Snake Bite

EDIT:

Thanks everyone for the comments! Let me outline the discussion on top for anyone revisiting this card in the future.

If you fail this skill test and would like to choose option #1, then as Zinjanthropus in the comments clarified, the damage is dealt to "an ally" rather than "allies", "you", or "your investigator". And since it specifies one ally, this means (as StyxTBeuford notes) the card is effectively telling you to discard one ally. However, the card does NOT specifically say "discard" even though that's exactly what it wants (although because it is damage, as Hylianpuffball notes, this means you can trigger reaction effects upon death such as Brother Xavier). Do note that you cannot have multiple allies absorb the hit in order to keep them alive either (this is largely impossible anyways). It tripped me up at first because ordinarily, treacheries tell you when they want you to discard (e.g. Crypt Chill). In this case it does not because it sounds scarier, but more importantly, it is more thematically consistent. Someone is getting killed (or severely wounded) from a snake bite. This ally must be able to receive damage though so the incorporeal Guiding Spirit cannot take the blow as SGPrometheus brought up. Django and others point out that in short, when an encounter or other card effect requires you to do something, you can only choose to do it if you are able to meet the request in part. In other words, it has to effect the game state. If it says to lose 3 resources, and you only have 2, you may still choose this option. In our case, when it says to deal 5 damage to an ally, as long as you have an ally with any amount of health, they can take the hit even though the rest of the effect will not amount to much.

I maybe wasn't clear in my original "review" but my intent was to ask the community so that I know to make sure I play the card correctly, and so that others with the same question can now find an answer. As an aside, yes, Agency Backup and Trusted x2 is about the only combination that could have an ally survive this hit, but not for untamed wilds (unless you start with bonus exp somehow). If anyone has dealt 5 damage to an ally and the ally survived, I'd love to hear about it because it sounds epic.

ORIGINAL:

I'm not sure I understand why this card pretends to offer you a choice should you fail.

Dealing 5 damage to an ally means the ally must be able to receive 5 damage (during the assign damage step). If the total incoming damage exceeds the card's maximum health threshold, then the rest needs to be dealt to your investigator (or any other card that can take damage). So my question is, can I choose this first option even if I only have one ally up, say William T. Maleson or Jake Williams, and then stomach the rest on my investigator?

If you can, it's a lot of damage but at least poison can be averted. If you can't, then you'd be forced to choose the second option and suffer poison. But frankly, you'll never be able to choose the first option without having at least 2 allies in play. Why? Because the only allies who offer 4 HP are Agency Backup and Red-Gloved Man, and that still isn't enough to satisfy the requirement. It may not be as big a deal in later scenarios, but if we're talking about Untamed Wilds (which this card is in), then the only investigator who can effectively tank this is Leo Anderson, AFTER he has Mitch Brown AND one or two other allies in play. There is Trusted but it won't be enough. Mateo could soak it in theory since he can spend his bonus EXP on Charisma and two Summoned Hounds, but sheesh. I do feel like the severity for avoiding poison should have some bite, but this is impossible at lvl 0 for anyone but Leo (beyond protecting himself, he can sort of protect someone else with Tetsuo Mori but he didn't release until well after FA) and Mateo (again, only with hounds who did not release until much later). You can buff yourself with some armor, but most lvl 0 options are too minimal to help much.

In short, this card is scary.

