Testless Roland Banks

The idea is to pick up as many clues as possible without ever actually investigating while still being able to deal with the enemies the encounter deck throws at you.

Cards:

• If you find yourself itching for a fight you can set yourself up in a high shroud location, play On the Hunt, follow up with Scene of the Crime, kill the enemy with your Machete and pick up a cool 3 clues that turn.
• .32 Colt is useful if you find yourself with multiple enemies and unable to take advantage of the Machete damage boost and is cheaper+longer-lived than the .45 Automatic
• Vicious Blow can also help out if you're engaged with multiple enemies, saves an action against a 3 health enemy, or if you're unlucky at the start and have no weapon
• Shortcut is great for repositioning yourself to a location with clues when you have an enemy in your threat area already.
• Art Student is also great for picking up clues in high shroud locations when there aren't any enemies around and gives Roland a little extra sanity soak.
• Evidence! doubles up on Roland's ability. Depending on your group size Working a Hunch may be a better choice.
• Beat Cop and Guard Dog are there for test-less damage, Trusted helps get more mileage out of them. Calling in Favors lets you pick any of them up to reuse later.
• Logical Reasoning is there for the sanity healing as well as symbols to pitch in on Willpower tests.
• Overpower helps against stronger boss monsters but could be replaced with Prepared for the Worst or Survival Knife if you'd just prefer to have more weapons but those increase the overall cost of the deck.
• Guts is to help poor Roland against Rotting Remains and the many many other Willpower treacheries. Could be Unexpected Courage if you don't care about the extra card draw

Upgrades:

• Charisma
• The upgraded Beat Cop.
• You could replace Shortcut with Pathfinder but it's a bit expensive resource-wise for Roland and I personally prefer the extra utility that shortcut offers
• Elder Sign Amulet is a good upgrade to replace Logical Reasoning if you find yourself wracked with Trauma from Cover Up (I've taken The Dirge of Reason instead because I find it much less punishing and less prone to being drawn at the end of a scenario).
• Reliable is a good boost for a Machete in the later scenarios
• The upgraded .45 Automatic may be a good choice to replace the .32 Colt.

Other cards:

Most of these swing towards the test-less damage side of the spectrum, so if you're interested in that you can swap out some clue pickup for damage dealing.

• Dynamite Blast is a lot of fun, but way too expensive for Roland to play.
• Heroic Rescue is theoretically great for automatic damage and combos well with Survival Knife and Guard Dog. The stars have never aligned for me with this card though, I'm never in the right place at the right time. I'm usually better off engaging and attacking.
• Mano a Mano fits well with the test-less theme but I never really found Roland needing help dealing damage. On harder difficulties you may want to reconsider, I only played on Standard.
• Ambush is strong test-less damage. If this manages to kill something it also triggers Roland's ability, which is nice. I never found space to include it in the deck.
• Quick Study seems like it would be a great choice for Roland; attack, drop a clue, get +3 for the attack, pick up the clue again after killing the enemy. I never really had time and/or resources to play it and the only time I did actually get to use it I drew the auto-fail. If you're with a team that can pick up clues fairly well the risk of not regaining your clue is mitigated. It's also a great way to deal with Cover Up at the end of a scenario when there are no clues left on the table.