Carolyn Fern, a new character playable from Forbidden Alchemy, has a Once Per Game mental card called Hypnosis that she may select at the beginning of the game. It says, "Once per game, you may take any number of horror (without exceeding your Sanity). For each horror you take, choose an investigator in your room to heal 4 horror." The way this is stated, it may include herself. That's not the problem.

The real treat of Carolyn Fern is her card should practically say, "Once per game, heal all horror from each investigator in your room (including yourself)." Because the actual card text states no maximum use for healing investigators in her room, she may continue to incur 1 horror on herself to heal 4 horror on a chosen investigator, including herself. So long as you do not exceed her max sanity, you heal all investigators in the room.

I assume the Hypnosis card meant to say along the lines that each investigator in the room may only be targeted once, respectively, but what do you guys think?

Tromdial said:

The way I see it, for the sake of immersion lol, is Carolyn, as a psychiatrist, can boost the morale of each Investigator in her space by doing a glorious speech about how they are awesome and all. So while others feel their courage coming back (the sanity healing part for the others), she would also have liked for someone to say to same to her (the sanityloss for her).

Thematically I understand even a full heal. She's a psychiatrist; a good portion of psychiatry is simply the refusal to allow memories from the past to abnormally influence you (I call them "haunts"). All she pretty much has to say is we are the masters of our own minds and what we empower and feed to ourselves will be the result, so feed yourselves courage and throw away anything that would hinder you because it is powerless if you mentally block it.

Mechanically, yeah, full heal's pretty beefy. Hypnosis seems like it meant to only heal 4 from each investigator and she may then heal herself too somewhat; otherwise, why state the numbers? The only explanation I could think of is its a secret mechanic to heal the full party, and was intended; kind of like unlocking a cheat. However, I have little faith FFG intended it this way.

To update you, I full healed a party of four, including myself, with Carolyn Fern much to everyone's surprise in Return of the Reanimator. Much to no one's further surprise, we still went insane again and was eaten by the living dead.

Well it's a "once per game" skill so even though it can be quite powerful, it's counter-balanced with the fact that she must still take sanity damage to use the skill. A 1dmg/4heal ratio is huge but again it's only useable once per games. And you have a great example: You fully healed 4 investigators but still got your brains melted!

It'll sound cheesy but despite the way you play it, as long as it's thematically ok with you I say why not!

SolennelBern said:

The issue is still though that she can full heal herself too.

For example, Joe Diamond has 3 horror, so she gains a horror and he heals his 3. Jenny Barnes has 4 horror so Fern takes another horror and heals Jenny for 4. Fern then chooses herself, as she is an investigator too. She takes a horror, bringing her to 3 total horror, and the 3 is healed.

Though she is taking sanity damage, it's a moot point when she can just heal herself too. With the wording of the Hypnosis card as is, she in fact can target all the investigators multiple times and in any order, effectively mass healing sanity for the entire party.

And yes, the zombies boiled, mashed, and stuck our brains into stew. The worst part is having a twenty-some health zombie with crawling hand tokens utterly destroy you as you scramble to make an alchemy potion.

I had this very experience the other night.

My concern is this.

Carolyn's ability has a cost to it. If you were going to heal one other investigator with it, you would take 1 Horror for every 4 you healed. Now, the way everything is written, she can use it on herself and as many other people in the room with her. If she can use it on herself, then she can immediately bypass the cost of the ability.

If the designers intended on her healing everyone for free, why put a cost on the ability? Why not just say she can heal everyone's sanity for free, once per game?

The intention behind the ability seems to be one of two things. Either Carolyn is meant to heal others and not herself, or she can only heal one person, and that person could be herself.

The way I see it, the card only needs an errata. While I understand the the way her skill is written allows her to heal herself as well, it makes no sense! I don't see how one can hypnotise it self… in my playing group, I would house rule that to prevent her from using the ability on herself.

I'm in slight agreement with Mortavius. But if Carolyn is involved in a 1-investigator game, her other ability simply doesn't do anything (it specifies "other investigators"). This loosely suggests that maybe Hypnosis should work on her too.

I might do it this way:

1. Decide how many points Carolyn plans to use to heal investigators, including herself. She is limited to as many points as she has sanity.
2. Carolyn suffers that much horror, and the keeper may then play Trauma cards on her.
3. All investigators are then healed their respective amounts (including Carolyn). In the end

The results of this are:

• Not everyone will necessarily be fully-healed, including Carolyn.
• Carolyn may come away with an insanity Trauma card.

I think this is a fair application of the ability.

Tibs said:

Oh! Good point. I have no idea why I overlooked that the Keeper could play a Panic on her, totally shafting her once per game use.

I don't think Panic would apply that way though. Carolyn's voluntary horror damage is being taken to specifically trigger a result, and that transaction can't be interrupted. Panic would, however, prevent her from moving afterwards.

Corey specified that Hypnosis can have multiple targets so this part is clarified.

And how many times can she use hypnosis on the same investigator? Did Corey specify if it can be used on herself?

Confirmed by corey, it can target own investigator

Subject: Re:"target any investigator in your room" doubt
eorahil wrote:
Hi Corey, first of all congratulations for all your incredible board games, they are great!!

A user from the Edgeent forum (spanish version of fantasyflightgames) has this doubt:

"target any investigator in your room" from the hypnosis hability cannot be used to target your own investigator because it's not an spell. And the rulesbook from Mansions of Madness, in the Spells chapter, specifies in the last phrase that the spells may target your own investigator when it says "target any investigator in your room". So, if in the spells are specified, in the rest of the game elements, like hypnosis, you can't.

I know you can, it's obvious, but he insists on his "theory". Should you confirm us that allways a effect says "target any investigator in your room" you can target your own investigator and the last phrase of the Spell chapter is a clarification, and not an exception?

thank you very much!!

Hello Arinmir,

You are correct. Unless it says "target another investigator in your space", it CAN be used on yourself.

Tell him that there is such a thing as "self hypnosis".

Thanks for playing!
-Corey

I would interpret this a being to discrete steps.

Take any number of horror (without exceeding your Sanity).

Then after deciding how many sanity point to spend, start the healing process. At this point you cannot take any more horror.

It's still really powerful, but at least it's not an infinite loop.