Under Surveillance

Bonus clue and automatic dodge. That's pretty good, although it's rather costly at 3 resources and can be hard to slot, all traps are a bit wonky to play with and around.

The obvious goodness is written right on the card, so how to trigger it? An enemy spawning will trigger it, coming into play exhausted. Hunters running into it will cause a trigger. But here's the deal, you can manually get guys into the location too! On the Hunt can fetch a victim. Moving into it with an engaged enemy does the trick, you can even skip the opportunity attack with a Shortcut or Narrow Escape, "Get over here!" gets it done too! The action efficiency is'nt bad, not only are you getting around an enemy for two whole turns this way, you get a clue, which means that playing the card is not actually a tempo loss.

It's certainly better in multiplayer than singleplayer, where there's 2-4 times as many enemies spawning and gumming up actions for everybody.

It's a good card to reenforce the flighty cluever, playing it on top of themselves so they can work on a difficult location for a while, Finn Edwards and Mandy Thompson come to mind. A dedicated protector might take it to guard a big group of characters and contribute clues.

Tsuruki23 · 2590
Chuck makes it fast and 1 cost — StyxTBeuford · 13053
Nimble can be a good one for setting it up, particularly with Parallel Skids' free triggered ability. My favorite investigator to play it in is parallel front guardian back Skids, in fact. Especially since he has a lot of other really good Chuck targets. — Zinjanthropus · 231
Third Time's a Charm

This card lets you experience that unique Wendy Adams feeling of drawing multiple tokens per test!

Anyway, this thing lets you play some games with the tokens you get in a test, it's rather similar to a Lucky! or Live and Learn as a means of guaranteeing success. But here's the deal, I generally like this card a bit less than I like those 0-xp alternatives for that purpose.

The key downside to Third Time's a Charm is that it's played preemtively rather than reflexively, which is a huge timing issue. You dont roll the dice, see something terrible, and reactively fix it, no, you're rolling into a really important test, something hugely impactful like a boosted attack or a life-or-death parlay, which is where you play Third Time's a Charm and pray the bag has mercy, that's where you play a Third Time's a Charm, and even then a Lucky!, Eucatastrophe or Live and Learn might have sufficed.

Of course, there is one really big distinctiong on there. Instead of "you", it's "an investigator". At the end of the day, you dont play Third Time's a Charm because you're about to do the riskiest test of the campaign, you play it before somebody else attempts the riskiest test of a campaign.

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There is another use, something a little crazy, and this is the thing I'dd be looking into Third Time's a Charm for. I would'nt see this card as a test-beater, rather, a test-perfecter. For those skill tests with layered conditional riders that they really want to try and complete. A or specialist fishing for a combo trigger, they can draw the first token, or even the first two tokens, and reject them if theyre not the / they're looking for. it's a way to fish into a Paradoxical Covenant, a for Jim's .35 Winchester, an , a net +2 for triggers or a net +5 for the Sawed-Off Shotgun.

Third Time's a Charm is there for when you want to win beautifully, and that's why the card-art is about Tango dancers!

Tsuruki23 · 2590
Jim's ability just makes the $skull token's __modifier__ a 0, it doesn't make it an actual 0 token. So I don't think it synergizes with .35 Winchester like we might hope — tercicatrix · 16
Tercicatrix, you're forgetting the recent rules change / taboo to the .35 Winchester. Now any token which doesn't have a negative modifier triggers the .35's damage boost, including Jim's skull tokens. — Corgano · 2
Unrelenting

Cool card, what wins me over is the straigth flexibility.

  • Do you want to beat a test? Dump out some real big tokens!

  • Do you fear the token symbols? Use it like a faux-Defiance and remove the scary stuff.

  • Are you playing a + combination? Mess with the chaos bag for the sake of cards that need to hit or avoid specific tokens.

  • Do you really need card draw and think you can beat the worst the bag can throw at you? Dump out some beneficial stuff.

  • Would a specific token brick a card you want to play? (+1 and "Look what I found!", worst pairing ever!).

So, yeah, that's actually a lot of viable strategic options, something skill cards dont typically have in such volume. usually it's just "Hurr, Durr, hit hard.". I'm real happy to see my favourite card type get some nuanced love!

On the note of the card draw bit, which will pull in the interest of many of you, make sure you can actually beat the test, trading a card and a failed action for 2 cards is rather weak, so either make sure youre failing upwards or beating the action.

Finally: The seal mechanic happens before a test, the release mechanic has been set into motion by committing the card, this means that Silas Marsh can commit the card, seal some tokens, draw a token, return the card, resolve the test, return the sealed tokens. If Silas didnt make you all hot and giggly before this card was released, he should now.

Tsuruki23 · 2590
This doesn't actually help with the +1/"Look what I found!" combo, due to having a wild icon... — Thatwasademo · 58
It does if you're trying to work with a restricted window, where entering a test you cannot go too low. So a 2int character can try a 4 shroud test, from a starting point of 3, with no risk of netting that 4 in a +1. — Tsuruki23 · 2590
I do love the flexibility that this card can offer — Zinjanthropus · 231
I think the other benefit is that it means the card actually works with Try and Try Again, rather than failing due to timings the way Take Heart would. — Ruduen · 1025
Enchanted Armor

For the sake of clarity.

