Ancient Stone

With the increasing amount of card draw in , both upgrades to the stone can be used more consistently and both of them have very powerful effects. Some examples:

All this requires a lot of secrets on the stones (yes you could have 2 in play for double the fun). There's also a few cards that add secrets like Astounding Revelation, Truth from Fiction and Enraptured, but i think they are very inefficient. It's much more effective to increase the difficulty as much as possible when identifying the stone and later replaying it, when it's secrets are used up. After all, card draw also has the advantage of going through your deck more than once, if you're not afraid of your weaknesses.

I wonder why no one mentioned this before, but enter Versatile. I think draw and tutoring effects more than make up for the increased deck size. Use 2 of them to add 1x Double or Nothing and 1x Drawing Thin to your deck. If you use both on a shroud 4 location, the difficulty will be 18, resulting in the same amount of secrets:

You might wonder how you could possibly beat that. If you got 1 xp left, take Three Aces or ask your mystic for Seal of the Elder Sign. Otherwise the best strategy I've found, have Mr. "Rook" look for Drawing Thin early and always take 2 ressources when possible, mostly on low shroud locations or encounter cards you're likely to fail anyway (but please don't increase the amount of horror from cards such as Rotting Remains). That should get you enough so you can resolve the stone mid or late game with Hyperawareness or similar cards, also netting you 4 clues. If you draw you won't be able to pull that off during the same scenario again. So asking your mystic to get Time Warp and keeping it for this test would be a good idea.

Alternatively your could pass the stone, maybe Mr. "Rook" and all of the groups ressources to the survivor with 2 Drawing Thin, while the commits his Double or Nothing. The should have Plucky to use the ressources. He could also use Mr. "Rook" to search for missing Drawing Thin or Plucky. So you'd get 22 shroud/ secrets on the stone.

In case your group has no or , use versatile to get missing cards or Teamwork, if there's no .

Django · 5095
Or just do it with Minh and Miss Doyle in play. Discard Augur for an auto succeed. — Sassenach · 179
Actually, ignore that, it wouldn't work. You need to do an investigate action on the Stone itself. Shame... — Sassenach · 179
Getting 22 charges is overkill. The most I ever got was 14 and I still was never able to empty the Stone — Alogon · 1125
you cannot pass the stone around. "you have identified the stone" is valid for "you" = the investigator/player, that passed the test — Adny · 1
@Adny Source? It's written in the campaign log, which there is only one of. — trazoM · 9
It's called "campaign log" not "investigator log" and these cards arent limited to one person. So if you have a group of 4 seekers, only 1 nees to identify the solution, translate the glyphs,... while everybody can use them afterwards. — Django · 5095
Automatic success effects are counter productive with translating because, per the rules “If a skill test automatically succeeds, the total difficulty of that test is considered 0.” and the Stone will get 0 uses. — Death by Chocolate · 1473
Pay to win with Higher Education is probably the best way to nail that 18 and get your money’s worth. — Death by Chocolate · 1473
Safeguard

I wonder why they didn't call this card "stalker". After all it's mostly about those lecherous guardians going after good looking Seekers, save for Mark Harrigan who's more into Sophina.

Anyway, one guardian can also use this on another's safeguard. The result will mostly be the same as if both had stalked the same person, except the unlikely case she lied to the first about a Shortcut to get rid of both at the same time (so they could focus on a BBEG at an adjacent location).

Django · 5095
I don't see how you can safeguard a safeguard. The only legal Safeguard target is the investigator currently taking their turn (so you can't target the other guardian during the seeker's turn), and the effect expires at the end of that turn (so you don't get to do this by Safeguarding the guardian on their own turn before the seeker's turn either).. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
You can play 2 :-) — Timlagor · 5
Nothing Left to Lose

Rules question about "draw cards until you have 5 cards in your hand". Do i resolve weaknesses that don't stay in my hand and keep drawing until i actually have 5 in hand? Or do i have to wait with resolving weaknesses until i've drawn up to 5?

Django · 5095
I believe cards are always drawn one at a time, so I think you would draw the weakness, resolve it, then continue drawing up to 5. — SGPrometheus · 821
Card are not always drawn one at a time- Patrice's investigator ability draws 5 at once. In fact, regarding NLTL, I'm 99% certain it chooses a number of cards you draw based on the difference (5 minus handsize) and you draw them simultaneously. So you would draw up to 5 (NLTL resolves) and then you resolve all weaknesses. In other words, if you get a weakness that discards after it resolves, you end up with a hand of less than 5 cards. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
On a related note. I recently began my first run through of a campaign with Patrice and the basic weakness I drew was Insomnia. The first time I drew it was as the second of the 5 cards I had to draw in that upkeep phase. The way I interpreted this was that it meant I had to discard all but one card from my hand, but since there was only one card in hand at the time it completely whiffed and I then got to continue drawing up to 5 cards. This felt a LOT like cheating, but it did also seem the most logical interpretation of how to resolve the effect. Do we have any more experienced Patrice players who can confirm whether I cheated or not ? — Sassenach · 179
You resolved it incorrectly. You draw 5 simultaneously. Then, you discard to 1 due to Insomnia. The golden rule of this game is you resolve all effects in full before resolving anything else, and Patrice's ability is included here. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Correction: *Amnesia, not Insomnia. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Ah yes, Amnesia. Forgot about that one... ;) This does seem like a fairer interpretation, I'll do it that way in future. Still a pretty benign weakness for Patrice of course. — Sassenach · 179
I would say that "one at a time" is implicit. Revelation effects immediately when you draw a weakness, so you would never count that card on your hand. FFG should errata this card to make it clear how to understand it. — haakenlid · 1
Patrice's investigator card has the exact same wording as this one, and Patrice draws cards simultaneously as confirmed by the devs. It's bad wording and unintuitive, but it is what it is. — flamebreak · 19
Abigail Foreman

