The rules say charater's abilities that affect Crisis Cards do not work vs Super Crisis cards.

Almost all of the character abilities say, explicitly, Crisis Card and "target" the card.

Galen's once-per-game ability targets a skill check and specificly the cards therein and makes no mention whatsoever about anything about a Crisis Card.

Can it target a skill check generated from a Super Crisis card?

Seems sort of a grey area....

Tyrol's ability specifically doesn't mention a Crisis card, so it can be used on a Crisis skill check, a Super Crisis skill check, or a location skill check.

Note that there are some characters (like Boomer), whose ability specifically does mention Crisis card skill checks.

I would say yes, because it affects the skill check, not the crisis card itself.

Our gaming group just had this come up yesterday. Ultimately we played it where his ability would not apply. We went this way because the spirit of thr rules implies that no positive character ability should effect a super crisis card, since after all that's one of the major ways a revealed cylon can affect the players. Additionally I know since I seam to end us as a toaster a lot recently that one of the super crisis skill checks has all but one of the colors being positive. So with his ability conceivably the human players could pass this challenge without any opposition at all. That being said I could see another take on this, but in my opionon our ruling was correct.

jfuqua said:

I'm sorry, but you're wrong on this.

The rules specifically state that character abilities that affect Crisis cards have no effect on Super Crisis cards. If the designer's intention was to disallow any character ability whatsoever, the bolded part would not have been included (note that in this case, the sentence would have been both shorter and clearer). Since the rules state what they do, there is no place for ambiguity.

Also, note that it is not a ruling on your part, but a house rule. A ruling is called for when the rules conflict or do not address a game situation. This is not the case here.

And this is a 'once per game' ability, and it is Tyrol - you gotta have something interesting for him to do.

TomH said:

I think the rules are pretty clear - character abilities cannot be used on Super Crises.

But, as has been said, this isn't being used on a Super Crisis Card, but the skill check on it. There's a difference.

timonkey said:

Fair enough. I think the intent of the rules is that the supercrisis cards can go unmolested by character abilities pertaining to them. The letter of the rules seems to allow Tyrol to affect them, though I think the spirit of the rules was that it ought to be forbidden.

I don't think it is against the spirit of the rules. Should Adama's ability be ignored as well? Should all the skill cards (investigative committee and such)? To me, the rule seems to be there to prevent Super Crisis cards from being tossed away by the humans.

timonkey said:

Tyrol effectively 'tosses away' at least two or three of them with his once per game ability.

No, they still have to make the check. Even with no negative cards it's not trivial to reach the totals necessary for those checks.

timonkey said:

Depends on the number of players, number of people brigged, etc. I've found that it comes pretty close, especially with the Supercrises with difficulties of 15 and 18. For our group, unless the humans got totally rolled by the Cylon's reveal and have had a hard time with a pile of skill checks from the board (i.e. brig or administration), the Supercrisis is very beatable, and Tyrol makes it easily beatable.

So we're all now ? - as the ability does not mention crisis cards at all but just skill checks (which may not even be on a crisis card), as opposed to six other characters which has crisis card mentioned on their card, then the passage from the rules "Super Crisis Cards are immune to character abilities that specifically affect Crisis Cards." just does not apply.

TomH said:

Well, it doesn't seem to be against the letter of the rules...

Sinis said:

... and only the designer can say if it is against the sprirt of his rules.

TomH said:

Only the letter and not the spirit of the rules, eh? I'm not going to lie to you, it sounds a little bit like... rules lawyering.

I have to agree.. only the designer can tell us how the rule must be interpreted...

But for me, it cannot be used, according to the ¨Super crisis are not affected by character´s abilities¨.

Besides, Tyrol will be the only character that can actually affect a Super Crisis, and in a 3 or 4 player game, this will reduce the effect the cylon can have in the game with that card...

I understand how the wording is ambiguous.

For the record, Tyrol's once per game ability (as well as other Character abilities targeting skill checks) cannot be used on Super Crises cards. I'll have to add this to the next FAQ.

Thanks for the clarification.

IMHO you cannot use Galen's ability here. No ability can target a Super Crisis card and that's it!

Second thing is that it's surely a mistake, there should be a not on his card taht he isn't allowed do to it.

YoshiPL said:

Yep - that's what the designer jsut said a couple of posts back.

Thanks Corey! I was almost convinced the other way