Elspeth Baudin

The more she collect Memories, the more she's weak ? That's strange Don't we have a problem ? Isn't it should be Agnes memories wich weakened her ? or can we consider she's totaly unminded berserk sorceress and the more memories she get, the more "human" she became ?

Jashugan · 10
Bad memories. — MrGoldbee · 1493
Armageddon

This one is a whiff. Contrast to Eye of Chaos, which is basically an upgraded version of Rite of Seeking, this spell fails in nearly every way to supplant the gold standard Shriveling.

Let's compare...

Eye of Chaos vs Rite of Seeking/Sixth Sense

-Similar resource cost. -Eye of Chaos is at default a "double success" like Rite of Seeking with 1 less charge and no downsides. -Unless you're playing TCU no downsides for failing a check (i.e. drawing six curse tokens on an investigate only benefits the spell, often hugely).

Armageddon vs Shriveling -Armageddon is more expensive. -Armageddon is at default a "single success" with a weapon, dealing 2 damage base. Shriveling however, deals 3. -Shriveling has a larger modifier for attack (+3 vs +2). -Unlike Investigation actions, many fight checks do have penalties for failing (i.e. Retaliate). So even pulling one curse token is going to start making you nervous with even the most hearty spell casters. You'll need to pull at least 2 for the effect to even matter on game state, default putting you at -4 starting out. -Steals curses from Eye of Chaos.

Overall, I find this spell is severely underpowered. Its almost useless on bosses because most of them have retaliate and if you power up the spell at all you're basically guaranteeing you'll get crunched, which mystics have minimal ability to survive. You could pair it with some evasion tool (i.e. sword cane) but then you're using two actions to attack, and of you don't pull at least four curse tokens you're still behind what you would have been with shrivelling.

As such, I tend to skip this spell and just run Shriveling with Eye of Chaos for curse based builds.

drjones87 · 202
You are not comparing like cards, matching Shrivelling (5) with Armageddon (4). You also ignore that Shrivelling (5) has a "bad stuff token" negative effect that can mess up a Mystics pretty quickly. Sure, you can deal 12 damage in 4 actions, but you can also take 8 horror in the process.In my experience, both Eye of Chaos and Armageddon require a bit of set up to really work. I used Luke with Blasphemous Covenant and Favor of the Moon, and it carried me through TIC pretty handily. The Curse spells are pretty fiddly, though, and depend on you ability to get and hold Curse tokens, which I can see some players not liking too much. I'm not in any great hurry to run them again, but I enjoyed the one attempt. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1084
I imagine you meant to put this review on the Armageddon (4) page? — Soul_Turtle · 500
You're really undervaluinf Armageddon. It works really well in its intended deck. 1 less charge but you can get charges back easily, that's worth easily the extra cost it has. And as above, it's not a fair comparison in the first place comparing level 5 vs 4 spell. — fates · 54
Delusory Evils

Playing through RttPtC once more, I was reminded that this is my favorite of the replacements for Ancient Evils. It offers a meaningful deal -- lose a turn or spend a period of time carefully calculating margins and praying that you don't draw the . Now, failing a test isn't that big a deal most of the time, but it can badly disrupt a turn, unless you have a card in play that has a test you can afford to fail and overcommit to make sure that happens (Track Shoes, Parallel Skid's special ability?), and then you are thowing good cards at a test that you are trying to fail. Resurgent Evils is just nasty, as two encounter cards might cost you more than 3 actions, and Impending Evils is pretty easy to handle.

Wild in Stella! — MrGoldbee · 1493
This is actually my least favorite replacement, because it isn't really a choice; you'll always add it to your hand instead of placing doom. Losing one actin (even if it's unpredictable and the timing could be pretty bad) is nothing compared to losing an entire round (especially in The Last King where the main issue is being overwhelmed too fast by enemies from the agenda advancement). Resurgent Evils is my favorite because sometimes I do consider placing doom if there's just too much to deal with or I'm close to death. But I might be biased because most of my games are 3+ players. I definitely could see Delusory Evils be more interesting in solo. — Nenananas · 271
I wrote it in my own review: it can combo pretty nasty with Minh's "King in Yellow". Otherwise I agree with Nenanas: always rather fail a test than loose a turn. — Susumu · 381
I dunno; I mostly play on Standard, and, especially in earlier campaigns, where the "Doom Clock" is pretty generous. You can afford a few lost turns. On the other hand, getting that sweet spot on crucial tests where you aren't likely to fail either way can be nervewracking. This may just be a difference in personality. My play partner hates Ancient Evils with a burning passion, so he will always take any other option, often to terrible consequences. Besides, I think the design on this is elegant and flavorful. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1084
Balcony

