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Zerf posted:Rite of Seeking better? But but but, that's 4 resources to make tests at skill 3 instead of native tests at 5, plus the action cost playing the card. That's like a net gain of two actions which can fetch double clues for 6 resources (including the Higher Education pump). You can't even combo it with other Seeker cards like Deduction, since you use willpower to test and not intellect. I can understand that you don't want spend XP on glyphs, but I don't see how Rite of Seeking in Daisy is a good option, like, at all... The 2 point difference is the difference it would take to get 2 clues from Glyph anyways, so that's a wash (although you can get multiple clues with glyph, i'll admit). Also you have to play glyph as well? Higher Education is a wash since it boosts either (although you get more benefit from Glyph boosts, I'll admit). Comboing with deduction I've heard varying things-I dn't think it works but I've heard some people argue you can commit for the effect, you just don't get a bonus symbol on the test. You're also ignoring the fact that not only are they 4 xp, but you have to activate the glyphs which you won't always have the time to comfortably do. Also, 8 xp is a big outlay especially since your first XP is likely gonna be Higher Ed, Encyclopedia, and probably Charisma (so you can have Milan and cycle through your research guys or whatever else). So glyph is useless your first 1-4 scenarios, depending on hw much xp you're gaining. Again, I don't think it's necessarily bad, but I also don't really think it's essential. Especially with arcane slots being so dear. As was mentioned, I think for solo Daisy the dodge one is actually pretty good, just because it allows you to combo in an evade
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Apr 21, 2018 21:49
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alansmithee posted:I've heard some people argue you can commit for the effect, you just don't get a bonus symbol on the test. The rules specify that you can only commit cards to skill tests if they have a symbol match. Page 26 of the rules reference. I think I may have played this wrong at some point because as far as I can tell, you can't throw in agility bonuses to a Lockpicks test, and I think I've done that before.
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Apr 21, 2018 22:11
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alansmithee posted:The 2 point difference is the difference it would take to get 2 clues from Glyph anyways, so that's a wash (although you can get multiple clues with glyph, i'll admit). Also you have to play glyph as well? Higher Education is a wash since it boosts either (although you get more benefit from Glyph boosts, I'll admit). Comboing with deduction I've heard varying things-I dn't think it works but I've heard some people argue you can commit for the effect, you just don't get a bonus symbol on the test. You can't commit skill cards for just effects - they need to have a matching icon. It's clearly written in the rules. The point of Glyphs is really to pick up 3+ clues in one action, if you use them for less then they aren't worth it. So in solo they aren't good (but the evade one is ofc). The thing with Daisy is that she can activate the glyphs quite cheap, being a tome they are both tutorable via Librarian and she can use their action for free. For other Seekers they are more troublesome to activate but for Daisy that's quite easy to do. Also, I think our playstyles differ quite a lot - I don't consider Encyclopedia a high priority upgrade. While it is good it can wait a bit. Same goes for Charisma. So Glyphs (which cost 3XP btw) can come quite soon after Higher Education if one wishes. Also, I think that currently the only other spell that Daisy wants to run is Shrivelling, and that's just a backup plan until you get/play Stange Solution. Shrivelling(0) in the later scenarios doesn't cut it, especially with a low will of 3, and Daisy can't upgrade it. So I don't think arcane slots are a premium either.
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Apr 21, 2018 22:23
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DontMockMySmock posted:The rules specify that you can only commit cards to skill tests if they have a symbol match. Page 26 of the rules reference. You can't commit agility icons via cards to increase you Lockpicks test, but you can boost your agility via Streetwise for example. It's the skill icon card commitment that's forbidden.
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Apr 21, 2018 22:25
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DontMockMySmock posted:The rules specify that you can only commit cards to skill tests if they have a symbol match. Page 26 of the rules reference. Yeah that's what I thought but I've seen people say otherwise. Zerf posted:
It could be a playstyle thing. I pretty much think old book of lore/encyclopedia are the go-to things for Daisy, and I find arcane slots a bit more of a premium as I don't think her base 3 mind is that bad since she has higher education to make things up. Plus using either Hubert's Key or Rosary are always options. Also I've ran her only solo/duo, so getting 3+ clues is a bit less important, which probably colors my views.
