After searching the forums for topics that had her name in it, I wasn't sure after reading them all if this question was answered anywhere. If it is, my apologies.

Anyways, so I know all of Kate's "no gate, no monster" ability issues, blah blah, easy stuff. My question is whether or not you are actually allowed to have a monster appear.

There's an Other World Encounter that says if you choose to do something (can't remember what) a monster appears, and if you beat it on your first combat check, take a Unique Item, among other things. When this happened as Kate, I wasn't sure if I was allowed to have it appear, or if it just can't appear no matter what. I wanted the item, but couldn't be sure if I could allow the monster to fight me.

Thanks again for the help!

The device can't be turned off. That was one of the earliest jokes about Kate and her invention: why didn't she remember to include a power switch?

So you couldn't have a monster appear, even if you wanted one. Likewise, you couldn't have a gate appear even if you wanted. Using the Innsmouth board, this would often be a good thing since preventing a gate will cause a Deep One Rising token to be added to its track.

well that's just plain terrible haha. thanks for the response

If I remember right, Kate is seen as one of the weakest investigators post-Innsmouth. If you wanted to beef her up, you could give her device an off switch as a house rule. Also, if you don't know about the Arcane Insight + Kate combo, I recommend you do a forum search. It's one of the most infamously broken combos in the game.

Oh my god, I had never thought of that combo... Although my rule is Arcane Insight must be discarded after one use. And there's only two of them in the whole spell deck, fortunately

About the on-off thing, would it be decided during the Mantainance phase? Because otherwise it would be broken...

"Oh, look, we already have 5 Deep Ones rising tokens...oops, gate bounced on Kate...but wait, she *juuuuust* turned the device off!"

Tox said:

Heh... I suppose it's been a few years since the shrieks of horror subsided from the forums. I still shriek about it though. But only on the inside.

Actually you could pull it off without Kate, if you have a couple of seals already on the board. Kate does have limited speed anyway, so she couldn't just be anywhere.

But why would ANYONE want to play the game like this? This being a cooperative game, if something is THAT broken, you don't do it

Tox said:

Don't know about you, but I play to win. I did get KW + AI at random in one pre-IH game and poor Cthulhu never stood a chance. Not that the green GOO was going to do much anyways, being one of the easiest GOOs possible, but still. And god was it boring and easy. I do hope I never get that pairing again and with IH in the mix, probably won't be as easy, but if I do, I'll go for the win again.

Dam said:

::Laughter:: see, that's the difference between me and you. If I got that combo, I would just declare the game a win instantaneously and either A) ignore usage of it just to see how the game would turn out or B) if I don't feel like playing any more, actually check the mythos cards that would have come up to see if, probabilistically speaking, I would have won, or if some unforseen but extremely unlikely series of events might have led to my defeat.

That and that I am good and you are evil. Don't deny it! Everyone here knows you eat at least three times as many babies as I do (that's why you've got so much baby fat).

Dam said:

I play to win too, and the game has won countless times just when I thought I was about to beat it, so I'm all for trying everything available. But that combo is just a broken game mechanic (I think that's objective), you said it yourself that you got bored using it. That's why I wouldn't consider it, nothing else

And of course, with IH, it's not even an issue anymore.

Tox said:

Well... Even with Innsmouth it's still an issue... Yeah, you'll have to spend a few clues to keep the Innsmouth track under control, but big deal. Just trade trophies for clues (to bring the track back to zero), go for a closing victory, and you're fine. You can even leave two or three high frequency gates open so you can get more monster trophies for clue trading. You can't do it with your brain shut off anymore, but still, it's really not difficult... Just slow and boring...

Tox said:

I suspect that it would not break the game. Kate really is pretty weak, currently. If Kate could nix a card after it's drawn, it wouldn't be much different from Jacqueline's power to nix Mythos cards. Maybe like Jacqueline, you could require Kate to spend a Clue token in order to use her ability. (I'd make the cost one Clue token, since Kate's power isn't as good as Jackie's.) You could even make Kate's power work the opposite of the way that Jacqueline's works, so that Kate would have to spend a Clue token in order to *not* block a monster or gate from appearing.

Very glad to have no Innsmouth board in our most recent game with Kate, certainly.

First card of the game: opens a gate at the Science Building. Oh, no it doesn't.

Second card of the game: opens a gate at Silver Twilight ... where Kate had just gone to pick up the double clue it now had from the first gate card.

Third card of the game finally opens a real gate at Independence Square.

With that head start the rest of the game was really quite straightforward, and I think Kate blocked at least two more gate openings without trying (no Arcane Insight showed up).

cim said:

Nice But I've learned not to get too comfortable when stuff like this happens! Game starts easy, then BAM!, 3 Lloigors are on the board, along with a Cthonian and a Color, monster surges have made about 10 monsters appear in Dunwich and there are 2-3 monsters on every street of Innsmouth. Plus, you roll 8 dice and still fail a sneak check against a devouring monster...Yes, all of this happened

Out of curiosity, which AO were you playing against?

cim said:

Isn't there a rule clarification that the first mythos card has to open a gate? How does this react to Kate's ability?

Veet said:

Oddly, I feel I've read somewhere as well that you keep drawing Myhos until an actual open gate appears on the board..

Players don't start in red spaces (where gates open). Before the game officially "begins," a mythos card is drawn and resolved. You are specifically told to draw one until you get one with a gate opening. Kate won't be on a space where a gate might open to start the game, so you'll always start with a single gate open. Now, where she goes from there...

I think the rule is that the first Mythos card has to depict a gate, as opposed to one that does not depict a gate at all.

In this case Kate's ability would cancel the gate, but one still attempted to open so you're okay. If this was not the intent, then why start her at the Science Building with no way for a gate to open on her?

TheMadjai said:

Kate is the only investigator who does start on a red location. That's why she has the ability that she does.

and there is Ursula who can start anywhere she likes

Tibs said:

Mea Culpa. You are correct.