So I’m going to be starting a game of Carcosa soon and I’m trying out the Purple Trumpet Player character (I forget his name). I threw together a deck but I’m having the problem that I’m not finding any consistent theme with purple like I have with previous games with other characters.

Is there any decent guide or advice people could give me? Other decks I’ve built always seem to come together with a synergy and a game plan where purple just seems to be “there are a few very strong cards (some of which have large downsides) so just draw to see what I get and play them. “

1 hour ago, Tetsubo517 said:

Is there any decent guide or advice people could give me? Other decks I’ve built always seem to come together with a synergy and a game plan where purple just seems to be “there are a few very strong cards (some of which have large downsides) so just draw to see what I get and play them. “

This is pretty much the theme for Mystics. They're very flexible and can be really good at anything, but they're entirely dependent on their spells to do it. Build for ways to find your spells, afford to play them, and recycle them if possible. Jim (the trumpet guy) can take 5 Level 0s, which makes No Stone Unturned a very good option for finding those spells. Eureka! can be a good choice for that as well.

There's also a theme for Mystics around manipulating doom, but IMHO it's not developed well enough yet to make it worthwhile.

You asked about Jim, but I think Akachi is an excellent beginner's Mystic. She's a surprisingly strong all-purpose character, and she has very few splash options at this time, so building her deck is pretty simple. I rarely run out of spell charges with her, even with her weakness sucking them away. All of her allies carry doom, which makes them somewhat expendable. Play Arcane Initiate to help you dig for your spells, then later play Renfield or Alyssa (or take a Painkiller) to get the doom out of there. There's Moonlight Ritual, too, if you have qualms about killing off your own allies. Calling In Favors isn't bad either, letting you rotate your allies in and out of play.

I highly rate leveling Jim into 2 Songs of the Deads and keeping a ritual candle handy.

The issue with Jim is that he actually has lowish willpower for a mystic, which makes his spells a bit less reliable. On the other hand, he actually has the ability to fight decently with a combat of 3 if he has access to a weapon. I would consider using his level 5 0's as machetes (He will not need his hands for the spells, and may only need one hand for the trumpet), a couples overpowers and unexpected courages, and focus his spells more towards support and clue gathering via delve too deep, rite of seeking, drawn to the flame, ward of protection.

Maybe even pick up a few seeker lvl 0 cards to enhance his ability to gather clues, or a couple copies of fieldwork to give you a bit more flexibility when it comes to pulling tokens for various effects.

NOTE: I don't have any experience playing Jim, this is just what I would do.

You should be forewarned that Jim is probably the toughest of the Mystic nuts to crack. I play a lot of mystic, and by now I have enough of a feel for it that mystic decks sort of build themselves for me, but not so with Jim. Jim is a very, very tricky customer, and even when built well he doesn't shine as well as Akachi or Agnes IMO. He is a very different sort of mystic, but he can be strong in larger games as sort of a support character because his Trumpet is pretty good. Anyway, I hope you're in it for the long haul buddy, cause here we go!

Jim has 1 less point of Willpower than Akachi does, so he needs to take full advantage of the 5 out-of-class cards he can pick. That's really all he's got that Akachi doesn't, so you need to bring the heat with those 5 cards. So...

Aaargh, the entire 0 level card pool at my fingertips, what should I take?!

Lone Wolf: Any way you slice it, Lone Wolf is a good card. It's so outrageously good, it's worth including in absolutely anybody who possibly can take it. It does have a bit of anti-synergy with Jim because as I mentioned Jim is better in higher player counts and Lone Wolf is better in lower player counts, but hey, what are you going to do? It's still jaw-dropping value.

No Stone Unturned: This card is one that I recommend for Jim, and not too many other characters. You are searching for Jim's trumpet, and anything that helps you get it as fast as possible makes you that much stronger. I've had good success with this.

Liquid Courage: This is a specific include if you are planning to use Level-5 shriveling in your campaign. Shriv-5 eats through your sanity like nobody's business, so trumpet or no, you might want a bit of back up, and Liquid Courage is very good sanity healing for a mystic and for dirt cheap, no slot. If you're planning to run lean on Shriv-3, then maybe you don't need this, otherwise, highly recommend.

Lucky: I pretty much am never sorry to have this card in my hand. Lucky is just good and Jim can take it, so it's never a bad include.

