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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#582197
How do skills and abilities interact with dilemmas?

Example 1: Donatra is selected by Temptation... is she stopped or not? Does the answer change if Overwhelmed is on the mission?

Example 2: Donatra is selected by More of Gravy Than of Grave. Assuming for arguments sake that my remaining people have the skills to cover the other two people selected, so they also need need Honor and Security to prevent her (and the others selected) from getting stopped?

Example 3: Same as example 2 but now I have Julian Bashir selected. If I use his ability to gain Treachery, do my unselected people now need Treachery to prevent him from getting stopped? What if he gains a skill with Confessions in the Pale Moonlight? Does that get added to the list?

Thanks!
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By Gorgo Primus (Benjamin Rostoker)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#582198
Pretty sure the answer is yes to all. I'm not sure what here is confusing you? They say they have the skills, and these are asking if they have the skills. If those things specifically said 'printed X' my answer would be different, but...
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#582199
For example 1, Donatra is facing a dilemma so she would have Honor and therefore not be stopped. For Overwhelmed, I believe, she uses her Honor to keep going and gets stopped by Overwhelmed.

For example 2, Donatra is facing the dilemma so the other personnel would need Honor and Security.

For example 3, yes the other personnel would need Treachery, as Bashir gains it until the end of your turn. Same for Confessions, he has that new skill until the end of turn.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#582200
Gorgo Primus wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 5:49 pm Pretty sure the answer is yes to all. I'm not sure what here is confusing you? They say they have the skills, and these are asking if they have the skills. If those things specifically said 'printed X' my answer would be different, but...
I'm just making sure my understanding of the rules is correct.

The Rulebook is actually not particularly clear on how regular skills gained from abilities are "viewed" by dilemmas.

The closest analog is cost, where it's quite clear that only printed cost matters.

So to pull from my above example, when Bashir gains Treachery, can the dilemma "see" it or is it only "looking" at his [SD] SKILLS? And to take it a step further, can the dilemma "see" Confessions (or the effect of the skill gained from Confessions)? Why or why not?
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By Gorgo Primus (Benjamin Rostoker)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#582202
Skills work the opposite of cost in that way. An officer with a Universal Translator on hand gains Diplomacy and becomes 'a Diplomacy personnel', until and unless something prevents them from gaining skills or specifies it only cares about printed skills (and to date, no card ever looks at that). In the case of skill dots, when something is looking at that it'll specifically call out that it is looking at [SD] icons as opposed to skills. Examples being Inquest, Prison Compound, and Spatial Interphase. Otherwise I don't think [SD] icons ever matter.

The only time I can think of where this kind of thing wasn't clear to me was with Accelerated Aging because it was specifically looking at the order in which skills were listed. But we then got a ruling on that a few years later to clear up that added skills aren't listed or printed and thus don't have an order for anything to look at - and, at least at this point in time, the rulebook on page 9 spells out that "new skills that are gained are not “listed skills" to back that up.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#582205
Gorgo Primus wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 6:57 pm Skills work the opposite of cost in that way. An officer with a Universal Translator on hand gains Diplomacy and becomes 'a Diplomacy personnel, until and unless something prevents them from gaining skills or specifies it only cares about printed skills.

The only time I can think of where this kind of thing wasn't clear to me was with Accelerated Aging because it was specifically looking at the order in which skills were listed. But we then got a ruling on that a few years later to clear up that added skills aren't listed or printed and thus don't have an order for anything to look at.
Ok... I get the logic of this, but is there a rule that you can point to to confirm it?

I'm not being pedantic (or at least I'm not trying to)... and it's a basic part of the game that abilities and other cards that confer skills to personnel allow those personnel to meet skill requirements on dilemmas and missions as applicable. In this general case, the requirement is fixed and the personnels' skills are variable.

However, it's not clear (at least not that I've seen) that dilemmas that derive their requirements from personnels' skills is as clear cut a case. Maybe Gravy is the oddball here, as other similar dilemmas (e.g., Pawn against Pawn, The Next Phase, Tak Tak Negotiations) establish their requirements off of cards not in play, so "printed" is implied.

Then again, there's Compromised Tactics and Dumb Waiter that are subject to the same concern.

Given that the last rulebook was published before the latter set of cards (and Gravy) existed, it might be prudent to issue some sort of clarifying ruling on this front and formally codify it in Rulebook 5.0 if/when that ever comes into existence. I guess I should refer the question to @edgeofhearing.

What say you, Lucas? Did I miss anything or is this a rules gap that needs fixed?
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By edgeofhearing (Lucas Thompson)
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#582220
Armus wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:43 pmWhat say you, Lucas? Did I miss anything or is this a rules gap that needs fixed?
Unofficially, my instinct is that, when personnel gain skills, they have those skills for the purposes of other cards. I don't think that's necessarily a rules gap, it's just that it's kinda weird that cost is always printed cost, but everything else in the game looks at modified values. That particular exception is at least spelled out in the rulebook.

...that said, I could see an argument that the "on" in "the skills on those personnel" is shorthand for printed skills. There's nothing in the rulebook to necessarily support that reading, so my suggestion is to treat MoGToG as seeing all modifications, but I'll take it to the rules team.
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By edgeofhearing (Lucas Thompson)
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#582227
edgeofhearing wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:42 am
Armus wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:43 pmWhat say you, Lucas? Did I miss anything or is this a rules gap that needs fixed?
Unofficially, my instinct is that, when personnel gain skills, they have those skills for the purposes of other cards. I don't think that's necessarily a rules gap, it's just that it's kinda weird that cost is always printed cost, but everything else in the game looks at modified values. That particular exception is at least spelled out in the rulebook.

...that said, I could see an argument that the "on" in "skills on the selected personnel" is shorthand for printed skills. There's nothing in the rulebook to necessarily support that reading, so my suggestion is to treat MoGToG as seeing all modifications, but I'll take it to the rules team.
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