Automatically evade

By Veve7, in Arkham Horror: The Card Game

If I use one automaticaly evade card, I may trigger both effects on level 2 Pickpoketing ? It is a 0 difficulty test ?

Sorry, that is sadly not the option...

From the rules reference:

Automatic Failure/Success

Some card or token abilities may cause a skill test to automatically fail or to automatically succeed. If a skill test automatically fails or automatically succeeds, it does so during step "ST.6" of the "Skill Test Timing" process outlined on page 26.

  • If a skill test automatically fails, the investigator's total skill value for that test is considered 0.
  • If a skill test automatically succeeds, the total difficulty of that test is considered 0.

In this case is permited( got oficial answer)- will be your skill to 0, so you easily beat 2 . the problem is that might be a difference between the automaticaly succeed and the automaticaly evade.

There's two conflicting meanings here, as seen in the replies. There is the possibility that you are referring to making an Evade test of some kind, and "Automatically succeeding" (e.g. if Stroke of Luck was committed to the test). There is also the possibility that you are referring to effects that allow you to "Automatically evade" an enemy, without making an Evade test - these include Stray Cat, Stunning Blow, Cunning Distraction, etc.

In the first case, where you have taken an Evade test and Automatically Succeeded, you will be able to trigger Pickpocketing (2) as you have Evaded an enemy. It is also possible to trigger the "succeed by 2 or more" kicker of Pickpocketing (2) if you have also beaten the test by 2 or more. The Automatic Success effect sets the total difficulty of the test to 0, so if your skill test result (after applying all your modifiers and the chaos token drawn, if any) is 2 or higher, you have succeeded by 2 or more and so can trigger the kicker. This is the same as how an Automatic Failure sets your total skill to 0, but if you are making a test with difficulty 2 or less, you have still "Failed by 2 or less" and so can trigger effects like Dumb Luck or Look What I Found!.

In the second case, where you have not made an Evade test at all but are instead "Automatically Evading" as the result of a card effect, you can trigger Pickpocketing (2) to draw a card or gain a resource, as you have evaded something. However, as there was no Evade test in the first place, you have not "succeeded by 2 or more" and so you cannot trigger the kicker to get both the draw and the resource. This is absolutely how it works for effects that evade without any kind of test, such as Stray Cat or Cunning Distraction.

However, it is possible to read certain effects that tack an "automatic Evade" onto another skill tests as satisfying the "If you succeed by 2 or more" requirement. These effects include Archaic Glyphs [Prophecy Foretold], Cheap Shot, Persuasion and Stunning Blow. I am reasonably confident that you would not be able to trigger the kicker on Pickpocketing (2) as the "evade" element is a separate effect to the main purpose of the test (except in the case of Persuasion targeting an Elite enemy, which I think is more likely to be a valid effect for the Pickpocketing (2) kicker) - you have not succeeded by 2 or more in an Evade test, but instead have been granted an Automatic Evade effect, which happens to have been triggered within the framework of resolving some other test.

I would say that it's worth getting clarification on that latter ambiguity, but the other points (how it interacts with automatically succeeding at a test and with automatic evade effects that are not part of a skill test) should be clear.

18 hours ago, Allonym said:

However, it is possible to read certain effects that tack an "automatic Evade" onto another skill tests as satisfying the "If you succeed by 2 or more" requirement. These effects include Archaic Glyphs [Prophecy Foretold], Cheap Shot, Persuasion and Stunning Blow. I am reasonably confident that you would not be able to trigger the kicker on Pickpocketing (2) as the "evade" element is a separate effect to the main purpose of the test (except in the case of Persuasion targeting an Elite enemy, which I think is more likely to be a valid effect for the Pickpocketing (2) kicker) - you have not succeeded by 2 or more in an Evade test, but instead have been granted an Automatic Evade effect, which happens to have been triggered within the framework of resolving some other test.

I would say that it's worth getting clarification on that latter ambiguity, but the other points (how it interacts with automatically succeeding at a test and with automatic evade effects that are not part of a skill test) should be clear.

Hey hey,

Turns out, clarification is already being sought, as Matt Newman is looking at automatic success / automatic evade. One particular example is if you play Cheap Shot targeting the Harbinger and succeed by two - in that instance, you'd add a resource for a successful fight. First it was ruled that you'd add a second resource for the automatic evade. Then caution was added and something of a reconsideration... and we're waiting to see how things shake out.