Dodge: This is just a good card.

Fire Axe: Jim's non-spell weapon of choice I think. I prefer this over Machete for the larger potential combat bonus.


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Hey? What about Leo de Luca or Peter Syvestre? They're pretty sweet, am I rite?

Yes they are, but be careful. Arcane Initiate is pretty much required for any serious mystic, you want her as your ally. If you're planning to go the charisma route then either one of these is pretty killer, but if not you'd rather have Arcane Initiate.

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Great, I'm all set for.... 5 cards. How about 25 more?

Right then.

Arcane Initiate: there's two.
Delve too Deep: Four.
Shriveling: Six.
Rite of Seeking: eight.
Holy Rosary: ten
Ward of Protection: twelve.

Cool, so you've made half your deck now and you haven't actually picked anything. Let's move right along with things that actually take a bit more thought.

Uncage the Soul: Okay, this is probably almost an auto-include. Fourteen.
Moonlight Ritual: You only really want this if you are doing a Blood Pact thing, but.... You ARE doing the blood pact thing because otherwise that's sad and get the heck out of purple. Sixteen.
Fearless: This is my preferred skill card for mystics because hey, free sanity healing.
Clarity of Mind: Definitely pick up if you didn't take Liquid Courage. Even if you did, you might still consider it.
Drawn to the Flame: Pretty good.
Knife: You'll replace this later, but not a bad starter card for Jim. since he does have 3 combat.
Flashlight: Decent starter card, might be replaced. Make sure you're watching how many hand items you're including in your deck. So far I've mentioned Knife, this, fire axe, and don't forget Jim's trumpet too. All of these are good picks but Jim can have hand problems.
Fine Clothes: Campaign specific, but again, not a bad starter card, to be replaced later.
Emergency Cache: always worth a thought.
Unexpected Courage: I prefer this over Guts just for the extra versatility.
Forbidden Knowledge: Because who needs sanity when you can have money?
Astral Travel: I think this is expensive, but if unbridled mobility is your thing, go nuts.
Arcane Studies: Surprisingly, you *can* run without this if you need to. But it's still pretty good, and very useful if you're playing the Lone Wolf game.
Hypnotic Gaze: An expensive version of Dodge, but hey, I said Dodge was pretty good right? I usually take this and fine it useful. Plus, dat art.
Blinding Light: If you feel like it.
Painkiller: This is really very handy for Jim. Ideally your sanity is under control and you can heal HP with this, beyond that it's cheap and slotless. Good pick.

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Sweet, but I why aren't I picking....

Defiance? : You're physically hurting me right now.
Ritual Candles? : Because it takes one of your hands and you need those. Besides that, it's not really that good. And somehow half the community has it in their heads that this is good for Jim because he wants to draw the skull. Ok, so to that point first, he does *want* to draw the skull, but wishing don't make it so. Second, doesn't that make it actually *worse* for Jim because skulls are 0? He doesn't need an extra +1 bonus at that point.
Alyssa or Renfield? : I actually REALLY like Alyssa. I would take her if I'm planning on going Charisma. Otherwise watch your ally slots.
Torrent of Power? : I doubt this is going to be good but I'm going to use it myself anyway, and I wouldn't blame you if if you do as well. Sometimes we have to do things in style.

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Can I get an XP progression up in here?

Absolutely. First you'll want to take anything that is required for your build, and also upgrading your 'core' cards. to that end:

Charisma: if you're doing this.

Blood Pact: Yep.
Shriveling-3: Hold off on the level 5 version for now. Shriv-3 first, Shriv-5 later once you've got your other staples in place.
Rite of Seeking-4: Pretty good too.
Spirit Athame: This will replace your Knife. This card is oh, so good. An absolute STEAL for 1 xp.

Grotesque Statue: One of the better picks for Jim. But watch your hands. Jim has hand problems. I've run Bandolier before but found it not worth it. Just be careful not to wreck yourself.

Fearless-2: Handy to have around for insta-heals.
After that it's pretty much whatever you like: That Recharge looks pretty handy. Maybe Grounded? I've never played it but maybe. Jewel is good but if you want it you probably want to pick up Relic Hunter too. Song of the Dead is nice for a 1 damage poke.

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Got some ideas? I tried to tailor to Jim, but most of this can apply to all mystics. Hope it helps, happy deck building. Go get 'em, tiger.

