Calvin Wright

Calvin Wright

I wish he had extra ability to help him with action economy and push his high risk/reward playstyle. Something like "If you have 2 or fewer health and sanity remaining you may take an additional action during your turn".

TheMrWsell · 4
Survivor has so much soak now. Who needs economy at 5/5/5/5? — MrGoldbee · 1512
@MrGoldBee He needs it, so Calvin can do something before he dies. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 77

"Skids" O'Toole

"Skids" O'Toole

The Drowned city expansion actually added a cool new way to play Parallel Skids. You can now play 6 Glimmers of Hope since A Glimmer of Hope and A Glimmer of Hope are both cards with the fortune trait. I believe since Glimmer refers to the name of the card it will pull out all copies (the level 0 and level 2 ones both). This in turn makes it very easy to trigger his front +3 resource ability, and/or to go for overachieve cards such as Pilfer.

I'm thinking we can use Daredevil to get all copies to the discard pile and Friends in Low Places to dig out daredevil and/or other fortune cards to make this more consistent (or other card draw effects).

Saphox · 8
Nice find! Another advantage of the Daredevil discard is, that Skids will get his weakness in play early in the game, so he will allways easily take care of it. — Susumu · 383

Detective's Colt 1911s

Detective's Colt 1911s

Let's talk about hunch deck. Of course you want to use it every turn, so the possibility to refill it seems great and it is surely if your hunch deck is made perfectly, so that you can use all the hunches each turn during scenario. But scenario usually have 14/15 turns and your hunch deck have 11 cards. So if you recycle i.e. 2 out of 11 cards, it means that there will be need for replenishing two more cards max and that is only if you did not reveal any . Therefore Detective's Colt 1911s ability is almost unnecessary and you can ignore it, unless you're certain that you have built perfect hunch deck and even if you did you have to deal with its low stats and high costs. Overall pretty disappointing signature.

Drostt · 162
Yeah, +1 to hit on a two-handed weapons is INCREDIBLY bad. Compare that to Roland's .38 Special, which is one-handed, cost less to play AND it is far more accurate than the Detective's Colt 1911s. I have no idea why they felt Joe's had to get a straight up bad weapon as his signature, to avoid overshadowing Guardians? Then why give him access to Guardian cards at all? What is worse is that the basic version of Roland's signature doesn't care about killing enemies for its fuctions, so Roland can still use other weapons to trigger his ability; the Detective's Colt do, and it is a massive struggle to kill anything but the weakest fodder enemies with it — HeroesOfTomorrow · 77
You're kind of skimming over the fact that these essentially take no slots up though. The reason they're kind of weak is because you can still double fist magnifying glasses while using these to get yourself out of trouble occasionally. — Spamamdorf · 5
@Spamamdorf I love you mention Magnifying Glass, because that is the only thing you will ever attach to this, because after paying 4 resources, you ain't gonna have money for any other tool. Granted, it's good, but makes Joe's decks super samey — HeroesOfTomorrow · 77
It's memey but very funny to use these to hold a sledgehammer and a mag glass — OrionAnderson · 139

Confiscation

Confiscation

I have now run through a campaign with this weakness and I can safely say that this is a new contender for the absolute worst weakness in the game (up against Agnes Baker of course). Flavorfully, it is a very good card, but shuffling each Firearm asset into your deck is absolutely devastating, even if you only have one or two in play (which you realistically always want to have at least 2). It is bad enough that I recommend taking Friends in Low Places just so that you can search out this weakness and draw it when you have a cheap gun, rather than later.

