EDIT: Complete review overhaul. The old one was just wrong and 8 months later and several decks trying it out later it's time to rewrite it.

So. Evading. A strategy that may or may not be very useful depending on your investigator and campaign. The old Pickpocketing grants cards on successful evades and isn't fast. The cost, action to play and the slow pace at which it returns on it's commitment is just too damn slow, thus Pickpocketing "classic" is a terrible terrible card, another downer for a strategy that didnt have too much support when the game was brand new.

Things have changed quite a bit since then, the full campaign maps are generally less claustrophobic than the core campaign and less populated with stuff that you need or want to kill, cards like Lockpicks, Lola Santiago and Ornate Bow exist now, making based characters more powerful, more consistent and all-round better (not that every would pick the bow but the option is there). In fact the latest campaign greatly rewards sustained evasion.

So, back to Pickpocketing. Here are some strong points in the cards favor:

• The fast keyword means that you never need to play this until the exact moment that the benefits would be useful.

• The flexible choice between Resource or Card means that you can shift gears depending on what you need at the moment, not to mention the double benefit from overkilling the test.

• The card enables sustained spending on evasion checks in the same way Dr. Milan Christopher enables sustained spending on Higher Education. You can use the cash from Pickpocketing to fund the use of Streetwise, and in turn the success bonus/overkill bonus might actually net you your investment back. Unlike Dr. Milan Christopher however you may have 2 copies of Pickpocketing in play at once!

• Like Rabbit's Foot, a card that turns risky tests into Win/Win situations, Pickpocketing turns evade attempts, which to some might be considered "lost" actions, into far far more useful actions that simultaneously keep you safe and help fund your future actions. Imagine a card that said " Exhaust: You get 1 resource when you hit something." Said card would be in every deck.

Note that the option to gain resources from evades is the mechanic that really makes/breaks this card in comparison to the 0xp version. The ability to fund successful evades with past successful evades give you sustained test-effectiveness. it's impossible to predict exactly how many evades you will succeed on in a scenario, but I bet a dude like Finn or Wendy might be required to evade 6+ times in a given scenario, not counting failed tests, with this in play that'd net you 6+ resources and/or 6+ cards. A, fast, 2 cost card netting you so much returns is obviously terrific.

Do consider Pickpocketing when you build an based investigator, especially if you have stuff like Lola Santiago, Trench Coat or Peter Sylvestre in it to raise your base value into 5+ territory. Lola Santiago + Pickpocketing is a good combo in of itself since the evade actions can now fund your clue gathering like never before.

Standard cost of a weakness is 3 actions :

• One action since you don't draw a card in compensation
• Two actions to get rid of the weakness Depending on how much you draw, you draw a weakness between half of the time and 5 times over 6. Lets average it to 2/3. So in average, a weakness make you lose 2 actions each game.

This weakness make you lose two actions at the start of the game :

• No surprise. Determinism is always a good thing, since you can build against.
• The other players can compensate you inefficiency in the first few turns.
• You are less likelly to draw a weakness. Drawing a weakness while searching for a solution to a problem is a VERY bad news. You are significantly reducing the probabilities of a bad news.

So except if you planed to "rush" trough the scenario (which is reasonnable when playing alone), this weakness is better than the "standard weakness".

Is it worth it?

Actually no. There are better weapons than this in the upgrade guardian store.

The only thing that this weapon can fit into a deck is if you focus on an expensive build on multiplayer and you only have a few xp to spare. Otherwise dont spent xp on this one.

I'm surprised that the top review of this weakness calls it very mild. I consider it way worse than average. It's probably not the worst weakness in the game (Overzealous exists, and I'm no fan of Amnesia) but it's quite bad.

Now, you might argue that Indebted has two things going for it. First, it only takes away two resources. That doesn't seem too bad. A run-of-the-mill weakness like Haunted or Chronophobia probably takes away two actions (actions being more valuable than resources), and something like Paranoia has the potential to take away a lot more than two resources. Second, you'll obviously never draw Indebted, so it won't cost you a card as other weaknesses do. And if you're Indebted, your odds of drawing any other specific card you want in your deck are ever so slightly higher.

But I still consider this weakness terrible. First: it hits you every single game. There are no reprieves. A good rule of thumb is that a standard scenario lasts about ~12 turns, all things considered. There are 28 or more cards in your deck after your opening hand. That means that as long as you're not spending a ton of actions drawing cards, there is a pretty decent chance you will never draw your basic weakness. Or, if you do draw it, you might draw it so late in the game that it doesn't matter (there are many weaknesses that can simply be shrugged off if drawn late enough). This will never be the case with Indebted, which will always hurt you.

