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Q: I have a couple of rules questions about Power Word. One of the upgrades to Power Word is Thrice Spoken: "When you give a command using one copy, also give that command to each other enemy with one of your copies of Power Word attached."
- 1) Do all of the enemies carry out the command (a) simultaneously or (b) one at a time? And if it's one at a time, do I get to choose the order?
- 2) (Extension) If the answer to Q1 is enemies act one at a time, how does this interact with Tonguetwister ("You may give up to two different commands")? Does one enemy complete both commands before the next enemy does? Or do all enemies complete one of the commands, then all enemies complete the other command?
- 3) How does Power Word interact with Swarming enemies? If you Power Word the host enemy do you Power Word them all? Can you Power Word swarm cards or just the host enemy? Do different commands affect Swarming enemies differently (beyond the usual Swarming rules such as if you evade one enemy then you evade them all)?
A: For both of your initial questions, the investigators(s) get to choose the order in which the effects from Power Word resolve. Also, if Tonguetwister is unlocked, an enemy is not required to complete both commands before the next enemy does. For Q3, if you attach Power Word to the host of a Swarm, the collective Swarm will Go/move with the host or Cower/exhaust with the host, but that is all; if the host is commanded to Betray/attack, it does so alone. (You can also Power Word a specific enemy in the Swarm, but then only that enemy could follow the given command. This enemy shouldn’t be able to move away from the swarm, but it can exhaust or deal 1 damage, etc.)
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Q: I have a question about the card Power Word and the "limit once per round per command" stipulation. My understanding was that these limits were card-specific and referring to the initiation of the ability on that card. So, here is the question: If I have "Thrice Spoken" and "Confess" unlocked, and Power Word attached to 3 Non-Elite enemies with a health value of 3, and I am at a location with a shroud of 2, can I spend my 3 actions to give the Confess command to each enemy using each copy of Power Word? If so, because of "Thrice Spoken", I would read this as discovering 9 clues at this location. Or, does giving one enemy the "Confess" command, which, with Thrice Spoken, gives it to the other two enemies as well, use up my ability to give the "Confess" command to the other two enemies (using those other two copies of Power Word)? In this situation, I would only be able to discover 3 clues and have to figure out what else I want to do with my other two actions.
A: To answer your question(s):- Yes; limits apply to the copy of the card that they’re on.
- With Power Word, though, giving a command with Thrice Spoken does count toward the “limit once per round per command” on each copy. So, in your example, you could give the command “Confess” to have all 3 enemies discover a clue (if able) but you would not be able to give the “Confess” command any more times during that round.
Подія
Spell.
Cost: 3.
Customizable. Fast. Play only during your turn.
Attach to a non-Elite enemy at your location.
If attached enemy is at your location: Parley. Give it a command (limit once per round per command) -
- "Go." This enemy moves once in a direction of your choice.
- "Cower." This enemy exhausts.
Latest Taboo
This card’s text box now reads: " If attached enemy is at your location: Parley. Test (3). If you succeed, give it a command (limit once per round per command) – "Go." This enemy moves once in a direction of your choice." This card’s customizable sheet loses the "Mercy" ability and gains"☐Cower. Add the command: "- ‘Cower.’ This enemy exhausts."
Customizations
□ Betray. Add the command: "- 'Betray.' Deal 1 damage to any enemy at this enemy's location with an equal or lower fight value than this enemy."
□ Mercy. Add the command: "- 'Mercy.' An investigator at this enemy's location heals damage or horror equal to this enemy's respective damage/horror value."
□ Confess. Add the command: "- 'Confess.' Discover 1 clue at this enemy's location if its health is equal to or higher than its location's shroud."
□ Distract. Add the command: "- 'Distract.' Automatically evade any enemy at this enemy's location with an equal or lower evade value than this enemy."
□□ Greater Control. Power Word gains ": Return Power Word to your hand."
□□□ Bonded. You may activate the parley ability on Power Word from up to one location away from the attached enemy.
□□□ Tonguetwister. When you parley with Power Word, you may give up to two different commands.
□□□ Thrice Spoken. You may include three copies of Power Word in your deck. When you give a command using one copy, also give that command to each other enemy with one of your copies of Power Word attached.
FAQs
(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)Reviews
This card is a role playing heaven. What more could you ask from the rats when you can make them distract the ghouls, tend your wounds, or even confess where the cheese is..
