Norman Withers available with new book

[Somatose Boy 28]

50 minutes ago, Syrmon said:

I like this, however the change to class does not reflect all base classes.  Perhaps Silas Marsh can go from Survivor to Seeker.  He is seeking the truth behind his Insmouth origins. 

Oops! Your right, I didn't cover all the classes. I was struggling to come up with a Survivor. I was going mostly off the Investigators or Arkham book, and less off the investigators from previous games. 

[Jobu 720]

Anyone play around with making a deck for Norman yet?  It is sort of challenging with the card pool we currently have.

Here is what I am running into:

1.  Norman doesn't like skills.  He can play cards from the top of his deck, but can't commit them.  Its probably best to stay low on skill cards.  That opens a lot of slots in his deck.

2.  His 5 investigate means he needs relatively little boost to his investigation skill.  He needs some, but nothing like Rex.  As a result, you don't need many of the bonus to intellect cards he can access (Mag Glass, Doc Chris, Flashlight, Art Student, Fieldwork (sort of), Hyper awareness, Arcane Insight Edit forgot Alyssa Graham).  One or two will do.

3.  I don't think tomes are that optimal on him.  I might come around on Old Book of Lore, but spending an action a turn on card draw consistently is kind of hard to do to get the 3 resource value out of the card.  Some scenarios don't give you the time to do that.  Also, there aren't many cards that I must have that are in the deck so I don't need to dig for cards that hard.  Thats 2 out of 13 Seeker Assets. 

His ability interacts oddly with the Tome as well.  It does reset the top card of your deck so if you don't like the card on top, you can go for a shuffle, but then you are pulling 3 cards, 1 of which you already know you don't want, although you do get access to 2 cards (one in your hand and one one the top of the deck).  On the other hand, if you like the top card, you can always play it so why dig for it and there is a chance that a weakness may pop to the top of the deck.  I am not sure if this is a net positive or negative.  Thoughts?

4.  6 out of 13 Seeker assets are Allies and I am only taking one.  I don't think Charisma would be a good path for him, better to spend XP on Mystic cards, since they tend to have higher XP costs.  2 out of 13 are Archaic Glyphs or Strange Solution.  I don't know what AG will upgrade to, but it will most likely be a Seeker card.  Hyper awareness is even more subpar than normal since starting with a 1 agility, boosting it is generally a really bad move (it will cost a lot and in general not give you a great chance to succeed).  That means 8 out of 13 Asset cards are out from the start (over half the assets). 

What I ended up with is a deck with 8 assets, 6 skills and 16 events.  That means he needs a lot of resources (which the deck does have, guess which ally I have).  I basically took all but 2 seeker events (7 out of 9).  It has more card draw/fish than I would think Norman needs.  I am expecting when he is released, it will contain options to make him more flexible.

I think my main "issue" is that with the current card pool, there are not that many choices to be made.  You need to just put the cards that are there in.  What are your thoughts?

I haven't even dug into upgrade paths besides, probably doesn't need Rite of Seeking.

Edited December 13, 2017 by Jobu

[Jobu 720]

Also, what is everyone's thoughts on Scrying with Norman?

Seems like it could be very good when combined with Split the Angles.  Although getting Split the Angles is hardly a sure thing with just one in his deck.

[CSerpent 520]

1 hour ago, Jobu said:

3.  I don't think tomes are that optimal on him.  I might come around on Old Book of Lore, but spending an action a turn on card draw consistently is kind of hard to do to get the 3 resource value out of the card.  Some scenarios don't give you the time to do that.  Also, there aren't many cards that I must have that are in the deck so I don't need to dig for cards that hard.  Thats 2 out of 13 Seeker Assets. 

His ability interacts oddly with the Tome as well.  It does reset the top card of your deck so if you don't like the card on top, you can go for a shuffle, but then you are pulling 3 cards, 1 of which you already know you don't want, although you do get access to 2 cards (one in your hand and one one the top of the deck).  On the other hand, if you like the top card, you can always play it so why dig for it and there is a chance that a weakness may pop to the top of the deck.  I am not sure if this is a net positive or negative.  Thoughts?

Interestingly, his standard personal item appears to be a Tome.

