14 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

Nothing prohibits Agnes from taking Seeker cards. She is allowed to take any card which matches anything in her Deckbuilding Options.

In exactly the same manner, that there is nothing that prevents Pete from taking 20+ (multi-class) seeker cards either... which is where the article gets a bit inconsistent. Either you need to meet one of the deck building options ( in which case, they both can take multi-class cards if they match one class) or you need to meet both class requirements ( so Pete is limited to 5 out-of-class cards, assuming survivor is one half, or two out-of-class cards otherwise and Agnes is limited to mystic-survivor cards.)

I think we'll have to see which way they jump with that.

15 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

In exactly the same manner, that there is nothing that prevents Pete from taking 20+ (multi-class) seeker cards either... which is where the article gets a bit inconsistent. Either you need to meet one of the deck building options ( in which case, they both can take multi-class cards if they match one class) or you need to meet both class requirements ( so Pete is limited to 5 out-of-class cards, assuming survivor is one half, or two out-of-class cards otherwise and Agnes is limited to mystic-survivor cards.)

What is legal to include, and how you count what you've included, can easily be separate things. I'm not sure why you think this is so impossible to create a rule for.

34 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

What is legal to include, and how you count what you've included, can easily be separate things. I'm not sure why you think this is so impossible to create a rule for.

Sure, you could easily errata Jim Culver to have "Additional Requirements: no more than 5 out of class symbols on level 0 cards."

Job sorted.

But why? Is Jim so much better than Agnes that he needs a nerf? Or that particular nerf. (If there was some weird scavenger revision thing going on, I could see some errata... but that particular change?)

The article suggested that it wasn't a deliberate change: it was a consequence of how the multiclass rules were written. It's not a question of 'How do I issue errata to nerf a card', but as the side effect of something else.

(Like requiring both class requirements to be met, which would inconsistent with the Agnes example, but does match the whole two card slot thing.)

1 minute ago, ColinEdwards said:

Sure, you could easily errata Jim Culver to have "Additional Requirements: no more than 5 out of class symbols on level 0 cards."

No, you don't have to errata cards. "When a Deckbuilding Option limits something by count, cards which meet that condition multiple times count once for each condition they meet."

That probably covers it pretty well right off the cuff. And it's basically exactly what they've said, and it's perfectly consistent with every other ruling we've got for current investigators.

3 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

The article suggested that it wasn't a deliberate change: it was a consequence of how the multiclass rules were written. It's not a question of 'How do I issue errata to nerf a card', but as the side effect of something else.

I'm not sure what makes you think this. We had a response from Matt about this the same day. That's not a "Oh, man, nobody thought of that!" There's really nothing to suggest this wasn't intentional.

Why don't we just follow what the article says?

"These cards, identified by their golden hue and dual class icons, can be added to your deck if you have access to either of the classes detailed on the card. "

"If, however, an investigator has limited access to one of the classes on a multiclass card, that card occupies one of the investigator’s limited slots!"

Seems simple to me. I have a harder time following peoples arguments here.

Note, the above are not rules, they are just stating how the rules work.

Kind of weird that a Level 0 card that is Survivor/Guardian eats up a slot for Pete and a Level 2 card that is Survivor/Guardian doesn't, but that is the rule.

2 hours ago, Jobu said:

Kind of weird that a Level 0 card that is Survivor/Guardian eats up a slot for Pete and a Level 2 card that is Survivor/Guardian doesn't, but that is the rule.

I see it as a benefit of the upgrade.

7 hours ago, Jobu said:

Note, the above are not rules, they are just stating how the rules work.

Kind of weird that a Level 0 card that is Survivor/Guardian eats up a slot for Pete and a Level 2 card that is Survivor/Guardian doesn't, but that is the rule.

The 'confusion" was never on what they are saying in the article; but rather on how the rules would have to change to make what the article describes happen - and what the implications of that would be.

(Obviously, the could errata each card; but does Jim really need a nerf? Seems unlikely. The complexity is in changing the rules to make this happen more generally.)

16 hours ago, Jobu said:

Why don't we just follow what the article says?

"These cards, identified by their golden hue and dual class icons, can be added to your deck if you have access to either of the classes detailed on the card. "

"If, however, an investigator has limited access to one of the classes on a multiclass card, that card occupies one of the investigator’s limited slots!"

The issue isn't that we can't understand what the rules say, the issue is that the rule make no sense. They're changing the deckbuilding rules into something far more confusing, for seemingly no purpose other than to restrict how a handful of investigators can use a handful of cards that aren't even out yet, all without any obvious balancing issues that would require such a change.

