Hey gang, I have a question for everyone: Have you had investigators - or indeed cards - that you had previously written off, either because you didn't find them interesting on the face of it, or you played them and didn't enjoy it or grew out of them, only to pick them back up later on and be pleasantly surprised?

I've just started playing a campaign as Joe Diamond, an investigator I didn't really find interesting, whether because of my anti-seeker bias or because he seemed a bit dull in his focus on the random chance of his hunch deck. Inspired by a post on Reddit, I used the new Practice Makes Perfect and a deck focussed on accruing resources to pump into Physical Training and Hyperawareness, with relatively few assets and non-Hunch events. I've found a lot of enjoyment in mixing gambling on Practice Makes Perfect and carefully rationing my resources with the pump talents. My fellow player has taken Marie Lambeau out for a spin and found an unexpected amount of benefit from De Vermis Mysteriis - not enough to make the deck as effective as an optimal cookie-cutter Mystic, but enough for some clutch saves and cool feeling for gameplay.

Not only am I enjoying Joe Diamond, but I'm already thinking about how I would tweak the deck for a second playthrough - for one thing, Dr Milan Christopher was a mistake, and for another, I think I would want to take Dream Diary instead of Magnifying Glass.

Any similar stories anyone has to share - or indeed deck concepts you want to try, or investigators you'd like to try out but haven't found a deck idea that really appeals for you?

This happens to me every once in a while, but not as often as I'd like. I try to get outside of my wheelhouse as much as I can but there are a lot of cards that I just like using so much I struggle to find really new uses for cards that I've written off.

I think the one I MOST want to see someone find a solid use for is Guidance. I have NEVER used it. I like the idea, but when the goal of most scenarios is sucking up clues, I can't realistically think that I'll often have situations where my seeker will want to give an action away. Let alone at their own location. Let alone someone who hasn't gone yet. Usually if I can't take advantage of my actions, I don't really want to go first because it typically means that I'm pinned down.

I have very much enjoyed Practice Makes Perfect. It's great for seekers (deduction) or mystics who might make int checks like Marie (enraptured). Daisy can use both to good effect.

Act of Desperation was probably my biggest 'I've-been-sleeping-on-this-card' moment, but I think most people at this point realize how good it actually is.

Alchemical transmutation as fuel for Torrent of Power in Marie was fun.

A card I had relegated to the back of the closet until I recently dusted off Daisy, is Otherworld Codex. Interacting with the encounter deck during my turn always seemed counterintuitive since there is so much to do. But taking the opportunity to use a precious (pro)action during my turn, which rewards are often realized down the road, has had pretty good payout. We have discarded doom, enemies that could thwart us and treachery cards have that may have defeated us.

I’m interested in your experience with Joe Diamond, Allonym. I’ve only played him once shortly after his release and was frankly underwhelmed. The hunch deck felt clunky and rarely useful and he didn’t really contribute much to the group. I do believe the release of new cards interacting with older ones, can definitely pump new life into an investigator. I may have to give him another go.

47 minutes ago, Mimi61 said:

... by removing potential problems from the encounter deck...

I apologize if I'm misreading what you mean, but the Codex doesn't discard from the encounter deck. It discards a copy from play. If you find an Acolyte in the top nine cards, you get to discard an Acolyte from play, but the one you found in the search stays in the deck.

Yes it discards a copy from play, sorry I wasn’t more clear.

3 hours ago, Soakman said:

This happens to me every once in a while, but not as often as I'd like. I try to get outside of my wheelhouse as much as I can but there are a lot of cards that I just like using so much I struggle to find really new uses for cards that I've written off.

I think the one I MOST want to see someone find a solid use for is Guidance. I have NEVER used it. I like the idea, but when the goal of most scenarios is sucking up clues, I can't realistically think that I'll often have situations where my seeker will want to give an action away. Let alone at their own location. Let alone someone who hasn't gone yet. Usually if I can't take advantage of my actions, I don't really want to go first because it typically means that I'm pinned down.

