Deduction has been a Staple since day 1 for a good reason: clues are what move the game forward, and so more clues mean being more likely to win the game before the doom clocks out, or you are being defeated in the many possible ways.

Chemistry Set is a 0xp card, in a non-competitive slot for that has a printed Deduction on it. So what's the catch?

1. You need to test at a very high value to have a chance to get the additional clue.

   • Higher Education being off the taboo list is your gateway to insane oversuccesses.

   • Kate Winthrop is the thematic and most likely best user because of her built-in capacity to skyrocket her skill value, and Chemistry Set is an enabler for it. Mr. "Rook" your Weakness first, though, if you don't want to be one-shot.

   • are the most likely to want to increase their basic stat, wich card like Magnifying Glass and Dr. Milan Christopher.

2. You need to succeed by exactly 4 to get the clue.

   • You are helped in this task by many cards. The most important one is the one that came with the set: Steady-Handed. When both are on the table, by testing at 5 above the shroud in standard and at 4 above the shroud in Hard, you have approximately a 60% chance of getting an additional clue. What's best is that you still get a card or sometimes 2 resources if you don't get your additional clue.

   • Some reactive cards can also help. There aren't so many, but we can mention Knight of Swords, Daring Maneuver, Ritual Candles, Diabolical Luck. Lab Coat can help you get 2 resources and a clue from a test you'd fail by 1.

   • Some cards can also help by revealing tokens earlier: Scrying Mirror or Premonition.

   • Some cards reveal multiple tokens: Grotesque Statue, Third Time's a Charm, Against All Odds are some examples. Olive McBride (0), on the other hand, will sometimes decrease your chances of getting the token and the score you want. Finally, Analysis is also an option, but I am not sure I would do this one...

3. It exhausts.

   • You can get a second copy on the table with Tinker or Relic Hunter. This way, you have double the uses, which, in my experience, is enough.

   • You can ready it with the newly printed Fine Tuning. It takes 1 more action, costs 1 more resource, and 1 more experience than Tinker, but it only requires you to find 1 copy of Chemistry Set, so it is online faster. This is personally my favourite option because the second copy of Fine Tuning can be placed on Steady-Handed (or on Empirical Hypothesis if you're that greedy).

4. It discards when failing by exactly 2.

   • This can happen by pulling the on a 2 shroud location. If you are dead afraid of this, you can pack some protection, such as Eucatastrophe or Nightmare Bauble. Token of Faith and Live and Learn, and the other hand, won't work.

   • This can happen if you pull the wrong token. Lucky!, Granny Orne, Spring-loaded Pocket Multi Tool can help. As weird as it may seem, Lab Coat is a nonbo and will not help you save your chemistry set.

5. You will only succeed by exactly 4 when there is only 1 clue remaining at your location.

   • Sucks for you. It's like finally landing that trick when no one pays attention anymore. Maybe you can get -1 with Steady-Handed to get a card and heal 1 horror.

Overall, it's a sound card if you build around it, and can be pretty monotonous, so having a mini-game in the game is a lovely gimmick to explore once in a Kate Winthrop deck.

Here's the deck I've used for this review: arkhamdb.com

I was excited by this card when I first saw it, but having now finished a campaign as Kate I think it’s only okay-ish. At first glance this card looks like clue acceleration that comes with nifty consolation prizes if you don’t hit the +4 test result for the extra clue, but I quickly realized that I overestimated how often I could force the result I wanted. There were plenty of times I wanted to pick up two clues in a single action (very easy to do with other level 0 cards like Deduction or Fingerprint Kit) but test result just didn’t come out the way I needed.

As it turns out, consistently succeeding by exactly 4 is not easy to manage. Steady-Handed expands the range to 3-5 to get the extra clue and Fine Tuning gives you two attempts per turn, but at this point you’re devoting additional assets (not to mention experience points) to an effect that still isn’t guaranteed to pay out when you need it. It’s worth mentioning that none of these cards are Fast.

