Is it just me or is Bast just.... not very useful? With multiple expansions in play I almost never see "The Story Continues" (I can't remember the last game in which I saw it. It must have been at least 10 games ago) and the odds of the first player having a token when that card shows up are slim. Not having monsters move into your location could be moderately useful, but carrying the tokens also requires that you cripple your focus to retain it.

I guess what I'm asking is... is there something I'm missing with this guardian?

Diluuuuuuuution, oh oh oh, diluuuuuuution...

That aside, no, you're perfectly right, man - and I can talk about it, since as a noob I know more about guardians than heralds !!

Joseph_Lavode said:

I'm very dissapointed. This guardian is so weak!

Joseph_Lavode said:

Trish Strat..., err, Scarborough laughs at the cost of spending your Focus . Wilson Richards as well IIRC the clarification on him.

Joseph_Lavode said:

Well, she is basically a god. They don't around that often.

As has been pointed out, there isn't much effect unless you are willing to feed cats very good and expensive food.

There's several things like this.

Velma's Gratitude. Is it worth an injury? What you get pretty much everything on the house for you and your friends but only at Velma's.

Condition: Investigators may ignore any money losses caused by Velma's Diner encounters and are always considered to have spent the maximum amount of money allowed during encounters there.

and

Rare book collection. Is it worth dropping of the Necronomicon so that anyone can lose a 1 Sanity to gain 1 Clue?

Condition: The Library has the following special ability:

Rare Book Collection: Instead of having an encounter here, you may lose 1 Sanity to gain 1 Clue token.

I've reprinted the herald so that it's $1 to feed cats (shouldn't be more than a steak dinner!) and that if the 1st player doesn't qualify for Beloved, she checks clockwise around the table until one is found (if there is one).

I agree that Bast has usually no effect, whatsoever on the game. We used the blessing/retainer system once you have fed the cats (loose the token if you roll a 1) and consider the "the stars are right" in the same way that "the story continues".

The Beloved card isn't the point; it's just a kind of 'easter egg'. (Even undiluted, it's unlikely to ever happen, since it's one Mythos card out of 80 or more, and in my experience the game doesn't usually last long enough to draw more than about 20-25 Mythos cards).

The really useful bit is the monster-blocking effect of the Bast tokens - although even then, it's only really useful if you're planning on adopting a certain play style.

I think Bast as printed works just fine, I don't see any need to make it more prominent in the game. It might only very rarely affect gameplay, but I like the way it has that one-in-a-hundred chance of giving investigators an unexpected boost. I think that's how all the Guardians should work, and I think Bast is the best of them.

-Villain

Ah, I think you might find the reason she isn't very useful is that she is more interested in cats than humans.

I can kind of see her point really. Humans are so....insignificant.