I’m actually pretty high on this for true solo. Yes, 4XP is a lot, yes you need an enemy in play at your location.

But you effectively ignore shroud and can pick clues from connecting locations. And most locations will only have 1 clue anyway, so 1 clue per action isn’t an issue.

And unlike Lockpicks, this one doesn’t exhaust or discard itself if you get a string of bad luck, so you aren’t at risk of losing your investigate asset.

Unfortunately it’s 4XP and green, so that limits who can take it, since you probably want at least 4 intellect for reliability, so right now that’s basically just Alessandra, Finn, Trish, and Bob Jenkins.

Maybe it works in Tony Morgan with the right ally? He is pretty bad at using the lockpicks, testing at “just” 5 where rogues usually expect to be at 6-8.

The fact that this signature hasn't been reviewed in nearly ten years says quite a lot about it, I think. First, I'll highlight the good: It has some good icons. +2 to Will or Fight, +3 to Book or Foot, you can definitely use this card to help pass some important tests, or even to increase the odds of oversuccess, a Rogue staple.

But it's not a skill card, it's an event card. It's a cheap one, and it's fast, but its power is... not great. Compared to Trish's signature, Skids does not automatically disengage from anything, nor can he stop enemies from engaging with him. This means that if Skids is getting overwhelmed by enemies for some reason, this signature only delays being hit by them a round. That's still not without value (you could play this to cancel the Retaliate/Alert keyword, for example... but only in non-Elite enemies), but it makes the signature very conditional in its use. Furthermore, where Trish can proceed to move through a Monster-infested room, Skids will continue to engage anything in any new room he enters. This card's effect has some value, but it's just too situational. You could easily go a whole campaign without needing it, but rarely will you get through a scenario without ever thinking to yourself, "I wish I had just a couple more icons for this test".

So you basically might as well treat this as a slightly better Unexpected Courage. That's a fine concept in a lot of cases, but not for a signature card. Unless for some reason the various Rogue economy cards are unavailable to you, Skids will play much better with the advanced versions of his signatures instead.

This card seems a bit too strong with The Necronomicon and Scroll of Secrets. Since you can easily search both tomes with Research Librarian, the combo seems too easy to get going for how strong it is.

If you throw in some secret recovery like Truth from Fiction or Eldritch Sophist you can easily recharge Scroll of Secrets.

You could also add Knowledge is Power and Library Docent if you want even more necronomicon action. Library Docent also works as a nice way to recharge Scroll of Secrets.

Can't believe it took me this long to notice and correct me if I'm wrong, but this card seems fully Diana Stanley jank-enabled similar to Delay the Inevitable and "Fool me once...". With the Twilight Blade out, she can play this card from underneath her every round and then cancel damage or horror and place it back underneath her to recur the resource while drawing a card. Even better, Diana can take some of the Guardian allies that deal themselves damage or horror like Beat Cop or Field Agent to create a nice self sufficient card draw engine while testlessly getting clues and/or damage pings. On top of that, as these are all actions, they can very easily be done outside of the phases where you have played your other cancel cards since Diana's ability is a limit once per phase . Of course you'll need a charge battery that can help you keep enough charges in play to do this every turn but there are some useful options for that like the Runic Axe or the new Drowned City card Lost Arcana.

edit I think since these allies take damage/horror as a cost, the combo can't use them for their actions and would only end up generating card draw, which while nice is probably not worth heavily building around.

So Wendy Adams only benefits from this weakness? With her Amulet, she can cycle her new event sub-deck and never draw Fine Print back. It feels like those fairy tales where ordinary people deceive the devils