Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

I've been looking at the "Big Guns" that Rogues have available in their class. There are currently 4:
1) .45 Thompson
2) Chicago Typewriter
3) Beretta M1918
4) Sawed-Off Shotgun

Big Guns are useful to kill bosses and mini-bosses.
After reading through the reviews on this website for each of these 4 cards, it appears that the summary is:
The .45 Thompson and the Chicago Typewriter are better served in the hands of investigators with a naturally high Strength. Sharpshooter is helpful, but not a "must include".

The Beretta M1918 and the Sawed-Off Shotgun are probably better served in the hands of investigators with a naturally high Agility. Sharpshooter is very helpful, quite possibly a major contributor to the success of these guns.


Let me explain:
.45 Thompson and Chicago Typewriter
Neither of these two guns have a "succeed by" motif, so you don't need to aim exceptionally high. Assuming a 3 Strength Rogue with Lonnie Ritter and Delilah O'Rourke in play, they are already at a 5 base fight. If they are fighting a 4 Fight enemy, and the worst modifier in the bag is -5, then they need to be testing at a difficulty of 9. That means they are missing 4 more skill to beat the test. That can be garnered in different ways: Hard Knocks, Well Connected, High Roller, skill cards, etc.

Beretta M1918 and Sawed-Off Shotgun
These guns have a "succeed by" motif. The Beretta wants to over succeed by 4, and the Sawed-Off Shotgun wants to over succeed by at least 4, but ideally 6 for maximum value. Keeping with the same math as above (3 Strength Rogue, vs 4 Fight enemy, worst modifier is -5), then testing at a difficulty of 9, if you pull the -5 token, gives you an over success of 0. So, the Beretta wants you to test at 13, whereas the Sawed-Off Shotgun wants you to test at 15. WOW! Those are BIG NUMBERS!

Sharpshooter can help in these instances. Of course, cards like Well Connected, High Roller and Hard Knocks are helpful. But Sharpshooter can have a bigger impact, in just one card.

So right there, Sharpshooter is giving a bonus of +4 to +5, depending on the investigator.

Sharpshooter is capable of giving even more bonuses than that.

  • your attack now uses Agility instead. Rogue cards have a lot of Agility icons, more than Strength icons. This means you are more likely to have cards with Agility pips to commit to boost the test. There are a handful of double-Agility icon cards in Rogue.
  • you can choose to use the enemy's Evade value rather than their Fight value. I have not done a thorough search through bosses and mini-bosses stats, but I will estimate that enemies generally have equal or lower Evade values, compared to their Fight values. So Sharpshooter can possibly give extra bonuses from this difference in values.

TLDR: Sharpshooter can be a very strong card for a Big Guns Rogue who wants to be able to effectively kill bosses. If equipping the Beretta M1918 or Sawed-Off Shotgun, then Sharpshooter is a strong enabler to land those over-succeed by targets.

VanyelAshke · 188
Sharpshooter works decently well for a big gun rogue as a low priority upgrade after your Deliahs, your Sure Gambles, and Swift Reloads. The problem is that in almost every situation, a big gun rogue is less effective than a big gun guardian. — suika · 9508
...with the obvious exception of Tony, who can't effectively use Sharpshooter — suika · 9508
Tony could still benefit from the second effect of the card. How often do you see an enemies evade value higher than its fight? With that question in mind, would depend on the campaign for sure. — gmmster2345 · 2

Reliable

Reliable

I noticed that in the comments section, a few people have asked/speculated whether 2 copies of Reliable can be attached to one item (ex: a Weapon + Reliable + Reliable). I figured I would ask the question in the Reviews section, so that it's clear for future readers.

Can you double-stack Reliable on one item?

VanyelAshke · 188
Nothing prevents you from attaching more than 1 copy of Reliable to an Item asset. I've frequently attached 2 copies to Joe's Detective's Colts to get him up to 7 combat. — iceysnowman · 164
Two for Becky! — MrGoldbee · 1496
Note that some upgrade assets, such as Custom Ammunition specify "Limit 1 per asset." This card has no such clause. — Death by Chocolate · 1490

Lonnie Ritter

Lonnie Ritter

This card needs an FAQ.

Question 1: To be able to heal Lonnie Ritter, is it mandatory that you select an Item asset that has at least 1 damage on it? Or could you choose an Item like Lucky Cigarette case and get the 1 horror healing on Lonnie?

Question 2: same, but in reverse. Can you heal 1 damage from an asset that damage on it (ex: Leather Coat), even if Lonnie Ritter has no horror on her?

