New Novella!

[Spritz Tea 39]

I can't stop thinking about the Amazing Molly Maxwell.

She can produce campaign reward cards from deep in your deck - they are often powerful and have unusual traits. Many do use the ally slot, but this just means you can spend Molly's penultimate point of sanity to find them, and then whisk her away into your discard to play them.

The Chthonian Stone (Cursed) is another asset we'd like to run one-of but still find consistently — it's * unique. It might have particular synergy with Dexter too if he finds himself scrabbling late in the scenario for new assets to put into play efficiently.

If you want to Versatile in Scavenging and build Dexter around that card, you could make sure Scavenging is your only Talent. (Note: This is probably a very bad idea)

Assuming Dexter has Rogue 0 - 2 deckbuilding:

One copy of Liquid Courage (Illicit) might be interesting — you don't need horror healing until you do. Although you are spending sanity to find it, and this assumes your deck isn't full of Illicit cards.

On the other hand, if you do go full-Illicit, Fence is a Connection. I'm skeptical that this is the way to go, but if you do run Fence, you want to find it consistently. 

Well Connected (Condition) seems strong with Renfield and Rogue money cards of choice. Perhaps as a one-of? It has 'Limit 1 per investigator' and amassing a fortune takes a few turns.

I'm not an enormous fan of The Skeleton Key (Relic. Cursed) but Exceptional cards are more appealing when you have a consistent way to draw them. And, if my understanding of the rules is correct, when Dexter finds himself unable to spare the actions to go and retrieve the Key he can discard it remotely to fuel his ability. And then Scavenge it back to his hand.

[Eldan985 360]

Don't forget Patron Renfield. He should be amazing for Dexter, who's going to need resources to play all his assets and can reliably get rid of him.

He should also be happy about about Dayana (witch), enchanted blade (melee), holy rosary (charm), seal of the seventh sign (ritual), maybe even Summoned Hound (summon.)

Edited January 10 by Eldan985

[Allonym 954]

If he is Rogue 0-2 (or even just Rogue 0), there will finally be a reason to include Switchblade (0) in a deck - if you don't have anything in play that you want to sacrifice to use Dexter's ability, you could play Switchblade for 1 resource and 0 actions, then sacrifice it to activate his ability. It's relatively niche still, but in the right circumstances it essentially lets you turn a card into an action, which is a great deal (cost cancels out, and it saves you the action you'd otherwise have to pay to play your first asset). 

With a Combat of 3, he could potentially use Switchblade (2), especially if you go the Blood Pact route. But probably not that worth it as a backup combat option given that Enchanted Blade (3) exists. 

[rsdockery 537]

Combat 3 also ties him with Akachi and Zoey for the highest Spectral Blade skill value right out the gate.

EDIT: Also, am I the only one who can't order with Asmodee's website? The blasted thing claims it can't validate my address.

Edited January 10 by rsdockery

[Buhallin 4,563]

While Molly is amazing, I think building your deck around her is going to be a trap.  There's going to be a lot of temptation to include unique cards she can find, but doing so is going to inhibit the overall consistency of your deck.  I'm not sure that's going to be a good idea in practice.

[phillos 1,518]

9 hours ago, Allonym said:

If he is Rogue 0-2 (or even just Rogue 0), there will finally be a reason to include Switchblade (0) in a deck - if you don't have anything in play that you want to sacrifice to use Dexter's ability, you could play Switchblade for 1 resource and 0 actions, then sacrifice it to activate his ability. It's relatively niche still, but in the right circumstances it essentially lets you turn a card into an action, which is a great deal (cost cancels out, and it saves you the action you'd otherwise have to pay to play your first asset). 

With a Combat of 3, he could potentially use Switchblade (2), especially if you go the Blood Pact route. But probably not that worth it as a backup combat option given that Enchanted Blade (3) exists. 

