Indebted

I'm in disagreement with everyone that says this is a horrible weakness. Whenever I draw this card I actually feel lucky I didn't get something worse. To understand why, just imagine this scenario:

You are Daisy and you are engaged with a powerful monster, you can kill it with your trusty shriveling and higher education, but you only have 1 action left and you cannot afford to take another hit. You decide to evade the monster so you can kill it the very next round. You succeed, but you had to commit more cards than you wished to. Now you have four cards left. No big deal, or so you think, after all the upkeep phase is coming and you'll get your fifth card. You draw a card and it is a basic weakness...

Now the next round begins, having a weakness in this situation is already bad as it is, but there is another very bad effect of having drawn a weakness. Something that whoever thinks "Indebted" is awful is probably missing. You were robbed of the chance of getting a useful card. Now you have no way to use higher education to boost your willpower, you will not be able effectively attack the monster successfully. You will be defeated and you will lose the scenario.

A basic weakness in your deck doesn't simply do whatever it is written on its revelation effect, it also robs you of the chance of getting a useful card. You spent an action to draw a card, but you got a weakness? Your action was wasted. You just used overpower and perception, but when you draw a card you get a weakness? What was meant to be a reward became a punishment.

It is true, unlike other weaknesses indebted will always hurt you. But there are two things that indebted will never do. It will never haunt you at a most critical time, and it will never rob you of a chance of getting a useful card.

If you were given the choice to get a consistent mild evil or something that inconsistently swings between neutral to devastating, what would you choose? If you choose the latter I can only say I envy you for feeling that lucky, I sure don't.

Killbray · 12363
I mean, your assessment is correct, and I think most people here do appreciate the consistency of Indebted despite its drawbacks. However, most investigators in the game aren't Daisy. If Daisy gets this she laughs it off, gains a resource first action and still has Milan (and a huge income flow) on first turn. Indebted isn't a mild evil for Guardians, or other investigators with limited access to income; it is consistently devastating. That said, I still prefer this to Overzealous. — SGPrometheus · 841
The Daisy example was just one of many. Of course it is probably the situation that is most adversely affected by not drawing a useful card. A weakness can still be devastating just for coming at the wrong time. Here's another example that happened to me during "undimensioned and unseen". I ended my turn with a whippoorwill at my location. Not big deal, I could kill it next. I think this is a situation many of us found themselves in. But the I drew a weakness on the upkeep phase and it was Haunted. Not this would normally be a mild annoyance, but with a whipporwill at the same time that's -2 on all of your skills. And of course on the Mythos Phase i drew an Avian Thrall. The only monster with 5 combat in the deck, and I didn't have a weapon to mitigate that. The -2 basically made impossible to either attack or evade the monster. Engaging the whipporwill to kill it would have caused AoO, Removing the weakness would have caused AoO. It was yet another devastating effect of a basic weakness at the wrong time. — Killbray · 12363
I also agree that this is the easiest weakness in the game. I like it's predictability. As a side note, this means Joe Diamond starts without a weakness in his normal deck. — Django · 5154
Joe Diamond

PACKING A HUNCH - A brief guide to hunches

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It is very important to note that the hunch deck operates on a different form of randomness to your hand. In short cards in your regular deck will show up and can sit in hand for a turn or two while you position to make best use of them, hunch cards on the other hand need to be spent fast before they get shuffled back into the deck. In exchange for access to them at sub-optimal timings, we are given a hefty 2 cost discount and an effective free card draw a turn - a bargain if used well, a hindrance if not.

So how do we get the most from this? Here`s a few ideas:

  1. Try to make the cards in the hunch deck perform a roughly similar role. That way it matters less which card you draw from the set, and means the function they provide can be relied upon from the deck as a while rather than a specific card showing at the right time.

  2. Fast Cards are great. Without the need to draw these, they function like a bonus action in a lot of cases.

  3. Avoid cards that depend on or benefit heavily from timing. Since you are least likely to be able to play these well when they show. Examples:

  4. Where possible pick cards that cost 2 or more A bit of a no brainer. If you are being encouraged to play these sub-optimally timed then the price your paying for their reward usually needs to be lower to compensate (I'm sure there will be exceptions ofc).

With these points in mind, we're looking for sets of cards that match up to common or core deck functions. After a little scoping a few sets stand out to me:

The set picked needs to be considered while building the main deck. Good options include suring up something you lack, or bolster your primary activity. I'm still to get my head around it fully but on paper it looks like a long term a pure clue base will be best (and most thematic). Unfortunately the tools available at level 0 atm (mainly Interrogate) are a bit too circumstantial to pull off a reliable purist auto clue hunch deck just yet.

StartWithTheName · 71746
I'd relly like to put 10x Working a Hunch into the... hunch deck. — Django · 5154
Liquid Courage

There's a fun place for this in a Finn Edwards's deck that is using Fence, not to use it himself but in a support role, dishing out invigorating shots to colleagues with high enough willpower. It may only be a consideration late in the campaign when your deck is already well-tuned and you have Adaptable to bring it in or if you are working with someone who you know will always be on the edge when it comes to sanity.

kingofyates · 26
Like Agnes. Although I think Finn/Aggy might be terrible. Or great? Mystics are so weird. — SGPrometheus · 841
It is one of very few Rogue support cards. Basically just this and the Pocketwatch. — Zinjanthropus · 230
Act of Desperation

There is a lot to this card because it gives you so many interesting options to work with.

