Trent Dixon, Any Point for the Active Player?

By Dam the Man, in CoC Rules Discussion

"Should read: “...If Trent Dixon is the only character you control that is committed to a story, count his skill and icons to all other story cards as well.”When he is committed alone on his controller’s turn, the application of Trent Dixon’s skill and icons to the other stories does not cause those stories to resolve." (FAQ, page 4)

As the Active Player, is there any use for TD by committing him as the only character? I mean, if the stories don't actually resolve, you're not getting success tokens or winning any struggles. As the defender, he can play the multiple man role and defend all stories where the opponent commits a character, but as attacker, what are the upsides for TD? Or is he just meant to be a defender?

With the actual faq, Trent has no more interest in attack. In defense he is not usefull because you must commit Trent during strory phase, so you turn you will commit it and with nothing to ready him, you will not be able to use him to defense.

So you can forget Trent. This faq kill him (or play it without the last faq)

No, I prefer to play with the most current rules and clarifications in effect.

I could see him giving early Miskatonic (possibly Agency) trouble with his 2 Combat icons, defending multiple stories. While browsing back the Rules threads, noticed an answer in a Marius thread that had Trent as being useful (since those stories he ghosts still resolved), but I guess the 1.1 FAQ changed thigns. Was he OP in his old form or is the FAQ change just a simplifying effect or what?

the old form was :"you must resolve stories where you had Trent's ghost." It was useful in attack because you committed it alone physically in a story and you could resolve the 3 stories. You could place 2 success on each story if your opponent couldn't defend well (with investigation bonus, you could place 3 tokens).

A 4-cost character with only 2 combats icons ; a character you can't use to defend (remember you must commit it during you story phase, so it will be exhaust during opponent's turn if you have no other way to ready it) is not useful on a game table. The old version was not often played (characters with high cost arrive generally too late on the table and must be very useful to be include in your deck - for example Pickman is better or even King Kuranes), sometimes in casual games because it was not easy to use but it was funny to succeed in 3 stories with only one character.

With the new version, it's just useless. (and yes the post from Marius was for the previous Trent).


Dadajef said:

A 4-cost character with only 2 combats icons ; a character you can't use to defend (remember you must commit it during you story phase, so it will be exhaust during opponent's turn if you have no other way to ready it) is not useful on a game table. The old version was not often played (characters with high cost arrive generally too late on the table and must be very useful to be include in your deck - for example Pickman is better or even King Kuranes), sometimes in casual games because it was not easy to use but it was funny to succeed in 3 stories with only one character.

Well, I mean, you're not forced to attack with him if you don't want, thus keeping him ready for the defense turns. If you really wanted to, you could slap Lamp of Alhazred with Trent, that would give him one A icon (IIRC), thus able him to ready himself even on attack.

Well, I mean, you're not forced to attack with him if you don't want ...

no you must attack with him if it is ready at the beginning of your story phase : " If Trent Dixon is able to commit to a story, he must commit to a story." the errata is only for the second part of the card !

What a shame -- Trent was one of my favorite cards. He wasn't even all that strong; I found that it generally took something like playing Trent (cost 4) and a Lamp (cost 2) to have much success. Even given that, they decided to errata him into uselessness. I'm not sure why -- was anyone really heartbroken over how devastatingly powerful Trent was?

After receiving my APs and putting decks together, noticed Ghoul Taint (I think that was the name of the Shub card), "perfect" for Trent. With it, he can't commit to stories on his turn gran_risa.gif .