A Watchful Peace

A Watchful Peace

This card finally confirms my suspicions that Silas in a shirt is a force stronger than the woodwinds used to keep the Blind Idiot God asleep or a legion of federal marshals at your back.

I love this game, but I'm not sure how this card made it to print. As others have pointed out, I think this would be perfectly fine if it had a Remove From Game clause attached to it--though even then I think it'd be a steal. Hell, I think this card would see play if were exiled after use and max once per game like a certain other red-flavored card. It's that good.

I'm playing Mary in my blind run of Innsmouth and one of the other players is running Silas. On a whim he grabbed a couple copies of this, and, without any real attempt to abuse it, we nearly trivialized the first scenario it hit the table. About halfway through that same scenario we agreed to house-rule the RFG clause, because it's just too easy for survivor to keep this jank going, even for a bunch of scrubs like us. If I can break it, I know we're in trouble.

Anyway, looking forward to the taboo version of this otherwise quite fun and powerful card. My OCD, though, will remain forever tweaked that "RFG" was never properly printed on this card. Somehow.

Sandmole · 46
A Watchful Peace ironically has caused quite an uproar! — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I just wish it were due Silas' stunning physique and wistful gaze, not a degenerate game effect! — Sandmole · 46
To be fair, I think it was equally lauded for it's sex appeal as it was panned for it's bustedness — Zinjanthropus · 230

A Watchful Peace

A Watchful Peace

This card does seem like it will be highly OP in most cases when there is no VP in the encounter deck. Our group would do everything possible to get every VP that comes onto the table, even if it has not been drawn. For those scenarios when all VP is in play, this would be great late game. I do agree that using it constantly like Big Iron mentioned would make it boring, to a degree, but having other ways to mitigate the encounter deck is always a plus. This would make TCU significantly easier now since only one person can start with this bad boy off the bat. I am happy my boy Mateo just getting more cards from other classes he can use with reliable use.

gmmster2345 · 2
Funny enough I was thinking about how WP as a powerful, taboo worthy card might not be used as much just because of groups who want to comb through the encounter deck to get all the VP possible. I do think the utility of never drawing though outweighs the additional XP, but for high score games the extra VP is desirable in its own right. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
One nice elegance is that in big groups, where this is best, you also have the best change of finding all the VP enemies anyway — NarkasisBroon · 11
You can still Delve Too Deep to get extra xp and at last draw some cards from the encióounter deck — vidinufi · 69

Another Day, Another Dollar

Another Day, Another Dollar

I think the other review of this card is a little harsh. While it is true that Hot Streak and its ilk do gain you more total resources, the main advantage of this card is that it is always active from the get-go, and doesn't have to be drawn or played. Using Versatile to grab an Astounding Revelation with Stick to the Plan is a tried and true combo (on Guardians not named Roland, Carolyn or Zoe) despite the drawbacks of extra deck size precisely because of the initial boost (in a class that is much more starved of resources, to be fair). But having 7-9 resources to start shouldn't be slept on, it gets assets down faster, or provides a bigger starting base for core pieces of certain "pay-to-win" combos, most notably Lola Santiago and Delilah O'Rourke. Sometimes you will be in tight situations where spending actions for big resource gains is simply not feasible. The fact they're permanent and don't take a deck slot is also nice, as it means your deck potentially has more space to support your combo, than needing to contribute slots to resource generation for additional set up. Obviously these are always nice as a luxury late game upgrade, but I think they have a substantial amount to offer in the middle of a campaign if the conceit of your deck requires expensive pieces such as the aforementioned duo, Leo De Luca, or Double, Double (one copy of this card in particular is great for a doubled big money Sefina deck, as it allows you to play Double Double and Hot Streak from the get go). Don't sleep on ADAD, they don't look high impact, but they can really smooth over early game set up bumps.

