Last night I played MoM for the first time with my friends, and I played as Keeper.

But one of players, playing Kate Winthrop, said just after (at the first turn!) we started the game,

"I'll use Test Theories."
"With no clue?"
"Hell yeah."

…and he rolled 1, he read the objective, he spoiled the objective, and everything screwed up.

After that game, all (even Kate player) agreed that we should ban Kate Winthrop, or at least Test Theory ability.

---

So, my question is,

Is the ability Test Theories on the Trait card is described correctly?
Or is there any restriction I could not find? (for example, do not spoil the objective, keep it secret, etc)

I still can't understand why there should be an spoiling ability for a one-way story game.

Test Theories is an odd ability. I wouldn't ban her though.

I've been playing with a house rule (apparently: I thought it was official) that she can't use Test Theories until at least two clues have been found. Then she makes a Lore -X check, where X is the lowest-numbered clue. If she passes, she reveals the objective (not just reads it).

Tibs said:

Isn't it dangerous to reveal the objective? Reading the object can screw up the whole game, but the revealing the objective enables the investigators to win , especially for the escaping case. If Kate rolls 1 at the first turn and the escape objective is revealed, they all move outside and the game ends….

I think there was some thing about having all clues to escape, not when objectives are revealed. Otherwise it would be fleeing not escaping to spread the word about evil-house-wich-spawns-monsters. And it wont be thematicly right.

But still i recall about having clue 1 to escape. (dont have rulebox or anything about game withing range)

P.s

With diffrent time zones it seems that i never sleep. (posted this on 01:35 in the night, even tho it is almoust 9:45 at my place)

The rulebook says, (page 16, Escaping)

Sometimes, after finding “Clue 1,” the investigators discover they need to escape with the knowledge they uncovered in order to win. In such circumstances, investigators are allowed to escape off of the game board. Investigators may only escape if the Objective card has been revealed and it specifically instructs them to escape.

I read this with "the Clue 1 is not necessary for all escaping cases", considering the notation about Clue 1 as a kind of flavor text. I think the objective card will instruct us to "ESCAPE WITH CLUE 1", as some GEB objective cards instruct.

Kate's ability can not reveal the objective, the person playing can read the objective but that does not "Reveal" it. The investigators still need to obtain the clue card necessary for the objective to be revealed. IMO her ability isnt terribly good unless the keeper has an objective that the investigators can actively prevent such as the keeper needing monsters in certain areas.

This is why, in a way, I prefer "reveal" to "read." The Keeper would then have the ability to eliminate the investigators. Knowing this, the investigators would be reluctant to use Test Theories unless they thought they were hopelessly stuck/doomed.

Kate's ability has a minimum clue card limition to trigger, did u guys just missed that ?

Ksdas said:

No it doesn't.

Ops~ Sorry, tried too much house rule & variants, somehow forgot the orginal one….

I don't like this, too. But I have totlally different situation with you….

My group did not like to choose this trait is beacuse it's very weak and boring.

If you have played this game many times, then you must have realized that some objects has fundamental problem.

Some scenario & objects are desgined as 'S udden - Death ' match, and for most scenario eventually you will need to reveal Clue #1.

And in COTW,every scenario has single object with differenct details. It's a compeltey useless trait for second game.

Knowing object ahead do brother Keeper in some particular scenarios (like kill or driver certain character mad), investigator player might response some extreme tactics, which ultimately make Keeper has no option other than kill every one during final.

But my biggest concern is this trait will make this game unfun…..So I totally support you if you want to houserule this trait…

I agree I think this is one of those instances where you just need to house rule the ability.

For the first time I had some of the investigators roll Test Theories succesfully last night so here is what I did and what I find as the possible solution. In my case I chose to reveal the objective card only due to players being stuck on the board with two clues while playing "The Fall of the House Lynch" and time being well on my side so I decided to spice the things up but .. *SPOILERS* Their objective was to kill Lynch which cannot be summoned unles they find Clue #1 *END SPOILERS* so in their case Test Theories didnt do much. Yes in the end I even reveled the Clue #1 for them as well and we had a such a great finale where I survived the final shotgun attack which was a bust on the last turn by the last investigator in the line to play. Pure sudden death! That is what this game is all about, its up to keeper to bend the rules to make things more interesting and keep it fun and Test Theories is perfect example how a game can become bust or fun. On the other hand If I've had somebody early in the game roll the Test Theories I would have had them take a look at investigators objective but not at keepers objective (cover it with the finger or something) and would not let them read it loud but instead had him/her tell everybody how they remember it and interprate it. It's really up to you how you want to play it!

