Hi all,

I've been playing CoC for 4 months now and my opponent alerted me to something I should have known (but was unsure if it was true).

Sorry if this rule is rudimentary, it just didn't come up until my last game.

Here's the scenario:

Kevin commits a monster to a story, hoping to get a Success token.

The defending player, Natalie, responds by commiting her scientist to block Kevin's monster.

The scientist happens to have an Investigation icon.

The monster has no investigation icons.

If the scientist survives the monster's onslaught and then we move onto the Investigation Struggle, does Natalie gain a Success token even though she was the defending player (i.e. it was not her turn) ???

Thanks

Yes. Page 10:

You will note there is no reference to Active Player in this. Similar to the "Determine Success". Whoever has the highest Skill will win Success.

Of course, this is assuming that the investigator can withstand the terror and combat!

Hi Professor,

Thanks so much for your answers (including the e-mailed one). This clarifies it much better for me as I now know this game is not as complicated (or shouldn't be as complicated) as Magic.

You will note there is no reference to Active Player in this. Similar to the "Determine Success". Whoever has the highest Skill will win Success.

Actually if you are defending you cannot win any success tokens when comparing skill during determining success. This is where the confusion comes from about if you can win success tokens during the Investigation struggle.

So I had the same question as the OP, and I think it's a fair question about a rather confusing rule: you can not win success tokens with skill if you're defending but it seems you can win success tokens while defending during the investigation struggle. If this is how it works, it could be written more clearly in the rules.

you can not win success tokens with skill if you're defending but it seems you can win success tokens while defending during the investigation struggle. If this is how it works, it could be written more clearly in the rules.

Well, the in the rules on page 10 under 'determining success' says:

Note also that only the active player may place a success token for being successful at a story. If the non-active player has the most total skill at this story, nothing happens.

But what doesn't strictly follow from this rule, but has been clarified officially, is that only the active player can actually succeed at a story. This means that any effects having the trigger 'After you succeed at a story...' can only be triggered by the active player.