Jim Culver: The Musician

Jim is a very nice fit in the era Arkham Files are set in. A Jazz musician is a very 1920’s profession and plays on the other side of Arkham Files thematic setting – the feel of the 20’s. Meanwhile you can also see a clever, subtle connection to Erich Zann (playing music as a mean to achieve supernatural results). While Agnes’ is a 100% Mystic, focused purely on spellcasting, Jim shows us a more flexible side of Mystic characters.

Legacy: Jim was one of very few characters I never ever used in Arkham Horror. Highly situational abilities and very unfortunate set of skills made him almost unplayable. An attempt at making him an all-round investigator was much more successful in Eldritch Horror – he can be easily adjusted to be a fighter, gate-closer or a spellcaster. 

AH:TCG builds up on existing legacy. It combines both of his AH abilities to create a new, exceptional and very playable ability. It keeps the theme of sanity-healing trumpet. And most importantly, it delivers the most successful attempt at a customisable, all-round character. 

The graveyard background is so well painted.
I wish the same one was used for the front of his card

 

Skill values: Jim’s skills are completely different than his Mystic friend’s Agnes’. His Will is not so high, while still good enough to deliver a decent spell-casting. He can, however, both fight and investigate without using spells, if needed due to his solid Combat and Intellect. He won’t be able to manage any of this area as brilliantly, as a specialized guy, but can cover any of them. His Achilles’’ heel is Agility – making him both vulnerable to encounter deck and unable to evade enemies. Since Mystics are capable of covering most aspects of the game with magic, a combination of natural and supernatural means can be very effective. Unlike Skidds, Jim does not suffer from lack of specialization.

His skill values are an important part of Jim’s design. He is a versatile character, having no obvious weak spots. He can use spells with decent results to deal with enemies, get clues etc. Unlike Agnes, he can also use more regular means of archiving the game goals. 

Strength

Theme

Special Ability: Jim’s special ability is another piece of the puzzle. Jim’s distinct capability of treating modifiers on Skull tokens as “0” has few results. It obviously simply increases chances of passing the tests. Serving as a slight boost to all his skills, thus enabling him to perform better, even if he’s skill value is solid only.

More importantly, however, it encourages playing the odds – one can attempt a skill check being only at “+1” against the difficulty, or even at “0”, and still have decent odds at passing the test. Works very well, when planned, still works solidly when triggered while being confronted with the encounter deck. You should also take the ability heavily into account, when you create the deck. Don’t try to overcommit on any particular skill, try to ensure you can always somehow push your stat 1 above the difficulty and play the odds! This is one of the abilities, that won’t work on its own – no “autocast” there, you must both well design your deck and execute it, else it feels like having no special ability at all!

 

I love how much design space introduction of these tokens creates!

An integral part of Jim’s ability is treating Elder Sign as Skulls. It matters for his signature card, but also opens room for very interesting card design (see: Song of the Dead –and I hope we can expect more of similar cards coming). This pretty much uses his Elder Sign effect (though you can treat Elder Sign token as “+1” if needed).

I very much enjoy the thematic aspect of Jim’s skill. It might not strike you as obvious (just like the ability of Jim’s fellow Mystic – Agnes), but is an ingenious design for sure. It is a mix of thematic aspects of Jim’s original special abilities. First of all, it is a “Strange Luck”, meaning, he is not affected by negatives circumstances, manages to emerge successful despite them, dodge the ill effects through unnatural good fortune. And it is “strange” indeed, as it only affects a very narrow portion of tokens. Furthermore, it is related to his “monster- taming” ability. Skull tokens tend to be mostly tied with Enemies/monsters thematically (though, there are exceptions – I wish there were fewer, to be honest). While it is not directly related to the undead, it is still a very clear thematic link. 

Strength

Theme

Signature Cards: Well, this particular part will be short, because Jim’s Trumpet is seriously underpowered. Really, not only it’s the worst signature card so far – I bet (and hope) we won’t see such a weak signature card ever again. Taking a hand slot to sometimes provide minor sanity heal is very disappointing. Even taking into account you can use it whenever ANYONE draws a Skull token (hence in a big team it should get triggered almost every turn) it still is miles away from other investigators in the signature card department. Sanity healing for no action is not bad, but taking a hand slot definitely is too much of an opportunity cost). 

The card is very thematic, that’s true. It feels incredibly personal – musician’s private weapon instrument of choice It does also a great job, linking all Jim’s designs across Arkham Files (always a nice touch to have a reoccurring design element). But at the same time it’s so terribly weak, I only use it to commit to tests.

Jim learned how to play a trumpet with one hand
and still it's not good enough

Jim’s personal weakness is – on the other hand – not too dangerous. If it gets drawn, it most probably does one damage and one horror (chances of dealing more are very slim, even with 15 tokens in the bag are around 24%. They are lower than chances of getting no harm at all!). And that’s it, weakness is gone! The biggest lost, really, is just getting no useful player card. It is sort of balanced with his signature card, since it is also the least damaging weakness out there.

