"I've had worse…"

Superb card. Often enough you'dd play the 4-xp version to negate 2 horror and this version here does just that, for less XP! I wouldn't be hesitant to claim "I've had worse…" the better card of the two.

"I've had worse…" negates 2 points of pain and rewards you 2 resources for it, each of these effects is'nt by any means a powerful effect on its own, but the two combined effects are greater than the sum of their part. Cards are a precious resource and when cards arise that double dip roles those cards warrant special attention. Taking damage is a bit of an art-form, and characters gotta be good at it, this requires some soaks and weapons to mitigate and prevent incoming pain, "I've had worse…" does the former and helps you pay for the latter.

Most characters already give consideration to "I've had worse…", the 2xp variant is going to be hard not to justify.

Off class characters should also take note, Diana Stanley in particular loves the cancel trigger. "Skids" O'Toole has problems and "I've had worse…" can be a hugely helpful influx of cash and survivability for him. William Yorick does not care, at all. Joe Diamond likes it so/so, he has higher priorities but "I've had worse…" is not a terrible way for him to conserve deckspace.

"I've had worse…" is one of those rare cards that are near universally good, only niche characters who have overabundant survivability won't consider it.

Tsuruki23 · 2577
Wither

EDIT: I misunderstood the card negatively, which is funny because I was very much pleased with it to start with! This should reflect how good the card is better:

I'm a fan of Wither, a cheap asset that can be used infinitely kill off problems that aren't worth charges from other assets, it's a great backup weapon, 1-off, or to dual wield with Shrivelling or Enchanted Blade or Ornate Bow or Timeworn Brand (I.E, a fight heavy whose role is to kill things, like many forms of Agnes Baker, Diana Stanley and Jim Culver). "Super archmage" builds with Sign Magick will also be interested. The -1 fight and evade trigger is surprisingly useful in making hits land or getting out of trouble.

So, the upgrade is worth it's XP cost because:

  • The -1 health effect reduces the written HP total of the target by 1 and triggers whether or not you actually hit, this can create some funky circumstances such as:
    • You shoot a 2-hp foe a and get a token, killing it in one attack.
    • You miss a damaged enemy, but draw a special token, reducing their health total enough to make their existing damage kill them anyway!
  • The +2 and special trigger combine to make Wither very, accurate. The largest penalties are often keyed on tokens and Wither innately resists those.

Layer all of this with Wither's initial ability to infinitely channel into damage and you've got yourself a very good attack spell, whether it's for the 5- juggernaughts who do everything via or the 4- midrangers who like to use their other stats for things and miss the occational spell charge.

This card stands out as being FAR more impressive than it seems at first glance, especially in the latter half of a campaign where special tokens tend to be much more numerous. Wither a very impressive attack spell that manages to stand alongside without replacing Shrivelling.

Edit 2: After now playing in 3 campaigns with Wither, I'll stand by it except in 1 circumstance. In a skillful and informed playthrough of Dunwich you might manage to not actually add any special tokens to the bag, in this case Wither looses much of its luster.

