The Star • XVII

The Star • XVII

I really don't like Tarot cards (not Lovecraftian at all) but I get why RttCU has gone all-in on amping up Tarot for the rest of this campaign. Still, if you have Dunwich, Forgotten Age and Innsmouth runs where any investigator is running a Tarot card, it's way too 'min-maxy' for me, favouring trying to boost your stats in a slot you wouldn't use over story. Boo hiss.

Krysmopompas · 367
But more tarots mean the slot is far more contested, and the level three ones aren't really min maxy, they're more specialised. Surely they solve the problems you had with the low level tarots — SSW · 217
Hyper-specialized IS min-maxy. — Death by Chocolate · 1491
I dunno, I feel like the tarot cards are the least of the ways AHLCG departs from Lovecraft and mostly I dunno, speaking for myself I don't mind that kind of thing all that much. I feel like maybe for me Lovecraft and pulp and Lovecraft's successors taken together makes for a better game than Lovecraft alone. But even so, I kinda take the tarot outside of circle undone thematically to represent weird coincidences, strange luck , investigators' superstitions. The kinda folklore that just might have a kernel of truth in it, but maybe the kinda truth you're perhaps better off not thinking too hard about. And honestly, I kinda think stretching to come up with thematic justifications for out-of-place cards is half the fun of this game — bee123 · 31
Min/max is a role-playing game holdover term. There’s no reason your deck can’t be as efficient as you want. And there’s the taboo list if you want to have your nonsense curbed periodically. This card is basically “guardian allies are now slightly better, and for Tommy, much better.” Also Bee123 is right. — MrGoldbee · 1497
The level 3 Tarot (and the Level 1 Tarot) are cards that are useful to particular investigators and builds. They do take up deck space, and, if they aren't in your opening hand, they are a little expensive, so I feel it balances out. It's a card choice, like many others, and they aren't overrepresented in the deck lists, so I don't really see how it's a problem. Of course, if you or your group don't like them, you can always ban them in a "House Taboo List." I doubt MJ or Jeremy will bust down your door and tell you off — LivefromBenefitSt · 1092
This with Guard Dog: YES! — Zinjanthropus · 231

Sign Magick

Sign Magick

If you fill your extra slot with Haste you can activate one spell, then activate one other and then exhaust Haste to reactivate one of the two (or your Henry Wan if you are going the blurse way with Dexter) for one measly action! Just make sure one of the spells doesn't require charges because you'll be going through them like nobody's business (but Dexter doesn't really care as long as you have good card draw to replace the empty spells). Spectacular upgrade to a very weak card.

