Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Solemn Vow

I just realized that this card moves damage and don't heal or damage other cards.

According to the discussion about the Eldritch Sophist and the Archaic Glyphs you should be allowed to move damage to your guardians (or William Yorick ) Relentless for some cash. Especially Mark Harrigan would love the combo due to his ability.

6/9/21

Tharzax · 1

This is incorrect as Relentless does not have health and therefore cannot have damage moved to it. Damage can be placed on it by its ability only. You can however use Solemn Vow to move damage off of Relentless to something else. Damage just doesnt work the same way as secrets. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/9/21

Your right, that you can't assign damage that is dealt to the investigator to it because of the missing health. But the vow ignores the steps of assigning damage in the rulebook and moves the damage directly to a card. For me the card effect is not clearly defined without a FAQ and could be interpreted as an effect which ignores the usual rule like the ability on Relentless. But if it seems too good it can't be part of the Cthulhu-Mythos — Tharzax · 1 6/9/21

By that logic you could move damage to any asset that lacks a health stat, which clearly isn't the intended effect, so no. — MiskatonicFrosh · 368 6/9/21

Im fairly certain the reason you can’t is because you can only move game elements to legal destinations, and moving damage/horror requires assigning them, which does follow the rules of needing health/sanity values. The only reason Relentless can put damage on itself is because the card ability overrides the normal restriction specifically for itself- Solemn Vow does not make any exceptions. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/10/21

But by it's own ability relentless seems to be a valid target for health tokens, which are moved outside the rule for dealing damage/horror. — Tharzax · 1 6/10/21

That is incorrect. If it were a valid target for health tokens, then you could soak normal damage on it, which is obviously not true. It is only valid to put health tokens on it through its own ability. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/10/21

If it helps, for Relentless, use breakfast cereal marshmallows instead of damage tokens. The intended effect will be the same, you'll be less confused about how the card works, and you get to eat the tokens when you discard it :) — MiskatonicFrosh · 368 6/10/21

There is so far no rule that prevents damage being moved to any asset explicitly (if it does exist I'd like to see it, been trying to find it for aegis), an asset without health cannot be assigned damage and solemn vow and/or tommy need an FAQ before the intended interaction is certain. In tommys case moving damage to asset still lets his weakness destroy them so it may be intended. (otherwise why don't either card say "deal" damage instead) — Zerogrim · 301 6/11/21

It would be good to have a clarifying FAQ, but there’s 0 chance Solemn Vow RAI lets you move damage/horror onto any asset regardless if it has a healthy/sanity value. That kind of combo would be ridiculously broken and is very clearly not the intent behind the design, so such an FAQ would reinforce the way most people already interpret the card. All of that is to say, if the rules do somehow currently allow for us to move damage onto Relentless, they shouldn’t and any FAQ would reinforce that. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/11/21

I think there should be a FAQ for moving tokens from one card to another. For example if you move a secret with the sophist on a spell like Shrivelling does it change his type of use? — Tharzax · 1 6/15/21

We don't need an FAQ for that, there's already one on the Sophist confirming that tokens don't change type when moved. So you can put a secret on Shrivelling but it doesn't do anything since it's not a charge. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/15/21

Excuse me, it's not on Sophist, it's on Enraptured and Truth from Fiction. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/15/21

Not quite. The general rule for Uses (X "type") prevents that: >>A card cannot bear uses of a type other than that established by its own "Uses (X type)" keyword. (For example, a card with "Uses (4 ammo)" cannot gain charges.)<< So while the FAQ confirms, that you can put secrets, charges, whatever on an asset without any uses, you cannot move Secrets onto Shrivelling. — Susumu · 385 3/8/22

Able Bodied

"A player controls the cards located in his or her out-of-play game areas (such as the hand, deck, discard pile)."

So does this mean that your deck cannot contain more than 1 item? It would make more sence if the card's ability was: While ther are 2 item assets in your play area...

I was planning to include this into Silas' deck, however his innitial 2 items make this card already unuseful. But pure narative of Silas in my opinion is, that he IS able bodied. He is a sailor.

6/9/21

holandato · 2

This is a common jinx. They should have worded the rules more clear. Yes, you also control cards in the other areas, but card effects can always only interact with cards in play. (Unless of course, if the card says otherwise.) So don't worry, the card is playable. — Susumu · 385 6/9/21

In case you are wondering why this is the case it's in the rules reference guide under Ability. "Card abilities only interact with other cards that are in play, unless the ability specifically references an interaction with cards in an out-of-play area." — NarkasisBroon · 14 6/9/21

Enchant Weapon

How about compiling it with Enchanted Blade?

Does it then take 2 Arcane Slots?

Because that would also be an amazing combo for any guardian that would like to choose exactly how many damages to give...