Tsuruki23 · 2577
I want to like it, but at 4xp I think it's overpriced. I'm not too sure of the maths on this, but I'm guessing that most of the time you're only going to be at 40% or worse of pulling a token that would trigger the -1 damage. The +2 will is replicated by Shrivelling(3) anyway so the hit rate is not a big deal. Why exactly does this spell cost more xp ? It's overpriced for what it brings to the table. Not bad exactly, but it's never going to be a priority upgrade. — Sassenach · 180
I think it could be interesting in an Olive+Grotesque build (though so is Songs of the Dead), but otherwise in terms of doing damage I'd take Shrivelling 3 over this. Agnes in particular likes Shrivelling better since she gets to do extra damage anyway if she pulls a spooky token. I think if it gave the -1 health/fight/evade for the whole round it would be worthwhile, because then you could have anyone else come in and punch a now withered monster. Maybe some strategy with Swift Reflexes? — StyxTBeuford · 13049
It doesn’t actually matter whether the health reduction is before or after in your example. If it had been after then you would (1) deal one damage, (2) reduce its health from 2 to 1, and (3) then it would die because it has damage equal or greater than its health. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
#Death by Chocolate. You mean that the reduced health keys off total health rather then current health? — Tsuruki23 · 2577
Definitely. Health is the number printed on the card. It doesn't change with damage. — CSerpent · 126
Also note that the health reduction is only until the end of the investigator's turn. You're right that it defeats a 2 health enemy, but it is not the same as damage because it will go away if you don't defeat the enemy.. — CSerpent · 126
if you are with 1 HP left and you fail an attack with special token against a monster with 1HP left and retaliation keyword, are you both defeated? — chrome · 62
It should also be noted that the effect happens in step 3 of the skill test (https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Skill_Test_Timing), so you could you're sort of at a +3 vs special tokens. You can also end in a sitaution where the enemy dies, before the attack is finalized, which is a bit funny — dotPeddy · 1
I think it is worth combining with Shards of the Void. It takes the normal downside of Sealing 0s and turns it into a positive for Wither, which also lets you conserve Charges. — Radix · 1
@chrome, the special token effect happens at ST3, so I think you would defeat the enemy at ST3, before the enemy can retaliate. (The retaliation only happens AFTER the entire skill test has been resolved, as per the section on the "Retaliate" keyword in the Rules Reference.) The only exception would be if you're fighting an enemy that already only has 1 (max) Health, because Wither can't decrease the max health of the enemy down to 0. — iceysnowmansolo · 1
If several special tokens are revealed during a test (with grotesque statue, olive or dark prophecy, does the effect trigger several times ? — JemJaime · 8
@JemJaime No, for a couple of reasons. If the highest review in Shards of the Void is accurate, then effects which reveal and then ignore tokens do not consider ignored tokens to be 'revealed'. As such, Grotesque Statue or Dark Prophecy would only 'reveal' one token. Olive McBride also has an explicit ruling that if an effect triggers on a token type revelation, "Such an effect will not trigger twice if two of the designated tokens are resolved." — Ruduen · 1015
Totally understand why people don't like this card, but to me this is a way to kill an enemy without using a charge on Enchanted Blade for example. If you hit a 3 health enemy with Wither and a special token, the enemy now has 2 health and 1 damage, so you can just attack with Enchanted Blade, and it is important to note the card reads; you may spend a charge, which in this case you are going to kill an enemy in 2 actions with no charges spent which is huge in my opinion in a Mystic build. — TiguiDaisy · 19
Money Talks

Excellent for any character build that stacks resources.

Well Connected builds with several resource cards to support it, based on Preston Fairmont's and Jenny Barnes's extra resource generation can routinely hit 20+ resources. While the resource mountains are primarily collected to channel bonuses on Well Connected, Money Talks is an excellent support card to slot in this archetype. It's just an extra lever for Preston Fairmont to pull to channel his vast wealth into test success.

This is a great card to beat key tests such as scenario specific ones (Talking to Lita Chantler(/card/05005)) or against key treacheries (Ridding yourself of [Frozen in Fear](/card/01164 or not dying to Rotting Remains).

Money Talks is terrific in the right deck, TERRIBLE outside it.

Tsuruki23 · 2577
Another Investigator that can aim for a big money build would be Sefina. — Mataza · 19
Investments

Investments is the most recent addition to the finance generation machine, it's very similar to the existing asset Lone Wolf. Evaluating Investments without alluding constantly to Lone Wolf is impossible, so prepare for some reasoning and math ahead.

Investments needs to be found and played early, this is not new by any means, but the real interesting bit is that Investments requires an extra action to cash in the money, until which point the resources are out of your reach, not to mention that if you trigger investments the money generation ends.

This is a hugely negative point in direct comparison to Lone Wolf where the gains are immediate and action free, stopping to cash in the investments can be hard! In the middle of a fight for example where 7-10 extra resources might be very helpful, you just don't have time and space to go get your money. This is very much the crippling issue that makes investments fall behind Lone Wolf.

