Seeing what Splitlip now does, this definitely seems to be how the Forge works. You basically get a free action that only fails on a 1 and then can try to pickup the new relic with a regular power action or wait until next turn to do it via Splitlip again.

What do you mean by "seeing what splitlip now does?"

This thread, over the last few posts, switched to Uru Forge. I commented that the Forge now makes more sense as there was a thread earlier about the Forge with people confused about the replacement portion as it seemed like an incredibly bad option. With Splitlip, that option now makes a lot more sense.

Yep, pretty much lets you sideline relics for situational use, instead of choosing one for all purposes.

Yeah, I like that as well. It totally took the Forge from being okay (a stat boost on 3-6 being an okay deal) to something that I'd highly consider running along side Splitlip when resources are not allowed. At the very least you get a permanent stat boost. But more often than not, you can customize what you need with a fair chance of having it happen.

Thankyou very much!

Well for a lack of an official response; YES! Yes to everything. This isn't official, but for the sake of arguments this weekend I'm going to have Splitlip on my team with a Book and 3 hammers and each round 1 person will be able to equip a hammer as a free action and then charge / flurry as an action.

I'm just saying this because I kinda was forgetting what we're asking.

Here's why I'm hoping it stays the way it's worded (only power actions get to pick up without rolling; free actions still have to roll):

First of all, Splitlip is only 20 points. To have such a dramatic effect on gameplay for such a small number of points would be bad. Yes, we already have other game elements that have a dramatic effect on gameplay without a fair cost (resources, HfH ATA, etc) but the fewer such things we have the better. (One could make a point that having more broken things in the game adds diversity to the gameplay, but I would rather seen broken things becoming more balanced instead.)

Second, using Splitlip becomes a no-brainer for any team that wants to use the Book of the Skull. For only 20 points, why not?

Third that poses another problem: who can use Splitlip? He's only got three keywords: Asgardian, Armor, and Stark Enterprises. Asgardian's a solid keyword, Armor has some potential, and Stark Enterprises is (currently anyway) very very limited. Seeing just these three theme teams (as well as non-theme teams) for the next few months would be very aggravating. Oh, sure some people might instead use the Belt or the Gauntlet, but since the Book is the new hot thing, I see lots of people using it instead in the current environment.

You mean more like Why Bother with theme when you have Nightmare and/or John Constantine : P

My guess is the Book will get an erratum to read "attempts a relic roll" instead of "is given a power action." It's either that or it reads and works exactly how it was meant to to preserve a semblance of balance.

Yea those seem like the two options to me. I honestly skipped to the end of the thread after reading page one but will bring this up to the others and see what the intent actually is. As it stands now, if using a free action to pick up a hammer, the character would have to roll and it would not be considered "equipped" for BoS purposes.

Why do you reach that conclusion?
You give a character a power action to make a relic roll to equip a relic.
The Book allows you to automatically succeed at the roll to equip if you give the action the same turn you drop the hammer.
Splitlip allows you to make the roll as a free rather than a power action.
I'm not seeing why as written that's not the sequence: can you explain your reasoning?

Sure.

You drop a hammer, use a free action to pick it up. Did that character take a power action to place the Hammer on its card? No, it took a free action, and therefore the rest of the clause does not apply. The free action was "instead of" the power action and therefore no power action was given.

That said, I'm kicking it up to check intent to make sure that's right.

While these seems weird, I hope that's how it actually works to keep yet another resource from being overly busted.

So the "power action" in this case is a specific cost of the book rather than a repeat of the rule book relic rule? I think that's the way I thought of it from the start.

Could you verify this with the other rule guys and confirm again that that is actually the case and not WK being sloppy with their wording? Thanks!