Cheat and Sword of Slaying Everything Except Squid

[Gawmonster]

Yet another "discussion" (read: argument) arose over the usage of cheats ...
The question being, if a munchkin cheats in the SoSEES, and the cheat states you get none of the disadvantages of said item, does encountering Squidzilla (or any tentacled monster, for that matter) still require one to drop the sword?

[Andrew Hackard]

If we included every possible circumstance that Cheat is designed to cover, the card would just say "See enclosed Cheat Encyclopedia for rules." We were as discursive as we could be, given the space we had to work with.

As a very general guideline, Cheat makes an Item usable even if something inherent to the munchkin wielding the Item would otherwise prevent it. It does NOT make an Item usable if something external to the munchkin wielding it prevents it, nor does it prevent such effects from affecting the Item.

Examples of the former case are "already wearing Armor," "character is not an Elf," or "character is male." Examples of the latter case are "the room disallows Big items," "the monster makes the character drop an Item," or "a Curse turns your Armor to pudding."

So, in this case, Squidzilla (being an external problem) does require the player to drop the SoSEES.

[Gawmonster]

Thanks again, Andrew :) Based on your previous answer regarding the cheat and ruby ring, that was my assessment.

[Andrew Hackard]

It's very hard to write good rules for a card designed to break the rules . . .