Anyways, I'll drop a rule related to the Confess option since I had to look it up a bit : "Health" is a number which damage counter goes up to and defeat it, so damaging it partially will not decrease effectiveness of Confess. Also it does not say "printed health", so I think any mythos-modified health can take effect. (Rule : Health and Damage)
The evolution of that card over the course of its upgrade is the same as a wizard for a DnD campaign. It starts really, really underwhelming but reaches stratospheric level of power in its late stage. Be it enemy mitigation, sustain, getting clues, this card does everything and testless. It becomes so absurdly powerful that when you get to draw three of them in its fully upgraded form, it will trivialize a scenario on its own. Many ennemies spawn in the first few turns of a scenario when your fighter isn't set up yet? Slam them on the biggest threats, transform them into powerful allies, and distract the other monsters from hurting your friends. This card effectively reads: convert a bomb card from the encounter deck into a boon for yourself. Not only the fact that your allies can also trigger all the effects makes it so versatile, but you effectively remove the biggest threats from being a problem, and thus, instantly.
However the card really needs tonguetwister to get going, but when you get it with thrice spoken things start to escalate. You evade most monster you meet, testlessly get two clues, heal friends, and effectively, definitely remove any monster (except elite) in the game, in a class that has access to ward of protection level two. Congratulation, on your own, you disabled not only the most menacing treacheries, but also the most terrifying monsters the game has to offer. Anything else is just between your main fighter and the boss of the scenario, and your cluever who has all the time of the world to do his job. If you think that as a mystic, you ever needed a weapon, this card solves all problem you need, being slotless and fast. By the way, you don't need weapons when you convert any otherwordly abominations to your cause. This card is worth any xp point you can spend on it.
I'm pretty sure Carolyn should be able to take this card and not have it count towards her 15 off-class options as long as she takes it with the Mercy command added, no? Since it can heal horror, that should satisfy her deckbuilding, and thus allow her to spend up to 10 exp on various customizations for it just as long as Mercy is among them.
Q: With thrice spoken, does the second and third enemies need to be in the same location with me? The ability says "also give command to each other enemy with power word" and it does not specify that those other enemies need to be at the same location?
I think this might be the only Taboo in the game that I ignore. I like the responsibility to re-test 3 each time the Parley is used as that is a thematic win and doesn't alter the original text too much, but to completely mess with the Customization sheet is a bridge too far for me.
I have played this card in two campaigns now. Power Word reaches power levels that I haven't seen since pre-Key of Ys being tabooed. And if you were to ask me which I think is more powerful: a pre-taboo Key of Ys or Power Word, its really no contest. Power Word wins this contest hands down. I'm of the opinion that there are few cards in the game more powerful than Power Word.
What makes it so powerful? This is the setup I used when using it to fight: Tonguetwister / Thrice Spoken / Betray / Mercy / Confess / Distract. What has this let me do? Well, trivialize every scenario. I find a decent enemy, I Power Word it. Usually my first command that I give to all my minions is "Cower". Why? The enemy exhausts. It is not evaded so it remains engaged with you but will not attack you during the enemy phase. This means it will follow you around wherever you move. My second command is usually to Betray any non-PW'ed enemy at my location or Confess to get a clue. As the fighter in a 2p campaign, if I'm able to nab a couple of enemies early, I can frequently get half the clues needed to finish the scenario. And that's with me spending a lot of my actions fighting instead of focusing on clues.
I also took Wither. Yep, good 'ole Wither. If your minions have a fight of 3 but you need an enemy to die that has a fight of 4? Use Wither and lower its fight value so that your minions can finish it off. Or you can just Distract it if necessary. Whatever.
Any chance of you getting defeated? Nope. I sometimes find myself moving a space before fighting. Rather than using an action to exhaust them, then moving, then only getting one round of attacks, I would move (taking opportunity attacks from all 3 minions), then attack/heal, then attack/exhaust. I heal up almost all the damage they've done in the opportunity attacks. My partner and I are never close to death because I can use the minions to heal us up. Yes, healing is bad, but when it's actionless because I'm already exhausting them to pick up 3 testless clues in one action? It becomes very, very good.
Oh, and I'm sure that someone is going to say, "You can't give the same command twice!" But you can. Limit once per round per command. "Limit X per " is a limit that appears on cards that remain in play through the resolution of an ability's effect. Each instance of an ability with such a limit may be initiated X times during the designated period. Another copy of power word would have another instance of the same ability. So if you have 2 minions, you can activate the fight on both of them with Thrice Spoken and get both of them to deal a damage to an enemy at your location... twice. With 3 minions, you can spend all 3 actions telling each of them to fight, which causes the other 2 to fight. For a total of 9 testless damage.
