Beyond the Veil

Beyond the Veil

This seems to be a contentious card, but in my opinion the worst part about the card is that it simply isn't fun or interesting. Many of the card milling mechanics in Dunwich don't have significant counterplay and it's easy to draw this at 10 cards left in your deck and just eat shit. Every other strong encounter card has something you can do to mitigate its effects, like passing a skill check. This is just really boring and doesn't make me excited to play Arkham Horror.

the_mllkman · 8
There are a fair few ways to deal with it at this point tbf. Anything that targets revelation effects (ward of protection, test of will), anything that cancels damage (deny existence, devil's luck), anything that discards from play (Otherworld codex, alter fate) all just stop it cold. Stuff that manipulates the encounter deck (First Watch, Scroll of Secrets) can point it at a less vulnerable investigator or use the other milling effects to reset your deck. And in most of the scenarios where it appears there's room for at least one investigator to resign to dodge its trauma and you usually have enough warning to do that. You Handle This One will get rid of it if you have a friend who can deal with it/doesn't mind it/has a bigger deck. And all the other milling things are pretty irrelevant if you can stop Beyond the Veil itself. So while it's a big card, I don't think it's *that* hard to stop, almost any anti-encounter event will do the job, most encounter and most of the encounter decks that it appears in are built around it as the main threat. I don't think it's a wholly successful experiment, but it does give TDL a distinctive mechanical identity, and my experience is that dealing with it successfully does feel fun and satisfying. — bee123 · 31
One more satisfying way to deal with it mitigate it's badness — NarkasisBroon · 11
If you use first watch, you handle this one, etc. You can put it on a player who already has a copy in their threat area. In which case it just surges — NarkasisBroon · 11
Of course you can do something to mitigate the effect, especially now years after the Dunwich Legacy came out: You can cancel the damage, counter the encounter card, soak the damage, avoid drawing the encounter card, remove the card with Alter Fate, reshuffle your discard pile into the deck with Quantum Flux, increase your deck size with Versatile, draw fewer cards (or draw enough cards to reshuffle your deck before you draw Beyond the Veil). I just played the Dunwich Legacy with Marie and Joe. Marie had Deny Existence and Joe was running enough soak and Delay the inevitable to mitigate the high amount of damage this card deals. There are so many ways to deal with this card. Actually this makes me excited to play Arkham, because I would be very bored if the game was only about passing skill checks and did not include curveballs like this. However, I have to admit though that I did not understand the flavor of this card at first. But now I think it relates to the story: "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" where Randolph Carter loses his body after transcending time and space. The entity who grants this ability and curse to him is strongly implied to be Yog Sothoth so it makes sense in context of the campaign. — PowLee · 15
You can also run ‘I‘ll see you in hell‘ or ‘ghastly revelation‘ to lean into it killing you. Just use those on your own terms before the veil kills you. As a seeker, the ghastly revelation will just give you a mental trauma which (usually) isn’t a big deal. And you can use them to set your team up for the win — Pixcalcis · 1
There is almost no recourse in the core set or dunwich set, which were the cards available at the time, and are still the only cards available for those just getting into the game, playing in order. — eskimoform · 108
But there was also hardly enough card draw available in that old card pool to churn through your deck enough to be a playstyle. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
I have a question about this card. if at some point I have to draw more cards than I have left in the deck, is the deck considered to have been empty at some point and the effect is applied or do I draw what is left as cards, take an horror and reshuffle the deck, re-draw the missing cards from my new reshuffled deck and then the deck is not considered empty so the effect of beyond the veil is ignored? — TinchO · 1
@TinchO You reshuffle your deck because you are trying to draw from an empty deck. BtV triggers when your deck is empty. Nice try though. :-) — Time4Tiddy · 249

Momentum

Momentum

Momentum is a pretty generically good card for Rogue decks that are planning on overachieving, but I think it bares particular consideration for Parallel "Skids" O'Toole. There are basically 2 reasons for this.

