passed out as well, such as Living Link. At this point, we only have two blessed conditions left in our "boon condition" pile. We play eight investigators all the time. Anyway, there does not seem to be a stipulation with Father Mateo passing out boon conditions if an investigator already has one. So, in this case would it be possible for Father Mateo to pass out his Blessed condition to another investigator who is already blessed and consequently cause that investigator to flip their blessed condition? I know it is probably too good to be true--but there seems no reason, according to the wording in his investigator sheet, that he would not be able to to do this.

Thanks!

Nicole

My initial thought was "It can't be done" but then I have realized that the "Give" is a keyword that doesn't carry any rules baggage yet.
Only the designer can answer this question.
I have a batch of questions to send in my free time and would ask this one as well, but if you're in a rush you can ask by yourself.
Edit: Question sent.

I think it would be good to get a ruling directly from FFG, but after looking over the wording of the rules reference and everything else, I think it is absolutely permissible. I can't find anything that would prohibit it.

6 hours ago, tsuma534 said:

My initial thought was "It can't be done" but then I have realized that the "Give" is a keyword that doesn't carry any rules baggage yet.
Only the designer can answer this question.
I have a batch of questions to send in my free time and would ask this one as well, but if you're in a rush you can ask by yourself.

Yes, please include it in your batch of questions. We tend to agree that it is permissible, but it just seems way too powerful. So, even if we could do it, we probably will house rule against it.

16 hours ago, NICOLIAN said:

it just seems way too powerful

Well, Mateo loses his own Blessed in the process. I think that in most cases having two Blessed investigators is better than flipping one of those conditions - the flip sides of those cards aren't exactly gamebreaking.

Here's the official answer:

Quote

You can think of Father Mateo's action as a trade action in which the trade is in one direct and the contents of the trade are a singular boon condition. This means the investigator receiving the boon must be able to accept it. You can't give a second blessed to an investigator for instance. If the boon can't be given, Mateo will keep the boon. However, bane conditions that say "If you would gain a boon condition, discard this card instead" (cursed, haunted, and corruption specifically) will see the new boon and both cards will be discarded.

Can you paste the "official question"?

Because this answer does not make sense. If Blessed can't be considered a valid target for that "one card one way trade action", then "if you would gain a Blessed" should never trigger on Cursed on the other side.

You can't have an effect if cause was never valid.

20 hours ago, kraftclub said:

Can you paste the "official question"?

Because this answer does not make sense. If Blessed can't be considered a valid target for that "one card one way trade action", then "if you would gain a Blessed" should never trigger on Cursed on the other side.

You can't have an effect if cause was never valid.

The "flip if you would gain another" on Curse and Boon is there because there are circumstances where it specifically says you are Blessed or Cursed and are kind of a forced effect. These are the only two conditions that account for this possibility. I believe it's prohibited to trigger in this case because triggering it involves player choice. Another example is that if you are told to gain a random Boon/Bane, you can't accept a Blessed/Cursed if you already have one, you have to keep drawing until you get a condition you don't already have. The only time it would count is if you are told by the game to gain a Blessed/Cursed condition specifically.

I know that - that's why the official answer does not make any sense, unless there's a additional question we do not see.

What exactly do you think doesn't make sense? I just explained why it does make sense. I'm not getting your thought process.

you are talking about something different.

example without blessed/cursed:

Mateo has Composed

Leo has Composed and Corruption

they say

" You can think of Father Mateo's action as a trade action in which the trade is in one direct and the contents of the trade are a singular boon condition. This means the investigator receiving the boon must be able to accept it. You can't give a second blessed to an investigator for instance. "

OK so Mateo can't move that Composed to Leo, since Leo is not able to accept it. It cannot be traded. End of story.

but

" However, bane conditions that say "If you would gain a boon condition, discard this card instead" (cursed, haunted, and corruption specifically) will see the new boon and both cards will be discarded. "

Oh so now we're having an effect from something that could not be traded since Leo could not have accepted it.

Corruption should not be able to "see the boon" since it wasn't eligible to be used in that "one way trade" in the first place.

That's a fundamental misreading of the rules. The reason he can't accept a duplicate is because the basic rules say you can't accept a duplicate condition, the exact same condition as you already have.

In your second example he is perfectly able per the rules to accept the condition because he doesn't already have one - after accepting it, then the bane conditions come into play and you discard both of them.

