Event

Insight.

Cost: 0.

Seeker

Fast. Play only during your turn.

Choose a Tome or Spell asset you control, or reveal a Tome or Spell asset from your hand. Resolve an or ability on that asset, ignoring all costs (including its cost, if any). Then, if that asset was in your hand, you may discard it to draw 1 card.

... and power corrupts.
Michal Milkowski
Union and Disillusion #231.

Latest Taboo

Costs 2 additional experience.

Knowledge is Power

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: Regarding the cards Knowledge is Power and De Vermis Mysteriis, if Knowledge is Power is used to trigger the ability on De Vermis Mysteriis to play, say Deciphered Reality, does Knowledge is Power ignore the cost of Deciphered Reality as well, or is it still simply played at a 1 cost deduction?
    A: Knowledge is Power allows you to activate the ability on De Vermis Mysteriis without paying that ability’s cost (in this case, spending an action, exhausting it and placing 1 doom on it). The rest of the ability is its effect (playing a spell or insight from your discard pile, reducing its resource cost by 1), which Knowledge is Power doesn't ignore, so you would still have to pay the cost of Deciphered Reality (minus 1 of course).

  • Q: Knowledge is Power reads: "Resolve an or on that asset, ignoring all costs." Old Book of Lore reads: " ... may spend 1 secret to have that investigator immediately play that card". If I use Knowledge is Power on Old Book of Lore, do I need to spend a secret to use the "immediately play that card" part of the ability? Clearly Knowledge is Power does not allow me to ignore any costs of the card I'm about to play (c.f. ruling on De Vermis Mysteriis), but does the "may X to Y" templating here mean spending a secret here a cost?
    A: Knowledge is Power allows you to ignore ability costs on the chosen asset, which includes costs printed in its text box; this means you are able to immediately play the card you fetched with Old Book of Lore without spending 1 secret. Ruling overturned by FAQ v.2.1, section "Card Ability Interpretation", 2.24: Ignoring All Costs.

Last updated

Reviews

What a card, right?

I've played just a few times with it, using Norman Withers and it was absolutely fantastic. Saves an action and a charge in one go. The obvious scenario is of course to use a standard military-oriented spell (Daisy or Norman option) and be happy about the economy. But there's more. It's fast. Which means that you can do all those things while having an enemy on your back and not causing any attack of opportunity:

Having it in your hand, along with Mists of R'lyeh can save you some time and money too. In this situation you may decide not to setup at all and just rush your way through a scenario, until an enemy shows up.

Interaction with Blood Pact is also something fun to consider. This card then essentially becomes a better version of Steadfast

So what else to say? A fun card to play and plan around.

Onetribe · 283
I may be missing something, but what's the Blood Pact interaction? BP adds doom to itself, not a spell, so you don't get a free boost. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Blood Pact is a Spell asset, so Knowledge is Power can be played to trigger its free trigger ability without paying its cost (and the doom is part of its cost). — Death by Chocolate · 1364
Oh, that's what I missed. Thanks, makes sense now! — TheNameWasTaken · 3
How does this card interact with Lola Hayes' faction limitation? Her cards says she can only ' play, commit, or trigger abilities' of your class, but the wording on this card says to 'resolve' them. Can Lola in the role of Seeker play this card to activate spells/tomes of other factions? — Setzu · 323
Did you receive an answer for the Lola Hayes case ? — Ryson · 34

Now Knowledge is Power can be use ti trigger the powerful ability of some tome This may use with the following expensive books

AquaDrehz · 197
Yeah, getting 3 testless fast damage without using up any secrets from the Necronomicon is pretty busted — Zinjanthropus · 223
You say "busted" but without KiP/secrets manip/Tome bouncing Nekonomicon (the cat book) would be hard to justify 5 XP for me. — Yenreb · 15
Just use Sleight of Hand. Honestly, there are more ways to break Necro than there should be, to the point that it’s not even hard to do it by accident. — StyxTBeuford · 12917
Every seeker should take scavenging with versatile cause they can easily trigger it (thereby recyclying necrocomicon). — Django · 4859

How does this work together with cards that need multiple actions to activate like the new forbidden tomes?

Forbidden Tome Forbidden Tome

Is the multiple actions needed as a part of the trigger or a part of the cost?

iro · 5
I'm pretty sure that you don't need to spend any actions because the actions are part of the cost — Zinjanthropus · 223
I am also of the opinion that KiP should activate a use of either Forbidden Tome, but the is the argument that "an action of fast action ability" indicates only one arrow. That seems kind of stiingy, but "Grim Rule" and all.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1021
@LivefromBenefitSt Check the Reference guide for the different types of triggered abilities. Even if they cost multiple actions, they are still an ‘action triggered ability’ or ‘=> ability’(I can’t embed symbols in comments). So, KiP can activate the forbidden tome regardless of Hand Size. — Death by Chocolate · 1364
That's good then, because it seems kind of cheap otherwise. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1021
So, if you put a Forbidden tome on Abigail Foreman, you could trigger it twice with KiP and then Ms. Foreman's ability.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1021

Edit: Some Luke and Marie testing, also no need for the Lola shade.

This card is great.