Second, the cost of two resources may not seem that bad, but in fact they are more significant than they seem, because resources are at their most valuable on turn 1. Almost every investigator needs to play key assets to be effective, and needs to get them out ASAP. Wendy wants Leo De Luca and Fire Axe. Daisy wants Old Book of Lore and Dr. Milan Christopher. Agnes wants Shrivelling and Peter Sylvestre (and probably many other things besides.) Notice how all these investigators want cards that combined cost 6+ resources. Notice also how many of these cards grant lasting benefits and are therefore weaker the later they are played. Being Indebted makes these starts agonizingly slow. Unless you are lucky enough to draw Emergency Cache and the key assets in question, you'll have to choose between spending multiple "take a resource" actions (which slows you down a lot) or not getting your critical assets out for several turns (which also slows you down a lot.) You'll be faced with this every single game. On the first turn, resources are almost as important as actions, and Indebted costs you two. Every time.

You might say "just build your deck with Indebted in mind." Well, first, investigators are just flat-out less effective without their key assets, so avoiding some of your investigator's most powerful cards to play around your weakness is not a great solution. Moreover, by the rulebook you get your weakness after building your deck. So this is not really an option.

There may be some investigators who might not care too much about it, like Dark Horse Pete (though I think even he finds it a little irritating.) But by and large, this is a really harsh weakness.

On my private list of "Horrible things that Cthulhu did to mankind" there's Black Plague in the number one spot, but then there's this card in close second place.

Encounter cards are like Twinkies: sure it might be thrilling to have one once in a while, but eat too many at once and boy, you know you're in trouble. Having to draw one encounter card per round is the norm. If you are a mystic at heart you have cards like Drawn to the Flame that gives you 2 clues for your trouble, or Delve Too Deep to gain that precious XP. Basic Weaknesses obviously lie in different category than regular player cards, but I want to sketch out the idea of how much enounter cards are worth in terms of gain, so that, by analogy, we can try to understand how much you lose if you draw a bunch of them - which will happen at some point, if you find yourself mildly Overzealous.

All Basic Weaknesses (excluding obvious Indebted) deny you draw of one card and additionally put on you some kind of penalty: some of these penalties are immediate (like Amnesia) other give you time to deal with them, before they start to become the problem (for example Psychosis or Chronophobia). (Additionally, that shows the standard of how much inconvinience average Basic Weakess should provide: aproximately loss of two actions - assuming you don't want to suffer consequences.) Obviously the immediate ones tend to be worse, mainly because you have no control over them, they don't offer you any substantial choices. Overzealous, sadly, belongs to the first group, but the worst part is yet to come.

Now, let's see what happens, when you draw Overzealous during your upkeep:

• denied card draw;
• you draw at least two encounter cards, PLUS one more in mythos phase: effectively, you draw at least 3 encounter cards before you can do anything again;
• your prognosis of the start of your next action phase might be extremely different.

One might say: "Bah, of course it's gonna be different! Tis the Arkham, you fool!" - and on that note I agree, but it's all about the scope. You expect to get hit by something, or to be engaged with one enemy at the start of your next turn... But what about having three enemies on you, or having just one, but being severely damaged due to failed skill checks? Or pulling a bunch of Acolytes and learing that whoops! - agenda is going to advance two rounds earlier...? That's a different beast entirely. Additionally, this card, unlike other Basic Weaknesses, scales with the scenario you're playing, meaning that the harder the scenario is (or the later in the campaign you are), the worse Overzealous gets. Drawing this one card, like no other Basic Weakness, might be the end of the road for you, just by the fact of how little control you have over it and how far it can set you back, compared to other Basic Weaknesses.

Are there any good news? There are! In multiplayer it's much easier to deal with the encounter cards with staying effects (mainly enemies), as your friends can always help and taunt them off you. Another good news is that if the first encounter card drawn from the revelation effect already has surge, that card cannot gain additional surge! Hooray...? Bad news is that if the second card drawn from the surge of first card, has surge, you will chain even more encounter cards. So there's that.

This encounter card is probably the worst weakness for true solo decks, as it will thoroughly test your luck stat - which sadly, you can't boost. However, even in group play there will be times, when you'll draw perfect storm from the encouter deck, and in your powerlessness, you will weep: "Cthulhu, deliver us!" But in return, thou shall only hear chaos tokens, shuffling in the bag of tentacle wonder. And you will repent for not believing this review.