Dream Diary

Dream Diary

Quick question on this. It's apparently been confirmed by Matt that there's a limit of one Essence of the Dream in your bonded cards. There doesn't seem to be a limit on the number of Dream Diaries you can have in play though. Does this mean that you can theoretically hold two of them at the same time and double trigger the boost ? I'd assume that you can't have two versions of this one in play and commit for an effective +6 every time you're at a 4 shroud location, but you could for example have the Explorer and the Child version in play simultaneously and then contrive to be at a high shroud location while you have 8 cards in hand to achieve the same effect ? I don't see any obvious reason why not. It's probably not worthwhile, but with the right build this could theoretically turn into a test-passing monster. Minh could theoretically commit a +7 boost to any test anywhere on the map every turn.

Sassenach · 180
Im pretty sure you can indeed have 2 of the same or two different dream diaries and get a ?????? Essence of the dream by meeting 1 or two conditions. Personally I have been playing as mandy since these cards have been released, and I definitely prefer 1 dream diary 1 occult lexicon as my hand slots. But I did consider two different or matching dream diaries — NarkasisBroon · 11
I'm considering this one and the untranslated version so that I have a method to do two tests a turn at with the buff. — BlankedyBlank · 23
According to FAQ entry (see Rules page for Bonded) you only get one Essence max regardless which is quite surprising and should definitely be linked on these pages — Timlagor · 6
I doubt it's worth upgrading more than one Dream Diary given you probably have searching tech but it might well be worth including a base copy too. Maybe on Expert that +7 is worth it but I doubt it. — Timlagor · 6
Little bit niche, but you can increase the shroud value from 3 to 4 with the fast ability of Cryptographic Cipher to make your Essence of a Dream more powerful (and maybe get more resources out of Crack the Case if you clear the location). — Miroque · 25
Do I get Essence of the Dream added to my hand on my first turn, when I play Dream Diary with geared up? — Scythe · 1

Seeking Answers

Seeking Answers

I doubt one thing... Can you investigate un your location and get a clue from a conected but non-discovered location? I mean, from a location that you never get in before.

I don't fully understand how It works. Thank you for the answers...

ticola.nesla2 · 1
No, because until you reveal that location it doesn't have any clues in play. — Sassenach · 180
@Sassenach Not necessarily. For example, scenario 2 of The Circle Undone has clues on unrevealed locations. But I agree that if there aren’t physically clue on the location yet, you can’t discover them with this card. Part of revealing a location is placing clues on it, so they aren’t generally there yet before it’s revealed. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Does this test the shroud at your current location instead of at the clues location (in the connected areas) — matt_pigram · 1
@matt_pigram yes, you this test the shroud of your location — alexalansmith14 · 696

Empower Self

Empower Self

These cards are absolutely 100% crazy nutso bonkers good. I thought they would be ‘ok’ after all they’re quite expensive and limited to a once-per-turn boon but I was deeply wrong in that analysis. Play Sefina and investigate once per turn as if you were a 4 intellect Seeker. Punch an enemy or a locked door at 4 despite being a weak butt. Evade that 20 health monstrosity despite being some slow loser like Jim.

They’re slow and expensive, an issue which is only slightly salved by Uncage the Soul and finding the ones you want can be difficult unless you invest in Lucid Dreaming so I could see this being an issue on ‘sprint’ scenarios like Essex but they’re still far too good to pass up. In my opinion they slot best into Sefina right now as they complement her dawdling, defensive stat line nicely, she can make better use of the Alacrity boon than most, and she can more readily pay for them.