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Apr 22, 2018 00:04
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Started a new campaign today with a couple goons and my former roommate. I'm playing as the painter (who is very fun) and we finished the first game with 8 exp earned. I'm basically required to take Ace in the Hole now, right?
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Apr 23, 2018 02:17
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IcePhoenix posted:Started a new campaign today with a couple goons and my former roommate. I'm playing as the painter (who is very fun) and we finished the first game with 8 exp earned. Double up on Hot Streak Get it under your investigator card at the start Play The Painted World Profit
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Apr 23, 2018 04:13
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Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:Double up on Hot Streak Also a valid option but we have a Jenny in our group so it also depends on what he might want to do. At least with an exceptional card it's easier to deal with.
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Apr 23, 2018 04:20
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The cycle continues.
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Apr 23, 2018 09:38
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New pack is up and holy poo poo at this new rogue ally. Also, apparently The Forgotten Age has a street date of May 10.
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Apr 26, 2018 02:42
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Kalko posted:New pack is up and holy poo poo at this new rogue ally. Also, apparently The Forgotten Age has a street date of May 10. I feel like she is a huge include for Jenny decks.
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Apr 26, 2018 04:32
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Carrying on from discussions on the previous page, I recently completed a solo Jenny Barnes run through Dunwich using Milan instead of Leo and he is without a doubt the superior ally. I'll make some comments about the deck I settled on and a bunch of specific Dunwich scenario stuff, so I won't be using spoiler tags. Jenny Barnes (Standard) Assets 1x Physical Training (Core Set) 2x Dr. Milan Christopher:Professor of Entomology (Core Set) 2x .41 Derringer (Core Set) 1x Hard Knocks (Core Set) 2x Knife (Core Set) 2x Flashlight (Core Set) 1x Jenny's Twin .45s:A Perfect Fit (The Dunwich Legacy) 2x Lone Wolf (Blood on the Altar) Events 1x Dynamite Blast (Core Set) 2x Elusive (Core Set) 2x Backstab (Core Set) 1x Think on Your Feet (The Dunwich Legacy) 1x "I'm outta here!" (The Essex County Express) 2x Sleight of Hand (The Path to Carcosa) 1x Fight or Flight (The Unspeakable Oath) 2x Narrow Escape (Black Stars Rise) Skills 2x Overpower (Core Set) 2x Unexpected Courage (Core Set) 2x Double or Nothing (The Dunwich Legacy) Treachery 1x Searching for Izzie (The Dunwich Legacy) 1x Drawing the Sign I replayed the first 3-4 scenarios a LOT trying out different cards, and also because Charon's Obol killed me a bunch of times. It's an interesting card; you would think the free XP would make it easier for you to settle for resigning without resolution more often but in practice I usually got super greedy and pushed for the resolutions I wanted anyway (and paid the price). I guess if you do take the 'no resolution' option too many times you miss out on rewards which maybe the bonus XP doesn't entirely compensate for, but I do like the high risk/reward style it encourages. I got over my brief and inexplicable aversion to Lone Wolf but for other cards I kept going back and forth. In general, the main criteria I used to evaluate how useful a card would be was in terms of action compression, that is accomplishing the most you can with the fewest actions. I wasn't a fan of Backstab for Jenny but it does kill a lot of early game mobs in one hit and you do have the skill icons to boost it. And speaking of boosting, with Milan and Lone Wolf you're swimming in money for the first few scenarios (at least until you get Streetwise) so one way to leverage that is with cards like Hard Knocks and Physical Training. They make Double or Nothing better, and can act as a poor man's weapon if you happen to be unarmed for too long. Physical Training was also my only nod towards willpower boosts for the encounter deck in the early stages of the campaign. Narrow Escape is hard to evaluate. Usually you can afford to take a few attacks of opportunity over the course of any scenario so on paper it looks like it's probably not going to do much, but when you actually have it in hand it opens up options you didn't have before. I guess you can think of it as a one-time damage soak asset, and at the very least its icons are good for Backstab. So for the campaign itself, I did Extracurricular Activity first because I wanted Rice over Morgan, and having an extra ally in the deck makes that club action where you ditch one for clues more likely to occur (hey, it worked a few times!) 