This card is pretty bad. Get that straight. Its bad. But its not irredeemable. A few characters are so action starved that theyll take what they can get.

If you find it in the mulligan, its a free action, nice, but, not groundbreaking. We already have Quick Thinking and Swift Reflexes.

If you dont find it, and have to play it... you pay 3 resources to -move- an action, bank it. That is so goddamn terrible that it begs belief that this is a printed mechanic, yet, even so. There is a demand for it.

Some characters are so damn hungry that they will take any old garbage card to sate that hunger.

• Rita Young has some of the tightest rounds an investigator can have, its all those Engage actions that really muddle her rounds. She likes to bring tricks like Cheap Shot and/or Bait and Switch to circumvent lost actions. For her the ability to generate 4 action rounds is valuable. Typically that 4 action round reads: Dodge, Shoot bow, Reload, Shoot again.

• Mark Harrigan can be hella action effective with big guns, Shortcut and Elusive, even so he might feel the need to make a 4 action round happen every now and then, probably to attack 4 times with his Machete or .45 Thompson.

• Calvin Wright has very few options for action economy, and the bonus isnt bad.

You get the picture now, decks that lack access to action economy might want to teck a couple of these every now and then. If there's any other action Economy card in your cardpool, that one is better than this one.

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Another, small, consideration for using Ace of Rods is that it's not a bad tagalong tarot for Anna Kaslow, she's an ally with a deathwish and having tarots that self-discard solves some issues that might arrive when she kicks the bucket.

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Ace of Rods is not a good card, but i'dd like to say that it gets less credit than it deserves. I highly recommend you try it out, 2 copies, even if only to never try it again.

Almost identical to the level 0 version of Stealth, for 3 XP you get an additional Agility icon, and Finn Edward's ability to Evade as a free action once per turn. This is further bolstered by the - 2 evade, making this a solid pickup. 3 XP might seem like a lot, but any enemy with an Agility of 2 or less is automatically evaded, unless you draw the auto-fail. Yet another benefit is that seemingly ever present inclusion of "a non elite enemy.", is missing from the card. This means you potentially can evade some big elites, turn after turn. It can also be used aggressively with Waylay, if the investigator can take it, potentially turning Waylay into a 1 action kill, or with Sneak Attack, for a cool 2 test-free damage. Might be overkill in a Finn deck, but also turns him into a pretty great dodge tank with just a bit of support. I personally think it's a great card, with a lot of potential.

TL:DR Grab Flashlight if your is low or mediocre, it's outright amazing solo but looses it's luster progressively with player count, it picks up again on hard and expert as a means to cheat low difficulty locations.

The ubiquitous Flashlight is at this point a legacy card, its one of the more decent cards in the core set, but it is a little specific.

When a difficulty test is (0) it's automatically passed regardless of what token you reveal (except if you get ), this means that a Flashlight outright wrecks easy locations, this is a good means for 1, 2 and 3 characters to help in the clue game. It has combo potential with some skills, netting you guaranteed hits with Double or Nothing, Deduction, Resourceful and so on.

In higher difficulty this ability to cheat some locations is even better, those -5's and -6's really don't impact you when everything but succeeds.

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Flashlight isn't a must have though, when player count grows and the clues start getting placed in bulk Flashlight just doesn't cut it anymore. A solo character who is bad at clues might be able to finish 2 easy locations with just 1 flashlight, and cheat the hard locations with other tricks, in 3-player it'd only get you through one location! Of course if the full team is doing their thing then beating one location isn't terrible rate, but specialization is the name of the game in multiplayer and a fighter spending 4 actions, 2 resources and the card slot to beat a 1 or 2 difficulty location isn't the best use of his time at all.

That said, Flashlight isn't bad for flex characters in multiplayer, dudes like Roland Banks who can pretty even-handedly do clues and combat, Wendy Adams until she gets Lockpicks, Sefina Rousseau as a means to conserve Rite of Seeking charges.

It's a fine card, but it's definitely better on higher difficulties and lower player counts (ideally: Solo).

Anyone who doesn't see the use in this card has never played the 5-Sanity investigators on Hard or Expert. Part of playing Mark Harrigan on high difficulties is being able to survive losing four Sanity in the mid game. Allies are great, but plenty of Guardians are limited to guardian allies which will only go so far. Roland Banks is in a slightly better place with his selection of throwaway allies, but is still very interested in this card. Guardians are ultimately fragile and more liable to die off mid-scenario than most other characters. Despite being the class most hard up for resources, cards like this can go a long way toward winning a campaign.

I think The Skeleton Key should definately part of the conversation. I played a duo game with Daisy Walker and Preston Fairmont. Preston moved the key around & Diasy and stripped the clues from every location with Deduction, this card, and Perception.