sonicknight15 · 89
(Or named Carolyn) — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Is Versatile/Astounding/SttP that beneficial? I'd thought that the increase tempo from resources was not worth the lower chance of seeing your big gun after the mulligan and the lower chance of Prepared for the Worst finding it. — suika · 9511
I have yet to try, if it's worth a Versatile for investigators that can't take it. But one thing, that's beautiful about the combo is, that you can get up to 10 resources cost worth of assets into play with "Ever Vigilant" into play turn 1. This makes it more likely to use that card to full value. Not saying, that ADAD is worth nothing, it is sure a reliable way to get a faster setup for rogues. But at 3 XP more, guardians get sure more value from SttP. It's normally at least 2 resources saved with EV, even without AR. Plus (if not paired with "Versatile"), it adds a lot of consistency. — Susumu · 381

Enchant Weapon

Enchant Weapon

Hey, it looks like Mary's weapon was in fact a 2-piece kit !

I mean since the beginning it was weird for Blessed Blade NOT to have the Relic trait and now it's done. Plus it gives Mary the possibility to have a potential once per turn 3 damages attack almost always successful.

I assume this card will also be helpful for decks with a 2-handed primary weapon which can have simultaneously this primary weapon and a secondary one to deal with Poltergeist, Wraith, ... Now Mark Harrigan can burn all the Wraith he encounters with his Relic Flamethrower with no fear of seeing them raising again due to their haunted effect. Plus once per turn he can perform an attack with a skill of ... 13 !

You can also play it on a Sawed-Off Shotgun used by a rogue (ideally Tony Morgan). The added willpower is only 2 but you can increase that dependant on who played Enchant weapon on the Shotgun (4 - 5 I assume) and you still have the +1 damage.

And last thing I have for now: as you add 2 skills you could as well increase both, right ? For example making your new Relic Reliable or committing Steadfast (if you need Tony to succeed by 6).

AlexP · 284
Its the owners willpower not the controllers, so tony would get whoever put it on him as a boost, that could easily be +5. — Zerogrim · 295
Oops, fixed. — AlexP · 284
Committing steadfast only gives max +3 as well, only matching icons are counted on committed skills, the fact that you add heads doesn't change the fact that it's a first check. Reliable works though, and in class, so nice thought — NarkasisBroon · 11
The fact that the enchantment's power depends on its owner makes this an interesting support option as well. It's level 3 so generally only actual Guardians can run it (notable exception: Parallel Agnes Baker), but Mary could run 2 for reliability and still make use of the second when it shows up, for instance. — Thatwasademo · 58
Marie Lambeau can also use this card to support her group. — Tharzax · 1
Add to .25 auto. Free attack on dodge at +6 plus fists. — MrGoldbee · 1492
I am confused, its a 3xp asset, which really limits it to people with spells as an option or guardians. how would a rogue get it? — brkndevil · 19
@brkndevil: You can play it on any investigator's weapon, so you could have e.g. Marie bring it and attach it to Tony's Switchblade or whatever. — Zinjanthropus · 230
If Player A puts it on Player B's weapon, Player A still controls the Event right? Since the reaction says "When YOU perform a fight" (i.e. YOU = the controller of Enchant Weapon), won't Player B not actually be able to trigger the reaction since they do not control the upgrade itself, even though they control the weapon? — slyguavas · 49
Nevermind, read the rules on Ownership and Control, makes sense. — slyguavas · 49

A Watchful Peace

A Watchful Peace

EDIT: A WATCHFUL PEACE IS GONE (CRAB EMOJI)

Taboo, please.

How to ruin the game: Pick Stella or Silas.

Upgrade into 2x Quick Learner, 2x Drawing Thin, Grisly Totem, Signum Crucis, 2x A Watchful Peace.

Add even more draw to set up faster.

When the drawing thins and totem are down and you have a signum and peace in hand: do the hardest possible test on your first action, increasing its difficulty by 6, adding 8-10 . You fail, so Signum Crucis comes back to hand, and you have an infinite bless generator. Use survivor BS (Resourceful, True Survivor, Eucatastrophe for Silas) to recur A Watchful Peace nearly every round.