On the positive side for Investments, Lone Wolf tends to go offline for 20-40% of the time in duo games, and the problem gets MUCH much worse in 3/4 player games, in this case Investments rises up the ranks and replaces Lone Wolf easily, but I'dd still go for Lone Wolf in duo rather then Investments.

So I broke down Investments versus Lone Wolf a bit, but what of other resource cards?

  • Investments generates up to 10 resources for 2 actions, a resource and a card (and lots of time).

  • Emergency Cache generates 3 resources for 1 action and a card (immediately).

  • "Watch this!" generates up to 3 resources for 1 card and some risk (immediately).

An advantage that "Watch this!" and Emergency Cache hold over both Investments and Lone Wolf is the speed, a burst of cash that's equally useful in rounds 1 and 10. The speed thing makes it so that Investments does not replace Emergency Cache for me.

So, Investments compares "poorly" to the classical Emergency Cache and looses out to Lone Wolf in many cases, is Investments just a bad card? No it isn't, no its not. It's a viable replacement to Lone Wolf in multiplayer and in a resource heavy deck, for example a deck that relies on Lola Santiago to gather clues, it's good for what ails you. It feels especially good to cash in the money, even if it's just 6 or 7 resources, to then go on and complete the last locations with a combination of Lola triggers and Intel Report, a big money move that only characters can pull off.

Tsuruki23 · 2577
Dont forget that maybe the investments are literally an insurance policy - do you have paranoia and are liable to lose all your resources at a critical point of the game? Do you have Preston and some Lodge Debts due to emerge at any time? Its a relatively low cost card to protect you from either of those situations that can take ages to recover from, and far better than lone wolf would. — Phoenixbadger · 199
Anna Kaslow

Anna Kaslow is the Tarot enabler, she's the linchpin that makes bulking 3-4 tarot cards a playable strategy.

  • Her ability echoes that of the tarot cards, netting you a small 1 / 1 horror and health tank in addition to the tutor effect of searching your deck for a Tarot and playing it as well, all for free if she makes it onto your opening hand.

  • When played post-turn 1, she's still a deck thinning tarot tutor, pulling and playing cards directly from your deck reduces the chance that you'll draw and get stuck with the relatively costly tarot cards. Get them out of the way so as not to dud your draws later.

  • An additional 2 tarot slots means that you might see the dream of running with +2 to a stat and +1 to another, for free! Holy crap! This is a veritable magical Christmas land scenario though, where you're much likely to wind up with just 1 or 2 tarots at a time, probably paying for one of them. Some scenarios will have events that poke damage at an ally and sometimes, frankly, taking a hit on her is just going to be the best course of action.

  • She occupies a hugely contested slot! With just 1 health and horror to survive by she has absolutely no tank. Given that she's in your deck you probably depend on and fill up those Tarot slots quickly so loosing her will probably start a chain-reaction of asset discards. With Anna Kaslow in your deck Charisma is very probably next on the agenda.

  • Not a cheap asset by any means at 3 resources, not to mention the 4xp as well.

All in all, I think that Kaslowe's weaknesses make her a very iffy card, the dependency on being drawn in the first hand, the cost, the slot, the lack of tank, the XP. Despite the fact that I do like Tarot cards, Anna Kaslow has yet to impress me enough to be worth a whopping 4-xp a pop.

The top characters who might be interested in her are Diana Stanley, Joe Diamond and Sefina Rousseau, the former two because they benefit greatly from both their in-faction tarots so slotting 3-4 tarots isn't out of the question and the latter because her large opening hand makes finding tarot mechanics easier. Also there's always Lola Hayes.

P.S, this point is a bit unfair, but one of the worst feelings in the game has to be: Sitting around with 3 tarots in your hand, 1 on the table, and 2 Anna Kaslowe's laughing at you from somewhere in your deck.

Tsuruki23 · 2577