Event

Insight. Trick.

Cost: 2.

Survivor

Fast. Play before revealing a chaos token during an investigation you are performing, and only if the difficulty of this test is currently 0.

This test automatically succeeds. You discover 1 additional clue at this location and 1 additional clue at any location.

Anders Finer
The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion #108.

Latest Taboo

Costs 2 additional experience.

Shed a Light

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

A sequel to all the fight/evade reduction cards for Exploit Weakness, lets do the same for Shed a Light:

Guardian

Seeker

Rogue

Survivor

Neutral

A few notes:

Lucaxiom · 4228
Yes, you're correct. Wendy seems ideal to try to abuse Skeleton Key / Shed a Light. — dscarpac · 937
Actually, The Skeleton Key into Flashlight (3) DOES work. It's The Skeleton Key into Flashlight (0) that doesn't work. — Nenananas · 251
I think Unearth the Ancients(2) could be good to use for Shed the Light. — elkeinkrad · 484
@Nenananas: Oh so it does. I didn't see they changed the language from reduce the shroud to reduce the difficulty between the two flashlights. — Lucaxiom · 4228
There's one more interesting mechanic to add to all this: Automatic successes set the difficulty to 0. I'm trying out a blessed+cursed alternate Wendy Adams with a group and just realized Paradoxical Covenant's auto success should also work with this. — Kejardon · 53
sorry, ignore my last comment, I thought I was on Old Keyring's page — Kejardon · 53

I am a bit surprised there isn't more buzz around this card, more action compression for Survivors is huge. Between this and Sharp Vision (not to mention Resourceful to get them back) survivor is almost as speedy as some Seekers. Darrell's ability to take this, Sharp Vision, Deduction or Deduction(2) and Research Notes gives him silly levels of consistent action compression.

The auto succeed is useful for avoiding nasty token effects and the two extra clues is huge. The difficulty 0 requirement means this is only going to be consistent for investigators using Flashlight or Old Keyring, but that is a lot of survivors and fair number of investigators who splash survivor. With the new Old Keyring(3) this nets 3 clues from a 2 shroud location and 1 clue from somewhere else with auto success! If you aren't using those, you might be Darrell and getting to 0 should not be an issue.

Winging It, Lantern, Cryptographic Cipher, Otherworldly Compass, and Arcane Insight can also lower the shroud, but are secondary options since they only reduce shroud by 1 or you are less likely to have access to them.

This is most useful in 2-3 investigator campaigns where locations are more likely to have 2+ clues on them. Even though you may not profit as often from the extra clue from your location, remotely grabbing a clue off a location with a monster/locked door/high shroud is useful often enough for me to add this to solo Survivors as well.

guy · 6
Note that flashlight 3 can be used in addition to other shroud lowering, so for example this also works on shroud 4 with it — Django · 5063
It's a great trick for Darrell, since he has -2 difficulty effect readily available in his permanent camera. I can't see me going for it with any other investigator. — olahren · 3360
Not only in addition to other shroud lowering, Django. You can even use two supplies from Flashlight (3) to reduce shoud 4 to 0. I'm currently running it (and "Exploit Weakness") in Rita. The verdict is still out, as I just got the upgraded Flashlight before the next scenario, we'll be playing. — Susumu · 361
You can't use multiple supplies from Flashlight (3) on the same test. Note that it's a reaction trigger, not a fast trigger, and per the RR entry on Triggered Abilities, "each [reaction] ability may be triggered only once each time the specified condition on the ability is met." So, only one supply from Flashlight (3) each time you begin an applicable skill test. — Thatwasademo · 57
(It's still very useful, and if you have two in play you can fire each once for a total of -4 difficulty) — Thatwasademo · 57
Aye, you are right! You could combo it with a Keyring up to shroud 4. Or you could combo it with a second Flashlight and "Winging It" up to 5. — Susumu · 361
Quick Learner, anyone? — MrGoldbee · 1443
Don't forget about Gumption that can also be paired with this — tactis · 17
Bob, Wendy, and Preston can make this card absolutely disgusting by pairing it with The Skeleton Key. — pyroflare77 · 1
Actually, that interaction doesn't work because only Seekers get to have fun breaking the game. Skeleton Key locks the shroud at 1, which isn't much of a skeleton key then. — pyroflare77 · 1
Skeleton Key works with Flashlight (3) to reduce the difficulty of the investigate to 0. Skeleton Key locks the shroud, not the difficulty. — gByakko · 2

OP card. As an first impression, Shed a Light seems to be similar as Exploit Weakness, and both have powerful effect but seems to be hard to play. However, in the game, reducing shroud value of the location is one of the main mechanism beginning with Flashlight, but reducing fight/evade value is not. In general, making 0 difficulty investigation is much easier than that of fight/evade.

Moreover, unlike Exploit Weakness, Shed a Light has good combo parts. We can play 2 Shed a Light (with Double, Double) at ONE investigation to discover total 5 clues (3 from here, 2 from any). We cannot play 2 Exploit Weakness at ONE fight/evade even aganist elite enemy because the second copy has no normal effect to replace which is already replaced by first one. In addition, auto-succcess guarantee you can trigger "succeed by (your )" abilites, such as Scavenging. With proper tool, you can trigger Scavenging robustly, regardless of your stat.

Here are some useful cards to reduce difficulty for investigation:

elkeinkrad · 484
Breach the Door too. — MrGoldbee · 1443
Also Arcane Insight — 5argon · 9426
You can combo this card even further with Deductions/Sharp Vision, and Winging it too — toastsushi · 74
Otherworldly Compass has been overlooked here... it uses up a precious hand slot but it's an asset that doesn't rely on charges — An_Undecayed_Whately · 1184
any ideas on if Augur can be be used with shed a light? — mljwx · 1