Event

Insight.

Cost: 0. XP: 1.

Seeker

Fast. Play during any player window.

Choose an enemy at your location. Test (X), where X is that enemy's fight value. For each point you succeed by, reduce that enemy's fight value by 1 for the next attack performed against it this phase.

Stephen Somers
Undimensioned and Unseen #228.
Expose Weakness

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

Please don't take this card without talking to your teammates first. Sure, it sounds like a clutch card, but in practice, keep in mind:

1.) you have to OVERsucceed to get literally any use from this card whatsoever. and even if you do manage that against monsters with high fight, you aren't reducing the fight value by much. I'm going to guess an average of 1-2.

2.) This only lasts for one attack. ONE attack. Unless your teammate is close by and also using a Shotgun, a (well-used) Double or Nothing, etc. that can abuse the heck out of an easy fight test, you're just getting a mildly easier attack.

On top of that, you as a Seeker are spending an XP and card slot on something that isn't at all conducive to seeking (clues, cards) or self-defense. Trust me, there are much better cards for Seeker self-defense that DON'T cost 1 XP. Yea, cool, you reduced some enemy's fight value from 3 to 0 for one punch, but if your combat-oriented teammates desperately and frequently needed something like that, chances are what they really needed is to build their investigators to be more consistent. Spend your XP on something that will make you better at YOUR job (or, again, something to pull your own butt out of the fire).

Maybe this card does have its place, but you (and more specifically, your team) really need to have something worthwhile built around it. This card fills a pretty specific combat-support niche, and if you undershoot that, you're going to be disappointed. In my personal opinion, the setup that your team needs to intentionally make this card worth it.....is not worth it. I can visualize a few different, down-to-the-wire scenarios where a well-placed Expose Weakness (with a VERY forgiving chaos bag) could win you the game, but I'm not willing to shovel my money into a losing slot machine in the hopes of that triple 7.

tl;dr: yes for someone, no for me

TheDoc37 · 468
Yeah, this is a bad one. Maybe for Sawed-off Shotgun Trish? — Zinjanthropus · 227
New life with --Exploit-- Weakness. — MrGoldbee · 1451

Do you like Jank? Yes? Then sit down and let me whisper these two cards to you. Expose Weakness. Double or Nothing.

Did you get goosebumps? Nuff said.

(Obviously you'll need lots of other combo pieces, how about a Vicious Blow? Backstab? "I've got a plan!")

Tsuruki23 · 2527
But is it worth it..? I mean, it's a great combo when you can pull it off, but three cards to kill a monster seems a bit excessive. — olahren · 3412
This is how bosses die. This card is great. — Andronikus · 1

In the review of Flashlight, reviewer Caius Drewart notes that using the Flashlight on a location to reduce it's shroud value to 0 basically guarantees a success regardless of what chaos token you draw (barring the dreaded tentacle token.) Similarly, this card can, potentially, guarantee the next Fight action against a baddy succeeds (again, barring auto-failure.) I think this card is in the same vein as the Flashlight, since it hedges your bets against the chaos tokens in this way. I might even dare compare it to the Grotesque Statue, Wendy Adams' special ability, Jim Culver's special ability, and Kukri.

Quick Rundown: Daisy Walker & Norman Withers both have 5 Intellect . Carolyn Fern, Finn Edwards, Marie Lambeau, Minh Thi Phan, Rex Murphy, and Ursula Downs all have 4 Intellect . If you succeed the Intellect test with flying colors, Expose Weakness basically lets you trade out your Combat icon for your Intellect icon for a single (the next) attack. And remember, if you reduce the enemy's Combat to 0, success is basically guaranteed, meaning you get a minimum of one damage in.

In some sense Expose Weakness helps Seekers deal damage, making it similar to Mind over Matter or "I've got a plan!", and even Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor. Let's compare these four cards:

  • Mind over Matter is cheap, Fast, and can be used in place of your Combat and Agility values until your turn is over. That still means three seperate pulls from the chaos bag.
  • "I've got a plan!" is more expensive than MoM and limits you to a single Fight action, but it can deal a massive +3 extra damage if you have the clues for it (which is harder than it seems, making it very conditional.)
  • Acidic Ichor possibly lets you deal 3 damage, possibly 3 times, but has a huge EXP cost and the labor pains of using the Unidentified Strange Solution, and despite the solid Combat value of 6 to work with, that's still three chaos tokens being draw from the chaos bag, which can be very nasty if you happen to fail.
  • (This is where the utility of Expose Weakness distinguishes it from those other three Seeker cards.) Expose Weakness is Fast, like MoM, meaning you get your full three actions, and it doesn't provoke an Attack of Opportunity, but more importantly it can be played right before your damage dealing buddy takes his turn. You can almost guarantee a successful attack for yourself or (!) one of your damage-dealing buddies packing the big guns and the big damage (Shotgun anyone?) That seems pretty powerful to me.

I also think it is a mistake to think Expose Weakness is intended to be used on boss monsters. Maybe it was, and you certainly can, but I think you'd be better off securing that guaranteed hit on weaker Strength enemies, letting your Guardian buddies take them out quickly and easily: save them ammo, actions, cards, and skill tests. For reference, I counted 45 out of 114 enemies with Strength 4 or greater. Also, even though we haven't seen it yet, I fully expect more Weapon with the "for each point you succeed by" clause, each one of which will combo with this card. Even Spell cards for combat. Expose Weakness may be a situational card, and I think it is definitely for Seekers wanting to play supporting role to their buddies (as they should), but is it jank? I'm not so sure. It's upgraded version is even better, of course.

I'd like to note that, if you were to reduce a test's difficulty to 0, you would still succeed if you pulled the autofail. From the rules: "If a skill test automatically fails, the investigator's total skill value for that test is considered 0." — TheDoc37 · 468
@TheDoc37 not true. Autofail always leads in failure of the test. The clause you mention is there for certain cases, such as Rotten remains. — Elvenwhite · 7