Difrakt · 1325
Investigating at 4 seems ok if she's taking Flashlight, fighting at 4 for one damage seems bad. For evasion you're better off using Suggestion I would think, and for investigation you could just use Sixth Sense and get the same boost (or better with Rosary) for 3 actions instead of one. I'm still nowhere close to convinced, I think especially for Sefina who can reliably play/copy the events she needs as the circumstances change something like this seems not at all good for her. Sef in particular has so much demand for her arcane slots now- Haste, Suggestion, Double Double, other Mystic spells- and these are all one ofs in your deck that cost 3 to find and only work once a turn, like a really bad Encyclopedia. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
3 to play* — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I think Daisy probably makes best use of these. Each of them is useful to her. The Int booster lets her boost up to 7 without any further modifiers, which is nice. The Fight booster is marginal but does give her a rat killing option in extremis and the Evade booster gives her a reliable enemy management option for non-rats. She also doesn't really need the arcane slot for a whole lot else. Maybe Guiding Stones and that's about it. Daisy also has access to all the Seeker card draw and search options that would allow her to find them quickly. It is still 3 deck slots though. — Sassenach · 180
Styx you’re missing that the five fight comes *before* weapons or additional boosts. With an upgraded .41 you are then fighting at 7 — Difrakt · 1325
*four — Difrakt · 1325
I'm not missing that fact necessarily, but who would want to take a weapon and this? Empower Self plus Enchanted Blade is already both Arcane slots. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Specifically in regards to Sef I don't like it because she's bad with most Rogue weapons except Thompson (which is too much of an investment (Thompsona and Empower Self is 9 resources and dependent on a single one of card to make Thompson good) even with a once a turn +2 boost. Like I'm not taking Derringer in Sef just because I can sometimes, if I draw well, hit for 6 combat instead of 4. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Agh, I severely messed that comment up, but you get what I'm trying to say. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Jim has access to any level-0 weapon, Diana has guns, Sefina has Rogue guns and the ability to succeed-by-two them, even Akachi could build into Timeworn Brand if so desired. Enchanted Blade is not the only weapon in town — Difrakt · 1325
Sef again I wouldn't take this because relying on a one of to make Rogue guns passable seems like a bad idea, and her arcane slots are super in demand. Jim and Diana are the best use cases, I agree, but Diana is so good with spells because her Will climbs to 5/6 so easily. Jim doesn't need his slots as much so I think that could be interesting. I still wouldn't take Brand with either of them though. Akachi I think is the worst place for this because she wants to maximize Spell Charges, and this is eating a spot that something with charges could take. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I've played Sefina almost a dozen times now and her slots are not nearly in that much demand. She really doesn't need them to investigate, evade, defend against the encounter deck, and now not even to fight. Rogue guns are also much better than 'passable' due to their secondary benefits, and that's before you start adding in succeed-by-2 synergies. — Difrakt · 1325
For someone with 2 fight I don't see how you can reliably use the succeed by synergies. I'm not sure I follow what secondary benefits Sef gets from other Rogue guns. My Sef builds rely on her arcane slots very heavily, and Haste now with Ornate Bow they're going to do so even more.. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
because with this card she *starts* at 4 and is hitting 7 with a weapon and no commits. That is WHY this set of cards is so powerful. — Difrakt · 1325
sorry I keep quoting +3 incorrectly. She hits 6 with the .41 derringer* — Difrakt · 1325
At 6, but she needs to succeed as if she had 4 to get 2 damage, and it’s only once a turn. Versus Ornate Bow for an easy 3 damage? — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I really must be missing something about this card by how you all are talking about it. Empower says that when using a card that substitutes willpower instead of (pick whatever) use the non-willpower stat. If you're using a gun, it doesn't substitute willpower, so how are you getting the +2 bonus? — jdk5143 · 98
@jdk5143 Look at Empower’s free trigger ability. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Styx we've gone way too far down the rabbit hole on Sefina specifically here. Ornate bow has numerous downsides you are glazing right over, surely Empower Self has downsides as well but a detailed comparison is not appropriate (nor easily formatted) here. — Difrakt · 1325
I don't disagree, it is awkward to do this through the db. That said I think the glaring downsides of this card, especially for Sef, needed to be stated as your post recommended them for Sef above all others without really delving into why. To me, these are a far cry from "too good to pass up". — StyxTBeuford · 13049
This with Sefina lets her use Blinding Light + Hatchet Man to evade and deal 2-3 damage at the same time. My dream is upgraded Blinding Light + Hatchet Man x2 commited for a 4 damage evade action. — ArkhamArkhanist · 10
Along with the previous post, I can see Sef use it with Binding monster to help keeping the enemy at bay. But still, Empowered self Alacrity is *1 in the deck... — Conalias · 1

Empower Self

Empower Self

I don't see much use of any of the Empower Self cards.
Most Mystics will prefer to use their willpower since it's likely to be their highest stat, plus it takes up a highly coveted Arcane slot.
I can see it appearing in a Werewolf Diana Stanley deck, particularly in the Eldritch Knight variant.
Outside of Mystics I doubt Patrice Hathaway can truly capitalize with her low ,, and , particularly on higher difficulties.
Sefina Rousseau is plagued by the same limitations, while also having it compete with Double, Double (4), Borrowed Time (3), and Suggestion (4) for the Arcane slot.
Intriguingly, I can see a support Daisy Walker taking this, with limited competition for her Arcane slots and ability to maximize its utility combining with Encyclopedia (2), Strange Solution (4)
Norman Withers might be able to make use of Empower Self: Acuity, but the not much of the others. Besides, I'd prefer to use Scrying (3) as well as Shrivelling (5)/Mists of R'lyeh (4) on the Arcane slot over Empower Selves.