Already tested this personally with Stella, and around the halfway point in the scenario we just stop drawing encounter cards, only faltering once or twice when my recursion is exhausted - but I draw through my deck so fast that I get the pieces back quickly. It gets quite boring. Compare this to Hallow - that card wants 10 just to pause the clock, but this card eliminates threats completely, so doom doesn't even matter because nothing comes to slow your progress on objectives.

Erdjo · 328
So a five card combo with two permanents totalling 27xp is good, stop the presses! But seriously you have to build an really specific deck, generate a ton of blessing, have a whole bunch of sacred covenants to insure you don't just draw out all your blessings, and this allows prevention of encounter phase, but seems like with this much effort constantly being spent you probably could just solve anyones encounters anyway. — Zerogrim · 295
I’m with Iron on this one- this is an incredibly easy and efficient card to use and reuse. 5 bless is hardly an ask when Keep Faith already gets you 4/5 of the way there. You don’t need all the combo pieces for this to be exploited. This card was an instant taboo as soon as I saw it. But the good news is, it’s pretty easy to fix. Just have it remove from game, done. Because the real abuse of this card is that you can feasibly stop every encounter draw with disproportionately low effort. Skipping one draw is already worth picking this card up, because encounter draws are the main method the game uses to stop you from winning. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
This card is so dumb. Even if you restrain yourself and recur it just a couple times per scenario it's still way too strong in my opinion. And of course it is possible to recur it far more than that. I'm really surprised this card made it to print like this. — CaiusDrewart · 3191
Mistakes happen. Like I said, this is probably the easiest taboo ever- RFG puts this card exactly where it needs to be imo. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Agreed. Maybe they could take the opportunity to reign in some of these recursion loops at the same time... — CaiusDrewart · 3191
Yeah, I'm with you on "playing this card every turn is dumb" but the problem isn't this card, it's that survivor can pick 2 survivor events of pretty much any cost, and play them every turn. That engine is what needs taking apart (forbidden taboo on drawing thin shuts it down massively, for example — NarkasisBroon · 11
@Zerogrim - I don't see what point you're trying to make. What does the amount of xp have anything to do with what this card is capable of? It's not like these 5 cards are your entire deck; you still have a lot of room for fighting and cluing and whatever else you're interested in doing. And "needing a bunch of covenants" is completely wrong, it's very rare that people will draw out all the blesses you've added. And you can just go last every round. — Erdjo · 328
"survivor can pick 2 survivor events of pretty much any cost, and play them every turn" I feel kinda dense, but I don't understand how that's done. I can see 1 event with Silas, 2 times with 0xp cards, and 2 times with any survivor cards. I must be missing something as I don't see where Drawing Thin comes in. — khoshekh · 6
@khoshekh Resourceful can be recurred with True Survivor. Silas can Eucatastrophe and occasionally just elder sign his Resourcefuls. — Erdjo · 328
@khoshekh DT serves as huge card draw and as a way to add +4 difficulty to add a huge amount of blesses every turn with Signum Crucis. — Erdjo · 328
Yeah Drawing Thin's effects are subtle but massive. Being able to force any test into almost certainly a fail makes take heart so much more powerful, and massively powers up grisly totem 3 and lucky rabbit's foot 3. Any survivor with 3 XP (9 if you play taboo) can have 2 drawing thins and a grisly totem 3 down, and take heart in hand. This means as an action they can go "I'll investigate this location, it's shroud 2 so I'll make it difficulty 6, commit take heart and trigger grisly totem, I fail because I'm books 2, so I can gain 4 resources or draw 2 cards from drawing thin, gain 2 resources and draw 2 cards from take heart, and use grisly totems ability to return take heart to hand after the test fails. So now every turn I can, as an action, draw 4 cards and gain 2 resources, or draw 2 cards and gain 6 resources. Then at 6xp (12 with taboo) you add in a copy of true survivor which can recur 2 copies of resourceful, and another skill for 3 resources, and those resourceful a can recur true survivor and any other survivor card, so you can use that other card every time you run through the loop. And then you add in the other survivor recursion abilities, which are many and varied. The reason drawing thin is what makes the difference is that it provides a draw engine, a resource engine, and a way to guarantee really difficult tests which survivor thrives on. Honestly if drawing thin didn't give cards or resources, just allowed you to increase the difficulty by 2 once per turn it would still be really powerful — NarkasisBroon · 11
