Response related to the DtRH, received July 2023. I've submitted them back then, but they haven't made it here. So putting it into Reviews so it is public information.

Intro: How does Down the Rabbit Hole interact with upgrading customizable card and with getting new copy of the card as part of it.

• Let's assume Power Word is the only card I am upgrading.
• Let's assume I upgrade PW, three checkboxes for Thrice Spoken.
• DtRH affects PW as per: "Spending experience points on one or more upgrades for a customizable card already in an investigator’s deck is considered to be “upgrading” a card for the purposes of card effects."

Q1: Without DtRH that would be 3 XP but because of DtRH it will be 2 XP not 1XP (per ruling from different question/answer via this platform) you can use only one instance of effect of the DtRH on Customizable card, even if you have 2+ copies of the card in your deck. Is this correct?

Q2: As part of this upgrade, I want to get 3rd copy of Power Word.

• Normally this would cost no XP as per: "An investigator may directly purchase one or more copies of a new customizable card with one or more upgrades by spending only the amount of experience points required to purchase those upgrades. (Doing so counts as purchasing a new card, not upgrading an existing card.)"
• But DtRH states: "Increase the experience cost for you to purchase new cards by 1."

*I pay "only" 2 XP (referring to Q1 assumption) for the upgrade and purchase card but then DtRH kicks in again making it +1 XP. Is this correct: Final cost for Power Word gaining Thrice Spoken and adding extra copy to deck (with DtRH) is 3 XP.

A1: Yes; even with extra copies of Power Word in your deck, DTRH can only apply its discount to Power Word once between : scenarios. You would spend 2 XP, one time, to upgrade Power Word this way.

(!!!) A2: When you unlock Thrice Spoken, it counts as an “upgrade” to Power Word, and you can add the additional copy of Power Word to your deck without spending additional XP—you’d simply swap the third Power Word with a different card. You aren’t “purchasing” a new copy of Power Word.

Having played Tony recently, I wanted to give this a review. Overall, I think this is a fairly excellent signature asset for three reasons:

(A) The icons for committing here are great, and you get two copies in your deck. Killing and some occasional clue-finding are exactly what Tony should be doing, so even if you don’t use these as weapons you’re always happy to see them. They naturally make Tony more flexy, making it easier to lean into that with his off-class access.

(B) It makes Bounty Contracts go a bit further, in essence fully refunding itself if you use a bounty on each enemy and ensuring Tony keeps getting his extra actions. Even if you don’t want to be using these long term in a scenario, having it in play early keeps your momentum up by increasing the total number of bounties you have access to.

(C) Rogues will often have good card draw with Lucky Cigarette Case and similar, which actually makes it easier to get two copies in your hand than you'd think for the effect. I’ve found there are plenty of times where it’s worth taking an Attack of Opportunity so you can play what amounts to a +3 combat +1 damage weapon with 6 ammo (assuming 3 bounties on the Elite you want to murder). Depending on how you build Tony, you can potentially make use of all 6 of these shots in one turn even after playing the pair. With Hemlock Vale investigator pack you can use Hold Up or False Surrender to play these without an AoO too (and either could go on Bewitching, if you were so inclined).

In terms of consistency, you’re much more likely to want Switchblade •• for most of a scenario on Tony – but for that raw burst of power at high test values then if you locate two copies this is perhaps the best signature combat asset going. It’s a bit tricky to get both and make it pay-off, but when it does it’s awesome and the flavor of the Long Colts on a bounty hunter is first rate. I recommend!

Interestingly, Gabriel has the exact amount of Health and Sanity he has on Arkham Horror 3rd Edition, but his ability is completely different (in the board game he was basically a reskin of Leo De Luca)

Is he good however? Extremely: one curse to draw an extra card is incredibly good, it makes your deck that much faster with a fairly manageable drawback. It can disrupt bigger player groups, so you probably should tell your team ahead of time you are planning to use him, but he also has the advantage of being a reliable source of curses if you want to get for a "Curse Seeker" build, which originally wasn't quite worthy to do because Seekers just didn't have a constant, renewable source of cruse tokens: Gabriel alone will be the backbone of decks using Gaze of Ouraxsh, The Stygian Eye, Fey and Prismatic Spectacles.

