Hello!

Sorry if this has been asked before. I saw a thread about it as well in bgg but most answers were "there are plenty of ways" but no detail.

I understand food rations can help get rid of face up fear / damage and so can the musician class (but it seems only the high xp cards).

I don't have the food rations in my current campaign and seems to late to multiclass to a musician, so what other ways are there to get rid of horrid face up damage / fear cards? Last game I got a card that stopped me from putting cards back on top of the deck when scouting which was extremely frustrating.

Thanks in advance!

I don't know of any other cards. Most of the time, I just take the face-up damage/fear cards on the chin. They're all survivable, but they can make life much more challenging, especially the Fear card that gives you another Fear at the end of every turn!

Hello!

What you're running into is a very important game mechanic: The "stickiness" of face-up damage or fear. It's meant to be annoying and hard to play around, and it also helps to give the musician a niche role, since musician isn't too good in smaller parties, really.

Here's some other ideas for mitigating the effect of "exhaustion" specifically (the one that prevents putting cards on top of the deck when you scout):

1) Choose success cards that you would actually like to prepare:

-if you can't put successes on top, at least make sure they'll be useful when prepared!

2) Focus on using your XP or choosing a role for cards that can generate inspiration:

-Inspiration is always good to have so this shouldn't hurt your game

-Burglar role is good for this ("Quiet" generates inspiration when using hidden, and self sufficient economizes successes)

-Pathfinder role is good for this

-Cards like "On the Hunt" (hunter)

3) If you're combat-oriented, focus on getting cards with "strike", so you can do damage regardless of drawing successes or not:

-hunter role

-most roles have access to cards with "strike"

4) Don't neglect scouting:

-scouting is still useful despite being exhausted, unless you know for sure that all that's left are consecutive success cards. You will be able to prepare something, and you'll gain information on what's left in your deck.

5) Work together:

-stay near a party member with the harp, banner, or other inspiration generating mechanics (eg. Elena, musician role)