Long review ahead, so I've included a TL:DR section at the bottom. Feel free to skip to that!

Forensic kit is interesting in that, while you can use it to investigate with , realistically it's more specialized towards investigation with . The reason for this is that its extra horror-healing benefit only works with an exhausted enemy at your location, and while there are other means to evade/exhaust enemies (e.g. Transmogrify), 9 times out of 10 you're going to be using for evading as normal. If you want to investigate with then you're far better off using Grim Memoir, which has an identical resource cost and number of uses while offering a bigger skill boost and arguably a better benefit for most Seekers (the possibility of card draw).

Where this card starts to shine is on Rogues who can take it (in particular Kymani Jones, Trish Scarborough, Finn Edwards and potentially Monterey Jack) or Lucius Galloway as the one Seeker who is slightly more specialized towards (especially with his ability). All of these investigators have below average Sanity (and some like Lucius and Jack have weaknesses which deal you horror), so having an option with both gives you clues and heals horror linked to your preferred enemy management option (evading) is excellent card compression. It makes standalone solutions to these problems (e.g. Liquid Courage) much more questionable.

The obvious comparator to Forensic Kit for agility users is Thieves' Kit. Thieves' Kit by contrast has more uses, doesn't offer a +1 skill value, and returns resources for successful investigation. The uses here is a key consideration, as Thieves' Kit is okay for longer before you need to replace it. For me though, rather than considering these cards as competition, I'm very likely to take both on investigators where I want to use to clue-find (and if you have one in each hand, you can use whichever is more beneficial in the circumstances). Having four cards in a 33 card deck that allow for this gives an 81% draw chance of at least one in a hard mulligan, which allows your investigator to get clue-finding much more quickly without needing to fall-back on things like Streetwise.

For cards that interact well with Forensic Kit, there's String Along and "Where's the party?" - both of which keep enemies engaged with you after they become exhausted. This allows you to drag enemies to other locations with clues and so heal horror (and can help fire off abilities like Lucius’s, especially if you drag an enemy to a location with clues in preparation for it readying in the upkeep phase). Kicking the Hornet's Nest is also nice to spawn an enemy at a location with multiple clues (and so then evade and use the Kit). Alton O'Connell is worth a mention, as he boosts but also allows for occasional clue compression when succeeding by 1 or 3 (which I'd argue is more common on Rogues using to clue-find, as they don't have as trivial ways to boost agility compared to Seekers who have things like Magnifying Glass for intellect). Pilfer can be synergistic from having clue compression off , but whether the resource cost is worth the price of admission is up to you.

For a look at a deck in practice that uses Forensic Kit, I've just posted an Ascetic Kymani deck which uses both Forensic Kit, Thieves' Kit and Grappling Hook to have a lot of ways to clue-find with agility. Feel free to check it out!

TL:DR

• Forensic Kit favors investigation through , as Grim Memoir otherwise is typically superior for clue-finding with .

• High Rogues who can take it and Lucius Galloway are therefore a good fit, as they all have below average Sanity and can readily evade enemies to benefit from its horror healing.

• Thieves' Kit is an obvious comparator. Taking two copies of both Thieves' Kit and Forensic Kit can be beneficial, as it gives an 81% draw chance to find at least one in a hard mulligan on a standard deck.

• Cards which pair well are String Along and "Where's the party?", which keep exhausted enemies engaged with you for opportunities to heal horror even when changing locations. Kicking the Hornet's Nest allows you to spawn enemies on locations where there's already clues, evade them, and then use the Kit.

• Alton O'Connell, as a new level 0 booster who provides occasional clue compression, is also worthy of consideration. Events like Pilfer have overlap due to testing for clues.

So, basically each time you use George's power, you get +2 in card advantage. Why +2? Well, you draw a card, so that's +1, and you get to not-really-discard the other, for another +1 as long as it's a skill. Or a card you would've assigned. Or any card that you don't need immediately since you can get it back later thanks to Grim Resolve. Now, it's not as good as drawing 2, but it's close enough if you build your deck with loads of skills. A standard investigator power is a bonus action per turn, if you deck is build around it. Drawing 2 is usually better than +1 action. So, as long as you can reliably get it once per turn, it's a quite good investigator power. That is, if you actually get value from discarding.

