Pet Oozeling

I believe that Favor of the Moon and Favor of the Sun combos with this little being too.

You get 1 risk-free symbol per Favor you have out - and if it's Moon you even get a free resource!

I'm starting to get the impression that the Favors are going to break many mechanics since they can be used in non-skill test scenarios (for another example Henry Wan) to guarantee not pulling a mean symbol while also not losing the token from the Favor (since, as far as I know, and tokens only go back to the pool when resolved during a skill test).

slyguavas · 49
actually the favors release one token sealed on them and this token is treated as if just being drawn from the bag, so you have to draw another from the bag and return the cursed/blessed one to the token pool afterwards. they just work as a guaranteed first draw of these tokens — galge · 16
oh sorry i get what youre saying. pardon me — galge · 16
Henry is still a waste tho. — MrGoldbee · 1486
Bless and curse tokens revealed outside of a skill test have no effect on their own unless otherwise specified by a card effect. — Django · 5154
The tokens would go into the chaos bag, though, not back onto the favor. — OrionJA · 1
Mysterious Stairs

This is the worst luck-based bottom location in multiplayer.

We (4-player group) had to wait for another Endless Descent draw to push the scenario forward. If we ran out of those and this location was our last then srsly, this would be annoyingly broken :D

Vigerus · 33
While its annoying, you can just investigate to remove its effect. In fact you'd need to do it either way even if you do draw an endless descent since you can't move out of this location without gathering the clues. — madhatter152 · 8
I believe what Vigerus might be referring to is that when one resigns, by default they put all their clues on their location. Which means depending on how many clues each of your gators has. That would make resigning on this location extremely problematic. The "resign places clues on your location" rule so rarely matters that it's frequently forgotten, even by the designers I think I'm some cases. For example the resign location in "the house always wins" is victory. But managing to get that victory point without being defeated requires serious shenanigans :-P — NarkasisBroon · 11
A week ago, I got this location (after Endless Descent) to be in the bottom. First resigning investigator would drop few clues to the other one, making it impossible to resign there (shroud is quite high, cannot get clues in time). I just ignored the drop clues on resign rule here, seems too much punishing... — johniez · 3
Especially frustrating here is that they have the technology to fix this from other scenarios: Just make the Resign action take your clues and return them to the token pool (or put a forced effect that takes them when you're eliminated). — Thatwasademo · 58
Backpack

Backpack is literally made me play Emergency Cache again. Its such a good deck thinning and combo piece finder. I never not want to have it. That is all. Muahahahah. Favorite card. Kiss kiss me me. Hue hue hue. 200

Hyperawareness

Physical Training, Hyperawareness, Hard Knocks, Arcane Studies, Dig Deep are part of a cycle, and partly share a common review. These cards are really, really inefficient, yet they have unique capabilities and I at least consider whether to take them every time I make a character. They have two main purposes:

  1. Making use of excess resources. Most characters are tight for resources early on, but many times a character will reach the point where they have what they need, or they can't afford the actions to play any more cards, and they start just building up resources. These cards ensure that you can never have too much money, because if nothing else your one resource per turn becomes a flexible, storable +1 each turn. If you really have run out of other ways to spend your resources, a card to turn resources into bonuses can become a very effective play. However, it is important to be aware that just because your character tends to have a few resources hanging around at the end of the game is no reason to take this card, you would be better off taking a skill card. Just playing the card alone will use up 2 resources before you even gain a benefit. You really need to have a character who would otherwise end up with at least 6 extra resources at the end of this scenario, before you start to get excited by this type of card. That is entirely possible for certain characters, but most characters won't end up in that situation. You need to be very aware of what kind of resource economy your character has, and that your character really does spend substantially fewer resources than they earn over the course of a scenario, before you put this type of card in your deck. (Some characters make money more quickly than one per turn, and have stronger reasons to take this card).
  2. Flexibility. Sometimes you have other ways to spend your resources, but this card gives you the flexibility to spend a bunch of resources on two very different skills, in any amount and any way you choose. Normally skill cards are way, way more efficient than this kind of card, but a single skill card isn't going to give you, for instance, +7 on a test of your choice, and this card can. Inefficient though this card may be, if you have it in play and you are forced to make an extremely critical skill check, it is quite comforting that there is almost always something you can do to improve your chances – you can make the decision that a resource you otherwise would have spent on something else would be better spent giving you a +1 on this test. So you don’t really need to have nothing at all to do with your resources, in order to play this card. But you still need lots of available resources. A character who is tight on resources (which is quite common) just should not use this type of card; even though the flexibility might be useful, you can’t afford the action and 2 resources to play it.

