vs.

My take: Despite the fact that every time I've used Spectral Razor I've got more than +9, Dread Curse of Azathoth is still the safest bet; you can't rely on getting 5 or more successes with Spectral Razoe, however Dread Curse of Azathoth suffers the drawback of being really easy to fail at casting it due to the -2, while Spectral Razor will alsmot always be cast, and even if you only get one or two successes on Spectral Razor it will still be better than the 0 successes and the loss of 2 sanity with Dread Curse of Azathoth. In conclusion: Spectral Razor is the better card in my honest opinion. Now you.

Link to The Great Debate #1: Shotgun vs. Tommy Gun

So long as you have your total Lore at 5 or more, Dread Curse is better because of the guaranteed +9.

However, if you have some wacky amount of lore, a blessing, and items/allies that boost your Spell bonus, Razor is better.

In my opinion, though I can back your "not many combat dice, but at least some" position, in most circumstances I woul rather have Dread Curse, because it's the kind of spell you save for a tough monster.

While I respect your opinion, 3 dice don't gurantee you anything. Now, if you have the skill that adds 1 success to a spell check, than obviously Dead is better, but in my opinion Razor is an overall better. There's nothing more frustrating than failing at casting a spell that eats 2 of your sanity. By the way, consider Spectral Razor against the Ancient One: Istead of spending those clue tokens to add to your combat check, instead add them to your spell check when casting Spectral Razor... in one word: insanity.

From an averages standpoint, Spectral Razor gives you 4/3 of a bonus die plus 2/3 of a bonus die per spellcasting die you have. The Dread Curse gives you 9 times times your chance of successfully casting it. At the low end of having a Lore of 3, the Dread Curse gives you 9 dice one third of the time, which averages to 3 dice per casting. Spectral Razor rolls 5 dice and averages 3.3 dice. Woo. A Lore 3 character is averaging slightly more bonus dice with the Razor than with the curse. But only barely, and honestly casting either spell under such a circumstance is borderline retarded unless it's a last gasp against an otherwise unbeatable monster in which case I'd rather take my chances with the 1 in 3 chance of getting off the Dread Curse.

For larger dice pools, the Dread Curse jumps up much more rapidly than does the Spectral Razor until it asymptotes off at 9 dice. So at lore 4 you have a 5/9 chance of getting off the dread curse and thus average 5 bonus dice while the razor averages just +4 bonus dice. At lore 5 you get off the Dread Curse 19/27 of the time, so you're looking at an average of +6.3 dice while the razor is pulling in just 4.6. The point where the Razor pulls ahead is about Lore eleven where the spectral razor gives an average bonus of 8.6 and the Dread Curse has a 99.999% chance of giving you the full 9 bonus dice. Any Lore gained after that is all gravy. Except of course, that no one has ever had a Lore of 12 in Arkham Horror in any game that it mattered. So practically speaking, as long as you're just collecting bonus dice you will always prefer the Dread Curse to Spectral Razor.

Now things get a little more exciting if you happen to have Library Use and/or a Blessing. Every time you increase the value of each die you condense the growth curve. The Dread Curse pulls ahead faster as your number of dice increase, but of course it also levels out sooner nd the Spectral Razor pulls ahead faster as well. For example, if you have both a blessing and the +1 Lore dice skill and you have a Lore of 3, you're going to get the Dread Curse off 2/3 of the time with your one lousy die. That gives an average of 6 dice. The 5 dice you're rolling for Spectral Razor at that point average 3.3 hits, so you're looking at an average of 6.7 bonus dice - again a slight advantage at the minimum number of dice. At Lore 4 the Dread Curse averages 8 dice and so does the spectral razor. And beyond that, the Spectral Razor comes out ahead. Woo-hoo!

So if you have a blessing and the skill that gives you +1 per die on Lore checks, then Spectral Razor is a marginally superior spell. That combination is exceedingly rare, and so I say categorically that Spectral Razor can lick my taint. That spell blows. I have never been happy to get that spell. The only good thing to do with it is to sell it for clues to some guy with Visions.

-Frank

Frank said:

I agree, as stated above (but in much less detail). But remember that it is the person who discards the spell that gets the clue tokens, not the character with Visions.

Frank said:

Holy statistics, Frank. That was COOL.

(Except maybe for the...licking...part... >shudder<)

Your debates so far seem more one sided then you were probably hoping for.

You might want to choose things that aren't related to each other, or things that are much closer in design to each other, and ask, "If you had to choose one and why?"

I like Spectral Razor more, but thats based mainly on I like the name and picture more. Plus I've just never had a good vibe from Dread Curse of Azathoth.

Frank said:

Agreed. And you did all the math too. You clearly are insane. But then again. You play Arkham Horror. How redundant I am tonight ;')

Frankly, they both suck terribly. Two sanity loss is simply too much for anyone to handle on a regular basis, and spending half your time in the Asylum is not just not fun but also not efficient.

As outlined above, the Dread Curse clearly wins on average unless you've got a barrage of supporting skills. So while they both suck terribly, the Razor (whilst being cool) is even worse.

I'm going to go way off base and say I'd rather have two Shrivelling spells anyday compared to either of the spells mentioned in this topic. Those and Whither are my preferred combat spells when I use Dexter Drake. Admittedly getting two Shrivelling spells is difficult but Drake has a better chance than anybody of getting the combo because of his special ability and the fact that he starts the game with one.

Yeah, except that Dexter is pretty sucky. Even with two Shrivellings he's not much fun.

I'll take Dread Curse for sure. If an investigator could average +9 using Spectral Razor it would be a better spell, but I've yet to find a realistic formula that does that without compromizing other aspects of the investigator.