There are of course a decent amount of cards that allow you to discard productively during your turn. At low xp it's mostly the new set of investigate/fight/evade tools, but later there are also cards like Cornered, Gift of Nodens or Bound for the Horizon, all pretty good cards in their own. So long as you manage to get one of those in play, you can reliably activate George's power most turns, if not every turn.

But of course, having a good power that you can activate almost every turn is good, but George's power is once per phase. So you want to use it more than once per turn. So, how to use it outside of the investigator phase? 

At first I thought there were not many great ways. If you overdraw you can use it during the standby phase, but that's not ideal. Idol of Xanatos allows you to discard instead of taking damage/horror, which can happen in the enemy phase or the mythos phase, but that doesn't seem very reliable. Artistic Inspiration is great because it can be reloaded at any phase, but that imply to use it, which you can't always do productively. And Cornered and Gift of Nodens can be used in the mythos phase if there is a test to do. All that is good, don't get me wrong, but it's not as reliable as I'd like. So even with a good setup, you probably won't be able to use his power twice every turn, at least not early in the campaign, or maybe you will have to use it in sub-optimal way (like reloading an Artistic Inspiration that you didn't really need).

And then I realised that George totally can take Forced Learning. Which allow him to use his power every. Single. Standby. Phase. And not just to replace a card that you overdrew, no, no, to replace a card in addition to your draw. With absolutely no setup, and no xp spent.

So, again, each standby phase, you draw two cards, you discard one of them — but not really, it's not discarded, you can still assign it, and then you draw one more card. Basically drawing 3 cards instead of 1 every turn (so long as one of the first two is a skill). In addition to your "main" power, that you can still use pretty much every turn during the investigator phase, and maybe an additionnal time during the mythos phase.

Yeah, yeah, I know, that imply to have a 50 cards deck. Who cares? You draw like 3 to 4 more cards than a normal investigator each turn. It's not a disaster to have 70% more cards in your deck when you have thrice the draw power.

There is one character released who benefits from this far above the others: Trish Scarborough. Since 2020, Trish decks have been about fast clues with the Cryptographic Cipher, Working a Hunch, and other cards that are primarily great because they don’t take an action.

With this, not only will she have a staggering 11 health, enemies go from an opportunity to an afterthought. Put down Pick Pocketing, take out your Lockpicks, and pick up some clues.

The other agency/police/veteran characters are plenty tough. Tommy won’t like this because the ROI is so low, and he wants more attacks rather than fewer. The use case I see for guardians is grabbing enemies off of other players while engaged, and that’s nothing compared to what Trish can do with it.

Dr Milan Christopher came with the Core Set and even mutated, he’s the default ally for seekers. Before he was mutated, he was the best money-making card in the game, easily earning the average seeker two resources every turn from the time he’s played. Now, he’s merely great, giving you +1 to your best stat and breaking even in cost after four readies.

This is Dr Milan for the Countess. Alessandra wants to parley every return, this gives you a bonus to her best “stat“. Previously Bianca “Die Katz” was a standard pick, and there’s no reason you can’t have them both, but going forward, if you build an Alessandra deck, you’ll have to justify why you >aren’t< bringing along your Silver Twilight buddy.

I have loved playing Dr. Caroline Fern for years. This card solves one of her major problems: she needs a lot of assets. She also wants to be able to heal people. But Solemn vow takes deck space, and her HP is low...

This card is useful in a way that Peter Sylvestre isn’t by himself. Its slotlesss but its price compares favorably to Hallowed Chalice, Book of Psalms, or the Meat Cleaver. It doesn’t require the upgrade path of Ancient Stone. (Although you can still take Shrewd Analysis if you want a permanent seeker card to pair with your multi class offerings). Even the art is good for new players, pointing out the rewarding combo of Dr. Fern’s analysis and Agnes’s sanity damaging witchery. A great addition! Unfortunately, it won't trigger Carolyn’s moneymaking talent, or Vincent Lee's ability either. They say “After one of your card effects heals [sanity/damage] from an investigator or an investigator's Ally asset". Sound Advice ain't an ally.

If you’re going to maximize this card, The Star • XVII will let you take more than one damage or horror from other players at a time. Then again, Sound Advice is supposed to require fewer assets from your deck. Tell the rest of the table to dodge the monsters and cancel their treacheries!