Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Stella Clark

Art note: The letter Stella is carrying is addressed to Jacqueline Fine, albeit misspelled as "Jakueline" -- this is easier to see on her investigator mini-card (or, I imagine, on her investigator card in Arkham 3rd, since to my knowledge that's where the art is from). Useful info if you're looking for flavor justifications for card pairings (similar to the also-mail-related Indebted and Finn Edwards).

6/11/21

anaphysik · 97

"Watch this!"

icon makes it easy for Dexter Drake to use this as another way to pay for cycling expensive assets (alongside cards like David Renfield and Faustian Bargain). Sometimes you have to work to find good or tests to use this on, but tests are trivial to both find and pass as a mystic.

6/10/21

anaphysik · 97

Combine with Alchem Transmutation’s low will test plus any other Rogue succeed by effects (LCC for example) for more shenanigans. — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/10/21

I love that combo! I also play alchemical level 2 and commit Double or Nothing and Momentum to the test. Wicked good fun! — LaRoix · 1646 6/16/21

I’ve been meaning to do a big money Dex based on this concept so I’m more than happy to sing the praises of oversuccess cards like this one and Momentum for Dex — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/18/21

Decorated Skull

Honestly just utterly confused as to why this was designed as a level 3 card rather than a level 2 one. Leo Anderson is THE investigator that would most love an upgraded Decorated Skull, and yet he can't play it. Has anyone playtested it in him "for science!" and found that denying him it was a wise design decision? I.e. would it just be too good for him? How about a hypothetical level 2 mutated version (e.g. where you can spend up to 2 charges instead, or is exceptional, or a similar variant)?

6/10/21

anaphysik · 97

I agree with you that it probably could have been a level 2 card. Then at least there would be a slightly larger pool of investigators who might want it. I do think that Tony likes it even more than Leo though, so it's nice that it found a Rogue home eventually. — Soul_Turtle · 500 6/14/21

This card is insane in Akachi at 3-4 players. — FarCryFromHuman · 1 6/14/21

And now with Charlie Kane, we have another ally-heavy, potentially enemy-killing tank that can just barely not take this card. I get that effect-wise, putting it at level 3 isn't unrealistic, but house-ruling it at 2 isn't unrealistic, either. It feels like a slight against investigators who would synergize well with it. — TheDoc37 · 468 1/8/23

Trial by Fire

Obviously this card has some powerful potential for special characters like Calvin and Preston, but I have tried to use this card for normal characters (with a mix of high and low stats from 2-5), and it was not as great as I thought it would be. For a normal character the ideal would be to use this on a statistic of 2 and increase it to 5 for a turn, so it is giving you +3 on a statistic for a full turn. The problem is that it is actually kind of tricky for a typical character to use this on three skill checks in the same turn, and even harder when that skill isn't the primary skill that your character is set up to employ. I envisioned using it to plunder a site for clues with three back to back investigate actions, but it just wasn't very common for my non-investigating character to get into the situation where this would happen, I was usually out of position since I've been doing my primary purpose of dealing with monsters. In practice it was much more likely to use this card for no more than two actions in a turn. Obviously this card is way overpriced if you use it only on skill test in a turn, but really, it is still a fairly expensive way to get a bonus even on two tests in a turn. So what I ended up with was a situational card that would give a + 3 bonus, twice, only to one of my weakest skills, and cost a lot of money to play.

This is still a flexible card with a lot of potential uses and characters who might have reasons to use it, but I don't think I'll be just throwing this in, I will want to think carefully about why I am putting the card in the deck and whether the character has a benefit they are gaining this is worth the high resource cost of the card.

6/10/21

ChristopherA · 113

Might be worth trying with On Your Own — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/10/21

Solemn Vow

I just realized that this card moves damage and don't heal or damage other cards.

According to the discussion about the Eldritch Sophist and the Archaic Glyphs you should be allowed to move damage to your guardians (or William Yorick ) Relentless for some cash. Especially Mark Harrigan would love the combo due to his ability.

6/9/21

Tharzax · 1

This is incorrect as Relentless does not have health and therefore cannot have damage moved to it. Damage can be placed on it by its ability only. You can however use Solemn Vow to move damage off of Relentless to something else. Damage just doesnt work the same way as secrets. — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/9/21

Your right, that you can't assign damage that is dealt to the investigator to it because of the missing health. But the vow ignores the steps of assigning damage in the rulebook and moves the damage directly to a card. For me the card effect is not clearly defined without a FAQ and could be interpreted as an effect which ignores the usual rule like the ability on Relentless. But if it seems too good it can't be part of the Cthulhu-Mythos — Tharzax · 1 6/9/21

By that logic you could move damage to any asset that lacks a health stat, which clearly isn't the intended effect, so no. — MiskatonicFrosh · 344 6/9/21

Im fairly certain the reason you can’t is because you can only move game elements to legal destinations, and moving damage/horror requires assigning them, which does follow the rules of needing health/sanity values. The only reason Relentless can put damage on itself is because the card ability overrides the normal restriction specifically for itself- Solemn Vow does not make any exceptions. — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/10/21

But by it's own ability relentless seems to be a valid target for health tokens, which are moved outside the rule for dealing damage/horror. — Tharzax · 1 6/10/21

That is incorrect. If it were a valid target for health tokens, then you could soak normal damage on it, which is obviously not true. It is only valid to put health tokens on it through its own ability. — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/10/21

If it helps, for Relentless, use breakfast cereal marshmallows instead of damage tokens. The intended effect will be the same, you'll be less confused about how the card works, and you get to eat the tokens when you discard it :) — MiskatonicFrosh · 344 6/10/21

There is so far no rule that prevents damage being moved to any asset explicitly (if it does exist I'd like to see it, been trying to find it for aegis), an asset without health cannot be assigned damage and solemn vow and/or tommy need an FAQ before the intended interaction is certain. In tommys case moving damage to asset still lets his weakness destroy them so it may be intended. (otherwise why don't either card say "deal" damage instead) — Zerogrim · 295 6/11/21

It would be good to have a clarifying FAQ, but there’s 0 chance Solemn Vow RAI lets you move damage/horror onto any asset regardless if it has a healthy/sanity value. That kind of combo would be ridiculously broken and is very clearly not the intent behind the design, so such an FAQ would reinforce the way most people already interpret the card. All of that is to say, if the rules do somehow currently allow for us to move damage onto Relentless, they shouldn’t and any FAQ would reinforce that. — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/11/21

I think there should be a FAQ for moving tokens from one card to another. For example if you move a secret with the sophist on a spell like Shrivelling does it change his type of use? — Tharzax · 1 6/15/21

We don't need an FAQ for that, there's already one on the Sophist confirming that tokens don't change type when moved. So you can put a secret on Shrivelling but it doesn't do anything since it's not a charge. — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/15/21

Excuse me, it's not on Sophist, it's on Enraptured and Truth from Fiction. — StyxTBeuford · 13049 6/15/21

Not quite. The general rule for Uses (X "type") prevents that: >>A card cannot bear uses of a type other than that established by its own "Uses (X type)" keyword. (For example, a card with "Uses (4 ammo)" cannot gain charges.)<< So while the FAQ confirms, that you can put secrets, charges, whatever on an asset without any uses, you cannot move Secrets onto Shrivelling. — Susumu · 381 3/8/22