by INRDR
Thank you so much Bruce for taking the time to write a response. It certainly really cleaned up questions that my group had with this haunt. Thematically, it is one of our favorite ones (especially with the jab at The Saw movies, that gave us a laugh, hahaha.) However, the way it was written, we had trouble playing it even once. So this cleared some of it up, however, we ran into a very specific issue while playing. This came about when one player entered the Pentagram Chamber. This player was in possession of The Medallion, thereby inoculating them against the effects of the room. However, given the ways the rules are written for this specific haunt, when this player entered this room, an outright argument erupted (which has never happened before) concerning whether or not the Medallion inoculation was applicable. We poured over rule we found and it only intensified the debate. We know we must have missed something somewhere.Here's the discussed problem: the Medallion card's whole benefit is its ability to inoculate against the rooms it lists. However, given the haunt rules, a roll based on the instructions of the room tile is required to acquire the key within the Pentagram room. This creates an interesting loophole where the player with The Medallion is technically not bound to the rules of that room but is required to follow them, and if applicable take damage, in pursuit of the key. This would inherently negate the Medallion's worth if it is not applicable during haunt situations for the hero(es.) The player with The Medallion asserted that the whole benefit of the card is to prevent against the effects of the The Pentagram Chamber and since neither it nor the rules specifically say the card is not usable in this haunt, it must stand that the card and tile as they are written (as the cards and room tiles trump the rules if there is a conflict) are concrete and therefore no roll, in this specific instance, would be necessary to acquire the key within the chamber. The other players asserted that the card was only applicable when leaving the room and that room rules applied as according to the haunt, however, they also admitted that this didn't make much sense given that comparatively the Operating Lab has a set of rules thematically linked to that room which, given the hypothetical existence of a card that inoculated against the effects of the Operating Lab like the Medallion does, would similarly negate the need for the explorer to surgically remove the key and/or simply allow them to retrieve it without taking a roll or damage. Unfortunately, this argument became so dead locked that the game was ended without resolution as no consensus could be reached.
Are we missing something? Perhaps a line buried in the rules or a line of logic that is escaping us that would easily solve this issue? Given that one of the keys is always hidden in the Pentagram Chamber, this is something that is likely to come up again. I know that was a long explanation and I appreciate any help anyone could give.