Claiming Objectives - Book of Marzabul

[asgardianphil 38]

Book of Mazarbul 
Type: Objective 
Encounter Set: The Seventh Level 
Item. Artifact. 
Restricted.
Action: Exhaust a hero to claim this objective. Then, attach Book of Mazarbul to that hero. (If detached, return Book of Mazarbul to the staging area.)
Attached hero cannot attack and does not exhaust to commit to a quest. 

 

Quick question. If you have this objective on one of your heroes:

1. can you use the action to put it on another of your heroes? 

2. In multiplayer can another player use the action to take it off the other player?

 

cheers 

Phil

[sappidus 531]

RR Action, Action Ability states:

Quote

A player may initiate an action ability from… an objective, quest, or location ability in play with the boldface "Action:" trigger.

Let's take this at its word for the moment (though I will address this again at the end).

Because the second sentence of the Book uses then, resolving it depends on being able to resolve the first sentence. This boils down to, is an objective already claimed eligible to be claimed again? In #1, by yourself; in #2, by another player. (As above, for #2 we are assuming that the other player can indeed trigger the Action at all.)

So, claiming… An annoyance is that the rules governing objectives claiming are scattered around the RR and FAQ:

• RR Guarded
• RR Objective Cards
• FAQ 1.17, Unclaimed Objectives

The only text that actually defines the act of claiming is in RR Guarded:

Quote

An unguarded objective can be claimed in the manner specified by its card text.

Well, that clears thing right up now, doesn't it? lol

Still, gaining control of an objective is not the fundamental point of claiming, but a consequence of it (see RR Objective Cards). The way I see it, claimed/unclaimed is a binary state that an objective can have, independent of whether it is controlled by the encounter deck or (whichever) player. So you shouldn't be able to claim an already-claimed objective, somewhat akin to not being able to commit a character to the quest if it's already committed: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/206029-grappling-hook-and-an-already-questing-character/?do=findComment&comment=2115429

Still, I grant there is some room for argument here—I admit that my usual philosophical stance in this game is "no, you can't" until proven otherwise, and that can bias me.

Nonetheless, I think that #1 is definitely not going to work: if you have the claimed objective, then you cannot claim it again, as that will not change the board state.

The end: I said I would come back to the issue of triggering Actions on a claimed objective controlled by another player. Even outside anything about reclaiming or whatnot, I can't help but think that allowing it leads to unintended consequences. See the list here and judge for yourself: http://hallofbeorn.com/LotR?Query=action&CardType=Objective—many may still not be valid to trigger when you don't control the objective, since they require exhausting the objective and you can't pay that cost, but several have costs you can pay that would seem to lead to weird interactions.

Edited June 28, 2019 by sappidus

[Wandalf the Gizzard 370]

Correct answer: Above post.

Convenient answer: No, you cannot, in either case.