Roland is a man who works alone,

and when hes searching a dark room,

or walking his dog out in the park,

when the light begins to change,

trying to see can be a pain

its hard to see things when its dark

Light up the dark, Light up the dark

Hes sure there's something useful somewhere fairly near

Light up the dark, Light up the daaa-ark

He uses his flashlight to find out what is over there!

My first experiences with Medical Texts while playing the 1 core set Roland Banks starterdeck were terrible. After I was done, I buried it at the bottom of the game box and vowed never to use it again. At the moment the healing options in the game are very limited though, so I thought it might be worth taking a better look at Medical Texts.

Medical Texts is currently the only card that offers "unlimited" healing, which is a good thing. The problem is that it's a card that doesn't get along with just any investigator, as I found out the hard way.

Put it in the hands of Roland Banks and it's a not so reliabe heal that you can waste a precious action on while getting damaged in the process... Time after time... after time... But if you put it in the hands of a high intellect investigator like Daisy Walker, Daisy becomes a walking one-woman ER unit. With an un-boosted Intellect of 5, Daisy starts all of Medical Texts skill tests with +3, netting you a very good chanche to succeed. And with Medical Texts being a Tome, Daisy's unique skill will let you use it once each round without costing an action. (True story: I once "Burst-healed" 4 health in one turn that way.)

So in short: with Medical Texts it's all about the investigator using it.

With the deck building rules for the Core Set investigators, the only investigator who can use it reliably is Daisy Walker. But with the deckbuilding rules for the investigators in the upcoming "Dunwich Legacy" permitting using up to 5 cards from your "non-primary class sphere" , Medical Texts could become a good healing option for every investigator with a good Intellect skill.

This 2-handed firearm is the big granddaddy of damage.... BUT ONLY IF THE GODS OF THE CHAOS BAG ARE WILLING TO SMILE UPON THE INVESTIGATOR CARRYING IT. Luckily you can build your deck to increase your chanches. With only a Beat Cop ally in play and an Overpower or Unexpected Courage to commit to a fight test, a Roland Banks investigator can rack up his attack value to +10, greatly increasing the chanche to pass the skilltest and do some big damage (up to +5!!!).

The shotgun has some drawbacks to balance its potential huge power. With a cost of 5 resources it's quite expensive and it's 2-handed, so it's the only hand asset you can have at a time. It only has 2 shots, so if you really want to go to town with the shotgun you might want to invest some extra XP in Extra Ammunition. Having 2 copies in your deck to reliably draw the shotgun requires you to invest a whopping 8XP (9 or 10 XP if you want to fuel the shogutgun with 1 or 2 copies of Extra Ammunition )

And last but not least... it has the potential to backfire BIG TIME on the poor fellow investigator who you just tried to rescue,..... but tragically ended up dead because those nasty gods of the chaos bag handed you the auto-fail token.

(please let me know when this happens to any of you guys and gals.) :-D

One thing to remember with this card is, if you are playing Agnes Baker, her unique Weakness, Dark Memory, is a Spell card. If it is the only Spell card drawn, you are obligated to draw it.

"When resolving a search effect, a player is obligated to find the object of the search should one or more eligible options be found within the searched area." Rules Reference Guide - Search

Forbidden Knowledge is the definition of Risk-Reward that makes Mystic a tricky faction. 0 cost for 4 resources is great, 4 Horror is not so great. Agnes Baker can use this to her advantage by dealing damage when she receives Horror, but you are limited to once per Phase. During your investigation phase you can take a free resource, take a horror, and deal a damage. If you're in a really tight spot where you need to eliminate an enemy, you have a player window during the Mythos phase after encounter cards are drawn and immediately before enemies attack. That's a total of 3 damage dealt, 3 resources gained, but also 3 horror taken in a single round, without having to make a skill check.

This is a useful asset, but you should only use it when absolutely necessary, or you'll find yourself dropping out of scenarios from sanity loss. Unless you're with friends that can patch you up with First Aid, you're going to be saving your second copy for the Intellect icon, or replacing it with leveled up cards as a campaign progresses.