Did I miss out on any investigator who is able to pick up Empower Selves?
Or any combinations that maximizes its utility?

unremb · 254
(Not my idea) Lola Hayes can take and probably benefit from all 3. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
@StyxTBeuford True... I always miss out on Lola Hayes - I tend to play on Hard difficulty and Lola's 3 on all stats just doesn't cut it. — unremb · 254
@unremb you are clearly missing the piint about this card. Hard. Empower Self allows enables you to play previosly unmatching skill icons into the test. Acuity allows you to combine the upgraded sixth sense with deduction to gain 1 or 2 extra clues on every location you may be considered investigating. Stamina allows you to add vicious blow for extra damage (if you can muster enough combat icons). But most of all Purple can finally use enraptured on investigation spells to add more charges. And Mystic has some good wild card icons on its cards so you can reasonably expect to pass them. I am looking forward to try this in Maria Lambeau. — Skeith · 2444
Maybe I'm being dense here, but I don't really understand your point Skeith. I mean, I get it, but I can't think of many examples where this is going to actually help. The only one that immediately springs to mind is with Rite of Seeking, where an off class mystic like Daisy who has a baseline Int that's much higher than her will could choose to use the higher stat and to commit Deduction to get 3 clues with one action. That is admittedly a pretty sweet combo, but in most cases mystics will have much stronger Will than they do any other stat so where is the advantage ? You're only going to be able to commit unmatched icons if you're not choosing to use Will for the test, so most of the time it'll be a wash even with the boost from Empower Self. What am I missing ? — Sassenach · 180
@Skeith I get what you mean with combination of Shrivelling/Rite of Seeking with Vicious Blow/Deduction/etc, however, Arcane Slots are highly coveted for all Mystics. Marie Lambeau can somewhat make use of Acuity (like Norman Withers as described in my review), but can barely make use of the other 2. Is it worth the 2XP, 3 resources, and Arcane Slot for a 1/round +2 boost to your intellect? I very much doubt so. Daisy can reasonably make use of each skill, which makes the cost much easier to stomach. With Akachi is somewhat reasonable, with her decent 3 combat, but as described above, my personal favourite to use Empower Selves in Mystics is Diana Stanley, with her 1/3/3/3 statline (and moderate resource generation). — unremb · 254
I really think people are overestimating the impact of changing skill cards for a test. Throwing a Vicious Blow onto a Shrivelling as Diana for example sounds good, but then you have to also have weapons in your deck as Diana to make that worthwhile- if you slot VB in just for empower self, you're relying on a one of in your deck to let you do that, and if you do have other weapons then it's not hard to just play those and use VB on those instead. Enraptured on investigating is nice, but Read the Signs already does that anyway, on top of boosting your investigating power enough that you're unlikely to fail the test, thereby all but guaranteeing the Enraptured charge. Deduction with Sixth Sense/Rite also sounds nice, but again it's adding a dead card into your deck unless you have some way to investigate normally that isn't dependent on the one of card. For Marie in particular that seems really bad because Deduction is eating two of your five splash slots and she didn't need to use the investigating spells anyway, so switching icons isn't so meaningful for her. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
@StyxTBeuford not to mention it’s a limit 1/deck for each Empower, making this janky combination extremely unreliable. — unremb · 254
@StyxTBeuford my bad... didn't notice you already mentioned that it's 1/deck in your comment. I'm liking Empower Self less and less :-( — unremb · 254
As you'd probably expect, it's on a par with other on-demand +2 boosting assets. Well Connected can boost any test but requires you to keep 10 resources on hand. Cornered requires you to discard a card every time you use it. This doesn't have any activation cost so in that sense it's superior, but it requires a greater resource cost to get all the boosts into play, takes up an arcane slot and uses up more of your deck space. That seems about right tbh. We wouldn't want it to be much more powerful. I think it'll likely find a home in off-class mystics more commonly, who don't have access to the higher level spell assets or who don't have very high willpower. — Sassenach · 180
I didn't say that it is a very good by itself. It is niche card that serves a specific purpose and that it does well. Only the skill boost is once per turn. The stat change can be applied at any time. That makes it useful for building combo decks. — Skeith · 2444
For example I am currently trying to abuse defiance and dark prophecy to draw bad tokens and negate them most turns. To do this I use dream enhancing serum and lab assisstant to hold the entire deck without discarding. This enables redrawing everything you play in action via feed the mind. Why is that good? Because with knowledge is power you can use feed the mind to redraw everything fast and thus have every powerful once or twice per game event available on every action. This also enables you activating spell assets from hand. No need to worry about arcane slots at all. I actually use six. 2 from sign magick and 2 in hand. The only thing missing was something to consistently recharge the played spells without spending an action. Rapture fits the bill but was not playable with clue spells aside from guiding stones. This fixes that nicely. — Skeith · 2444
Given your requirements, I gather you're referring to Marie Lambeau. I don't see why you wouldn't just use the Archaic Glyphs then, instead of jumping through hoops using Empower Self. Other candidates are Daisy Walker and Akachi Onyele; Daisy is already discussed above and Akachi would prefer to use her 5 willpower vs 2 intellect. — unremb · 254
You are correct of course. But I have developed the deck basically to make bad token fishing worthwhile via consistently replaying dark prophecy. And I wanted to use as many bonus effects that trigger of it. So sixth sense > archaic glyphs. But yes, the latter would save me some headache. I also included jewel of aurelious even though alchemical transmutation 2 is far more effective generating resources then used with knowledge is power. Neither Akachi nor Daisy can pull off what I want to do here. Only Ms. Lambeau has access to both feed the mind and the high level mystic spells. — Skeith · 2444
@Sassenach I think it's not truly on par with other +2 boosting assets. Cornered has the benefit of being able to activate more than once per round. Well Connected can boost an insane amount for any test if resources permit (e.g. Preston/Sefina moneybags). Well Prepared does not take up any slots. Quick Study's cost is prohibitive, though certain builds depend on the clue manipulation afforded by it. I think the resource and the slot cost for Empower Self might be too much, looking at it from purely the 1/round +2 to 1 stat point of view. Perhaps it might improve with future expansions adding new combinations. — unremb · 254

