Treachery. Weakness

Task.

Neutral

Revelation - Discard cards from the top of the encounter deck until an enemy is discarded. Attach Smite the Wicked to that enemy and spawn it at the location farthest from you.

Forced - When the game ends, if attached enemy is in play: Zoey Samaras suffers 1 mental trauma.

Preston Stone
The Dunwich Legacy #7.
Smite the Wicked

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Any investigator may defeat the enemy with Smite the Wicked attached to return Smite the Wicked to Zoey's discard pile.

  • If Zoey is eliminated (by being defeated or taking a resign action) while Smite the Wicked is in play, Smite the Wicked's Forced effect triggers, as per the FAQ [V1.0, section 'Rulebook errata', topic "Elimination"].

  • If you draw Smite the Wicked and discard cards off the top of the encounter deck until the deck is empty without drawing an enemy, you do not reshuffle the encounter deck: "Generally, you reshuffle the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck when it is empty, but not while you’re resolving an effect. So you would discard cards from the top of the encounter deck, and if you happened to run out, then you’re in luck: Smite the Wicked fails to resolve, and is discarded. Then you reshuffle the encounter deck & discard pile."

  • If you draw Smite the Wicked and the enemy found has a spawn instruction: "Smite the Wicked overrides the enemy’s normal spawn location. So if you draw Smite the Wicked and the enemy that you find is a Swamp Leech, and the farthest location happens to be a non-Bayou location, the Swamp Leech would spawn there and immediately get discarded, along with Smite the Wicked."
Last updated

Reviews

One of those signature Weakness that can end the Campaign. Looking at the two elements, the effect and the discard condition, we get:

The effect: Draw an enemy, then someone has to kill it by the end of the scenario or Zoey gets hurt. The nasty sting is that if Zoey is taken out by damage or horror, she ends up with 2 Trauma for her troubles. If you are unlucky enough to have this happen a couple of times, it's new investigator time. Fortunately, unlike Searching for Izzie, this card asks you to do what Zoey always wants to do.

The discard condition: Well, you discard it when the enemy gets killed, which is exactly what Zoey wants to do. It can be extremely variable, since you can draw a Swarm of Rats or a Servant of the Lurker. Drawing an Aloof enemy is, of course, extra annoying. It also benefits from the "loophole" that anyone can resolve it, so if a very weak enemy comes out or another investigator is combat-ready, this can be dealt with pretty easily. As usual with this style of Weakness, when you draw it is critical, as is the map. Drawing it one turn before Resigning or dooming out in The Unspeakable Oath is way worse than drawing it early in The Secret Name. It can take anywhere from 2 to 6+ actions to clear, so it is a very situational weakness. You can mitigate the effects with "Get over here!" or Righteous Hunt.

All in all, this is an above average signature weakness, maybe average if all of the investigators are combat-ready.

So playing yesterday as Zoey on Where the Gods Dwell, and some of you will already now know where this is going, and I draw Smite the Wicked and the first enemy I discard is a copy of Nyarlathotep.

So what's the interaction here?

I knew that StW overrode Spawn instructions but what about Peril/Hidden and Revelation effects?

In this particular instance it didn't make much difference as we were soon to fail, so I just added it to my hand and took a point of Horror damage.

But should of I spawned Nyarlathotep and he then behaves as any other Hunter Enemy?

When instructed to "spawn" an enemy, you aren't drawing it. That means no revelation abilities initiate, including any associated with the hidden keyword. In this case, that does indeed mean you'd get to fight that copy of Nyarlathotep as a normal enemy instead of having to find a Whispering Chaos treachery. For a non-weakness way of accomplishing the same thing, consider On the Hunt. — Thatwasademo · 58
(though, of course, since some of the copies of Nyarlathotep have quite a lot of health, you may or may not actually find fighting his pieces normally easier than drawing them as hidden cards and using the scenario gimmick) — Thatwasademo · 58
hmmmm, well that's good to know for future attempts of Dream Eaters, cheers. — screamingabdab · 93

I disagree with people with people saying Smite the Wicked is a punishing weakness. If anything, Smite the Wicked, while it is not as tame as Arrogance and Whispers from the Deep, it's one of the few weakness which is very likely to be beneficial to the player.

Spawning a monster is a very punishing effect on average because monsters tend to be deadlier and more time consuming than treacheries, and it is a monster you MUST defeat, otherwise you will suffer a mental trauma, which can lead to quite a conondrum if you only have few turns to complete the scenario and the weakness spawns a very dangerous monster. There is also the possibility of you drawing this JUST before you were about to win and now you have to spend more time to catch up with a monster in order to defeat it and avoid suffering Trauma.