Hiyas:

I just axed this & this is the official answer: Once the Objective is revealed, the "endgame/finale" begins, no matter how it's revealed.

Mayhap it'll help you with Kate's ability.

L

I agree with Syfusion:

It says Kate can READ the objective card, does that mean that she cannot TELL/REVEAL the objective to the other investigators? I think it just means that KATE knows the objective, as well as the KEEPER - it does not say to REVEAL the objective.

With FF rules we all know that the word REVEAL is most likely not the SAME as READ

I think "read" is all it means.

If it meant reveal, then at least 1 mission could end on turn one. Doesn't make for a fun game.

I hope that is what they meant, I guess we can argue intent all year round.

Here is a funny Kate story from this last weekend.

Spoiler alert: don't read on if you haven't played The Green Eyed Boy, specifically the one with the Freezer.

So, I'm running the scenario as the Keeper. The Keeper wins when an investigator goes into the Freezer. After two clues, the Kate player did Test Theories and succeeded in the role. He then told the rest of the players what the objective is. Should be an easy win for them, right?

Except I have the mythos card that allows me to flip a player to my side, and he now knows what we need to do to win. I play the card on him, he reads it, grins, and two turns later he's run into the freezer before anyone can realize what was going on!

Let's just say I was very thankful for Kate in that scenario. Granted, you can only flip players in The Green Eyed Boy (in the base game, anyway), but in this case it actually worked out in my favor for the players to know what I needed to do to win.

Here is a funny Kate story from this last weekend.

Spoiler alert: don't read on if you haven't played The Green Eyed Boy, specifically the one with the Freezer.

So, I'm running the scenario as the Keeper. The Keeper wins when an investigator goes into the Freezer. After two clues, the Kate player did Test Theories and succeeded in the role. He then told the rest of the players what the objective is. Should be an easy win for them, right?

Except I have the mythos card that allows me to flip a player to my side, and he now knows what we need to do to win. I play the card on him, he reads it, grins, and two turns later he's run into the freezer before anyone can realize what was going on!

Let's just say I was very thankful for Kate in that scenario. Granted, you can only flip players in The Green Eyed Boy (in the base game, anyway), but in this case it actually worked out in my favor for the players to know what I needed to do to win.

Sadly, the investigator with the loss of will mythos card does not count as an investigator as far as objective is concerned (investigator rulebook p13), so you did not 'officially' won this one, and Kate remains an issue.

Test Theories is an odd ability. I wouldn't ban her though.

I've been playing with a house rule (apparently: I thought it was official) that she can't use Test Theories until at least two clues have been found. Then she makes a Lore -X check, where X is the lowest-numbered clue. If she passes, she reveals the objective (not just reads it).

Ksdas said:

Kate's ability has a minimum clue card limition to trigger

No it doesn't.

I am thinking the wording IMPLIES that you need at least 1 CLUE to use the ability.

0 clues found: Test luck (2)

1 clue found: Test luck and +2 for one clue (4)

2 clues found: Test luck and +4 for two clues (6)

etc...

So we played this scenario tonight, and the same thing happened. After Joe Diamond having murdered Gloria the author with a sledgehammer, I get to draw a new character as we are still in step 2 of the time limit. I get to choose between Kate and someone else, and go with Kate after eyeing her special abilities. I know she's good in Arkham Horror, so I pick the flux stabiliser and, after some doubts, the Test Theories card. In the next round, the keeper tries to spawn a witch on me, fails, tries again and succeeds only to realise he can't spawn it where I'm standing. Therefore, he chooses the next room which happenes to be where Gloria lies dead with the Key to the next area and a tome. Undaunted, I roll for Test Theories.