For Daisy Walker, Abigail Foreman is also a powerful combo with Book of Shadows 1. Put 2 charges on a spell (or 2 different ones) for no action and 1 ressource? Even rivals Twila Katherine Price who puts only 1 charge an a spell.

You could Teamwork Abigail Foreman from the team's seeker to the mystic and give her Book of Shadows 3, gaining a 3rd or 5th arcane slot (add 2 Sign Magick). Spend an action each turn to add 1-2 charges to the following spells:

If the team has no access to guardian, Versatile is an option to get Teamwork.

Django · 5095
If Abagail is removed (taking damage etc), is any attached tome removed as well? — Agthor · 1
@Agthor Yes. Attachments are dependent on the thing they're attached to. — SGPrometheus · 821
Is there a faq for her? What happen to the necro if she leaves the table? Can she attach the necro? In German translation is the first sentence in the description: threat area ist part of the play area. That would let her attach the necro. Or is this just a translation mistake? — Mypho · 1
An investigator's threat area is an "in play area" (as opposed to an "out of play area") but it is not the same as, or part of, that investigator's "play area". Assets in an investigator's threat area and in an investigator's play area which occupy slots collectively count against the investigator's slot limits. But the areas are separate, and Abigail specifies "play area" while Necronomicon's Revelation ability places it in the "threat area". She can't attach it while it's there. (If some other effect managed to move it to the play area, she could then attach it to herself. I don't know of any such effect.) — Yenreb · 15
Abigail Foreman

Wow! Daisy Walker is living for the back-to-back releases with the new-Old Book of Lore and now this. Honestly, this card is basically a 4 XP Daisy signature card, better than her current one I might add, since it opens up one of her Daisy's hand slots as well, and won't let The Necronomicon push it out of your hands as easily. Let's take a look at her favorite reads:

  • Encyclopedia now you can +4 any stat for the whole round. I feel like Daisy can perform some evades or fights actions on herself with more reliability, pump up her , or even dip her toe into her side. Will improve Daisy's support and clue gathering, but not buff her enemy management all that much since it still provokes an attack of opportunity.
  • Old Book of Lore / Old Book of Lore I can see the lvl-0 making Daisy a pseudo-Mandy Thompson. I'm not entirely sure how useful this will be on the lvl-2, since you still use up the secrets. Nevertheless, you are a discount machine for you and all your fellow investigators. With a deck dedicated to replenishing secrets via Astounding Revelation, Truth from Fiction, and Enraptured, I can see this adding lots of tempo to investigators who don't have access to cards like Ever Vigilant or Joey "The Rat" Vigil. You can also help the or put down up to 2 key weapons or spells while they are already engaged to an enemy.
  • Scroll of Secrets It lets you manipulate 6 cards in the encounter deck or investigator deck. It could potentially help an investigator with a dwindling deck who has yet to draw their weaknesses bypass them altogether, or set up a discard pile for Survivor recursion.
  • The more niche Medical Texts +2 heal and Scroll of Prophecies +4 cards draw (2 discarded) are not to be scoffed at either.
  • Questioning what Django is saying about Pnakotic Manuscripts. I suppose you can choose different investigators, and each of them would get a chaos bag-less test as a result. Then it would be so stupidly unbalanced.

I'm realizing this review became less about the card, and more about Daisy and all the individual tome cards, but still. STILL. I can also see Mandy Thompson playing this since it does synergize with her abilities, although she already has easy access to her ability via other options. I don't know if it is necessary to sink the 4 XP for Mandy or the other to play this.

chirubime · 27634
Are we sure that it doesn't work with Pnakotic Manuscripts? Would it just affect the next two instead of just the next? I don't know how it actually works. Would probably need a ruling unless the rules clarifies it. — Urgergaberg · 1
Regarding Pnakotic Manuscripts, i think it works on it's action ability, but only on 2 different investigators cause it refers to the "next action". — Django · 5095
Btw, i missed that Necronomicon isn't in your hands, its in your threat area, so I'm not so sure if Abigail can do this , but otherwise! — chirubime · 27634