Martyr's Vambrace

Martyr's Vambrace

I think the most interesting candidates for this card are investigators who also have access to the Mystic class.

As of the Scarlet Keys, this means : Carolyn Fern, Sister Mary, Lily Chen, Amina Zidane (remember, Vambrace is a charm), and to a lesser degree, mystic Carson Sinclair and Zoey Samaras. Unfortunately just out of reach for Diana Stanley...

Low-level mystic events offer awesome possibilities for dealing with the encounter deck's treacheries (Deny Existence and Ward of Protection are staples for a reason). You can now redirect a dangerous card drawn by a teammate to yourself if you can deal with it (it has probably happened to some/most of you that your friend drew an Ancient Evils while you were the one holding the cancel...)

Compare the 2 xp cost to upgrade to Ward of Protection (2) VS the 3 xp cost of this accessory, that grants a similar benefit to multiple cards, on top of good soak and a bonus to ALL skills against revelation effects. This brings these characters' average-to-good Willpower (except Carson Sinclair...) to interesting levels, and shores up their Agility/Intellect defenses as well.

Of course, Ward of Protection (2) has the advantage that it can be used at any location, while the Vambrace encourages you to stick with your fellow investigators.

Lastly, as Guardians / Mystics, most of these characters can be built as enemy-managers, and the Vambrace can redirect an enemy to yourself, potentially saving you an "engage" action and/or preventing the sudden appearance of an enemy on your teammate from messing up your team's activation order.

DrOGM · 24
My first thought was actually to combine this with Tooth of Eztli on Parallel Monterey, regular Zoey, and maybe Roland. — OrionAnderson · 60
Query to the community: As there is free action player window, in the mythos phase after players draw encounter cards, could a Lola Hayes with this as say secondary investigator, have the lead investigator pull an encounter card, then yell help!, Lola Hayes wearing these Martyr's Vambraces then uses the player window to switch roles, into Guardian for free based on her investigator power, and then trigger the reaction trigger on Vambraces to draw the card instead of the lead investigator or another team member whilst they draw their cards from the encounter deck? — Quantallar · 7
I'm not sure that I undertand your question correctly. The window to change a role in the mythos phase will only appear after every player has drawn the encounter card (if no skill check is done) -> Regarding #Lola Hayes you need to have the guardian role active to be able to activate your Vambrace. So you would need a "Player window" before a card gets drawn (latest in Phase 4.15 Upkeep Phase). Or a skill check is done in the Mythos Phase, so you can activate Vambrace for the following encounter cards. — Eternity · 1

Stupor

Stupor

not a review but a question:

If I use flashlight to investigate, is it regarded as an activate action or an investigate action?

There are a lot of similar questions, e.g.

If I use Scout Ahead to move, is it regarded as a play action or a move action?

If I use Disguise to evade, is it regarded as an evade action or an activate action?

zrj · 1
I think that the answer is both. — Jota · 6
I send the message by error. Wanted to add that, for the card Hasta, it works like that AFAIK — Jota · 6
Haste* Goddammit, sorry for the spam — Jota · 6
This had been asked and answered a lot of time: They are both. Otherwise, if fighting with a weapon was just an activate action, or fighting with a kill spell like "Spectral Razor" just a play action, they would provoke AoO! Also check the FAQ for Ursula Downs, who can use her free investigate on anything with an Investigate designator as well, not just a basic Investigate action. Of course, this also applies to cases like here, where actions are restricted. — Susumu · 363
If I post a rules question on ArkhamDB, it is a review action or an FAQ action? — toastsushi · 74

Practice Makes Perfect

Practice Makes Perfect

Quick 'Math' review for folks considering this card in their deck. I wanted to answer the question, "What are my chances of 'hitting' a Practiced Card, based on the number of cards left in my deck?" So here's a quick chart to consider, the rows are showing how many cards are in your deck, and the columns are how many 'practiced' cards you have left.

Example: If you have 2 practiced cards left in a deck of 22 cards, there 's a 66% chance that you will find at least 1 practiced card when you play Practice Makes Perfect

    Practiced Cards left in deck                    
      1   2   3   4   5   6     
25  36% 60% 76% 86% 92% 95%
24  38% 62% 78% 87% 93% 96%
23  39% 64% 79% 89% 94% 97%
22  41% 66% 81% 90% 95% 99%
21  43% 69% 83% 92% 96% 99%
20  45% 71% 86% 93% 97% 99%
19  47% 74% 88% 95% 98% 99%
18  50% 76% 90% 96% 99% 99%
17  53% 79% 92% 97% 99% 99%
16  56% 83% 94% 98% 99% 99%
15  60% 86% 96% 99% 99% 99%
14  64% 89% 97% 99% 99% -%%
13  69% 92% 99% 99% -%% -%%
12  75% 95% 99% -%% -%% -%%
11  82% 98% -%% -%% -%% -%%
10  90% -%% -%% -%% -%% -%%
 9  -%% -%% -%% -%% -%% -%%
Benefiber · 13

Obsidian Bracelet

Obsidian Bracelet

While this is of course nice to take on test → fail-by, test → flat damage / horror, those treacheries can get help with commit from friends as normal game rule. Instead of using 3/3 on those tests, I found Obsidian Bracelet at its strongest against a category of damage/horror treachery that has no test :

  1. "You are not prepared" : With out any warning, if you are currently in an unfortunate state, take damage / horror.
  2. "Dilemma" : Revelation that offer a choice between bad things (if able) or take damage / horror. Sometimes you can only choose the damage / horror.
  3. "Endure this attachment" : They are attached for you to clearly see. Decide between taking damage / horror and ignore it, or use effort to fix.

(Does not work on damage / horror effects printed on Location cards, or Treachery that cause enemy to attack you since the effect of treachery is just causing the attack to begin, not straight up dealing damage / horror.)

I noticed that the fallback case is often damage / horror unless the designer gets very creative. Obsidian Bracelet allow you to just select the fallback case willingly regardless of your health / sanity distribution. These are quite a lot but you often remember the fail-by kind more vividly due to its maximum potential damage / horror. In fact I just noticed how many these helpless-testless kind are littered everywhere only after playing with this card.

I had run this through Dunwich Legacy, Forgotten Age, and The Scarlet Keys. Here are some examples (spoiler protected so hover to see cards) that may convince you that this thing can be one more reason to not run your favorite OP 2-handed weapon sometimes to patch up these sucker punches.

5argon · 9623

Survival Instinct

Survival Instinct

Both versions has two "may". In the Lv. 0 version you can choose to not disengage but choose to move to drag it away one location, for example if it has some kind of same location ability and you want to get it away from friends. Inversely, likely you always choose to perform the move, because if not moving away you became engage with it again and it hits you since it didn't exhaust.

(Some niche situation you may choose not to move? e.g. Disengaging Aloof and let it go. Change engagement to the fighter that is already here while stay around to help commit a card. Wanted to perform some combo that triggers on engaging?)

In this Lv. 2 version, the exhaust all effect add more dimension to the "may move". It is now more strategic to not move in order to stand ground and fight since Enemy Phase damage / horror is now likely none. In effect this is a much more fighter-oriented card than Survival Instinct (0) as you even get full set of actions to go at them next round without wasting the move. Enemy phase same location effect that is only activated when ready is also all gone.

5argon · 9623