Research Notes

Asset. Hand

Item. Tome. Science.

Cost: 1.

Seeker

After a player card ability places 1 or more of your clues on your location: Place that many resources on Research Notes, as evidence.

: Test (0). For each point you succeed by, you may spend 1 evidence to discover 1 clue at your location.

Pixoloid Studios
The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion #45.

Latest Taboo

This card's second ability gains: "(max 3 evidence spent per round)."

Research Notes

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: Several cards have abilities that spend "Evidence", but do not posses the usual "Uses" keyword, for example Michael Leigh or Research Notes. Does this mean that for the abilities of these cards you are allowed to spend evidence from any card you control? Or does the evidence spent must come from the card itself, as it would happen with cards with the "Uses" keyword? A: When a card has “evidence” placed onto it and has an ability that spends “evidence”, that evidence must be spent from the same card. Only evidence on Michael Leigh can be spent on his second triggered ability. Only evidence on Research Notes can be spent on its activate ability.
Last updated

Reviews

This card is insane. Why? Because you can have two of them out at the same time.

With two of these out, every clue you drop gets you 2 free-ish clues that you can discover off of any location, ignoring shroud values.

All you do is alternate between using one research notes, and then the other, so you're always using the one with the most evidence on it. So having two of these out is sort of like having a permanent The Skeleton Key, that makes shrouds 0 instead of 1, lets you pick up as many clues as you pass by, and doesn't have to be moved from location to location... provided you can generate enough evidence.

The limiting factor here, then, is in how many clues you can drop per turn, to fuel your Research notes. Thankfully, there's a few strong repeatable clue dropping effects you can utilize:

Quick Study is by far the best option. You can have two of them in play, letting you drop 2 clues per turn, and it gives you skill boosts on your research notes, allowing you to hit such high values that you could clear out a location in a single test late in the game, regardless of what token you draw.

Dr. William T. Maleson lets you drop an additional clue each turn, at the cost of taking up your ally slot. Given that the Research Notes action isn't an "Investigate" action, you can't use Dr. Milan anyways, so this isn't a huge deal.

Captivating Discovery lets you "prime the pump", so to speak - just slam it down once you have both research notes in play, drop 3 clues, and you can get a total of 6 evidence in play, which should be enough to keep you going the rest of the scenario. The fact that this card also draws 6 cards for you on top of that is ridiculous, and also lets you dig for key cards to enable your combo if you aren't quite there yet.

Forewarned only lets you drop a single clue one time, but treachery cancellation is an incredible effect, and this deck turns its downside into an upside. At only 1xp a pop, this is an auto-include.

The only question, then, is what investigator to use this combo in. All of the key cards are level 2 or lower, so you have a TON of options you can use. Personally, I like this card in a Geared Up Parallel Daisy Walker deck. You can use Backpack and Schoffner's Catalogue to fully set up your combo on turn 1, and then just... get to discovering clues! Plus, since Research Notes is a tome, one of your actions discovering clues each turn is free!

Honestly, I suspect this card might be get taboo'd, sooner rather than later. Being able to discover almost all your clues by testing 0 instead of a location's shroud is kinda bonkers... at level 0, no less! But I'm definitely looking forward to at least ONE completely broken playthrough with this card...!

Neofalcon · 17
Vincent can also run this alongside Geared Up and Schoffnwr's Catalogue. He has less synergy with tome actions and raw Int tests, and his Bonesaw would like a hand slot, but he has interesting options to consider as well. — Death by Chocolate · 1440
oh, and for even more consistency, yeah it may only be a level 0 tome, but it is an absolute build around, so maybe it's worth running Raven Quill to find your second copy, boost your test for more success, ready other assets (such as Quick Study!) and/or save a hand slot. — Death by Chocolate · 1440
You should probably also consider arcane enlightment for additional tome handslots — Tharzax · 1
There's actually a number of great choices for additional hand slots now. You have Arcane Enlightenment, yes, but you also have The Raven Quill, which can make one of your Research Notes slotless, while also helping you tutor for it, or the new Astral Mirror if you aren't putting anything in your arcane slots. — Neofalcon · 17
Get around Haunted! — MrGoldbee · 1443
With 2 Press Pass, you got a super solid engine… 100% going to try that out — Valentin1331 · 67657
I think this is probably busted with Amanda. Skip all the geared up nonsense. Just drop perception 2 under your card and start hoovering up clues. — DAAAN · 1
I would house rule this card as 'limit 1 per investigator' and limit the trigger to the owners' cards. — Weges · 86

Have you ever wanted to trivialize a few high-shroud locations? Look no further! Just drop a few clues for some cute effects, then pick them right back up with Research Notes! Got two on the table? Even better, pick up twice as many as you dropped! See a high shroud location? Drop the clues in a easy-to-reach location, bend over a couple of times to clean up your mess, then waltz over to the enemy lockbox and just pretend that you had the key!