[Jobu 720]

1 minute ago, CSerpent said:

Interestingly, his standard personal item appears to be a Tome.

Yeah, but since its a signature item, its probably over powered relative to other items and/or synergies so well with him, its a no brainer.

I should have said, " I don't think the current level zero tomes are that optimal on him."

[CSerpent 520]

3 minutes ago, Jobu said:

Yeah, but since its a signature item, its probably over powered relative to other items and/or synergies so well with him, its a no brainer.

I should have said, " I don't think the current level zero tomes are that optimal on him."

Understood, I just meant it's somewhat ironic.  Your assessment of the existing Tomes for him seems accurate. 

ArkhamDB shows his card but doesn't let you build a deck yet.

Edited December 13, 2017 by CSerpent

[Jobu 720]

2 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

Understood, I just meant it's somewhat ironic.  Your assessment of the existing Tomes for him seems accurate. 

ArkhamDB shows his card but doesn't let you build a deck yet.

I built a deck in ArkhamDB with him.  You should double check and/or make sure you have "My Collection" include "Books"

Edited December 13, 2017 by Jobu

[CSerpent 520]

2 minutes ago, Jobu said:

I built a deck in ArkhamDB with him.  You should double check and/or make sure you have "My Collection" include "Books"

Oops!  Yeah, that's probably it.

[BD Flory 695]

2 hours ago, Jobu said:

Also, what is everyone's thoughts on Scrying with Norman?

Seems like it could be very good when combined with Split the Angles.  Although getting Split the Angles is hardly a sure thing with just one in his deck.

The combo is okay, but action intensive. It gets better in multiplayer (since it burns relatively fewer of your collective actions). Scrying's also good on its own -- it lets you set the card you play at a discount, the card you draw during upkeep, and set the card you play next turn at a discount.

Edited December 13, 2017 by BD Flory

[BD Flory 695]

3 hours ago, Jobu said:

I haven't even dug into upgrade paths besides, probably doesn't need Rite of Seeking.

I do like Rite of Seeking on him because of the way Deduction and other skill cards disrupt his game flow by blocking the top of his deck. Upgraded Rite also buffs his Willpower slightly higher than his intellect. He can also use Blood Pact to boost it, but can't do the same to Intellect with Higher Ed (because he can't have it).

I probably wouldn't take it blind, but if I have the xp to spend before going into Essex County and Blood on the Altar, it's a decent pick.

[Jobu 720]

44 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

The combo is okay, but action intensive. It gets better in multiplayer (since it burns relatively fewer of your collective actions). Scrying's also good on its own -- it lets you set the card you play at a discount, the card you draw during upkeep, and the card you play next turn at a discount.

Do you mostly play solo?  Almost all the games I have played is 3-4 with one instance of 2 player.  Both your comments are about action efficiency, which is valid no matter home many people are in the game but is critical in a solo.  Just a comment on the different ways a person can come at a game/card depending on player count.

Thats a good comment on RoS and it depends on who else (if anyone) is in your group.  If I have enough of other clue gathering in the group, I like the looks of Shrivelling, Bind Monster, Blinding Light and Spirit Athame/Grounded.  The JoA is nice, but I want the Holy Rosary for additional Will and the Grot Statue would be nice, but costs a lot of XP.

I could see RoS being very useful gobbling up multiple clues.  I guess it depends if you want to grow your deck to be better at clues or able to handle monsters.

[BD Flory 695]

3 hours ago, Jobu said:

Do you mostly play solo?  Almost all the games I have played is 3-4 with one instance of 2 player.  Both your comments are about action efficiency, which is valid no matter home many people are in the game but is critical in a solo.  Just a comment on the different ways a person can come at a game/card depending on player count.

I rarely play solo. Probably 50% 2p, 50% 3 and 4p, give or take. It's true that action efficiency matters less as you add players, but it matters more again as you increase difficulty, due to the inevitable waste of failed actions. I play almost exclusively on hard/expert, unless I'm teaching the game to someone new.

[ProfessorDetective 5]

Is there an ETA on when this one hits Kindle? I can't find a page for it.

[Cold Iron1 63]

Finally got my copy after the mailman delivered it to the wrong house. First few chapters have me intrigued and am really looking forward for a chance to play with the card.