I completely agree with Bronze, who said:"I don't think that these protective cards are getting enough love." Just take a glance at this happy detective bragging in the office how closely he escaped a domestic dispute with his wife, and you know what i mean.

Alongside Bulletproof Vest, only two other assets are worn on the body. But the other vestments are cheaper in xp and play cost. The question emerges if and when the investment of 2 resources and 3xp pays off. For the sake of simplicity, i do not count any sanity bonuses in the ongoing comparison.

A look at the competitors for the body slot discloses the vest's shortcomings:

• Leather coat protects 2 health lesser for 2 resources less.
• Fine Clothes protects 3 health lesser for 1 resource less. And grants you a special ability.

Of course, there is the strategy of reallocating damage to other assets, so Bulletproof Vest has to be evaluated against...

• Guard Dog protects 1 health lesser for 1 resource more. Grants an additional trait.
• Hired Muscle protects 1 health lesser for roundabout the same cost as the vest. Grants an additional trait.
• Beat Cop(2) protects 1 health lesser for 1 resource more. Grants an additional trait.
• Leo De Luca(2) protects 2 health lesser for 3 resources more. Grants an additional trait.

You can play other assets to heal damage....

• First Aid heals 1 health lesser for the same cost. Requires 3 additional actions to spend.

...or events...

• Emergency Aid heals 2 health lesser for 2 resources less. Can be used on others, too.
• "I've had worse…" heals up to 1 health more for 2 resources less.
• Dodge prevents up the the same health for 2 resources less. Can be used on others.

To sum things up, under the key aspect of health protection, Bulletproof Vest is the second to best economical choice for permanent health protection available. On top, it can be combined with all other methods of health reallocation/protection/recovering. If your investigator has a low base Health or suffers from severe physical trauma, Bulletproof Vest is the card for you!

Non-body-assets in the first place give you additional, powerful abilities to cope with a variety of situations. If you plan to start a killing spree and have to tank away massive hits, the vest makes you fit for survival. It's a tool for a special role and should be valued in this scope only. Guardians can, of course, rely on their more powerful events instead or complementary. Just keep in mind that the vest is permanently there, while events are often bound to certain triggers.

Pros

• Bulletproof vest endows you with the best health bonus available, only one other card, Leather Coat, competes.
• Good play cost.
• Combines well with Scavenging.
• Great click compression, only Guardian events are better.
• -icons can alternatively boost skill tests.

Cons

• Protects the wearer only.
• Should be played before enemies appear, during a fight it's useless.
• Pretty tough xp cost, viable only for special decks.

I am just adding my review to Django's, because of a linguistic feature in the German translation of this card. German players, please beware that FFG translated "spawn" with an unspecific term (~"appear") and that Think on Your Feet does not work on enemies who just moved to your location.

Think on your Feet is pretty similar to Elusive. It takes a bit of finesse to use, you want to make sure you are ending as few turns as possible in locations you want to spend more time at. In the ideal application, this event moves you to a better location and spares you multiple actions dealing with the spawned monster. If you are unarmed and draw a monster, you can play Think on Your Feet to step away, which gives you one whole round to properly prepare for fighting.

The benefit of this cards mainly depends on the scenario goal and the player count. In solo play or with 2 players this is a close to mandatory include for Jenny and Wendy, who both prefer to not habitually fight every last enemy that spawns on them. In larger groups, you stick together more, and more often you want to stay and, depending on your role, help fighting/tanking enemies, so your specialised buddies get freed up.

A small explanation of Think On Your Feet timing could be helpful for Lola players. Her innate free triggered ability may be triggered as a player ability during any player window. The first player window during the Mythos Phase would be after Step 1.4 Each investigator draws 1 encounter card. Since the triggering condition on Think On Your Feet begins with the word "when...", it may be used after the specified triggering condition (an enemy is about to spawn) initiates, but before its impact upon the game state resolves. In other words: there is typically no opportunity to switch roles while you are drawing encounter cards from the encounter deck, so she’d have to switch to Rogue sometime before the Mythos phase in order to play Think On Your Feet. But whenever there is a skill test, (e.g. if by chance another player draws a treachery card before Lola,) Player Windows open up before and after cards are committed to the skill test (as depicted on RR page 26). So Lola could switch to Rogue during that time.

Pros

• Great click-compression. Gain two actions for the cost of none!
• Fast cards aren't subject to Attacks of Opportunity, so in case you are engaged (by another enemy) when playing this card, that (non-Massive) enemy stays in your threat zone and moves with you, but does not attack out of opportunity.
• Guaranteed result. This card is very likely to be used during a scenario, you can also flee from Weakness enemies like Mob Enforcer with it.
• Works on Elite spawns, also!
• In hard/expert difficulty the speed gain adds greatly to this event's value.