2xp -> Charon's Obol The House Always Wins was a major stumbling block with regards to Obol deaths, and I reckon doing it second with that card makes it one of the hardest scenarios in the game (along with Blood on the Altar, which I feel has the highest variance out of all of them). With so few turns and so many mobs that can stack up on you, simply moving around to find the back door exit proved the death of me too many times. I always tried to game the abomination's movement to kill as many gangsters as possible, but then you also have to deal with the Striking Fear encounter set. So many games lost to Frozen in Fear or Dissonant Voices. 5xp -> Streetwise, 2 x Lockpicks Peter Clover resolution. The Miskatonic Museum is my favorite XP farm and I wasn't sure I'd be able to do as well without Leo, but as we discussed earlier, higher quality actions beats simply more actions any time. I was able to consistently clear the place out, and knowing exactly when the snake thing would spawn and where lets you game it a fair amount (if it's in play and the agenda is going to advance next turn, do not kill the snake). Previously I took an early Lupara here but having Backstab means you can dispatch the snake in one action the first time it appears, and two for a subsequent time. 7xp -> Adaptable, 2 x Backstab -> 2 x Lupara (I forgot I had 2 x Knife or it would've been this, it was late). Also 1 x Fight or Flight -> 1 x Physical Training, 1 x Hard Knocks -> 1 x Think on Your Feet Took the Necronomicon. The Essex County Express is the easiest scenario but if you rush ahead too quickly you can get smashed by the location revelation effects, so I learned to slow down and basically only move to a new location as the first action of a turn. I swapped the second Physical Training in here for Frozen in Fear (really hate that card) and because I wanted to have two later on. Swapping for specific scenarios is actually kind of hard because you need to swap out again at the start of the next one if the swapped cards are too niche. Speaking of which, I added a Think on Your Feet here because they're great against the Grappling Horror, or at least that's how I remembered it being one time (I forgot they have hunter). I got rid of the Hard Knocks because I have Streetwise now for the agility boosts and I maintained two combat pumps with the second Physical Training. 4xp -> 2 x .41 Derringer Stole the luggage (perhaps in Return to the Essex County Express, this will matter). So yeah, Blood on the Altar is ridiculous with bad RNG and a cakewalk with good. This game was one of the few in the latter category; the key and the chamber were the first two hidden cards I revealed, and I had the Necronomicon in my opening hand so I was able to get the banishment resolution. 6xp -> 1 x Charisma, 2 x Narrow Escape -> 2 x Cat Burglar, 1 x Think on Your Feet -> 1 x Moxie, 2 x Knife -> 2 x Guts Silas Bishop banished, one sacrifice victim, Zebulon Whateley taken. 1 x Chronophobia weakness added (next scenario). I haven't played Undimensioned and Unseen many times but I knew I wanted more willpower tech, and it was at this point I remembered Moxie is a card that exists. I added the Charisma because I took Zebulon (four allies in the deck at this point), and then I took the Cat Burglars because I wanted to try them out for mitigating bad Brood RNG and because they seem pretty good regardless. I had to bag five Broods and of course I ended up drawing four of the encounter cards that buff them (I stacked them all on one guy and used all the Powder clues on him). I actually didn't draw any Cat Burglars but I ended up killing four out of five Broods before resigning with two Lupine Thralls bearing down on me. Zebulon came out early and was MVP. 6xp 1 x I'm Outta Here -> Ace in the Hole One Brood escaped. I'd only played Where Doom Awaits a couple of times before and I got punished pretty badly by the location revelations and encounter deck flips, but having the rewards from the Peter Clover and Silas Bishop resolutions allowed me to win pretty comfortably. Ace in the Hole is really loving good. 4xp 1 x Lone Wolf -> 1 x Hot Streak, 2 x Physical Training -> 2 x Fight or Flight Lost in Time and Space, the coolest scenario (well ok, the train is pretty loving cool but I've seen it way more than this one). I went slowly to make sure I was following all the rules properly and in the end I'm not sure I played one thing right : when the Tear Through Time replaces the Edge of the Universe but Yog-Sothoth is sitting there, does he just... vanish? That's how I played it, and I got the resign resolution. It wouldn't have made much of a difference because my deck was still over half full after having cycled once before I drew a Beyond the Veil, and I won a turn or two after the Tear went into play. 34xp in total. Fantastic game, but I'm so very ready to play a different investigator. I want to play a mystic, and I want to play Carcosa, and I also want to play on hard now that I've worked out how to build for action quality, so next game I'll do one or more of those things. Final Dunwich comments : what do you think of the story allies? Rice feels like a third Milan, but I never take Armitage even though his stats are great for the cost and he's basically a third Unexpected Courage. I guess it depends on who you're playing as to which ones you'd want, but they all seem pretty strong. The thing about adding more cards is that it makes all of your cards that much less likely to be drawn, but then over the course of a game you end up drawing through a lot anyway. That raises another question, too, how much card draw do you want in your deck? Maybe for another time...