Dream Diary

Dream Diary

This looks fantastic for Minh Thi Phan with Analytical Mind.

Not only is Minh more likely to interpret the dreams successfully over the course of a scenario (with the need to over-commit for The King in Yellow), Minh can effectively give a +2-5 (possibly +6/7 with Grisly Totem (3)) boost to any skill test for any investigator each round, with greater flexibility over turn order as well as the option to save it for the next round.
With Dream-Enhancing Serum, Minh should easily be able to reach and hold 8+ cards in her hand each round.
Unfortunately, it will take up one of her hand slots which is generally reserved for Ancient Stone (4) and The King in Yellow, albeit the latter being involuntary.
I can also see this doing well in a Daisy Walker deck.

Any other suggestions on who else it would be good with?

unremb · 254
Mandy seems like a pretty solid pick as well since she just searches double. Daisy and Minh are my top picks, but it is funny that they both have hand slot weaknesses. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
The other version that triggers off a shroud 4 location would work brilliantly with the command centre version of Minh. She can set up shop on a high shroud location and then fire off a +5 boost anywhere on the map. — Sassenach · 180
@Sassenach you're right! — unremb · 254
@StyxTBeuford for Mandy's ability to double search, do you mean to fill her hand quickly to 8+ cards? cos you can't use it for bonded cards. — unremb · 254
Yes I mean it in regards to filling her hand fast. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
@StyxTBeuford makes sense. Mandy also has limited use for her Arcane slots so can probably squeeze in the Dream-enhancing serum. — unremb · 254
How many Essence of Dreams can you have? If you get one on a turn, and don't use it, does it last in your hand until the next turn, joined by yet another copy? — Phelpsb83 · 215
You're limited to one copy. Just make sure you use it every turn and then it pops right back at the start of the next. — Sassenach · 180
What if I have two copies of Dream Diary in play? — Phelpsb83 · 215
You still just get the one copy. If they’re different upgrades they’ll apply their bonuses to the same single Essence. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Hand slot limitations? Sounds like a job for Arcane Enlightenment (from the upcoming Harvey Walters Deck), also gives you +1 hand size limit. I feel like that might end up being a good card with all of the tome stuff that's been teased recently. — Zinjanthropus · 230
I'm planning on using this as part of my Lucid Dreaming Mandy Rouge deck. Dream Enhancing Serum + Lucid Dreaming + Mandy's On-Card Special + having three different sets of Myriad cards (segment of Onyx, Three Aces, and Easy Mark) = Staying above 8 cards. I’m looking forward to trying it out! — PanicMoon · 2
That FAQ entry really needs to be put in these card entry pages because it's quite surprising you can't have at least one bonded card per copy. — Timlagor · 6
Amanda Sharpe can use this every other turn under her. It also helps keeping her hand big, as you then keep the second draw while using the 4 wild Essence. — Kidaf · 6
If I control two copys of dreams of a child does essence of dreams has ?? ?? ?? icons? — Unterberg84 · 1