Question about "Naughty" negative modifier.

[bbaydar]

This caused quite the argument in a game today, so I thought I would post here for clarification.

I was "Naughty" and drew the "German Shepherds", a level 12 Santa monster.

Naughty says "You get -4 against all Santa monsters."

The German Shepherds says "+2 against Nice munchkins. -2 against Naughty."

My contention was that this made the Shepherds effectively level 6. 12 + (-4) + (-2) = 6.

I still had enough to beat them even if the math went the other way, but the wording of "You get ..." implies a bonus/good thing, where as if it said "You are ..." then it would imply a bad thing.

Official ruling please?

Thank you.

[Andrew Hackard]

Umm...crap. We'll have to think about that one.

[MunchkinMan]

I guess I'm not sure what we are thinking about. It is a penalty on the player, regardless of the word "get." I couldn't count the number of times I've said, "You get a penalty," to think "get" only ever means good things in this game, let alone in the real world: People get cancer, get hemorrhoids, they get diabetes, and some people even get a rock.