Cons

• Befits not in every situation. If you want or have to fight for some reason, the event is to no end.
• The enemy does not count as defeated for combo purposes.
• Only helps the investigator who plays it.

Recommendations

• spoiler Flee from unpleasant roamers in Undimensioned and Unseen.
• spoiler Greatly speed up convincing a zealot in The Gathering.
• It is not so useful in The Devourer Below and in The Essex County Express.

The basic version of Emergency Cache is included in a majority of decks. There must be a reason why the upgrade has to be searched with magnifying glasses, it is rarely included by Arkhamdb players.

Considerations about the value of this card are found under the basic version of Emergency Cache(0).

The cost of 2xp have to be put into relation to the additional effect that the upgraded version gives you.

Which is... "Draw 1 card." I still do not think that this effect is worth the additional 1xp. I just wonder about people who include Lucky!(2) during the course of a campaign but not Emergency Cache(2). Or why it is not found more frequently in Roland Banks decks. This investigator is so beggarly, he can use a cash injection at any time during a scenario and would be thankful for the extra card!

For Roland, Emergency Cache(2) has the same power level as Police Badge(2) or even Beat Cop(2).

Pros

• Saves one action, you gain another card.

Cons

• There is a small danger of drawing a Weakness from your deck which could meddle with your plans.

"Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver." Ayn Rand depicted the reasons for including Emergency Cache with few words, but you surely expect a longer explanation.

An event that gives you 3 resources for one action sounds like an auto-include in most decks. It speeds up your initial setup: play Emergency Cache, play Leo De Luca or Dr. Milan Christopher and still have 2 actions and resources to spend. Mid-game it can fuel the "pump" skills, like Dig Deep, for you. Late-game it probably sticks on your hand as a "dead draw". Emergency Cache has no alternative use, no icons to commit to skill tests. With a huge resource pool, you can buy anything, but you need expensive cards in the sale, too!

As a rule of thumb, i would offer you Spiryt's advise: If you can see yourself spending more than one action per scenario fishing for resources, then this card is a great way of ensuring you have the means to play your most powerful cards.

With more packs being released, the number of economy sources will raise. Right now, the slot for Emergency Cache mainly competes with Burglary and Dr. Milan Christopher (with 0 xp) and Hot Streak(4). Especially the guardian class runs low on resources, in-faction there's solely Stand Together(3). In solo play, Lone Wolf always is the better alternative to Emergency Cache.

Pros

• Feasible resource gain.
• Best economy card for Roland Banks.
• Wendy and Pete find cards without committment icons useful, they have innate abilities where they must discard cards.
• Jump start enabler: mulligan for Emergency Cache and Leo Di Luca.
• There's an upgraded version available: Emergency Cache(2)

Cons

• Card has no icons to commit to skill tests.
• One-time effect only. Supplement with drip economy for the long run.

Recommendations

• spoiler In The House Always Wins it is sometimes better to have a full wallet at your disposal than big brains.

A card for the min-maxer in all of us. Play this card in early scenarios to make your life more difficult, but reap the rewards of experience and upgraded cards in later scenarios.

Now the card seems deceptively simple, but there is a lot of nuance to playing it. Ideally you want to play it when you can afford extra actions, but not so early in the game that you aren't set up. Often this means holding on to your D2Ds until the last round of the game, triggering both and then ignoring the encounters you pulled (to the best of your ability) in order to finish the scenario. But there are other ways of mitigating this as well: a huge number of encounter cards are will tests and upgraded Mystics have access to Blood Pact which can be used as a freebee at the last doom in an agenda. Of course beware non-will tests and enemies that may pop out from the encounter deck instead.

The other nice thing about D2D is that it makes upgrading a little easier in the mid game. Because you get that experience as a permanent upgrade, in an 8-scenario campaign a D2D played in the first scenario is worth (1 exp 7 remaining games = 7 game-experience points) while one played in the penultimate scenario is worth (1 exp 1 game = 1 game-experience point) and a D2D played in the final scenario is just masochism (assuming you don't carry your experience through). For this reason you want to play your D2Ds early in a campaign, and swap them out when you have 3-4 scenarios remaining. This is especially important because they have no skill icons and as such are actually fully dead space in your deck unlike damn near every other card in the game (exceptions for Wendy and Ashcan Pete who can discard cards as part of their ability, of course).

So yes, get a little dangerous, plunge a few deeper mysteries and reap the benefits of playing on the wild side.