  • As a Practiced skill, it can be found by Practice Makes Perfect, which is gambit traited, so Parallel Skids can take it. In general, you're probably trying to dig out Three Aces, but it doesn't hurt to have an alternative choice if there isn't one in the top 9.

  • If you commit this to a test that you're way over the difficulty for (a Lockpicks test, for instance) you could reduce the difficulty of your ability by up to 3. This means that you can bet all 3 resources and be nearly guaranteed to double that. Add in Double or Nothing to go from 3 to 12 resources at no action cost.

Zinjanthropus · 230
What's the order of operations? If you use momentum to reduce parallel Skid's generator by three, does double or nothing double the 0 (zero), or does it double the 3 to 6, then reduce it by 3? Relevant to drawing thin as well. — jdk5143 · 98
I actually don't know. I was assuming that the momentum would come first, because it is the result of an earlier skill test, but perhaps I'm wrong — Zinjanthropus · 230
Looking at the RR (skill test timing), it doesn't seem as if there's a point specified when you determine the difficulty of the test. I'm guessing that it would be before committing cards to the test, which is when — Zinjanthropus · 230
...which is when Double or Nothing would start affecting the test? Then again, DoN modifies the difficulty of the test, so who knows. In any case, it should still work without Double or Nothing. I hope there is a FAQ entry for this at some point. — Zinjanthropus · 230
Looks like there is a FAQ on Rise to the Occasion + DoN, which is that it is a nonbo, because they are committed simultaneously, so you can't use the increased difficulty from DoN to allow you to commit Rise. I'm not sure what implications that has for Momentum because Momentum is the result of a previous skill test. — Zinjanthropus · 230
You commit Momentum to an investigation with lockpicks and succeed by three, reducing the difficulty of the next skill test by three. You activate your free ability; normally it's difficulty 3, but the effect from Momentum reduces this to 0. That is the difficulty of the test before you begin committing cards to it; therefore DoN would double 0 to 0. You spent 3 resources, so you'll get 12 back on anything but the auto-fail. — SGPrometheus · 847
From "Modifiers", in the Rules Reference: "Any time a new modifier is applied (or removed), the entire quantity is recalculated from the start, considering the unmodified base value and all active modifiers. When calculating a value, treat all modifiers as being applied simultaneously. However, while performing the calculation, all additive and subtractive modifiers are calculated before doubling and/or halving modifiers." Since nothing is preventing both modifiers from applying, it isn't really a timing question in the way previous commentators have been trying to address it. — Thatwasademo · 58
(tl;dr: if both DoN and Momentum try to modify the same skill test, Momentum always applies first -- the example skill test's difficulty becomes 0) — Thatwasademo · 58
So it sounds like the easy way to think about it is that the mathematical order of operations is reversed. — jdk5143 · 98
That's really useful information! Thanks for finding and posting that! — Zinjanthropus · 230

Miskatonic Archaeology Funding

Miskatonic Archaeology Funding

As of the release of the investigator decks, Seekers have access to 12 allies, 9 of which are Miskatonic traited:

The three allies that do not posses this trait are:

It's hard not to see this card as 2xCharisma with a 2xp discount that still lets you get 2 copies of Charisma for a huge suite of allies in your favorite seeker. Notably, your Rook or Dr. Horowitz (or any off-color allies you have) can go in your original or Charisma slots, so you're definitely not limited to 1 of those allies. The last line of text in this card might affect you a little, but probably not too much. Maybe that research librarian only takes 1 point for you or your art student/Maleson can't soak all the damage from 1 hit. But for the most part, you'll probably want to keep your key allies with only 1 horror on them to keep them around. In most cases you might be better off just telling that ally to call in a favor than letting them die from one hit. Or just let Rook get eaten by snakes :)

The biggest drawback to this card is the deck building cost of putting 6+ allies in your deck and potentially not having 4xp to buy this card after the first scenario. But hopefully as the seeker you can attempt to fix this problem by sweeping up all those VP locations!

