Beloved

Did a little math with a few sample bags:

Let's say unexpected courage gives you +25% chance to pass a test (going from say +2 above test to +4 on hard difficulty), and Beloved gives you ~1/2 that for a fight or int test with just its icon. The added benefit of beloved's ability is unfortunately pretty low, generally only about 5%, even with 10 blessing tokens in the bag. So Beloved only gives you +17% chance to pass the test vs UE's +25% chance.

Note that going down to 6 or 7 blessing tokens in the bag doesn't make that big of a difference.

The problem is that if you draw a blessing token in this sweet spot of where we tend to take tests when playing, if you draw a bless token without beloved, you're nearing or generally at "all but autofail" territory.

The value goes up a lot if you aren't likely to succeed at the test, but not by that much unless you are taking tests with <50% chance to succeed. If you're taking the test at +0 before you commit skill cards, the value of Beloved's ability goes up to ~10%, still not as good as UE.

I think the card still has a little value but it's niche. It keeps the bless tokens in the bag and it's a little better than UE for head or foot tests. UE doesn't make it into most of my decks these days anyway though it does in Patrice and Silas.

dubcity566 · 111
Return to Threads of Fate

I didn't think it could happen; they took a very solid scenario, one that is very fun and has a lot of replayability, and made it ven better. The addition of a 4th act deck requires a bit more text than most "Return to..." scenarios, and you need to hang onto your insert (or the PDF which is finally up at FFG) for set up and resolution information, but this scenario revision ups the pace, adds bothersome new enemies and treacheries, and generally makes a good scenario that much better. This is what I wish all "Return to..." scenarios were like.

Expose Weakness

Please don't take this card without talking to your teammates first. Sure, it sounds like a clutch card, but in practice, keep in mind:

1.) you have to OVERsucceed to get literally any use from this card whatsoever. and even if you do manage that against monsters with high fight, you aren't reducing the fight value by much. I'm going to guess an average of 1-2.

2.) This only lasts for one attack. ONE attack. Unless your teammate is close by and also using a Shotgun, a (well-used) Double or Nothing, etc. that can abuse the heck out of an easy fight test, you're just getting a mildly easier attack.

On top of that, you as a Seeker are spending an XP and card slot on something that isn't at all conducive to seeking (clues, cards) or self-defense. Trust me, there are much better cards for Seeker self-defense that DON'T cost 1 XP. Yea, cool, you reduced some enemy's fight value from 3 to 0 for one punch, but if your combat-oriented teammates desperately and frequently needed something like that, chances are what they really needed is to build their investigators to be more consistent. Spend your XP on something that will make you better at YOUR job (or, again, something to pull your own butt out of the fire).

Maybe this card does have its place, but you (and more specifically, your team) really need to have something worthwhile built around it. This card fills a pretty specific combat-support niche, and if you undershoot that, you're going to be disappointed. In my personal opinion, the setup that your team needs to intentionally make this card worth it.....is not worth it. I can visualize a few different, down-to-the-wire scenarios where a well-placed Expose Weakness (with a VERY forgiving chaos bag) could win you the game, but I'm not willing to shovel my money into a losing slot machine in the hopes of that triple 7.

tl;dr: yes for someone, no for me

TheDoc37 · 468
Yeah, this is a bad one. Maybe for Sawed-off Shotgun Trish? — Zinjanthropus · 230
New life with --Exploit-- Weakness. — MrGoldbee · 1492
"Get over here!"

If I have an enemy already engaged with me and play "Get over here!" on a different enemy at a connecting location, does that provoke an attack of opportunity?

I mean, I did play an action to Fight (which means no attack of opportunity), but that same action was also to Engage (which usually triggers an attack of opportunity).

JetLeisten · 4
My reading is it does not trigger an op attack. This card has the fight action designator. Op attacks trigger if you spend an action other than to fight, evade, resign, or parley. The fact that this is also a Play action and an Engage action doesn't change the fact that it is a Fight action, and thus avoids op attacks. For comparison, consider that any weapon with a Fight action is also an Activate action. So if this triggered op attacks, It would follow that the Activate action on every weapon also triggers op attacks — NarkasisBroon · 11
Is nobody else bothered that it leads with "Engage. Fight."? Usually, these keywords mean "do this basic action. Then if the card has more text, do that too". However, a literal reading of the card would suggest that you get to engage, then fight, then vacuum up a distant dude and engage and fight him too. Compare this with Counterpunch, which says "Fight. Also, here's a targeting restriction for this fight action". On the other hand, the design intent seems pretty clear. — jaunt · 20
Showmanship

As noted, it's great, and it doubles down on what Dexter wants to be doing every round- putting assets into play. Bursty guns & swords become very appealing, giving Dex something to do with his hands.

The problem, as with many signatures, is reliability. You can't really plan on it showing up, as to my knowledge, Dexter has no native way to tutor it... except for ... his OTHER signature option.

Intentional? Encouraging "Not only are you allowed to use both sets of signatures on an investigator: in this case, you should!"?

...eh, likely not. Sure, this is a nice card- and so is Molly- and Molly herself CAN be tutored with limited reliability- but Renfield Probably -> Calling In Favors -> Molly -> Showmanship seems like a long road that's interesting but inefficient.

Something of a tangent: it really feels like taking an additional sig + weakness is a trap. For 1 card, you're thickening your deck AND adding an additional weakness you didn't have to take, and even mild weaknesses like Dexter's are a major tempo loss at best. If you think about it, many would leap at the reliability of forfeiting their sig in exchange for losing the accompanying weakness. Not just the Rolands & Mandys of the world who's bad decisions are so strong you have to build your deck around them. (In fairness, this is sometimes to balance the char's inherent skills- this seems the case with Mandy's weakness.) An optional card has to pull a LOT of weight to be worth "Add a weakness to your deck".

Back to Showmanship itself, it's fine. Either it or Molly are solid; Molly adds consistency, Showmanship leaves your Ally slot open for more asset-cycling. I like the limited-synergy they have together. It would be neat to see this go further on a future 'gator who had replacement sigs explicitly designed to make the option of taking ALL sigs at once a genuine temptation.

HanoverFist · 748