Example #1: Cannot accept per the rules because he already has the exact same condition

Example #2: CAN accept because he does not have the exact same condition, but the process of receiving it is interrupted by the other condition and both cards get discarded

Can or cannot accept is not predicated on the result of whether it will remain on his character, but the pre-existing state of whether he has an identical condition in play already

dude - both examples you speak of are the same and one example

Okay, I think I see the confusion. The official answer - the sentence you have a problem with, the last part about the Bane - is referencing if you have a bane with that text, but you don't already have the Blessed.

It's not directly relevant to when the other investigator already has Blessed, it's expanding on another thing to be aware of when using Mateo's special ability. At least that's how I read it.

The examples I was using was assuming in #1 that he had the exact same card and in #2 that he had the bane, but NOT the duplicate of what was being given.

The way I'm understanding the ruling is that having the bane condition with the text "if you would gain a Boon Condition you may discard this card instead" supersedes the rule that you can't accept a boon if you already have that one. Taking this into consideration that they don't want you to be doubling up on boons but they will let you discard a bane at the sacrifice of the boon even if it is a duplicate because the boon is discarded with the bane.

Look at it as this, your Boon is the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop and the Bane is the hard candy shell that surrounds the center. Mateo's Boon which is a duplicate has to penetrate the hard candy shell Bane first, before its able to get to the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop (your Boon). At this point it will have already been discarded before it would have reaches your boon the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop.

Except it's literally impossible to have both the duplicate and the Bane with the trigger condition for the discard. You can't have both a Blessed and a Cursed in play at the same time because they both would have been discarded when you got the other one.

Yes that is true for Cursed and Blessed they cancel each other out but not true for Haunted or Corruption . In which you don't lose a Boon when you acquire the Bane.

On 3/25/2018 at 6:43 AM, kraftclub said:

example without blessed/cursed:

Mateo has Composed

Leo has Composed and Corruption

So it is possible for Leo to have both Composed and Corruption at the same time if he received Composed first and Corruption later . Corruption says "If you would gain a Boon Condition, discard this card instead." So you would only discard Corruption when gaining a Boon not because you are already in possession of a Boon.

So Mateo could give Leo Composed to get rid of Corruption even though Leo already possesses Composed per the Tootsie Roll Pop Reference.

But Mateo cannot send that Composed since " the investigator receiving the boon must be able to accept it ".

So there is nothing to trigger corruption since nothing is traded.

On 3/24/2018 at 12:36 PM, kraftclub said:

Can you paste the "official question"?

Sure.
My question:

Quote

Father Mateo's ability reads "Action: Give 1 of your Boon Conditions to another investigator on any space."
Can Father Mateo "give" his Blessed condition to an investigator who already has a Blessed condition?
More generally, does "Give" have the same constraints as a Trade action or is it more akin to having another investigator gain a given card?

And again, for the sake of convenience, the answer:

Quote

You can think of Father Mateo's action as a trade action in which the trade is in one direct and the contents of the trade are a singular boon condition. This means the investigator receiving the boon must be able to accept it. You can't give a second blessed to an investigator for instance. If the boon can't be given, Mateo will keep the boon. However, bane conditions that say "If you would gain a boon condition, discard this card instead" (cursed, haunted, and corruption specifically) will see the new boon and both cards will be discarded.

It sounds to me like the confusion here stems from assuming the final sentence of the official answer is directly relevant to the question. It's true that the phrasing of the answer makes it sound like it's talking about what happens if a Boon can't be given and a relevant Bane is already present, but I'm pretty sure the intent was to address a different scenario that the question brought to mind, not to clarify the preceding answer. It reads to me like the person who provided the answer thought they might otherwise be misinterpreted as saying that any effect that would block an Investigator from gaining a Boon would prevent the trade action from taking place, including those that do so by causing another card to be discarded instead.

Thus:
- In answer to the question: When Father Mateo wishes to give someone a Boon, the rule against duplicate conditions takes precedence over the "if you would gain another Blessed" effect on the Blessed card, so he cannot give a Blessed to someone who already has one.
- As additional information: If Father Mateo gives a Boon to someone who has a Curse, Haunted, or Corruption Bane, then the "if you would gain a Boon" effect on that Bane applies, and both cards are discarded; the Bane's effect does not prevent Father Mateo from giving the Boon in the first place.

In the case where, for example, Father Mateo wants to give a Blessed to someone who has both a Blessed and a Corruption, then the first of these rulings would apply, making the second irrelevant.