AND on top of that, it increases your intelect by 1!

Even if you are not doing curses, Gabriel is a very solid ally for the draw and the stat boost, I can see people upgrading into him in place of Jeremiah Kirby (if they need more consistent draw) or Dr. Milan Christopher (if they do not need the extra resources)

There is a tradition with player cards, that they are kind of made for the investigator depicted on them. There are exceptions, as for instance Silas can't take upgraded Overpower, and even more so Sister Mary does not Keep Faith. But in general, it is rather the question, whether the character is even allowed to take the card, not if it would be really good for them.

There is another tradition, that sometimes player cards give hints for upcoming releases. Inspiring Presence from Carcosa foreshadows Leo Anderson in TFA. "Before the Black Throne" teased the Bonded mechanism with Hallowed Mirror and Occult Lexicon, which was a big thing in TDE. Tony from TDE got a Deep One enemy as his weakness, sadly not one with the signature ability of Deep Ones to do something bad on engagement. Lex Luthor from TFoHV is supposed to be somewhat linked to the Mafia themed next campaign...

Now keeping that in mind, it seems obvious, that the person on this card is not Rex Murphy, it is Rex Murphy! I can arguably see the card as tech for a true solo deck of the Dunwich investigator to drop a clue on a 1 location to proxy his ability, but there are better cards for that, and he is not great in solo anyway. For his parallel ability however, this card is made for!

It seems odd for me, that a card from an official product is foreshadowing a print and play release. Sure, we had an April Fools Day joke about a Blob Investigator hinting at p&p Suzi, but that was just on the homepage, not from inside a box. Of course, I can be terribly wrong, but I have high hopes now, that we might get a proper release of these parallel investigators. I know, it won't happen with Gamezenter anymore, but maybe they reconsidered doing it themselves at FFG? Fingers crossed!

Hank Samson and Silas Marsh are both combat ready investigators who share a common trait of not being able to take Vicious Blow owing to their lack of Guardian access, but they can take this level 1 Innate Skill which does much the same job, and it has a few quirks that make it a particularly interesting choice for our fearless foragers.

Notably, while Vicious Blow only adds damage to an attack that succeeds, Strong-Armed just plain goes hard, hit or miss. This means you can accidentally impale your fellow investigators for 4 damage with your trusty Pitchfork (Silas likes spear fishing, what can we say?) ... good job you can take 1 damage to redraw that chaos token, eh?

Yeah, it is. Because you very well might want to miss! Combine this card with Oops! (2) and redraw chaos tokens until you fail by the right amount rather than redrawing to succeed like you normally would and now you're hitting for 4 damage while keeping your Pitchfork in hand (because the attack was not successful), ready to jab again for another 3. If you've got both copies of Oops! (2) then you can extend the combo and if you've got Live and Learn ready to go then you can compress the follow up thrust into the same action that triggered the Oops.

The fact that this is a combo play ain't so bad, because Pitchfork's 3 base damage makes it excellent at dealing with low health enemies, and lets you save this as a bossing strategy. You can save up the right cards for when the big target appears and avoid having to deal with Pitchfork's problems in protracted fights to quite the same degree.

The same strategy applies to heavier hitting weapons. Sledgehammer Oops! plays can now be performed with some reliability thanks to Strong-Armed's token redraws, though you might need the aid of Drawing Thin to get your highly bonused super-smash into a range where it's feasible to fail. Oops! (2) / Live and Learn plays with Sledgehammer's three action attack makes dealing 13+ damage in one turn a realistic proposition instead of a relative pipe dream.

That's a lot of fun combo potential for a card that's just plain good on its own. You're probably going to love to a 1XP skill card that lets you hit harder and avoid bad symbols / the dreaded auto-fail even if it isn't doing something extra like it so easily can, even if that's only prolonging the lifespan of your Baseball Bat. Strong on its own, strong at enabling combos. What's not to love?