Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[crj]

Hmm. Suddenly it makes a difference whether you're playing with first-edition or second-edition Cellar. /-8

(Edit: and which language your set is.)

[LastFootnote]

I was going to bring storyteller up as a joke, but actually it now allows you to play treasures during your turn for +$, which is legitimately useful. Unless the effect doesn't trigger because it says "draw cards" instead of "+X Cards" ...?

Correct, 2nd Edition Storyteller doesn't has "draw" instead of "+1 Card", so it's unaffected by Way of the Chameleon (other than the vanilla +1 Card). If you're playing IRL with 1st Edition Storyteller, then the +Cards will be converted to +$.

[J Reggie]

Ooo, my favorite card Miser likes this.

[michaeljb]

So Poor House is +4 Cards and costs $1? I'll take it.

But only if you have no Treasure cards in your hand.  It's now "+4 Cards.  Reveal your hand, -1 Card per Treasure card in your hand (you can't go below 0 cards)"  No, wait, it specifically says "+Cards" and "+coins" on the Way, so I guess it wouldn't matter how many Treasure cards you had.  It would basically become "+4 Cards.  Reveal your hand, -$1 per Treasure card in your hand (you can't go below $0)" making that clause meaningless ... except that you'd still have to reveal your hand, but who cares?  Dang, that does make Poor House awesome!

(emphasis mine)

You're right, as written it doesn't change the minuses, so it's a card costing $1 that draws an unconditional 4 cards!

(emphasis mine)

I can't wait to play that Chameleon + Poor House combo!

And Poor House is basically Hunting Grounds without the on-trash effect

Poor House's "formula" is not +(max(, - number of Treasure cards in your hand)); it is +, then - per Treasure card in your hand, with your total count bottoming out at . For example, if you play a Market, then a Laboratory, then a Poor House and reveal 5 Coppers, you now have a grand total of and 1 Buy; the Poor House is actively harmful* in that case.

So a Chameleoned Poor House draws 4 cards and then can still remove you've accumulated earlier this turn. Play a Market for its normal effects (Chameleoned or not), then play a Chameleoned Poor House to draw 4 cards, then if you reveal any Treasures at all, you lose the provided by the Market.

* blah blah edge case blah blah Peddler

[Jeebus]

Very interesting card!   If I chameleon a second time in a turn - does it undo the first one - putting all the cards back to normal?

If you could use a Way several times when you play a card, it wouldn't make a difference. The Way tells you what to do instead of following the card's instructions. If you apply the Way again, you are already not following the card's instructions, so it wouldn't do anything. This is in line with Enchantress; playing severeal Enchantresses doesn't give your opponents "+1 Card, +1 Action" more than once.

[GendoIkari]

So Poor House is +4 Cards and costs $1? I'll take it.

But only if you have no Treasure cards in your hand.  It's now "+4 Cards.  Reveal your hand, -1 Card per Treasure card in your hand (you can't go below 0 cards)"  No, wait, it specifically says "+Cards" and "+coins" on the Way, so I guess it wouldn't matter how many Treasure cards you had.  It would basically become "+4 Cards.  Reveal your hand, -$1 per Treasure card in your hand (you can't go below $0)" making that clause meaningless ... except that you'd still have to reveal your hand, but who cares?  Dang, that does make Poor House awesome!

You're right, as written it doesn't change the minuses, so it's a card costing $1 that draws an unconditional 4 cards!

I can't wait to play that Chameleon + Poor House combo!

And Poor House is basically Hunting Grounds without the on-trash effect

Poor House's "formula" is not +(max(, - number of Treasure cards in your hand)); it is +, then - per Treasure card in your hand, with your total count bottoming out at . For example, if you play a Market, then a Laboratory, then a Poor House and reveal 5 Coppers, you now have a grand total of and 1 Buy; the Poor House is actively harmful* in that case.

So a Chameleoned Poor House draws 4 cards and then can still remove you've accumulated earlier this turn. Play a Market for its normal effects (Chameleoned or not), then play a Chameleoned Poor House to draw 4 cards, then if you reveal any Treasures at all, you lose the provided by the Market.

* blah blah edge case blah blah Peddler

I don’t think anyone was misunderstanding this. Yes Poor House would still remove other money you had earned from Peddler, etc... but often you won’t have any yet. Poor House by itself is now +4 cards, the possible drawback is avoided by not using it in a Peddler-type deck.

[Jeebus]

People asked for various things, but the big one was Ways, everyone wants to see more. Someone wanted the "vice-versa" card and someone wanted the most rule-bending things, so here's all three of those, and the most exotic thing in the set.

Do you mean "most exotic" in the zoological sense?

[Jeebus]

I was going to bring storyteller up as a joke, but actually it now allows you to play treasures during your turn for +$, which is legitimately useful. Unless the effect doesn't trigger because it says "draw cards" instead of "+X Cards" ...?

