Improvised Weapon

This card looks terrible, but after playing with it I'd say it's okay in its faction. It's a card that has a few possibilities.

1) You're fighting rats and this is in hand. You kill them without risk and set it up for a 2-damage attack later!

2) You have no weapon, you have this in hand, and you're fighting a 3-hp enemy. You can kill them in 2 hits!

3) You have a baseball bat, you have this in hand, and you're fighting an odd-hp enemy. Use this for that last hitpoint, getting it into the discard and not endangering your bat!

4) You have a baseball bat and you're fighting almost anything and this is in the discard. If your bat breaks, you have a 2-damage backup!

I never had a game where this just sat in hand in my baseball bat survivor. Somehow I always ended up in a situation where it was good. I think that this card may be like Taunt, in that it looks terrible but in practice is actually pretty good a couple times a game.

Sechen · 53
Well, one issue with points 2, 3, and 4 is that most Survivors have terrible base combat. How are Wendy and Pete supposed to hit anything with 2+ Fight (which is almost everything) with this card? — CaiusDrewart · 3200
Scrapper? But that's very expensive. — Django · 5171
Yorrick can use this from the discard pile while his Machete is turned off, after having it fed to Cornered... Sounds like a reason to put it in a Yorrick deck... — matt88 · 3229
I was using it in Calvin, who can get enough fight skill to fight, but doesn't have access to guardian weapons like yorick. It's probably pretty bad in Wendy or Pete. — Sechen · 53
I feel like the best use for this is in a Yorick Deck that is relying on Baseball Bat. When the bat is in the trash, you pull out the improvised weapon to get it back into play. This eliminates the need for Bandolier and another weapon. I'm not sure it's a good strat, and it definitely is going to need some good luck to pull off, but it feels sort of legit. I'ma build something around it and try it out in a full NotZ run-through. — crymoricus · 252
Cryptic Research

For its XP cost, i can consider this a very good card...but not great. And the only reason I downgraded it to very good is because it has no icons. For a 4xp card, i think it should have had two icons in there. I base this on several playthroughs with Rex where in the mid-late game, i am usually swimming with cards.

But it's fast and replaces itself... you could just play it and get some new icons on the new cards if you wanted to. I do agree there is a problem with the XP cost though - 4 XP is very pricey for a value card, eg, compared to impact cards like Acidic Ichor, Higher Education, Deciphered Reality etc, that will have more of a big boom when they land. — duke_loves_biscuits · 1285
It’s 3 cards for no actions and not-insignificant deck thinning. There’s no way this could be less than 4xp even using the very basic logic that 1 card = 1xp — Difrakt · 1327
Yeah, plus why on earth would you ever play Cryptic Research for icons, even if you could? Just play this card for its effect, and then you have three more cards in-hand, with all of their icons now at your disposal. — sfarmstrong · 272
If you don't need it for yourself, just play it for someone else!! — matt88 · 3229
Compared to Stand Together, it does seem expensive XP wise (it's arguably slightly worse, and one XP more). That might just be because Stand Together is totally amazing though. — duke_loves_biscuits · 1285
True Understanding

This is a hard card to review because it's power fluctuates madly from scenario to scenario.

"Text printed on a scenario card" basically means treachery tests, unique location tests, parlay tests and anything printed on an act/agenda. This specifically means you cant use True Understanding while investigating, attacking or evading.

The limitation and the essential nature of the game basically causes this card to most often trigger during defensive tests during treachery draws and thus, the card is drastically more likely to trigger if your ability to pass tests is good to begin with. This, most common, way to get True Understanding to trigger means that you need to be located where clues are when you attempt the test, this by itself can be tough.

Another consideration when evaluating this card: 1 Clue might not actually be useful to you to begin with, Rex Murphy, Mystics and Seekers with Archaic Glyphs tend to pick clues up in bulks of 2 so the single clue wont always be useful to begin with. Thus it's better to use this card in a deck where picking up clues singly is a common occurrence (For example when Daisy Walker or Norman Withers are around).

