Enemy. Weakness

Humanoid. Cultist.

Neutral
Fight: 3. Health: 3. Evade: 3.
Damage: 1. Horror: 1.

Prey - Rita Young only.

Alert. Hunter.

Forced - After you evade Hoods: It attacks you.

"You damn cowards always cover your faces. You're just like the damn Klan, always too scared to let people see who you are…"
- Graham McNeill, Ghouls of the Miskatonic
Stephen Somers
The Circle Undone #17.
Hoods

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Reviews

Another Enemy signature Weakness. Looking at the two elements, the effect and the discard condition, we get:

The effect: Enemy Weaknesses tend to be on the weak side, but this one is tailored to mess with Rita, since it gets an attack whether an Evade attempt succeeds or fails. There are weapons that do +1 damage (Like Fire Axe or the .18 Derringer), but that's still 2 actions to clear. The Ornate Bow is a very good choice, giving Rita a 7 vs 3 Fight for 3 damage, but Rita could really use her hands for clue tech and other things. Brute Force is another choice if you can boost her combat a bit to get a 2 up result. Like all enemies, of course, there is no reason another investigator can take them off her hands if that's not too much tempo loss for the team.

The discard condition: Kill them or get a friend to take a hit and Banish them to the far side of a large map or maybe get Handcuffs on them, but killing is the best choice.

Taking it all into account, this is an average signature Weakness, a bit more trouble than some of the other Enemy Weaknesses.

I completely disagree that this is average. This is one of the harshest enemy weaknesses since Rita only has 3 combat and not a ton of great combat options. She takes a hit whether she successfully or unsuccessfully evades it, so even that isn’t a great route to kill it. And it targets health as well as sanity, and Rita only has 5 sanity. Yes, you can one shot it with a Bow or OHR or Chainsaw, but in all cases you’re devoting Rita’s hands to fighting, which isn’t terrible for her at all but still limits her. — StyxTBeuford · 12985
Is the shtick that every weakness is a below average signature weakness? What is this, Lake Woebegone? — DjMiniboss · 44
If @LivefromBenefitSt considers Dark Memory average, then surely Hoods must be average as well! Meanwhile, Smite the Wicked is rated as above average. Hmm... — suika · 9385
@DjMiniboss The average weakness is a below-average weakness. — Hylianpuffball · 27
It makes sense for most weaknesses to be below average, if the median weakness is below average. But Hoods requires 6xp/8xp and two hand slots to deal with on a character who would otherwise be perfectly content with doing nothing but evading as enemy management. And if you're using the bow, you're effectively using two actions to attempt a test to clear this weakness. Not to mention that passing even an Ornate Bow shot is still anything but guaranteed on Hard/Expert, and a Chainsaw will miss on average on Hard/Expert without commits or Live and Learn. Of course a Guardian can effectively take care of it for you if they're at your location; but if they're not the action cost for them is even higher (Move, Fight, Move back), even disregarding the ammo spent and the chance of failing the test and hitting Rita for 3 damage. — suika · 9385
I think I see the argument for an average rating, however, the best solutions require XP cards which is the same knock against Abandoned and Alone except that one's rating is much more extreme. What gives? — LaRoix · 1643
You shoot one arrow at this and go on with your day. — Cpt_nice · 77

After:

The word "after" refers to the moment immediately after the specified timing point or triggering condition has fully resolved.

So it appears, "The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion" gave Rita a new and clean answer to her weakness, by exploiting it. This does not look trivial, she needs ways to turn down their evade value to zero. An easier way to do that would be using one supply each from both level 3 Flashlights, less wasteful with uses to combine just one supply from it with Impromptu Barrier.

Because Exploit Weakness discards the enemy as part of the Evasion, and the Forced ability would trigger after the Hoods are discarded, they are already out of play and can't attack anymore. Is this more efficient than taking either bow in her to deal with them? Probably not, but it should open her up to builds, that use other assets in her hands.

Susumu · 366
Note that this doesn't really matter either way as Exploit Weakness replaces the Evade with another effect. Which also unfortunately means Rita can't move after Exploit Weakness :( — Nenananas · 251

I think the reviews on this page are outdated after multiple expansions have added to the cardpool and I wanted to point out that I think this weakness is now pretty reasonable to deal with, and statistically, is probably just going to cost you 1 damage and 1 horror. It could do more if you fail tests, but Rita now has a few ways of dealing with this.

