That is, what Sign Magick is made for. You may have only one charge for charge spells (which can be refilled with Twila Katherine Price) but you can activate Wither / Wither or Sixth Sense / Sixth Sense without the need of charges.

True Magick is all your spell assets in your hand at the same time for the purpose of activating them. And True Magick is "under your control" for the purpose of Sign Magick.

So keep spells in your hand. You cast from your book. Quite cheap and effective.

A couple useful tricks:

--With Luke Robinson as lead investigator, he can use a Gate Box charge (in the enemy phase, after Dream-Gate's end-of-investigation effect would've passed) to discard a nasty enemy seen with Alyssa

--Peril only applies while resolving an encounter card, so when you see a peril you can confer openly to pre-decide on peril choices without detracting from gameflow the way that trying to pre-decide normally does

This is going to draw a lot of comparisons to the Ornate Bow for obvious reasons. They're two-handed weapons that use alternate stats to attack and have functionally unlimited ammo. The Ornate version is a very specific tool for a very specific style of play; you're spending a serious investment in cash and XP on a weapon that uses two actions to deal heavy damage with one accurate attack.

The Enchanted version is... not that. It's cheaper both in cash and XP, but also all around less useful. You get less bonus to hit, it deals less damage, it takes up more slots, and while you don't have to reload it, it exhausts to attack. And that last part is the real killer.

3 damage is the magic number. Many, many enemies have 3hp or less; 87 enemies have 3hp, compared to only 62 with 2hp. That means for the extra 30% enemies that you'll encounter, one shot will not kill it. And if you're packing a weapon that focuses on or , you almost certainly don't have the to just punch it for that last point of damage. You'll then be relying on a spell to actually kill it (as a mystic), or evading it (as a survivor). And you're filling up 3(!) valuable slots for a weapon that can't seal the deal, leaving survivors with no hands for any other weapons and requiring mystics to dedicate both of their arcane slots to combat spells.

Not only that, it loses out to the Ornate bow on DPS too. If you're fighting a boss and not engaged with it, the Ornate bow can fire, reload, and fire again, for 6 damage in a round; the same as any standard 2 damage weapon. It's awkward, but it works in a pinch. The Enchanted bow does 2 damage per round, full stop. The Ornate bow can benefit from Venturer and other reload abilities, the Enchanted cannot. Multiclass Guardians can't even use Vicious Blow to push it over the 3 damage sweet spot, because you cannot commit skill cards to tests without matching icons.

Okay, so you want to use it anyway, because it's cool. Who can make use of it?

Candidate #1, "Ashcan" Pete. Pete can discard cards to ready other cards, meaning he's the only character that can actually fire the bow twice in a round. 4 damage is sufficient to kill most things, and It also leaves Duke available to investigate, or squeeze in another 2 damage at a slightly lower bonus. A solid option.

Candidate #2, Rita Young. She's a very strong user for the Ornate bow, but if you aren't filling the primary monster hunter role, you might find $4 and 3xp too pricy for a weapon you won't use all that often. Her ability lets you use to squeak in that final point of damage, so you aren't up a creek against 3hp enemies. She can also evade first, use her free move to move to a connecting location, and spend a charge to fire backwards, ignoring Retaliate. Theoretically useful.

Candidate #3, any dedicated monster-hunting mystic that normally runs with Wither. Wither already requires you to double-fist combat spells by virtue of only doing one damage, and the bow slots in nicely at the 2xp median if you don't want to drop 4xp on the upgraded version. It can do an admirable job at stretching Shrivelling charges and is cost-comparable to other options, if you don't care about your hand slots.

Candidate #4, anyone crazy enough to build a character around hunting Aloof enemies. 3 uses of Marksmanship in a single asset that doubles as a weapon is actually pretty economical. Dunwich, Circle Undone and Innsmouth all benefit from being able to snipe aloof enemies, if you don't mind handicapping yourself for the remaining 80% of the campaign.

This card is amazing for (most) Guardians, whose two primary concerns are 1. paying for their extremely expensive assets, and 2. making sure those assets actually hit when you need them.

It's useful when you have things to kill, because you can spend those dollars to boost your attacks. It's useful when you're waiting around for things to kill because it pays for fresh equipment. It's even useful when you draw two at once, because is always helpful. It's a very rare scenario where you won't get your money's worth.

The only Guardians that get nothing from it are Nate, because it doesn't work with events and doesn't really benefit Boxing Gloves for lack of a Fight action, and of course Carolyn the pacifist... with one exception.

Bruiser synergizes with Enchanted Armor. The test is a test on an Armor card, so those recurring resources can give you a +2 boost to soaking that damage. I doubt it's worthwhile for that alone, but it's a nice boost for an otherwise underwhelming card. Potentially useful for Sister Mary and Zoey Samaras if you want a more convoluted alternative to Spiritual Resolve.

[Edit:] I should probably also talk about the other classes that can take it.

Survivors tend to run a lot cheaper, so the resources aren't as much of a lifesaver. They also generally depend more on events than weapons, which it doesn't benefit. A big standout is half-Guardian William Yorick, who carries more weapons than your average survivor and tends to recur them fairly often. Those assets are cheap, but he has to pay for them each time, so it adds up.

On the Rogue front, there's of course Tony Morgan who tends to play more like a Guardian and focus less on economy than your average rogue, so a combat-boosting card that also provides econ is very welcome. Jenny Barnes is already rich, but needs a little help on the combat front due to a measley 3 , which Bruiser can provide. It helps her get out a .45 Thompson and actually hit with it, and synergizes with Mauser C96 to turn the free weapon-only dollars into actual cash to fuel the rest of her kit.

The hammer contends with the Flamethrower as king of all weapons and firmly relegates the Lightning Gun to obsolescence .

Enchanted*, the hammer is a match for the Flamethrower in raw damage. In addition, it:

• doesn't need to engage, making it easier to beat enemies off allies
• can shove enemies away into irrelevance or as a pseudo evade
• is a Relic which helps with with things like Poltergeist
• benefits massively from Reliable and Enchant Weapon for reaching huge skill values for boss killing
• doesn't need to be reloaded, saving many actions and resources playing Extra Ammunition and the second copy of Flamethrower

The downside is that you do need to oversucceed to do 3 damage per hit, but skills like Daring and Overpower makes oversucceeding very reliable even before you start attaching Reliables and Enchanting it.

I've also found that the actions and resources saved from not needing to reload or replay weapons means that Guardians become more capable in other capacities, be it from healing or becoming able to pick up the odd clue with the excess resources. At higher difficulties the testless damage and +1 from a Beat Cop (2) was usually too much for me to give up, but the incredible reliability and relatively lower cost of the hammer means that it's easy to forgo the cop for other allies.

This is a particularly huge buff for Sister Mary, who struggled to compensate for her 3 in a class that revolves around monster slaying. Now she can swing a hammer along with the best of them.

I'm more lukewarm on this weapon for Mystics. Mystics have so many good hand slot choices and just gained a few more. More importantly, Mystics also lack commits for the hammer to oversucceed at higher difficulties — you can't commit Guts to it — and don't have access to Enchant Weapon or Reliable. Therefore, there's less of an advantage over Shrivelling (5) (especially if you're only occassionally fighting), though it's nice to not have to worry about backlash and spell charges.

Still, there's probably an interesting build with Mind's Eye, allowing mystics to attack at double their , or to otherwise use the newly freed arcane slot for Seal of the Seventh Sign or Close the Circle.

* You could also enchant the Flamethrower, but the enchantment will be discarded if you need to play a new copy to reload it, and it's so overkill that it's impractical