Hi there,

one question that bothered me during our last plays, since the players always received (and chose to keep) Appraisal:

The Appraiser receives a treasure cache among his two cards and chooses this as his card. He then receives the bonus from the cache and then what - one extra treasure card or two?

Thoughts?

Without the exact words for the skill in front of me, I would guess that his ability was with the original choice of the treasure, not the Treasure Cache follow-up draw (so he just draws one more card, instead of 2 more and chooses one).

-shnar

I've always let it chain given the wording.

There's actually at least 4 ways I could conceive of this working:

1. The effects chain. If you draw item A and a treasure cache, you pick one. If you choose the treasure cache, then you draw items B and C and can choose to keep one of those.

2. The treasure cache pre-empts your choice. If you draw item A and a cache, you get the bonus from a the cache, draw item B, and then choose whether to keep item A or item B.

3. The treasure cache is processed before your choice, but its effects are conditional on your choice. If you draw item A and a cache, then you draw another card (item B), and then you get to choose between getting item A or getting the cache bonus and item B.

4. The skill doesn't apply to treasure caches. You can choose item A or the cache, and if you take the cache, you then draw a single random treasure as well.

Actual wording on the skill card says "when you draw 1 or more treasure cards, draw 1 extra treasure card, then choose 1 and return it to the bottom of the deck, facedown." So I don't see any justification for option #4, and I think option #1 is the most straightforward interpretation, but I'm willing to entertain contrary arguments.

Antistone said:

I'll go with Option 1.

It says "treasure cards " not treasure. The skill doesn't care that you are pulling treasure cache only an actual card. So given the situation in Option 1, I don't see anything based on the wording of that skill that says it only happens once per situation such as opening a chest.

You draw cards A and B, and card C due to Appaisal. You get Item (A), Item © and Treasure Cache (B)

Return one of the cards, so let's say card A.

The treasure cache (B) directs you to get some gold and another treasure card. You are drawing a card , so Appraisal kicks in again and lets you draw D and E (the extra one from Appraisal).

Additionally, based one the wording of the skill I would argue (not rule), that you have to return either D or E to the bottom of the deck facedown.

I would actually think there would be an option 5:

You pick either item A or the cache. If you choose the cache, you draw one additional card B, and keep the cache and card B.

Personally I'd treat it that way, as I feel that cards drawn as a result of choosing the treasure cache are part of the same draw. I can't back that up with any argument based on the rules at this point, but then again, I'm 3/4 asleep right now, and my brain isn't entirely functioning ;-)

We played it as Option 5 as well.

Since there doesn´t seem to be any rule to clarify this, the question should go to Thundercles´ list, I think.

Osaka said:

The astute reader will note that option 5 is exactly the same as option 4.

Also, if the cache is really "part of the same draw," then shouldn't you finish drawing cards before you're forced to choose which to keep, thus resulting in option 2 or option 3?

Sorry about misreading number 4... As I said, it was late (about 4:30am here) and I was half-asleep when I posted.

As for picking number 2 or 3 instead... You're probably right in terms of the wording that it WOULDN'T be number 4. I just don't feel that's how it SHOULD play out. But I really have nothing other than a strong opinion to support that with.

That being said, I would like to see it added to the unanswered questions thread, as I could see this generating an argument at some gaming tables!

Hmm . . . It could just be the English teacher in me, but the commas in the card seem to suggest that no matter what you only get 1 extra draw.

Appraiser: When you draw 1 or more treasure cards (comma), draw one extra treasure card (comma), then choose 1 and return it to the bottom of the deck, facedown.

"When you draw 1 or more treasure cards (comma)," - This is a dependent clause that I believe suggests:

1. If (in Vanilla Descent) opening a chest gives every hero 1 treasure, then only the hero with appraiser will get to draw 2 cards (Item A and Item B). If one of those treasures is a cache (Item B) and you choose it, then it results in drawing another treasure card. This means appraiser kicks in again (When you draw 1 or more treasure cards (comma),) giving you a chance to keep the cache (Item B) and choosing which one of the bonus treasures to keep (Item C or Item D). The tricky part is when you get 2 caches . . . !