When Enchanted Armor "dies", the only reassinged pain, is the pain you just placed, so if you're playing with some buffs and youre running around with 5 or 6 total pain on there, and you take another point of pain that fails you the test and the armor breaks, you're only reassignigng that bit of pain that broke the camel's back, not the whole pile. This is how I read the card initially and it felt real bad.

So anyway, on the actual correctly read card:

There is'nt much to say. Buff your as high as you can, bring Arcane Studies and/or Physical Training to routinely buff yourself to high heaven, and just keep stacking those tokens high! Brother Xavier can help, so can Holy Rosary. I think you can reasonably expect to soak 4-6 total pain in this way before the dam breaks.

The best part is the straight and simple flexibility of soaking both horror and damage, as required at the time, most of you should be familiar with the bad bookkeeping feeling of loosing an ally because you're taking on too much of one kind of pain.

The downside of the card is the severe reduction in playability if you -dont- build into it, a Diana Stanley or Sister Mary will really make it shine, and so can anybody with Physical Training, but outside of those decks and builds, it's a dud card, especially on harder difficulties.

Tsuruki23 · 2590
not really "build around" to want your willpower high, that thing you use to defend against 11/10 treacheries seems like something you want even in a flightier guardian (since they have less sanity typically anyway), A cheaper, less XP elder sign amulet that sits in the body slot seems pretty good in alot of peps. — Zerogrim · 296
Fun target for Lonnie. — MrGoldbee · 1497
Lonnie can only fix items, not armors and rituals. — Susumu · 383
At harder difficulties, it's nearly unplayable even if you do have 6-7 will with static bonuses . It costs just 1 xp more to take 3 copies of Spiritual Resolve over 2 copies of enchanted armor. Technically there's a downside that you can't play it on other investigators, but practically if you really want to soak for other investigators Hallowed Mirror and Solemn Vow do a much better job. — suika · 9523
This card looks fun but I'm pretty low on it from a power level perspective. Maybe I'm underestimating it, it's certainly not easy to evaluate, but to me the fact that you get zero soak if you fail the first test is kind of unacceptable for an XP soak card. I also really hate gratuitous skill tests on Hard/Expert, so there's that, too. — CaiusDrewart · 3202
Not exactly _good_, but note that Skids or Leo could commit Three Aces to the test to automatically succeed. You could use it against BTV (though they can both take Delay the Inevitable, which is much better in that context). I wonder if you'd be able to tank the 100 horror from the final Agenda Flip in Carcosa? — Zinjanthropus · 231
Looks like you could. Soaking the horror isn't preventing it. https://arkhamdb.com/card/03045 — Yenreb · 15
In which case...what happens? You continue playing without an agenda? — suika · 9523
It would just prevent the mental trauma you get, the game ofcourse will be over anyway. Bruiser seems now a better option than "Physical Training" to buff the tests. — Susumu · 383
Eye of the Djinn

Even if you're not using or mechanics, Eye of the Djinn is a pretty cool card.

At worst this is a 1/turn buff that takes one skill to 5, generally a buff of +2 or more, nearly a Physical Training except it goes for all the stats. It's a great way to brute force scenario-specific tests (for example Parlay's, which usually ask for , not a strong suite), use it to force a clutch evade or an elusive clue, land an event like Followed or Slip Away. This thing does brick a good slot, but the bonus you gain especially with XP allies in place lets you hit really impressive numbers to snag some clues and hit some punches.

So, at the steep cost of 4 xp, I've probably established that this is a perfectly playable card, but here's the kicker, if anybody is playing either or both of or , this thing may get a heap better. More actions, more bonuses! It's a bit unpredictable (actually, it's very unpredictable!) but bonuses, are bonuses! the dependability of the base card is'nt made any worse by the unpredictability of the random boosts. Go with the flow, and if it's boosts you want, grab Favor of the Moon and/or Favor of the Sun and just brute force the bonuses whenever you like!

On the note of Eye of the Djinn and Favor of the Moon specifically, you can actually simultaneously generate bonus actions and resources under controlled circumstances, testing something like a 1-shroud location for clues while speeding yourself up, "Skids" O'Toole's paralell money generation test, the test on Liquid Courage. That's really rather epic!

The only real reasons not to play this card in a deck, is the hand slot and 4XP, both of which are steep prices for a 1-off card, 1-off's allways run that risk of not showing up in a scenario, you might have filled your hand slots at that time, and if Eye of the Djinn shows up in the last few turns of a game, like drawing a Physical Training or similar value-generating cards, it's just too late.

Tsuruki23 · 2590
It's pretty good even with just Olive McBride, though the Favors take it to a whole other level. It's also pretty wild in parallel Skids. Use it with favors on his zappyboi to net actions. He has really good generation for both bless and curse as well. — Zinjanthropus · 231