"Skids" O'Toole

The parallel version of "Skids" gives him a few distinct advantages that help him stand out from other rogues:

Deck Size

His small deck size of 25 makes him much more consistent at finding important cards in his deck. Bewitching can reduce that by a further 3 cards. With Underworld Support, you can reduce it by another 5 for a final total of just 17 cards! That last one does slightly decrease consistency as you can no longer run duplicates, but significantly increases your chance of finding one-ofs, including the powerful Exceptional rogue assets.

Below are some examples of how likely you are to find specific cards in your deck based on deck size. Note that each deck is actually one card larger than listed to account for Skids' signature card.


Hard Mulligan target 30 cards --25 cards --22 cards --20 cards --17 cards
1 copy of an Exceptional card (e.g. The Red Clock) 32% 38% 43% 47% 56%
2 copies of a Build-around card (e.g. Well Connected) 55% 63% 69% †47% †56%
4 copies of two similar cards (e.g. two different weapons) 81% 88% 92% †74% †81%

These probabilities are lower because of the singleton rule

Because his small deck size is one of his strengths, his parallel back deckbuilding ability to keep additional copies of Fortune or Gambit cards can be a trap.

Gambling winnings

Skids' innate gambling ability lets him gain an inconsistent trickle of resources. The odds of gambling depend on the chaos bag contents, but generally gambling 3 vs 1 will on average net you ~0.75 resources per turn. If you boost your skill value by committing skill cards or using effects like Well Connected to get at least +2-3 skill value, you'll be netting closer to ~2.5 resources per turn. Add a Stylish Coat and you're making almost as much money as The Millionaire himself!

High Roller looks like a natural fit, but the possibility of drawing the auto-fail token and losing 3 extra resources ends up lowering the expected return in most circumstances.

You do still have to consider how bad the symbol token effects are before gambling. Failing a gambling test and losing 1 resource is okay, but failing and getting attacked by the boss is a lot more punishing.

Gambling skills

After Winifred Habbamock, Parallel Skids is the best user of the Rogue skill suite. He can commit every skill with or during any player window. This allows him to use Nimble, "Watch this!", or Manual Dexterity to move, gain resources, or draw cards at any moment, while also increasing his odds of making money.

Skids' gambling test can also be set to 0 difficulty when he needs to oversucceed at a test to trigger cards like Lucky Cigarette Case or Quick Thinking. This can also be used to create a test that other investigators can use to minimize the chances that their important skills like Resourceful are wasted.

blackjet3 · 10
Don — Django · 5032
Sorry for the cut off comment. Dont forget trick to the plan (Bewitching). For 6xp you can reduce his dick size by another 3! — Django · 5032
Good point! I updated my table to take that possibility into account. — blackjet3 · 10
Strong-Armed

The early reviews of this card bury the lede: TOKEN MANIPULATION FOR GUARDIANS IS FINALLY HERE!

Re-drawing a bad token is an incredibly powerful. And being on a skill card instead of an event means that it's a no-action effect. For a single experience point you get all of that plus an extra point of damage. Furthermore, it can stack with Vicious Blow, not just replace it.

In order to re-draw you need only accept some damage. Given the lopsided stats of all the serious fighters, this is a small price for the usual suspects like Roland, Zoey, Mark, Yorick, Leo, Joe, Tommy, Tony, Nate, Silas, Vincent, and Hank. The only investigators who miss out due to faction restrictions are Rita and Daniela, both of whom would love this tech. As consolation they can try out the new Long Shot...

Verdict: it's really important that if you're engaged in an important combat and committing cards for extra damage that you actually hit the enemy. And this card makes that a near certainty. Instant staple.

Crack the Case

I’m calling “bullocks” on that decision to apply crack the case between step 7 and step 8 of the skill test. Applying crack the case after that skill test ends should be considered immediately after getting the clues. That’s bogus that flashlight, old keyring, etc. punish this card. I’m not buying it. Is that even an official ruling?

Seems reasonable to me. The trigger condition on Crack the Case is discovering the last clue, not ending the test in which the last clue was discovered. So it happens during step 7, and not between 7 and 8 - if the skill test has any other effects besides discovering clues, you could choose to resolve those after Crack the Case. For example, if there was some effect that required you to pay resources, you could get those from CtC. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Since you’re already peeved, I won’t mention that although Flashlight and Old Keyring drop the resources from this card, Obscuring Fog does not raise them. — Eudaimonea · 5
Fine Clothes

"Any skill tests you perform nested within a parley action have their difficulty reduced by 2, too." (from the FAQ)

Banger.

