The card is Historical Society: Historical Museum.

The card's text reads "While investigating this location, your intellect cannot be modified." The errata reads "While investigating this location, your intellect cannot be increased."

I'm afraid that isn't any clearer to me. I'm assuming that means cards like Lucky! can't help you here because it modifies your skill value but what about Duke that sets a different base stat value for your investigation?

And that's why investigating with Duke would work is because it uses a different base value. My interpretation is that you can't use skill cards to increase and you don't benefit from bonuses on cards and from abilities like Magnifying glass. This would also mean that for instance, Calvin Wright would be stuck with a base value of zero no matter how much horror he had on him.

But you can use Flashlight because it modifies the Shroud, not the intellect value. In fact, using Flashlight would guarantee a success even for Calvin.

I imagine magnifying glass wouldn't help you because its specific wording is that you are getting +1 intellect while investigating but wouldn't you continue to have static bonuses gained before you initiated the investigation such as those on Dr. Milan Christopher or those gained by Calvin's passive character power?

After all, those where increased to that otherwise static number before you started the investigation. Where you to somehow lose and regain that bonus mid test I could see where it wouldn't come back until after the investigation was over but theses nothing in the original wording or the new wording that would suggest it would strip you back down to your base intellect.

I'm not positive on this one, but I think what it means is just what it says, no increasing intellect value. Period.

No Magnifying glass, no Milan Christopher, no Alyssa. These modify your stats and can not be used.

No Perception, Unexpected Courage, or other skill cards. Specifically, you are free to commit skill cards like Deduction to the check, but you would only get their text effects, no bonuses from the icons. You'd receive no bonus from committing any non-skill cards with intellect or wild pips to the check.

No Hyperawareness, or Higher Education, or any other lightningbolt ability that increases intellect will work.

No Eder Sign token bonuses, or +1 token from the Chaos Bag. These will be treated as +0 skill value for the check, since your intellect score can not be increased. Could be important if you were trying to succeed by 2 or something. Other effects from the Elder Sign token (Ursula's free move, for example) would still function.

Calvin: Calvin's stats are 0, so they can not be increased, regardless of his damage/horror.

Duke: I think... no duke? Whether it is raising his base value or not, it is modifying the intellect value, and it's increasing it. You can still move+investigate with Duke, but your skill value is still 2, and not 4 (out of everything I've said, I'm least sure about this one. Duke is a tricky case, and I could see the other way too).

Things that modify the shroud value would still work, such as Flashlight or Arcane Insight.

1 hour ago, awp832 said:

I'm not positive on this one, but I think what it means is just what it says, no increasing intellect value. Period.

No Magnifying glass, no Milan Christopher, no Alyssa. These modify your stats and can not be used.

No Perception, Unexpected Courage, or other skill cards. Specifically, you are free to commit skill cards like Deduction to the check, but you would only get their text effects, no bonuses from the icons. You'd receive no bonus from committing any non-skill cards with intellect or wild pips to the check.

No Hyperawareness, or Higher Education, or any other lightningbolt ability that increases intellect will work.

No Eder Sign token bonuses, or +1 token from the Chaos Bag. These will be treated as +0 skill value for the check, since your intellect score can not be increased. Could be important if you were trying to succeed by 2 or something. Other effects from the Elder Sign token (Ursula's free move, for example) would still function.

Calvin: Calvin's stats are 0, so they can not be increased, regardless of his damage/horror.

Duke: I think... no duke? Whether it is raising his base value or not, it is modifying the intellect value, and it's increasing it. You can still move+investigate with Duke, but your skill value is still 2, and not 4 (out of everything I've said, I'm least sure about this one. Duke is a tricky case, and I could see the other way too).

Things that modify the shroud value would still work, such as Flashlight or Arcane Insight.

Agree with all of this, except Duke. As he replaces your base skill value, that is different to increasing. Even though it’s changing to a higher number, you’re not actually *increasing* Pete’s Intellect, you’re using Duke’s instead.

Well... my reasoning was that firstly, changing something to a higher number is the definition of increasing it. Secondly, Duke doesn't have an intellect score, any more than a .45 Automatic does, Duke is just an asset.

That being said, Duke seems like he is specifically crafted to be a corner case on situations like this one, so as I said, I wouldn't be surprised to be wrong.

