In the Thick of It

2 traumata for 3 XP don't look great at first. You can trade 5 XP for healing one trauma in the interlude after "Threads of Fate", albeit I think hardly anybody would do this. But XP even before the first scenario are most powerful. You will have the cards you purchase from them for 8 scenarios (not accounting side stories). However, I see options, how to net gain quite more than that from this card.

Like already mentioned by Pawiu14, Calvin might be interested in the traumatas themselves. I'm not sure about that. I have not played him yet, but by experiences from coplayers in "The Forgotten Age", I've seen it can be a clutch to get him through this campaign, so starting right off the bat with additional ones to what you will get from your weakness, might be rewarding at first, but risky later on. But in a campaign, that doesn't dish out traumata in interludes, this should be a whole different thing. Starting Parallel Roland with 8 XP, like suggested by fiatluxia looks interesting, to start a campaign with Stick to the Plan and Ever Vigilant.

, who want to go Down the Rabbit Hole might consider that for the dualclass Spells Brand of Cthugha, Divination, Blur or Earthly Serenity. Taking three of these cards at deck creation effectively gives 6 XP, avoiding the penalty from DtRB to add them later. Not sure if that's worth it. Arcane Research nets likely more than DtRH for most and 4 traumata is a bit much.

Charisma (or for some Relic Hunter) is another solid pick, offsetting the traumata with additional soak options, keeping your allies or Holy Rosary longer in play on top of the additional value from whatever you play with it.

But the combo, I'm most eager to try out, is sending Nathaniel Cho into the rabbit hole. Thanks to this card, he can take Versatile at deck creation and then the Permanent. This is also true for any other investigator with any other of the new "Limit 1 per deck. Purchase at deck creation."-Permanents, they could not take otherwise. But NaCho in Wonderland seems like the most striking combo out of the bunch. He has a lot of events, he might be interested in upgrading. The same goes to Allies like Beat Cop and (to a lesser degree) Grete Wagner, his Boxing Gloves, Safeguard, possibly Backpack or Bandolier. Not all these cards will be great at level 0. You might take On the Hunt just for the rabbit, so your level 0 deck might be worse than without this setup. But I think, the XP acceleration should be worth it. It should be also OK to pay 4 XP for a Charisma or Keen Eye later in the campaign (in particular, if you want to upgrade Grete), or 7 for Stick to the Plan and 2 for Ever Vigilant. The later could also be purchased at deck creation for 1 XP, since Versatile costs only 2, but I think, a Mano a Mano (1) would be the better pick at that time.

Susumu · 381
I know it adds 3xp for you right away but can you spend it right away? I know everyone is leaning that way and I'd certainly think so but does anyone know for sure? — JourneysintoArkham · 7
Bullet point 4 of "Deckbuilding" in RR: "Most investigators have 0 experience to spend at the beginning of a campaign, which means that they may only include level 0 cards in their decks. Some investigators, and/or some campaigns, may provide a player with additional experience at the beginning of a campaign, which can be used immediately to purchase higher level cards." I think, this clarifies that you can. — Susumu · 381
Pocket Telescope

This card makes Horror in High Gear much easier. Nice in the rest of Innsmouth due to flooded locations but faces a lot of competition as a hand slot. Best used on specific scenarios.

200 characters

Oweldon · 39
Quickdraw Holster

I LOVE the idea for this card, I really do. A big gun-toting guardian tucking a .45 Automatic into their jacket so they can whip out the big guns. There's just one problem and it's pretty clear once the euphoria of taking free potshots at eldritch abominations wears off: How do I fit my brand new .45 into my holster when my hands are already full of Gun? The biggest issue of this card IMO is that it requires you to play your weapons in a particular order. Draw your BAR before your .45 Automatic? Tough luck. Bandolier and it's older brother are almost always going to be better.

Poor Tommy has to throw his beloved Becky away if he doesn't tuck his sidechick sidearm away first. Lily doesn't know the first thing about firearm safety. Sister Mary is too busy waving around that taboo Winchester she's so fond of. Nathaniel Cho prefers beating his enemies to a pulp in organized events. Mark, Leo, and Zoey might be able to make SOME use of it, but they still face the full hands dilemma.

And that's where I realized the Illicit keyword wasn't just for show. Finn, Tony, Jenny and most likely Bob would absolutely LOVE this card. Between Lockpicks, Flashlights, Magnifying Glasses, Weird Fans, Old Keys and... eyeballs? Flex or combat oriented rogues love to have a gun in one hand and something else in the other.

I feel like this card wants to sucker deckbuilders into making a "moar gun" style guardian which IMO is what Bandolier is for. I feel like this card is less for the Brute with a BAR, and more for the Con with a Colt. I avoided mentioning Roland simply because many people (at least the ones I typically play with) play him as a fight oriented Guardian who just so happens to get clues and so end up running big guns and Bandoliers. Though he'd probably do well with this card running some Magnifying Glasses to bounce for mag swaps if you wanted to go clue focused who just so happens to be able to fight. It's worth noting however that Parallel-backed Roland can't take this card.


TL;DR: While most Guardians have some slot issues that arise from the order in which you play your one and two-handed guns, Rogues can make good use of it fairly easily with a plethora of one-handed guns, including signatures.