Vardaman · 2
I disagree with this review, and with the corollary reviews that talk about what an awesome card Confiscation is because it reloads all your weapons. It’s something you play around and that gives the character a strong identity. I love Michael McGlen’s design, and this weakness’s impact on your deckbuilding choices and in-game strategy is a major contributor to his strong identity. — Eudaimonea · 6
I've played Michael through Drowned City and while I know, from experience, that drawing his weakness can be painful at times, it makes playing Micheal interesting. In a way. Because you have to take this surprise into account when playing him. This and running out of ammo keeps playing Michael interesting. At times this weekness can be very helpful (shuffling big gun into deck). — bugiel_marek · 26
Yeah, and it’s cool the way he’s the big quiet guy in the corner you just know is packing but when the cops pat him down they only find the one gun. Then the action scene starts and he’s a walking arsenal somehow. The mechanics trick you into finding ways to be that guy, which is clever and good. — Eudaimonea · 6
The truly worst-of-the-worst weaknesses are the ones there are no solutions/playarounds for, and there are quite a few solutions for Confiscation (in the legacy environment, at least). On top of Friends In Low Places, there’s Robert Castaigne 4 and Joey The Rat to help you get guns back into play efficiently, and many solutions for getting guns into your hand (Underworld Market, for instance, as well as Michael’s built-in solution of Viola Case). All of these are cards Michael would get value from even if he had a different weakness. Yeah, this one can punch you in the teeth occasionally (especially at low xp), but a well-designed weakness should wreck you every once in a while. — Pseudo Nymh · 68
It's boring but there is also the solution of simply bringing a melee weapon — OrionAnderson · 139

"Where's the party?"

"Where's the party?"

I've got a question: could Luke Robinson (+ adaptable) use this from his Dream Gate, discard the enemy and yet draw cards? Or will it fails as "Kicking the Hornet's Nest" does because of its "then"?                                                     

Rotzi · 1
Interesting, it should work as you describe it, because indeed there is no "then". In most cases this will still just be a Pot of Greed, though. — AlderSign · 447
Yep. Should work. — Eudaimonea · 6
I'm afraid, I would say, this does not work. You are right, that the card lacks the word "then", so in theory it could resolve the last sentence of the ability, even if the rest was not resolved in full. However, the card text is still resolved top to bottom, so you discard the enemy before drawing cards, which means the enemy leaves play. Card abilities only interact with other cards that are in play, unless the ability specifically references an interaction with cards in an out-of-play area, which is not the case for "Where's the Party?" The enemy, and hence their damage and horror value does not exist anymore for the card abilidy, so you have to treat the value as zero. — Susumu · 383
@: unless the ability specifically references an interaction with cards in an out-of-play area, which is not the case for "Where's the Party?" --> This is obviously not completely true. "Search the encounter deck and discard pile..." is the poster child of an ability, that specifically references an interaction with cards in an out-of-play area. However regarding the drawn enemy and it's combined damage and horror value, it does not state, that it can be used, even if it left play again. — Susumu · 383
@Susumu, I don’t know why you’re treating the two sentences as separate abilities. I see no justification for that, other than trying to make the combo not work. — Eudaimonea · 6
By that logic, Calling in Favors should always reduce the new ally’s cost by zero. — Eudaimonea · 6
"Calling in Favors" specifies: "X is the cost of the Ally asset returned to your hand." So it specifically references an interaction with a card in an out of play area (your hand). — Susumu · 383
And "Where's the Party?" has a single ability. But it is still executed sequentially. Like on Diana Stanley: "Place that card facedown beneath her. Draw 1 card and gain 1 resource." First put the card in the basement, then draw 1 card, then gain 1 resource. Should the drawn card be something like Amnesia or Paranoia (and not be canceled or ignored), this sequential order does matter. — Susumu · 383
* at least with Paranoia. Not sure, why I thought about Amnesia. — Susumu · 383
This is the first I heard that Diana’s card and resource are sequential rather than simultaneous. Are you sure about that? Anyway, if it’s a single ability then it does specifically reference in the first sentence that it interacts with a card out of play. — Eudaimonea · 6
Pretty sure. Her ability is worded the same as for the Upkeep Phase: Draw 1 card and gain 1 resource. And it has been confirmed in regard of Paranoia, that you keep the resouce just gained, because the card draw is earlier. People consider everything going simultainiously unless the phrase "One at a time" is used, but this is more of a clarification, they sometimes make, sometimes don't. The only case, that multiple things happen simultainioulsy is, when an ability says "Draw x cards", in this case, they are all drawn at once. But this is rather the exception, which has been specifically called out. — Susumu · 383