If you do play one of these cards, when it is worth using? A really good situation is when +1 skill would turn 3 tokens (about 1/5 of the bag) from failure to success. So if turning a failure into a success isn’t worth 5 resources, you shouldn’t be using this.

I find Hyperawareness to be one of the more tempting cards in this cycle because it has an interesting ability to give evasion ability to a class without a lot of evasion options. It isn't usually practical for a seeker to play permanent evasion bonuses that will almost never be used, and putting a couple one shots kill bonuses into the deck may not be enough to get the job done. But with this card you are only committing half a card in your deck to agility (since the other half of the card is boosting intellect), but if you get into a desperate situation you can spend a whole bunch of money and suddenly become an expert evader. Or at the end of the game, if your seeker abilities have become useless because the goal is now to kill a boss monster, you can use all that money you've been building up from Dr. Milan Christopher to become the party evasion master and keep the boss occupied while your friends kill it. The intellect boosting side of the card is less exciting because it is usually more efficient to just retry a failed investigation attempt, but the scenario designers like to put situations in the game where that is not true and you really want to complete an investigation in a timely fashion, so boosting your intellect can still be pretty useful. Of course, this card is still far from an auto include, it is an expensive card and you still need to believe that your character’s deck design is such that you will end up with a bunch of money saved up by the end of the game (Dr. Milan Christopher helps with this).

ChristopherA · 113
I think this is a fairly in-depth look and I agree with the "not the most efficient" stance but: 0xp, No Slot, decent icons, means you can just run a 1 of in a base deck and always have a resource sink, which I think is important in any character. If my deck doesn't have any other on demand way to spend resources I always include one of these, because a pile of unspendable is even more inefficient. — Zerogrim · 295
Counterpoint: Seekers have a lot of easy-to-include resource sinks such as Working a Hunch, and better ways to deal with enemies (e.g. Occult Invocation, I've got a plan, Occult Lexicon, Mind over Matter). Seekers among all classes have the easiest ways to translate resources into game advancement that Hyperawarness should almost never make the cut. — suika · 9511
Counter Counter point there is limited deck space for enemy problem solving and resource sinks, running hyper awareness allows you to solve issues more than once without having to include lots of cards that might be better spent on other things. (it is also core set, so it being the floor of options and not being really that bad is pretty neat) — Zerogrim · 295
It's a bit of a stretch to call Hyperawareness an enemy management solution when you need to spend 4 resources and an action to play it beforehand before it becomes better than a manual dexterity. — suika · 9511
Coup de Grâce

This card isn't terrible, I have had some fun using it, but it is generally a bit disappointing.

The resource cost of two wouldn't be much for a permanent asset, but for a one shot event it is fairly expensive, compared to the alternative of a skill card which is free. And the restrictions on Coup de Grace are really pretty limiting, unable to be combined with a weapon and usable only as your last action. Lots of times it would just sit in my hand waiting for that perfect moment, while I wished it was a card better suited for the situation I was actually in. The advantage of this card is that it is a totally automatic success, and that is a formidable advantage, the reason why you might consider including the card in your deck. But once I have a character who is set up with enough strength to intentionally enter combat, a skill card like Overpower would do a pretty good job making an attack very likely to hit, while being a lot cheaper and more flexible.

The saving grace of this card is having two strength icons, so it is actually can be used in the same situations as Overpower. But the card draw from overpower is quite a significant bonus, and with the skill bonus being so much more flexible, it is pretty tempting to simplify things by just taking Overpower and skipping this card. In general, I would only put this card in my deck if I had some space and wanted to try something different in my deck construction.

ChristopherA · 113
You can also target an aloof enemy, like the bird in Dunwich — Tharzax · 1
I liked this card in my Carcosa-run with Sefina and Chuck. With "Sneak Attack" (2) this was several times in the campaign an engage-free one-action, 2 resource defeat of the Pallid Mask, that draws you a card. And if the combo did not align, it was still often usefull to finish something off, that survived "Spectral Razor" or "Backstab" with 1 hitpoint. — Susumu · 381
i often play both overpower and coup de grace in rogues that want to do fighting, because double fists are hard to c — schafinho1 · 55