Hi everyone,

I'm new to CoC, and the "if able" clause got me a bit confused, too ;-) Thanks to all people in this thread, it cleared things up for me, I think. To summarize (and please correct me if I'm wrong), there are 3 different cases how to deal with "if able":

• On cards with only 1 directive like Y'Golonac and Nightmares!, "if able" doesn't change anything, because players have to fulfill as much of the card text as possible, anyway (last FAQ entry about Julia Brown).
• On cards with 2 or more directives like the Byakhee Attack, "if able" has a meaning. If one or more of the directives cannot be (successfully) resolved, resolve no directive at all (FAQ entry about if able - Byakhee Attack).
• On cards where directive(s) are connected via "if able" and followed by "then, …" like on Feral Elder Thing, check if all directives can be resolved. If at least 1 player cannot obey 1 directive (e.g. only has 1 card in his hand), neither he nor other players must obey the directive(s) (e.g. discard 2 cards). Only if all players discarded 2 cards, each draws 1 card.

Is this right?

AD1 Generally yes (Y'Gollonacs case), but with cards like Nightmares! and all cards that drive insane or wound remember that any card that seeks to
-choose more things that are available
-drive insane character with T (or willpower)
-wound character with invulnerable
cannot be triggered (or sth like that, i don't get it all yet, but there was some kind of problem of this sort with Khopesh for example) so it changes behavior a bit.

AD2 Yes, but I dont see other cards than "byakhee attack" with this kand of effects, can someone name other card that works like this because of "if able"? (and is not FET, ok 2 cards)

AD3 Then fires if previous effect occured, so "if able" emphasises it can fail sometimes. With "Each player does X if able" im still not sure, is it

3a) Each player resolves independently: "do X if able"

3b) Each player does X. But if any player cant to X no one does X.

This "if able" scope question i didnt find any hints in FAQ, FET debete seems to say its 3b.

Hopefully there aren't many cards with this wording. But if general convention is scope like 3b cards like:

Misguided Dreams Action: Each character must commit to stories this turn, if able.

Becomes really awful cards if really having an exhausted or insane character breaks this effect (i don't think its intended to work like this)

PS

Action: i find a good convention - its on all the cards so you get uset to it really fast; if ables main problem is that it is used so rarely you cant really get used to it and it modifies effect but doesn't specify what is the scope - what exactly is the effect that it modifies.

Thanks for your answer!

.Zephyr. said:

Ah, so if Nightmares! didn't have "if able", then I couldn't even trigger the effect on a T/willpower character. But with "if able", I can trigger it, and the character is put on top of the deck. "if able" is used in the standard if-else way known from programming in this case. Ok, Nightmares! has been a pretty bad example in my first dot

.Zephyr. said:

Yes, I think so: The Black Goat's Rage (drive insane 2 chosen characters if able) and Small Ghouls (put 3 cards from discard pile on the bottom of the deck if able). If there is only 1 character to drive insane, or only 1 card in the discard pile, those effects should be completely ignored, because the effects cannot be fulfilled in their entirety, I think.

.Zephyr. said:

Good point! Just by reading Misguided Dreams, I would never have come to the conclusion that no character must commit at all, if at least 1 cannot commit… And it makes me wonder about Underwater Conspiracies, too…

Other cards from the 3b / 3a question are Initiate of Huang Hun (each player must return a character to hand if able) and Many-angled thing (each opponent must choose+sacriface a character if able). Perhaps there are even more cards.

HilariousPete said:

That was not the conclusion above.

Penfold said:

karat said:

It's a bit ambiguous. If I could use parentheses, the interpretation is between "Each player, (do X, if able)" versus "(Each player, do X), if able." The discussion above favored the former.