Rex the Rogue, a Value Oriented Clue Finder

Introduction

Rex has strong action compression as long as he has a large enough bonus to his Intellect . We can ensure that via a few assets and skill cards. Add in good card draw and resource generation via Rogue cards, and the result is a very efficient and consistent clue finder.

While Rex lacks traditional enemy handling due to his relatively low Agility and Combat , he does have access to higher level Seeker cards (Strange Solution and Prophesiae Profana) that allow him to circumvent that when needed.

This build would start a little slow in campaigns, but the strength of Lucky Cigarette Case, Lone Wolf, and Rex's passive allows you to make up for the research actions you'll need to do in the early scenarios.

There are multiple upgrade paths after the primary one to fit the needs of your group, playstyle, and campaign.

Note: This guide was written from the perspective of a 2 investigator campaign. If you have more, I would consider replacing Lone Wolf with other Rogue resource generation (such as Faustian Bargain or Burglary), and placing a higher value on upgrading Deduction (since there will be more than 2 clues at a location more frequently).

Primary Upgrades

• Dream Diary → Dream Diary (3)
• Fingerprint Kit → Prophesiae Profana (5)
• Strange Solution → Strange Solution (4)
• Laboratory Assistant → Whitton Greene (2)
• Higher Education (3/6)

Once Dream Diary is upgraded, it's a free skill commit every round, useful for triggering your investigator passive as well as helping survive nasty Treachery cards (assuming you saved it from the round prior). Getting to 8 or more cards isn't unheard once you get your card draw engine going, but is mostly a nice bonus and shouldn't be your focus.

Prophesiae Profana is amazing once acquired. The passive Intellect and Agility are great, but the real stars of the show are the abilities to avoid attacks of opportunity and teleporting to your focus. Keep finding clues and moving to your Guardian without action disruption. Allow the group to split up to explore, knowing that they're always an action or two from rejoining.

Strange Solution is a highly efficient card for little investment (other than the research). It allows you to contribute to combat but only needs a single action and 1 resource to set up. 6 Combat and 3 damage is enough to take care of almost any enemy drawn from the Encounter deck. Against bosses, dishing out 3 damage from an unexpected source by committing Essence of the Dream is a huge bonus for your group too.

Whitton Greene is fantastic once Dream Diary and/or Prophesiae Profana is added to your deck. Another source of Intellect and the ability to bump your Willpower to 4 is also huge for most tests, and puts you 1 commit away from passing most reliably.

Higher Education is amazing if you reliably keep your card pool high, which you often do once the card engine is running. It makes most treachery checks a breeze, and it'll also let you get +2 to most investigation checks early on before you've found your bonus Intellect assets. It's a no brainer if you aren't playing the taboo version, and still strong at the 6 experience after taboo.

Efficiency Upgrades

• Preposterous Sketches → Preposterous Sketches (2)
• Magnifying Glass → Magnifying Glass (1)

I find Preposterous Sketches gets a whole lot easier to commit with the reduced resource cost. The best uses cases when I play it are either a) I just spent a lot of resource to empty my hand or b) I desperately need to play the cards I drew to get my engine going. Reducing the cost from 2 to 0 is very impactful in these situations.

Magnifying Glass is a less important upgrade, and mostly designed to offer flexibility and smooth out the early/mid game. Once you've gotten a bit of experience, your hand slots are at a premium, and Magnifying Glass won't be in your optimal assets (that's reserved for Dream Diary and Prophesiae Profana). This lets you set it up early for free, then bounce it back to your hand to either commit or hold onto to trigger Higher Education or Dream Diary (3). Since it's free and fast, you can also technically do that even without a replacement ready, then plop it back down.

Charisma Package

• Charisma (3)
• Fire Axe → Leo De Luca

Charisma is probably the better choice over Miskatonic Archaeology Funding most of the time. You could run more Miskatonic allies, but I find that the downside of worse soaking, increasing experience cost, and incapability of running Leo De Luca (or the occasional campaign allies) to be worse. But your mileage may vary.

Leo De Luca is expensive, but extremely powerful in the late game. Not only that, but if you draw him early, he'll allow you to accelerate into the late game with the extra actions. Honestly, this could be any 0 cost experience ally from any class, including Peter Sylvestre (Miskatonic), Alice Luxley (damage), Gregory Gry (resources), Olive McBride (chaos token manipulation), or Tetsuo Mori (card draw/discard protection). I just find the additional actions to be the biggest premium. I recommend replacing Fire Axe, since you should have Strange Solution (4) upgraded by now.

Utility Upgrades

• Shortcut → Shortcut (2)
• Inquiring Mind → The Eye of Truth (5)

Shortcut is always amazing when it works, which is somewhat dependent on location layouts. But in the right scenario, it can save 3-4 actions for your group. For extra fun, attach it to your locus from Prophesiae Profana. Now it's 1 action to move them to a larger variety of locations, especially great for scenarios with central hubs.

The Eye of Truth is awesome when it works. It's great if you just don't want to see a certain treachery again since it goes to the victory pool (mostly useful in scenarios with lots of encounter deck shuffling or 4 players). It's also great if there's 1 treachery that shows up multiple times in the deck, getting repeated benefit out of the skill commits (potentially saving people cards or allowing them to pass a test they aren't prepared to deal with). Worst case, it's a +4 to a single skill test, and can be hit by Practice Makes Perfect. If you succeed on a treachery test via Practice Makes Perfect it won't be returned to your hand, so you might want to use it on other tests then play it from hand after to get double value. A great "nice to have" upgrade, since it's so expensive, but if treacheries are what your group is struggling with, this is a powerful answer.

Card Draw Upgrades

• Perception → Perception (2)
• Inquiring Mind → No Stone Unturned (5)
• Working a Hunch → No Stone Unturned (5)

Perception is great. Not a lot of to say here, other than boosting your card draw and the yield of your Practice Makes Perfect plays even more. Netting +3 cards and 3 clues from Practice Makes Perfect investigation into a second Perception investigation feels really good.

No Stone Unturned is the guarantee of finding the missing asset you need to get your engine going. It's especially good if you have fellow investigators that have particularly powerful combo pieces too. Very expensive experience cost, but if your deck is already working this helps consistency.