Norman Withers the Handyman and his toolboxes

Norman withers is in my opinion one of the best investigators for a toolbox build since he have access Research Librarian to find Astronomical Atlas, Livre d'Eibon and True Magick. Making it possible to find either of his two toolboxes fast with the same search card. In additon Word of Command and/or Arcane Initiate can find his tools for True Magick and Practice Makes Perfect can find his tools for Astronomical Atlas and Livre d'Eibon. And No Stone Unturned can find either tools/toolboxes/other. Giving Norman Withers a build that is both flexible have good consistency and have good tempo.

Overwiev: Each category from 0-10 with significant diffrence in score from Starting deck/ Core Deck/ Full Deck it will be given diffrent score that uses brackets(/).

Clue Gathering: .............8/10/10 (how easy the investigator can get clues and how many clues).

Enemy Managment: .....0/7/8 (how easy the investigator can avoid or kill monsters).

Treachery managment:6/6/8 (how easy the investigator can avoid or mitigate bad affects form treachery cards).

Tempo:............................7/7/7 (How fast the deck gets online in each scenario, and how few low impact actions).

Champaign Tempo:.......5 (how much exp the deck need to get online, the more exp lower score).

Consistency:....................8/10/10 (how easy it is to find and play your core cards and get online in each senario).

Suvivability:.....................2/5/7 (How much damage/horror that can be mitigated,/healed, Is also affected by enemy and treachery managment).

Cash Economy:...............10/8/7 ( how much resources the deck generates and how little resources the deck need to work).

Card Economy:................8/10/10 (how many cards the deck draws and how easy the deck finds it's core pieces.

Flexibilty:..........................4/8/9 (how easy the deck can adapt to campaigns and new objectivs, Treaths in a scenario).

Teamwork:.......................4/7/8 ( how reliant the deck is on other players, how much this deck suports other players).

Upgrade Path

1: Astronomical Atlas.

2: 1 Attack spell Azure Flame, Shrivelling, Enchanted Bow, Shards of the Void, Armageddon, Wither.

3: Word of Command

4: True Magick

5: Other spells and 2x Word of Command

6: Twila Katherine Price

7: Whatever you want.

Toolbox 1: Astronomical Atlas and Livre d'Eibon

With Livre d'Eibon you can swap a card in your hand with the top card of your deck, so you know what you can commit with Astronomical Atlas that gives back the commited cards if success. Giving you a loop to commit the same skill each round as long as you succedes. With in the thick of it you can start with this toolbox from deck creation. With Research Librarian you can find either piece of the toolbox, and with Practice Makes Perfect you caqn find a lot of the tools.

Tools:

Deduction gives you more clue gathering. Enraptured can give charges to your True Magick or Cryptographic Cipher or to other cards that you play to fill the slot before True Magick. Plan of Action gives you a way to mitigate tests, in addition to giving you extra card draw.

Potentials:

Eureka! gives you good card draw and synergies well with Astounding Revelation, however it is not practiced. Occult Theory gives a lot of good stats however even if it is practiced, it does not work with Practice Makes Perfect, Prescient is good with Ward of Protection and Olive McBride. With [Versatile] there is some other good options, Take the Initiative a good practiced skill that gives you good mitigation, Quick Thinking to get more actions and more tempo (Taboo), Double or Nothing to make your spells more impactfull Shrivelling/Azure Flame, (Taboo), Inspiring Presence can with Twila Katherine Price be both a Enraptured that can be commited to spells and a Fearless if you dont want to buidl Clarity of Mind.

Toolbox 2:True Magick

With True Magick you can use any spells assets without wasting actions playing them, And your charge represhes each round. With Twila Katherine Price and Toolbox 1 and Enraptured/Inspiring Presence you can use True Magick more times each round. With the searching of Research Librarian/Mr. "Rook"(Taboo)/No Stone Unturned/Arcane Initiate you can easily find True Magick, and with searching of Word of Command/Mr. "Rook"(Taboo)/No Stone Unturned you can easily find the desired spells, making more copies of High exp cost spells redudant. Knowledge is Power(Taboo) can be extra uses of spells without playing them.