LaRoix · 1645
i don't think it's true that excess damage would be dealt to your investigator or other allies. i am basing this on the fact that it specifies "an ally," rather than saying that the damage is dealt to your investigator or "allies" for example. apart from that, generally to satisfy a "must" condition, you only need for the game state to change, you don't need it to deal its full effect. i think it's really just meant to say that you lose an ally or take poison if you can't. also, if you had 2x trusted on Agency Backup, it could survive. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Zinjanthropus is correct; it's essentially lose an ally or get poisoned. Damage dealt to you can be assigned to your allies, and normally you can't assign them overflow damage, but in this case it's the treachery itself that's assigning the damage to your ally. There's no rule that says you have to deal with the excess, because you're not actually taking damage; your ally is. It's not 5 damage hitting you but going through an ally first, it's five damage on the ally, regardless of their stats. That said, I wonder what happens if I target my guiding spirit? My gut says that's illegal, but it is an ally I control. — SGPrometheus · 821
if i had to guess, you can't target Guiding Spirit because it has no health to take damage. if nothing else, it wouldn't change the game state, so probably doesn't fulfill the "must" requirement. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Yeah you have severely misread how this card works. As long as you deal any damage to an ally, you have resolved the card’s effect. So even a 1 health ally able to die to this card fulfills the effect, giving you the actual choice. It is basically “lose an ally with any health value, or get poisoned” — StyxTBeuford · 13028
When you have a choice, only those are valid that change a game state. You can’t choose to discard 3 Ressources If you have 0; you need an least 1. So you can’t target allies without hp with an effect that deals damage. — Django · 5108
@Zinjanthropus Yeah, the fact that it doesn't change the game state was the only reason I could think of that it wouldn't technically work. — SGPrometheus · 821
Another difference between discarding an ally and dealing it damage is that the Ally's "on defeat" stuff will still trigger this way, which doesn't happen on discard. — Hylianpuffball · 29
Oooh, you're right. I'll be sure to add that too then. Thanks! — LaRoix · 1645
It is a pretty mean treachery, but I kind of like it. Poison is really the worst, so I'm glad that there is an option should you either have unsalvageable agility (like Leo), or just get unlucky and pull a tentacle. It does encourage you to bring more allies than you normally would to a first scenario, and preferably ones that are cheap enough that you can always keep one in play. William T. Maleson particular is quite the trooper when it comes to taking Snake Bites. Leo's ability is obviously very useful for this particular treachery. — Zinjanthropus · 229
I agree! And since it encourages allies, it helps create the illusion of a big camp of people going on an expedition. — LaRoix · 1645
that's a good point, very thematic! — Zinjanthropus · 229
Anna Kaslow

I want to like Anna, I want to make her nonsense work. It's just tricky to justify when she amounts, more or less, to a 1/1 Ally that grants a net +2 to your skills at a cost of 6 XP (4 for Anna, 2 for the tarots), which literally 14 investigators can get thru Peter Sylvester (2) for just 2 XP, and 6 more can get thru Lola Santiago or Delilah O'Rourke for 3 XP, plus all the sanity/clues/murders they respectively bring.

One novelty, something of a swingy thingy if you feel lucky while playing Carolyn Fern or Roland Banks:

==

If you draw Anna in your opener/mulligan (odds improved as STTP + AR thins your deck by 4), you'll start Turn 1 with:

  • Your deck thinned by 6 cards
  • 9 resources
  • Anna
  • 1 tarot of your choice in play

Assuming I used this card-draw calculator right, a hard mulligan for Anna puts the odds of landing her at about 61%.

All for the low price of... er... 18XP. huh.

HanoverFist · 739
Prepared for the worst and practiced make perfect also thin their decks and have a chance to find astounding revelations but cost no xp. If their searches succeed they also thin your deck by 8 cards if you attach them to sttp — Django · 5108
Oh excellent idea; I'm building a non-stabby Carolyn deck right now and Prepared For The Worst just didn't make sense, but Practice Makes Perfect absolutely does. — HanoverFist · 739
Sefina already has a fairly high chance of getting Anna in her first hand, as she draws through 1/3 of her deck with her opening hand. I'm not sure how much that would be an actually effective strategy, however, versus some gimmicky fun. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Look at annas review section, someone did the math about drawing anna and some tarot cards. I played such a Sefina deck through FA and found it very effective. Sefina needs will boost at some piont and the tarots compensate her not having acces to mystic LV3+ (that include will boosts). With leo and haste you have actions to spare if you draw some tarots or anna later (using sixth sense for clues and bow for combat). — Django · 5108
I definitely agree that Sefina needs stat boosts. 4wp really doesn't cut it for Mystic 0-2 on its own. Those Rogue extra actions do help a lot with playing late assets. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Sefina kind of doesnt need boosts though. She has Suggestion and Lockpicks. You don’t need much beyond that imo. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
I was used sixth sense and bow because lockpicks exhaust on use. So what to do with extra actions from Leo and haste? So i think sixth sense is better and those tarot — Django · 5108
Make it more consistent to succeed — Django · 5108
I think Lockpicks could actually use a bit of a boost in Sef, as they lose supplies if you don't succeed by 2. Still, both Lola and Delilah are good choices for that. I think the boosts are more necessary for events, though. Backstab and Storm of Spirits, particularly. Pretty expensive to be fighting at 4. Spectral Razor is great, but it's only 2 cards. You can't count on always being able to tuck and paint it. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Welp this combo idea got lodged hard enough in my head that I hadda make a deck to get it out: https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/24668/tarotlyn-fern-malpractice-makes-perfect-1.0 — HanoverFist · 739
Burglary

I have to agree with the consensus that this card is a bit strange, but I don't necessarily think it should grant clues or some such. I do think it could be altered to scale differently. Here's how I'd house rule it:

The text would read: After you successfully investigate, exhaust Burglary and gain resources by however much you succeed by, to a maximum of X. X is the printed shroud value of your location.