Yes, there are some drawbacks. Health needs to be high for clues. Fight for fighting. Foot for evading. But I tell you, it is hilarious to have a Swarm of Rats as a minion (evade 3!) and while ordering the Rats to evade a scary elite, they are also crawling over you (or another investigator!) and healing you (or the other investigator!) for 1 damage. And the Rats are one of the worst minions you could cast this on.
I was playing Father Mateo with this combo (signature weakness: Serpents of Yig) and drew Mob Enforcer. It feels so good to have weaknesses that actively make your deck better. What other card in the game actively makes your weaknesses into strengths?
If you haven't played Power Word, I encourage you to try it. It's a card that you build around, but it's a spell, so cards to build around it are already cards you would play anyway. This card is so, so good.
This is my favourite card in the Scarlet Keys pack (among many great cards).
Why?
- It's flexible: Customisable offers lots of ways to lean into a card giving lots of replayability in future campaigns.
- It's powerful. It's REALLY powerful.
- It's a puzzle. If you manage to get 3 enemies with Power Word in play, managing them all each round is a challenge, and sometimes a negotiation with other players. When you solve the puzzle, the benefits are huge. Sometimes the "solution" means an investigator has to compromise in some other way.
- It's a story. I play AHLCG for the RPG moments and this card creates many. I had turns where I Commanded 3 enemies to do things to my will, then blew them all up with Storm of Spirits, followed by an Ethereal Slip across the map to victory.
But more than anything, it's the best card because It's ALL those things combined. There are many great cards in the game, that do one or another thing very well. Consider Grizzled. It's hugely powerful, and flexible, but, in the end, it boils down to "just" an incredible Skill card.
And that's why I love Power Word because it enables us to enjoy every aspect of what makes a great card, in one place.
10 XP for a card that can't target elites? Can someone convince me this is a good card to pick up? It is obviously less optimal than Cyclopean Hammer, but I don't think it can even compete as a late-game enemy management because it can't interact with Elite enemies.
Don't take it in TSK, it's a good card but seems to be terrible in that particular campaign. Can't target Elites, and usually you don't want to be with enemies in the same location or you prefer them to be dead.
Taking the FAQs above into account I tried the following out.
It is extremely effective to multi-Power-Word one hunter enemy, preferring a hunter enemy preying on me like Guardian of the Crystallizer or Bianca "Die Katz".
With "Thrice Spoken" and "Tongue Twister" you can have a ...
- ... Charging Warrior -> "Go [1].", "Go [2].", "Go. [3]", "Betray [1].", "Betray [2].", "Betray [3]." -> Runs into a location and deals up to 3x1 damage to enemies with an an equal or lower fight value. "Killing 3 Swarm of Rats at 3 connected locations is crazy ... same is killing a 3 health enemy 3 locations away!"
- ... Charging Evader -> "Go [1].", "Go [2].", "Go. [3]", "Distract [1].", "Distract [2].", "Distract [3]." Runs into a location and evades up to 3 enemies (maybe including itself) with an an equal or lower evade value. "Make Rita Young look like a sloth!"
- ... (untabooed) an Ambulance -> "Go [1].", "Go [2].", "Go. [3]", "Mercy [1].", "Mercy [2].", "Mercy. [3]" Runs into a location and heals up to 3 allies for health and/or horror. "Make Bianca "Die Katz" a charging Lay-on-Hands-Paladina who heals 6 health for 1 action at a location 3 steps away!"
- ... Charging Cluever -> "Go [1].", "Go [2].", "Go. [3]", "Confess [1].", "Confess [2].", "Confess. [3]" Runs into a location and discovers up to 3 clues if its health is equal to or higher than its location's shroud. "Get an On the Trail (3) once per turn!"
In all cases you can also change the resolution order to or skip any of the commands: eg. "Go [1].", "2nd Command [1].", "Go [2].", "2nd Command [2].", "Go [3].", "2nd Command [3]."
You go to the power-worded enemy and send it to it's target doing whatever you want. When the enemy is at least 2 locations away, exhausing or evading it is not necessary. If it is aloof from e.g. Existential Riddle you can even ignore this part because aloof enemies don't exhaust.
Your power-worded enemy becomes a freeking multi-functional boomerang.
You can support this playstype by taking cards like Word of Command and Lucid Dreaming to get the copies out of your deck very fast.