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Apr 26, 2018 05:20
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I feel like she is a huge include for Jenny decks. Between her and Lockpicks you can be the main investigator in a 2 player group easily. If your Mystic and Survivor make sure to stock up on their clue-finding cards as well you could even main for a 4-man group, cutting out the Seeker. Probably not optimal, but should be a different and fun experience.
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Apr 26, 2018 11:16
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When is labyrinths of lunacy releasing!!!!
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Apr 26, 2018 12:53
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Orange Devil posted:Between her and Lockpicks you can be the main investigator in a 2 player group easily. If your Mystic and Survivor make sure to stock up on their clue-finding cards as well you could even main for a 4-man group, cutting out the Seeker. Running Jenny with Santiago + Huberts Key, you get a respectable statline of 4/5/3/4 and Lockpick for 9. You can pick up testless clues (but at a price). I think in that build, that you actually benefit from running Leo as well (i.e. you want to buy Charisma), because with that statline you can actually do stuff with your extra actions, be it generating extra resources via Burglary or picking one from the bank. You could really reliably get two clues per round with such a build.
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Apr 26, 2018 14:41
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The more I think about it, the more I'm concluding that the biggest benefit of Leo(1) is that you get a benefit for spending XP to put him in your deck later during a campaign. I guess Adaptable undercuts this somewhat, but eh.
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Apr 26, 2018 18:41
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Last investigator from the next expansion was previewed, looks really interesting. Limited deckbuilding, but starts with 5 xp.
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Apr 27, 2018 16:15
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What do people like for a good beginner deck? I may be teaching the game toa friend of mine this weekend, and I'd like to start him out with something that doesn't have a lot of moving parts to keep track of. I was thinking of using Roland for him while I use a Seeker deck.
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Apr 27, 2018 18:27
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Funzo posted:What do people like for a good beginner deck? I may be teaching the game toa friend of mine this weekend, and I'd like to start him out with something that doesn't have a lot of moving parts to keep track of. I was thinking of using Roland for him while I use a Seeker deck. I taught a friend/co-worker using Roland and Agnes, playing The Gathering from Night of the Zealot. I let her pick her investigator after a short explanation as to how they worked, and she picked Agnes (arguably way more complicated than Roland). I didn't bother to limit my deckbuilding to just core set or anything, and she picked it up really well, and quickly. We both manage a board game shop, though, so YMMV. I used DadouXIII's Roland deck since they've put a ton of effort into tinkering with Roland. Here's the Agnes deck I built from scratch as an exercise.
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Apr 27, 2018 18:47
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alansmithee posted:Last investigator from the next expansion was previewed, looks really interesting. Limited deckbuilding, but starts with 5 xp. Just enough XP to double-down on his theme and include Seal of the Elder Sign which you can still use even if that token is sealed, as per the new keyword. I love the design concept of him performing miracles with elder sign manipulation, and auto-passes from his signature item have the potential to be highly impactful since you can plan for them. Also, the more tokens you seal away the higher the chances of drawing the auto-fail token, allowing him to use his printed ability. Not sure you would really want to push for that, though. But yeah, that deckbuilding. From a quick DB search it looks like the Blessed keyword doesn't exist on any current cards, so the pool for them will be pretty small for a while.
