Who’s Foolish Now?

INTRO:

There aren't many solo Carolyn Fern decks out there, but I've found that if you can manage to build up her stats, she can breeze through a multitude of situations better than many other investigators. We all know her stats are poor, her ability seemingly negligible, and her deckbuilding weirdly specific ( lvl 0-3, really? And no healing sword, are you serious?), but she has above average and some of the largest deck building options in the game with access to 15 and/or cards, which is noteworthy.

After a strong performance in playtesting (and, mind you, horrible results officially - never take her through Dream Quest of Kadath) in the league of extraordinary investigator's season 6, I finally managed to settle on a deck that I think has reasonable consistency. This is a slightly modified version of that deck. Now I say reasonable because she can falter in scenarios with swarms of enemies at the onset, but honestly, most investigators struggle in that area. What Carolyn needs is a decent opening hand, and a turn or two of breathing room from the mythos. If you don't get that, recovery is possible if difficult. But if you do manage to pull it off, she can do most anything.

For those wondering, I can't recommend including her official signatures since they are a bit more multiplayer specific. Both Hypnotic Therapy and Rational Thought are action intensive as well and that's the last thing you need in solo, so we'll be using her alternates, Foolishness and To Fight the Black Wind.

I'll break down the style of piloting, the cards used, and end with some upgrade paths to consider.

PLAYSTYLE:

What you're going to want to do is build up her stat-line as quickly and efficiently as possible. For that, we need Foolishness. You might not think he's worth the trouble, but remember that healing the 3 horror off of him will refund you some of the resources it took to pay for him (it's usually half). This makes him a more expensive up front cost, but an ultimately cheaper and more dependable Dark Horse. Combined with a Hawk-Eye Folding Camera which shouldn't need much support due to our decent , and you can acquire a stat-line of 5/6/3/3, which I think most will agree is very respectable.

IDEAL OPENING HAND:

1. Hawk-Eye Folding Camera
2. Deny Existence
3. Foolishness (can substitute a dog since cats are fickle)
4. Hallowed Mirror (or some equivalent horror healing) - Note: More relevant if you have your cat in hand.
5. At least one of our defensive options

IDEAL OPENING TURN:

Play Hawk-Eye. Investigate a single clue location and get an evidence for +1 . Shroud values are low, are passive, you shouldn't run into too much trouble. Then play Guard Dog or Enchanted Blade. If you have Foolishness in your opening hand, then you can wait to play him, but then you should probably draw a card instead because you're going to want as many options as you can get in case an early enemy drops.

From here you're just going to hunt down another low shroud location for +1 and gradually build up your hand and prepare for Foolishness, Enchanted Blade or whatever else you may need.

PILOTING - STAT BUFFS:

Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and Foolishness are the stars of the deck. Find them, get them into play, do what they ask of you and they will reward you in kind.

To accomplish this, we need horror healing, but we also want to be gaining resources and the best way to do that is through Carolyn's .

PILOTING - HORROR HEALING:

Hallowed Mirror is good if you can draw it. Just make sure you always heal at least 1 horror with Soothing Melody because then you'll also gain a resource. If that heal is on Foolishness, even better. Logical Reasoning serves as backup copies, but they also work as a weaker Guts so they're never useless.

We also have two copies of Fearless which can be difficult to use, but you can combine it with a Logical Reasoning or Take the Initiative if you really want the horror heal. I just couldn't justify all the s from First Aid or Clarity of Mind.

PILOTING - DEFENSE:

Fine Clothes not an essential part of the deck but it helps with early parley tests, good as a backup if you're having trouble getting your stats and protection up.

Guard Dog is a great way to handle enemies because he doesn't exhaust and Carolyn has sanity in spades so you can comfortably absorb horror from enemies yourself and let the dog fend them off while you go about your business taking photos and staying mobile.

While not really defensive, I like at least 1 copy of Arcane Research. Starting with a horror is handy because you just might draw your which will allow you to trigger Carolyn's . It is ideal, again, if our cat is in play but a free resource is nothing to balk at.

Speaking of Arcane Research, it'll give you a discount when upgrading Deny Existence. Deny is primarily here to help deal with To Fight the Black Wind. You can ignore the direct horror in a similar manner that Diana and Mary can bypass their weaknesses with it. It will be a one time effect though so you'll need to be careful about taking horror as the scenario progresses. If I see Deny in my opening hand, I almost never mulligan it simply because it's helpful knowing you have a way to block that doom when it pops.

Ethereal Form is a card I don't like making room for, but when you have only 2 in both and , you really do need all the enemy management you can get. By now, we should've seen some terrifying things so this will be a base of 6 to evade, putting some distance from anyone who is problematic. It fills the same role as Mind over Matter and Daring, the former of which also benefits from the camera, and the latter gets us a card and is usually enough in a pinch as evade values tend to run lower than fight.

PILOTING - OFEENSE:

Enchanted Blade will give you +2 if you spend a charge, putting you at 4. If you throw in a Daring or a Take the Initiative, that should make you a 7. If Foolishness is running, you'll be an 8, ensuring all tokens except the (and people say psychologists don't know how to fight).

Spectral Razor needs no introduction. It is worth it to use your Daring for the spell events if it will address the problem with some measure of permanency. You can get a card, get away, get a kill, and buy yourself some time. Take the Initiative also works and is a good all purpose card.

We also have the Guard Dog as I mentioned who generally takes the front line for a while.

PILOTING - CLUES:

You're on your own for clues at the start but that's okay because you have 4, soon to be 5 (right?... RIGHT?). Working a Hunch is probably my favorite card in the game. It's fast, it gets you a clue, oftentimes a Victory point, just a great card to keep you moving quickly.

