Game with three investigators. The first player in the movement goes to the Science Building. The other two investigators return from another world, each from a different world, and get an explored marker in order to close and seal their gates during encounters in Arkham.

In the phase 3 of Arkham Encounters, the first player draws the card that "roll a die for each open gate one at a time. On a success the gate is closed." Then roll the dice... and... close the two portals where are the other two players!!

My question is... could investigators who have just returned from Other Worlds seal these two unstable locations spending 5 clue tokens? Or on the contrary, those investigators could not seal the locations because they not close the gates?

thanks for the help!

I would say the gates can not be sealed cause they were not closed by the players who explored them.

Innsmouth13 said:

Same. But there's no way of being 100% sure without an official ruling (I think). Don't expect one :') you'll just have to make up your mind on your own and apply your rule consistently, or randomly by die rolling.

It doesn't apply directly to this case, but wasn't there some kind of ruling that you couldn't seal gates without an Explored token unless the card specifically says otherwise? Or did I imagine that?

Hello.

AH Core Rules, pg. 18, left column, 1st para - quote: "If an investigator successfully closes a gate, he may immediately spend five Clue Tokens to permanently seal it."

No mentioning of 'personally' having at first explored the gate; no mentioning that it must be the investigator who travelled through the Other World. (Ok, on pg 17 the process of exploring the gate is described in detail; but the encounter card overrules this general rule and allows someone to close a gate without having it explored at first.) It is only about the investigator who closes the gate (by whatever means), that same investigator may spend the Clue Tokens.

But the card in question, I assume, is the one that mentions that you may not keep the closed gates as trophies, right?

So imho the question would be more like: Is it possible to seal the same gate(s) with spending 5 clue tokens for each, if you cannot keep the gate trophy(ies) - so is sealing and trophy directly linked? In theory I don't think so, because you may spend trophies over the course of the game, and the seals still remain on the different location. Therefore I would like to conclude that you may seal the gates with the help of the location encounter card in question. (Plz, discuss this.)

Ia! Ia!

Mad

MaddockKrug said:

True, though I seem to recall that there was something in the old forums stating that you couldn't seal gates in cases like this:

Inner Sanctum: You're invited to take part in a Gating ceremony. If you agree, spend 2 Clue tokens and 1 Sanity to make a Lore (-2) check. If you pass, close one gate of your choice. If you fail, nothing happens.

I have a link to the discussion, but obviously it doesn't work since the old forums were removed.

The only ruling I can recall is the one for "You've completed your task." The gate gets closed, but you cannot seal it.

I think, for simplicity's sake, you may only seal a gate if you first had an explored token and succeeded at the gate-closing Fight or Lore check. The only exceptions are effects or items that specifically say the gate is sealed after being closed (such as the Elder Sign of course). This is not an official answer, but it is the one that I'm going to adopt until a comprehensive ruling is declared.

Tibs said:

I suspect the same (and will play it the same) since we got this ruling (which I didn't like) in response to a proto-FAQ question.

Hello.

Just for clarification to prevent confusion.

The original question here was about those investigators who had explored the gates, whether they are entitled to seal a gate someone else in the Science Building has closed with the help of a location encounter card.

=> No, they cannot seal the gate, because they did not close the gate.

=> But the one who has closed the gate (with the help of this specific location encounter card) may do so - see my quote on the rules from my earlier post - , because neither is the sealing directly connected to the exploration of the Other World, nor the gate trophy or anything else.

Ia! Ia!

Mad

Hello.

I have raised these interesting questions in a different Forum. And there someone has provided a simple as well as intriguing answer, which changes my mind on sealing the gate.

For everyone it is not possible to seal the gates, because the gates are being closed by an encounter card effect and not by the efforts of an character - as it is described on the location encounter card for the science building - quote: " ... beams shoot out in all directions, disrupting the gates open throughout the board."

Is this probably the "ruling" you recall as a fading memory regarding the lost link?

Ia! Ia!

Mad

I think what Tibs and Avi are saying is that you can't seal a gate unless you personally explored it *and* you personally closed it. Unless the text on a card specifically says otherwise. I agree that the rules as written say otherwise. But generally the errata trumps the rules as written.