Drawing Thin is tabood already and not the issue here. It’s as Iron is saying- True Survivor, Resourceful, Silas’ ability, etc. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Do you even need to recur this for it to be stupidly powerful? Even played once, it's four ward of protection (5) in a single card. The bless requirement is just a formality in the class with the best bless generation. It's only natural that recurring an incredibly strong card becomes stupidly broken, so I don't think it's the recursion that's the problem, it's just this card being over the top. — suika · 9511
I think the topic of recursion is important here because it is the main enabler for a lot of good cards being pushed into taboo discussions. But I do think that conversation is one that exists outside of just this card. I agree that Watchful Peace is already a 3XP worthwhile card if it worked exactly once per game. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I also wouldnt say it’s directly equivalent to 4 wards. You play Ward in response to a draw, you play this without knowing what you’re avoiding, and presumably you will draw them next turn (if this worked only once). — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I'd say a good comparable for this card's effect is the Gold Pocket Watch--you don't get the Doom prevention, but you do get what is usually important effect of that card. So, I expect this to be really good for 3 XP, even if played as a one-off. — CaiusDrewart · 3191
*usually the most important effect, I mean to say. — CaiusDrewart · 3191
@BigIron because XP is measure of power, if a combo takes say 100XP it doesn't matter how good it is, no one can play it, if you can break the game at 0XP Taboo should approach without question, so there is a line there, how much XP do you have to spend to break the game before its fair, because wendy's 2XP break never got taboo'd and it requires a fraction of the setup this does. — Zerogrim · 295
Right, I get that. It is fair to say that a broken combo deck that takes say 30 XP to run a crazy combo is a different story from any single card breaking the game. Watchful Peace is absolutely in the latter category though. Resourceful just to play this 4 times per deck cycle instead of 2 is really strong value for little effort (essentially no actual action expenditure) and very little XP investment at all. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Yeah, 9/10ths of a GPW - that doesn't remove itself from the game - for about 1/3 the cost feels broken. Never mind that the bless token "cost" is completely negligible in a deck that's interested in this. — SGPrometheus · 847
generating 20 blessing and then spending them on peace is not trivial to get those four peaces, especially in a multiplayer game where you would be denying anyone else using blessings for your combo to work. — Zerogrim · 295
& You still get a doom. — MrGoldbee · 1492
@StyxTBeuford, in response to "It’s as Iron is saying- True Survivor, Resourceful, Silas’ ability, etc". And how do you pay for true survivor and watchful peace every turn (4 resources, while simultaneously getting 5 blesses in the bag (1 or more of your actions) and playing true survivor (another of your actions) leaving basically one action spare per turn for economy. Because I'm pretty sure you pay for it with Drawing thin. Drawing thin is the reason Silas can 1. Have the draw to get all the pieces of the combo. 2. Have the economy to keep the combo going, and 3. Put 5 blesses in the bag every turn with signum crucis. — NarkasisBroon · 11
I was just referring to recursion in general. You can recur a lot without needing to pay for all of it immediately, recursion is still very strong. I’m not advocating for a Resourceful ban or anything like that, I’m just pointing out the strength of recursion is what makes cards like this that dont RFG worth looking more carefully at. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I promise you DT is not required to make recursion worthwhile, nor do you need every combo peace to make recurring things a good idea. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Piece* — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I actually doubt that RFG will balance this without an additional Chain or a limit X per game. Multiple investigators can play this card, after all. — suika · 9511
suika might have the right of it, maybe it has Delve Too Deep's (max twice per game) mutation — NarkasisBroon · 11
Stupid sexy Silas! — Zinjanthropus · 230
Limit twice per game is likely, as thematically investigators shouldn't have this much power over the Mythos. Sylas can effectively turn off the mythos deck, at which point its just a game of pick up the clues while Sylas repeats a combo. — darkernectron · 8