These things must be selling well, considering how the release schedule seems to be accelerating!

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/3/7/the-deep-gate/

Or that they had 5 novellas planned and are releasing them as the writers finish up the stories.

If they announce a sixth book, then we know it's a success.

1 hour ago, Somatose Boy said:

Or that they had 5 novellas planned and are releasing them as the writers finish up the stories.

Admittedly, that is the more likely scenario.

I suspect they had them all written prior to the 1st one being released. Most of the cost is in printing rather than the writing costs.

My primary speculation is "Shape of Water" just won best picture and now is the time to capitalize on any and all fishmen related fiction.

I always though he was a tad to good looking to be part fishman (okay allegedly part fishman)

I'm not sure the release schedule is actually accelerating, they're just starting to put them up for preorder with a little more lead time.

The necessary reprint of Hour of the Huntress is probably the best sign that they're doing at least as well as FFG expected.

He will be tighter on Sanity than Skids with a 2 will and even less Sanity. His ability should be able to mitigate that a lot, plus survivor has a lot of cards that can help. Will is one of their key attributes too. So maybe not as tough as Skids. You do have to build him with Sanity in mind.

I kind of expected him to be a Rogue but Survivor works as well. Overall, his abilities seem to be based around hedging. Obligatory statement: I wonder what his deck building requirements will be? Slightly surprised he is so skill based. Not that it doesn't work, but typically his abilities have always been movement based and other investigators tend to be more skill based (Amanda). I doubt he will have the same class split as Wendy or William. I am expecting something a tad complicated like Marie. I know I will be putting a lot of skills in his deck.

His elder sign ability is bonkers, probably the best in the game. You need to make sure you ditch a skill card with ? early in the game even if you don't really need it. His normal ability is also very good, looks like a natural for Stroke of Luck and he can do some craziness with Resourceful. At a minimum, his abilities make investing in high level skill cards more valuable than they otherwise would be.

Whatever his deckbuilding requirements may be he looks solid i really like his abilities, maybe he can make a strong combo with Minh. Man really i hate the artwork on almost every novella investigtor... but at least in this case i love the art on his personal cards.

On 3/8/2018 at 4:51 AM, Jobu said:

His elder sign ability is bonkers, probably the best in the game.

That feels overstated to me. Committing out of your discard pile is rarely going to help, unless you're in a super-desperate "Pray for the Elder Sign or I lose" sort of test. So it's basically "Return a Skill card to your hand". The commit is actually a limitation, bounding the cards you can return based on the type of test.

That's good, but not much different than you get out of Yorick. Again, odds are you're going to succeed if you pull the Elder Sign (and with Yorick being +2 the only difference would be if you're somehow getting a 3 skill icon card back). So Yorick can pull anything back, while Silas is limited to Skills that happen to match the test you're currently doing.

So it's good and useful, but strictly inferior to Yorick. I'd argue that Daisy, Rex, and Zoey also all have better abilities (although Zoey's being limited to attacks is obviously a drawback, it's such a major benefit it's hard to not like it more).

7 hours ago, Buhallin said:

That feels overstated to me. Committing out of your discard pile is rarely going to help, unless you're in a super-desperate "Pray for the Elder Sign or I lose" sort of test. So it's basically "Return a Skill card to your hand". The commit is actually a limitation, bounding the cards you can return based on the type of test.

That's good, but not much different than you get out of Yorick. Again, odds are you're going to succeed if you pull the Elder Sign (and with Yorick being +2 the only difference would be if you're somehow getting a 3 skill icon card back). So Yorick can pull anything back, while Silas is limited to Skills that happen to match the test you're currently doing.

So it's good and useful, but strictly inferior to Yorick. I'd argue that Daisy, Rex, and Zoey also all have better abilities (although Zoey's being limited to attacks is obviously a drawback, it's such a major benefit it's hard to not like it more).

I can see your point but his Elder Sign effect isn't strictly inferior to Yorick's. Yorick's effect "only" gives you a card back from the discard pile. In Silas' case, the card is commited to the test. You're right, in most cases you are successful anyhow if you get the +0. But you get every effect from the commited skill card: With Resourceful, you get another red card back. With Guts/Overpowered/Perception/Manual Dexterity, you can draw another card. Depending on his Deckbuilding Options, you can use Viscious Blow, Deduction etc. for their effect. And you always know if the effect will trigger or not.

I don't say his effect is better than Yorick's but it isn't strictly inferior.

16 hours ago, Astrophil84 said:

I can see your point but his Elder Sign effect isn't strictly inferior to Yorick's. Yorick's effect "only" gives you a card back from the discard pile. In Silas' case, the card is commited to the test. You're right, in most cases you are successful anyhow if you get the +0. But you get every effect from the commited skill card: With Resourceful, you get another red card back. With Guts/Overpowered/Perception/Manual Dexterity, you can draw another card. Depending on his Deckbuilding Options, you can use Viscious Blow, Deduction etc. for their effect. And you always know if the effect will trigger or not.

I don't say his effect is better than Yorick's but it isn't strictly inferior.