Of course, cards with an inherent Parley. (Stall for Time, Hold Up, False Surrender, etc.) are already fine with the clothes, but can we take it one step further? If we really wanted to get the most out of this card, what could it look like?

Let's see: In my opinion there is a general way to approach this, with the possibility to specialize towards a few directions, with the general way being:

1) Perform a Parley. skill test.

2) Use a player window during the skill test to play a fast event or trigger a free triggered ability.

3) Profit.


Ad 1): There are quite a lot of them scattered across scenarios, but to consistently trigger this step, I would recommend something like Bianca "Die Katz" or Beguile. Alternatively (or if you are Alessandra Zorzi anyway), a vast array of Parley. events will cover you aswell.

Ad 2): I'll start with this: Using this combo saves you 3 XP per copy of Chuck Fergus. And this is already how we relentlessly squeeze our Tactic./Trick. events into these fine player windows, getting a sweet -2 difficulty for each of them. This is already great, since it can get the difficulty down to 0 and almost guarantee we did not waste our precious event, but also additionally play into an oversucceed type of deck.

Just looking at Tactic. events, I claim they offer a lot:

I would love to think Fence works similar here, but there is only one useful event I found: Dirty Deeds.

If you want to play this a bit more simple (i.e. without extra combo pieces like Chuck Fergus), just trigger free abilities on cards like Eon Chart, Garrote Wire, Close the Circle, etc. to make them easier.

To delve deeper into the difficulty-zero playstyle Stealth is a great enabler for nun-Hunter enemies or a follow-up with Exploit Weakness.


Let me know what I missed ;)

AlderSign · 235
What you missed is the faq, which states "A skill test cannot initiate during another skill test. If during the resolution of a skill test another skill test would initiate, instead the second skill test does not initiate until the first skill test has finished resolving. If the first skill test was part of an action, the second skill test does not initiate until that action has finished resolving." — NarkasisBroon · 10
Well that is confusing, since it sounds like it indirectly contradicts with this page's FAQ. Although you could read them together in a way meaning you get the -2 for the nested skill test, but the test is still delayed. — AlderSign · 235
So I had to ask since I wasn't clear myself, but NarkasisBroon is correct. The reason for this FAQ is because Beguile and False Surrender are Parley actions that (may) trigger a test as part of the event, and the FAQ says that these tests also benefit from the -2 difficulty. This is the most obvious with Beguile. If you use it to investigate, you get -2 difficulty at the investigation test, since it's nested in the main Parley action. — Valentin1331 · 64976
Ah, I see now. This was new to me, thank you. — AlderSign · 235
There is also a ruling floating around, listed in the FAQ section for Pocket Telescope, that you cannot initiate an action during another action, so it’s not just that the initiated tests for most of the above examples would be moved to after the parley but that the initiation itself would be illegal. — Eudaimonea · 5
On the Hunt

This card is an absolute beast. Especially on Zoey because that's suddenly a guarantee (like if you are making Fighter guardian, you WILL kill enemy) 4 resources thanks to her ability. No resources spent, no actions spent, and you avoid some mean treachery. It only costs a card slot.

My Zoey first goes 2x On The Hunt + 2x Emergency Cache and once I upgrade On The Hunt to (3), both Emergency Chance can be swapped for some other good cards since you are covered when it comes to resources.

It's also Tactic so if you are playing Stick to The Plan build it can be attached at start. Hell, if you are making some really resource heavy Guardian deck, 2x On The Hunt (3), 2x Emergency Cache and you can start with OTH(3) and EC in your STTP, having easy 6-7 (if Zoey) resource access.

10/10 card. Guardians don't have that many amazing 10/10 cards but this one takes my personal vote as one of them.

Benny89 · 4
It's 3 exp, you can have a lot for 3 exp. That's the problem with this card. Definitely not among initial purchases I'd say. — bugiel_marek · 20
Zoey usually has much higher priorities than upgrading this to the 3 experience version because she's often swimming in resources from her innate ability. — An_Undecayed_Whately · 1105
... Roland Bank, on the other hand, loves this 3-experience version since it avoids treacheries that otherwise snag him while at the same time summons an enemy that he can defeat for a testless clue. And unlike Zoey, he really needs the cash! — An_Undecayed_Whately · 1105