I use Switchblade level 0 for Tony's back up weapon until he gets some experience.  I actually like it better than Dusters since it's free and fast and he usually triggers the benefit.  Also no Duster downside.  If he doesn't no big deal usually.  Tony has tons of actions to spare in the decks I build for him.  I agree that Dexter would rather have Enchanted Blade (3) than Switchblade (2).  Especially if you are using the Taboo List.  The Switchblade (0) trick is nice if he gets Rogue asset access.

The more I think about Molly, the more excited I get about her fetch ability.  Though finding her first is obviously not reliable.

[Spritz Tea 39]

I don't disagree that there is a trap for the unweary in building too much around her. To be more clear, I was continuing on from last page where I suggested a Calling in Favors build, which I believe to be quite strong independently, to find her. The hypothetical Incredible Molly Maxwell build would look something like:

2 Arcane Initiate
2 Calling in Favors
2 David Renfield
1 Chthonian Stone
1 Fine Clothes
1 Liquid Courage
1 Well Connected
10 pairs of good, non-situational cards

In a way, this makes the deck more consistent; you can't brick up your opening hand with double Chthonian Stone or double Well Connected. And, while Fearless is likely a better card than Liquid Courage, if we never needed horror healing we didn't want to see either of them so we're happy that we only devoted one deck slot to it.

[cheapmate 182]

I could see him being Mystic/Guardian, it would match his backstory:

When the Great War ended, Dexter went from being a soldier to a stage magician. His charm and unparalleled skills quickly drew praise from around the world. As he toured the exotic corners of the world, he amassed a collection of genuine occult knowledge.

It would be interesting if he could only use level 1-5 spells, as in he needs experience before amassing his occult knowledge

[Villefere 88]

2 hours ago, cheapmate said:

I could see him being Mystic/Guardian, it would match his backstory:

When the Great War ended, Dexter went from being a soldier to a stage magician. His charm and unparalleled skills quickly drew praise from around the world. As he toured the exotic corners of the world, he amassed a collection of genuine occult knowledge.

It would be interesting if he could only use level 1-5 spells, as in he needs experience before amassing his occult knowledge

But we just got a Mystic/Guardian and Norman has that exact mechanic of needing experience before amassing occult knowledge.

[rsdockery 537]

14 minutes ago, Villefere said:

But we just got a Mystic/Guardian and Norman has that exact mechanic of needing experience before amassing occult knowledge.

Also, Norman's color matches his level 0 class. If the Great Drake has a Norman-esque deck, it'll be Mystic 0 and some other class 1-5 (which I suppose would represent him being spooked by real magic and turning away from it).

[cheapmate 182]

I could see there being another alternative Mystic/Guardian

Deckbuilding Options: Guardian cards level 0, Mystic cards level 1-5, Neutral cards level 0-5, up to 5 Mystic cards level 0

Similar, yet different to Norman

[dysartes 242]

4 hours ago, cheapmate said:

I could see there being another alternative Mystic/Guardian

Deckbuilding Options: Guardian cards level 0, Mystic cards level 1-5, Neutral cards level 0-5, up to 5 Mystic cards level 0

Similar, yet different to Norman

I'm pretty sure that'd be templated as Guardian/Mystic, at this point, while the new guy is definitely a primary Mystic...

[Duciris 1,347]

On ‎1‎/‎10‎/‎2020 at 10:43 AM, rsdockery said:

EDIT: Also, am I the only one who can't order with Asmodee's website? The blasted thing claims it can't validate my address.

You're not.  I can't remember what the issue was.  I had to fight the shipping & credit card addresses (which are the same in my case).  It took some choice words and repletion, but I haven't experienced it since.

[Mimi61 456]

We ordered our Novella today from Asmodee and had no problems. 

 

Edited January 14 by Mimi61

[rsdockery 537]

I was finally able to resolve the issue by literally deleting and re-entering each field in the form. I can only assume that Asmodee's IT department is staffed entirely by various guises of Nyarlathotep.

[Eldan985 360]

He'll amost certainly be either guardian or rogue, given his backstory, trending towards rogue. Or have something special like tricks and gambits.