Gandalph · 34
Unfortunately, I don't think this works quite that swimmingly. Haste actually checks that you performed the action, and there is a long standing rules principle in this game that abilities that check to see if actions are performed check to see if they are spent. (See frozen in fear and say pathfinder or shortcut which uses the same "perform language") so all you'd need to do is do a second activate after your free one from sign magick to get the haste to trigger. 4 actions for 2 clicks--not quite as good as 3 for 1 but pretty damn good nonetheless! — Sycopath · 1
Mmm... I don't know. A ruling or errata on Haste is long overdue but the way I see it actions and action cost (arrow or click in Netrunner terminology) are two very distinct things. If it works like you say, they should have worded "when you spend one or more arrows to perform the same action twice in a row...". The ruling on Pathfinder + Frozen in fear doesn't make much sense: activating the free trigger is obviously not an activate action (there's a rules entry which specifies what an activate action is and it needs to have an arrow cost), but the move action it allows you to do is in fact an action, as is playing a fast event, they simply do not require a cost. So you cannot trigger Haste by using Hard knocks multiple times because it's not an activate action and it doesn't let you perform actions (receiving a bonus is not listed as an action), but you should be able to trigger Haste by using the free trigger on Cryptic Cypher to investigate and then playing a fast event with an investigate designator: the first is not an activate action and the second doesn't cost any arrows but they are both investigate actions. So — Gandalph · 34
So when Sign Magick says activate the activate action on a different spell you are indeed performing an activate action even if you don't spend any arrows and you should be allowed to trigger Haste. — Gandalph · 34
I think they should have maintained a stricter distinction between action and action cost (arrow). For example, Leo De Luca and Quick Thinking should have said "gain one arrow" (as in Netrunner "gain one click", instead of you may perform one extra action. It would have been much clearer for everything, including the actions which require multiple arrows (which are not as widely used as in Netrunner but still an important mechanic in the game) — Gandalph · 34
@Gabdalf, they DO have a strict distinction between action and action cost. Technically there are NO ‘actions’ on assets, so ‘activate the activate action on a [spell]” is not a thing. I’d suggest rereading the rules on Actions and abilities. What happens in your example is 1) You take the Activate action, choosing an action-costed ability on a spell. Then you trigger the reaction ability on Haste to ‘resolve the ability’ on another spell. You seem to be using the words ‘action’ and ‘ability’ interchangeably, which is not the case. In your example of investigation actions, neither of your suggested ‘actions’ are actions according to the rules. The cypher is a free trigger ability and the fast card was NOT played with the Play Action (See the first line of the rules for Fast cards). They are both ‘investigates’ and thus trigger all sorts of abilities that resolve ‘when investigating’ or ‘after you successfully investigate’ etc. If Sign Magic worked the way you thought, it would be phrased similarly to Ursula and Marie: “Take an activate action which can only be used to activate Spell or Ritual -> abilities.” — Death by Chocolate · 1491
@Death by Chocolate thanks for the clarification! The problem that creates confusion and potential inconsistencies is that Haste does treat action designator as actions, so it's still not really clear if a free trigger or a fast event with an Investigate designator - while obviously not being activate or play actions - are to be considered investigate actions (I guess not?) — Gandalph · 34
The ruling on action designator says "Activating such an ability performs the designated action", so it should be at least possible to activate Wither, trigger Sign Magick to perform the Fight ability on Shrivelling and then trigger Haste to punch/Shrivel/Wither/Sword cane with only one action spent, since - rules as written - you are indeed performing three fight actions. Then again, if this is allowed I find it a bit clunky that the "activate" on Sign Magick is not considered by itself as performing an activate action (but can be considered as a fight action as we have seen) just because is not in the Form of a bold designator, but I guess it's necessary to prevent Haste from triggering too easily (play, draw, move and activate effects triggered by cards such events or Double, double do not count as performing an action, but if I double double a Chuck Fergus fast Backstab I can trigger Haste to shoot with the Beretta, I guess) — Gandalph · 34

Ancient Stone

Ancient Stone

I ran this alongside Occult Lexicon in a big hands Harvey Walter deck through TCU and the effect was absolutely bonkers. Between this (sometimes in both hands mind), Cryptic Research, Blood-Rite, and Harvey's Passive, Harvey's ability to just delete anything (this works on elites) was frightening, given I primarily built him to be a swift clue-gatherer.

I just wanted to be able to participate in the boss phase! (Pathfinder, Cryptic Research -> passive draw, Blood-Rite, Blood-Rite, Occult Invocation). Welp, that was the boss phase I guess. You guys comin', or what? Slowpokes.

MrButtermancer · 56

The Bell Tolls

The Bell Tolls

Proposition:

Revelation: this card is played to your threat area. No other game effect can prevent this, or remove this card from your threat area. At the end of your turn, you are killed.

If you defeat yourself this turn as part of the effect of a spirit card resolution, you may carry over experience (half? minus some number?) when replacing this investigator after the scenario.

This would allow it to push the narrative and give some interesting incentives without the brunt of the devastating XP penalty it can burden the players with. It might actually be interesting to have to choose on the resolution of Doomed whether to defy fate (giving you Accursed Fate as it stands -- a longer timer, but enforce death with XP loss) or accept fate (giving you a different card with a shorter timer but allowing you to blow yourself up to carry XP over to a new investigator).