This seems like a good card for any seeker, but who do I think benefits most from this? The Librarian herself, Daisy Walker will love all her fellow bibliophiles, especially Library Docent with Old Book of Lore (3) and The Necronomicon (5). Note that the Daisy Walker back cannot take this, along with all the other secondary seekers. Honorable mention for Joe Diamond who can now fit Alice, Milan and additional utility allies if he so desires.

Last but not least, I just want to mention that this card is wonderful in The Dunwich Legacy, for [SPOILER REDACTED] reasons, especially in true solo.

davilimap · 283
Handily, it turns out that the Campus upon which Pete Sylvester is the Big Man is, in fact, Miskatonic's. Which could be of interest to certain Minh builds, and is just a "... Huh." type footnote for Rex who has far better things to do with his 5 off-color cards. — HanoverFist · 747
Rex could turn into a group psychiatrist with 2x Peter and 3x Solemn vow. — Django · 5155
Clarification question: Is the text saying that you cannot assign more than 1 damage/horror to a SINGLE Miskatonic asset or just overall? Because if the former is true, spreading damage/horror to your two Miskatonic allies, and then potentially sending the rest to your primary ally, really isn't that much of a handicap. — TheDoc37 · 468
It must be one in total. Otherwise it would be worded "No more than 1 of that damage/horror can be assigned to EACH Miskatonic asset", and it would be frankly too good for 4 XP. Not so sure about the last sentence of the review. The man from "The House Always Wins" is not so great for his ability for a seeker (except maybe Joe Diamond), but he is unmatched soak for looking behind the veil and be able to talk about it. Not so with this card. Fun fact: it will also care for the janitor. — Susumu · 381
Yeah, it's 1 in total from the amount of damage/horror you just took. Can't apply it to each Miskatonic ally. SPOILERS: Also, to clarify, The Dunwich Legacy can give you a total of 5 allies, 3 of which are Miskatonic traited, so even if one or two of those don't interest you, the extra space for allies seems really good. — davilimap · 283
Not a fan of the Forced ability. They signed the waiver, they knew what they were getting into! — MiskatonicFrosh · 344
I feel like Versatile would be a fantastic way to fill your deck up with allies after you've grabbed this. Possibly even worth getting 2 copies of versatile if you're also going heavy card draw with your deck. — Tacomental · 21
side note: Dr. Eli Horowitz should really be Miskatonic. Maybe she's from the Community College nearby since she's stealing all the Relics from investigators' hands. — Krysmopompas · 366

Nimble

Nimble

Parallel "Skids" O'Toole might be able to make this pretty effective because he can trigger a 0-difficulty test (during any window) that can have agility icons committed to it. If you really need to move across the map, you could even Double it. It's almost like a mini-Elusive when used this way. or like a super Track Shoes. Could be used with On the Lam (particularly the advanced version) to engage a bunch of enemies and move them somewhere conveniently out of the way. Or to reveal a bunch of locations at once. If a team-mate has Safeguard, you could even bring them along for the ride.

EDIT: Note, also, that Skids can recur this with his , or in some cases tutor it with one of 4 Daredevils. Never take move actions again!

Zinjanthropus · 230
Or YOU take Safeguard with original back and your team-mate commits Nimble to your special ability to drag you around! :) — Death by Chocolate · 1489

Déjà Vu

Déjà Vu

We need to talk about your Flare.

Well, okay, 2 Flares is the minimum, okay?

Now, you know it's up to you whether or not you want to just do the bare minimum. Or... well, like Billy, for example, uses 14 Flares over a campaign, okay. And a terrific smile.

People can get an ally anywhere, okay? They come to Survivor decks for the atmosphere and the risk mitigation. Okay? That's what the Flare's about. It's about fun.

Look, we want you to express yourself, okay? Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to Flare more, and Deja Vu encourages that, okay? You do want to express yourself, don't you?

Okay, great, great. That's all I ask.

HanoverFist · 747
I’ve got your #Flare right here, buddy. — Hijinx047 · 9