Played with a group with this card a few times now. I was not the bearer but I hate this card. It is not just because that the recovery condition is so hard, but the design is so bad : It goes against the fun of hidden information on hand.

Normal Revelation weakness requires the player to show that card right after drawing, not hard to do it correctly instead of tucking it on your hand. More advanced weakness card that stays on hand requires a bit more discipline from the player until the table knows for the first time that it is on hand, like Dark Memory, Arrogance, Whispers from the Deep, or Pay Your Due. But there is this satisfying flavorful reward when they do it correctly, even more so if they managed to keep poker face when drawing it up. Dark Pact is also good design, similar to Carcosa Hidden card. You can make up all sort of stories why you don't want to do something or even looking like you are doing your job normally, until the reveal, and it makes memorable gaming time.

Underprepared is the worst of such "cripples from hand" weakness. The owner can make mistake of committing cards normally completely forgotten about Underprepared and no one else is going to correct for him. When I am trying to help with : "You gasp just now drawing in Upkeep Phase. You sure you don't have Underprepared on hand?" it is just so weird to say every now and then they commit something.

Apparently to play this card the right way, the owner should commit and then say one of the icon mysteriously disappear. (Or in the case of single icon like Resourceful, only the effect remains.) This is not a digital game and the icons aren't going to blink away on their own. Underprepared does not say anything about revealing it, unlike Dark Memory / Pay Your Due, or not revealing itself elegantly as a part of punishment (and trying to fix it) like Arrogance / Whispers from the Deep. Not only it is prone to mistake, it also takes away from the impact of discovery. It's kind of downer...

But the suffering has just begun. The whole table would then have to keep checking for error each time the owner commit something, likely until the end of scenario because they loses all the will to get rid of it. And since the card is facing the owner's side invisible from others, it is a matter of time an entire table forgot about it since they are busy with their own calculations, at the same time owner also forgot to mention it since they are discouraged from committing for a period of time.

If the table forgot about it for some time then someone suddenly remembers it, now it also tiring to retroactively think about previous misplays whether the removed icon would change the outcome or not. It's a weakness that taxes actual willpower of all players. I would have to make a sign saying "I have Underprepared" that the bearer can choose to place on their play area after the first crippled commit the next time we got this dang weakness, or some kind of temporary insert to make it double-sided if the bearer needs help reminding.

A better design for the same effect would be a Revelation that put this card on threat area for everyone to see, and say hand size is reduced by 1 (weird by itself I know but I am trying to make an equivalent effect here), and with condition to pay 1 resource + no card on hand + only bearer can trigger to clear it.

Even then, it took too much imagination to link its mechanic to thematic sense of this card even in the original hides-on-hand version. (The awesome Oops! guys art is the only good thing that helps understanding this card.) Take the classic Dark Memory, it is easy to understand what is happening here. Her past memory from Hyperborea is acting up again and it is hurting her. By playing the event she released the thing with some effort (2 cost) and it causes some collateral damage, but she is fine for now. Dark Pact's moment of playing is the stabby-stab time, it probably took some effort (2 cost) to do so. When you play Pay Your Due you paid your due (duh), extra actions paid may meant you offer them some work to substitute the cash, and when not they get rid of your fingers or something. Event weaknesses are supposed to be designed like this. The moment of playing the event should be immediately understandable.

Now we are back to Underprepared. After getting this on hand, you have to deliberately go from very well prepared, to underprepared, to finally play this "Blunder Event" which seems to implies that up until now, while the weakness is (not so) hidden on hand, you were making blunder of being underprepared and you learned now to be more prepared, getting rid of the weakness. At this point it is already weird that the punishment of continuing to be properly prepared instead of playing your "man of blunder" role is lesser skill icon (while you can be perfectly armed with Asset cards or a lot of resources, looks very prepared to me)

Even weirder, you are actually underprepared after fixing it since you are left with nothing, you don't immediately go back to properly prepared, unlike most weakness that flavorfully implies you have won against your personal struggle and recovered, or just a singular "oh no!" moment like Darrell's Blunder weakness Ruined Film of the same trait, or Mark's Flaw weakness Shell Shock. The investigator in fact looked more prepared with spare Asset cards on hand and some spare resources to play them when decided to not fix this weakness at all.

The design is so bad and the flavor is also weird!

I recently play a rogue with some XP devoted for treachery defense. He can simply not trying at all to boost and tank horror from willpower tests with Elder Sign Amulet (skips about 1-2 tests), or make it go away with cards like "You handle this one!" or Counterespionage. But there is a hole in this defense, if Frozen in Fear already lands there is not much I can do.