This version would offer the benefit of not forcing you to "waste" an action investigating to get resources, you'd just get them as a result of successfully investigating like normal. The number of resources you'd gain would be quite low most of the time, but you probably won't be spending a lot of extra cards or resources to succeed by a large amount anyways, certainly not on low shroud values. High shroud locations can net you far more resources, but you would have to succeed by that much more in order to get them. The function of the card is not to net you a large chunk of change; most likely it will trickle out resources as you investigate along the way (and the exhaust keeps it from being too overpowered). Note that I would emphasize "printed" shroud value to allow cards like Skeleton Key to combo. You could essentially hack the shroud value, but still gain large quantities of resources in this way. It might need to be lvl 3 as opposed to 2, but if it means the card sees play rather than how it is now, then I think it'd be worth it.

But enough tooting my own horn. The card as is, does have some viability. Finn might like it, or anyone playing Fence since you can get it up quickly and then snag some dough whenever you have a spare moment at a low shroud value. You can still combo cards like Double or Nothing and "Watch this!" to heap a pile of cash, and I suspect this is probably the instance it'll be used (Boss Leo would probably love this). The problem, of course, is that while you can net a grand total of 16 resources this way, you could get 12 with Burglary lvl 0 which I would think is plenty. So I guess I'm back to being confused over where the allure in this upgrade exists.

LaRoix · 1645
Your houserule makes it absurdly much stronger than letting you get the normal clue from investigating — Timlagor · 5
It does make sense to me to find clues while hunting for valuables. — Timlagor · 5
"You owe me one!"

"You owe me one!" is a unique action economy event whose inefficiency is made up for by the possibility of playing a card your investigator might never have otherwise had access to. It's kind of like a mini-Teamwork, but where Teamwork costs you a card, "You owe me one!" replaces both itself and the card you "borrowed". This ends up being action economy because, as an example, had your partner played their Emergency Cache (0) on its own, they'd be down a card and up three resources, but with "You owe me one!" they get that card back, and someone on the team still gets the three resources. It's almost like playing Emergency Cache (2), just with the resources going to a different player.

If this action economy was all it did, "You owe me one!" would be pretty boring. A fast zero-cost event that draws you and another player a card is certainly positive value (and this is comparable to the drawing cards effect of "You owe me one!"), but it is not a particularly powerful effect. Like Teamwork though, "You owe me one!" can allow for all sorts of crazy combos when you play things outside your cardpool. I'm actually not going to delve too deep into the possibilities here as they're as broad as your collection, and many have been mentioned in other reviews (including for Teamwork, so do look at those too if that's what you're after). What I am going to do is try to show briefly why "You owe me one!" is much better than Teamwork for a typical investigator deck, and also how to best take advantage of it and make it shine.

While Teamwork lets you exchange any number of Item and Ally assets and even trade resources, it has always been held back by its cost. "You owe me one!" only lets you swap a single card, but the meager action economy also offered makes a huge difference to the card actually generating an advantage for the team. Teamwork has to enable giving or receiving something really momentus to justify burning an action and a card, whereas you can play "You owe me one!" and be satisfied with even a mediocre trade. Additionally, "You owe me one!" allows you to play any asset or even an event from another player's hand, so can trade some things that Teamwork cannot, and I think this is generally much stronger than resource re-allocation. The cherry on the cake is that, bizarrely, you needn't even be at the same location! Luke Robinson, eat your heart out!

One big downside to "You owe me one!" being used to set something crazy up is that investigator hands are hidden zones, and the rules prohibit explicitly naming or revealing cards in your hand to other players. This is a fairly soft and fuzzy rule so I'm sure if you were determined enough you could work around it, but even sticking to the spirit of it very closely there are still some ways to know what is in another investigator's hand.

