Not sure if I'm breaking any rule by asking about an investigator that hasn't been released, but i was reading Ursula's card in the forgotten age announcement, and the wording of her ability makes it sound like I can take an investigate action from any source, including an investigate action on a card in play. While interesting, this would only apply to things that allow you to investigate as a free action, since every investigate action on a card that i can think of requires an action to be spent as part of its cost, and you're still on the hook to pay that cost. Am I right that she could use her ability to trigger an investigate action on a card in play, if that card allowed you to investigate as a free action? Not that such a card exists, I'm just curious.

If you could investigate as a free triggered ability, you wouldn't need Ursula's ability. It already costs you zero actions, after all.

That said:

On 4/6/2018 at 10:35 PM, SGPrometheus said:

every investigate action on a card that i can think of requires an action to be spent as part of its cost, and you're still on the hook to pay that cost.

The default Investigate ability also requires you to spend an action. Ursula's ability waives that cost, so it works on every Investigate ability. I'm not sure how it interacts with Orne Library or Searching for Izzie (which require multiple actions to investigate), but everything else is covered.

Are you certain about this? I could pathfinder into somewhere and activate Guiding Stones to get multiple clues for nothing? That feels insanely powerful, but the setup is extreme I suppose.

In the case of Izzie, I feel like there's only two possibilities: either 1) she can take the investigate action as part of the reaction ability she provides, negating its 2-action cost, or 2) we're wrong, and she still has to pay the full action cost, which would indicate that she behaves the same way with other action costs on cards. I don't think there's a third case in which she still has to pay 1 action, because her ability doesn't say anything about taking an Investigate action with one fewer action than normal. That, I feel, would be the only wording that would cause this tertiary interaction.

As for the library, I'm almost certain that she would still need to spend an action to investigate there. In this case, the extra action is added on to the investigate action being taken, creating an additional cost that must be paid. By the same token, I'm pretty sure Duke - who is the most similar thing I can think of to Ursula's ability - would still need to take an extra action to investigate there, even though he started somewhere else.

I definitely think that Ursula Downs needs an faq entry when she is released. She must give you a bonus action of some kind because otherwise the power does nothing.

I would say that either she can only do standard investigate actions with her ability or can only take single action investigate actions ("Take an investigate action").

48 minutes ago, SGPrometheus said:

Are you certain about this? I could pathfinder into somewhere and activate Guiding Stones to get multiple clues for nothing? That feels insanely powerful, but the setup is extreme I suppose.

In the case of Izzie, I feel like there's only two possibilities: either 1) she can take the investigate action as part of the reaction ability she provides, negating its 2-action cost, or 2) we're wrong, and she still has to pay the full action cost, which would indicate that she behaves the same way with other action costs on cards. I don't think there's a third case in which she still has to pay 1 action, because her ability doesn't say anything about taking an Investigate action with one fewer action than normal. That, I feel, would be the only wording that would cause this tertiary interaction.

As for the library, I'm almost certain that she would still need to spend an action to investigate there. In this case, the extra action is added on to the investigate action being taken, creating an additional cost that must be paid. By the same token, I'm pretty sure Duke - who is the most similar thing I can think of to Ursula's ability - would still need to take an extra action to investigate there, even though he started somewhere else.

It was confirmed somewhere that Duke would still need to pay the extra action - meaning if the move revealed the library and you weren't aware of the extra cost, if you couldn't pay it you were out of luck.

1 hour ago, mwmcintyre said:

It was confirmed somewhere that Duke would still need to pay the extra action - meaning if the move revealed the library and you weren't aware of the extra cost, if you couldn't pay it you were out of luck.

It's in the FAQ, 1.6, Additional Costs.

Orne Library isn't the same as something like Searching For Izzie though. It's a text-based additional cost, while Izzie has a cost of two actions. Ursula says you may take an investigate action - this isn't any different than Daisy's free action, except in its timing bounds (and what you can use it for, obviously). You get one free action. If the cost requires you to pay two, I don't believe you can pay it.

Did anyone ever get a definitive answer on this one? I sent in a rules question but I haven't heard back.

From

On ‎5‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 9:07 AM, zooeyglass said:

Yeah, Matt's ruled on this. Ursula gains an extra action, potentially each turn, to investigate. But certain conditions need to be met for that to kick in (unlike, say, Daisy's tome action that's always available, irrespective of if she has tomes', which is why it wasn't written simply as 'you have an additional -> each turn, which may only be used to investigate, and only if you've just moved'.

Matt went on to say: "You're doing the full process / rules for taking an action. It's different from something like Yorick's or Leo's ability, if that's the comparison being made"

I've not added it to arkhamdb yet because I've been snowed with work and with just getting the deluxe cards up (vengeance ate up some time!). But I'll update Ursula and Leo with clarifications when I can.

The net of her ability is yes, you can use her ability to initiate an Investigate action on a card, however, any additional costs must be paid. First, it counts as an action for all purposes so it does trigger attacks of opportunity. Second, if there are additional requirements (pay 2 resources, spend 1 secret, or additional action costs) those have to be paid as well. The example is if she uses her ability to take the action on Searching for Izzie , she has to pay an additional action to take perform it. (The first action is free because of Ursula's trigger, but the second still must be paid, so 1 Action total.)

Yeah, I actually just got my question reply back a few minutes ago:

" Yes, you can use Ursula’s ability to trigger the ability on Searching for Izzie. If you do, you must still spend an additional action, since Searching for Izzie costs two actions, and Ursula’s ability only allows you to take an investigate action (as in, one action)."