So for Guidance, I think that it's a card that isn't for Seekers, but rather for off-class access to Seeker.

Not all actions are created equal. For a Mystic with Rite of Seeking, they might make a turn's worth of contribution with a single action, saving Rite of Seeking for the last action to make the symbol token backlash a non-issue; someone like Marie or Jim or Luke could use Guidance on a friendly investigator before that big test.

Rogues can gain a lot of actions but might struggle to optimally use them - after all, Lockpicks exhausts to use so Finn or Jenny might only be able to make one reliable Investigation per round and may be twiddling their thumbs drawing cards or whatever if they don't have anything worthwhile to play; the same applies for Big Money builds using Well Connected, as that also exhausts. "Ashcan" Pete also has a limitation in the form of Duke exhausting, and Roland Banks might be better off giving the Seeker an additional investigation rather than giving it a go with his 3 base intellect.

Additionally, the upcoming Survivor card Quick Learner gives you a penalty for your first action of the turn and a bonus for your third and subsequent actions, so Guidance could be a good way to use your first action and get around the penalty (by having someone else take over).

It could also be good as a combo piece with another investigator who can get huge bonuses for one round, extending the duration of an ally's Will To Survive or Red-Gloved Man etc.

Finally, it might be decent tech for investigators with access to Adaptable to sub in for specific scenarios where a single investigator might need to make a huge play - like those where one person needs to get the mcguffin to the objective, or a specific objective will come up that you can't contribute to but another investigator can.

I'm sure there's other potential applications...but I also kind of agree with your assessment. I've never really used it to great benefit and it doesn't see much play. It's not a strong card but I think it has potential in the right build.

2 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

I’m interested in your experience with Joe Diamond, Allonym. I’ve only played him once shortly after his release and was frankly underwhelmed. The hunch deck felt clunky and rarely useful and he didn’t really contribute much to the group. I do believe the release of new cards interacting with older ones, can definitely pump new life into an investigator. I may have to give him another go.

So my initial impression of Joe Diamond after seeing him played was much like yours. Building around the Hunch Deck made for underwhelming gameplay because your primary gimmick was pretty random and low-interaction. The conventional wisdom with the Hunch Deck is to fill it with cards that are usable almost any time to mitigate that randomness, but then the deck feels a bit like it's on autopilot. Trying to be both a seeker and a monster-hunter meant an expensive, slow, asset-heavy deck, and his low Willpower and Agility meant that he was pretty vulnerable to the encounter deck, encouraging you to save up for Higher Education and then pump willpower, at which point that became a non-issue.

The build I went for abandoned much of that conventional wisdom, and included relatively few assets - .45 Automatic, Magnifying Glass, Dr Milan, and crucially, 2x Hyperawareness and 2x Physical Training. I used a small number of events in my main deck, Crack the Case and Astounding Revelation for resources and the extremely important Practice Makes Perfect, and loads of skills - Perception, Deduction, Overpower, Vicious Blow, Take the Initiative and Daring.

The Hunch Deck was constructed to be more of a situational side-benefit rather than a main focus - Working a Hunch just because it's so efficient and thematic, No Stone Unturned and Preposterous Sketches in case I needed a card economy boost, and Emergency Aid and Logical Reasoning in case I got beaten up fighting monsters or had to take a nasty treachery on the chin. I used the card revealed from the Hunch Deck less than half the turns, which also had the benefit of making Unsolved Case a bit milder, and it felt fine because I already had loads of skills and talents to make use of.

My first upgrade was Physical Training (2) and Hyperawareness (2). It felt very unconventional and therefore quite pleasant. I can do a proper write-up on ArkhamDB if you prefer!

20 hours ago, Allonym said:

So my initial impression of Joe Diamond after seeing him played was much like yours. Building around the Hunch Deck made for underwhelming gameplay because your primary gimmick was pretty random and low-interaction. The conventional wisdom with the Hunch Deck is to fill it with cards that are usable almost any time to mitigate that randomness, but then the deck feels a bit like it's on autopilot. Trying to be both a seeker and a monster-hunter meant an expensive, slow, asset-heavy deck, and his low Willpower and Agility meant that he was pretty vulnerable to the encounter deck, encouraging you to save up for Higher Education and then pump willpower, at which point that became a non-issue.