But these situations I have described are the absolute worst case scenarios, because you have to consider this weakness in the context of what Investigator it belongs and how their gameplans go, to understand why it is really not that bad:

1) Zoey is one of the best fighters among investigators, but she can't investigate for a damn without proper tools like Sixth Sense, so her main job is to defeat enemies. She GAINS cash facing enemies too, so she is encouraged to be highly aggresive. Chances are, Smite the Wicked won't affect her too much by spwaning an extra monster because Zoey will already have murdered most of them. And mind you! If she did actually murder every monster and then she draws her weakness, it will just discard the whole encounter deck and reshuffle it, failing to resolve before discarding itself. VERY RARELY a weakness fails to harm you in any tangible way, and unlike signature weaknesses like Rookie Mistake or Caught Red-Handed, it doesn't reshuffle itself when it cannot trigger its full effect.

2) Many enemies are designed to be a roadblock to the player, they are supposed to prevent them from acting and advancing the scenario. That means it is very likely an enemy spawned by Smite the Wicked will impede your progress and get into Zoey's range. Sure, it can definetly land on an Aloof enemy on the other side of the map, but that is a rarity compared to attaching itself to Hunter that will come your way anyway from across the map.

3) Maps that are structured as hallways are a rarity, more often than not, they take the form of a circular, squared or otherwise compact area, so enemies summoned by Smite the Wicked don't usually spawn that far away, especially if Zoey is at the centre of the map when she draws her weakness. Also if any effect that changes the map would cause enemies to get discarded for any reason, then Smite the Wicked would also get discarded. The only situations where this weakness actually get scary, are in Edge of the Earth and Innsmouth Cospiracy, because of how HUGE the maps in the scenarios of those expansions tend to be.

Now with "why I think this weakness is not that bad" out of the way, let's talk about the main reason why I think this weakness can be a boon in the circumstances

Easy answer: it DISCARDS encounter cards while searching for an enemy.

Like I cannot understate how powerful that is: you have absolutely no control when it happens or how it happens, but the whole fact this is has a chance to discard 1 or MORE very nasty trecheries like, say, Ancient Evils, is downright incredible!

On the Hunt is already considered a decent card on its own because it can make a Guardian deal with an enemy instead of a treachery, which is a preferred outcome, its level up version even more so. So what about a version that straight up DISCARDS encounter cards in exchange of a drawback if you don't defeat an enemy?

I will say that this aspect of Smite The Wicked is less noticeable in 4 players because you are likely to go through the encounter deck multiple times, but in situations where there is a low player count of 2 or you are playing Zoey solo, this weakness can and WILL save your hide sometimes.

In conclusion, those are my thoughts on Smite the Wicked: it is a weakness I will be far happier to deal with than the absolute amount of drek that is Searching for Izzie or ACTUAL campaign ending threats like Abandoned and Alone and Dark Memory. The only time where I think Smite the Wicked is truly horrible to deal with is in Forgotten Age, as it has a chance to attach itself to Vegeance enemies, but that has less to do with Smite the Wicked being dangerous on its own more with Forgotten Age being designed like absolute crap.

