Okay, so I'm playing Tommy Muldoon, the Irish Rookie Cop. I "succeed" at my personal story and get myself eaten, allowing me to choose (I assume this means make a decision as opposed to a random draw) a new character. We're up against Atlach and the terror level is already 7, so we've lost the majority of our allies. It's really looking like we're gonna be fighting the AO. I figure, "who better to bring into this mess but Charlie Kane?" Two of our allies are in play, 7 have fled and that leaves 1 for recruitment at Ma's unless Charlie is in the mix.

So in comes Charlie. NOW, do I get to draw my random possession ally from the original deck of 11, most of whom have been returned to the box? Or do I simply select the 1 remaining "unclaimed" ally left in Arkham? I'm still not sure if Charlie's ability allows him to draw from the ENTIRE deck of allies, even those not in the initial deck of 11 ... somehow I don't think so. I simply mixed the last remaining ally in with those who had fled and made my random draw from that ... guess what? Chose the ONE guy who was still in Arkham, meaning my teammates were left without anyone else to recruit (as the rest remained "in the box"). Really screwed us in the end but we stuck to our guns as that was the decision.

Having Charlie enter the game midway really forced us to scramble for a best-case-logic sort of solution. I think we did okay.

Thoughts?

OH, and before I forget, an unrelated question but from the same session:

The Dunwich Horror. The sucker woke up quick and made our life hell. We sent the farm hand dude to deal with it (name forgotten), the guy who doesn't need to take a terror test unless he first fails a combat check. The Dunwich Horror states "draw a card before making a terror check." Does this mean the farm hand gets to fight the Horror PRIOR to drawing a card, meaning he only needs to deal with the six toughness (or whatever it is)? Somehow I doubt it. My friend tired to make a case for it but I shot him down pretty quick, thought I promised to present the notion to the forum for "official" consideration.

Cheers!

Deek said:

Heh, I think you read his PS pass clause a bit wrong. The choose another investigator forms a paragraph with the next sentence "That investigator gains 5 Clues." 1+1 = 2 in this case I believe. Tommy is devoured as normal, so he goes back to the mix and you draw a new random investigator, could even be Timmy Muldoon.

Deek said:

I would say you draw the card when you normally would make a Horror check, even if, like in Hank's case, you don't actually need to make one. So the timing (before Horror check, at the very beginning of the combat) is IMO more important than the literal following of the wording.

Oh, and I'm not touching the Charlie issue. I think the proto-FAQ talks about him, but he's just one of those reasons to not like KH .

Hank would still have to draw the DH's card before attempting a combat check. After all, you can't get your combat modifiers until a card is drawn, so you can't even make a combat check! Dam was right: it's the timing more than the semantics. The proto-FAQ even mentions that Rex Murphy still loses stamina from his curse when playing with the Dark Pharaoh herald, even though the herald says to lose the stamina "before rolling to remove a curse." Rex, of course, never rolls for his curse.

Here is how Charlie (officially) works: Charlie only has access to the 11 allies drawn for the game, just like all other investigators. When drawing a random ally, he draws from those remaining in the deck, just like other investigators. The only difference is thus: whenever Charlie is allowed his choice of an ally (Boarding House Recuit ability or some other rare encounters), he can choose from those of the 11 selected for the game that have been returned to the box (terror level up) if he wants. During random encounters where you can gain an ally by name, if that ally has been returned to the box (and assuming he was part of the original 11) Charlie can take that ally rather than the compensation prize. The only thing I'm not 100% on is whether he can choose to take the compensation prize if he would rather have that (his ability says "may" so I'd say yes that's allowed).

Dam said:

Yet you still got Innsmouth, even though:

• Patrice Hathaway is far more screwed up than any of KH's investigators
• Innsmouth comes with no items!
• The "Innsmouth shuffle"; I believe you coined that term
• As written, Michael McGlen breaks the game against Rhan-Tegoth
• As written, Roland Banks breaks the game against Nyarlathotep
• With Rex's personal story passed, he breaks the game against Nyarlathotep. Additionally, with at least one Press Pass in his possession, he breaks the game against Chaugnar Faugn.

The true irony regarding those last few bullets is that only if you own Kingsport's Epic Battle deck, it is still possible to lose those impossible-to-lose situations!

Tibs said:

Hey, Patrice is more powerful, not screwed up (at least based on her wording) like Lily Chen and Charlie. I mean, there is nothing confusing about Patrice's ability. Well, maybe why it was created, but not how it works in a game. It took ages to get Charlie Kane finally cleared and Lily needed an errata as well.