The build I went for abandoned much of that conventional wisdom, and included relatively few assets - .45 Automatic, Magnifying Glass, Dr Milan, and crucially, 2x Hyperawareness and 2x Physical Training. I used a small number of events in my main deck, Crack the Case and Astounding Revelation for resources and the extremely important Practice Makes Perfect, and loads of skills - Perception, Deduction, Overpower, Vicious Blow, Take the Initiative and Daring.

The Hunch Deck was constructed to be more of a situational side-benefit rather than a main focus - Working a Hunch just because it's so efficient and thematic, No Stone Unturned and Preposterous Sketches in case I needed a card economy boost, and Emergency Aid and Logical Reasoning in case I got beaten up fighting monsters or had to take a nasty treachery on the chin. I used the card revealed from the Hunch Deck less than half the turns, which also had the benefit of making Unsolved Case a bit milder, and it felt fine because I already had loads of skills and talents to make use of.

My first upgrade was Physical Training (2) and Hyperawareness (2). It felt very unconventional and therefore quite pleasant. I can do a proper write-up on ArkhamDB if you prefer!

That sounds very interesting. Your original take on him is exactly how I felt playing him and how I built him. It felt like he was trying so hard to straddle the seeker/guardian line, that he just became mediocre at both.
I am very interested to give him another try. I love that it is unconventional. I want to find more unconventional builds for some investigators. It’s why I like the idea of the parallel investigator builds. A little more scope for the imagination! And this write up is great. Thank you so much for your insights.

2 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

That sounds very interesting. Your original take on him is exactly how I felt playing him and how I built him. It felt like he was trying so hard to straddle the seeker/guardian line, that he just became mediocre at both.
I am very interested to give him another try. I love that it is unconventional. I want to find more unconventional builds for some investigators. It’s why I like the idea of the parallel investigator builds. A little more scope for the imagination! And this write up is great. Thank you so much for your insights.

I'm a big fan of unconventional builds, as I guess a lot of people may have realised by now. At some point I really want to try a Roland Banks build that concentrates on dropping clues at his location and picking them back up with his ability, making use of Quick Study and either sticking with lower-level weapons like the .32 Colt (2) or moving towards Shotgun. And I really want to try out a Dark Horse Jenny build. I loved seeing Parallel Daisy in action (even if we lost the campaign in Black Stars Rise), she's much more appealing than base Daisy in terms of how interesting she is. Any particular investigators you want to try a new build idea for?

It also feels great to finally have come up with a Carolyn Fern build that works and does something cool and unique - I tinkered around with her for ages when I first got her, given how unconventional she was, but I never managed to put together a deck that worked how I wanted it to.

1 hour ago, Allonym said:

I'm a big fan of unconventional builds, as I guess a lot of people may have realised by now. At some point I really want to try a Roland Banks build that concentrates on dropping clues at his location and picking them back up with his ability, making use of Quick Study and either sticking with lower-level weapons like the .32 Colt (2) or moving towards Shotgun. And I really want to try out a Dark Horse Jenny build. I loved seeing Parallel Daisy in action (even if we lost the campaign in Black Stars Rise), she's much more appealing than base Daisy in terms of how interesting she is. Any particular investigators you want to try a new build idea for?

It also feels great to finally have come up with a Carolyn Fern build that works and does something cool and unique - I tinkered around with her for ages when I first got her, given how unconventional she was, but I never managed to put together a deck that worked how I wanted it to.

I have had a similar problem with Carolyn, and pull her out periodically to tweak her. She is getting better, but not spectacular yet. Your Roland idea sounds very entertaining. I would love to be a fly on the wall and see how that plays out!
A Dark Horse Jenny build? Now you are talking. It would pretty much put her signature card out of commission, but who cares? If you come up with a good one, I’m in! Straight 4’s with no resources except your charm and the power of being underestimated? Are you kidding?