Abandoned and Alone is fine if you pace your discard pile. Spawning doom enemies far away is worse. — MrGoldbee · 1449
Discarding cards from the encounter deck hurts you just as much as it helps you. Sometimes it will discard Ancient Evils, but sometimes it will just get you closer to drawing Ancient Evils instead. Statistically speaking, discarding any number of encounter cards from the deck doesn't change your overall odds of drawing Ancient Evils (or any other deadly encounter card) in X encounter draws; it just increases the variance. For example, in a 30 card encounter deck with 3 Ancient Evils, if you expect to draw 30 cards, you'll always draw all 3. If you discard 5 cards from the top of the deck, the average Ancient Evils draws is still 3 but now you've also add the possibility of drawing 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6. The variance is increased but mathematically the average is the same. — Soul_Turtle · 441
@MrGoldbee Abandoned and Alone's effect of removing cards from your discard pile would be scary if you were playing as any other Investigator class but a Survivor, and especially Wendy with her amulet. What makes that weakness scary isn't that effect, it is the large amount of direct horror it inflicts, even if Peter Sylvester makes it less dauting, — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
@Soul_Turtle I'm not saying Smite the Wicked is ONLY beneficial to the player, I stated as much that is a chance rather than being guranteed, but it's a rarity for a weakness to actually be helpful sometimes rather than exclusively harmful. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
On The Hunt replaces an encounter card draw. Drawing this weakness replaces drawing any other player card. The two are not comparable at all — snacc · 982
Don't underestimate the "location furthest from you" part either. In some scenarios it's a non-issue, but some of the "get-from-the-starting-point-to-the-resigning-point" type scenario can make back-tracking difficult enough that Smite the Wicked is just not do-able if you draw it late, and Zoey doesn't have loads of sanity to spare.. — bee123 · 31
Like all "Task" weaknesses, it is depending on when you draw it. Drawing it early should give you time dealing with it, while late it can become auto-trauma. At least, Zoey has 6 sanity, and not 5 like Roland, the wimp. And it is among the easiest tasks to deal with for the character. It still is very swingy. At best, it can totally whiff, e.g. in "Miskatonic Museum" or on a "Swamp Leech" in Rougarou (see FAQ above). It can even spawn Nyarlathotep, instead of adding him to your hand. But it can sure cost games, if it spawn a doom enemy on an unconveniant location, like the Wizard of the Order in the Engine Car, while you are still far behing on the Essex County Express. — Susumu · 366
Ups, not all "Task" weaknesses. You rather want to draw Ursula's and the replacement from Carolyn rather later than early. — Susumu · 366
@snacc On the hunt does not replace an encounter card draw, it give you an option on what to draw from the encounter deck: I honestly the comparison is actually fitting, because as I said, getting an enemy instead of anything else benefits Zoey for the most parts (in comparison to other weaknesses), even if it means getting an "extra" encounter card. The fact it can discard some treacheries is the icing on the cake — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
@bee123 Sometimes I wonder if people read my review or just skim through them: I did mention spawning the furthest location from you can be problematic, especially in specific campaigns, but for the most parts, the maps you play on aren't THAT big, and there is the possibility that the enemy will come for you anyway if it is an hunter (which is one of the most common enemy keywords by the way, so statistically speaking, most of the enemies Smite the Wicked will attach to WILL be hunters). That is not getting how the bite of "spawning the furthest location from you" is far less stingy if Zoey draws it while she is in the middle of the map. I will say this weakness can be more punishing than Roland because it can actually DO something in the final scenario beside causing trauma you no longer care about, but trauma got a whole less scary now that is no longer permanent with Observed too. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
@Susumu Funnily, in the Essex Express the complete opposite happened during my playtrough: the Wizard of the Order spawned all the way back at the start because my group managed to rush through... And he immdediately fell into the void. That is why I think Smite the Wicked is not that bad: I said as well, it can be auto-trauma in the absolute worst case scenario, on average? It is probably an annoyance. And the fact it can be a complete non-issue or even beneficial to you, makes it an easier weakness to deal with overall, because on average a weakness will hurt you no matter what, if there is a chance it doesn't, then you got a huge boon in your hands. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
snacc's remark was apt. With "On the Hunt" you do not draw an additional encounter card, because you just draw an enemy instead of a totally random card. (That is: if you can find one.) StW you draw from your deck and resolve to draw an additional enemy. Now, as far weaknesses go, I agree it should not concern Zoey too much in most cases. But things have the potential to go south, if they line up bad with this weakness. Sure, in ECE, if you draw your weakness late and attach it to the Wizzard in the rear, while you are well ahead, it will be no issue. But even though, Hunter is a common keyword, it is quite uncommon on doom generating enemies. If these spawn farthest from you, this can make them quite a bigger thread, than they usually would be. Regarding your "icing on the cake", I don't get it. It is totally out of your control, which cards get discarded. Sure, you can get lucky and something particularly nasty gets discarded, But it can also discard rather tame treacheries, reshuffeling the encounter deck an additional time, and you get earlier to a nasty card, you thought you have dealt with for a while. Scenarios are balanced around the fact, that on average you see specific cards so and so often, so jinxing with that, can work in either direction and is not more likely to be a boon than to be a bad. It just adds chaos. — Susumu · 366
aaaand the new version of Smite the Wicked just dropped, and it actually makes the weakness genuinely concerning now potentially — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
Counterpoint: Essex County Express — StyxTBeuford · 12985

I DREW THIS CARD ON THE LAST TURN OF A SCENARIO. But it's not that bad anyway it could be worse and Zoey likes engaging and killing monsters so if you draw it early or mid game then you can get rid of it easily