  • The asset you discard influences the power of the attack.
  • The asset may be discarded from hand or play.
  • It can be any hand item, including empty guns and flashlights.
  • It may yield resources.
  • It's a tactic.

Being a and tactic card, aimed at focused characters this card currently benefits mostly William Yorick, Silas Marsh and interestingly, Mark Harrigan.

First off, discarding stuff is usually negative, so it's a good idea to try and find ways to make the discard work with us instead of against us, use it on assets that you've finished using like an empty Flashlight or ammoless gun to recurse the cost, .45 Automatic is a good early target and later there's Old Hunting Rifle or Lightning Gun or whatever weapons Mark Harrigan went with. The discard mechanic has Yoricks name written all over it since he can discard the asset, then use the gained cash to replay it immediately, one trick is discarding a jammed rifle and replaying it immediately.

If that was the only thing this card did, why does it even allow discarding from hand? The option is there, so when do you use it? You might for example be in a circumstance where a shot from a gun would be wasted (like to kill a Ghoul Minion with a Shotgun blast). A Baseball Bat might break on the first hit and you need a +1 damage attack to finish the foe. It also means that you can get some use out of backup items that you don't need to get into play, like a Machete that you wont play because you already got the other one (also this bypasses the engagement requirement).

When all else fails to be useful you still sit on a nice boost.

That all sounds real good right? Well. Now have fun affording it a deckslot ;)

Tsuruki23 · 2568
It has also partial synergy with Improvised Weapon.. — XehutL · 47
How does it have partial synergy with Improvised Weapon? — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Perhaps I should have used indirect. With Improvised Weapon you do want play weapons from discard pile. With this card you can throw them there and have something out of it. — XehutL · 47
Oops, I forgot how that card works. So as I have written nothing, sorry :) — XehutL · 47
Remark: I thought this was a perfect way for [Minh Thi Phan](/card/03002) to get rid of [The King in Yellow](/card/03011). Unfortunately, this lacks the trait *Item* necessary for [Act of Desperation](/card/05037). — LeFricC'estChic · 86
But as the king cannot leave play, this remark is of no interest. — LeFricC'estChic · 86
Fingerprint Kit

Great card.

A ".45 Automatic for investigation and an interesting way to "nerf" the strongest in the game.

For 4 resources and 4 actions you pick up 6 clues with a +1 bonus. Use it alongside Magnifying glass or instead of it, the compressed number of tests lends extra usefulness to Perception and Unexpected Courage and other cards with intellect icons, also large bonuses like from Fieldwork become that much more impressive. An Ursula Downs with Fieldwork and Fingerprint Kit can blast locations at 7 for double clues, 8 with Milan in play, high difficulty investigate locations aren't too common so a Eureka! would stop the gap just as well as the good doctor would.

Rex Murphy has been the strongest for a while, but giving accessible multi-clue to everyone in the class all of a sudden frees up a lot of space for fresh blood in the spotlight. Ursula Downs can trigger it on her ability, Daisy's long setups are mitigated by the added clue speed. Finn Edwards and Carolyn Fern can also make use of it. Resupply with Venturer or Emergency Cache, yeah, there's a lot of options there.

To say the least, this card is going to shift the way characters are built. Or not. Less investigations means less money from Dr. Milan Christopher. There's an anti-synergy here. I figure there will be new and divergent build paths.

Edit: A little more experience playing with it.

Fingerprint Kit is not a catch-all good clue-getter card. it is very expensive for what it does. The specific deck-tech this thing is for is to speed up a character who is doing little else, and has cash to spare. Ursula Downs or Daisy Walker, Norman Withers, characters whose actions are predominantly used to beat the clue part of a scenario. If you've ever seen these types of characters at work you've probably seen them sporting piles of 10+ resources doing nothing at the end of a scenario, this card is for them.

For a character whose role is multifaceted, such as Roland Banks or Joe Diamond, fingerprint kit falls off the radar, it's just too expensive a card for characters who need to be paying for weapons and Physical Training usage as well. For these guys there's cards like Pathfinder or Magnifying Glass, cards that are cheap enough to play in between guns or will be generating action value whether you're killing enemies or getting clues.

Tsuruki23 · 2568
I think this card will be amazing with the spoiled Mr Rook from the wages of sin and unearth the ancients, because this is the higher costed seeker asset by now tied to milan, and if you had milan, you had no more money problems already. As for Mr rook, he is not that cheep neither and can get you cards to pass this 4 difficulty intellect test — aurchen · 155
Can you intiate an investigate action with the last supplie in the kit with the hawk-eye camera on the other hand, to play the mag-glass(1) in the player oportunity window and discard the kit before to draw a chaos token to get the +1 from Mag-glass and+1 +extra clue from the kit??? — toriano · 3
-(from rules) A fast asset may be played by an investigator during any player window on his or her turn. — toriano · 3
Pretty ironic that a couple of Detectives don't want the Fingerprint Kit, eh? — anaphysik · 97