I feel people are missing the main power of this card. If the encounter deck has less cards than the number of players, you don't shuffle and draw extra cards.

This means in a 4-player game, when the encounter deck gets down to 3 or less cards, it is burning an encounter draw as well as letting you assign cards. If the deck has 2 or 1 cards left, you are burning up to 3 draws.

This effect is just amazing. It's comparable to multiple Wards of Protection (2) or (5), or A Watchful Peace, both of which are much more expensive XP wise. In a 4-player game, it's not uncommon to go through the deck twice, giving you two shots at this.

The effect is so powerful, for so little cost (0 XP, 1 card, 1 resource), and there is so little downside of it not happening (the card is still really useful in 4-player if the stars are cruel and you don't draw it in time), that to me this makes it a MUST have in a 4-player game. I'm struggling to see any reason why you wouldn't run this, unless the table already has it covered.

An excellent Insight for [Joe Diamond] as the card saves tons of action economy and can clear extremely difficult areas. An important use of this card is in combination with signature weaknesses or campaign weaknesses that generate humanoid enemies, as it provides a consistent way to not only mine clues but mine clues at a distance from very unpleasant locations. [Scene of the Crime] is more consistent (and why not take both) but if you have the right tools, you can make this card better:

1. Take this card as the lead in Path to Carcosa and you'll find yourself constantly talking to Strangers, who will spawn virtually every scenario on top of a wide array of other humanoids.

2. Humanoids are a very common enemy type in most other campaigns, but it's really the signature weaknesses and occasional basic weaknesses that make this card consistent, making it a solid [Adaptable] choice if you happen to be a Rogue/Guardian hybrid who picks up [Mob Enforcer], [Silver Twilight Acolyte], or [Stubborn Detective] after finalizing your deck.

3. [Nathaniel Cho] and [William Yorick] both have humanoid signatures and the ability to run this card, so keep it in mind while building them if you want to hold some Ghouls for questioning. [Rita Young], [Trish Scarborough] and [Father Mateo] all spawn extras as well ([Tony Morgan], too, although he spawns humans in an inconvenient location and on a timer). If you have more than one of these investigators in a party, this becomes a very clever pick, so keep an eye out for the right circumstances to reap a little extra power in a very fun way.

Ran this in a Mary deck during a 4P game and was pleasantly surprised at how useful it was. The real benefit from this was in enabling me to move to others' locations and pull an enemy off them fearlessly, even when I didn't have the actions to finish the enemy off that round. It was also incredibly useful for neutralizing hunters about to enter our location while we still had business there. Knowing their attack would fall flat gave us substantial latitude to focus on advancing the act rather than worrying about proactively engaging baddies.

This isn't a card for every build, but in the right one, it can be refreshingly liberating.

Lily Chen with a pair of Butterfly Swords, particularly the level 5 version, should probably give this a look. Intrepid is quite strong if it can be leveraged for an extended period of time. That's normally a problem in guardian, because they don't have much action generation outside of Galvanize unless you're someone like Leo Anderson, and even then this is a niche card. But the problem isn't the lack of actions in a turn; it's the limited number of skill tests you can take. Enter Lily, master of the thousand palms, who can unleash a flurry of strikes, compressing an enormous number of tests into just three actions. And it's in the eye of that tempest of blows that this card finally begins to sing.

Let's break it down: Opting to go with Lily's agility signature, Balance of Body, grants her three fight or evade actions for the price of one, which translates to up to five tests in a single turn. Already this card has the potential to do work. If you add in Butterfly Swords (5), you can take two tests per fight action, effectively doubling the utility of this card even without action generation. Swords and Balance together combine to grant upwards of eight tests. That's suddenly a lot of value. Toss in Galvanize for an additional two tests from Swords. You get the picture.

As a bonus, the second test on Butterfly Swords adds your agility to your combat, effectively netting you +2 from Intrepid. The doubled bonus also applies to a number of other Lily-tailored combat tricks like Sweeping Kick and Fang of Tyr'thrha meaning you can really go beast mode during your turn. And you're Lily, so you should be going beast mode.

These synergies justify giving Intrepid a long, hard look.

The other obvious weakness of the card--that it requires a successful willpower test to trigger--is largely mitigated by Lily's deckbuilding and (at least this) playstyle. While most guardians, even those with high willpower, are dependent upon the whims of the encounter deck to utilize Intrepid, Lily, as a quasi-mystic, can run a number of useful cards that can prompt a willpower test on command. And while normally cutting into your turn by "wasting" an action on a willpower test to trigger this would hurt, Lily's enormous test-compression potential offsets this downside.

Long story short: Take this card in flurry of strikes Lily and play it during a mega turn to help you crush tests. Also, pro-tip: use Balance early to maximize the number of tests you take with it Broken side up. You never know when you might get lucky and draw an elder sign, meaning you can use Balance twice in a single turn. The only thing better than eights tests in a turn is ten.

One of the better cards in Forgotten Age. If you are going to be poisoned, this is the way to do it. Some good combos include:

Creeping Poison - Allowing you to deal testless damage to an investigator, then draw an additional encounter card. Snakescourge - Allows you to draw an additional encounter card.

You can also use this card to make autofails more likely, which is great for an Any% run.

This is not the best card if you are trying to win the campaign.