Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Directive

Very funny and tricky Directive card, I think. You can very strange play by triggering. Note that you may play a event during any player window as in Fence FAQ, as I know. If it's revealed that it's not true, please ignore this review at all.

Sneak Attack: you can play after the enemy attack and is exhausted. (Timing) between 3.3 and 3.4
Ambush, Under Surveillance with First Watch: you can play after you check whether the enemy is spawn or not by First Watch. (Timing) during test -- you need to find & resolve skill test from another encounter card.
Any card with fight, evade or dealing damage ("I've got a plan!", Backstab, Coup de Grâce, Flare, Impromptu Barrier, Improvised Weapon, One-Two Punch, Clean Them Out, Dynamite Blast): you can play after the hunter enemy moved but before attack. (Timing) between 3.2 and 3.3
Delve Too Deep: you could play Delve at strange timming.

However, the Regulation is strong. You can play at most 2 cards for each round. Don't forget this limit includes not only events, but also assets. If you plan to trigger , you can only play 1 card for each round. One solution is Stick to the Plan + Ever Vigilant combo. Just reveal , and play Ever Vigilant.

I think here is a dilemma that the commit-based deck seems to be suitable due to play-regulation. However, parallel deckbuilding may access limited number of skills and normal deckbuilding may access limited number of tactic/insight events.

7/5/21

elkeinkrad · 498

Ever Vigilant should not work, as it also _plays_ the cards, right? — trazoM · 9 7/5/21

@trazoM you need to reveal elder_sign to ignore regulation before play Ever Vigilant :) — elkeinkrad · 498 7/5/21

aaah, that's printed in Roland, I see. I guess it was a joke, then :D — trazoM · 9 7/5/21

The ruling for fast assets is that they can be played in any fast window **during your turn**! (Corroborated by re-reading the Fence FAQ answer very carefully) So, rules as written, you would not be able to do shenanigans with this directive during the enemy phase. Obviously, "rules as written" is very different from "rules as intended" so people should play as they want :) — Frost · 280 11/22/21

Event is not asset. There are no restriction for event. — elkeinkrad · 498 12/14/21

Additionally, Fence tells "during your turn" but this Direction doesn't. — elkeinkrad · 498 12/15/21

Good point that I missed (and TIL!) in which case it works like Chuck Fergus, for which there hasn't been a ruling as to what happens when you have a fast event without a specified point in time it's allowed to be played, which leaves us with you can basically decide for yourself — Frost · 280 12/16/21

Would just like to point out that in Arkham Horror, "playing" refers to paying a card's resource cost to place it into your play area, so you can still use the Reaction of this directive (it's Permanent, so it always starts in your play area) and still play 2 more cards from your hand. Because of this, Ever Vigilant still works, but you can only play one other card. Since it gets fast, though, you can do cool things like playing weapons while an enemy is right on top of you. So it's still very strong! — GoldPooka · 7 3/17/22

I don't believe GoldPooka is right. Not taking the play action doesn't mean you're not playing a card. — StyxTBeuford · 13051 1/29/24

Trial by Fire

...this would be an amazing card for preston were it not 3 exp. But given how it is, this card is amazing on a lot of people who can take it! Calvin loves it, Wendy loves it, Yorick and Silas love it, it's quite the card upgrade!

7/4/21

ironbrw · 17

I'm actually kind of split on whether this is good for Calvin or not. The original TBF sets one skill to 5 for the round and that's virtually all Calvin needs unless he's trying to split between fighting and investigating. 3 XP for situational utility isn't terrible, but on the other hand you're not likely to pick this up early for him (you'd probably rather take Five of Pentacles, Peter, Jessica+Charisma, upgraded Ward, etc), so by the time you would take this you probably already have a fair bit of trauma anyway. This kind of just reads like a more expensive Fight or Flight to me. — StyxTBeuford · 13051 7/4/21

Importantly, this upgrade also reduces the cost to 2, which makes it much more usable in a Dark Horse deck with On Your Own. — Death by Chocolate · 1484 7/9/21

3xp = don't use off-class, please. 4/5xp = don't use Lola, Finn, Carolyn, please. — elkeinkrad · 498 7/29/21

The Star • XVII

I really don't like Tarot cards (not Lovecraftian at all) but I get why RttCU has gone all-in on amping up Tarot for the rest of this campaign. Still, if you have Dunwich, Forgotten Age and Innsmouth runs where any investigator is running a Tarot card, it's way too 'min-maxy' for me, favouring trying to boost your stats in a slot you wouldn't use over story. Boo hiss.

7/4/21

Krysmopompas · 367

But more tarots mean the slot is far more contested, and the level three ones aren't really min maxy, they're more specialised. Surely they solve the problems you had with the low level tarots — SSW · 217 7/4/21

Hyper-specialized IS min-maxy. — Death by Chocolate · 1484 7/4/21

I dunno, I feel like the tarot cards are the least of the ways AHLCG departs from Lovecraft and mostly I dunno, speaking for myself I don't mind that kind of thing all that much. I feel like maybe for me Lovecraft and pulp and Lovecraft's successors taken together makes for a better game than Lovecraft alone. But even so, I kinda take the tarot outside of circle undone thematically to represent weird coincidences, strange luck , investigators' superstitions. The kinda folklore that just might have a kernel of truth in it, but maybe the kinda truth you're perhaps better off not thinking too hard about. And honestly, I kinda think stretching to come up with thematic justifications for out-of-place cards is half the fun of this game — bee123 · 31 7/4/21

Min/max is a role-playing game holdover term. There’s no reason your deck can’t be as efficient as you want. And there’s the taboo list if you want to have your nonsense curbed periodically. This card is basically “guardian allies are now slightly better, and for Tommy, much better.” Also Bee123 is right. — MrGoldbee · 1493 7/4/21