NorainJS · 59
Use Roland's upgraded gun + off hand stuff. — MrGoldbee · 1492
For a brief, shining moment, I imagined teamworking/transactioning this onto Joe Diamond so that he could store this holster inside of his guns... but alas, his guns specify freeing up hand-slots, not body. Oh well. — HanoverFist · 749
Finn can't take it. — suika · 9511
*can — suika · 9511
Finn can stuff a .25 automatic into his Quickdraw Holster to leave room for a lockpicks and a mag glass. Evade an enemy as a free action and follow up with action-less double tap from the automatic. Repeat, then Swift Reload as needed. — OrionJA · 1
How does this interact with CVP(2)? If you use the holster, you don’t technically resolve the action. So does it stay in play? — togetic271 · 5
The issue for rogues is that it takes the body slot so you can't have Leather jacket at the same time and so you lose Lonnie's healing ability (unless you can target an other asset with damages). And outside of story asset, the only items with a health value I have found are paralell Agnes' accessory and Precious memento (but it's an accessory so a disputed slot and 4 XP ...). — AlexP · 285
Very easy to house-rule that you can immediately slot a played single-handed weapon to the Quickdraw Holster. For me, if the house rule makes intuitive sense (you can buy a weapon and immediately holster it), I don't see why you can't house-rule it in. — Innsmouth Conspirator · 64
The problem with houseruling isn't the intuitive sense but whether it destroys game balance. We tend to play on Standard and throw a side mission into our campaigns anyway so it tends not to be all that tense anyway. — Timlagor · 6
This one is INSANE on Tony, Sawed off Shotgun and Galvanize team up for hilarious Damage. Ever wanted to kill the big bad without even using a single action. Use Holster + Galvanize + Holster + Galvanize + Holster for 5 times up to 6 dmg and afterwards feel free to do whatever else you want to do with all your actions. And also remember that you can activate the Holster during other investigators round, have the Seeker shortcut to your location and quickly kill the enemy brought to you. — Flatlin3 · 1
Can you use Actions on an asset attached to Quickdraw Holster ? Like, can you fire your attached gun by yourself ? — captainfire · 266
Are there any answers to the last question here? Didn't find anything either — EvoLwe · 1
Yeah no prob. It doesn't leave play area and there is no rule that you can't activate assets attached to smth. — Drostt · 152
Jury-Rig

x:test x:agility|combat|intellect|willpower|"any skill" k:item

AND

x:fight|investigate|evade k:item

(theoretically) gets you the full list of items that Jury-Rig can be used on.

A shortlist of items that this poster thinks takes to Jury-Rig better that most:

Items with negative skill value modifiers:

Items with no skill value boosts but significant effects on success:

Items with less skill value boosts than their effects on success might warrant:

Items with "Succeed by X" Clauses without comparable skill boosts

Wildcards:

EDIT: Well, it just came to my attention that you can use any number of durability uses on any test. This is huge, as there is now one king of a card that you'd always want to pair with this card: Ancient Stone (1), to get ostensibly 6 more secrets that you would otherwise get for no resources. This also holds true, though to a lesser extent, for Strange Solution.

Lucaxiom · 4524
Ancient Stone! — MrGoldbee · 1492
@MrGoldbee Kinda? Any item that discards on a success was deemed un-qualified for the list. Strange Solution got the same treatment. — Lucaxiom · 4524
But why? There's no exhaust clause, so nothing is stopping you from using all three durability to get +6 on a test - which is really quite strong when you're aiming for high difficulty Ancient Stone or similar. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Wait what?!.. You're right! there's no exhaust clause! — Lucaxiom · 4524
While it is good for ensuring Ancient Stone succeeds, you only record the difficulty of the test, not how much you succeeded by. So "6 more secrets than you would otherwise get" is not true. — TrisJ1 · 8
It lets you take on a big test. — MrGoldbee · 1492
Eon Chart could be an interesting target — zombieplayground · 1
I've been testing this on Old Keyring with good results. — DrMChristopher · 502
Probably not the best use of Jury Rig, but it can attach to Liquid Courage. — Lemmingrad · 21
Can it be attached to [Eye of the Djinn](/card/07225)? If so, seems pretty cool target. — Kalín · 206
would Archaic Glyphs - Guiding Stones be a good target, probably in a Minh build? — An_Undecayed_Whately · 1331
@An_Undecayed_Whately: Sadly, once you upgrade Archaic Glyphs into Guiding Stones version, it ceases to be an item and becomes a spell. Thus, it can't be jury-rigged. — HanoverFist · 749
@Lucaxiom: Two questions! One: What does your brackets around Fingerprint Kit and Old Shotgun indicate? Two: Wouldn't this also affect Lantern and Flashlight, which have ->Investigate actions? Unsure why those didn't come up in the tokenized search you listed, but Lantern seems like an interesting possibility similar to Old Keyring as you can sort of force-discard it after Jury Rig is empty, thereby discarding Jury Rig, thereby opening recursion via Scrounge For Supplies/Resourceful/Yorick. — HanoverFist · 749
@HanoverFist: Answer 1: typos. Should be fixed now. Answer 2: As described, the items presented are "A shortlist of items that this poster thinks takes to Jury-Rig better that most". Lantern does show up among the 100+ items in the search term provided at the start of the review, but it did not warrant mentioning in my opinion, since it doesn't fall into any of the categories I presented. I did not consider the recursion angle however. — Lucaxiom · 4524
Ah, missed the shortlist part, thanks — HanoverFist · 749
In the Thick of It

Give this to Parallel Roland (yes, he of the Directives) and you can start a campaign/standalone on 8xp.... making him 7-5 (I would assume, unless you're leaning into immediate Desperate cards)

I'd be interested to see what the community can build, on 8xp starting...

:)

fiatluxia · 68
And for those with a mystic bent, you can do this with Mateo instead. — HanoverFist · 749