As to Investigator builds I’m interested in playing around with... I have flirted with the idea of reworking Zoey from the ho hum weapon wielding Monster slayer she always is, to something more insidious. There is something a little bit creepy about her that I want to capitalize on. I’m trying to figure out what off class cards could enhance that and really want to limit her weapon pool. Maybe to just the knife family?

16 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

As to Investigator builds I’m interested in playing around with... I have flirted with the idea of reworking Zoey from the ho hum weapon wielding Monster slayer she always is, to something more insidious. There is something a little bit creepy about her that I want to capitalize on. I’m trying to figure out what off class cards could enhance that and really want to limit her weapon pool. Maybe to just the knife family?

If you're going for creepy, then what about including Blood Sacrifice as an upgrade. 🙂

30 minutes ago, ricedwlit said:

If you're going for creepy, then what about including Blood Sacrifice as an upgrade. 🙂

I had a blood eclipse Leo that freaked me out and made me feel downright insidious. With a will of 4, it's actually quite powerful on him. His constant guilt with his signature weakness Bought in Blood takes on an entirely new meaning when you take 8-10 allies with the intent of just killing them for blood rituals to get what you want.

Zoey could do something similar but it could be riskier as she doesn't get the benefit of efficient ally costs, but she does have a will of 4 and access to cheap survivor and seeker allies. I would say killing a lot of stray cats, Maleson (cheap cost 1), or art students (cheap testless clue + blood sacrifice) for blood magic is quite creepy.

22 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

I have had a similar problem with Carolyn, and pull her out periodically to tweak her. She is getting better, but not spectacular yet. Your Roland idea sounds very entertaining. I would love to be a fly on the wall and see how that plays out!
A Dark Horse Jenny build? Now you are talking. It would pretty much put her signature card out of commission, but who cares? If you come up with a good one, I’m in! Straight 4’s with no resources except your charm and the power of being underestimated? Are you kidding?

As to Investigator builds I’m interested in playing around with... I have flirted with the idea of reworking Zoey from the ho hum weapon wielding Monster slayer she always is, to something more insidious. There is something a little bit creepy about her that I want to capitalize on. I’m trying to figure out what off class cards could enhance that and really want to limit her weapon pool. Maybe to just the knife family?

The first step to making a Carolyn build I was genuinely happy with was abandoning the idea of using Peter Sylvestre. He's central to my previous, flawed approach which saw me wanting to assemble a powerful combo and create a formidable board state to crush the scenario.

Dark Horse Jenny would probably lean on High Roller to empty her resource pool, maybe Lone Wolf, and some combination of talent assets to further deplete her resources. I'm not convinced it would be a particularly fun build, though - just another variation of Jenny putting resources into talents. I enjoyed the Desperate Jenny build I played, but that was definitely on the janky side.

For Zoey, my groups actually have a name for such builds - "Knives Zoey". Machete plus Knife (nowadays you'd probably use Enchanted Blade), and they're pretty played out for us. However, I feel like Enchanted Blade (3) might be a good build for her, together with some tanking cards. I have a slight obsession with the Guardian .45 Thompson, and used it in a few Jenny builds, most recently with Well Connected.

For Blood Eclipse on Zoey builds, note that it has the Spirit trait. I think you could get a lot of mileage out of the upcoming Boxing Gloves, using her ability to pay for all the Spirit events, and fighting with Mk 1 Grenades and maybe Shrivelling. Take the tanking cards and utility cards with the Spirit trait (shame that Boxing Gloves can't target Solemn Vow), use Brother Xavier to soak horror and then dump damage onto him with Blood Eclipse for an obscene amount of damage to an enemy in one action. Thematically very weird but mechanically very cool.

