This card states: "Roll a total of 4 dice per investigator. For every success rolled, one investigator must lose 1 Sanity or 1 Stamina." How does this work with blessed and cursed cards? If an investigator is cursed, does he/she only lose 1 Sanity or 1 Stamina on a roll of 6? If that is the case, then being cursed turns out to be a reward. Also, do you roll four dice for each surviving investigator in the round? I'm thinking you don't count any investigator devoured in an earlier round.Thanks.

For the first question, blessings and curses don't apply, since the investigators aren't making a check. (In fact, even though the number of dice is determined by the number of investigators, note that none of the dice are necessarily associated with any given investigator, and san/stam loss is assigned only after you've counted the number of successes, by which time it's too late to take curses into account. But even if all players are cursed, what's actually happening is that the game itself (or Yig, if you prefer) is making the check.)

For the second one, not entirely sure, but I'm inclined to agree that you only count surviving investigators.

subochre said:

Yeah, Subochre hit perfectly the spot on the first one. No skill checks are required, and it's a "general" roll, so no Blessings or Curses are taken in consideration.

For the second one, I think I'd not consider the number of investigators still alive at the moment that Epic Card is drawn, but the total number of investigators I played the game with (so, not the ones entering Final battle, but the one I played the pre-final battle with), for the very same reason that, even if I have someone devoured during FB, I do not reduce the number of successes required to remove a doom token from the AO's doom track.

It's a kind of thematic reason, and a personal sensation. I hardly doubt there is an official ruling on this, though

I disagree with Julia on the second item. Why should you roll for investigators who were devoured? Yig's plot attack targets only the living.

Here's my thoughts on this.

First of all, the term "success" is indicated, so blessings and curses should count. It does not matter that it's not a skill check (the Ancient Tablet item, for example, has the owner roll two dice, giving different rewards for successes and failures). But, in this case, which dice do you count them for?

Well, who is being asked to roll the dice? If it's nobody in particular, it should be taken to be the First Player. Thus, if the first player is Cursed, ALL dice will be Cursed. Of course, I'd be open to the argument that you roll on a per investigator basis, and then count and administer the total damage afterward.

I'd say that it only counts surviving investigators.

Tibs said:

I take your point Tibs on surviving investigators; but I'm not so convinced about the first one. Yeah, Ancient Tablet is certainly influenced by the Blessing status of the investigator (good catch), but it has an owner. Plus, you can have no investigators cursed, but the First Player. Or you can have the First Player blessed (via spell). Your second interpretation (everybody rolls for his own and then you administer the total damage) seems to solve better the ambiguity (imo)

I agree with Tibs' explanation ~ don't confuse 'success' on a roll with ability to use, for instance, with the ability to use Clue Tokens. Thus, Blessings and Curses would affect the rolls

The Professor said:

Even keeping that in mind, I feel like there's a difference between a roll made by an investigator, and a roll made by the players (or even by a particular player). When I'm rolling for Yig's attack, or the progress of a rumor, or to determine what Ghroth is up to today, it shouldn't matter what state my character is in.

Obviously those last two aren't the best examples given that blessings and curses don't apply, and indeed, this may be the only case where the investigator/player distinction actually makes a difference, since virtually every other investigator-specific die roll effect does indeed specify that it only applies to skill checks. (The only exception I can find is the Taint of Evil epic battle card, which does not help settle the question.)

edit: I realize I'm on fairly indefensible ground with all this, but the core intuition is pretty straightforward: there's a difference between the guy who is placing doom tokens on the track and the guy who gets $10 when Asenath joins him, and while the latter can be blessed, there are some cases in which it's actually the former who is rolling the dice.

I suspect that if they were aiming for a 1/3 chance that each die contributed damage, they would just have said that each die that roll a 1 or 2 contributes. The fact that they said "success" implies that they wanted blessings and curses to affect the outcome—maybe non-cursed investigators are more likely to contribute damage than cursed ones, as a counter-balance to the fact that they're not cursed anymore (which is the mechanic that all of Yig's difficulty is based upon).

If it sits better with you, you could say (as I did above) that blessings and curses do count, but each investigator rolls four dice; afterward, the amount of damage is divvied between the investigators however they choose (with First Player breaking ties).