The level 3 Tarot (and the Level 1 Tarot) are cards that are useful to particular investigators and builds. They do take up deck space, and, if they aren't in your opening hand, they are a little expensive, so I feel it balances out. It's a card choice, like many others, and they aren't overrepresented in the deck lists, so I don't really see how it's a problem. Of course, if you or your group don't like them, you can always ban them in a "House Taboo List." I doubt MJ or Jeremy will bust down your door and tell you off — LivefromBenefitSt · 1091 7/4/21

This with Guard Dog: YES! — Zinjanthropus · 231 7/17/21

Sign Magick

If you fill your extra slot with Haste you can activate one spell, then activate one other and then exhaust Haste to reactivate one of the two (or your Henry Wan if you are going the blurse way with Dexter) for one measly action! Just make sure one of the spells doesn't require charges because you'll be going through them like nobody's business (but Dexter doesn't really care as long as you have good card draw to replace the empty spells). Spectacular upgrade to a very weak card.

7/4/21

Gandalph · 34

Unfortunately, I don't think this works quite that swimmingly. Haste actually checks that you performed the action, and there is a long standing rules principle in this game that abilities that check to see if actions are performed check to see if they are spent. (See frozen in fear and say pathfinder or shortcut which uses the same "perform language") so all you'd need to do is do a second activate after your free one from sign magick to get the haste to trigger. 4 actions for 2 clicks--not quite as good as 3 for 1 but pretty damn good nonetheless! — Sycopath · 1 7/4/21

Mmm... I don't know. A ruling or errata on Haste is long overdue but the way I see it actions and action cost (arrow or click in Netrunner terminology) are two very distinct things. If it works like you say, they should have worded "when you spend one or more arrows to perform the same action twice in a row...". The ruling on Pathfinder + Frozen in fear doesn't make much sense: activating the free trigger is obviously not an activate action (there's a rules entry which specifies what an activate action is and it needs to have an arrow cost), but the move action it allows you to do is in fact an action, as is playing a fast event, they simply do not require a cost. So you cannot trigger Haste by using Hard knocks multiple times because it's not an activate action and it doesn't let you perform actions (receiving a bonus is not listed as an action), but you should be able to trigger Haste by using the free trigger on Cryptic Cypher to investigate and then playing a fast event with an investigate designator: the first is not an activate action and the second doesn't cost any arrows but they are both investigate actions. So — Gandalph · 34 7/5/21

So when Sign Magick says activate the activate action on a different spell you are indeed performing an activate action even if you don't spend any arrows and you should be allowed to trigger Haste. — Gandalph · 34 7/5/21

I think they should have maintained a stricter distinction between action and action cost (arrow). For example, Leo De Luca and Quick Thinking should have said "gain one arrow" (as in Netrunner "gain one click", instead of you may perform one extra action. It would have been much clearer for everything, including the actions which require multiple arrows (which are not as widely used as in Netrunner but still an important mechanic in the game) — Gandalph · 34 7/5/21

@Gabdalf, they DO have a strict distinction between action and action cost. Technically there are NO ‘actions’ on assets, so ‘activate the activate action on a [spell]” is not a thing. I’d suggest rereading the rules on Actions and abilities. What happens in your example is 1) You take the Activate action, choosing an action-costed ability on a spell. Then you trigger the reaction ability on Haste to ‘resolve the ability’ on another spell. You seem to be using the words ‘action’ and ‘ability’ interchangeably, which is not the case. In your example of investigation actions, neither of your suggested ‘actions’ are actions according to the rules. The cypher is a free trigger ability and the fast card was NOT played with the Play Action (See the first line of the rules for Fast cards). They are both ‘investigates’ and thus trigger all sorts of abilities that resolve ‘when investigating’ or ‘after you successfully investigate’ etc. If Sign Magic worked the way you thought, it would be phrased similarly to Ursula and Marie: “Take an activate action which can only be used to activate Spell or Ritual -> abilities.” — Death by Chocolate · 1484 7/9/21

@Death by Chocolate thanks for the clarification! The problem that creates confusion and potential inconsistencies is that Haste does treat action designator as actions, so it's still not really clear if a free trigger or a fast event with an Investigate designator - while obviously not being activate or play actions - are to be considered investigate actions (I guess not?) — Gandalph · 34 7/11/21

The ruling on action designator says "Activating such an ability performs the designated action", so it should be at least possible to activate Wither, trigger Sign Magick to perform the Fight ability on Shrivelling and then trigger Haste to punch/Shrivel/Wither/Sword cane with only one action spent, since - rules as written - you are indeed performing three fight actions. Then again, if this is allowed I find it a bit clunky that the "activate" on Sign Magick is not considered by itself as performing an activate action (but can be considered as a fight action as we have seen) just because is not in the Form of a bold designator, but I guess it's necessary to prevent Haste from triggering too easily (play, draw, move and activate effects triggered by cards such events or Double, double do not count as performing an action, but if I double double a Chuck Fergus fast Backstab I can trigger Haste to shoot with the Beretta, I guess) — Gandalph · 34 7/11/21

Ancient Stone

I ran this alongside Occult Lexicon in a big hands Harvey Walter deck through TCU and the effect was absolutely bonkers. Between this (sometimes in both hands mind), Cryptic Research, Blood-Rite, and Harvey's Passive, Harvey's ability to just delete anything (this works on elites) was frightening, given I primarily built him to be a swift clue-gatherer.

I just wanted to be able to participate in the boss phase! (Pathfinder, Cryptic Research -> passive draw, Blood-Rite, Blood-Rite, Occult Invocation). Welp, that was the boss phase I guess. You guys comin', or what? Slowpokes.

7/3/21

MrButtermancer · 56