So. "Skids" O'Toole, poor fella.

It isn't unusual for starter-set cards to be far too good or far too weak, the tempo of the game still not completely clear to the creators. "Skids" O'Toole suffers from this issue in that he "Has" some abilities, but they don't actually line up to become a particularly useful investigator.

Skids is the first , a faction that depends on and a wonky, flexible, cardpool. as a skill type wasn't particularly useful as a skill type for the longest time, Evading is barely a viable strategy in the first campaign, there are so, so many enemies that you -want- to kill or -have- to kill in that campaign and the first and last scenario are both very claustrophobic, so you can't run from an evaded enemy, he'll eventually get in your way again! There was also the lack of effective cards that turn into defeated enemies and clues (Clues mostly, until Lockpicks was released), Backstab and Sneak Attack attack are decent cards, but they dont synergize with "Skids" O'Tooles cardpool.

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So, lets have a look at what "Skids" O'Toole does:

He uses and cards, the former leans towards combat, is weak at getting clues without experience, good at generating actions and possibly the best faction at generating resources. The latter faction further leans into combat, recently got a big clue boost, and mitigates damage. So, "Skids" O'Toole has access to a very large pool of combat oriented cards, damage mitigation included and all the action generation in the game.

2 Makes Skids very sensitive to bad treachery draws. Frozen in Fear shuts him off completely. This makes preventative measures like Physical Training and Guts necessary. (Edit: Take the Initiative is a great defensive card for Skids).

3 is decent, it doesn't yield clues from a 3-4 difficulty location without Lockpicks or a decent skill card dedication but he can take care of the easy spots. Lockpicks are a saving grace for Skids so you should never simply pass them over unless you're building a Tommy gun Skids. An focused Skids can be build by focusing on cards like Flashlight, Lockpicks and Perception but the lack of multi-clue pickup makes this a rather slow process

3 is "Skids" O'Tooles first design weakness, for a character that seems to be so combat oriented such a mediocre number is going to make dealing with enemies a bit more expensive. There are plenty of good weapon options however, you start with the baseline Machete, you can go for the sneaky options of Lupara or .41 Derringer or you can go for broke as a full-blown war-Skids with Chicago Typewriter. Personally I've been rather impressed with Switchblade in a Skids deck that focuses more on his . If you decide to use a gun, consider Sleight of Hand as a way to cheaply cheat it out and effectively double your ammo. Remember, as a character, that the best way to conserve ammo is by ducking out, use your to ignore threats in locations that you don't think matter anymore.

4 is "Skids" O'Tooles strength, in many scenarios an evaded foe is as good as a dead one, ideally you'll have completed all the clues on your location and you'll be free to just evade the enemies who come your way and run away. You need to be able to finish clue locations quickly so that you can be free to scamper away from enemies. can also be used in combat to deliver Sneak Attack or Backstab and it is very useful against large threats as a way to "turn off" their retaliate and/or their roundly attack. A fun new solution to the "gotta get these clues and skedattle" problem is Scene of the Crime, if an enemy ambushes you while you're working on a multi-clue location then you can turn that to your advantage, grab your clues, evade the bad guy and get out of there even faster then expected.

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In addition to the carpool and skills, "Skids" O'Toole has the ability to buy himself an extra action. Actions synergize well with , evading an enemy leaves you just 2 actions, assuming that you evaded the enemy to move away then youre left with just one action to pick up any remaining clues, otherwise you have just 2 actions to try and defeat the evaded enemy. Every extra action increases your possibilities in this "window of peace".

Skids's ability creates bonus action, you need to pay for it so you can't spam it every round, but for the rounds where every action is crucial (as is usually the case in rounds where you evade) the extra breathing room is a huge blessing.

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So, I've spoken about each element of "Skids" O'Tooles abilities, now to put them all together.

Skids's highest stat is , this stat can be turned into Clues with Lockpicks or Damage with Backstab and/or Sneak Attack, notice that these cards are somewhat costly.

With a stat of only 3 Skids will have to pay a little extra to net the desired effect from his attacks. Especially on higher difficulty the extra cost is going to stack up.

And that, quite simply, is the crux of "Skids" O'Tooles's problem, the things he likes to do cost a lot of resources. He likes Leo De Luca, the cardpool is notoriously expensive and the resources you need to spend via Hard Knocks or Physical Training to to try and make your attacks hit, all combine to make life very expensive for Skids, a character who needs resources to activate his special ability. In other words, even when you bring as much economy as is humanly possible, you are effectively playing a character that for the majority of most scenarios, does not have a special ability.

Skids's saving grace is perhaps that he can elect to dip a little less into the role and focus a bit more on his and , compile your abilities and focus on what Skids can do with his cards.

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In multiplayer you are not the primary clue gatherer (you just cant grab many enough clues at once!) and you aren't the main muscle (It's just too expensive!), you share the load and take care of yourself. You kill your own enemy draws (or leave them in the dust when possible) and you can pull your weight in clues. If you try however to take over someone else's duties and you'll soon find that a poor "Skids" O'Toole is a dead Skids.

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P.S: "Skids" O'Toole -HAS- a weakness and a strength card but neither of them matter, just ignore them, play On the Lam for the icons and only pay for the Hospital Debts when the map is obviously won.

P.S.P.S: "Skids" O'Toole is flatly better in single-player and on Standard rather then Hard/Expert. On Standard his and are more likely to beat easy checks and remain useful. In single-player the situation where you need to cover for someone else, where the cluehound just can't muster the power to finish locations or the monster hunter cannot finish off a beast, will not arise. As I said above, "Skids" O'Toole can take care of himself.