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Apr 28, 2018 05:26
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Eh, it's not like Mystics really need cards from out of faction to do their thing and his statline is fine. I'm thinking the best use for his base 5XP is to either spread them out over as many cards as possible or combo it with tutoring to get a high impact card. The first seems more likely with the current card pool, and Spirit Athame is easily the top contender here. Being able to start with 2x Shrivelling + 1x or 2x Song of the Dead is also interesting, as it means he doesn't have to pack a back-up weapon to still consistently draw damage. Speaking of consistency, sealing away non-Skull tokens certainly improves Song of the Dead, but I'm not sure it's good yet. High impact cards would probably be Jewel of Aureolus, Grotesque Statue or Key of Ys, if only there was a way to guarantee drawing them reasonably early. A way to guarantee getting your XP cards early is to put it in a Permanent. Candidates are Charisma, Relic Hunter and Blood Pact. Between Holy Rosary, Jewel of Aureolus and St. Hubert's Key, Mystics clearly have a strong selection of Accessories to make use of that Relic Hunter, though these do tend to be expensive and the Rosary and the Key do such similar things. Charisma seems alright in solo, letting you take Alyssa and some Initiates. Probably not great for multiplayer until Olive McBride is released though. Speaking of, she seems to work wonderfully with Mateo. Lastly due to being able to start with Blood Pact, Mateo is probably the best Mystic to go down the doom manipulation route, starting with Moonlight Ritual and either Alyssa or David Renfield. This deckbuilding route badly needs another card or two to support it before it seems worthwhile though. So uhh, long story short, Mateo's 5XP for now seems best spend on cards other Mystics would like to get as well, with Spirit Athame being really stand-out good. With just one or two more cards to support existing design ideas though, those 5XP might let Mateo explore completely new deck concepts without having to gimp himself for the first scenario.
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Apr 29, 2018 14:56
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Orange Devil posted:Eh, it's not like Mystics really need cards from out of faction to do their thing and his statline is fine. Jewel of Aureolus and Olive =  Since Jewel triggers on reveal, not resolve, it can trigger from any of the 3 tokens revealed by Olive, even an autofail which you choose to ignore. That gives Jewel a pretty good chance of triggering from Olive (~70%, depending on chaos bag setup). Olive seems like a good fit for either Jim (begin able to pull more Skulls to trigger Trumpet and/or Song of the Dead) or Mateo (who really benefits from drawing the Elder Sign token). Jim has a natural way of partly countering Olives negative impact, since Skulls counts as zero. It is a much greater challenge how to pass tests as Mateo + Olive though, unless you get lucky and pull the Elder Sign (~20% chance, in which case you auto-succeed). I feel like we're getting closer to a build for Mystics which wants to draw/not draw certain tokens, and Jim so far seems like the best candidate. He has about 64% odds of triggering Song of the Dead (again, depending on chaos bag setup) with Olive. The question is if it's worth to also run Ritual Candles in him as well in such a build, since positive numbers can nullify bad token pulls. Heck, such a build might even want to run Inspiring Presence, just to untap Olive again. Throw in Grotesque Statue and Scavenging and you should be able to see the tokens you want with quite high (although unreliable) frequency.
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Apr 29, 2018 20:22
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Does every mystic deck need to run Arcane Initiate? I've been playing solo Agnes through the first few Carcosa scenarios and when you don't get your spells it feels like you can't accomplish anything. My deck is basically like this one from an ArkhamDB guide except I'm using Fire Axe instead of the bat and Forbidden Knowledge instead of the Fight or Flight. I feel like Agnes wants Peter Sylvestre to preserve her own sanity for pinging (and she really wants the 2XP version with the +1 willpower) so that kind of rules out the Initiate. Also, Carcosa seems to have a lot of single clue locations so you're not really getting full use out of Rite of Seeking or Drawn to the Flame but they're still the most reliable way to grab clues so they stay. The problem is when you don't draw them your investigating really suffers. I tried Lantern for a while as a mini-Flashlight that had some ping synergy but it's not great so I guess I just put Flashlight in the deck? When I scraped out some XP from the first few scenarios my first pick was the upgraded Sylvestre, and then Song of the Dead for more fight power but I think I should probably reverse those so that I'm more likely to draw a combat trick when I need it. Agnes laughs at the encounter deck willpower treacheries but getting a couple of enemies within the first few turns is a huge problem because unlike with weapons, the horror ticks from spells and other ping-enablers puts you on a clock and you quickly reach a point where your ability to keep fighting just shuts off.
