Carolyn Hybrid (Support/Cluever/Fighter)

Card draw simulator

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Inceid · 22

This deck is currently being used in my first runthrough of The Circle Undone. The other Investigators are Gloria Goldberg (cluever), Silas Marsh (fighter), and Jacqueline Fine (support/fighter).

The purpose of this deck is to accommodate three different roles in the following order: (1) healer, (2) backup cluever, and (3) backup fighter. We reasoned that while Silas and Jacqueline will tend to either stick together or go off on their own to hunt down threats, Carolyn Fern will stick to and protect Gloria Goldberg while she investigates. This means she needs to heal, help investigate, and defend against threats when needed.

Role 1: Healer. Direct damage healing is accounted for with Hallowed Mirror and First Aid. Horror healing is accounted for with Book of Psalms, Hypnotic Therapy, and Fearless. When these fail, Dodge, Guard Dog, and Steadfast provide more damage-soaking and stat support.

Role 2: Backup Cluever. Flashlight, Dr. Milan Christopher, and Magnifying Glass allow Carolyn to actively investigate to help Daisy gather clues. Drawn to the Flame, Deduction, and Working a Hunch allow for guaranteed/passive clue gathering.

Role 3: Backup Fighter. In order for the Carolyn/Daisy pair to be safe while alone, Carolyn needs some basic combat skills, hence the Machete, 2x Shrivelling, and 2x Spectral Razor. This satisfies the backup combat role. (Guard Dog also helps here)

Other synergies: in general, Carolyn would like to purposefully take and heal horror to take advantage of her passive resource gain. Peter Sylvestre, Forbidden Knowledge, Ward of Protection, Shrivelling, and other such cards exploit this synergy.

Roundedness: It's always important to have ways to round out one's weakest stats in case of treacheries or required Strength/Agility tests. Hyperawareness, Physical Training, Mind over Matter, Manual Dexterity, and other such cards help Carolyn account for her stat weaknesses.

Other Notes If a card is essential to Carolyn's ability to fulfill any of the three roles outlined above, I keep two copies of it in the deck.

Notes for Improvement:

One of the problems with this deck is that I am investing into combat spells that will fall off after a couple of scenarios. To account for this, I will either have to commit to a more combat-oriented role or let the spells fall off and switch to support.
Right now, there are many ways for me to gain several resources with this deck. But the point of gaining resources is to spend them on expensive, powerful cards. Unfortunately, other than my healing items and Shrivelling, I do not have any powerful expensive purchases. Many guides recommend adding Dynamite Blast to address this. It may be possible for me to pay xp to switch out my offensive spells for better (and more expensive) offensive options later on, but I'm not sure how else to address this weakness.

Edits: 7/21 - 12:53 AM I added Dynamite Blast and removed several 1x cards that seemed usless if I couldn't guarantee their draw at a particular point of the game (Steadfast, Manual Dexterity). Removed several cards that other teammates can use better.

7/25 - 4:51PM After some feedback from my group, I'm making the following changes:

Remove 2x First Aid
Remove 2x Ward of Protection
Remove 2x Dodge
Remove 1x Forbidden Knowledge
Add 2x Shortcut
Add 2x Guts
Add 1x Shrivelling
Add 1x Perception

Reasoning for Removals:

With the assumption that my team is also bringing some emergency healing, Hallowed Mirror and True Grit should provide more than enough damage soaking.
The other members of our team are adding several Ward of Protection, and Gloria Goldberg is planning to stack the Encounter Deck so that it won't be a problem for our group (ideally).
Dodge does not synergize with Carolyn's passive.
Two Forbidden Knowledge might be a bit overkill for resource generation, since I already have Peter Sylvestre and other horror healing cards.

Reasoning for Additions:

Shortcut synergizes with Dynamite Blast.
Guts will improve my spell attacks.
Shrivelling improves offense.
Perception improves my investigation checks.