Want to also ruin the entire experience and just win A LOT, while you're at it? Try including Knowledge is power!
Just ignore spending that evidence, and go straight to the "pick up clues" part. The best part? You don't even need to play this then, you can keep both of your magnifying glasses in your hands for those additional clues!
(This works the same way the interaction between Old Book of Lore and Knowledge is power which was ruled by Alex Werner to ignore the "spend 1 secret" cost to play the card immediately - this hopefully gets changed in the near future)

tokeeto · 33
Yeah the knowledge is power trick is what makes this truly disgusting — tactis · 17
Does that mean you could use Abigail Foreman to ignore the evidence cost and just put one of these on her and never have to worry about the evidence? — White Liger · 3
I guess not because she just resolves the effect again which isn't quite the same as ignore all costs? — White Liger · 3
The card doesn't say "you may spend 1 evidence FROM RESEARCH NOTES to discover 1 clue at your location," so does this mean I can spend the evidence off of Hawk-Eye Folding Camera or Darrel's Kodak when I use this ability? I think so, but I want to be sure. — Scud · 1
Great observation @scud, that would mean that Darrell could back this up with his Kodak, use Empirical Hypothesis and the Hawk-eye Folding Camera to pay for the action. — Wittebaard · 319
Each card bearing this keyword also has an ability which references the type of use established by the keyword as a part of its cost. When such an ability spends a use, a token of that type must be removed from the card bearing the ability. — damirius · 1122
^^ That's a ruling for cards with Use keyword, but there is no Use keyword present, so not sure on it. Really weird interactions with this card. — damirius · 1122
pretty sure it should work like a gun that just says "spend one ammo." You can't spend ammo off of other guns — robo224 · 1
I think the fact that they have set a precedent of having cards with uses (0) indicates that you can use them from other cards. — EclecticGamer · 2
I'd argue that's not how "costs" work. The rules state that there are 2 different kinds of costs: resource and ability costs, the latter being framed in a "cost: effect" format (like exhausting or spending uses BEFORE the colon). As it pertains to KiP, the "costs" you're ignoring comprise the "payment" before the colon (which, it then goes on to articulate, excludes the arrow cost). I think that's just the AH:LCG textbook definition of a(n ability) "cost", which is exclusively linked to triggered abilities. — TheDoc37 · 468
so they finally answered errata the interaction between knowledge is power and old book of lore and a few other cards to ground. how this impacted research notes is that research notes is capped at 3 clues and knowledge is power and abigail foreman would not ignore the secondary costs for spending clues. — tophmittydragon · 1

Conventional wisdom tells us that when we're in hole, first stop digging. But if you commit #Analysis to the Intellect test on #Research Notes, it's hard not to double down on a bad first (or second...) token pull by repeatedly using the reaction ability.

PJFrigate · 342

I wanted to update my review since the taboo.

Bottom line: I think building around Research Notes is still worth it - particularly on hard/expert. Testing at (0) to discover clues makes getting clues easy, and typically leaves you with actions to spare to move, play cards, or try Research Notes again if you didn't use your evidence limit up. Even without the new limit, it was still fairly hard to drop clues fast enough to net more than three clues a round.

Old review:

Other reviews have been dealing with this card well. I wanted to mention a few other things from my experience using it with Daisy Walker.

This is a strong card, but it feels like something that's only effective if you make it a core (if not the core) of your deck.

Note: I'm not sure how to interpret the use of Abigail Foreman, but I'll leave this next part in brackets: [White Liger mentioned in a comment on another review that Abigail Foreman is strong with this card. With Research Notes attached to Abigail, you can double the number of clues you get from your success without any of the cost in evidence. This means you won't need a second copy of Research Notes.]

If you're playing this, and need resources, you'll likely benefit from taking Crack the Case. You'll have a decent chance of taking advantage of a high shroud location multiple times.

Here is another card that involves resources. If you're running Research Notes, there is also a good chance you'll be running Research Librarian in order to find both of them (at least before you upgrade). Astounding Revelation will trigger when you use Research Librarian.

The Raven Quill is also convenient, since you can use it to find (or recover) your Research Notes and play it without an extra action, have it take up no slot (in case you want to include something else in your hand or other tomes). Being able to recover your Research Notes is particularly important if your deck is built around it and you'd be out of luck without both copies.

interneterik · 1
The interaction with Abigail is not correct. If you resolve the effect a second time can find up to 2 clues per point you succeed by, but you have to pay an evidence for every clue. — Tharzax · 1
Good point and I think I **may** agree, however I will provide my side of the argument. I interpret the “effect” as how many clues you gained while the text on the card is the ability. The “effect” arises from resolving the ability text (i.e., is not the same as the text). The “ability” indicates how the game is effected. If paying evidence is part of the ability then it wouldn’t need to be paid again by the effect. Knowledge is Power (another cracked card) provides the example I used to come to my conclusion. I’m the FAQ, the cost in the text after the “:” is treated as card ability rather than effect. The example in that case is old book of lore. Therefore I think that in this case, too, the evidence cost should be treated as part of the ability rather than effect. — interneterik · 1
KiP is a special case since it negates all cost. If you take a look in the rules reference for costs and effects it seems that everything after the : is the effect. — Tharzax · 1
Thanks - that makes sense! — interneterik · 1
My take on Abigail + Research Notes is quite different. I see the test itself as part of the effect, so you'd do the RN test, spend some evidence (up to however much you succeeded by) to get clues, then activate Abigail, do another test and again spend evidence up to however much you succeeded by on the second test) and get clues for that. So the exchange rate would still be one clue per evidence spent, but you'd get to spend two tests' worth of evidence within one action — TheNameWasTaken · 3