Here's what I mean: Canonically, Carolyn Fern can include Logical Reasoning, and it won't count against her Seeker quota. Per an unofficial errata, her card was supposed to read "up to 15 other Seeker and/or Mystic cards" (and will read so when she's eventually released). Likewise, Finn could include a hypothetical Illicit Survivor card without it counting against his Survivor quota, and so on. The general idea is that Finn gets unlimited access to Illicit cards, regardless of class, and Carolyn gets unlimited access to cards that heal horror, regardless of class. Everyone accepts the Carolyn errata, because it makes no sense that a deckbuilding bonus (limited access to Seeker cards) should actually restrict her.

Now let's look at Scroll of Secrets. Agnes and Akachi can freely include these cards, even though they can't normally take Seeker cards*. Jim and Marie, on the other hand, can include Seeker cards, which somehow makes them less able to take Seeker/Mystic card. But even that rule doesn't work, because Marie actually can freely include Scroll of Secrets. Her deckbuilding options include the word "other," because she's got access to the Spell trait, and obviously they wouldn't want her to be restricted when taking Seeker/Survivor spells but unrestricted when taking Rogue spells.

That means that every Mystic in the game can freely take Scroll of Secrets except Jim Culver. That's going to apply to pretty much everyone else, as well. If you're not a Dunwich investigator, you can freely include multiclass cards that match one of your deckbuilding options. That's because the Dunwich investigators don't have the word "other" on their deckbuilding options, because obviously that would have been redundant at a time when each card could only have one class.

How does this make any sense? Why does Jim need a nerf compared to Agnes? Why does he need a nerf compared to Marie, who also has limited access to Seeker and no matching trait? It all comes off as rules lawyering; there's no apparent logical or balancing reason for the ruling, but the cards were printed without a certain adjective back when that adjective would have been meaningless, so we're stuck with the letter of the law.

But of course, none of this matters for solo play, or play between veterans of the game who know all the obscure rulings. The most important thing is this: How the heck are we supposed to introduce new players to deckbuilding? It would be easy if multiclass cards were strictly inclusive. "Here's a multiclass card; it can be either one of its classes!" The current ruling is just needlessly confusing. "Here's multiclass card! It counts as both of its classes simultaneously, except that you can still include it if you can only match one of its classes, but it counts against both when it matches both, unless you're playing as Carolyn or Marie or what have you--You know what, let me sketch out a flowchart"? This game is intimidating enough to newbies at it is!

tl;dr: It just brings needless complexity to the game, and it doesn't seem to add anything. Unless you can argue that the Tennessee Sour is absurdly OP with Pete (as in, stronger than Key of Ys with literally anyone), but not with any other Survivor, we'd be better off just ignoring i. (And if you can make that argument, then they should just change the Tennessee Sour).

*Yes, I know there's no "no Seeker cards" deckbuilding restriction on them. There's no need; it's already implied that you can't take cards that don't fit your deckbuilding options. That's "ain't no rule saying a Shoggoth can't play" logic.

33 minutes ago, rsdockery said:

Now let's look at Scroll of Secrets. Agnes and Akachi can freely include these cards, even though they can't normally take Seeker cards. Jim and Marie, on the other hand, can include Seeker cards, which somehow makes them less able to take Seeker/Mystic card. But even that rule doesn't work, because Marie actually can freely include Scroll of Secrets. Her deckbuilding options include the word "other," because she's got access to the Spell trait, and obviously they wouldn't want her to be restricted when taking Seeker/Survivor spells but unrestricted when taking Rogue spells.

I think this Marie vs Jim example is a very good reason of why (what we assume) the rule is is counter-intuitive. In fact the whole post nicely sums up my opinions on the matter.

2 hours ago, rsdockery said:

How does this make any sense? Why does Jim need a nerf compared to Agnes? Why does he need a nerf compared to Marie, who also has limited access to Seeker and no matching trait? It all comes off as rules lawyering; there's no apparent logical or balancing reason for the ruling, but the cards were printed without a certain adjective back when that adjective would have been meaningless, so we're stuck with the letter of the law.

I love the way everyone's pulling Jim out, "Oooh! Won't someone think of the nerf to poor Jim!" like he's the only one affected by this. Rex, Zoey, and Pete do exist too. Is Jim the bottom of the Dunwich barrel and taking a hit that is (probably) meant for them? Sure. But "Save Jim!" is not a meaningful argument here against either the functional or balance side.

I actually feel bad for FFG on this. For years, they've had a tendency to just rule that things worked the way they wanted them to, regardless of actual rules. It was an endless source of misery, as you couldn't actually get from card+rules=result without explicitly reading the FAQ to know that 2+2=7.183. In this case they're actually following the rules. Dual-class cards have to be both classes for them to work. That has side effects with the way certain investigators work. It would have been very easy for them to just say "It counts once even though it's both" regardless of what the rules say. But for once, they stuck to the rules even though it had some side effect. And they get roasted for that, too.

