Track Shoes can be used to generate a safe, action-less skill check for Drawing Thin every time you move. Enemies need not be present to use the ability on Track Shoes. This is currently the best way to generate recurrent skill checks for Drawing Thin, and it is available to every .

I think this card is incredibly broken. When I first saw it, I thought the skill test had to be succesful in order to get the bonus, which would 've been totally reasonable if that were the case. Instead, Survivors now get a card that lets them click for 2 resources once a turn simply by taking an investigate action and using this card and they still have a chance to get a clue. The only downsides I see are when there are negative effects of failing on certain tokens and the negative effects on Haunted locations in TCU. Other than that, I think it's almost an auto-include in non-Dark Horse decks in every Survivor.

What makes this card even better is its notable interaction with Rabbit's Foot and especially its upgraded version. With Rabbit's Foot, you now have even more reasons to fail tests, as you can now click for 2 resources and a card, and what makes this card totally absurd is its combination with Rabbit's Foot (3): With it, you can take an investigate action, proc Drawing Thin to increase the difficulty of the test, fail hard and tutor even further than you otherwise would, plus you get resources for doing so! And you can do this every turn! So, you now have a powerful tutoring engine that can get you all the cards you need while making money in the process!! Absolutely unreal!!

But you won't always have the luxury to draw or make money, right? Sometimes there's a tight race against the agenda, or the situation is rough and you don't have the luxury to juggle around with your deck. So, let's find situations where this is useful in other ways, namely when you have the opportunity to use this during a test you want to pass. These tests are not very common, but such situations can arise and allow you to make more profit out of this card. An example that comes in mind is a Finn Edwards or Wendy Adams with Lockpicks. Both of these characters can use Lockpicks to investigate at high skill value, allowing the use of Drawing Thin during that investigation without failing the test. In the same manner, other cards that test more than one stat that add up to one another can make interesting cases. Some examples are Cheap Shot and Slip Away. Another example is Rita Young. With her high Agility and all those assets that boost it further she has a good chance to pass an evade test even if its increased by 2. But let's be honest, if you have this card early, you can always just click for 2 resources and those cases where you will want to make money during a skill test will be rare, so it's a win-win in most situations.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like card. I love it, to be honest. But I wonder; how is it possible that a card with such powerful abilities and interactions was released?? Simply amazing...

There was allot of hype about this card when it was spoiled and many reviewers considered it to be “OP” and a sure candidate for the next update of the “Taboo List”. Because you get the resources independently of the result of the skill test many consider this card to be free resources or card draw. After using this card though its limitations become apparent:

1. Expending actions to trigger this is from an action economy perspective not worth it most of the time. The only benefit of doing this would be 1 resource, which is quite mediocre considering the price of failure in this game (#BS-Tokens).

2. Accordingly, you want to trigger this card on test you don’t have to expend actions to initiate, namely skill test triggered by revelation effects of encounter cards or locations and skill test triggered by reaction effects of assets like Track Shoes. This means you can’t trigger Drawing thin at will. You have to hope for the right treachery or have track shoes and don’t care about failing the test or even succeeding and moving to a place you don’t want to go. This of course is a heavy consistency blow to this card.

3. As any card that deals benefits over time, the efficiency of Drawing thin diminishes the later you get to play it. If it appears late during the scenario you probably won’t be able to take the possible tempo hit to play it and trigger it. This adds up to the consistency problem.

4. I have to also emphasize the price of failure in this game. The effects of the infamous BS-tokens (cultist, skull, tablet, squid) can go from irrelevant to devastating depending on the scenario and the difficulty you are playing on. At least in 4 scenarios of a campaign the negative effects will be egregious, specially on hard and expert. “If you fail add 1 doom to all cultist in the game”, “if you fail search for X monster enemy and draw it”, “if you fail take 2 horror and burn your collection”…ok the last one was a joke but you get the point.

In conclusion I will say that this card can be awesome in certain circumstances but at least for me it fails to make a big impact more often than not. Using Drawing thin effectively requires good deckbuilding skills and some insight in game tempo and action economy. It is not like good old (pre nerf) Dr. Milan Christopher that you can just put into play and make it rain. For this reasons I wouldn’t support a nerfing of this card.

