Brian Mc Cabe
United States
Arizona
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The Madness card restricts the investigator to no more than four clue tokens. Power Tokens may be used as clue tokens or can be spent to increase stamina or sanity, depending on which Dark Pact card he possesses.
An investigator can have some combination of clue tokens and power tokens that exceed five, because there has been no indication how that power token is to be used; but it seems logical to suppose that the moment that investigator began attempting to use power tokens as clue tokens, to help seal a gate, for instance, and that use brought the total to five, it would not be allowed.
An investigator has four clues and one power token. That investigator closes a gate. He converts the power token into a clue token to seal.
I ruled that it couldn't be done, and Zoey became fairly useless at that point.
Brian
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Bern Harkins
United States
Cuba
New York
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Excellent question. I wish I had an excellent answer...
That said, there's no mention of "converting" a power token to a clue token that I can find; one spends a power token AS a clue token. Hardly definitive, but I'd lead towards allowing Amnesiac Zoey to be able to seal.
It's worth noting, however, that spending power tokens to offset sanity losses or stamina losses should only work when the stat is Lost, not when it is Spent for some effect... or at least that's my read.
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Brian Mc Cabe
United States
Arizona
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Your take on the sanity loss/expenditure is in keeping with the rest of the game. If you didn't choose to do it right away, though, you'd have to keep two separate stacks for each when you removed the sanity/stamina token from your character sheet.
Yes, it's used "as" a clue token. A lot of these rules mean that it's used as a clue token for all purposes, which would mean Zoey would be out of luck. It also negates the power of Amnesia. Get Amnesia. Grab Soul Pact and your Amnesia is healed.
When I phrase it that way, though, the investigator is, after all, making a Dark Pact with the AO, so I'm right back where I started.
Brian
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Bern Harkins
United States
Cuba
New York
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apatheticexecutioner wrote:
Your take on the sanity loss/expenditure is in keeping with the rest of the game. If you didn't choose to do it right away, though, you'd have to keep two separate stacks for each when you removed the sanity/stamina token from your character sheet.
I think it the decision to use a power token does have to be made right away, the operative wording here being "when you suffer"... so has to be immediate, and no mitigating the paying of costs. I think. 
I don't have any problem with an otherwise crippling madness or injury having a workaround somewhere in the rules... they are already unequal in their effects on characters by their very nature (Concussion with a focus of one, anyone?).
Here's another perspective... I would allow Amnesiac Zoey to use Research Materials or Mythos Lore to seal... both state the effect is used INSTEAD of spending a clue token, so Zoey never possesses it. By the same token, In the same way, she never possesses a clue token when she spends a power token as one.
Unless, of course, I am wrong...
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Tibs
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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Well, Amnesia can't restrict you from using Granny Orne, Changed, or Mythos Lore in lieu of spending clues, so it shouldn't restrict you from spending Power. Power, intrinsically, is not the same thing as a clue.
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Brian Mc Cabe
United States
Arizona
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You both make excellent points. With a lot of Arkham, wording is everything. In the instances you give, the words used are "instead of"
or "in lieu of". In the case of the Dark Pact cards, the power token can be used "as a clue."
The best example of this is sanity "expenditure" versus "cost."
Brian
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Bern Harkins
United States
Cuba
New York
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Well, Amnesia specifies how the four clue token limit is enforced; "You must immediately discard any extras".
I think it's agreed there is no conflict with Amnesiac Zoey having four clue tokens, and eleven power tokens. It's when the tokens are spent that the limit may be breached.
But at that moment, the tokens are spent. There are no "extra" clue tokens to discard.
You could make an argument that the first sentence of Amnesia forbids spending four at once, for how can you spend what you do not have?
But it seems to me you can never "have" that extra clue token. You cannot, for instance, trade a power token for a clue in order to satisfy the requirements of a personal story. The power token can be spent as a clue token, but it is not equivalent to one.
And once it is spent, there is no extra token.
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Tibs
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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Amnesia only prevents you from having clues, not spending them. If you have Amnesia, you can never pass Roland Banks's personal story (have five clues) but you certainly can pass Jenny Barnes's (spend 5 clues), for example.
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