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Now the flip-side. True Understanding might at this point seem like it needs a pile of things to compile to be worth taking, but when they do the incredibly strong result is most definitely worth the wait, a free, action-less, resource-less, clue tacked onto a successful treachery test or something more scenario unique. You can always try to plan for using True Understanding by ending rounds on clue locations (like many characters do for Evidence! or Scene of the Crime) or by bringing the test to the location via common treacheries like Frozen in Fear.

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TL:Dr. Hard to trigger, extremely useful when it does.

Tsuruki23 · 2588
I think the best person to pair this with is Silas Marsh. Yeah, his Willpower is quite low to pull this off reliably, but his Elder Sign ability means that he can pull this into a skill test during a Mythos treachery card and nab a free clue. Not bad! — Darthcaboose · 286
Nice catch there, yeah thats a cool interaction, it competes with Quick thinking, Resoruceful and Nautical prowess tho. — Tsuruki23 · 2588
This seems like a solid choice in Minh too, as she makes the test more likely to pass with her ability, and her Willpower is a base 4. I think when you have this card in hand, you probably try to move to locations with a clue on them. And the action-less clue is certainly powerful. — PureFlight · 784
this does combo with Maleson, potentially. You might be able to pick up his dropped clue depending on what new encounter you draw — Zinjanthropus · 231
For Rex Murphy in a 3-player game of course picking up a single clue is very useful to pick up the leftover clue. — Kvothe · 2
Persuasion

It's hard to see what makes this card cool, so lets highlight a few cool things about this card.

  • Unlike other effects that don't fully affect elites this card still helps against them, that can be a huge plus since even just evading a big foe (such as The Masked Hunter can be game-saving.
  • Shuffling stuff back into the encounter deck is usually good, shuffling stuff into the encounter deck means that you get to draw them again! A variety of humanoid enemies are WAY nicer to draw then most alternatives in their deck, Acolyte for example.
  • You can target aloof enemies since this card doesn't require engagement, this also means you can target stuff engaged with your friends.

Finally, if you are familiar with the campaigns, your current campaign choice will impact the effectiveness of this card. The following phrases will spoil the humanoid amounts in the campaigns so stop reading at this point if you want to avoid that spoiler:

Core set this thing will be helpful in every scenario. Ghouls are Humanoids.

In Dunwick its very bad, useful mostly in the club, there will be targets here and there but in 4 out of 8 scenarios playing this will be hard or impossible.

It's very good in Carcosa, all of the scenarios have humanoid enemies (often in large numbers) or guaranteed valid targets.

Forgotten age isn't over yet but out of 4 scenarios every scenario has been chock-full of humanoids. Considering the particulars of the enemies in the Deluxe pack there won't be a single Forgotten age scenario without a Humanoid target (Snake people are humanoids!).

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Finally, this is a parley action, thus Fine Clothes will go a long way to make these tests outright easy, although perhaps if you're playing Norman Withers or Daisy Walker you wont really have any trouble anyway. Still worth considering, especially in Carcosa.

Tsuruki23 · 2588
Based on my own foibles in Forgotten Age, I think this could be useful for enemy management in solo when you are playing as someone who sucks at fighting. Especially for enemies with doom. haven't tested, though. — Zinjanthropus · 231
Protective Incantation
  • Removing up to 3 chaos tokens is very strong when paired with The Chthonian Stone.
    • For example you could remove , and the worst modifier, like -4 on standard. Except for , this guarantees success of your test.
  • This card gets better in multiplayer, as everyone benefits but costs do not increase.
  • Increases the chance of all other tokens, like and .
  • Playing this card comes at a high cost however, occupying 1-2 arcane slots and draining 1-2 ressources each turn. Most mystics shouldn't play this, as they need both slots and many ressources for their spells. Characters who can be built around this:
Django · 5171