An_Undecayed_Whately · 1172
Earlier I made a Darrell deck that had a Scavenging theme and also Research Notes theme. There was too much going on for one deck, so i separated them into two distinct decks. This is the one focused on Research Notes.
Mulligan & Early Play
The cards to keep in your opening draw are Research Librarian, Research Notes, and Captivating Discovery. Mulligan away anything else. The librarian is just there to increase odds of finding the vital Research Notes, but can provide soak until you play down Granny Orne.
Captivating Discovery is there to help find the necessary pieces of your kit. It also generates evidence for the notes in the bargain.
Dropping Clues for Fun and Profit
While it's possible to use Research Notes just to re-collect dropped clues, that would miss a huge opportunity. The effective use is to drop clues at low-shroud locations and pick them up again without using the notes. Then walk over to a high-shroud location and use the notes to grab lots of clues versus difficulty 0.
Newspaper (2) is key because it can double your rate of clue collection after you dump or spend all your clues. Importantly it doesn't have uses, so install it and then fuhgeddaboudit. Thanks to @Calprinicus for the inspiration!
Dr Maleson (low xp) and Quick Study (after some xp) are particularly useful as permanent ways to fuel clue-dropping. Other methods (Bizarre Diagnosis, Captivating Discovery, and Forewarned) are all events.
Press Pass grants free actions from the clue-dropping, especially good fit once Quick Study is down.
Testing at Zero Difficulty
Darrell has a few ways to reduce test difficulty: Gumption, evidence tokens, and Map the Area. Some combination of these can reduce tests to difficulty 0.
Note that tests can never result in a negative value. This is detailed under the Modifiers section in the Rules Reference: "Negative modifiers... can be applied, but, after all active modifiers have been applied, any resultant value below zero is treated as zero". So if you reduce a test difficulty to 0 it doesn't matter if you draw the -8 token, your test result of 0 equals the difficulty of 0 and you pass!
At that point the only bad token is the . Even if you do draw it you can fall back on Live and Learn to try again, though you lose the committed cards
Defending Yourself
Brute Force is an expedient way to handle most enemies, so try to make that fight action count!
If you've assembled enough cards and evidence to test at difficulty 0 then by all means send an enemy packing with Exploit Weakness. If this is really your thing then keep the Anatomical Diagrams around when you spend xp.
As a last option Mind Over Matter is useful to punch weak stuff like Rats, or to evade tougher adversaries. Also it can save your neck against plenty of hazards and traps in the encounter deck.
The Rest
Granny Orne boosts your stats and provides a small version of Lucky! every turn.
Empirical Hypothesis is mostly there as another way to generate evidence for Darrell's innate ability, but using it for free cards is never bad.
At low xp you start with the amazing Pocket Telescope, which saves your neck in lots of scenarios with uncertain locations (read the card review!!). As if that isn't enough, Darrell gets extra utility from it by being able to gather evidence (from treacheries or enemies) at connecting locations.
Suggested Upgrade Priority
- 2xp Quick Study for Crack the Case
- 4xp Press Pass for Fine Clothes
- 6xp Newspaper for a Pocket Telescope
- 8xp Newspaper for a Pocket Telescope
- 9xp Brute Force for a Mind Over Matter
- 10xp Brute Force for Anatomical Diagrams
- 11xp Gumption for Exploit Weakness
- 12xp Gumption for a Live and Learn
- 13xp Forewarned a Logical Reasoning
- 14xp Forewarned for Dr Maleson
- 17xp Granny Orne for Lucky!
- 19xp Pathfinder for Shortcut
Further XP Ideas
- Quick Study (2) isn't unique, so a second copy could prove useful!
- Eucatastrophe (3) improves on Live and Learn for testing at 0 since you truly can't fail
- Deduction (2) x2
- Shrine of the Moirai (3) lets anyone in your group recycle vital cards
- Orphic Theory (1) is huge in certain campaigns, acts similar to Alter Fate and Alter Fate