Frozen in Fear is an example that this card is a good answer. Like Lucky!, you get to keep this card intact on hand while you try the recurring test again and again, until you see an appropriate chaos tokens, then like its name you surely pass with 2 resources. Much better than going for a big willpower boost (e.g. Moxie pump / Say Your Prayers / Savant) only for the chaos bag to laugh at you with a bigger minus and lose all your investments. You just wait and not waste anything with Sure Gamble. For the sake of variety and same XP budget, rather than doubling up 2x Elder Sign Amulet for consistency only for it to be powerless against Frozen in Fear, 1x Elder Sign Amulet + 1x Sure Gamble maybe better.

The "Striking Fear" set is special that it is somehow used in most FINAL scenario of the campaign. I say this card is not so situational if there is this prominent pattern in campaign design. In the final scenario you either win or lose the campaign and many things in Striking Fear set are BS against Rogue, and it will be sad if your character is on their knee unable to play after such a long journey. I think even 3 XP for one of this card added last minute before the final showdown is a good investment. It is a core set card for good reason.

To make good use of XP, an over-success card with situational benefit like .41 Derringer (2) which now comes together in Revised Core Set can give it an another duty. Unlike Lucky! which only works when you fail, this card sometimes let you choose between regular success or over-success. (In the case if this gun it has 3 kinds of success.) Breaking and Entering (2), Slip Away (2), etc. also has multiple kinds of success.

Wait people actually think this card is good? Its terrible.

Lets look at all the negatives.
-Costs 3, a card and an action.
-Have to do a test with no bonus.
-No refund if you fail the test.
-Non-elite only.
-Your location only.
-Enemy must be exhausted.

Just kill the enemy normally or evade an move away. This thing needs to do like 10 damage for it to be worthwhile (and again only affects non-elites).

Am I crazy or is this the coterie agent? Were they planned from the start?

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I completely disagree with Caius take on this card, Keen Eye is, without a doubt, the worst "Permanent: spend resources for stat boost" talent in the game by FAR. Not only it doesn't hold a candle against Scrapper, Streetwise and Higher Education (and the fact it's the only card out of these 4 not to get taboo should tell you a lot), but it's absolute ineffective on its own even without considering its class alternatives.

"Now why is that?" You may ask "Why is this card so bad? It gives a stat boost of +1 for and , two of the main game winning skills, for the rest of the turn for 2 resources, and you can even stack it if you have the cash"

And the end of that sentence is exactly the issue: Guardians do not have the cash for this kind of luxury, with possibly the exception of Zoey Samaras, Leo Anderson and Tommy Muldoon, they are constantly paying for assets, put allies in play, play events, they simply cannot afford the economy to leverage on the stat boost reliably. Nathaniel Cho can, given his playstyle is less asset heavy, but his is too low for the boost to matter, and his is high enough he doesn't need it

Second, +1 for 2 resources for all your skill checks in a round is a very bad deal in anything above easy, and very questionable on easy itself. By the time you can afford the exp for this permanent, the stat boost will probably not suffice for most skill checks you will have difficulties to complete. Sure you can spend 4 resources for a +2, but where you are gonna get enough money to do so?!

Third, and this is the reason what leaves Keen Eye completely dead in the water: boosting all of your skill checks in one turn by little is massively inneficent compared to boosting one skill check by a lot, because that means you are committing the rest of the round fighting and/or investigating. Most guardians aren't just gonna spend all of their actions investigating one location, even in multiplayer, they are very likely to want to take other actions in between, before or at the end of their turn, like moving to another location to investigate there. And even the most combat heavy guardian will struggle to do nothing but fight the whole round (unless you are playing a full 4 player game with heavy enemy spawning and high boss health), their turn will probably also be interspaced by moving and engaging. You sacrifice massive action flexibility to make use of this Permanent, which makes it very difficult to justify using. Sure the times it works (in location with lots of clues and enemies) can be pretty good, but remember you are spending 3 exp for a highly situational permanent and possibly adding to your deck and buying various economy cards just to make use of this

I cannot understate, for a 3 exp card, how bad Keen Eye is, it's almost worthless on its own and ridicolously situational if you have the economy for it. Ironically, if this was the Rogue permanent talent instead of Streetwise... It would still be absolute rubbish, but at least would fit a niche because rogues have various ways to grant themselves additional actions to make the most of the buff