Scene of the Crime is also very nice. You can generally wait at a double clue location and find things to do to occupy yourself until an enemy shows up (hint: now's the time to heal Foolishness). You can swap it for Evidence! instead but I find Carolyn generates a healthy amount of resources such that I don't mind the higher cost and would definitely prefer two clues because I may not always have the option to kill something.

And while it's not exactly clue related, Shortcut is a great way to not only maintain some tempo but it's a fantastic combo with Scene of the Crime because you can pull an enemy into the location from which you want to pick up clues from.

OTHER OPTIONS:

So we've gone through the deck, but I thought I'd mention some cards that you'd think would be here but aren't. You can swap them back in but I think my reasoning will make sense why they were cut.

Ward of Protection. Another auto include on par with Working a Hunch. While I don't mind taking the horror from this card and it surprisingly isn't usually problematic with Fight the Black Wind, the main reason I cut it is I simply don't need the treachery cancelation. Treacheries are not the problem, enemies are the problem.

Inquiring Mind is another auto include for my decks, but for some reason, I found myself constantly in locations that were empty of clues. It must be the pacing for which you collect evidence for the camera. If you think you can manage it better than I did, then by all means swap out Ethereal Form for it as it's cheaper, with better options, and will give you a comparable stat boost.

Calling in Favors to help with Foolishness seems like a no brainer, but the problem is you need to have a handful of allies in your deck to make it a valuable effect. You could take Art Students and Laboratory Assistants instead, and maybe there's something to that, but I've found it taxing on my actions which are already spread thin because of all the healing you need to do. You also have to think about how expensive that is. Play Art Student, play Calling in Favors, Play Foolishness, and now play Hallowed Mirror or Logical reasoning and that's 7 resources. Carolyn is not rich, she's frugal.

The way I see it, outside of your typical Fight and Clue tech, a solo investigator can afford to take on one luxury. Healing horror is okay, but to add ally bouncing is going to slow you down and ask for far too many resources than it is likely worth. You need to be ready to defend yourself at a moment's notice in solo. I'd rather spend the actions drawing the occasional card to build up my hand. You can afford to wait a few rounds for Foolishness to turn up since he's difficult to get on the table and healed fully from the get-go. And if he never shows up, you'll be okay (not great, but okay all the same).

UPGRADES:

There are 2 routes I might recommend going from here. But first and foremost some things that apply to both.

Upgrade to Deny Existence lvl 5. You can do this early or stave it off depending on your needs. There isn't any other use for Arcane Research.

Fearless lvl 2 is one of those cards I don't think to upgrade, but it would make the card much more valuable. In the early game, Fearless lvl 0 is not great, if not outright difficult to trigger. The level 2 version will be more reliable, and justify the removal of Logical Reasoning (spoilers!) a little more.

For things to replace, probably you'll be taking out Fine Clothes, Logical Reasoning and Ethereal Form, possibly Guard Dog but I would make the dogs the last thing you remove.

I did want to mention Enchant Weapon as it is very potent with Carolyn since she can't upgrade into stronger offensive tools, but it is a somewhat expensive luxury item that you likely won't need until you reach a point when you have extra XP gathering dust.

Finally, while it has yet to be fully tested and released, we know there is an upgrade for Guard Dog that would make for a good fit simply by being already in sync with what the deck is doing.

OPTION A - STRAIGHTFORWARD:

The simplest is to take Charisma and Peter Sylvestre. While Peter can't heal Foolishness for you, he can give you +1 and +1 (his card has it backwards but what can you do). You could go for Grete Wagner instead as she also gives you two stats, but the thing with Grete is, she will give you a 3/5/3/2 while Peter will give you 4/4/2/3 which I think is more valuable. With the camera and the cat, you'll have 5-6 and 2-3 . For , you're either adding to the test or pitching a skill to get up to 7 or 8 without Grete, so the threshold she gives you is kind of slim. The would be nice, but you have other priorities and 6 is usually enough.

While maybe not the most exciting, it is the cheapest upgrade path, and allows you to more easily afford Deny Existence lvl 5 and Fearless lvl 2.

OPTION B - STAT BALLING:

• Anna Kaslow
• Four of Cups
• Death • XIII
• Ace of Swords or Ace of Rods (but only if you really want them)

Since Carolyn has access to three different tarot cards, she's a good choice for Anna Kaslow. The trouble with Anna isn't in paying for all the tarot cards, it really comes down to the XP cost. It'll run you 10XP just to get 1 copy of each of these and Charisma, whereas it'll cost only 7XP for Charisma and two copies of Peter Sylvestre who will give you 2 stats without having to hope for the best in your opening hand.

However I do want to mention that stat balling with Carolyn is a real thing and you WILL absolutely feel the impact of every +1 you can get. And let me further emphasize that you are already hoping to see very specific cards in the early rounds of the game, so having more cards of your deck that can fill those roles is a very powerful combination. You could, in theory, get a stat-line of 6/7/4/3 within a few rounds of doing your usual routine set up. The tarot style is modular to pretty much any stat you might like, and can boost yourself enough such that you really don't need anything else. Remember that tarot is non-unique so you could aim for a 6/8/3/3 or 7/7/3/3 instead.

WRAP UP:

Despite the steep XP cost, I suggest Option B. Gradually work your way in that direction by first buying Charisma (it will always have value because you have cats and dogs already), then purchase a tarot here and there, maybe upgrade Deny Existence or Fearless, and just put a few XP away in savings until you have enough for Anna Kaslow and, ideally, a second Charisma. Some campaigns are more generous with XP than others so it's something to consider. And I would go with two Four of Cups and one Death • XIII personally but to each their own.

Despite the only average performance in the league, Carolyn Fern is a fairly competent investigator for solo that's worth giving a shot. Her wide range of class access and high make for an interesting puzzle that performs well with a bit of luck and some careful early game execution.