At face level, this is not a bad level 0 card, you can get a bonus trigger from a combative spell like Shrivelling or clue spell like Rite of Seeking without paying any resources to put it in play or even spending an action. Pushing the limits to make 4 attacks in a turn is a great ability on it's own, well worth a card, but when you start upgrading cards and using this to key off-of them it becomes outrageously good.

  • 4 Shots from Shrivelling to deal 12 damage in a turn, normally something not possible without very big guns combined with cards.

  • Trigger Encyclopedia as a fast action, to gain that bonus to a combat relevant ability and use it to win a fight.

The sneaky bit of goodness to this card is the ability to hit cards in your hand as well, you get a chance to oust yourself from scary situations by calling upon assets you havent got in play yet, this is especially useful at the start of a scenario or when the mythos deck is killing assets or resources.

It also gives you leeway to play with an overloaded slot ( characters tend to have an overabundance of Hand items, characters have trouble with Arcane slots). While your hands or Arcane slots are full you can snipe a card in your hand, possibly saving charges on something, whilst also refunding a potential dud draw.

.

The biggest issue with Knowledge is Power is it's class. It's a decidedly card that's printed yellow. Which limit's it's extreme power, which I guess is fair, if this card were it'd be a contributing factor to making Akachi Onyele and Agnes Baker the uncontested best characters in the game.

The standouts who get the most from Knowledge is Power are:

  • Norman Withers, he needs to make use of his level 0 to do a lot of work, and this card definitely helps him stay relevant while he is still skilling up Shrivelling and makes him an outright powerhouse once he's got just 10 XP. The way Norman powers through a deck with his ability, you can get all of this goodness set up at breakneck pace.

  • Luke Robinson, he's fresh off the presses so I dont fully know all the options, but he has native access so he can get the fancy Tome shenanigans going that Norman cannot. I still think Norman's raw draw power wins out in the end. Also he can do some interesting teleport spellcasting. Think Mists of R'lyeh blasting an enemy engaged with a friend at another location or Rite of Seeking nuking a location from his pocket dimension.

P.S. Daisy Walker, Rex Murphy and Finn Edwards can do some stunts too, but it's coming at the cost of precious slots or locked to triggering on 0 level spells, sure you can trigger it on a big book like Pnakotic Manuscripts but really, that card doesn't hold a candle to beasts like Shrivelling or Rite of Seeking.

Tsuruki23 · 2469
It’s early to say since Luke just came out, but this card does seem good for him since it’s an event. I believe he should be able to use it to make a spell attack an enemy at a connecting location. — ArkhamInvestigator · 292
Yeah the most interesting use for Luke I've found with these is using Mists of R'lyeh or Shrivelling from an adjacent location. You could also use it to directly attack an Aloof enemy adjacent to your location, as you would be playing this event as if the Aloof enemy is already engaged with you. In solo this isn't as useful as you might hope, but in multi I can see it doing a ton of work. — StyxTBeuford · 12917
Re: Daisy and Rex (or any other seeker) - getting an extra (and fast) charge off of Archaic Glyphs doesn’t seem either weak or niche to me. — Death by Chocolate · 1364
Love the card, but have a Q: if I'm playing scenario 1 Norman and don't have a spell or tome yet, can I still play this off the top of my deck to just speed through the deck more quickly? It says to "choose/reveal a tome or spell..." but if I don't have those yet I'm hoping I can forget about that part of the card. — Krysmopompas · 349
I actually think activating the ability from Pnakotic Manuscripts from hand as a fast is pretty good (avoiding the costs that make the Manuscripts bad), but probably not good enough without janky deck-cycling shenanigans, I suppose — Zinjanthropus · 223
@Krysmopompas: No. "Choose" is the keyword falling under the "Target" header in the rulebook. If you don't have a valid target you cannot play the card. — Yenreb · 15
SMH, RTFC. The "or" makes it a yes. You can try and fail to do the latter option. — Yenreb · 15
That said, if you did have a Tome or Spell in hand you'd have to reveal one, and if it had any you'd have to resolve one of its [Action] or [Free] triggered abilities. Fortunately the discard is optional. — Yenreb · 15
Super confused about the last comments here. I don't see how "or" lets you play with card without a valid target. If you have neither target of the "choose" and neither target of the "reveal", how are you bypassing all that to play the card? — Time4Tiddy · 230

This card is still broken if combo with the Research Notes , even after applying the taboo. The taboo on Research Notes says "max 3 evidence spent per round". However, it's not clear how this card works when it comes "max XXX spent". One can argue that there's no maximum limitation if using "Knowledge is power", as it ignore the cost and actually spend nothing. In this case, using this card on Research Notes can still collect around 10 clues by committing cards, ignoring the shroud value and using 0 action.

I think it's more reasonable if there's clear FAQ about how this card works when the chosen Tome or Spell has a "max" limition. Or just change the taboo on Research Notes to "max 3 clues collected per round in this way".

else · 1
Incorrect. Knowledge is Power no longer ignores additional costs that must be paid when resolving an ability. See (2.24) "Ignoring all costs" in FAQ 2.1. — Soul_Turtle · 405
Thanks for the information! I feel this combo is broken and there should be some restrictions. But it's hard to find the bug fix I want though a number of FAQs. It's still a bit unclear as paying the evidence on Research Note is not explicit mentioned as "additional cost", but I can accept this explanation. — else · 1