Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Pocket Telescope

This card makes Horror in High Gear much easier. Nice in the rest of Innsmouth due to flooded locations but faces a lot of competition as a hand slot. Best used on specific scenarios.

200 characters

9/27/21

Oweldon · 39

I LOVE the idea for this card, I really do. A big gun-toting guardian tucking a .45 Automatic into their jacket so they can whip out the big guns. There's just one problem and it's pretty clear once the euphoria of taking free potshots at eldritch abominations wears off: How do I fit my brand new .45 into my holster when my hands are already full of Gun? The biggest issue of this card IMO is that it requires you to play your weapons in a particular order. Draw your BAR before your .45 Automatic? Tough luck. Bandolier and it's older brother are almost always going to be better.

Poor Tommy has to throw his beloved Becky away if he doesn't tuck his ~~sidechick~~ sidearm away first. Lily doesn't know the first thing about firearm safety. Sister Mary is too busy waving around that taboo Winchester she's so fond of. Nathaniel Cho prefers beating his enemies to a pulp in organized events. Mark, Leo, and Zoey might be able to make SOME use of it, but they still face the full hands dilemma.

And that's where I realized the Illicit keyword wasn't just for show. Finn, Tony, Jenny and most likely Bob would absolutely LOVE this card. Between Lock picks, Flashlights, Magnifying Glasses, Weird Fans, Old Keys and... eyeballs? Flex or combat oriented rogues love to have a gun in one hand and something else in the other.

I feel like this card wants to sucker deckbuilders into making a "moar gun" style guardian which IMO is what Bandolier is for. I feel like this card is less for the Brute with a BAR, and more for the Con with a Colt. I avoided mentioning Roland simply because many people (at least the ones I typically play with) play him as a fight oriented Guardian who just so happens to get clues and so end up running big guns and Bandoliers. Though he'd probably do well with this card running some Magnifying Glasses to bounce for mag swaps if you wanted to go clue focused who just so happens to be able to fight. It's worth noting however that Parallel-backed Roland can't take this card.

TL;DR: While most Guardians have some slot issues that arise from the order in which you play your one and two-handed guns, Rogues can make good use of it fairly easily with a plethora of one-handed guns, including signatures.

9/27/21

NorainJS · 59

Use Roland's upgraded gun + off hand stuff. — MrGoldbee · 1485 9/28/21

For a brief, shining moment, I imagined teamworking/transactioning this onto Joe Diamond so that he could store this holster inside of his guns... but alas, his guns specify freeing up hand-slots, not body. Oh well. — HanoverFist · 746 10/6/21

Finn can't take it. — suika · 9505 11/30/21

*can — suika · 9505 11/30/21

Finn can stuff a .25 automatic into his Quickdraw Holster to leave room for a lockpicks and a mag glass. Evade an enemy as a free action and follow up with action-less double tap from the automatic. Repeat, then Swift Reload as needed. — OrionJA · 1 12/6/21

How does this interact with CVP(2)? If you use the holster, you don’t technically resolve the action. So does it stay in play? — togetic271 · 5 12/12/21

The issue for rogues is that it takes the body slot so you can't have Leather jacket at the same time and so you lose Lonnie's healing ability (unless you can target an other asset with damages). And outside of story asset, the only items with a health value I have found are paralell Agnes' accessory and Precious memento (but it's an accessory so a disputed slot and 4 XP ...). — AlexP · 275 1/17/22

Very easy to house-rule that you can immediately slot a played single-handed weapon to the Quickdraw Holster. For me, if the house rule makes intuitive sense (you can buy a weapon and immediately holster it), I don't see why you can't house-rule it in. — Innsmouth Conspirator · 64 2/27/22

The problem with houseruling isn't the intuitive sense but whether it destroys game balance. We tend to play on Standard and throw a side mission into our campaigns anyway so it tends not to be all that tense anyway. — Timlagor · 6 8/7/22

This one is INSANE on Tony, Sawed off Shotgun and Galvanize team up for hilarious Damage. Ever wanted to kill the big bad without even using a single action. Use Holster + Galvanize + Holster + Galvanize + Holster for 5 times up to 6 dmg and afterwards feel free to do whatever else you want to do with all your actions. And also remember that you can activate the Holster during other investigators round, have the Seeker shortcut to your location and quickly kill the enemy brought to you. — Flatlin3 · 1 10/2/22

Can you use Actions on an asset attached to Quickdraw Holster ? Like, can you fire your attached gun by yourself ? — captainfire · 265 11/1/22

Are there any answers to the last question here? Didn't find anything either — EvoLwe · 1 1/6/25

Yeah no prob. It doesn't leave play area and there is no rule that you can't activate assets attached to smth. — Drostt · 146 3/11/25

Jury-Rig

x:test x:agility|combat|intellect|willpower|"any skill" k:item

AND

x:fight|investigate|evade k:item

(theoretically) gets you the full list of items that Jury-Rig can be used on.

