An Encounter says "Gain 1 Stamina," but your Stamina is maxed. Could you still gain a Power Token if you had a Blood Pact?

Add it to the "Lurker questions" list

Absolutely you can gain power that way.

Musha Shukou said:

I agree, the pacts say "ANYTIME you would gain sanity/stamina, you can gain power instead". Of course, the argument would be: If I'm at full, then I don't actually gain it. But I would say, you do gain it, but you just can't keep any above your max. Just like you can lose any amount of sanity/stamina no matter how much you have, you just can't be below 0. So any specific gain should be able to be exchanged for power.

I don't know if non-specific gains can be exchanged however. Just like if a card tells Harvey to go down to 3 sanity, he can't go down to 4 and say his special power blocked one. So I don't know if using the hospital, or a card that says get healed to max can be exchanged. Even though the character's stamina/sanity value at the time would determine the gain, I don't know if that would count, just like Harvey knows what the loss would be based on his current sanity, but he still can't prevent it. But then again the card does say ANYTIME...

So that should be the question to add to the Lurker file.

Tricky issue. I guess it matters when the trade happens. Is it before the sanity/stamina token is placed on the investigator sheet ("here, take this instead") in which case there is no check made that the original token could be accepted .... or is it after ("ah, I see you just got a new token, would you like to have this one instead?") in which case you can only do it if you could accept the original stamina/sanity.

Personally, i feel the trade is made after the token arrives on the sheet (the pact allows you to swap out when it arrives). So if you are at your maximum you never get the token, so you never get the opportunity to trade the new sanity/stamina token for a power token.

ricedwlit said:

I would agree with your first paragraph there, because the card specifically uses the word instead, just like you describe. "Any time you would gain any amount of sanity/stamina, you may instead gain that amount of power". You're not gaining sanity/stamina and then replacing it with power, you are gaining the power INSTEAD of the sanity/stamina.

It seems we generally have the same reasoning patterns. I really like ricedwlit's "theatrical aid" of trading physical tokens; that really solidified the mechanic for me.

We still need something official, because not only is there still a question of exploiting the Asylum/Hospital, but what about Carolyn and Vincent maxed? Or is that covered by the use of "recover" in their verbiage?

I'll take a stab at an interpretation...

"While an investigator may gain and lose Sanity or Stamina over the course of the game, the investigator’s current Sanity or Stamina may never exceed the investigator’s maximum Sanity or Stamina."

So then it's fair to say that if you're at your maximum stamina, and an encounter tells you to gain some amount of stamina, then you don't gain the stamina and then discard down to your maximum. Rather, you just simply don't get the stamina in the first place. And if you're not getting the stamina in the first place, you cannot gain Power instead.

Tibs said:

That interpretation can cause problems too. If I'm at 5 out of 7 stamina, and a card tells me to gain 3, does that mean I don't gain any stamina? Of course not, I would still go to 7, and ignore the 3rd. But what if I want power instead. Can I only gain two power? Can I gain one power, then use the other two to heal to full since I wouldn't exceed maximum, or since I'm only missing two stamin, can I only take one power and one stamina?

That also brings on another question, can a gain be split up between power and stamina/sanity?

DoomTurtle said:

Of course. But I didn't say that the stamina gain was an all-or-nothing thing, just that it's not the case that stamina you cannot gain enters your possession for even the briefest time before being dropped. In my interpretation applied to the case above, the "3" would become "2" and then you could choose to gain 2 Power, not 3. It certainly would not be the case that you wind up with nothing at all.

Whether or not you can mix and match is a good question though.

There's also that Dunwich encounter (Devil's Hopyard, I think) which supercharges your stamina, allowing you to temporarily go 3 above maximum (find that encounter enough, and Agnes Baker can cast Call Ancient One with 13 trophies) - with that, you presumably would be able to it all into Power instead.

Tibs said:

I think Tib nailed the final nail in the coffin for this Lurker issue. Can't wait to get this expansion so I can help with these issues.

I agree with Tibs's logic concerning gaining Stamina/Sanity when you're already maxed. You cannot exceed this limit, so you do not actually gain and then throw away beyond this limit. Instead you don't gain at all. Having said that, however, I do think you can use this card to gain power instead. The reason I think that is thus:

DoomTurtle said:

Emphasis mine. Assuming this is the wording of the card (I don't own Lurker yet myself) then the use of the term "would gain" implies to me that this decision can be made (nay, must be made) before you actually resolve the "gain stamina/sanity" effect in question. I suppose the counterarguement would be that you wouldn't gain anything if you're maxed, even though the effect purports to give you said benefits. I stand by my position, though. This is perhaps the first time I've sided in the investigator's benefit. Creepy.

I concur with both DoomTurtle (I like turtles) and Steve-O. It seems the card is purposely worded "anytime you would gain any amount of stamina" to avoid this sort of confusion. So, even if you are at max health you can gain power. After all, you WOULD gain stamina, if you weren't at max stamina.

English is not my first language. However, I think that the word "WOULD" does not leave place to any uncertainty: it means that if you are in position of gaining a Stamina point, even if this does not happen, the condition is fulfilled. So yes you should gain the Power. Otherwise, the card would say "anytime you DO gain"

Musha Shukou said:

The formal rhetorical term for this is an Argument ad Turtlum, I believe.