Third Time's a Charm

This card lets you experience that unique Wendy Adams feeling of drawing multiple tokens per test!

Anyway, this thing lets you play some games with the tokens you get in a test, it's rather similar to a Lucky! or Live and Learn as a means of guaranteeing success. But here's the deal, I generally like this card a bit less than I like those 0-xp alternatives for that purpose.

The key downside to Third Time's a Charm is that it's played preemtively rather than reflexively, which is a huge timing issue. You dont roll the dice, see something terrible, and reactively fix it, no, you're rolling into a really important test, something hugely impactful like a boosted attack or a life-or-death parlay, which is where you play Third Time's a Charm and pray the bag has mercy, that's where you play a Third Time's a Charm, and even then a Lucky!, Eucatastrophe or Live and Learn might have sufficed.

Of course, there is one really big distinctiong on there. Instead of "you", it's "an investigator". At the end of the day, you dont play Third Time's a Charm because you're about to do the riskiest test of the campaign, you play it before somebody else attempts the riskiest test of a campaign.

There is another use, something a little crazy, and this is the thing I'dd be looking into Third Time's a Charm for. I would'nt see this card as a test-beater, rather, a test-perfecter. For those skill tests with layered conditional riders that they really want to try and complete. A or specialist fishing for a combo trigger, they can draw the first token, or even the first two tokens, and reject them if theyre not the / they're looking for. it's a way to fish into a Paradoxical Covenant, a for Jim's .35 Winchester, an , a net +2 for triggers or a net +5 for the Sawed-Off Shotgun.

Third Time's a Charm is there for when you want to win beautifully, and that's why the card-art is about Tango dancers!

4/5/21

Tsuruki23 · 2522

Jim's ability just makes the $skull token's __modifier__ a 0, it doesn't make it an actual 0 token. So I don't think it synergizes with .35 Winchester like we might hope — tercicatrix · 15 5/29/21

Tercicatrix, you're forgetting the recent rules change / taboo to the .35 Winchester. Now any token which doesn't have a negative modifier triggers the .35's damage boost, including Jim's skull tokens. — Corgano · 1 6/12/21

A great addition to the Survivor class that looks like something out of the Mystic suite. I'm happy to see such a powerful card effect that doesn't have "Exile" attached to it. Since you've paid the steep price of two XP for an insurance policy on one single skill test, you'll definitely want to recur it with Resourceful and keep it coming back again and again. Too bad it's not an Innate card, because True Survivor would be just what the doctor ordered.

This card really lets you push the envelope for a skill test that's a long shot. Three tries to fish out that almighty token, with the ability to stop as soon as you see something that will pass your check. I feel like Third Time's A Charm really gets better when the bag is pumped with tokens...playing this hot on the heels of Keep Faith or Tempt Fate is some awesome risk mitigation. The problem with that approach, though, is that for the same XP cost, why not get the fantastic Ancient Covenant instead? I'd probably pick this up AFTER that Permanent powerhouse, with the two combined being greater than the sum of their parts. That's 4 XP for a combo that will take your bless-heavy deck to the next level.

3/7/21

Pinchers · 128

I have not tried it yet, but I'm not so sold on this card. It sure can be worth it to use on the one, game winning or loosing final test. But in general, you have to spend the card and resource upfront on a test, which might as well end with pulling a perfectly fine token on first attempt. Compared with level 0 "Lucky" I would take that card over "3rd Time's" any day. — Susumu · 363 3/8/21

Also worth noting this card’s competition with Eucatastrophe and Lucky 3 for Survivors. — StyxTBeuford · 12985 3/8/21

@Styx Eucatastrophe is nice, but costs +1 resource and +1 XP, and only helps with totally spectacular failures...so while they certainly compete for the same deck slot, I see a pretty big difference between these two. Sitting on two resources and waiting for the perfect moment to play Eucatastrophe always seems like a tall order for such a money-starved faction. I see Lucky! as being bigger competition for 3rd Time, but I only like the lv 0 version since paying that extra XP for a card draw never seemed worth it to me... — Pinchers · 128 3/8/21

Lucky (3) from Stella provides more than a card draw. It's +3 instead of +2, and opens the use on other er investigators at your locations. — Susumu · 363 3/9/21

Sure, but for one less XP, 3rd Time also works on any skill test at your location. Lucky (3) is very useful, especially since it's free to play, but it's a lot of XP to pass one single skill test! — Pinchers · 128 3/9/21

Also, as good as it may be, Lucky (3) is never going to pull you an elder sign, or cancel a tentacle token. 3rd Time has multiple chances to do both of those things — Pinchers · 128 3/9/21

If your goal is to trigger an Elder Sign, it's much easier to use, say, Unrelenting to engineer that failure and Euca it (Survivors usually have 2 intellect, so take out the +1 and two 0's and you have to avoid any other 0 or -1 to guarantee the Elder Sign, so you only need to dodge usually two -1s and a 0 plus maybe one or two skulls which typically have low magnitude modifiers) . I mostly use Euca in this way in Survivors that have desirable Elder Signs, which includes Silas, Yorick, and Stella. The biggest problem that's being missed on this card is you have to decide to cancel AND return a token before you know what you'll pull next. In a 16 token bag, this will land you an Elder Sign only 17.6% of the time assuming you always return a token that isn't the Elder Sign (which you might not do if the second token passes for you and you really just want to pass). If you do just want to pass, even Lucky 0 gives you better odds at no cost- It's not as favorable of odds as simply responding to and modifying the token itself. Doesn't mean it's not good or doesn't have a place in that kind of kit, but I think it has some major downsides that makes the XP cost a bit tricky to justify over some competitors. — StyxTBeuford · 12985 3/10/21

And as Susumu pointed out, I was referring to Lucky 3, not 2. I should have been more clear when I said for Survivors, I meant level 3 specifically which locks it into mostly just in class Survivors. — StyxTBeuford · 12985 3/10/21

The point being this card might have some interesting applications for off class Survivors since it's level 2. — StyxTBeuford · 12985 3/10/21

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