Yeah, Duke definitely works.

You aren't modifying Pete's intellect; you're replacing it. You may feel like his intellect has been increased, because the number went up, but it's more like we took Pete's 2 intellect and threw it away, into the garbage, then put Duke's 4 intellect in its place. It's the same with Monstrous Transformation and The Red-Gloved Man; they replace your stats with their own, whether those stats are higher or lower.

Expanding on this, the game has definitions for "increasing" and "replacing" that represent mechanical elements of the "program" that makes up the game's rules. Elements that provide an increase are written with a "+x" format; i.e. Milan, Alyssa, and Calvin. Elements that replace are written with "base skill value of x" format; i.e. Duke, the Red-Gloved Man and Monstrous Transformation. Only elements that increase are affected by the text on the card in question.

I think Duke gets around this location by defining a new base skill (which may not be subsequently modified).

It's only the defenition if you are comparing two numbers. Your not changing something to a higher number, your *setting* the number to something else, regardless of what that other number was.

Increasing values are given on cards in the format "+X", which seems to indicate the meaning of "increasing" in the context of the game. If Duke worked the same way, I would expect him to say something like: "Increase or Decrease your Intellect value so that it is four."

Also, I would argue that tokens pulled from the bag are modifying the test result, not your intellect value. However, I concede I might be wrong on that, though it doesn't seem very Rules as Intended.

I'm willing to concede on Duke.... but maybe I should tell my boss that I don't want to increase my salary, I just want to set it to a higher value, and see how that goes.

Chaos Bag is a weird one too, but I'm much more confident in that. In fact, it seems to me like it was the entire reason for the change in the FAQ from "your int can not be modified" to "your int can not be increased".

Well, if the context for your salary negotiation is as a test in the Arkham Horror LCG, then go ahead... ?

Regarding the Chaos Bag though, I would argue that the entire point of the change was to allow Duke to work. "Your Intellect cannot be modified." precludes changing the base value. "Your Intellect cannot be increased." does not, as described in the rest of this thread. Though, I think you are correct, as the timing rules for Skill Tests lump the chaos token modifier in with committed cards and other bonuses.

I was going to ask about token pulls, but I think this was actually confirmed elsewhere previously. My gut reaction was to say "NO! That can't be right!" but I'm pretty sure it actually is. Everything else stated about base values vs 'increases' is accurate last I knew. Duke works, RGM works, lowering shroud works (flashlight, arcane insight).

But why wouldn't Christopher work? That's a point you'd have increased your intellect by before investigating as opposed to while investigating.

2 hours ago, Donel said:

But why wouldn't Christopher work? That's a point you'd have increased your intellect by before investigating as opposed to while investigating.

Essentially it is because despite Christopher’s bonus being “constant”, it is actually a modifier which is applied to the investigator’s base intellect for free every time intellect is checked.

In this case The Historical Museum’s card text is in effect while investigating, so a skill test must be taking place. Step 5 of a skill test is “Determine investigator’s modified skill value: Start with the base skill (of the skill that matches the type of test that is resolving) of the investigator performing this test, and apply all active modifiers, including the appropriate icons that have been committed to this test, effects of the chaos token(s) revealed, and all active card abilities that are modifying the investigator's skill value.”

Dr. Milan’s modifier tries to act during this step (his +1 is an active card ability), but any positive modifier is not applied because of the location card text, so sadly he can’t help.

As said above, anything that sets the base skill to a different value is not a modifier as defined by the rules, so Duke can be used as normal.

The final total that you compare to the difficulty to determine success is called your "modified skill value." As such, anything that increases that (noting that Duke and Red-Gloved Man each give you a new base stat, and so are fine to use) does not apply (even if something else is reducing your intellect).

No Dr. Milan Christopher, no Magnifying Glass, no Committed Cards, no Lucky, no Lockpicks, no +1 chaos token, no nothing.

You may, however, modify the shroud, or modify a non-intellect skill (such as willpower for Rite of Seeking). And any negative modifiers apply normally. (Poster above is correct that the erratum was to correct the issue that, as written, negative chaos token modifiers did nothing.)

I don't see the the issue, your intellect can't be increased, simples ???