Otherwise, I actually like Blood Eclipse more for Mark Harrigan, following the release of Spiritual Resolve, which seems like a pretty decent combination, assuming you aren't swamped with other sources of damage. Just only assign two damage to Spiritual Resolve so you can heal it with the other copies. What would be his main weapon in that case - Thompson? .32 Colt (2)? Telescopic Springfield relying on the new attack events for enemies in the same location (I'm... mostly joking)?

1 hour ago, Allonym said:

The first step to making a Carolyn build I was genuinely happy with was abandoning the idea of using Peter Sylvestre. He's central to my previous, flawed approach which saw me wanting to assemble a powerful combo and create a formidable board state to crush the scenario.

Dark Horse Jenny would probably lean on High Roller to empty her resource pool, maybe Lone Wolf, and some combination of talent assets to further deplete her resources. I'm not convinced it would be a particularly fun build, though - just another variation of Jenny putting resources into talents. I enjoyed the Desperate Jenny build I played, but that was definitely on the janky side.

For Zoey, my groups actually have a name for such builds - "Knives Zoey". Machete plus Knife (nowadays you'd probably use Enchanted Blade), and they're pretty played out for us. However, I feel like Enchanted Blade (3) might be a good build for her, together with some tanking cards. I have a slight obsession with the Guardian .45 Thompson, and used it in a few Jenny builds, most recently with Well Connected.

For Blood Eclipse on Zoey builds, note that it has the Spirit trait. I think you could get a lot of mileage out of the upcoming Boxing Gloves, using her ability to pay for all the Spirit events, and fighting with Mk 1 Grenades and maybe Shrivelling. Take the tanking cards and utility cards with the Spirit trait (shame that Boxing Gloves can't target Solemn Vow), use Brother Xavier to soak horror and then dump damage onto him with Blood Eclipse for an obscene amount of damage to an enemy in one action. Thematically very weird but mechanically very cool.

Otherwise, I actually like Blood Eclipse more for Mark Harrigan, following the release of Spiritual Resolve, which seems like a pretty decent combination, assuming you aren't swamped with other sources of damage. Just only assign two damage to Spiritual Resolve so you can heal it with the other copies. What would be his main weapon in that case - Thompson? .32 Colt (2)? Telescopic Springfield relying on the new attack events for enemies in the same location (I'm... mostly joking)?

Good thoughts on the Spirit trait connection with Boxing gloves and Blood Eclipse. I kind of like your idea of the Brother Xavier/Blood Eclipse combo, although thematically it truly is very weird. Although maybe no weirder than having a Guard Dog in Ulthar or a Beat Cop hanging out with Skids. Since I want to restrict Zoey’s weapon pool anyway, after Boxing Gloves was spoiled, thought a non-weapon toting Zoey would be an interesting twist for her. Spirit cards like One-two Punch, and Counterpunch, could point her persona in a different direction and Get Over Here plays right into her ability. It’s a shame that Brute Force isn’t available to her.

Mark Harrigan. The Spirtually Resolved Springfield Sniper?

I also ditched Peter Sylvester last time I played Carolyn. I went with Black Cat instead.

A possible way to deplete resources with Jenny could be the Small Favor, Intel Report and Decoy trio, or she could always pay Delilah O’Rourke to help out, thus killing two birds with one stone (preferably whippoorwills).

Boxing Gloves in general are a mess of amusing rules issues. It's easier to accurately throw grenades while wearing boxing gloves, who knew?

My latest unconventional deck idea is "Ashcan" Pete with Well Connected; it's thematically the opposite of Dark Horse Jenny, and uses his ability to get double use out of Well Connected. Combined with the various discard cards since I intend to discard a card every single turn, relatively few assets, and all the resource generation I can get...

When it comes to redeeming previously ignored cards, I intend to try Investments on "Ashcan" Pete. Normally it's a pretty rubbish card, but Pete can use his ability to ready it and double the speed with which it accrues resources, assuming he's willing to discard cards to do so and doesn't have anything better to ready. I'm thinking either Dario el-Amin or David Renfield for the ally slot, but in the long run will probably go for On Your Own (3e) when it comes out...

