At a Crossroads

Survivor
Event

Dilemma. Insight.

Cost: –. XP: 1.

Max 2 Dilemma per round.

Revelation - Choose an investigator and decide (choose one):

- The chosen investigator must immediately take an action as if it were their turn, then discards 1 card at random from their hand.

- The chosen investigator loses 1 action during their next turn, then draws 3 cards.

Aleksander Karcz
The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion #109.
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FAQs (taken from the official FAQ or FFG's responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: I have a question regarding weaknesses and Dilemma cards with Revelation abilities: If due to card effects (e.g. Deep Knowledge), both Amnesia card and At a Crossroads are drawn, is it possible to freely choose their resolution order? If so, and I choose to resolve Amnesia first, can I choose to discard the At a Crossroads I just drew? If I choose to resolve At a Crossroads first, choose myself to immediately get an action and then randomly discard 1 card from my hand, could Amnesia be randomly discarded due to this effect? The reason I'm having a problem with this is because I don't understand where At a Crossroads is when I'm resolving Amnesia? Is it in my hand or in "Limbo"? A: Good questions. We are ruling that the Revelation ability on a Weakness (or encounter) card must be resolved before the Revelation ability on a Dilemma card. We don’t believe this is explicitly stated, but we would like to include that in the next FAQ update. And yes, if you resolved the ability on Amnesia first, it would be possible to discard At a Crossroads, since it’s a card that’s in your hand at the time. At a Crossroads isn’t in limbo until you’re resolving its ability.
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Reviews

"...then discards 1 card at random from their hand." should let you use the action you take to mitigate the chance of discarding important card, such as just play it as that action, or take skill tests to commit valuable skill cards. Random discard can also hit weakness on hand, so you can play the other card to increase the chance.

5argon · 3855
Thats a really good point. At a Crossroads just gets better and better :P — NarkasisBroon · 10

In my opinion the best Dilemma in The Scarlet Keys.
For 1xp, it's basically a 0-cost event that makes you draw 3 (you want the second option most of the time).

The downside is obviously that you cannot precisely control when At a Crossroads will trigger BUT :

  • Most of the time you can spare an action for this.
  • Don't forget you don't lose 1 action "immediately" but on your next turn so you can plan accordingly. And it will never destroy what you were planning to do this turn if you drew it during your turn (thus not during the upkeep phase).
  • Katja Eastbank will help you with the "draw-timing" if it is that big of a problem for you.
  • You always have the first option if you need a burst of action right now and/or you already have a lot of cards in hand.

Overall a really good card. Just be careful if your friends at the table also play some Dilemmas though ! :)

captainfire · 111
Patrice's Swift Reflexes. — MrGoldbee · 1324
I don't see it as being that strong for the 2nd effect. You only get a net gain of 1 card at fast speed for 1 XP. Draw 3 sounds like a lot but you lost 1 action (which could've been to draw a card, but worse because an action is more flexible than a card) and this card itself is lost (if you didn't have this card you would've drawn a different card to your hand you can actually use). — fates · 39
so do I draw 3 cards immediately or at my next turn? — BoomEzreal · 8

The "The chosen investigator loses 1 action during their next turn, then draws 3 cards" option works particularly well with Geared Up. If you have a Revelation effect in your opening hand, after mulliganing you resolve it immediately (before your turn begins). With Geared Up, your first turn has no actions anyways, so: 1) You to draw 3 cards before triggering your Geared Up, which makes it even easier to hit 3+ Item assets. 2) You don't even lose an Action on that turn, unless you somehow have 4 actions on your first turn.

It also works well with Lola Hayes. The Revelation trigger is not an activated/triggered ability so it does not require Lola to be a "Survivor" to benefit from it.

Question: When exactly does the card draw occur? Is it you lose 1 action next turn and 3 cards now? Or are the cards only drawn on your next turn?

Daerthalus · 12
You draw cards on your next turn, and only if you lost 1 action. If you have no actions to loose, you do not draw — Adny · 1
Adny is correct. The reason for that can be found in the RR for "then": If the effect of an ability includes the word "then," the text preceding the word "then" must be successfully resolved in full before the remainder of the effect described after the word "then" can be resolved. — Susumu · 295
So you draw the cards after you finish your next turn with one less action? — Tharzax · 1
No, you just can't choose the second option for an investigator on his or her "Geared Up" turn. You have to choose another investigator or the first option. If the choosen investigator cannot loose an action, the part of the ability after the "then" cannot resolve either. — Susumu · 295
Geared Up doesn't make you lose the actions until your turn begins, though, nor is the rest of Geared Up's effect conditional on successfully losing 3 actions. — Thatwasademo · 45
So if At a Crossroads is in an investigator's opening hand, they should be able to choose the investigator with Geared Up, causing them to draw 3 cards and lose one of the three actions they still have. When it gets to that investigator's turn, the forced effect on Geared Up triggers, and they play assets and lose their remaining two actions. — Thatwasademo · 45
I agree @Thatwasademo's opinion, but one problem remains. At a Crossroads states **during their next turn**, so it may generate "lasting effect" instead of delayed effect. If it generate lasting effect about "during next turn", the triggering timing of Geared Up has time priority and we cannot draw 3 cards. Notice that this rule interpretation implies we should draw 3 cards at the next turn. I want to say that this is just one possibility. — elkeinkrad · 422
You cannot combo this with Geared Up, because as Geared Up states, on your first turn you have "3 fewer actions to take" And if you do not have an action to lose, you cannot pay the cost. — Rolandironfist · 3

I ran this in a Tommy Muldoon deck focusing on Custom Modified Becky and it did not disappoint. Tommy often struggles with draw consistency because all those Assets shuffling back makes his deck that much thicker. Now you can just aggressively draw through most of your deck (including Resourceful for even more draw) in case Prepared for the Worst didn't find Becky. As a side benefit, Rookie Mistake is also likely to come up sooner with more draw, so you don't have to play around it all game long.

Carson Sinclair and Preston Fairmont will also appreciate this. Carson needs to draw his Skills to support his friends, while Preston is just a rich sack of meat before finding his loadout. Both of them don't really care about the lost action either. One's already giving his actions away while the other's likely running Leo De Luca.

Haven't played Vincent Lee yet, but if the synergy with Geared Up is legal, him being able to take Studious, Geared Up and this card without Versatile makes his 1st turn setup pretty consistent.

Not sure about the other investigators with off-class access to Survivor Level 1 events though. Tony may want this as Rogues don't have a lot of draw aside from Lucky Cigarette Case and some high-XP options, but Survivor seems like the least viable secondary class for him. Minh and Mandy already can draw and search very well, so their actions are better spent actually winning the game. Agnes' weakness is so simple yet brutal that adding more draw to her looks like a bad idea (unless you engage in liberal deck manipulation).

koaexe · 12