Strong contender for the very worst card in the game.

is the money faction, but that doesn't mean that you have money to spare.

Cards are a bit better then resources, but even so this card is incredibly expensive for what it does. When you play it you pay: 1 Action to play it, 2 resources and the card itself (The opportunity cost). Replacing this you could have brought Manual Dexterity/Overpower/Perception/Guts and played it on a test as a non-action, netting you the card for no money and no actions that you aren't already taking.

Perhaps by the time you've got the fourth trigger off-of this card you'll be breaking even on the huge commitment, cost and opportunity cost, perhaps, or maybe you could have just saved yourself the trouble and spent two or three actions to draw the cards you needed at a fraction of the cost.

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Note that this doesn't extend to the rather effective 2xp version Pickpocketing, the saved action and overkill bonus combine to ensure that the card pays for itself quickly. The saved action is especially big since now you don't need to spend the resources and action up until the exact moment you know they will count. Oh and the extra icon isn't bad for those moments you decide you can't play it.

For Lola, the effect here allows you remain in Yellow, without the risk of Crisis of Identity forcing you to discard the Mag Glass. (By returning it to you hand and replaying it each turn you need to). This is good for three reasons, firstly Lola likes passive buffs (that still work when you switch colour), which the Mag Glass is - ie, Mag Glass is generally a good card for her. Secondly Higher Education is a great card that Lola can run, and ending the turn in Yellow so that Higher Education is up for the Mythos phase is a good state to be in. Lastly Lola decks are generally better at the clue side of things than the fighting, so you're probably going to want to pick Yellow as one of your colours anyway.

And, sure, it's good for other investigators too. But so is the Level0 version. Lola wants the upgrade.

AndyB's review of Dr. Milan Christopher pretty much holds up. But now that a year has passed, I'd like to take a moment to reexamine this highly-acclaimed card.

I think Dr. Milan Christopher is clearly the strongest multiplayer Seeker ally in the game. I don't think any of the primary-class Seekers (Norman, Minh, Daisy, Rex) can do any better. I strongly recommend him for Carolyn and Finn as well.

What makes Milan so good? Well, first, the +1 Intellect is really important, especially on high levels. On Expert it is incredibly valuable to get to 6 or 7 in your primary stat. Milan's bonus makes a huge difference here.

What is really special, though, is the resource generation. In multiplayer, Seekers can and should spend the vast majority of their actions investigating; this means Milan, who does not exhaust upon activation, will trigger over and over. It's extremely common to get 2 or 3 resources a turn from him. The profits become immense very quickly.

But what are you going to do with the enormous piles of money that Milan produces? Well, there are tons of good options. The world is your oyster. But the simplest and most reliable way to spend them is on the XP permanents--Higher Education (for the Seekers), Keen Eye (for Carolyn), and Streetwise (for Finn). Note how all of these can boost Intellect even further (among other abilities). That means you can spend money to crank up your investigate tests even further, so you have excellent odds even against even the Expert chaos bag, and then have Milan get you your money back!

Obviously, this approach reaches its zenith with Rex Murphy. The combined bonuses of Higher Education and Milan makes triggering his ability pretty easy, even on Expert, and Milan's resource generation means he can investigate at a furious pace over a sustained period of time. He comes pretty close to investigating twice as fast as the other Seekers--and the other Seekers are already going pretty darn fast.

Milan is a weaker pick in solo. There are far fewer clues to be found and hence fewer activations of his ability. Moreover, investing so much (4 resources and the ally slot) in the early game into something that boosts cluefinding is probably not what solo Seekers need to be doing. Something like Dr. William T. Maleson (with the goal of avoiding monsters) might be better.

In multiplayer, though, Milan is just dominant. Now, the other Seeker allies are fun, too, and if you want a change of pace there's nothing wrong with using Horowitz to find some relics or Maleson for some encounter deck manipulation. But if your goal is to be the most effective Seeker you can be, this is the guy to pick.

A card that is as strong as it is simple. Most locations in this game have clues on them, and you will be doing plenty of skill tests on such locations. Inquiring Mind's three wild icons and ability to boost any investigator (unlike, say, Rise to the Occasion) provides a lot of flexibility to the team. Whatever the situation is, as long as there's a clue in the area, Inquiring Mind will be a significant help. It can give almost any investigator at least a half-decent shot at doing most things, even on Expert, and that's pretty nice.

Although it is a virtual certainty that, no matter the scenario, you or your teammates are going to take multiple important tests on locations with clues, this card does occasionally peter out late in scenarios when all the clues are gone. Usually you can tell if this is about to happen, and thus commit Inquiring Mind to a test before it deactivates.

If you draw Inquiring Mind after all the clues are gone, it probably won't be very good. But this is going to be pretty uncommon, and in any case this is true of a large number of excellent Seeker cards. I don't consider this a major strike against it.

I suppose there is some synergy here with the Seeker cards that let you drop a clue on your location (Forewarned, Dr. William T. Maleson), but this is probably not a big factor. You don't need to run these cards for Inquiring Mind to be good.

I think I slightly prefer the upside of Inquiring Mind to the reliability of Unexpected Courage, though I don't feel strongly about this. The difficulty level may be a factor here--the higher the difficulty, the more useful Inquiring Mind's third icon will be. Which card is superior is a bit of an academic question, however, because I often just run both in Seeker decks.

As useful as this card is, +3 to a skill test is not quite so powerful that I would use a splash slot on it. There are many higher-impact choices out there. (For instance, if you're looking for a general utility card to help you pass skill tests, Lucky! will be the stronger pick.) It may find itself on the cutting floor as XP cards come in. (But not in Minh Thi Phan; she will most certainly want to run this all campaign long.)