Correct, 2nd Edition Storyteller doesn't has "draw" instead of "+1 Card", so it's unaffected by Way of the Chameleon (other than the vanilla +1 Card). If you're playing IRL with 1st Edition Storyteller, then the +Cards will be converted to +$.

Oh man, that's awful. Why differentiate between draw cards and +cards? Now some cards were functionally changed with 2nd editions, retroactively.

[michaeljb]

I don’t think anyone was misunderstanding this. Yes Poor House would still remove other money you had earned from Peddler, etc... but often you won’t have any yet. Poor House by itself is now +4 cards, the possible drawback is avoided by not using it in a Peddler-type deck.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I dunno, "not using it in a Peddler-type deck" sounds like a condition to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You're right, as written it doesn't change the minuses, so it's a card costing $1 that draws an unconditional 4 cards!

(emphasis mine)

[michaeljb]

I was going to bring storyteller up as a joke, but actually it now allows you to play treasures during your turn for +$, which is legitimately useful. Unless the effect doesn't trigger because it says "draw cards" instead of "+X Cards" ...?

Correct, 2nd Edition Storyteller doesn't has "draw" instead of "+1 Card", so it's unaffected by Way of the Chameleon (other than the vanilla +1 Card). If you're playing IRL with 1st Edition Storyteller, then the +Cards will be converted to +$.

Oh man, that's awful. Why differenciate between draw cards and +cards? Now some cards were functionally changed with 2nd editions, retroactively.

If I've learned anything from reading of Donald's posts over the years, I would guess his answer is something like this: at the time, "drawing cards" seemed like better wording than "+Cards" and Way of the Chameleon's mechanism was unforeseen. While making Menagerie, the mechanism seemed neat enough to be worth the drawback of retroactively changing some first edition cards. While the mechanism could be worded to treat "drawing cards" and "+Cards" as the same, that was probably too wordy.

[silverspawn]

Hmm. Suddenly it makes a difference whether you're playing with first-edition or second-edition Cellar. /-8

(Edit: and which language your set is.)

I think that matters anyway. If you take the german version literally, you have all sorts of nonsensical effects and bugs. For example, watchtower triggerd on buy or gain last time I checked, which doesn't make any sense (though admittedly it also doesn't change anything).

[Jeebus]

If I've learned anything from reading of Donald's posts over the years, I would guess his answer is something like this: at the time, "drawing cards" seemed like better wording than "+Cards" and Way of the Chameleon's mechanism was unforeseen. While making Menagerie, the mechanism seemed neat enough to be worth the drawback of retroactively changing some first edition cards. While the mechanism could be worded to treat "drawing cards" and "+Cards" as the same, that was probably too wordy.

I definitely don't think the card text on Way of the Chameleon should be changed. But there is no way to know from that text alone whether it applies to "draw cards"; you have to check the rulebook. And it would be perfectly reasonable to say that "give you +Cards" also refers to cards that say "draw cards".

Actually, the rules make it clear that "draw cards" and "+Cards" are the same, as with the -1 Card token for instance. So the intuitive interpretation is that cards that "give you +Cards" include any card that lets you draw cards.

[mxdata]

So a Chameleoned Poor House draws 4 cards and then can still remove you've accumulated earlier this turn. Play a Market for its normal effects (Chameleoned or not), then play a Chameleoned Poor House to draw 4 cards, then if you reveal any Treasures at all, you lose the provided by the Market.

* blah blah edge case blah blah Peddler

Wait, Poor House can remove coins that came from other cards?  I thought the -coins only applied to its own bonus?

[Violet CLM]

What I'm curious about is how far the effects reach. If I apply Chameleon to Crown in my Buy phase, leading me to play a treasure card twice, does Chameleon automatically extend to any +$ that treasure card gives me? It was following Crown's instructions that directly caused me to play the treasure card.

[michaeljb]

So a Chameleoned Poor House draws 4 cards and then can still remove you've accumulated earlier this turn. Play a Market for its normal effects (Chameleoned or not), then play a Chameleoned Poor House to draw 4 cards, then if you reveal any Treasures at all, you lose the provided by the Market.

* blah blah edge case blah blah Peddler

Wait, Poor House can remove coins that came from other cards?  I thought the -coins only applied to its own bonus?

Indeed it can. I don't know if the 2E rulebook changed the wording of the FAQ and the wiki seems to be having trouble right now, so here's what the 1E rulebook says:

Poor House: First you get +. Then you reveal your hand, and lose per Treasure card in it. You can lose more than this way, but the amount of coins you have available to spend can never go below . Cards with two types, one of which is Treasure (such as Harem from Intrigue) are Treasure cards.

[michaeljb]

What I'm curious about is how far the effects reach. If I apply Chameleon to Crown in my Buy phase, leading me to play a treasure card twice, does Chameleon automatically extend to any +$ that treasure card gives me?