Depending on the scenario, Ashcan with David Renfield can gather absurd amounts of resources that put even Preston Jacobs to shame. Tried it once and had more resources than i could ever use. It was fun though

Indeed, it's a pretty nifty combination but it has all the risks of a doom mystic amplified heavily. I'm thinking that I prefer a consistent build rather than maximum potential...but then again, it just has to tide me over until I can afford Drawing Thin...

5 hours ago, Allonym said:

Indeed, it's a pretty nifty combination but it has all the risks of a doom mystic amplified heavily.

I don't see any risks being amplified, unless you mean that he can't take Moonlight Ritual and/or Sacrifice to get doom off the table in a hurry. In fact, Pete's actually safer than most Mystics, since he gets twice as many resources per round from Renfield without increasing doom. You can, for instance, trigger Renfield twice in the first round of an Agenda, then get four resources per round from him until it's time to kill him off (your ideal teammate here is probably Leo or Tommy, who both provide plenty of non-unique Allies to force him out with Flare or Chance Encounter). A Mystic can only pull that off in an extremely long agenda, and even then only for a handful of rounds.

Partly yes, I mean the lack of easy solutions to doom. You could take Painkillers/Smoking Pipe, or play a different ally to discard the first from the slot, or return him to hand with Calling In Favours, or something like off-class Solemn Vow, but otherwise you're reliant on an encounter cards and enemy attacks to deal the damage.

But beyond that, while you can just keep him at one or two doom, if you do increase his doom to achieve maximum profits, you're more vulnerable to early agenda advancement. Certainly something you can work around by looking at the encounter sets in a scenario and being more careful if Ancient Evils or similar is among them.

Just realized decorated skull could be used to fuel torrent of power... possible use in Dexter? Worth the card slots? Probably not but at least Dex can play it fast...and maybe use Haste to activate it with a repeat activate action?

7 hours ago, Soakman said:

Just realized decorated skull could be used to fuel torrent of power... possible use in Dexter? Worth the card slots? Probably not but at least Dex can play it fast...and maybe use Haste to activate it with a repeat activate action?

There was a big trend for Decorated Skull + Torrent of Power for Akachi Onyele a while ago (since she has access to any card with "Uses (Charges)", level 0-4), and she gets the benefit of a free charge on the skull when she plays it. I don't think they're all that strong but quite fun to rock massive bonuses for those big tests. I can see it working for Dexter thanks to Haste and his ability, but I feel like he'll have a lot of potential slot pressure, wanting to swap hand-slot cards in and out and probably use Enchanted Blade, whereas Decorated Skull requires you to keep it in play for a long time to properly charge it up.

So if you did want to put such a deck together, searching Akachi + Decorated Skull could get some good starting points for your Dexter deck.

I am always playing Mystics. Always.

Since a couple of months. I am always playing Marie. Always.

We just finished the Dream-Eaters and my wife played the Guardian tough-guy (Zoey) in the Dream Quest track, so I went to my favorite, Mystic, Father Mateo. Looking through the Mystic allies, I usually like Olive McBride with the good Padre, to give me more chances of drawing the Elder Sign. This time I noticed the Arcane Initiate, which is for me exactly the type of card Allonym was talking about when he began this thread. I had glanced at it when we started playing and thought, "no thanks" and never looked back. Not to mix metaphors, but I must apply the immortal words of Hermione Granger to myself, "What an idiot!"

Anyway, I loved Arcane Initiate in this playthrough! I basically got a free action every round to draw a card (a Spell card), and since my deck was loaded with them (Spell cards), it was brilliant! I had to include Moonlight Ritual and Fortune or Fate to try to counter the doom on the 0-level Initiate, but that was a small price for what I got.

That surprises me, because for my group, Arcane Initiate is the "go-to" Mystic ally, and we even think of Arcane Initiate (3) as one of the most impactful Mystic upgrades available. But then, I have never used Olive McBride, so maybe I should give her a shot!