PD: I tried Drawing thin in the Return to the Night of The Zealot and in the first 5 scenarios of the Circle Undone on hard difficulty with Wendy Adams.

It's not immediately clear how this card interacts with Live and Learn. Does Drawing Thin apply to both attempts or just the first one? There was some debate about this, but the final ruling came from Matt Newman himself:

Greetings,

This is a bit of a tricky interaction, so I apologize for any confusion here. I agree it’s a bit ambiguous. I think the ruling that makes the most sense here is the following:

As a general rule, when you use Live and Learn to attempt a test a second time, all effects with a duration that expire at the end of the first attempt will have expired by the time the second begins. This includes effects used during the first attempt that say “until the end of the skill test…”, “…for this skill test,” or the bonuses from committed cards, which are all discarded at the end of the first attempt. Effects that are inherent to the test itself (the test’s parameters, what happens if you succeed/fail, that sort of thing) all remain the same, even if they have a duration of “for this test.” So, for example, if an effect said “play during a skill test. until the end of the skill test, increase the test’s difficulty by 2,” that would expire at the end of the first attempt, whereas if the test itself said “Fight. Increase the difficulty of this test by 2,” that increase in difficulty would exist in both the first and second attempts.

Now for the tricky part: Which is Drawing Thin? Is it an effect that initiates during a skill test with a duration of that expires at the end of the skill test? Or is it an effect which alters the inherent nature of the skill test itself, such that it would affect both attempts? Since Drawing Thin does not explicitly say any variation of “until the end of the skill test” or “for this skill test,” and since its triggering condition is a “when” reaction to the skill test initiating and not something you use during the first attempt, my ruling is that Drawing Thin is changing the skill test’s inherent difficulty to be 2 higher—altering the nature of the test itself. Therefore if you use Drawing Thin when the skill test initiates, and then use Live and Learn to attempt that test a second time, the increased difficulty would carry over to the second attempt.

Again, apologies for the trickiness/ambiguousness. Hopefully this clears up this interaction, as well as clearing up how Live and Learn works in general. Thank you for bringing this to my attention; I’ll be sure to add it in the next edition of the FAQ as well.

Cheers!

Interaction with Live and Learn from Matt Newman (designer)

Greetings,

This is a bit of a tricky interaction, so I apologize for any confusion here. I agree it’s a bit ambiguous. I think the ruling that makes the most sense here is the following:

As a general rule, when you use Live and Learn to attempt a test a second time, all effects with a duration that expire at the end of the first attempt will have expired by the time the second begins. This includes effects used during the first attempt that say “until the end of the skill test…”, “…for this skill test,” or the bonuses from committed cards, which are all discarded at the end of the first attempt. Effects that are inherent to the test itself (the test’s parameters, what happens if you succeed/fail, that sort of thing) all remain the same, even if they have a duration of “for this test.” So, for example, if an effect said “play during a skill test. until the end of the skill test, increase the test’s difficulty by 2,” that would expire at the end of the first attempt, whereas if the test itself said “Fight. Increase the difficulty of this test by 2,” that increase in difficulty would exist in both the first and second attempts.

Now for the tricky part: Which is Drawing Thin? Is it an effect that initiates during a skill test with a duration of that expires at the end of the skill test? Or is it an effect which alters the inherent nature of the skill test itself, such that it would affect both attempts? Since Drawing Thin does not explicitly say any variation of “until the end of the skill test” or “for this skill test,” and since its triggering condition is a “when” reaction to the skill test initiating and not something you use during the first attempt, my ruling is that Drawing Thin is changing the skill test’s inherent difficulty to be 2 higher—altering the nature of the test itself. Therefore if you use Drawing Thin when the skill test initiates, and then use Live and Learn to attempt that test a second time, the increased difficulty would carry over to the second attempt.

Again, apologies for the trickiness/ambiguousness. Hopefully this clears up this interaction, as well as clearing up how Live and Learn works in general. Thank you for bringing this to my attention; I’ll be sure to add it in the next edition of the FAQ as well.

Cheers!

I think, the design concept Drawing Thin is to find the way by earning resource or cards. However, many users find another way to use this card, and Drawing Thin is now one of the strongest card in AHLCG. How?