Firstly, Norman Withers. Vengeful Hound aside, Norman reveals every card he draws, and if you pay attention you can be sure what kinds of favors are available. Secondly, cards that add bonded cards to hand. If your partner just played their Occult Lexicon, you know they will be holding Blood-Rite. Do note though that, if you play a card like Occult Lexicon with "You owe me one!", your bounded cards don't include Blood Rite, so the book itself is useless to you (as are many other cards with bonds, such as Summoned Hound, which you cannot play with "You owe me one!" because you cannot pay the additional cost). Thirdly, cards that move other cards from non-hidden zones to the hand will also guarantee you targets; Calling in Favors, Sleight of Hand, Resourceful, and Scrounge for Supplies can all tell you a card in another investigator's hand without breaking or bending the communication rule. Searching hidden zones for certain cards can also give partial information; if your partner just played Prepared for the Worst and drew something, you know they have a weapon you could "borrow"!

There may also be some other edge cases where you can reliably infer a card in your partner's hand. One example I am aware of: if your partner draws a second card with Mr. "Rook", it must be a weakness (they may even announce so). If they don't then resolve a Revelation effect and just add the card to their hand, it may be their copy of The Tower or Dark Pact or Carcosa campaign spoiler, and perhaps you'll then want to play "You owe me one!" to do them a favor and play that weakness for them! "You owe me one!" does not allow you to play weakness cards, so my particular example here is moot. Thank you user SGPrometheus for the correction!

With all those options available, it is entirely possible to co-ordinate your deck with a teammate to make it likely that you know when there is something good to "borrow". Even if you don't do that though, it should be pretty rare for "You owe me one!" to miss entirely unless your partner's deck is all skills and unique allies. Just play it while your slots are open and they have a healthy handsize. You can however also build your own deck to take even greater advantage of "You owe me one!".

Rogues tend to generate lots of extra resources - particularly Preston Fairmont and Jenny Barnes - and you may be able to take and play a card that another investigator was struggling to pool the resources to play. Building your deck to be more generalised also makes you likely to be able to take advantage of whatever you find, rather than being a monster hunter stuck with a Magnifying Glass. Finally, consider the value of combining "You owe me one!" with Crystallizer of Dreams. I already discussed how "You owe me one!" is a kind of frictionless action economy, replacing itself and the card you play with it, which is absolutely perfect for the Crystallizer to grant you effectively "free" skill test icons for the future. Even better if you play another investigator's event that you can also attach to the Crystallizer!

Trinity_ · 203
You can't play their weaknesses. But yeah, it does seem like a better teamwork, despite being smaller and one sided. That free card draw does a lot. — SGPrometheus · 821
Eep, it literally says that on the card huh! Thanks for the correction — Trinity_ · 203
Stargazing

Existing reviews for Stargazing understate its power. A comparison to Ward of Protection is in some ways fair, as both are low level Mystic events that mitigate the debilitating effects of the Mythos Phase, but they do so in very different ways, and are ultimately quite different beasts. User Bronze is right to point out that, where Ward protects your party from a particularly nasty treachery, such as Ancient Evils, Stargazing instead reduces the number of encounter cards you draw, replacing one of your next 11 encounter deck draws with The Stars are Right. Ward of Protection is a comparatively costly silver bullet to shut down a punishing treachery, and Stargazing is all-round Mythos Phase protection and fantastic value proposition. I think it is ultimately clear that Stargazing has a place in more decks than Ward.

User AquaDrehz rightly points out that the action economy for Stargazing is exceptionally favourable. You draw one fewer encounter card, which saves you whatever cost you would have spent dealing with that. This is a variable reward, but while some encounter cards can be shrugged off, others (e.g. Frozen in Fear) can eat several actions or outright threaten to defeat a vulnerable investigator (e.g. Rotting Remains). Many enemies you draw will do both! Preventing just a single encounter draw can be a substantial action advantage, but on top of that, The Stars are Right makes Stargazing effective action economy too. You trade an action and a card for an action, a card, and a resource. That might not sound amazing, but the ability to move actions from one turn to another is often useful, and The Stars are Right can grant any investigator the reward. Stargazing is a bit like an Easy Mark in that it replaces itself and grants a meager resource benefit, but it also lowers the threat of the encounter deck and re-gifts the action spent to play it. This is incredible value!

