Event

Dilemma. Insight.

Cost: –. XP: 1.

Survivor

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.
At a Crossroads

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or 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.

  • Q: Should I resolve "immediately take an action" first, and then resolve "then discards 1 card at random from their hand"? What is the sequence of settlement of these two sentences? 2. When will "then draws 3 cards" be resolved? Do I have to wait until the actual loses 1 action on the next turn to draw a card? 3. Is "loses 1 action during their next turn" a Delayed Effects? If not, is it "now" to loses 1 action during their next turn? If I am now sure that I have no action in the next round or the mythos phase of the next round will end the game, can I still choose the second option? A: Yes, in the first bullet on At a Crossroads, the action should be taken before the card is discarded. In the second bullet on At A Crossroads, once the investigator that’s losing 1 action is declared, that investigator should then draw 3 cards. That investigator does not need to wait until their next turn. (We preferred this to alternatives we discussed.)

Last updated

Reviews

A lot of positive reviews here, but I will go one step further:

This card is S-Tier, S like Staple.

3 cards for one action and 0 cost is already that good. Another way to read it is: draw 10% of your deck in one action.
Deep Knowledge will get you 2 for this and is considered one of the best lvl 0 cards, Preposterous Sketches will require 2xp and 1 clue at your location, and Cryptic Research will ask you 3 more xp per copy to get your action back. And as you probably noticed, all these cards are in , was one of the remaining draw-starved classes (with and ), until this card arrived.

So this card already goes in every deck that has access to it to increase consistency, but where it becomes insanely good is when you do not need the draw:

  • Not only can you decide to take the other option, getting rid of one of your less useful cards in exchange of an action that will get you ahead of the game;
  • But also, you can decide to give that draw to any investigator at any location.

Most dilemmas are "it could go well in the right moment, but terribly bad in the wrong moment", like Fickle Fortune that could heal your whole party for free during the Witching Hour but also have you deciding between killing Calvin Wright or turning into an Ancient Evils.

At a Crossroads, on the other hand is literally a win-win-win.

Valentin1331 · 67657
Ironically, this card is probably the least of an actual dilemma of all dilemmas. At a crossroads? More like choosing from a menu where everything is your favorite — Nenananas · 251
Love it as Patrice, who's action starved. — MrGoldbee · 1443
The cost is 1 card, 1 action, 1 XP, which is equivalent to 2.5 actions for 3 Draw Card actions. — Senji975310 · 1

"...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 · 9631
Thats a really good point. At a Crossroads just gets better and better :P — NarkasisBroon · 10
Ohhhh... that's neat. If you have a weakness in hand (Patrice's Watcher, one the Tarot weaknesses, etc), and you manage to play / commit all other cards in your hand during said bonus action, you can "randomly" discard the weakness, guaranteed... — DrOGM · 25

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 · 231
Patrice's Swift Reflexes. — MrGoldbee · 1443
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 · 51
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 · 15
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 · 363
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 · 363
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 · 57
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 · 57
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 · 485
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 · 33
losing action is an effect, and not a cost. The good effect of Geared Up works well even if remaining action is less than 3. — elkeinkrad · 485
The format of forced ability has no cost unlike reaction ability, so forced ability has a cost only if it states the additional cost such as "as an additional cost ..." or "must ... to". — elkeinkrad · 485
Looks like the FAQ which causes the draw 3 to occur immediately, and not on the turn of the player who loses the action, means that this should combo with Geared Up. — Rapshade · 1

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 · 29
There is a very nice interaction for this card someone commented at #Carson Sinclair page , it is getting it back with #Resourceful with far more control. Commenting only so this combo is also here for anyone who evaluates this card. — jucathulhu · 1

There is a very nice interaction for this card someone commented at Carson Sinclair page , it is getting it back with Resourceful with far more control. Commenting only so this combo is also here for anyone who evaluates this card. 

jucathulhu · 1
From all Dilemmas, this is probably the one that needs the least control though. There's never a bad time to either gain cards or an action, while something like moving around, placing doom, temporary stat boosts... the timing matters matters a lot more — Nenananas · 251