For items, adding KH to the mix would only make Elder Signs more frequent than my current combo .

Michael and Roland I'll give you, but Innsmouth Shuffle at least means there are actually monsters there, not free shots at powerful allies. And those monsters might at times hinder you from calling the Feds.

See, no KH, no Rex issue either !

Wait, so it's confusing wording that makes you avoid KH, not overpowered investigators or items (like Patrice)? Then why complain about a fifth Elder Sign?

As long as you're in Kingsport messing around, you're not clearing monsters or gates. As long as you're not in Kingsport, you're risking a rift situation. It's a win-win!

And I know this goes against your Arkham OCD, but you could just leave out that fifth Elder Sign and omit the characters you don't like. Come join the rest of us with a 10-mask Nyarlathotep, dodging Moon Beasts and Shans, and coping with some of the nastiest rumors ever to plague Arkham!

Also... Atlach-Nacha is calling you...

Tibs said:

Combo of confusion and overpowered stuff (5th ES, Eltdown Shards, Daisy, Wendy, etc.)

Tibs said:

First sentence = . There is no fun in that. Sticking an investigator there and having to (yes, I say having to instead of getting to) take encounters at stable locations would be so boring. Would have to see how often the rifts would come out and doomers to make a decision if one should just ignore KH totally (in which case, why bother having it in the first place if you're going there?) or send someone on babysitting duties.

Tibs said:

Sorry, no, can't do that. It's all or nothing .

Ordinarily I let Kingsport alone until one of the rifts has 3 progress tokens on it. Sure, I don't spend much time there, but it will still affect my decisions and make the game harder. Harder is better, right?

Dam said:

OK. Then it's all expansions or no expansions... right?

Thanks for the responses. First off, I was staring at the ceiling at around 1:30am last night when I realized Tommy's personal story FAILS if the terror level reaches 5 (?). So yeah, it's all moot. I wouldn't have tossed him to the Moon Beast as his story was failed by the time the "opportunity" came around.

Thankfully, it didn't really impact the game. Tommy had an ally when he died and Charlie entered the game with one (broke even). EDIT: That leads me to a question: Would that ally then be discarded, as opposed to returned to the Allies deck? If an investigator dies, does his ally go with him? I don't have my instruction manual(s) on hand, so I can't double-check. Charlie was then unable to attain the required number of trophies prior to Atlach waking up (poor movement rolling with Dunwich Horror saw to that, as did the threat of Act I early in the game and a late two-doomer Mythos draw). Thankfully I had passed all my items to Hank prior to the fight 2 kamikaze charge into the Moon Beast gullet. The only benefit we gained was Charlie's $9 that was used to pay off a Bank Loan that otherwise would have had no effect on the game - the guy had more than enough money to fail every turn and still not have his stuff repossessed prior to Atlach waking up (since the last of the doom track went FAST).

As for mis-reading the story clause, yeeeeaaaaah. Do I choose one of the still living investigators and grant THEM 5 clue tokens? That was my original interpretation, but another player insisted it meant I was able to choose a new investigator who then entered the game with 5 clue tokens. So, I grant another investigator 5 clue tokens, remove a doom token from the AO's track, put the pass card aside to discard in place of raising the terror track ...... then randomly a new investigator as I normally would when my character is devoured, which otherwise has nothing to do with the pass/fail of the personal story?

Hmm. Basically, Charlie always draws from the Allies deck as if the terror level were zero, correct?

I think I got it now! Thanks, all!

Deek said:

When Tommy dies, he selects another investigator in play; that investigator receives 5 clue tokens. Then Tommy's replacement is drawn.

No, Charlie doesn't draw from the Allies deck as though the terror level were zero. Whenever he's supposed to draw from the ally deck at random (such as for his starting ally), he draws from whatever allies are left over. His special ability only applies to situations (encounters or Ma's ability) where he can either take an ally of his choice, or acquire a specific ally that's mentioned by name. In these cases, yes, pretend the terror level is at 0.

Ahhhh, so if Charlie enters the game as a second string investigator (drawn after someone is devoured), he only draws from those left in the deck, not including those Allies who have fled due to high terror? Good to know! We did it wrong, but "thankfully" I drew the one guy brave enough to still be in Arkham. So it was a wash.

Semantics are so important. Draw versus choose/select, etc.