While the name of the card is nicely connected to Jim’s profession and the Skull tokens are indeed tied thematically to him, in the end its effect has no relation to its name.

Strength

Theme

Deckbuilding/Class: Mystic cards allow achieving all sorts of goals (fighting, investigating, evading, protecting against encounter deck, gaining resources, healing sanity, even deck manipulation!¹) so one can create a solid deck based on them and even shape it according to your needs. Jim is very nicely versatile, hence by choosing the right set of cards outside of his class, you can easily make him a good clue collector (choose DrMilan, Magnifying Glass, Look What I Found! etc), fighter (weapons + PhysicalTraining, helping with both regular attacks and spell casting!) or support character (Old Book of Lore, some healing cards). At the same time he should be able to manage his not-strengthened side, due to his special ability. You can also include Leo in his deck (not only because he’s just strong, but also to give him one more attempt to gamble against chaos bag). Regardless of the chosen area of focus, Lucky! can always came in handy if you push your luck too much for an important test.

There are also few Mystic cards, synergizing with his ability – Ritual Candles and Grotesque Statue encourage and/or help living the risky way.  

Can you imagine running around with those burning?
This is what Arkham investigators do.

I could imagine Jim being more inclined to take Rogue or Guardian cards given his thematic character (he’s leaning towards fighting side of things in Eldritch Horror), his current deckbuilding options do not create any unthematic results).  

Strength

Theme

Jim seems not to get too much love among AH:TCG players. He was also reviewed quite negatively by The Aficionado (https://delvetoodeep.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/delve-too-deep-file-xi-jim-culver/). I do really like him a lot, though. He can perform strongly in many roles.

He’s not an auto-play character like Roland or Rex, that’s true. However, this is what makes playing him is very exciting from the very start – the deckbuilding, as you can choose multiple viable builds and successfully pair him with basically any other investigator. Once you start facing the unnatural challenges you keep balancing the odds pretty much every test, fine-tuning every action between skill values, Lucky!’s, Grotesque Statue etc. (throw Song of the Dead in the mix and optimizing gets even more of an interesting challenge!). 

I also cannot agree that’s he’s clearly weaker than Agnes. He’s far less draw dependent and has far more options open than just casting the spells. While his ability is not as spectacular, it can be extremely effective in the long run.

Strength

Theme

 All images are courtesy of cardgamedb.com and fantasyflightgames.com

¹ They lack a powerful, Leo/Beat Cop (2)/Peter (2) level ally though. Maybe one is to be expected to arrive in the upcoming Mythos Packs?

Miskatonic Univeristy - New Player Cards (vol II)

Hello again my dear readers. As promised on Sunday, I am providing an analysis of selected cards. I have decided to include Pathfinder in the article as well, as it deserves few more words, given the general comparison one can make based on it. 

Instead of "ora et labora" Brother Xavier's motto is
Pray and shoot!

The first one, however, is Brother Xavier. I do have to agree, it’s not a terribly powerful card. The reason for it is the alternative cost – he takes up a slot usually taken by Beat Cop. Particularly its upgraded version is a powerful ally – increasing Combat and allowing for some test-free damage. In case of Skids’ Leo provides another worthy alternative. Most of the priest’s usefulness comes from being a damage/horror buffer. Unfortunately it’s not as big of a buffer as one would imagine. Barely one Sanity more than Beat Cop. He can, in fact, deal just as much damage as the beat Cop (2) does, you cannot control the timing though, which limits the tasks he’s capable of performing. Bonus to Will, while very thematic, has limited applications. Two main ones coming to my mind are protection against the encounter deck and helping Zoey becoming a more proficient spellcaster.

The alternative cost is the key. Please consider cards like Bulletproof Vest or Elder Sign Amulet – they provide less protection and no other benefits, yet cost more experience and can easily be considered better cards. The reason for it is – they do not take an ally slot, the alternatives are much weaker. There are barely any cards for the body slot. There are few necklaces. However, they rarely compete with Elder Sign, as they have different users. Generally speaking, the most powerful assets can be found among the allies.

I am very happy, though, with the team work approach the ally has. I am a big fan of all the cooperation elements. Shielding your teammates from the dangers is a classic. Just as a classic is the tank character, absorbing all the damage – it seems designers include this sub-class within Guardian class. It’s worth noting, Guardians are low-Sanity characters and are usually paired with low-Stamina ones, making Xavier a useful damage absorber for both team members! With "I've had worse" added to the mix, the Tank sub-class seems to slowly emerge.

Is it Jack Montrey on the picture?