My overall take on Jim is as follows:

1. He has fairly decent chaos bag mitigation due to skulls being zero. You can usual get away with checking skills 1 lower than everyone else. That can also be interpreted as him having +1 in all skills.

2. His stat line of 4-3-3-2 means he can be pretty good with both his hands and his spells. Use all 4 slots. Use the splash cards to fill in.

When I ran him (pre Carcosa), the key cards I used were Rite of Seeking, Machete and Moonlight Rituals. I then picked up Blood Pact asap. There were points where he was out clueing Rex and there were points where he was out killing Roland (with BP he attacks with a 7). I never did get a combat spell. Okay I did get Song of the Dead, but I never used it, Machete did fine.

That was my take. Just design a deck around the above 2 points and you will do good with him.

On 2/2/2018 at 4:59 PM, awp832 said:

Jim has 1 less point of Willpower than Akachi does

A lot of people overstate the impact of this. Yes, it's lower, but Jim's ability to zero out skulls will typically mean that he takes two or three negatives out of the bag. Statistically, that will mean that for a lot of tests Jim's 4 will succeed as often as a 5.

Consider a 4 target with no skill boosts, using the standard Dunwich bag and a skull that's at least -2 (which will usually be the case). A 5 succeeds on 6 tokens, while Jim succeeds on 5. Not a huge difference. On hard and expert, it's even.

Admittedly that means his ability brings him back to par with the other mystics when casting spells, so doesn't that leave him with no ability? Not really. There are also plenty of scenarios where the skull can rack up enough of a modifier to basically be another auto-fail for anyone but Jim. It also works on any check, not just willpower, which is something the others will struggle with.

Jim tends to get a bad rap because his effect is very subtle, but once you run out the math it's far better than most people credit it for.

I'm not sure I'm really following that logic. So, let's take the Dunwich Legacy campaign, for an example.

At the start of the campaign, there are 15 tokens in the bag (standard) and 16 tokens in the bag on hard. 2 of those are Skull tokens. So, let's presume for now that every time Jim draws the skull, ever, he passes a check he otherwise would have failed (a big IF, as I will get to later, but let's start there for now...). If that's the case, Jim's ability helps him 1 out of every 8 checks, more or less. Throughout the campaign you'll be adding more tokens to the bag, none of which are skulls, so it will help him a little less, maybe 1 out of 9 checks.

Now let's look at just what having an extra willpower does for you. Now, disclaimer, this is only for willpower checks and doesn't affect non-wp checks, as Jim's ability does, so it's not a quite even comparison, but again, let's just start here. But essentially, you have to look at the tokens in the bag, check what you're going for, and see how many times where Akachi's extra point of Willpower will pass a check Jim will fail. If Jim needs -2 or better, Akachi only needs -1 or better. On Standard that's 3 times. On hard mode that's 2 times. If Jim needs -3 or better than Akachi needs -2 or better. Standard or hard mode, that is 2 times. You can make this comparison in every instance. You'll see that the extra point of WP means Akachi more than keeps pace with Jim's skull ability.

Now, let's get back to the caveats I omitted at the beginning. Yes, Akachi's extra WP only works for WP tests, but that ought to be the vast majority of tests you are doing as a Mystic anyway. Incidentally, Akachi ALSO has 1 extra point of evade compared to Jim, which means all the above calculations are true for Evade checks as well as Willpower checks. Leaving Jim's ability only giving him any real advantage over Akachi in Combat checks and Intellect checks. Jim on the other hand, isn't going to be saved by his ability every time he draws a skull. That is to say, if skulls are -2 and Jim would have succeeded on a -2, than Jim's ability isn't helping him. So it only helps Jim if he otherwise would be failing. A very small minority of the time even when he draws the skull. Jim's ability is the most helpful when he draws a skull on those specific scenarios where the skull token gets to an outrageous negative modifier. It's least helpful when the skull token makes you draw another token, which happens several times in Carcosa scenarios. Then his ability is not helpful in any way whatsoever (his trumpet aside).

You might think that after all this it seems that Jim and Akachi are pretty close to even, maybe Akachi a bit on top, but slightly. I agree with that assessment. The problem then is that Akachi has another character ability on top of all this. Ouch. This is why I saw Jim's only real advantage over Akachi is if you'd rather the Trumpet over Spirit Speaker, and those 5 out of class cards.