Worth noting that the 2 Psychopomp cards in the set aren't the same. Card #36 of 42 is what's pictured. Card #37 of 42 is the same except horror has been substituted in for damage.

To understand this card, first you need to compare it to Shrivelling (3). The cards are extremely similar. The advantages of Shards of the Void are

1. Does not inflict horror upon you when you draw a special token.
2. Has a tiny chance of gaining a nice bonus by drawing a “0” token.

The disadvantages are:

1. You steal the 0 token from the bag, hurting everyone in the party every time they make a skill test, potentially for quite a long time.
2. Shrivelling can be upgraded to the mighty Shrivelling (5), Shards cannot be upgraded.

The advantages are rather modest. The disadvantage of stealing the 0 token is quite painful, but is proportional to the number of investigators. If you are playing solo, I could see Shards being competitive with Shrivelling if you are a mystic who is concerned with horror. If you are playing with 4 investigators, as I do, Shards is clearly inferior to Shrivelling.

However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a clear purpose. You don’t take Shards instead of Shrivelling. You take it because you are only allowed to take 2 copies of Shrivelling, and having only 2 combat spells in your deck is not a lot. If you decide your character wants more combat spells, you are going to have to take a combat spell which is inferior to Shrivelling, and by that standard Shards is looking like a very reasonable choice. It is still an accurate attack that does a reliable 2 damage and has a good number of charges.

Shards of the Void is meant for the dedicated combat mage who needs multiple attack spells. And once you have Shards of the Void, you want to be aggressive with it. You want to run around helping the party by taking on monsters, so you can use up the charges and return the 0 token to the bag. The last thing you want to do with Shards of the Void is to play it as a “just in case” defensive card, then go off and do other things, leaving it in play for a long time while it eats away at the effectiveness of every investigator.

Whoops. Placed this as a response to someone else. Sorry for the double post.

Does anyone know if Lola’s restriction to playing cards would prevent from using Joey the rats ability to put an asset into play? For example if I’m Rogue Lola and I activate Joey the rat, could I use him to play a .45?

Interaction with Drawing Thin via designer Matt Newman.

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!