VanyelAshke · 188
Um not part of the cost, and no Then in the text. I think the answer to both is yes — NarkasisBroon · 11
That is interesting, I hadn't thought of that :-P — NarkasisBroon · 11
My instinct is that you would need an iten with damage on it, but LR would not necessarily need to have horror for the damage to be healed. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1091
I recall an FAQ, perhaps in Wini's pamphlet that came with her deck, that said it worked as you suggest; you can heal either without the other being damaged. — SGPrometheus · 855
If the effect may changes the target's state, you need to choose the target whose state could be changed; you may check rule at "target" section in RR. Thus, the answer of Q1 is no. — elkeinkrad · 498
oh, "no" is too ambiguous.. you need to select an item that has at least 1 damage on it. — elkeinkrad · 498
So then, to be crystal clear: — VanyelAshke · 188
So then, to be crystal clear: Question 1 answer is no. On page 20 of the Rules Reference guide, under "Target", it states that a target that is chosen must have their game state changed. So, Lonnie must choose an Item that has at least 1 point of damage on it. Can someone please confirm. — VanyelAshke · 188
What about Question 2: Can Lonnie choose to heal 1 damage from an item even if she has no horror to heal on herself? — VanyelAshke · 188
Yeah, I'd say healing an item with damage when there's no horror on LR is fine. That part isn't covered by the "target" rules, because it's the word "choose" that makes something a "target, so it seems to me that it just falls under the general "when resolving a triggered ability, you must resolve as much of that ability as you can". If LR can't heal horror, you can't resolve that part so you just don't. — bee123 · 31
Ok, so we agree that Lonnie can heal 1 damage from an item, even though she herself does not have any horror on herself to heal. But she cannot heal herself 1 without also healing 1 damage from an item, correct? To try to understand the ruling via flavour to make it more "logical": when Lonnie fixes something (heal 1 damage on Item), it restores her sanity (heal 1 sanity). She can't just heal horror on herself without fixing something. Am I understanding how Lonnie works now? — VanyelAshke · 188
Yep, that's how I'd say she works. If you want to think of it in flavour terms- it calms Lonnie down to fix something but she has to actually fix it. She doesn't find it relaxing in the same way to mess with something that isn't or can't be broken. But she can still fix stuff without needing to calm herself down in the process- it's her job , after all, and you're paying her a resource to do it :) — bee123 · 31
Rogues usually suffer with sanity issues, so it's unfortunate that she can't heal herself a horror. I've played a few scenarios with Lonnie + Item. It's finicky... you need to draw both cards and play them, and ideally you want to assemble the 2-card combo early. Then, you need to be able to take damage without dying. It happened to me where Tony Morgan assembled the combo 3/4 of the way into a scenario, and he still died, suffering a Mental trauma because the encounter deck kept beating him with horror, but there was no damage-taking opportunities present to be able to require mending for Lonnie. — VanyelAshke · 188
From a purely rules perspective I think that the answers to both are yes. This is because the only cost (what comes before the ":" ) is exhausting her and spending a resource. The rest is "resolve as much as possible", and since there is no "then" before the second sentence, she would resolve as much as possible. In the case of question 1 you couldn't heal the item but you could heal lonnie, and for question 2 you would just skip healing horror from lonnie. — jonklin · 515
Having no item to heal is still perfectly legal. Honestly, so many people are arguing whether or not it's legal based on whether the item is a valid target but they're ignoring the first bullet point in the rules reference. Target: "If an ability requires the choosing of a target, and there is no valid target (or not enough valid targets), the ability cannot be initiated." Nowhere does it say that choosing an item is required so it doesn't matter if it's a valid target or not, she'll still heal the horror. — Vultureneck · 74
The answer is 1: NO 2: YES. An item with no damage on it is not a valid target (game state won't change), and since there is the "choose" keyword, you cannot initiate the action ("target" rules). This is also on par with the flavour of the card : Lonnie will always be able to fix your stuff, but if there's nothing to fix, Lonnie won't gain sanity — NotSure · 22
@NotSure. I had to scroll back and forth multiple times, but (assuming I am getting your meaning) you are saying 1. YES, 2. NO — stm08007 · 1
The FAQ is clear. The people confidently sayin gyoud8nt need — Grahamers · 1
The FAQ is clear. The people confidently saying you don’t need a damaged item are just plain wrong. I had to come here and post this because multiple people are still arguing the alternative in real life. — Grahamers · 1

Blackjack

Blackjack

In Innsmouth engaging enemies is punishing - I've seen guardians get dangerously low just from that. This long ignored weapon might just be good there as a backup weapon to get those fish off your clue getters.

Erdjo · 329
Interesting! — MrGoldbee · 1496
Blackjack (2) has long been fantastic as a backup weapon for Fighters or a main weapon for Flex in 3&4 player games where enemies are just statistically more likely to be on a friend's face rather than your own. — Death by Chocolate · 1490
Nailed it. Cannot say enough good things about Blackjack (2) in Innsmouth. — EmmeBGG · 15

Combat Training

Combat Training

IMO this card is almost unrunnable. Between the fact that guardians have very little horror soak and the general fact that these composures are too fragile and the effect not good enough, I honestly don't see any deck that would want this. Compare it to Scrapper (a card that's not even considered to be very good), for 1xp more you could have a permanent one of these. You will miss the 1 horror soak, but it drastically outweighs the problem of having to find and then pay for this card, only for it to discard itself. The one investigator that might actually want this, William Yorick, can use Scrapper, which as I said above is much better.

jonklin · 515
I haven’t included this card in any recent decks and I agree that it’s probably not the best. Level 3 Scrapper really outclasses it in most areas, although level 3 Scrapper is limited on Taboo playthroughs at the time of this writing. I think that the saving grace of Combat Training is that it’s fast, meaning you can save it in your hand until you hit a big combat/evade test on your turn, then play it and use it. It’s not really intended to be a permanent thing. Diana Stanley doesn’t have access to Scrapper, but a money-focused Diana could combine this card and Arcane Studies to pay to boost all 4 stats, which is kind of nice. So, while this card has some niche uses, I don’t think it’s unplayable. Of the “condition” cards, I think “Grounded” is a bit worse than “Combat Training,” at least. — ArkhamInvestigator · 313
How many guardians even test agility regularly? I tend to think it's the stat as a guardian you can ignore. You deal with monsters — bee123 · 31
* by killing them or using spells or stray cats or whatever. And you're in the class best equipped to soak the odd agility treachery. So I don't think it's worth the deck slot for agility pay-to-win and in terms of what else it does, there are so many better ways available to soak horror or boost combat. It just seems so weak... — bee123 · 31
I think, Tommy may also want this. He could play repeatedly, since this card is shuffled in his deck instead of discarding. fast is also good. — elkeinkrad · 498
Tommy's probably pretty happy with it: fast, "free" horror soak on a low sanity gator is good. If you're in carcosa or tcu it's probably decent, but i think other campaigns the teddy is all you need. — SGPrometheus · 855