At the start of this scenario, the chaos bag has no in it. This act, along with each of the next two, permanently adds a to the chaos bag upon its completion. By my reading (tell me if it's wrong), this means that if the investigators are defeated before advancing a single act, they'll play the rest of the campaign without any in their chaos bag. Yes, you'll take a trauma from the defeat, and you'll miss out on 10 or 12 experience... but maybe this isn't a totally incorrect option?

Pros:

• Three tokens which, on Hard/Expert, ramp up to -6 or even worse in the next three scenarios, are excluded from the bag. You can almost think of it as three Permanent versions of Protective Incantation
• Cards which particularly want to avoid the , such as Baseball Bat, Old Hunting Rifle, and "Hit me!" can be used with nigh-impunity
• Mental bandwidth requirement of first scenario reduced to zero

Cons:

• Up to 12 potential XP left on the table
• Jim Culver's passive ability loses its effect on the chaos bag
• Song of the Dead can no longer deal bonus damage
• Fun of first scenario also reduced to zero

Notes:

• William Yorick can get 1 XP by burying his Graveyard Ghouls or another Weakness enemy
• You can avoid adding another negative token to the chaos bag of this campaign in Interlude III: The Great Ones, by either playing it as a standalone campaign, or by winning scenario I-B while choosing to leave Dr. Maheswaran with her patients, or by resigning or losing that same scenario. If you take the doctor with you and then win, whether she survives or not you will find that "The dreamers grow weaker" which results in the additional negative token.

Surprised in the number of reviews that Carolyn or Vincent are not mentioned at all for this card as they are perhaps the best users of it. As test-less damage for them is really good... like really really good:

1) They have one less stat overall so get rewarded more for test-less actions

2) They have one more health/sanity overall so are more tanky for the enemies attack

3) They get rewarded for healing the damage/horror they took

4) They can combo it with Empirical Hypothesis's 1xp upgrade for when you take damage/horror to also draw a card from it

5) For Carolyn she can stick it on Stick to the Plan

So for example, watch as your Carolyn clears a nearby room full of cultists or helps the actual Guardian smack an annoying enemy into the discard pile on demand. All while she grabs a test-less clue, resource, and card per turn (Field Agent, Empirical Hypothesis, Ancient Stone). A support character than can free flex into a Guardian role a few times a scenario all the while actively keeping the act progress going with getting clues and keeping others alive is very strong and this card helps complete that.

Works well with Kate Winthrop for econ or stat boost when you need an uneven boost to maximize the chances of succeding by exactly x (although ideally you want Steady Hands for that). She runs lots of insights and tools, so this card will be relevant for most of her deck.

I love this card!

On the surface it's just another green economy card, with stipulations and risk factors that make it hard for it to compete with the likes of Faustian Bargain. However, when used as a combo piece, this card can be incredibly clutch. First of all it's a trick that requires the presence of an enemy. This makes it a perfect target for Bewitching.

The real beauty of this card however, is in combination with the many "succeed by" skills. Both within the rogue class itself, and elsewhere. Need to take out an Acolyte? Just commit a copy of Momentum to your Grift to get one extra resource (assuming you succeed and wouldn't already have done so by 6). And as long as you succeed by at least 3, you'll be fighting that Acolyte at 0 difficulty. And because Grift is a parley, there is no attack of opportunity.

I love pairing Grift with cards like Nimble, Purified and Lucky Cigarette Case for big value plays.

Other great synergies include: Opportunist, "Watch this!", All In, and Manual Dexterity.

And if you're playing without the taboo list, adding a Double or Nothing to any of the aforementioned combos is a great way to make 100% certain you will draw an auto-fail token. Jokes aside this card goes crazy with Double or Nothing and it is a very fun time as long as you don't make a habit of abusing it.

I brought this card to a convention meetup play. The removal of exhaust condition on the compared with Lv. 0 one make it very suitable for high player count, where you get more enemies and the team can flex and perform both evasion and fighting. A single flex fighter that evade before doing stuff (Sneak Attack, Dirty Fighting, etc.) might be filling your evidence many times in their round. You just have to make sure you are present there.

The maximum 3 evidence you can spend discovers 4 clues, so it covers all the way to 4 players if you found a high shroud 1 victory location. With peace of mind if somehow you failed with +6 you can try again later without losing neither clue compression nor accuracy.