MaddockKrug said:

Perhaps. Though an encounter card effect can also be the efforts of a character. See the Inner Sanctum encounter that I cite above. In that example, you are instructed to close the gate, but you cannot seal it. I'm not sure if it is never possible to seal a gate that is closed by an encounter card.

avec said:

Well... Kindof. The above has never been explicitly stated as a rule, but based on erratas, it probably should be or will be. Please note though, I say probably, not definitely.

Plus if you think about how a card like the science building encounter works, you'd realize that reading it that way would be totally overpowered with the base game (if you hunted for it with a blessing I guess). Personally, I don't think this second paragraph is a very good argument though because FFG has a tendency to overlook game exploits ;') so... But still... It's something to consider in addition to the above (which I think is less shakey evidence).

Hello.

Just two suggestions:

- Well ... One could argue: Although it is an encounter card effect that takes place, it highly depends on the outcome of a skill-check by the character in the Science Building having this specific encounter; therefore the closing of the gate could be concluded as a player character's action. In contrary: Since the character does not gather the gate trophies, the closing of the gates might not be considered "gate closing by the character". => Really confusing ...

- About the over-power thing: For each closed gate the character would need five clue tokens; looking at the games I did or joined so far, I experienced that gathering clue tokens is quite challenging. Therefore I really don't see the risk of an over-powered gate-sealing-exploit.

Looking at this more and more interesting case I really look forward to some "Great Old Ones' "-statement from FFG.

Ia! Ia!

Mad

MaddockKrug said:

- Well ... One could argue: Although it is an encounter card effect that takes place, it highly depends on the outcome of a skill-check by the character in the Science Building having this specific encounter; therefore the closing of the gate could be concluded as a player character's action. In contrary: Since the character does not gather the gate trophies, the closing of the gates might not be considered "gate closing by the character". => Really confusing ...

Except it's not even a skill check, it's just a straight die roll success/fail, no Clue-use possible for it.

Actually, the encounter also requires a skill check. Here's the full text:

You find a student pounding on a strange device that he has hooked up to massive machinery. He states that it is a dimensional beam machine. If you offer to help him, make a Lore (-2) check. If you pass, beams shoot out in all directions, disrupting the gates open throughout the board. Roll a die for each open gate one at a time. On a success the gate is closed. However, you may not take it as a trophy, but instead return it to the pile of gate markers. If you fail, the machinery overheats and explodes. Roll a die and lose that much Stamina, then move to St. Mary's Hospital.

avec said:

Heh... Seeing the card text again makes me think it's sooo unlikely that you can seal those :')

That card has screwed me before in the exact situation the OP describes. Two people come out of gates ready to seal them both, and then BOOM, they get closed right under them.

Brine said:

Why didn't you just decline the offer to help him?

Because I obviously wasn't paying attention.

mentorius said:

mentorius said:

Nope. They weren't the investigators who closed the gate, so they can't seal them.

From the rulebook: "If an investigator successfully closes a gate, he may immediately spend five Clue tokens to permanently seal it."

Note, however, that the investigator resolving the encounter the Science Building can seal the gate if they close it. He's (a) an investigator who (b) closed the gate; ergo, according to the rules, he can spend clue tokens to seal it.

People saying that you need an exploration token in order to seal a gate are wrong. You need an explored marker in order to close a gate while standing in the same space as the gate, but the section on sealing gates says nothing of the kind.

But no investigator closed those gates; they were closed by the machine. You should not be able to spend clues to seal.

Tibs said:

I seconded that comment.

Tibs said:

I suspect that trying to conclude that investigators shouldn't be interpreted as taking the actions described on encounter cards will lead to a host of interpretive problems.

I see why you're trying to avoid the self-evident conclusion, but I equally suspect that the concern is misguided: It is exceptionally rare for someone to have 10+ clue tokens, so the odds of being able to seal more than one gate simultaneously through the use of this encounter is not very high. And the odds of drawing the encounter in the first place are such that you'll still end up spending a half dozen turns trying to draw it on average (even with encounter diving strategies) with no guarantee of success. Compare to the 2-3 turns it takes to just seal a gate the normal way.

Tibs said:

I will take this into account. Let's just say that the rays of the strange device "surprise" investigators and they do not have time to realize that the gate was closed behind them without giving them time to "close or seal".