A shortlist of items that this poster thinks takes to Jury-Rig better that most:

Items with negative skill value modifiers:

Cryptographic Cipher
Sledgehammer (less so Sledgehammer (5))

Items with no skill value boosts but significant effects on success:

Items with less skill value boosts than their effects on success might warrant:

Fingerprint Kit
Detective's Colt 1911s (only possible with Versatile)

Items with "Succeed by X" Clauses without comparable skill boosts

Wildcards:

EDIT: Well, it just came to my attention that you can use any number of durability uses on any test. This is huge, as there is now one king of a card that you'd always want to pair with this card: Ancient Stone (1), to get ostensibly 6 more secrets that you would otherwise get for no resources. This also holds true, though to a lesser extent, for Strange Solution.

9/27/21

Lucaxiom · 4512

Ancient Stone! — MrGoldbee · 1485 9/28/21

@MrGoldbee Kinda? Any item that discards on a success was deemed un-qualified for the list. Strange Solution got the same treatment. — Lucaxiom · 4512 9/28/21

But why? There's no exhaust clause, so nothing is stopping you from using all three durability to get +6 on a test - which is really quite strong when you're aiming for high difficulty Ancient Stone or similar. — Death by Chocolate · 1489 9/29/21

Wait what?!.. You're right! there's no exhaust clause! — Lucaxiom · 4512 9/30/21

While it is good for ensuring Ancient Stone succeeds, you only record the difficulty of the test, not how much you succeeded by. So "6 more secrets than you would otherwise get" is not true. — TrisJ1 · 8 10/25/21

It lets you take on a big test. — MrGoldbee · 1485 11/10/21

Eon Chart could be an interesting target — zombieplayground · 1 12/12/21

I've been testing this on Old Keyring with good results. — DrMChristopher · 502 12/17/21

Probably not the best use of Jury Rig, but it can attach to Liquid Courage. — Lemmingrad · 21 1/7/22

Can it be attached to [Eye of the Djinn](/card/07225)? If so, seems pretty cool target. — Kalín · 200 2/6/22

would Archaic Glyphs - Guiding Stones be a good target, probably in a Minh build? — An_Undecayed_Whately · 1312 4/5/22

@An_Undecayed_Whately: Sadly, once you upgrade Archaic Glyphs into Guiding Stones version, it ceases to be an item and becomes a spell. Thus, it can't be jury-rigged. — HanoverFist · 746 5/9/22

@Lucaxiom: Two questions! One: What does your brackets around Fingerprint Kit and Old Shotgun indicate? Two: Wouldn't this also affect Lantern and Flashlight, which have ->Investigate actions? Unsure why those didn't come up in the tokenized search you listed, but Lantern seems like an interesting possibility similar to Old Keyring as you can sort of force-discard it after Jury Rig is empty, thereby discarding Jury Rig, thereby opening recursion via Scrounge For Supplies/Resourceful/Yorick. — HanoverFist · 746 5/9/22

@HanoverFist: Answer 1: typos. Should be fixed now. Answer 2: As described, the items presented are "A shortlist of items that this poster thinks takes to Jury-Rig better that most". Lantern does show up among the 100+ items in the search term provided at the start of the review, but it did not warrant mentioning in my opinion, since it doesn't fall into any of the categories I presented. I did not consider the recursion angle however. — Lucaxiom · 4512 5/11/22

Ah, missed the shortlist part, thanks — HanoverFist · 746 5/17/22

In the Thick of It

Give this to Parallel Roland (yes, he of the Directives) and you can start a campaign/standalone on 8xp.... making him 7-5 (I would assume, unless you're leaning into immediate Desperate cards)

I'd be interested to see what the community can build, on 8xp starting...

9/27/21

fiatluxia · 68

And for those with a mystic bent, you can do this with Mateo instead. — HanoverFist · 746 9/29/21

Down the Rabbit Hole

I want to love this card. It feeds my munchkin brain in a good way!

In theory, even if you buy cards that are new for your deck, it will still be worth it if your original decklist features enough upgradeable cards.

For every 2 upgraded cards, a new card can be added while maintaining advantage. If you want to have the highest experience advantage, you need 14 upgrade cards in a regular 8 game campaign. If you merely want to stay neutral or above, then you'd be able to add 13 card in the same scenario. That would make you gain 14 upgrade exp with a 13 exp penalty for adding new cards (which would still be net-positive).

This card rewards pre-emptive planning and deckbuilding and gives more experience very early on.

9/27/21

Kantarak · 17

Play as Dexter Drake, and combine with a pair of Arcane Researches, In The Thick Of It, and Charon's Obol, for a potential net 43 bonus XP over an 8-game campaign! — HanoverFist · 746 9/28/21

Every side quest also counts, right? That would be a crazy amont of XP... I think cards which upgrades several times like Emergency Cash are espacially useful — Miroque · 25 9/29/21

Dexter also has access to Let God Sort Them Out for even more bonus XP. — puert · 48 10/25/21