The Pegasus rulebook says that infiltrating cylons are treated as human players in all respects (except some specified exceptions). Since it isn't mentioned in the exceptions, does this mean that infiltrating cylons can use the character-specific abilities they had before they revealed? E.g. can cylon Saul declare martial law?

I actually just sent an email about this, cylon leaders and cylon sympathizers are treated as human when infiltrating but they cannot use their character specific abilities anymore as they are treated as revealed cylons in that regard. (except for Cylon leaders which begin the game with their specific abilities), therefore, no you cannot unless you are a cylon leader. (cavil, 6 or leoben)

I think it should have been the other way though. As much a drawback as being a Cylon Leader halfway through the game is, keeping their abilities would be kind of balancing, and their skill sets but drawing the same number of cards as a cylon leader would.

There is some weirdness with certain character abilities like Gaeta and Ellen gaining titles, but the rules could just be errataed that cylon leaders aren't in the line of succession or somthing like that. Cylon leader Ellen suddenly taking charge of the fleet is actually pretty fitting.

The basic rules did state that you were no longer considered the character you started the game as, so there shouldn't be too much of a question that you don't get your abilities back. You're a cylon, and that is your special ability. If you want to infiltrate and have a special ability, pick a cylon leader. I think it would make things too good for the cylons if a character reveals as the sympathetic cylon, comes back onboard and starts to wreck havok. If you are Anders, you could ditch your entire hand to get all Support or Treachery if you wanted. If you were Ellen, you could keep passing off Treachery cards to the humans. If you were Bill, you'd probably avoid going back to Galactica (or at least hope for no skill checks on your crisis card). And the OPG could really wack things up.

JJ: Where in the rules does it ay that? I don't disagree with your interpretation, I'm just having trouble finding a clear statement in either rulebook or FAQ.

rowanalpha said:

The Pegasus rules do clearly state that a Cylon Leader can NEVER be Pres or Admiral. There was also a ruling that a Cylon Leader cannot ever be given the Elect Vice Pres Quorum card; it is not specifically stated in the rules, so I did it once when everyone knew I was Pres Cylon Baltar to block anyone else from stealing Pres title (I thought it was pretty clever - humans cannot vote in a new Pres unless the Cylon Leader stops infiltrating) but it seemed like such a broken tactic that I asked somewhere on the forums and it is not allowed, might be in the FAQ by now.

Cardinalsin said:

Base Rulebook, pg. 20:
3. Action Step : The Cylon player may perform the action listed on his current location. Revealed Cylons may not perform other actions, such as those found on Skill Cards or Quorum Cards. All of the abilities on a revealed Cylon player's character sheet are also ignored.

I guess the problem is that the Pegasus rules for infiltrating don't specifically mention Sympathetic Cylons since it is a variant but the rules state that "While Infiltrating, a Cylon Leader is treated as a human player" (pg. 11) - this doesn't change the fact that an infiltrating Sympathetic Cylon is still a revealed Cylon player, and therefore cannot use any abilities on a character sheet.
Hope that helps!

Thanks Skowza - much appreciated.

I think they could have done with a different phrase than "treated as a human player", but I think you're right about the interpretation.

Thats what the guy is saying though...that the sympathizer is so lame since you get a "mission impossible" type goal at the mid point of the game, and become a nerfed cylon leader that there SHOULD be a benefit. I think his argument is correct, that you should but the answer is no they don't. Just play with the other sympathizer card. It's way more fair, you are a human or you are a cylon,...easy peasy.

For what it's worth, sympathetic cylons get a much better skill draw than cylon leaders, though it's definitely still an uphill battle for most of the agendas. I think the lack of special abilities is less of a disadvantage than the fact that they switched teams later in the game, but this applies to anyone who turns cylon in the sleeper agent phase, sympathetic or not. And personally I'd rather have the difficult goal of the sympathetic cylon than the clumsy and arbitrary one of the sympathizer.

I don't mind the Sympathetic Cylon card so much. The old card from the base game was terrible, we haven't played with it in so long I don't remember it all that well, but wasn't it basically "you are a Cylon but don't get a SC card and can't activate the fleet" i.e. "you are a really crappy bored cylon" ?

Skowza said:

For us, it was almost always "you are a brigged human", because the admiral would always redline fuel.