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Apr 30, 2018 05:20
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What are folks' general method for using things like Song of the Dead, .41 Derringer, etc., that have charges but are arguably worse than the "main" cards that would go in those slots during play (Shrivelling, Jenny's Twin .45s, Machete, etc.)? Do you play them out and use them until you get your main items and then replace them immediately? Or do you try to use up all the charges before replacing them?
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Apr 30, 2018 15:19
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It's situational. I think I would always replace Song of the Dead with a Shriveling if I didn't have a spare slot (like say if the other one was holding a Rite of Seeking that I still needed), but since Jenny's guns take up both hand slots you generally don't want to play them right away just for the sake of having a weapon out like you would with the .41 Derringer. You want to use them during a window where you don't need to investigate but you really need to kill something; they're fantastic when you know a particular scenario objective is about to appear.
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Apr 30, 2018 15:45
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Zerf posted:I feel like we're getting closer to a build for Mystics which wants to draw/not draw certain tokens, and Jim so far seems like the best candidate. He has about 64% odds of triggering Song of the Dead (again, depending on chaos bag setup) with Olive. The question is if it's worth to also run Ritual Candles in him as well in such a build, since positive numbers can nullify bad token pulls. Heck, such a build might even want to run Inspiring Presence, just to untap Olive again. Throw in Grotesque Statue and Scavenging and you should be able to see the tokens you want with quite high (although unreliable) frequency. I'm pretty sure the math on Ritual Candles works out such that they are worse with Jim, and not all that great with anyone else. Kalko posted:I feel like Agnes wants Peter Sylvestre to preserve her own sanity for pinging (and she really wants the 2XP version with the +1 willpower) so that kind of rules out the Initiate. Also, Carcosa seems to have a lot of single clue locations so you're not really getting full use out of Rite of Seeking or Drawn to the Flame but they're still the most reliable way to grab clues so they stay. The problem is when you don't draw them your investigating really suffers. I tried Lantern for a while as a mini-Flashlight that had some ping synergy but it's not great so I guess I just put Flashlight in the deck? Well discounting Charisma, think of it this way: you never want to replace Peter with Initiate. But is the reverse true? Not only no, but having an extra way to dump the Initiate and her doom is actually a good thing. So is it worth it to run Initiate? As you point out, without spells you are really not very useful as most Mystics, let alone solo. Initiate gives you another opening draw option to get spells out quickly. So that's a big yes. But what about Peter? Well, is he really an ally you want down with the highest priority? Clearly not, as even his 2XP version does very little for you if you do not have spells in the first place. Alright, but now we might be drawing Initiate's later in the game when we already have our spells and possibly Peter has already been played. Well it's not ideal, but if we already have our spells, I'm sure that +1 Willpower can be put to use, no? A very related side lesson to learn here is: if you are in a situation where you don't have spells but do have Peter in hand and you decide to play him rather than using that action to draw for spells, you are making a mistake.What I've noticed in how my friends play is that while they do think about card value and what they want their fully set up board to look like, they don't give the order in which they achieve that end state much thought, and often end up having very durdly early turns unless they draw their whole combo right away. Being decisive about your priorities is key to success in this game imo. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Apr 30, 2018 |
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Apr 30, 2018 20:56
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Orange Devil posted:I'm pretty sure the math on Ritual Candles works out such that they are worse with Jim, and not all that great with anyone else. Yes, but that might change when you draw three take two.
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Apr 30, 2018 21:08
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KPC_Mammon posted:Yes, but that might change when you draw three take two. I don't think so. While it's true their effective bonus might increase from +1 to +2, the main problem with the candles is that the icon tokens tend to have some of the biggest negative modifiers in the first place. So the candles rarely push you from unfavorable to favorable odds to take the test in the first place. Ie. when the candles are most effective, your odds weren't terrible to begin with. Now additionally, if the tokens the candles work on are some of the worst draws in the chaos bag to begin with, while it might be true that they are 100% more effective if you end up resolving two of those tokens, the net result is likely you still being hosed.