29 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

And they get roasted for that, too. 

I think going back to clarify things speaks incredibly highly of them.

What would be really cool: exceptional versions that can only be included if both classes are legal to include.

1 hour ago, Buhallin said:

I love the way everyone's pulling Jim out, "Oooh! Won't someone think of the nerf to poor Jim!" like he's the only one affected by this. Rex, Zoey, and Pete do exist too.

I was using Jim because he's a direct comparison to Marie. Both have limited access to Seeker, but Marie doesn't count Scroll of Secrets against it. If dual-class cards are so powerful that they need to count as both when a quota's involved, then why does Marie get to sidestep it? If it's not a balance issue, then why complicate things needlessly?

1 hour ago, Buhallin said:

Dual-class cards have to be both classes for them to work. That has side effects with the way certain investigators work. It would have been very easy for them to just say "It counts once even though it's both" regardless of what the rules say. But for once, they stuck to the rules even though it had some side effect. And they get roasted for that, too.

It's not a "side effect." Dual-class cards didn't exist before Circle Undone. They wrote the rules. They could've written "you may count dual-class cards as either of their printed classes for the purpose of deckbuilding." They could've alternatively written "dual-class cards count as both of their printed classes; thus, you cannot include a dual-class card unless you can include cards of both its classes at its level." Instead, they wrote "dual-class cards count as both of their printed classes except when you cannot include any cards of that class and level; then they just count as whichever one you want."

Look, if they were treating dual-class cards consistently in all cases, and that consistency resulted in some weird side effect for certain investigators, I wouldn't be complaining here. It's like how Lola can just take two copies of Shrewd Analysis to help fulfill her seven-card Seeker quota, even though she'll never be able to actually use Shrewd Analysis. I personally don't do it, because I think it's cheesy, but I recognize that it's a legally valid play.

That's not the case. They've designed dual-class cards to work inconsistently, but thanks to a single adjective, that inconsistency only matters in a handful of cases. And that handful of cases does not benefit the game in a manner commensurate with the added complexity: The only Dunwich investigator that needs a nerf is Rex, and lack of access to multiclass cards isn't going to slow him down in the slightest.

1 hour ago, rsdockery said:

They've designed dual-class cards to work inconsistently

It's a lot more likely that the article contained examples from a couple different things they considered, only one of which will become part of the 'rules'.
I expect the dual-class cards really will work consistently once we see the actual wording.

1 hour ago, rsdockery said:

I was using Jim because he's a direct comparison to Marie. Both have limited access to Seeker, but Marie doesn't count Scroll of Secrets against it. If dual-class cards are so powerful that they need to count as both when a quota's involved, then why does Marie get to sidestep it? If it's not a balance issue, then why complicate things needlessly?

Because Marie doesn't also have unlimited access to Rogue and Guardian cards as well? The card pool for the Dunwich investigators makes them incredibly flexible, you can't just handwave it away because they can both take a few Seeker cards. Marie gets hosed just as bad by any Seeker/Survivor cards, or any Mystic/Survivor or Mystic/Seekers that aren't spells.

You're trying to take a single card across two specific investigators and declare a problem because of that. That's special pleading at best.

4 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

It's a lot more likely that the article contained examples from a couple different things they considered, only one of which will become part of the 'rules'.
 I expect the dual-class cards really will work consistently once we see the actual wording.

Sure, the preview articles have been wrong before, and they've even changed their minds on unintuitive rulings in the past (remember when ? icons didn't count as other icons for Essex County Express?). I'd be thrilled if they did the same here.

1 minute ago, Buhallin said:

Marie gets hosed just as bad by any Seeker/Survivor cards, or any Mystic/Survivor or Mystic/Seekers that aren't spells.

That's true for Seeker/Survivor, but not Mystic/Survivor or Mystic/Seeker. Marie's deckbuilding rules say "other Seeker and/or Survivor cards." If they're also Mystic cards, they don't count towards the quota, for the same reason Seeker and Survivor Spells don't count. "Other" means you don't count them towards the quota if they qualify via one of the earlier deckbuilding options.

1 minute ago, rsdockery said:

That's true for Seeker/Survivor, but not Mystic/Survivor or Mystic/Seeker. Marie's deckbuilding rules say "other Seeker and/or Survivor cards." If they're also Mystic cards, they don't count towards the quota, for the same reason Seeker and Survivor Spells don't count. "Other" means you don't count them towards the quota if they qualify via one of the earlier deckbuilding options.

That's fair - never had/played her, so hadn't internalized where the split happened.