Simple. Do any action with test, such as investigate or fight without retailate or evade without alert. You don't need to succeed. You could convert 1 action into 2 resources. It seems normal? How about TWO Drawing Thins? Then, you can convert 1 action into 4 resources. If you meet a treachery card which has flat fail effect and you're hard to succeed such as The Yellow Sign, you simply trigger Drawing Thin to earn 4 resources without spending any action. How wonderful?

Moreover, you can guarantee the test fail with Drawing Thin. Also, you can boost the value of "fail by" with Drawing Thin. You don't fear to reveal with Take Heart test. It means you could commit Take Heart and return your hand by Grisly Totem for each round with Drawing Thin bonus. Also, your Signum Crucis adds 4 more thanks to Drawing Thin.

Drawing Thin is the key card of 's fail-base combo.

• 2 Drawing Thin 4 resources, 2 resources + 1 card, or 2 cards
• Rabbit's Foot or Rabbit's Foot (3) draw 1 card or search X card (X is commonly 4 or more)
• Commit Take Heart with Grisly Totem (3) 2 resources, 2 cards, Take Heart is returned in hand
• Commit Unrelenting with Try and Try Again (3) (or Totem) 2 cards, Unreleting is returned in hand
• Commit Signum Crucis with TATA or Totem, Predestined with Totem tokens and commited card is returned in hand

TOTAL: 6 resources + 5 cards + some tokens with 1 tokens, and ALL commited cards are returned in hand. Remark that the key card is Drawing Thin; this is because if you succeed, commited cards are not returned.

Out of interest, do we have clarification on when you get the resources ? I read it as being immediate, ie before the test is undertaken. This could be incredibly powerful if so. The synergy with certain cards would be incredible. For example, initiate a test at +2 gain two resources which you then spend for a +3 boost from Streetwise. You just made the test easier by one while not having to spend any resources. Alternatively, what's to stop you from having two of these in play and just ploughing through easy tests getting 2 resources and a card every time ? Agnes can take this and partner it with something like 6th Sense, where she's just investigating at her willpower level every time. This is likely to mean that she sits at 6 or 7 (or 8 with Dark Horse) on a regular basis and she can just plough through any shroud getting 2 resources and a card every time she does it.

I'm not sure I agree that it doesn't suit a Dark Horse build btw. There looks to be an obvious synergy with Fire Axe. Guarantees that you can power up a +4 boost every swing if the resources can be immediately spent. Also, it offers a way for a Dark Horse player to get a quick resource boost if they need to pay for an asset.

This is a great card. If it cost 2xp I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I'm surprised that it's available at level zero. Seems almost like an auto-include for any investigator with access to it who has a reliable way of passing a lot of tests.

Drawing Thin is a type of card I often dislike and worry about. I can see the designers really tried to balance the cards as much as possible and on the face of it spending a card and an action for cards in the future seems somewhat balanced. They certainly got the balance better than other games in the past!

However, the problem cards like this have is they only get included in decks where the effect is going to be abused, otherwise you won't bother with the card. If you make the card weak enough to not be abused it is far too weak to be considered in another deck so either you see the card in a deck where it is a major engine for limitless resources, or you don't see it at all.

If i use this on Rotting Remains and draw , do i take 5 horror (or 7 if used both of them)? This would increase cards searched with Rabbit's Foot 3, if i fail?

And would increase the amount of charges if i succeed on the higher difficulty on Ancient Stone?

At three experience, this stops being an auto-include for every single survivor. If you’re going for a big money deck, with teamwork to help out your buddies, you’re probably gonna make more than Jenny trying to get her hot streaks, as your toys cost less. Two bucks a turn every turn, or four bucks with two, in exchange for a failure or a more difficult action.

Making a test harder for yourself, especially if you have other failure cards, can be a strategy, but it’s no longer -the- strategy*. And as much as I love playing Rita and having an economy made from two copies of one card, this is a reasonable taboo.

*Unless you're Stella.

One question that might have been answered elsewhere: the Taboo instructs that this card costs 3 additional experience, but it's still a level 0 card, right? So, Preston or Marie can use it in their decks.