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Apr 30, 2018 21:20
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Orange Devil posted:Well discounting Charisma, think of it this way: you never want to replace Peter with Initiate. But is the reverse true? Not only no, but having an extra way to dump the Initiate and her doom is actually a good thing. For some reason I forgot how it can actually be a good thing to replace the Initiate despite the fact that my very first deck was Daisy with 5-6 allies and Calling in Favors as one of several ways to manage the doom. Regarding draws, how many actions would you spend at the start of the game drawing cards before finally dropping a couple of assets and setting off? I've always felt you need to get moving by turn two at the latest and hope your upkeep draws deliver, but I admit it as a mystic it does feel necessary to get those key cards as soon as possible. After reading advice in various places and playing the game a lot I've kind of conditioned myself to think that spending an action to draw a card or gain a resource is generally a poor play (much like in Netrunner) and I only tend to do it if I need to burn an action for an advantage on the following turn (eg. wanting two spare actions after moving into a particular location, or timing hunter enemy moves to get the jump on them) or if I absolutely have to pay for a card right now and not next turn. If you hard mulligan for something and don't get it, sitting around for a couple of turns just drawing for it has got to be a trap, but maybe one full turn of draws isn't too much of an opportunity cost in the grand scheme of things? At the very least you'll have plenty of stuff to ditch for skill boosts, and hopefully your deck was built well enough to survive for a while without that key card.
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May 1, 2018 08:08
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I'm going to just type another wall of text on Arkham Horror theory. If these are starting to annoy people please do let me know. I agree with you that drawing 1 card or taking 1 resource for 1 action is generally a very bad way to spend your action. To put it in click economy terms, an action is worth more than a card, and a card is worth more than a resource. Just like in Netrunner, (having access to) action compression in all it's forms is also very valuable. This because some turns you just have to get more done then what you can normally do in 1 turn, for example move, engage and kill a 3 health enemy. I'd say effective action compression comes in more forms in AH than in Netrunner, however. Anything that allows you to collect more than 1 clue or do more than 1 damage per turn is great. Anything that lets you move for free, or engage for free, or combine any of these things into 1 action is good to great. Where AH is really different is that I find it rather difficult to value the "economy" actions of the game. Resources are completely worthless unless you have a specific purpose to spend them on which will actually help you get clues and/or not die in some way. Even if you have such a purpose, only the resources up to that exact cost have value and while you ideally don't want to spend actions gaining the resources you also theoretically want to gain the resources as close to the point where you spend them as possible in order to minimize the time they spent idle (and thus without value). This changes if you have a skill pumping card. Though even in that case, resources rapidly diminish in value as the end of the game approaches as you'll likely end up not spending them all. Contrast with Netrunner, where the threat of a big bank combined with having some assets (breakers, facedown cards etc) out is very powerful on its own, as it increases the range of cards your opponent must play against. Cards are clearly good, because you can either play them to help you reach your goals (which I sure hope they do because why else are they in your deck?) or if not you can pretty much always commit them to do the same. So card draw must be great. Except weaknesses. Weaknesses make it really hard to figure out if it's objectively a good idea to draw another card. Unless you've drawn all your weaknesses already, then drawing cards is clearly great if you are not able to spend the action to get you closer to the objective instead. Similarly, any card you have in hand when the game ends was generally a waste and should have been committed to a check. And then on top of all that, some weaknesses (Amnesia and the one that causes you to discard all resources) totally change the value of (holding) cards and/or resources again. Then there's the last resources: your hit point and sanity totals. These have some limited value in and of themself. Namely, staying out of reach of multi-damage encounter cards so that you are not forced to commit all in on an untimely skill check. However, the more hit points or sanity you have remaining, the less valuable those points are. And clearly the last point is vastly more valuable than all the preceding ones. So again, make sure you are using and spending these resources effectively. But ultimately what you should be doing is achieving your objectives as fast as possible. Generally the best encounter card is the one you don't have to draw because the game has already ended. The tricky part here is that unless you can perform those investigate (or sometimes combat or other) actions effectively, you'll be not only wasting actions, but actively harming yourself through bad token pulls if you attempt them anyway. So as long as you aren't able to take effective actions to advance the objective, you better spend your actions remedying that situation in the most effective way possible. Concretely this means that if you can't investigate but already have a +damage weapon out, playing that Beat Cop is bad. You should be drawing for that Flashlight instead. Mystics with their spell dependence run into this issue most frequently in my experience. In conclusion, I think it's key to identify precisely the points at which the valuation of actions vs cards vs resources changes and then decisevely and aggressively pursue the highest value option. Trying to do a bit of everything is how you end up on turn 5 with nothing to show for it except some assets of dubious value and some damage taken. Then these poor investments will compound on themselves and force you to take an increasingly lovely course of action as the game progresses. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 15:11 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 14:57