Tibs said:

Wait no no no, I disagree with this absolutely. It says nowhere on Charlie's card or in the proto-FAQ that he can't take one of his random allies when he comes into play from the 11 that were returned to the box. This is the only relevant text. I'm not sure why you'd think "normal methods," and "so forth" would preclude random ally selection when he comes into play. I guess the real question we need to ask is *how* do you randomly his ally in that case. Or we should get official ruling that his ability doesn't apply to random ally selection. Is there a KW ruling I haven't heard about?

"A: Choose the 11 starting Allies; Charlie can gain any of

those 11 Allies that get returned to the box. These allies
are gained through the normal methods of gaining allies
(Ma's boarding house, certain encounters and so forth)."

Deek said:

The only time something returns to the box is if it is specifically said to return to the box. I.e. special items, special monsters, southside strangled allies, terror level allies. When an investigator dies, all their cards do not return to the box. Discarded by the way *means* return to the bottom of a deck.

When Charlie entered the game at the mid-point, I shuffled those who had fled together with those who remained (minus those who were already in play) and drew randomly from that to determine his fixed possession ally. It made sense at the time.

Yes, discarded versus returned-to-box. Important, and something I am ultimately aware of but somehow failed to consider in this case, what with confusion stacked upon confusion. Thanks!

Deek said:

I would say that's how you'd do it based on the current explanations in the proto-FAQ and the card text. To me however, this is a *major* mess.

First you have to memorize or record who has been discarded, and then after you get him his random ally, you have to re-separate the allies that have and haven't been discarded. If I had to do it, I'd do a blind (looking up away from the cards with eyes closed) shuffle/draw with the discarded allies face up and the remaining allies face down, and then I'd cut and take who ever was on top.

Either way, there should be official guidance on how to deal with this (at the very least clarifying whether you need to put the boxed allies and the deck allies together for a random draw), or contrariwise forbidding his drawing of random boxed allies.

It just seems messy to re-shuffle the returned cards with the remaining cards for the purposes of dealing the starting Ally to Charlie, so that can't be the way it works. Plus, Avi, the line you cited says "normal way of gaining allies." I don't think starting with an ally counts in this case, specifically because of the absurdly messy scenario I mentioned above. Plus, starting with and gaining aren't the same thing, I'm sure.

For us it was a simple matter as there remained only a single unclaimed ally in Arkham; the rest had fled or were in play. But yeah, under normal circumstances and using Avi's method, Charlie entering a game mid-point would be a major pain in the butt. I honestly think both solutions are potentially viable interpretations, though admittedly one comes shackled with a ton of hassle (relatively).

Tibs said:

I'm not sure that there's evidence that there's a clear terminological distinction between "starting with" and "gaining." Can you provide some if you're sure?

The line says "normal way of gaining allies," arguably starting equipment *is* a normal way of gaining allies. Also, it says "certain encounters, and so forth." At no point does it make a random/non-random distinction (which would affect dhol chants— do you mean to say Charlie can't draw from the box when he uses dhol chants? or a couple encounters that provide random allies) which arguably would be a good idea for the reasons we've brought up above.

Anyways, this needs additional clarification (either that this won't work for random draws, or providing a method for random draws from either separate decks, or a mixed deck).

And while we're at it, we should get clarification of whether or not dhol chants gets a random ally. Even if it lets you select your ally (I've never played that it does), you still have the problem of random ally gain encounters (there are a few).

Avi_dreader said:

Only empirical evidence:

Take for example Rex Murphy:
"Investigation - Any Phase: When Rex gains one or more Clue tokens, he gains one extra Clue token."

Rex starts with 3 clues, but does not get an extra 4th during setup.

Also, Michael McGlen's personal story: if he gains $5 or more, he fails. However, he starts with $8.

Skids O'Toole marks his personal story card towards success for each clue token he gains (he needs to gain 5), but he starts with 3.

Again, I fall back on my reductio ad absurdum: if a random ally draw for Kane was meant to include both in-play and returned-to-box allies at the same time, that would mean that they'd have to be shuffled together for the draw, and then re-separated. That seems a little suspicious.

Perhaps obtaining an ally via a random draw is not considered a "normal" way of gaining an ally.

Tibs said:

I think we just need to ask them to clarify these positions. I think your argument is somewhat plausible, but not certain since they've never specified a clear use of terminology, they've just replied that starting equipment does not count towards personal stories, and they gave a specific ruling for Rex Murphy (they never explained the rationale behind it).

The randomness issue still remains. That *definitely* requires clarification.

And if "Starting equipment is not considered gained," is a fact, it should be stated in the Rules Clarification section, but I'm not certain it is a fact (even though you've made a plausible argument that it may be).