How good he is is really going to depend on how many, which and what level of skill cards he has access to. There are some great ones out there, and if you stock your discard appropriately, the Elder Sign could be really clutch for Silas.

Hard to say for sure without knowing his build restrictions.

On 9-3-2018 at 11:10 PM, player1631906 said:

Man really i hate the artwork on almost every novella investigtor... but at least in this case i love the art on his personal cards.

Really?

I actually love all the novella card art, especially for Silas and Carolyn (especially Foolishness and her treachery card). Roland’s alternate art is also cooler in my opinion. And Norman’s investigator art is So much better than the art used in Eldritch Horror or Elder Sign.

Am i missing something about Silas or am i the only one who think he may be a bit over the top?

With a single "Unexpected Courage" in hand, he's basically: "Once per turn, gain +2 to ANY skill test" at no cost! You lose no resources and no cards in hand, since the skill returns even if you draw the tentacles and fail. This allows him to make a combat or evade test at 6 or willpower/intellect check at 4 since turn one. Sure once per turn, but still looks better than any previous investigator.

If you use "Overpower" instead, he can attack with 6 once and draw an extra card if successful EVERY TURN, if not, well he can just try again next turn.

With "Resourceful", he can get one lucky (or any other card) from discard pile every single turn as long as he succeeds a non-willpower test with a +1 bonus. And that's on top of his extra recursion if he draws an Elder Sign.

I like the ideia of Investigators based on Skill (Minh Thi Phan) cards instead of Assets (Pete) or Events (Sefina), but his base ability is basically Minh Thi Phan's ELDER SIGN ability (That you have an average 1/16 chance of triggering)...every turn for sure! How's that not power-creep?

What do you think?

52 minutes ago, Strilar said:

Am i missing something about Silas or am i the only one who think he may be a bit over the top?

With a single "Unexpected Courage" in hand, he's basically: "Once per turn, gain +2 to ANY skill test" at no cost! You lose no resources and no cards in hand, since the skill returns even if you draw the tentacles and fail. This allows him to make a combat or evade test at 6 or willpower/intellect check at 4 since turn one. Sure once per turn, but still looks better than any previous investigator.

If you use "Overpower" instead, he can attack with 6 once and draw an extra card if successful EVERY TURN, if not, well he can just try again next turn.

With "Resourceful", he can get one lucky (or any other card) from discard pile every single turn as long as he succeeds a non-willpower test with a +1 bonus. And that's on top of his extra recursion if he draws an Elder Sign.

I like the ideia of Investigators based on Skill (Minh Thi Phan) cards instead of Assets (Pete) or Events (Sefina), but his base ability is basically Minh Thi Phan's ELDER SIGN ability (That you have an average 1/16 chance of triggering)...every turn for sure! How's that not power-creep?

What do you think?

I think its very good, but not overpowered. Maybe you are not understanding the timing?

The skill you yank back to your hand does not count to the skill total. Notice the timing, when you reveal the chaos token, not after you resolve a skill check. Resourceful would yank back to his hand before resolving so you wouldn't be allowed to take a survivor card from your discard. Overpower wouldn't allow you to draw another card. etc.

It is still a good ability, it allows you to pull back cards in case of an exceptional or bad draw.

Does that change your take?

19 minutes ago, Jobu said:

The skill you yank back to your hand does not count to the skill total. Notice the timing, when you reveal the chaos token, not after you resolve a skill check. Resourceful would yank back to his hand before resolving so you wouldn't be allowed to take a survivor card from your discard. Overpower wouldn't allow you to draw another card. etc.

This is the important thing. It lets you pull back a skill card that didn't end up mattering - either because you would succeed without it, or fail even with it.

It's definitely solid, but I think you're misunderstanding how it works.

38 minutes ago, Jobu said:

I think its very good, but not overpowered. Maybe you are not understanding the timing?

The skill you yank back to your hand does not count to the skill total. Notice the timing, when you reveal the chaos token, not after you resolve a skill check. Resourceful would yank back to his hand before resolving so you wouldn't be allowed to take a survivor card from your discard. Overpower wouldn't allow you to draw another card. etc.

It is still a good ability, it allows you to pull back cards in case of an exceptional or bad draw.

Does that change your take?

That DOES changes my take, that's what i was missing thank you for opening my eyes!

Now Silas is a very interesting investigator based on skills but very different from Minh's Elder Sign thing which looked excessive if repeatable.

He also fits even more the Survivor theme now with the whole "if you fail a skill test you can still get something out of it". Good job design team!

Yeah it seems like there are two possible routes here. The first is overcommitting to tests and pulling back the excess once you know you're safe. The second is committing to get, say, 1 above threshold or even, and if you draw the -5 or another nasty hit, you can take the committed card back to hand - a failure's a failure, after all. It'll be really fascinating to play with and I'm sure be a lot of fun. Add deck building requirements into that mix and it's gonna be fantastico!

I missed the timing part as well. Not as good as i originally thought but still pretty good.

I think if he is able to rogue cards up to lvl 2, he might be in a good position to make use of all those succeed by 2 cards. Double or nothing seems nice on him too.