With any clue acceleration that relies on Investigate checks you can pull the tentacle and fail, and that’s true of Chemistry Set too, but Chemistry Set has the additional problem that there are lots of other tokens you can pull from the bag that will ensure you get absolutely no benefit from the Chemistry Set at all. The most common way to miss out on a Chemistry Set payout is to pull a token with a larger negative value than you were planning for, but it also feels bad to miss out on the extra clue because you pulled a positive token and got a result that’s too successful to provide a benefit. A levelled up Chemistry Set that exhausts after you pull the token would help avoid a lot of wasted activations and feel-bad moments.

Sure, even when Chemistry Set doesn’t pay out you still get the basic clue from the Investigate test, but that would also be true if I hadn’t spent the action and resources to play Chemistry Set in the first place. Even the tool synergies seem underwhelming, since there are a lot Tools that help you investigate and provide more reliable benefits than the Chemistry Set (such as Lockpicks, Old Keyring, Mariner's Compass, Magnifying Glass, Fingerprint Kit and Ice Pick, to name a few).

To be clear, Chemistry Set paid out cards/resources a few times every scenario I played it, and sometimes even helped me pick up extra clues. It isn’t a terrible card and it does explore interesting new territory for Seeker assets. However, even with multiple support cards in play it often didn't pay out when I needed it to. With the notable exception of Kate and her Science synergy, I think Chemistry Set is more of a novelty than a staple.

Seekers traditionally have not gotten good accessories, especially at level 0. But don't cry for them. Instead of accessories they get very strong slotless assets like Pathfinder, Empirical Hypothesis, Fieldwork, and the like. Now that Hemlock Vale is out, Seekers ... still don't have a good level 0 accesory.

Chemistry set is a weird little jack of all trades of a card. It can theoretically generate a trickly of free draw for doing something you were going to do anyway, like a variant Lucky Cigarette Case or Empirical Hypothesis. It can theoretically be a clue accelerator like a baby Fingerprint Kit or re-usable Working a Hunch. It can theoretically generate resources over time, like a Dr. Milan Christopher or Thieves' Kit or Lone Wolf or something.

Trouble is, if you compare this to almost any dedicated single-function card, it's miles worse. You'd have to hit the resource gen three times to surpass the humble Emergency Cache, let alone Crack the Case or Rogue economy. You'd have to hit the draw 4 times to outdo Preposterous Sketches. If you want to compare it to draw assets, it gives you one chance per turn to draw if you suceed by exactly 2 when when hypo/cigs give you 3 chances per turn to succeed by 2/3 or more. You have the hit the succeed by 4 2-3 times before it beats Working a hunch, 4 times before it outdoes Fingerprint Kit (although of course it is cheaper to play).

Now, you might say that it's unfair to compare multi-function cards to specialized cards because versatility is a strength that you pay for. But I'm less certain that's true when you don't actually choose what benefits you get. You can't really rely on it to fix a hand size or resource economy problem and you can't stop it from giving you effects you don't need or want like forced draws on an already-full hand or "additional clues" when there was only 1 left in the first place.

So, let's suppose you play it, use it every turn for 6 turns, and trigger it half the time, hitting the benefits once each. You put in 2 resources, a card, and an action, and got back 2 resources, a card, and an additional clue. The net benefit after 6 turns, then, is that you spent an action to get an effectively testless clue. It's like a 0-cost working a hunch that drew a card instead of being fast. Only it's not really a free clue like with Working a Hunch, because you probably had to put some resources into oversuccess intentionally to hit that +4.

If you get it mid scenario, that's probably all you can expect to get from it. If you get it first thing, you can perhaps hope to hit each of its functions one more time. Which is indeed a pretty good return on investment, but nothing out of line with other early asset plays. And besides the up front cost to get it in play, it's also forcing you to take activate action on it which might block you out from using other tools or investigation events that are more effective. And it can blow itself up.

Not even Kate Winthrop really wants this, IMO.