Tools:

Azure Flame good dmn against monsters. Clairvoyance good way to get more clues. Clarity of Mind It is a low cost to upgrade a card and have it in hand to potentially save your team when there is much horror dealt, with In the Thick of It you need it your self as well. Healing Words It is a low cost to upgrade a card and have it in hand to potentially save your team when there is much damage dealt, with In the Thick of It you might need it your self as well. Enchanted Bow is an attack spell that don't use charges as the rest but exhaust instead, in adition the benefits of 1 location away and ignore aloof is quite nice.
Potentials:

Armageddon and Eye of Chaos can be ways to get more charges for True Magick if you or others play curse cards. Blur and/or Mists of R'lyeh can give you extra movment/action economy. If you want you can use Shrivelling and Rite of Seeking instead as main damage and investigation. Scrying to more easily use Norman Withers Ability. Shards of the Void is a way to get more uses with sealing instead of charges, and it helps protect you from the bad affects of Azure Flame and Clairvoyance and makes Wither better, it is espesially good with Crystalline Elder Sign. Split the Angle if you play with both verisons of normans signature cards(normal and replacement) you don't need to play Split the Angle anymore for it to work. Wither is a repeatable attack without cost of Charges or Exhaustion.

You can use lover level versions of cards, but whatever tools you choose this is main plan of plaing the game as such they are high priority upgrades.

Other Toolbox Synergies:

if you play more Allies than i as there is many good allies for this deck Research Librarian/Twila Katherine Price/Arcane Initiate/Mr. "Rook"(Taboo)/Ikiaq/Olive McBride you may use Calling in Favors to get more out of your allies and as an additional search to find your key synergies. Astounding Revelation is a key resource card since we have many seaches and our key ones Research Librarian/Word of Command searches the entire deck. Arcane Enlightenment is here for 1 additional hand slot so we can have both toolboxes in play at the same time.

Other cards:

St. Hubert's Key/Crystalline Elder Sign/Four of Cups/Grounded/Arcane Studies are ways to improve your key stats of and .

Charisma makes it so that you can keep key allies Twila Katherine Price/Ikiaq/Olive McBride in play while you still uses search allies Research Librarian/Arcane Initiate/Mr. "Rook" to find your toolboxes/tools.

Delve Too Deep after a few upgrades you will no longer have problem with enemies, and you from the start have almost no problem with test as such, Delve Too Deep is cards you can afford in most campaigns to play to get more Campaign Tempo, this is however not part of the core deck.

Ward of Protection i have not added this myself, but it is a good card to mitigate a lot of treacheries after upgrading a Clarity of Mind.

Vengeful Hound and Split the Angle if you want to play with the replacment cards as well, With our enemy managment cards Vengeful Hound should not be a problem, and Vengeful Hound does not affect our searches even if he is engaged with us. In addition Word of Command and Arcane Initiate will make it easier to find Split the Angle. If you do you should play with Scrying as well, maybe Foresight and Scroll of Secrets. You do not have room for Alyssa Graham unless you want a significant exp increase second Charisma.

Taboo: Depending on if you play with taboo list or not her are the cards from taboo list that are under consideration

Knowledge is Power Part of the core deck, might still be worth it for 2 exp, but much later in the upgrade path, in starter deck i would recomed replacing it with other "free cards 1x Plan of Action, Perception, Shortcut, Mind over Matter,Written in the Stars however this can disrupt the toolboxes.

Mr. "Rook" Good card that can be part of the core deck if you want. I don't think it is worth it for 4exp for this deck. As we have many other ways to find what we want.

Delve Too Deep if more players play them, whoever can replace them with better cards should replace them, as the aditionnal exp is not esential.

Quick Thinking this errate does not have any consequenses for our use of the card, the main consern is do you want to buy Versatile and use it for this.

Double or Nothing it isen't esential, as such it being forbidden has no impact.

Scroll of Secrets and Scroll of Secrets This errate is weary good for Norman Withers no matter if we use Livre d'Eibon and The Harbringer/ Split the Angle and Vengeful Hound, as such it might replace Cryptographic Cipher early, but late we have to many important hand slots unless we play Split the Angle.

The 1 Toolbox is inspired by Astronormanical Atlas (Deck Guide) by chirubime. However the deck is highly chaged to make room for an support the 2 toolbox.