The catch is that the reward comes later, and is only guaranteed while there are enough encounter deck draws left before the end of the scenario. In a 2-player game, you are guaranteed to draw The Stars are Right by the 6th round following your playing Stargazing. That is a while to wait for your reward, and you will also have to beware of effects that shuffle the encounter deck, which could put The Stars are Right completely out of reach. These effects usually come from advancing agendas, and you can play around them in many of the scenarios where they come up. While Stargazing clearly has a larger window with more players and in longer scenarios, most scenarios have plenty of time to Stargaze, and you won't hate missing it in your opening hand as much as the Tarot assets. In short, Stargazing's conditions are not as restrictive as you might have thought. Solo play is really where that condition becomes truly cumbersome as 11 rounds is too long to wait.

While playing through Return to Path to Carcosa, I occasionally found myself playing Stargazing even when the team weren't totally guaranteed to draw The Stars are Right due to the encounter deck shuffling or the scenario ending before we could draw 11 more cards from it. The value you gain from drawing The Stars are Right is so great that it is sometimes even worth gambling on! It also just feels incredibly good to draw something actually positive and helpful from the encounter deck, which usually has you reaching gingerly across the table for whatever punishment the mythos has in store for you. Stargazing is going to be a staple of my Mystic decks for the foreseeable future.. which is kind of fun to say given that its Augury traited!

Trinity_ · 203
I agree, this card is incredibly good! It is balanced in that you can only play it a maximum of twice in a game, which while being enough, does have that hard and fast cap. It is also good synergy with Drawn to the Flame as well as other cards that have you drawing encounter cards for the simple fact that you're more likely to get Stars Are Right to trigger. — LaRoix · 1645
This card feels so much better than it actually is in my opinion. It is good, but it is no Ward. Drawing one less card from the encounter deck is good, but cancelling one of the worst cards in the next 11 draws is much stronger action economy most of the time- you choose both what AND when you cancel, on too of Ward also being fast, all for a resource, a card, and a horror (and as Diana you refund the first two). In multiplayer I can see most Mystics wanting this card anyway, but Ward 2 is still the much higher priority pick, and it scales across all counts very well. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Top* — StyxTBeuford · 13028
I believe you are plainly wrong that Ward is stronger action economy. Diana is obviously a special case because of her ability, so ignoring her for a moment: Playing WoP is comparable to drawing a treachery with "Revelation: Discard a card, lose a resource, take a horror". While getting to turn something nasty like Ancient Evils into a treachery like that is often fantastic, The Stars Are Right is an even better encounter card to draw because it is actually positive tempo! Ward's upside is not action economy, but in being able to target specific treacheries and lessen their blow. They are actually very different cards, and while I cannot say that Stargazing is flatly better than WoP, I think it is clear that it is a more broadly applicable card for just always being good tempo. WoP gets priority for the specific role of targetting awful treacheries and protecting vulnerable teammates from them. — Trinity_ · 203
I think you're undervaluing the ability of targeting itself relative to action economy. Ward 2 guarantees I can save it to target Frozen in Fear on my Rogue, which potentially saves as many actions as there are rounds left. Stargazing does not. Both are otherwise action neutral. One gains you a resource, one loses you a card and a resource, but neither is equal to an action. Stargazing only wins if you value every treachery card equally, which you should not. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
My experience with Stargazing has been that most scenarios shuffle the encounter deck before you can draw it. It is pretty great in scenarios that don't reshuffle the encounter deck, though. I would think it's a lot better in higher player counts, though, as you get through a lot more of the encounter deck before reshuffling. — Zinjanthropus · 229
I think all of you miss 2 facts that make ward better: 1. Stargazing is random. So if only 1 doom is missing ward will always work against ancient evils (or grasping hands or rotting remains if they'd kill you). 2. There's a limited amount of each treachery in the mythos deck. Stargazing delays them, while Ward removes them. — Django · 5108
That’s exactly what I meant by the targeting being valuable in and of itself. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Trading an action now for "the most useful investigator's" action later is such amazing value that it's really worth emphasising. — Rooftop · 1
I'm currently playing this in Luke Robinson, and I pretty much only play it while in dream prison. Trading 1-2 of Luke's least valueable actions in the game for 1-2 actions of the most useful investigator when they come up is a brilliant deal. — Rooftop · 1
Recently had a game where both times, The Stars are Right was a tempo boost. For clearing a treachery that prevented movement, our gator most suited to do the task needed the action economy to take care of other dangerous options. And for our Dexter to attach The Skeleton Key. — Lemmingrad · 21