MrButtermancer · 56
That's the problem with any investigator death, and a fair number of campaigns have scenarios where getting defeated or doomed out means investigator death (and even more that end the campaign prematurely). So there's always the problem of how do you continue to play? The base line is: start a new investigator at 0 XP. If your group is OK with it, you can always house rule it to have you start a new investigator with any amount of XP you all find fair. You do have to draw this 5 times in a campaign for it to kill you, which may be unlikely, depending on who you are playing. Tommy has such slow draw, for example (plus reloading his deck) that you see maybe a third of your deck in any given scenario. Amanda is likely to deck herself 2-3 times in a scenario. If this Weakness is ruining your fun, you could always remove it from the Random Basic Weakness pool. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1092
You're proposing house-ruling, which is I guess fine, but formalizing a compromise to basically do what you're saying seems... cleaner? — MrButtermancer · 56
When called to add this, when I saw what it did, we agreed with the other player that it was pure cheese, so we opted to house rule that I would remove it from the deck and replace it with either 2 or 3 random basic weaknesses. — Fodas · 1

Nightmare Bauble

Nightmare Bauble

It might just be me, but I never invested too heavily in the various -canceling options in this game. "It's just 1/17 of a chance," I always said. "Sure, I'll draw the tentacle a couple of times in each scenario, but them's the breaks. You're just gonna have to realize you'll fail a few skill tests in the scenario, and that's not worth investing a lot of XP and deckslots to guard against." (This goes double for the class, with all of its fail-forward schemes. You'll often be glad to see the . I wonder if that's why the token is red...)

And in truth, I largely still hold to that philosophy. My XP always goes to action-compression tools and testless autosuccesses before I spend anything on an insurance policy against failure. And let's face it, Nightmare Bauble has a hefty price to pay--3 XP and the forfeiture of powerhouses like Rabbit's Foot and Cherished Keepsake. But then I made a Rita Young deck based on Old Hunting Rifle and Ornate Bow, and in that particular case at least, my mind began to change.

When Rita's set up with Boyfriend and Adidas, she fires the Bow at a skill of 9. Depending on your difficulty, that's either an almost-guaranteed success, or at least some pretty damn good odds in your favor. The problem is that using Ornate Bow is a very action-hungry and unforgiving playstyle--if you miss a single shot, you're in a bad spot, and in this case, removing that from the equation does have real value. Similarly, the OHR can be your best friend, or leave you high and dry at the worst possible moment, so any way to prevent one of those worst-case tokens becomes almost mandatory.

So, to sum up: Nightmare Bauble could be considered when you have a specific reason to fear the , but I wouldn't find it worthwhile as blanket insurance against failure on general, ordinary skill tests.

You might have guessed that I'm speaking from experience here. Picture this: with the above-mentioned setup, I was engaged with a resilient enemy who dishes out some serious pain. But it's fine, right? I'm testing my 9 with the Bow against its 2. And.... Fortunately my evade and reload worked--but still, that's a whole turn basically lost from one nasty, extremely unlucky pull.

The problem is, I didn't have Nightmare Bauble on the table, since I typically mulligan for things like Bow, OHR, Peter, and Track Shoes. It's a "Limit 1" card, and Rita isn't strong on the card draw. It turned out to be the next card I drew for upkeep, but by then it was too late--I'm engaged with a boss, and can't spare the action to play it. So that's another hidden drawback: if you don't have this out from the beginning--which is easier said than done--you almost shouldn't bother, because you won't get repeated uses out of the Bauble, and canceling a single is the province of Eucatastrophe.

Pinchers · 133
I can relate to that last paragraph. Drew like 3-4 autofails once (it was a particully unlucky day) only to later put the Bauble into play and never drawing Autofail again --' — Nenananas · 273
I am preparing a Calvin Wright deck and I'm looking at this card to prevent the nasty autofail on a retaliate enemy for example, while running at 1-2 health and sanity. I am looking at mitigating the possibility of dying because of an unlucky pull mid-scenario. My other options are Third time's a charm, Against all odds. Both help me against -8 tokens for example, but are all preemptive, when the Nightmare Bauble is reactive. It also matters less that you may get it later in the scenario as it's only after a little while that dodging autofail matters. I am also betting on the fact that by the end of the campaign, I will have enough trauma to not need the Rabbit's foot at all anymore. — Valentin1331 · 82166
@Valentin Good thoughts. I generally skip the Rabbit's Foot with Calvin, too--but I always go heavy on the Cherished Keepsake and its upgrade. Let me know how it goes! — Pinchers · 133
The only use for this really is if you want a Pet Oozeling and you aren't Father Mateo. — Apologised · 4
I've got a question for this card: Via black market you could play a second copy of this. If you have relic hunter and the first one is still in game, are you allowed to play another one? It would be blank and kind of wasted but I thought the rules prohibt you from playing it since you cannot execute the forced effect in that case. — Scythe · 1