2 comments
Jul 26, 2021 endoviking · 21 My criticism of this deck is that it's not very well thought out. You have 4 hand assets and 4 ally assets, and a scattershot of single copy cards that don't really lean into Caroline's natural role as cluever or her purported role here as the groups 'supporter'. When you don't focus on anything, plan to do everything poorly (unless you're playing on easy, in which case, you might be just fine) Her hand slots should be going to boost her intellect to 6. To reliably investigate, you need to have a modified skill of 6 before your skill cards. Not to mention, you do not need a book of psalms because you are not doing any bless tech. Replace them with Fingerprint Kits or take them out altogether. Take out Peter Sylvester. You need neither his agility nor his horror soak. Consider adding 2 St. Huberts Keys, which is another way to ensure her intellect gets to 6. Shriveling should be Clarity of Mind, for reasons that should be innately obvious while playing Caroline Fern. Spectral Razor? Mind Over Matter? Fearless? What? No. Deductions, Perceptions, Eureka, probably Steadfasts. 2 Working a Hunch's. Lastly, clean up those talents and make sure you get First Aid in there. With her signature, upgraded first aid will give you 4 heals for 1 damage, 2 horror, and a resource. That is the most feel-good moment of playing this under-rated investigator. Being able to undo the damage of the encounter deck is true support. In a group of 4, there is no reason to be relying on a 3 willpower, 2 Combat, 2 agility, level 0 weapon investigator to be helping take on any of the enemy management duties. I agree with the use of dynamite blast, but only as the icing on the cake. For a fighter role, you again need whatever your combat skill is to be at 6 when modified (along with reliably compressing extra damage into a single action), and Caroline doesn't even come close to that. You say that you want her to be 'rounded', to bolster her weaknesses and try to handle anything that the game throws at her. That is typically a mistake for newer players, because we learn before long that there aren't many investigators who can solo this game. So don't try to get Caroline to do everything well; she can't. But what she can do well, she is spectacular at!
Aug 09, 2021 Inceid · 22 Addressing your criticisms by point: I agree that a previous version of this deck had way too many single-copy cards for its own good. I removed several of these. I'm not sure if I agree that Book of Psalms should be removed simply because I have no other Bless synergy. It's a strong Horror healing card, and I figured the Bless would do enough good by itself once added to the bag. I do agree that it would have been great to synergize Book of Psalms with other cards that use Bless. Peter Sylvestre is a well-known choice in Carolyn decks, and I think for good reason. True, I don't need his Horror soak, but he offers great resource generation and allows me to focus on healing other Allies' horror when needed instead of my own. Shrivelling is indeed a bad choice, and I'll go for the Upgraded Clarity of Mind ASAP. But the Level 0 version doesn't seem as good as other Horror healing choices such as Book of Psalms and Hallowed Mirror, among others. I agree that Fearless should be removed, and Deduction should be doubled. I chose Spectral Razor as an emergency combat option, but it's true that the card will become obsolete pretty quickly. I'm not sure what the best replacement is, though. Without proper setup, Dynamite Blast could hurt my allies. Agree with Upgraded First Aid. I just added that to the updated deck. I'm not sure what you mean by "cleaning up" the talents. It's true that they don't do much to boost Intellect, but each of them has an important purpose. When I say I want this deck to be rounded, I'm not saying I want it to handle anything the game throws at it. I'm aware this is not realistic. But I think a deck should have some options to survive ability checks for weak stats and bolster other stats when convenient. This is why Mind over Matter, Physical Training, and Hyperawareness are here. Thanks for the feedback! This deck definitely still has a lot of rough edges, so I appreciate the advice.

2 comments

Jul 26, 2021 endoviking · 21

My criticism of this deck is that it's not very well thought out. You have 4 hand assets and 4 ally assets, and a scattershot of single copy cards that don't really lean into Caroline's natural role as cluever or her purported role here as the groups 'supporter'. When you don't focus on anything, plan to do everything poorly (unless you're playing on easy, in which case, you might be just fine)

Her hand slots should be going to boost her intellect to 6. To reliably investigate, you need to have a modified skill of 6 before your skill cards. Not to mention, you do not need a book of psalms because you are not doing any bless tech. Replace them with Fingerprint Kits or take them out altogether.

Take out Peter Sylvester. You need neither his agility nor his horror soak. Consider adding 2 St. Huberts Keys, which is another way to ensure her intellect gets to 6.

Shriveling should be Clarity of Mind, for reasons that should be innately obvious while playing Caroline Fern.

Spectral Razor? Mind Over Matter? Fearless? What? No. Deductions, Perceptions, Eureka, probably Steadfasts. 2 Working a Hunch's.

Lastly, clean up those talents and make sure you get First Aid in there. With her signature, upgraded first aid will give you 4 heals for 1 damage, 2 horror, and a resource. That is the most feel-good moment of playing this under-rated investigator. Being able to undo the damage of the encounter deck is true support.

In a group of 4, there is no reason to be relying on a 3 willpower, 2 Combat, 2 agility, level 0 weapon investigator to be helping take on any of the enemy management duties. I agree with the use of dynamite blast, but only as the icing on the cake. For a fighter role, you again need whatever your combat skill is to be at 6 when modified (along with reliably compressing extra damage into a single action), and Caroline doesn't even come close to that.

You say that you want her to be 'rounded', to bolster her weaknesses and try to handle anything that the game throws at her. That is typically a mistake for newer players, because we learn before long that there aren't many investigators who can solo this game. So don't try to get Caroline to do everything well; she can't. But what she can do well, she is spectacular at!

Aug 09, 2021 Inceid · 22

Addressing your criticisms by point:

I agree that a previous version of this deck had way too many single-copy cards for its own good. I removed several of these.
I'm not sure if I agree that Book of Psalms should be removed simply because I have no other Bless synergy. It's a strong Horror healing card, and I figured the Bless would do enough good by itself once added to the bag. I do agree that it would have been great to synergize Book of Psalms with other cards that use Bless.
Peter Sylvestre is a well-known choice in Carolyn decks, and I think for good reason. True, I don't need his Horror soak, but he offers great resource generation and allows me to focus on healing other Allies' horror when needed instead of my own.
Shrivelling is indeed a bad choice, and I'll go for the Upgraded Clarity of Mind ASAP. But the Level 0 version doesn't seem as good as other Horror healing choices such as Book of Psalms and Hallowed Mirror, among others.
I agree that Fearless should be removed, and Deduction should be doubled. I chose Spectral Razor as an emergency combat option, but it's true that the card will become obsolete pretty quickly. I'm not sure what the best replacement is, though. Without proper setup, Dynamite Blast could hurt my allies.
Agree with Upgraded First Aid. I just added that to the updated deck.
I'm not sure what you mean by "cleaning up" the talents. It's true that they don't do much to boost Intellect, but each of them has an important purpose.
When I say I want this deck to be rounded, I'm not saying I want it to handle anything the game throws at it. I'm aware this is not realistic. But I think a deck should have some options to survive ability checks for weak stats and bolster other stats when convenient. This is why Mind over Matter, Physical Training, and Hyperawareness are here.

Thanks for the feedback! This deck definitely still has a lot of rough edges, so I appreciate the advice.