As we were playing scenario 5, there were 6 total clues out of which we'd found 3, although we were only two players. Hence, I get a rating of 8 on the roll. Wanting to make sure, I ask if it's a skill check to which the keeper agrees it is, and so I add my luck onto the check again and then roll... a 9. The keeper then declares that it's game over, since I now know we just need to get out to win and I'm standing right next to the entrance. Hilariously, the other player had the "Loss of Will" card on him and thus killed the witch in his space (that spawned from me) and then happily ran into the freezer... only to realise that he died from doing so, which meant that the keeper won and he still lost, even though I would've won on the very next turn.

All three of us agreed that this ability seemed to totally screw over the game, especially in some scenarios like this one. Even the Flux Stabiliser is too good here - with it, I can just camp out in the foyer until the objective is properly revealed, and then take one step outside and immediately win as the keeper is unable to spawn anything (which in this case is only witches) on the room where I'm standing. We discussed this at length afterwards, and didn't really find any solution that felt quite satisfactory - because even if only Kate gets to read the objective and it's not revealed, it becomes a very strange game of trying to mimic her movements and/or directions, and if she doesn't have a face-down card (which I didn't) you can be sure she's not a traitor and hence it's a good idea to do precisely what she tells you to. At that point the game becomes essentially meaningless, and thus we started repacking it in the box to stow it away amongst continued discussions.

Then I stumbled onto this thread, and judging from the amount of views it's gotten we're not the only ones with this issue. The game is new and thus most likely the latest version, and yet we couldn't find either any errata to the ability/card or any sort of FAQ on the matter, which bothers us quite a bit. Everyone seems to hate the ability and to have come up with their own house rules for it, ranging from that it can only be used after a certain amount of clues have been revealed to that she and only she can read the objective which is then not revealed, but aside from outright banning the card and/or character, none of them address the fundamental issue with how the ability is supposed to work and/or interact with a number of the printed scenarios, even after several years. And she's even included in the base game, so it's not a question of newer scenarios or characters screwing up the game balance as can sometimes be the case with Arkham Horror if you're not careful.

So my question is simple: How is this ability intended to work, and why is there no errata/faq anywhere on the whole wide web to address it? Answer much appreciated.

Sincerely, Concerned gamer :/

Well, at first, it is a luck test, so you cannot use a skill token to increase the chance.

"A player may never spend a skill point to add his Luck to his Luck"

... and Kate can only READ the objective, not REVEAL it. This is actually a larger difference than it sounds like. It still feels broken, but not quite as bad as it could be.

You can't add luck to a luck roll.

As we were playing scenario 5, there were 6 total clues out of which we'd found 3, although we were only two players. Hence, I get a rating of 8 on the roll. Wanting to make sure, I ask if it's a skill check to which the keeper agrees it is, and so I add my luck onto the check again and then roll... a 9. The keeper then declares that it's game over, since I now know we just need to get out to win and I'm standing right next to the entrance. Hilariously, the other player had the "Loss of Will" card on him and thus killed the witch in his space (that spawned from me) and then happily ran into the freezer... only to realise that he died from doing so, which meant that the keeper won and he still lost, even though I would've won on the very next turn.

Umm, fun, but that would be been a failure, you can't add luck to itself when testing.

You can't add luck to a luck roll.

We realised that after we ended the game, but the point still stands. I get it if only I, as the Kate player, were allowed to read the objective - but in this case, I would simply have camped out in the foyer, clutching my flux stabiliser to my chest to prevent any monsters from appearing in my room, and waited for the objective to reveal itself via time counters and then taken one step outside to win. Of course, it wouldn't have prevented the other player from trying to murder me beforehand, but it still kinda kills the game for me and the others. Or have I done something else to make it work differently to the intentions?

Things are simple. Kate may read the objective. She may even tell it to other players. But - the Endgame is not triggered (Since the objective card is not revealed) You have to go all the way through the game, though all the clue cards until the objective card is revealed. Only then is the endgame triggered.

The ability makes perfect sense. You may be tempted to use is early in game, but your luck is only 2 so you you probably won't pass. And you can try it only once in the whole game. So better wait for clue 3 oder 2 or whatever revealed And at that point you already have played quite a time.