Bob Jenkins power states that every time he draws a common item, he draws another and can pick one of the two.

How does this interact with the various encounters and instead-of-encounters that give specific common items or classes of common items?

For instance (I'm using some KH examples, but I think base game is sufficient):

- "a stranger buys you a drink: search for Whiskey" (Hibbs Roadhouse) or "instead of an encounter, buy food for $1" (Rope and Anchor). He's drawing a common item ... but it seems a bit abusive to get "a stranger buys you a drink: search for the Whiskey card, or take the Shotgun off the top of the deck instead" and even more so for the "instead of an encounter" options.

- "blah blah, Tom "Mountain" Murphy is unavailable: take the first Weapon from the Common Item deck" (Black Cave). Would Bob get: choice of first two weapons? first weapon only? choice of first weapon and then the immediately following common item?

The most reasonable ruling to me seems to be "if the original draw specifies a particular item or class of item, the additional draws must have the same description", which makes it useless for "search for X item", and less useful for "search for a Tome" ... but played strictly as written it should be a free draw from the top of the deck.

Monterey's power is similarly exploitable (there are a few "take the first Tome" cards), and I'm not sure Dexter's is exploitable at all, but presumably the same would apply to them.

There's nothing in the old FAQ about it - have there been any official rulings on this that I've missed?

"Draw" means "draw at random." So the cases with the Whiskey or the Food or similar will not work. This also applies to Ashcan Pete's ability.

"First available X" or "Search the deck for Y" aren't exactly drawing them at random, so I would not apply them.

That makes sense. Thanks. They seem to have been fairly careful about when they use "draw" and when they use "take" or "search", looking at the encounter texts.

cim said:

In that case, Bob would draw two Whiskeys and decide which one he prefers.