The world building in Arkham is always very good, but you need to use some imagination to understand why some cards say what they do. In this case, jumping from the balcony directly to the ground floor would definitely hurt, so you need to take 2 damage. It's those little things behind the card text that make them so great.

antonior · 6
Cinematically, if you move without a move action, such as with Shortcut, Pathfinder, or Elusive, you don't take damage! — Death by Chocolate · 1489
In a recent game, someone did jump off the balcony to get away from a hunter. I was so happy; it was like having a little checkbox on my personal "Arkham Achievements" list checked off. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1084
Directive

An important question that came up while playing. If Roland takes 5 mental trauma while playing this directive, does he go insane? Or does this functionally give him health and San of 9/8? If he breaks this directive with 5+ horror on him, is he immediately defeated due to horror?

Hydra · 6
The glossary entry for Trauma says you're driven insane if you have mental trauma equal to your *printed* sanity. Also, yes, you are (indeed, any card with a sanity value is) defeated whenever you have horror tokens on you equal to your sanity, whether that was because of placing more horror tokens or your sanity value being reduced. — Thatwasademo · 58
I'm not quite so sure. For one thing, that definition preceded the Directives by a considerable amount, and likely did not take into consideration that an investigator's health or sanity could be increased. Directives are Permanents, and the rules say: "A card with the permanent keyword starts each game in play," so there is no point when the Sanity boost from the Directive is not active, so Roland's Sanity is 8, since there is no way to get rid of a Permanent. It's a weird super-edge case, so I'd hate to claim I knew definitively which way the FFG staff would decide. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1084
Doesn't matter that the definition preceded the Directives. Printed sanity means printed sanity. It's called future proofing. And besides, if you allowed ruling by your interpretation, cards such as St. Hubert Key and Curse of Yig which lower your health/sanity during game play would be able to kill you if they lowered your health/sanity to the level of your trauma - even if you had healed before playing them. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Well, it matters that this unique edge case wasn't even a glimmer in the developer's eyes when it was written, and cards overwrite definitions. Your examples don't really compare; if an investigator with, say, 7 Sanity and 5 mental trauma played St. Hubert's Key, the check to see if they were defeated would happen before the assigning of trauma, and SHK would discard immediately. SHK is also not a Permanent card. As for Curse of Yig (also not a Permanent) , if Roland had 4 mental trauma and drew CoY, he would be defeated, get an additional mental trauma, and leave the campaign. Anyway, I have no idea of what the developers would rule on this, so I guess the best course of action would be to ask them. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1084
@LivefromBenefitSt You misunderstand. Assume that the investigator had healed before getting the reduction. They would not be defeated because they would not have horror equal to sanity; they would go insane because they have trauma equal to sanity. Given the lack of developer insight, the best course of action is to follow the very clear and unambiguous rules on this. Printed means printed. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
To close the circle on this one, FFG says: "For “Leave No Doubt”, keep in mind that if an investigator has mental trauma equal to their printed sanity, the investigator is driven insane (and eliminated from the campaign). While Roland Banks would have 3 additional sanity from “Leave No Doubt” during a scenario, and could suffer additional horror during that scenario, he could still only have up to 5 mental trauma before being defeated." Death by Chocolate was 100% right. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1084
I don't understand the point of+3 sanity then. I feel like something is being missed — PrecariousSleuth · 19
@PrecariousSleuth The point of +3 sanity is that Roland has 8 sanity to play with during the scenario - making him less likely to be defeated due to horror. — Time4Tiddy · 249
I guess I'd jusgrade safeguard asap.... those moves happen on another characters turn, sooooo, it's all good. Right? — tasman · 1
posted to the wrong question. Sorry. — tasman · 1