Card that can be considered in relation to Brother Xavier is Pathfinder. You can ask, why? They are nothing alike! This is a true observation. Let me try to explain. Pathfinder is a powerful card, basically providing a free action per turn. Still it wouldn’t be considered as powerful, was it occupying the ally slot. Just as Brother Xavier would be a solid card, if he wasn’t.

The idea I’m trying to implant in your mind is – a vital part of cards strength is the alternative cost. And vital part of alternative cost is the slot it occupies. If a card takes no slot, even a weaker benefit might make it worthy including in the deck.

Pathfinder is obviously blast of a card. For 1 XP (!) you get a talent allowing you to have an additional action once per turn. Granted, it has restrictions (only a move action, only if you are not engaged with an enemy, only during your turn). But a free action means doing 1/3 more stuff per your turn – this is truly what you’re missing the most – actions. And move action is one of the most universal one – performed multiple times in basically any scenario. 

Out of 3 characters, which can include Pathfinder in their deck, I believe it’s the strongest for Rex. Having the card allows him to use his double-powerful investigation action more often. He also clears locations from clue tokens quicker, hence having to move more often in general. I’m not trying to say it’s not an obvious choice for Roland or Daisy, though – it clearly is a very good choice for both of them, too.

Using right set of notes you can make dead dance

 Last, but not least, I’d like to have a look at Song of Dead. I absolutely adore the design of this card for 2 reasons.

First of all, it has a non-obvious design. One can easily create a stronger Shrivelling, adding more damage, charges etc. to it. Song of Dead is a combat spell, which works differently. It has many small advantages – its costs is lower, it has more charges (hence one charge costs 0.4 resources compared to 0.75)^1, never causes you to lose sanity (arguably this might be minor flaw for Agnes) and gives a slight bonus to the test. The only (though a hefty) shortcoming is the damage output – it basically only deals one damage per attack. Randomly getting a skull token is not a result you can reliably count on getting…

…unless you help your luck a bit. This slowly brings us to the other reason why I like this card. It is a very thematic, custom made card for Jim. At the same time it is still a card other characters can consider to use – particularly Daisy with her low Will can consider having a copy or two to face minor enemies.

Speaking about Jim – our jazz musician can dearly benefit from playing the Song of Dead. His Will is slightly lower than Agnes’. Therefore the boost is appreciated, giving him higher chances for succeeding the test. The critical piece focuses around drawing a skull for the added damage. Jim not only has an added chance to get a token, as he can treat Elder Sign as Skull. He also very often uses the Grotesque Statue a lot (more about it in upcoming post about him). Using the statue increases chances of getting a skull even further! Here is some useful piece of math for you:

If there are 2 Skulls and one Elder Sign tokens in the bag, chances of drawing at least one Skull/Elder Sign token are²- 37% for 15 tokens in the bag, 35% for 16 tokens in the bag, 33% for 17 tokens and almost 31.5% for 18 tokens. Of course matter of damage is not so easy – sometimes one damage is enough (in this situation Song of Dead is actually superior to Shrivelling), sometimes you need 2 (the opposite is true). When trying to maximize the damage (trying to take down some major threat) even a 15 token chaos bag yields a worse average damage (1.84, not counting increased chances of succeeding due to a boost to Will). Last piece of pure math-stats³ – total damage done with all charges – 9.2 on average, compared to 8 of Shrivelling. This includes using Grotesque Statue on every attack though; so we’re talking 0XP against 6.

I hope I didn't bore you with too much math.

Taking math into account card does not look too powerful, taking into account the XP cost. Suddenly it becomes a tool to deal only with 1HP opponents (or enemies who only have 1HP left). Unless, of course, you’re playing Jim and can alternate between standard use and boosted by Grotesque Statue attempts at dealing 3 damage.

What cards are your favorites? Do you have more interesting thoughts about cards discussed above? Please share'em with me and don't forget to visit Delve Too Deep's posts about new cards (links in my previous post about Miskatonic cards) 

 All images are courtesy of cardgamedb.com and fantasyflightgames.com

1 It’s bit of an oversimplification, obviously. Card costing 20 resources for unlimited charges would have an even better cost: however being so costly would almost totally prevent you from playing the card at all.

2 This is by far most common scenario. All calculations are rounded and delivered in percent, even though I personally prefer simple fractions.

3 As in point 1, math approach is bit of an oversimplification here, just providing some insight into actual usefulness of the card.

Every week I'm shuffling

Dear Cultists,

When I started the blog I was sure I would be able to publish 2 posts per week. Unfortunately due to multiple commitments I cannot keep this pace without sacrificing the quality of the published content. This is definitely not something I'd like to do.

Therefore I will post one article per week (every Sunday) and do my best to publish another one mid-week every now and than (possibly a shorter one). I hope you understand this decision and also prefer to have the highest quality of content.

Stay tuned for the next post, finalizing my thoughts about new cards.

Yours in madness,

Eruantalon