The primary way now that is unmentioned is with Sweeping Kick from Edge of the Earth. If you hold one of these in hand (assuming you draw it before Hoods) this is a 3 damage attack with rita baseline 8 to 3. Even the -5 in Forgotten Age poses no threat here. The hoods attacks you for 1 damage and 1 horror, and of course, taking the horror isn't good, but hopefully you have Rita's Boyfriend out by now. Taking this option from scenario 1 requires In The Thick of It, and Rita has the health pool to willingly take the 2 physical Trauma.

A more expensive way of removing them from the deck if you intend to cycle, is Fend Off 3. You once again take the 1 damage and 1 horror, but then you never worry about this aloof enemy ever again. Someone else has already mentioned the overcommitting needed on something like Brute Force, but it isn't out of the question to have Overpower or a Gravediggers Shovel handy, which puts you at 8 to 3, needing to oversucceed by 2 which is statistically most of the bag most of the time.

At the time of writing this review just before the release of Hemlock Vale, we have had spoiled a symbol-less Survivor version of Vicious Blow, called Long Shot which can add the needed +1 damage to a Derringer or Baseball Bat attack. This method if you're going the combat stat could result in a single fight action, basically completely neutering Hoods as a weakness.

As of now, I think the cardpool is just getting more flexible, and as it does, the Hoods becomes a weaker and less threatening weakness. As you get some XP into your deck, it becomes yet easier. I think as of now, Hoods is a below average weakness with multiple ways of dealing with it, and statistically the worst outcome seems to be 2 actions and 1 point of damage and horror, which is pretty manageable. Barring autofails, this weakness can be a single action to deal with in a variety of ways. Timing of course can change things, and enemy weaknesses should never be underestimated for showing up at the worst possible time, but I think at this point, no matter how Rita chooses to fight them off, they just aren't much of a threat, because they are just yet another enemy, and Rita is done runnin'.

Bewitching means that you can start with Sweeping Kick set aside, ready to tackle the Hoods whenever they show up. — vercingix · 192

As there is only the one review at time of writing, I want to throw my two cents in.

This is a tough weakness to deal with, though you do have options.

1) As everyone has mentioned Ornate Bow can both handle this. The problem is they cost XP, 6xp for the bow. As well as the reload cost.

2) Auto Evade with Breaking and Entering plus Waylay. A zero health cost method for dealing with the weakness. This costs 1 more resource than Ornate Bow, arguably the best method of dealing with hoods by yourself, but requires two cards, though it nets you a clue.

3) Use her combat stat of 3, to boost damage with Brute Force, .18 Derringer, Fire Axe Chainsaw. The problem with these is they are unreliable without over-commiting meaning you must drop in additional resources/cards/actions to handle the problem.

Edit: As people have pointed out Brute Force can't be used with Cheap Shot making hoods even tougher to deal with.

Now of course if you have a guardian on your location with a one shot weapon and a turn after, that's ideal...but unrealistic. So I'd say compared to other investigators this is a rough one. I would place it up there, but behind, with Call of the Unknown, Abandoned and Alone, and the horrific Dark Memory.

. · 35
Cheap Shot sounds like a very bad idea. You certainly *don't* want to evade the hoods. — trazoM · 9
I'm assuming that they were suggesting to "boost" Cheap Shot to deal 3 damage, defeating them before you apply the evade. But, Cheap Shot isn't a basic fight action anyway, so you don't get the bonus damage. — toastsushi · 74
Brute Force by itself is a pretty good answer to Hoods if you can find another combat pip or two to commit. — Death by Chocolate · 1447
Made massive edits to gramamr, spelling, and cleared up my thoughts. Was obvisouly way to tired when writing the review. Though I didn't recognize the interaction with brute force so I have left an edit: to that. — . · 35
Breaking and Entering still triggers the reaction attack from Hoods. The reaction from Hoods is on the evasion, not an evade traited action. — suika · 9385
My vote would go to Reckless Assault and a Brute Force if you aren't running the bow for some reason, though I'm not sure Rita can do much better than the Bow for her hand slots. — suika · 9385