2.If (in Vanilla Descent) opening a chest gives every hero N treasures, then only the hero with appraiser will get to draw N + 1 treasures. You will have to decide which treasure you want to keep and put one underneath the treasure deck. If one of those treasures is a cache and you choose it, then it results in drawing another treasure card. This means appraiser kicks in again (When you draw 1 or more treasure cards (comma),) giving you a chance to keep the cache (Item B) and choosing which one of the bonus treasures to keep (Item C or Item D). The tricky part is when you get 2 caches, or 3, or 4 . . . !

3. If (in RTL) opening a chest gives the heroes 2, 3, or 4; then the heroes with still only get 1 extra draw (N + 1, where N is the number of blanks rolled on a power die); the reasoning behind my interpretation is that the Appraiser gives you only extra draw no matter how many treasures you get. Unless, of course, you draw a treasure cache in there somewhere, which will allow Appraiser to kick in again.

4. If (in RTL) a hero is at the market and has the Appraiser skill, then the hero will get only 1 extra draw. For example, the heroes are in Dawnsmoor and draw 4 treasures. The Appraiser is present so he/she gets to draw 1 and only 1 extra card for a total of 5, due to the wording on Appraiser. I do not think the wording on the skill card allows for 2 cards per treasure for a total of 8 choices in the case of Dawnsmoor. I think the Appraiser in the market situation is to help alleviate shortages in the market.

This is how I play. (NOW)!

That's...kind of an odd thing to say. I'm fairly sure that no one was arguing that Appraiser would double your treasure draws if a chest gave you multiple treasures; the question was purely how it interacted with treasure caches. You seem to be supporting what I called option #1, though most of your post is about a separate issue...

Well, I guess I did ramble a bit. The first post was about everyone's thoughts, so I kind of through some of that in.

The wording says #1, but my group has always treated it as #2, as #1 has too much potential to be brutally overpowered, and we've always looked at Treasure Cache and the card that subsequent treasure card it triggers as a single treasure.

I've always seen it working as follows.

Normal treasure draws are (Draw N treasure cards, Keep N Treasure cards) events. Appraiser turns them into (Draw N+1 Treasure Cards, Keep N Treasure cards) events. Each Treasure Cache card you keep spawns a new, independent treasure draw event, which Appraiser affects. Thus, it never matters how many treasure caches you draw, because they don't kick in until you've chosen which treasure cards to keep.

For example:

Say you Visit a 3 merchant in Road to Legend with a character with the Appraiser skill: you would draw 4 cards and choose 3 to display as the merchant's wares for the week. If 2 of the draws are Treasure caches, you must choose at least one of them to keep, since only 1 can be discarded. Thus, you would end up with 2 treasures and 1 treasure cache as the wares for the week, and the single treasure cache would result in a market shortage (attempting to keep more than 1 Treasure cache doesn't make sense).

Conversely, in a Vanilla dungeon, if you open a treasure chest that gives 3 treasures cards to all heroes, the hero with Appraiser would draw 4 cards and choose 3 to keep. If 2 of the draws are Treasure caches, you can keep 1 or both of them. If you keep both of them, you keep 1 treasure and 2 treasure caches, discarding the remaining treasure. Then, each treasure cache is resolved as an independent treasure draw: draw 2 keep 1.

Now, that's how I do it, and the wording on the skill seems to support the idea that you don't resolve caches until you finish choosing which cards to keep and which to discard as part of the Appraiser effect. Also, since caches make you draw another card once you get them and Appraiser adds an extra card to all card draws, you'd have to argue that drawing a card due to the treasure cache isn't considered to be drawing a card. Which confuses me.