Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Good Money

If you lose resources, do they also get removed off this card? It seems so easy to complete this each time, as you gain a resource each round during refresh. I just pulled my weakness Paranoia and lost all my resources.

6/14/25

Yadayada · 1

Its pretty easy to complete, but I suspect you might be misunderstanding it. If you trigger the reaction when you gain resources, you place the resource on good money, that resource is then not in your resource pool. It's not like the damage and horror ones, which have different wording. This card is more like embezzled treasure, put resources away in early scenarios but get access to them in later scenarios — NarkasisBroon · 13 6/14/25

So yeah it's effectively "give up 5 rounds of upkeep" which is easy to do, but still a meaningful sacrifice. — NarkasisBroon · 13 6/14/25

You're right. I missed that part. Thanks and that makes it a bit more demanding. (Not a fan of these tasks!) — Yadayada · 1 6/14/25

Wait, it's not "give up 5 rounds of upkeep", right? Doesn't this reaction ability keep triggering each time you gain 1 or more resources, even after you already have 5 resources on Good Money? In other words, throughout the entire scenario, the only way to gain ANY resources at all is from playing cards such as Emergency Cache (which then gives you 2 instead of 3 resources). Or have I been punishing myself way too badly with this card, and could I have stopped after 5 missed resources? — TheKeeper · 1 6/18/25

Reaction triggered abilities (with the curved arrow symbol) are always optional, so you can just stop triggering it when you have 5 resources on good money. You would only be forced to perform the ability if it was "Forced:" at the start — NarkasisBroon · 13 6/19/25

Mortar and Pestle

Like a lot of cards from this set, it feels very underpowered, and not even in a way that can inspire creativity to make it work. The main character I can think that would want to use this is Mystic Agatha (Seeker Agatha presumably would not be using enough spell events to justify this card and also has the seeker pool for more cracked income generation), and Mystic Agatha can easily get by the entire scenario with Voice of Ra cast twice (once normally, once in discard). Resources are most valuable early on in the scenario when you need to get setup and get some momentum. This card maybe promises to generate enough income as a completely wiffed Voice of Ra/get a resource basic action after three turns. Weird.

6/14/25

NastyParsley · 3

5 turns of finding clues to be almost as good as supply cache... this is garbage.there are some combos like raven quil — BakaWisdom · 5 6/20/25

unfortunate day of trying to newline and posting half a thought instead -_- — BakaWisdom · 5 6/20/25

Psychic Sensitivity

Note: This card cannot be used to cancel "Peril" encounter cards drawn by other investigators (at least that is my understanding of the rules surrounding the keyword "Peril"). I'm learning the ins and outs of what Gloria can do.

6/13/25

LlarqasqaPuma · 1

FFG mailed me a ruling confirming that this is correct: "Hello... No. The Peril keyword specifies that other players cannot play cards while it’s being resolved, so Gloria is prevented from playing Psychic Sensitivity in that case. Though “Peril” would fall into an “effect” of the card, the “cannot” in its definition gives it priority in this interaction....Sincerely, Alex Werner, FFG Game Rules Specialist". — Cluny · 53 7/17/25

Mortar and Pestle

Disclaimer: I have not yet played this card.

Let's analyse it from a purely mathematical perspective: It costs 2 resources, a card and an action to put to play. It comes in with 0 resources. Meaning you have to discover clues 2 separate times (since it gives you a resource for each time you discover clues, not each clue discovered) in two separate turns (it exhausts) to break even just for the resource cost. If we assume the usual "an action is roughly equal to a card which is roughly equal to a resource", you only break even after 4 turns of investigating.

Actually, not even that, since it only pays for Spells cards.

To paraphrase an artist: "there are builds, I'm sure", if you already have Geared Up in mind it saves you a resource and (potentially) an action. But it's kinda hard to see a deck that would need Spell economy whilst having so many Items to justify Geared Up.

I understand the designers were terrified of another Dr. Milan Christopher, but this seems far too niche to be useful for anybody. Maybe if it cost 0. Maaaaaybe if it was fast. Maybe if it used charges instead of resources.

6/12/25

Almevirian · 7

I simply don't get the balancing of cards in the new expansion - either they are broken or trash. — AlderSign · 436 6/12/25

Maybe they’re new people who have no idea about balance yet — Django · 5178 6/13/25

You mean in the game design team? :D — AlderSign · 436 6/13/25

It is a quite niche card because you can only pay for spells, but this category expands with every expansion. All in all there are some synergies one might consider as additional bonus: it is an item so stuff like geared up, ever vigilant and backpack are able to find and play it faster and cheaper. Also it's a tool so attaching your second fine tuning might increase its potential. Also this is a level 0 card so it is accessible with versatile and might be an option for a fast drawing spell using clever. — Tharzax · 1 6/13/25

It’s not just that they’re broken or they’re trash; it’s that we’re often charged 5 XP for trash, but get broken for free. — Eudaimonea · 6 6/13/25

Motivational Speech

If you play an Ally "at no cost", you don't pay the additional costs, right ?

I think a fun use for Motivational Speech is to play Summoned Hound: as you don't pay costs, you don't have to add Unbound Beast in your deck, and therefore you have only the advantages of the ally.

It allows you to simply play the Hound instead of trying a way to get it in play without playing it (for example discarding the Hound and then playing A Chance Encounter).

For Charlie Kane, you can even use the Hound twice:

exhaust the Hound to start a Fight / Investigate action,
exhaust Bonnie Walsh to get a +3 (so you have a skill value of 8),
ready the Hound (with the on Bonnie),
exhaust the Hound to use it a 2nd time.

6/10/25

AlexP · 298

Summoned Hound is already great (and IMO a staple) for Charlie for the reasons you mentioned, but wow, this card offers another way to cheese it into play AND use its ability twice in a turn without even needing Bonnie. — AlderSign · 436 6/10/25

Hi, are we sure that "at no cost" doesn't work exactly like "ignoring all costs"?? (Ruling point 2.24) — Piegura · 7 6/10/25

I'm not sure why "at no cost" — baslikeboss · 1 6/18/25

Would be the same as "ignoring all costs" when they used both phrases on the same card (decided to fat finger enter) — baslikeboss · 1 6/18/25

It's clarified now, so I am wrong. See here: https://arkhamdb.com/card/11125#review-5694 — AlderSign · 436 6/21/25