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KPC_Mammon posted:Yes, but that might change when you draw three take two. That's my thought exactly. I do know that Candles are the worst in Jim, but if you intend to run Olive, this really changes the chaos bag odds. Running multiple +1 (maybe even +2 with two candles) tokens makes you pass many, many more tests. As an example, running on standard in Carcosa, you can have five +1 tokens(3x Skulls, Elder Sign, +1) with a single Candle in Jim. Say that you aim for a test at +2. You'll fail if you draw -3, -4 or autofail, and let's throw in Cultist at -4. With a regular pull, you'd fail if you drew any of the last tokens (since you only bump Cultist to -3, which is still a fail). However, if you run with Olive, you get to draw 2 more tokens. If any of those is a +1, you now pass on the -3 and Cultist (i.e. you only fail on -4 and autofail). I still need to run the maths on this, and maybe it's not worth the effort and/or it's too combo-tastic, but it'd be interesting to see the exact numbers 
Zerf fucked around with this message at 15:19 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 15:11
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Orange Devil posted:I'm going to just type another wall of text on Arkham Horror theory. If these are starting to annoy people please do let me know. No this is good stuff and it helps me consolidate my own thoughts on the game re: action economy. The latest post in this blog touches on a few of the same points in its discussion of solo investigators. It also confirms my sneaking suspicion that Agnes is one of the worst investigators you could run through Carcosa, which is my current project. Curtain Call in particular with the respawning boss is hugely inconsistent for me because it sucks up Shriveling charges that I need to use on some non-rat enemies and the main scenario objective (since it's practically impossible for her to solve it through investigation). Kalko fucked around with this message at 04:34 on May 2, 2018 |
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May 2, 2018 04:31
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Kalko posted:No this is good stuff and it helps me consolidate my own thoughts on the game re: action economy. The latest post in this blog touches on a few of the same points in its discussion of solo investigators. I'm not into solo mystics because their main thing is trading consistency for huge burst potential. You absolutely need your spells to function. Which doesn't mean poo poo for investigating when each location only has a single clue. They are a fantastic 3rd character and depending on setup can be great in two player. Jim is probably the best of the bunch so far if you have to play solo. He can actually investigate and fight without spells.
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May 2, 2018 06:19
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While Survivors and Rogues are often seen as the least useful classes in teamgames they are clearly the best in solo so far. Precisely because while they might lack the raw and hyperfocused efficiency, they can do everything reasonably well. Plus evasion is just so much better solo than even 2-player, let alone 4. I've been trying to steer my 4 player group away from Guardians, Seekers and Mystics because I'm really curious how a multiplayer game made up of 4 jack-of-all-trades would go. Currently we're doing Yorick-Daisy-Pete-Jenny and while Daisy is mostly a clue vacuum and Yorick a fighter, it already feels like a pretty different game without what was previously our mandatory Guardian and Mystic. And it's going really rather well too. Now if only I can convince them to try a run without a Seeker. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 15:43 on May 2, 2018 |
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May 2, 2018 11:09
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Pete seems great in groups too because he can get swinging very quickly while people tool up. I dunno if the other survivors have the same tempo advantages
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May 2, 2018 11:17
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Isn’t there some custom Arkham scenario FLGS event meant to be happening soon?
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May 2, 2018 16:59
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They had one a month or two ago where we got custom Daisy stuff and a playmat
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May 2, 2018 17:31
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Exactly 1 week until Forgotten Age releases and there’s no new article up? FFG, you’re slipping...
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May 3, 2018 18:23
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This year's Gencon and Arkham night's scenarios previewed https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/5/4/the-eternal-slumber/ They will be released to retail in a single 78 card pack as well 
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May 4, 2018 21:55
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That Faceless Sphinx art is totally badass.  It's up there with Rex's Curse for favorite card art.
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May 6, 2018 00:26
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