Bad Luck

Set Size6
Number of unique Cards2
RoleHorror, Damage
Threat LevelLow
# of scenarios2
Variants
Appears in: The House Always Wins, The Miskatonic Museum

My take on this set: A very weak set that poses little threat to the investigators. Not only are the effects of the individual cards rather mild, but they also do not interact in a meaningful way with each other or with any of the other encounter sets that are used with them. The luck flavor works very well for The House Always Wins, but even that flavor component falls flat in the Miscatonic Museum. This set is a miss for me, i think it’s bland and uninteresting.

Number in the encounter deck: 3

What it does: Cursed Luck is placed into the player’s threat area and will reduce all of their skill values for as long as it’s there. As soon as the investigator passes any skill test by at least one point, Cursed Luck is discarded.

My take: Cursed Luck doesn’t stop the player from following whatever plan they had. In most cases, discarding the treachery shouldn’t be a big problem, it might just involve committing an additional card to a test. Cursed Luck could’ve been a problem if they were to appear in a scenario together with Whipoorwills, but that never happens.

Threat level: Low. Even if removing the treachery involves taking an action that one would otherwise not have taken, the impact of the card can easily be kept to a minimum.

Dealing with it: The penalty to a skill can be offset by pitching a card to the test which at the same time will increase the chance to discard Cursed Luck. Remember that you can investigate at a location without clues, so if you find yourself at a low shroud location, that could be an opportunity to spend an action to get rid of the card.

Number in the encounter deck: 3

What it does: The outcome of Twist of Fate is decided by a token pull from the chaos bag. Depending on the token, the player is either dealt one damage, two horror or nothing at all.

My take: Usually this will just do one damage which is a very mild effect coming from the encounter deck. Even the two horror aren’t really all that bad, as both scenarios using this set don’t have other horror treacheries to further escalate the threat of losing too much sanity.

Threat level: Very Low. Even the worst case is quite benign, and there is a good chance for the treachery to do even less.

Dealing with it: The usual ways to mitigate horror and damage apply. But it’s really nothing to worry about ahead of time, just deal with it appropriately when it turns up.

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