Ice Pick

Sled Dog

Sled Dog

I posted this in a reply, but I've been playing it with William Yorick in Edge of the Earth, running Short Supply Charisma and In the Thick of It. From the start that meant that my chances of getting at least 2 dogs up for +2 to hit, 2 damage (or 2 moves) were pretty danged good, and turns out that was right. In Yorick these are great. You draw a dog in upkeep? Commit it for an icon on your next fight test, defeats the enemy and play it from your discard pile. Or maybe there's a dog or two already in there thanks to Short Supply. Honestly to have these dogs as a baseline for moving and attacking, while adding in and out other assets as needed - these babies are perfect for Yorick, and relatively easy to get into play. You do have to watch your resources, but even with an item-heavy build (that Willie likes), 2 copies of Schoffner's Catalogue and 2 copies of good ol' Emergency Cache, you're in pretty good shape!

Krysmopompas · 363

Malfunction

Malfunction

Chirping in here, standing on the backs of others to shine a spotlight on this encounter card. More specifically, why the designers decided to give the official "Mechanic" in the game, Daniela Reyes, an Intellect of 1. The character who's supposed to be the best with machines in the whole game is the worst at fixing a broken engine. I know it's Arkham, but jeez. This test is gonna be house ruled when it comes to Daniela more often than not. Maybe it's a Will test for her, or I'd just give her a token pull and she succeeds unless it's an autofail.

Krysmopompas · 363
Yeah I'm not sure why this isn't a strength test. I'm sure Mark and Tony would both have some level of mechanics knowledge too, so it kind of makes sense. — snacc · 979
On an episode of Mythos Busters (I think), Maxine was quizzed about this, and she was like "eh, let Daniela clear it, if that makes you happy." I think Lonnie Ritter likewise. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1049
return to innsmouth better replace this with a str/int version — Zerogrim · 290
@LivefromBenefitSt yeah I heard that one, too bad there wasn't some esoteric ability on Daniela to account for this kind of thing. Weird design. — Krysmopompas · 363

Straitjacket

Straitjacket

It is but a short step between the time this card hits you and when your permanent stay at an asylum begins. You better hope you have a Ward of Protection or Forewarned in your hand. Not only will this cost you two actions but you'll have to pay actions and resources to put out any hand and body items that were forced back in your hand.

GeneralXy · 38
You are quoting Daisy here, aren't you? Most other casters of "Ward of Protection" rather save it for "Sign of Hastur", "Corrosion" or (if they have level 2) another players "Straitjacket". — Susumu · 361
Or be a mage. — MrGoldbee · 1441
I tech against this card by not using my hand slot assets in Unspeakable Oath. Instead, I use arcane assets, events and skills for enemy handling and clue here. Also, evasion is entirely viable for enemy handling in this scenario. There aren't many hunters here (except for the Monsters that show up extremely late in the scenario) and the Humanoid enemies only have 1 or 2 evades. Sometimes I end up playing Hand slot assets, but I usually only play low cost ones, or ones with limited uses (flashlight/old keyring/scroll of secrets), of which I'm usually not sad if they get bounced. — PowLee · 20
That's what I meant to say: while a Mystic can use good cards in their hand (and body) slot as well, they are the easiest to get away without playing any cards in these slots. In particular with knowledge of the campaign, you unlikely will make "True Magick" or the like your priority upgrade before TUO. In a multiplayer run, you might actually want to wear the jacket till the end. There are several occasions, when the encounter discard gets reshuffled into the deck, and others will likely be hit much more severe by this card. — Susumu · 361
Yes, but I think that the effect of this treachery is strongly overestimated. Especially when one assumes the current cardpool. It can catch you off-guard on your blind run. but even investgators without treachery mitigation can afford going through UO without hand slot items. — PowLee · 20
There are sure investigators, who are severely handycapped by this card. Sure you can build around it. But lets not forget, it's a center scenario in a campaign. You won't change your whole deck after EotP for it. Rogues might swap a couple of level 0 cards with Adaptable, Guardians delay their big guns for SttP, BC (2) and a few other great cards. But the fact, that you take it into account for your deck building, shows, that it's NOT overestimated, except for purple of course. — Susumu · 361
Most decks can't just choose not to play Hand slot items for the entire game. Guardians need guns, Rogues need lockpicks, Seekers want magnifying glasses and such... it's impractical to say "just don't play hand items". Some team compositions can get away with that, if your decks are mostly based on events/skills or you're a Mystic and/or you have a good evader, but most will have to play some. It's good to limit the amount you play out, but this is still going to hurt even if it "just" hits your Lockpicks or Machete. That's costing you 2 actions to get rid of this, an action to play back your card, and however many resources it costs. Or maybe you do hold off until you absolutely need to play your weapon, then you draw this in the middle of a fight or as your teammates draw a big monster - it's debilitating. You can play around it, but Straitjacket is quite a bit more damaging than the average encounter card. Just the fact that you consider playing around it, both during the scenario AND during deckbuilding shows how scary it is. — Soul_Turtle · 434
UO is a very low combat scenario if you are clearing it rapidly, and its designed so that you tend to get the maniacs in a cluster and then it is quiet till monsters, so losing a weapon as guardian is NBD (especially as beat cop is super strong vs the maniacs). Straightjacket's main issue is its an action tax in a scenario with a lot of movement based action taxes if you really want to get it off. But if you split up suddenly you have all the time in the world, and you will get out well before the monsters even show up. I have seen guardians just decide to keep it on for half the scenario just because you really want to spend your early time as guardian clearing the low shroud 'remember' locations. — dezzmont · 209
Dans un premier temps et dans mes souvenirs, je trouvais cette carte vraiment dangereuse...mais aujourd'hui, si je suis un combattant, j'ai mes soutiens arme pour faire la majorité des combats mais je complète avec des événements...je pense notamment à lame spectrale (mais d'autres événements sont intéressants)...lame spectrale compléte bien les decks combattants car elle permet d'engager un ennemi distant, c'est un sort et donc permet de gérer des spectres...et peut dans ce cas là, gérer des combats le temps de remettre ses soutiens en jeu (car ils sont remis en main et pas défausser!!)..ce que je veux dire, c'est qu'il ne faut ni compter que sur des soutiens, ni que sur des événements car il y a plein de traitrises qui peuvent nous neutraliser un jour ou l'autre... — Toto1687 · 1

Cheat the System

Cheat the System

Many characters can start a game with 2 classes only with their permanents. But if you plan your assets accordingly (for example if you are going rich Unscrupulous Loan will cover ), this card replace way more effectively Hot Streak (even it's upgraded version because it's fast and free, meaning you can play it whenever you want).

I think Rogues could be the best class to go down the Synergy road, because you can Double, Double Call for Backup for maximum efficiency.

Emmental · 127
DD CfB is neat. — MrGoldbee · 1441