6/8/21

Valentin1331 · 89583

I believe it does, as it says "in addition to" the other slots. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/8/21

Yes it does because of what Styx mentioned. Although it may not always be a bad thing since the new cycle has hinted at combinations and rewards for cards while you have certain types of card types in play, arcane included. — LaRoix · 1649 6/9/21

Another question: When it says exhaust _this_ card, does it refers to the Asset it is attached to or does it refer to Enchant Weapon? The first situation would mean that Galvanize can be used to take even more benefits of this amazing card. — Valentin1331 · 89583 7/24/21

It should just exhaust the enchantment and not the weapon by its wording — Tharzax · 1 8/11/21

However, you can't Galvanize the Enchant Weapon because it's an Event not an Asset :( — slyguavas · 53 11/11/21

Another Day, Another Dollar

This is a great way to gain money with experience, more efficient than spending experience to reduce the cost of cards. Usually when a card upgrade reduces resource cost, it will cost 1 XP to reduce the cost of a card by 1, but that only helps you if you draw the card, and only if you want to play the card at that time, and even if you do draw the card it may take you a long time to do so. With Another Day, while it costs 1.5 XP per resource, it gives you those resources always rather than sometimes, and it gives you them right at the start when you tend to need them most, rather than at some random later time that may be too late.

In general it is better to purchase this card than to upgrade your Emergency Caches into Hot Streaks. However, if you are really a glutton for money even at the cost of actions, and you need it throughout the mission rather than up front, you may be better off getting Hot Streak in addition to Emergency Cache, to bypass the limit of only two Emergency Cache in your deck. Hot Streak could also be better for certain specialty decks, like those which make special use of events, or fast drawing decks which are certain to run through the entire deck before the end of the mission.

6/7/21

ChristopherA · 114

Or scenarios that attack your wallet. — MrGoldbee · 1521 6/8/21

Vault of Knowledge

Probably one of the worst signatures in the game, it gives you an increased hand size which is the only thing saving it from the trash bin. There are major flaws with this card that need to be addressed.

A: you can only use this if you pigeon hole yourself into the role of clue gathering, which means to even get to use this effect you have to be willing to discard every other viable action you could do with Harvey, seriously! being forced to investigate every single round can really force you to be stuck where the clues are and away from the action.

B: its benefit is actual a downside when you think about it, so besides it amazing ability to hoard cards it also makes you draw cards from your deck, every card taken from your deck just gets you closer to a weakness and an eventual horror damage, its not worth speeding up that kind of doom clock, you use this too much and you may end up losing half your sanity just because you drew cards. (and if you use Harvey's ability you end up doubling the speed of your own demise)

C: it can grief your teammates... Unacceptable. You can force a teammate to draw weaknesses, discard cards from their overstuffed hands and take horror damage as you repeatedly get them to draw through their entire decks, I can't imagine any player ever wanting to play alongside a Harvey and seriously disrupting the natural rhythm of their deck to a faster more dangerous beat.

Side note: while its icons aren't good (triple fight would allow you to use strange solutions on bosses more regularly) the real killer is even if you try and get rid of this card Harvey's natural ability will likely make you just draw it again, especially if you are sensible and try and commit it when your deck is near empty and need to rid yourself of its vile temptation/S.

6/7/21

Zerogrim · 301

I.... cannot tell if this is sarcastic. Card draw always gets you closer to weaknesses on average, but that's not inherently a bad thing if you expect to draw through your deck anyway. I've said it multiple times, but card draw in Arkham is still heavily beneficial outside of Doomed decks and almost always worthwhile. The issues of Harvey taking too much damage from his weakness is fairly solvable with a single Bulletproof Vest, while the sanity issue is fairly moot as long as you have any allies at all. In any case, both Harvey's sig and his ability allow other investigators to draw cards as well, so if you are concerned with burning yourself too quickly, you can throw the draw onto someone who needs it more instead. Now, I don't think this is as good of a card draw signature as Minh's Analytical Mind, but it's still a perfectly solid signature, with the ability to transfer the draw to other investigators making it an incredibly useful tool in groups. Does your Guardian need more draw to find the weapon they need? Is your Rogue looking for that last Ace for Three Aces? You get the picture- this thing has pretty great group utility. Finally, the problem of needing to investigate every turn. I don't get this at all- you're Harvey Walters, an investigator with 5 intellect and only Seeker cards in your pool. Yes, you should be investigating virtually every turn. As long as you do it once a turn, you can trigger this every turn, but there's no reason you need to investigate just to trigger this, it's something that leans into what you should already want to be doing instead of constraining you. It's sort of like complaining that Grete Wagner gets you clues only if you're fighting- technically true, but you should really only be using the card if that was your plan to begin with. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/7/21

I find it really funny actually that in a game where you can play cards like You Handle This One, You Owe Me One, and Delve too Deep, that this card is somehow the step too far in terms of potential griefing, and for what it's worth, all of those cards are very good. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/7/21

Literally a sarcasm tag at the end, man. Even without it, if you find yourself wondering if something's sarcastic, maybe wonder a little more before writing out an essay in response. — SSW · 219 6/7/21

sat·ire /ˈsaˌtī(ə)r/ Noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. — SGPrometheus · 860 6/8/21

The /S at the end I thought only applied for the whole last paragraph. I literally could not tell if it referred to the whole thing. I apologize. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/8/21

I thought it was more interesting than writing "A free card draw every turn that you can give to allies is universally great, the one thing I don't like is the big hand nudge but that can be ignored" in case anyone still had doubts on what my point really was. — Zerogrim · 301 6/8/21

Great bit! /s — MrGoldbee · 1521 6/8/21

Candidly my thinking was, if this were a sarcastic post, that it should have clarification on why those points are not necessarily correct, since this is a review. I meant no offense, I just wanted to make sure I hit the points I wanted to hit. — StyxTBeuford · 13090 6/8/21