I think you are putting too much emphasis on "other", it makes it more clear about what is happening, but the current deck building rules allow you to select which option to use, and you can include if any deck building option is valid. ( And the the options are not requirements. )

It still works the same without "other', but you have to actually read the rulebook, not just the card, so the more explicit wording is a good thing - but not a necessary thing

In the case of the Dunwich investigators, up until now there was no overlap, so nothing to clarify.

13 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

I think you are putting too much emphasis on "other", it makes it more clear about what is happening, but the current deck building rules allow you to select which option to use, and you can include if any deck building option is valid. ( And the the options are not requirements. )

It still works the same without "other',

No, it really doesn't.

We know this because they clarified that Carolyn needed the "other". If you want to pretend that clarification doesn't exist because they haven't added it to the FAQ then that's on you, but there's no question at all that it is a meaningful term that affects what you pick.

9 hours ago, Buhallin said:

No, it really doesn't.

We know this because they clarified that Carolyn needed the "other". If you want to pretend that clarification doesn't exist because they haven't added it to the FAQ then that's on you, but there's no question at all that it is a meaningful term that affects what you pick.

That's not at at all what they did; They clarified how the existing wording should be interpreted.

The anwers in the 'Rules Forum' explain how the cards work given how the rules are written. It's like a Supreme Court, ruling how the existing law applies to a situation. It is not the Legislature, creating or changing game rules.

I agree the clarification exists, but it's just what it is: a clarification. It's not more than that though.

There is nothing about:

'Herefore and hencewith, all use of the word 'other' will be imbued with 'Key Word Significance' and exclusively used to Signify that a card must abide by several but not all deck building options unless the card was never valid by any option where upon it will not follow the new rule and instead follow the old rule, and the lack of'other' shall Signify that the card does not follow the newly created rule and follow instead another process, yet undetermined."

"Furthermore and hencewith, we are issuing errata to the investigator, Carolyn Fern, adding the afore mentioned 'other' key word to the card, invoking the power of the Elder God's and changing the way the existing rules apply to this card"

"In addition to serving this forums sole purpose of rewriting rules on whim to confound the reason of men and demonstrate the power of the Dread Lords over them, we reiterate: this forum and the rulings herein are in No Manner based on the Understanding and Application of the Current Rules to this situation. The changes to Carolyn represent the Creatuon and Application of a new Rule and only granted by the Key Word 'other'."

All hail the the Old Ones."

3 hours ago, ColinEdwards said:

That's not at at all what they did; They clarified how the existing wording should be interpreted.

The anwers in the 'Rules Forum' explain how the cards work given how the rules are written. It's like a Supreme Court, ruling how the existing law applies to a situation. It is not the Legislature, creating or changing game rules.

I agree the clarification exists, but it's just what it is: a clarification. It's not more than that though.

I interpreted Matt's response differently. I took the "In other words, her card should actually read “15 other Seeker and/or Mystic cards”." to mean that in the absence of the word "other" the card does not work as intended and that Seeker/Mystic cards that heal horror would count towards the 15 card limit. To put it another way I took this to be errata to Carolyn's card only, which has no effect on the Dunwich investigators.

I only bring this up because my impression is that, rightly or wrongly, this is how most people have interpreted the ruling in response to the question. However, I think the only way we'll know for sure is when the FAQ which accompanies The Secret Name releases and, thankfully, I don't think it actually matters until then!

1 hour ago, Assussanni said:

I only bring this up because my impression is that, rightly or wrongly, this is how most people have interpreted the ruling in response to the question.

It's probably more nuanced than that; it seems like the article implied that, and if that was the starting point, colored your perception. If you started with the Carolyn discussion originally, you might have a different view.

I think the upproar over the article is a strong indication that many people were very surprised at the take there.

( I think 'most' is a vast overstatement on either side: 'most' people don't seem really have a strong opinion either way.)

1 hour ago, ColinEdwards said:

( I think 'most' is a vast overstatement on either side: 'most' people don't seem really have a strong opinion either way.)

That's fair, I should have been more specific. I meant my impression was that most of the people posting in this thread interpreted it in the way I stated.

I was also surprised by the article, although having read the posts in this thread I believe I can understand how they got/could get to the behaviour they described. What I see as the end result of this would, in my opinion, be clunky and unintuitive as was well expressed by rsdockery's post. I hope that the actual rules and upcoming FAQ will resolve things satisfactorily.

9 hours ago, ColinEdwards said:

It's probably more nuanced than that; it seems like the article implied that, and if that was the starting point, colored your perception. If you started with the Carolyn discussion originally, you might have a different view.

The discussions for Carolyn's card on ArkhamDB - which were 7 months ago - point to this not being the case. At least not generally.