Short answer:
Yes
Explanation:
Here is the relevant text from Healing Herbs:
In the past, there have been contradictory answers to this question. Here is what the previous NetReps said, first in ICE 107:Alternatively, the bearer can tap and discard this item to untap a character in his company that is not wounded.
And then CoE 82:10-07-1998 Craig Ichabod O'Brien
QUERY 11
Also Healing Herbs altenative effect, I suppose could be used to untap an untapped character or to untap the bearer which tapped to use it?
Yes.
So, who is correct? To dissect the logic one way or the other, remember that an action always entails a declaration and a resolution within a chain of effects, which in this case, would proceed as follows:06-09-2004 Chad Martin
QUERY 11
Can a character tap and discard Healing Herbs to untap “himself”
No.
Declaration
In order to declare the action, the following active conditions must be met:
- The bearer of the Healing Herbs must be untapped, and you must tap him at declaration (per Annotation 5).
- You must discard the Healing Herbs at declaration (per Annotation 6).
- The target for the action must be chosen (per Annotation
. In the case of Healing Herbs, there are 2 stipulations for the target: the target character must be in the bearer’s company, and he must not be wounded. Since the bearer is in his own company, and is not wounded, he is a valid target.Resolution
The active conditions are checked to ensure that they are still valid, which they normally should be. Then the action resolves with the target character being rotated from the “tapped” position to the “untapped” position.
Note that Healing Herbs is different from a short-event like And Forth He Hastened, the latter of which cannot be played on an untapped character because a card cannot be played just to discard it and in that case there would be no effect other than the play of the card itself (see CoE #208 Q2 for more on this). However, that restriction on playing cards does not apply to discarding a card from play.
Conclusion: ICE 107 is correct.
Note that this ruling overturns CoE Digest #82 Q11.