No.

It was following Crown's instructions that directly caused me to play the treasure card.

True, but when you're playing a Treasure that Crown let you play twice, you're onto a different card's instructions. In this scenario, Chameleon's "that" refers only to Crown's instructions.

[mxdata]

Scholar is funny with this. +$7.

Dang, almost a guaranteed Province, as long as you play at least one card with a +$1 bonus before it!  But also, I love how this card and Minion cause you to have no hand after you play them with Chameleon

Storehouse acts almost like a throned Cellar when you use this Way, except with +1 Buy and no +Actions

[michaeljb]

Storehouse acts almost like a throned Cellar when you use this Way, except with +1 Buy and no +Actions

Oof, Storeroom is another instance of the Storyteller quirk--1E uses "+Cards" and 2E uses "draw" so only the 1E version works with Chameleon 2E version works the way you describe.

[mxdata]

Wait, Poor House can remove coins that came from other cards?  I thought the -coins only applied to its own bonus?

Indeed it can. I don't know if the 2E rulebook changed the wording of the FAQ and the wiki seems to be having trouble right now, so here's what the 1E rulebook says:

Poor House: First you get +. Then you reveal your hand, and lose per Treasure card in it. You can lose more than this way, but the amount of coins you have available to spend can never go below . Cards with two types, one of which is Treasure (such as Harem from Intrigue) are Treasure cards.

Hunh, interesting.  I guess it never came up for me because there was never any point to playing it with more than 3 Treasure cards in hand.  So, clearly then, you'd want to make sure you played this before any cards that give +coins.  Although, a draw of 4 cards would probably still be worth it, even if ended up losing a couple coins, similar to playing Storyteller

[michaeljb]

People asked for various things, but the big one was Ways, everyone wants to see more. Someone wanted the "vice-versa" card and someone wanted the most rule-bending things, so here's all three of those, and the most exotic thing in the set.

Do you mean "most exotic" in the zoological sense?

If not, I'd like to request the most zoologically exotic thing in the set for a bonus preview. 

[mxdata]

Scholar is funny with this. +$7.

Woah! Epic if throned with some spare +Buy.

Or King's Court/Mastermind!  +$21!  Automatically at least two provinces or a province and a colony if you have an extra buy (in the case of Mastermind, maybe from another Duration card with +Buy or a Turtled card with +Buy or the Fair project), and you'd only need one more coin for two Colonies.  A Duration card like Wharf would even allow you to continue playing after the +$21 if you resolve Mastermind first, though granted with a very small hand

EDIT: Wait, you can choose to use the Way or not on each play.  So, another option is to use Chameleon on the first two plays for $14, then on the third play you use the normal function, giving you +7 cards.  Now you have a 7-card hand with $14 already accumulated

[scolapasta]

Plus you don't have to use the Way the third time. Play a Mastermind and on our next turn, Chameleon a Scholar for just the first two plays: start your turn with and a 7 card hand and +$14.

[GendoIkari]

I was going to bring storyteller up as a joke, but actually it now allows you to play treasures during your turn for +$, which is legitimately useful. Unless the effect doesn't trigger because it says "draw cards" instead of "+X Cards" ...?

Correct, 2nd Edition Storyteller doesn't has "draw" instead of "+1 Card", so it's unaffected by Way of the Chameleon (other than the vanilla +1 Card). If you're playing IRL with 1st Edition Storyteller, then the +Cards will be converted to +$.

The last sentence seems strange to me. While I suppose every group will play it differently, I would expect that anyone who knows about the errata/change would generally choose to play with that errata. I only have first edition, but if I play with Throne Room, I’m making sure everyone knows that it actually says “may” even though it isn’t printed on the card. It seems silly to play with different rules based on whether or not your printed copy has old text.

Same goes for any game. I have first edition Carcassone, but when scoring I’m going to use the current farm scoring rules.

[Donald X.]

Do you mean "most exotic" in the zoological sense?

I meant exotic in terms of the effect; the animals though, as I have mentioned somewhere, are mostly ones medieval people interacted with.

[GendoIkari]

I don’t think anyone was misunderstanding this. Yes Poor House would still remove other money you had earned from Peddler, etc... but often you won’t have any yet. Poor House by itself is now +4 cards, the possible drawback is avoided by not using it in a Peddler-type deck.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I dunno, "not using it in a Peddler-type deck" sounds like a condition to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You're right, as written it doesn't change the minuses, so it's a card costing $1 that draws an unconditional 4 cards!

(emphasis mine)

I read “unconditional” as “always draws 4.” Compared to Scout, which can draw 4 but probably won’t. There’s a potential drawback, but not a condition. Either way it still sounds like a strong combo, and I think the people that were discussing it were aware of the drawback.