I have been guilty, gravely so, of underestimating this card. On its surface it doesn’t appear to do much, it’s in the growing list of +2 items which serve a secondary purpose, but in general without a +1 damage their function as weapons tend to be underwhelming. Even worse this card exhausts while fighting making it of even further limited use as a weapon

The +2 bonus is seemingly hamstrung by the same issues. The boost is only helping you with something you’re already good at, and still only once a turn. However in reality it’s a free, limited-scope guts every turn. Spread out over a whole scenario you’re looking at +10 or more, for 3r and an action. That’s some insane value and is almost guaranteed to save you a few tests if pulled early.

Note that it does compete with its hands-slot requirement. This isn’t so bad in Agnes, Akachi, Mystic Daisy or Sefina, but between his Trumpet and Grotesque Statue Jim may not be jumping to include a 4th and 5th hand item until mystic hand slot tech is printed. That being said the trumpet doesn’t show up in every game and it has good commit icons so there’s still justification if you only use the trumpet on occasion.

8/10

A solid, unassuming card that never steals the show but always has your back.

Trap card!

Even with Jim Culver, who has an extra symbol, because he can turn the , into a , the chance of hitting a symbol is about 30% (more or less, depending a little bit on how your token bag looks like after setup/events). This 30% includes the use of the Grotesque Statue.

Thats a very low chance of hitting with +2 damage . So in my opinion its worse than Shrivelling in allmost every respect. Even for Jim Culver its better to use the Grotesque Statue on the Shrivelling effect to dodge the possible horror dmg (or a guaranteed hit) then to turn this one into a +3 dmg live-the-dream-monsterkiller-machine.

The only use for it like Sheckel wrote is as a weapon with a solo Daisy Walker or for a solo Agnes Baker that for some reason wants to deal with extremely weak enemies.

This one seems similar to rogue's Burglary, yet more dangerous and limited. Majority of what is written for Burglary will apply here as well.

Pros:

• rather easy test to solve (and independent from location)
• perhaps being it a spell?

Cons:

• charge based
• slow card (for its full use you have to pay 4 actions and 1 resource)
• net gain per use might be a bit unpredictable (and you should never add any card to its test)
• somehow risky, can hurt you (1 or 2 wounds are quite likely)

In my opinion this cards is not worth adding for most scenarios simply because the actions are more precious than the resources in most cases (at least scenarios are built in that way right now). Also, the mystics already can generate resources via Forbidden Knowledge and it is simply more usable and effective than Alchemical Transmutation.

Plucky is arguably the best of the Composure assets released in Echoes of the Past. Like all five Composure cards, it costs 1XP & 1 resource, is Fast, provides stat bonuses for cash as a action, and has 1 sanity. Cheap, Fast, and is always a good combination, and the horror soak is a nice bonus. In particular, the Fast keyword allows it to be played while engaged with an enemy without triggering an attack of opportunity. This is probably more useful with a Composure that boosts or , but Plucky could also help parley or boost "Ashcan" Pete's for Shrivelling. It's also worth noting that, at only 1XP, investigators with access to experienced cards from two classes can choose from two different Composures, though only one may be in play at a time. Thus, William Yorick can choose between Plucky & Combat Training depending on whether he needs to boost & or & , respectively.

Save for Grounded, each Composure boosts 2 stats. In the case of Plucky, these are and --two of the more vital stats in the game. What's more, it pairs well with the otherwise lackluster Scrapper to cover all four stats for Survivors . No other class can cover all four stats with their Dunwich Permanent Talent and Carcosa Composure. Though some investigators can do so with the less efficient Core Talents (e.g., Jenny Barnes with Hard Knocks & Arcane Studies or Streetwise & Physical Training).

What really sets Plucky above the other Composures, though, is the ability of Survivors to recycle it, thus mitigating its main drawback of being discarded when it has taken just 1 horror. William Yorick is best suited to do so with his innate effect, though any Survivor can do so with Resourceful. In fact, William Yorick may, at present, be the best recipient for Plucky. In addition to being able to recycle it, he can use the boost to help investigate with his paltry 2, and Plucky's horror soak (repeatable with his effect) helps shore up his 6 sanity.

It also has my favorite card art from Echoes of the Past. Plucky indeed!

I'm not sure why the designers felt compelled to break with the typical Composure design on Grounded, but it makes it markedly worse than the other four Composure cards released in Echoes of the Past. In most respects it is identical to the others. However, instead of having 2 skill icons and boosting 2 different skills for any skill test, Grounded has only 1 icon () and can only be used for skill tests when casting Spells. Most importantly, this means that, unlike the other Composures, Grounded can only be used on skill tests you initiate, not those required by treacheries, etc. This is a huge drawback, relative to the other Composures.

Additionally, the condition of all Composures that horror must be placed on it before being placed on your investigator is more or less mutually exclusive with Agnes Baker's innate effect. Essentially, you must decide either to not use her innate horror-for-damage effect--a key aspect to playing her--in order to use Grounded or Plucky, or discard the Composure and the benefit of its bonuses in order to use her effect.

Maybe if the designers had lowered the cost of Grounded to 0, and/or gave it 2 icons, and/or gave it 1 health instead of 1 sanity (though, that wouldn't really fit the theme), it would be a little more worth it. Or perhaps in the future there will be treacheries with the Spell trait, or Spell assets/events that use a skill other than that can benefit from Grounded. Even then, though, I'm not sure it would compensate for not being able to use its bonuses on treacheries or other non-Spell skill tests. Time will tell.