Curse of the Crimson Throne Questions

[Parabola01]

I feel like I'm fundamentally misunderstanding the phrase "a trait matching the adventure's harrow suit" works, so I'm going to explain how I understand the level 3 spell Harrowing to work and someone please explain if I'm wrong. For this example, I'm going to say that the adventure suit is Books.

Quote:

On local checks that have a trait matching the adventure's harrow suit, add 2

On local checks that have the Book trait, add 2.

Quote:

if the hour has a Suit trait matching the adventure's harrow suit, add 1d4+1 instead.

If the Hour is also a Harrow from the Book suit AND the local check has the Book trait, add 1d4+1

It just feels so incredibly narrow that my first assumption is that I'm getting something wrong.

[Keith Richmond]

Yeah, that's not ideally clear.

If you look at storybook page 3, there's a chart of the Harrow Suits. Also, this section of rules:
Each has the Harrow trait and a Suit trait that corresponds to a specific skill: Hammers (Strength), Keys (Dexterity),
Shields (Constitution), Books (Intelligence), Stars
(Wisdom), and Crowns (Charisma).

So, if it's a Books (not Book) suit, the relevant trait/skill is actually Intelligence.

So, add 2 to local Intelligence (or Books) checks.

Or 1d4+1 if the hour is a Books hour.

[Parabola01]

Keith Richmond wrote:

Yeah, that's not ideally clear.

If you look at storybook page 3, there's a chart of the Harrow Suits. Also, this section of rules:
Each has the Harrow trait and a Suit trait that corresponds to a specific skill: Hammers (Strength), Keys (Dexterity),
Shields (Constitution), Books (Intelligence), Stars
(Wisdom), and Crowns (Charisma).

So, if it's a Books (not Book) suit, the relevant trait/skill is actually Intelligence.

So, add 2 to local Intelligence (or Books) checks.

Or 1d4+1 if the hour is a Books hour.

Ah, that makes it much more useful than I expected, thank you!

[philosorapt0r]

Parabola01 wrote:

Ah, that makes it much more useful than I expected, thank you!

The harrowing line of spells is odd because its value fluctuates so much from adventure to adventure, depending on whether your party naturally performs a lot of tests of a given suit. Have multiple Str-melee folks? Harrowing is pretty solid for AD4 (Hammers). Your only arcane caster is Cha-based? Harrowing looks pretty narrow for the suit of Books(Int).

At first I read these to apply to *all* checks (not just checks of the associated stat) when the hour is of the correct suit, and got excited about using Candlelight in a fast-cycling Varian deck to meet the condition on key turns (assuming there even was an available hour of that suit in the hourglass, given that several get pulled into the party's decks to begin with). But in practice that seems like less of a payoff than simply skipping the harrowing spells and just stacking the hourglass / pulling back a particularly good hour.

[Jenceslav]

Well, it applies to ALL checks of that given sklil regardless of what is the hour. You don't have to be focused on that particular skill to use it. Int is less useful than many others (mainly to acquire boons or to recharge spells), but this tiny bonus might be a lifesaver sometimes.
If the hour is any harrow, it is somewhat better (let's say, ~ half of the time). Also, some characters and even boons care about Harrow trait on cards.

And if the skill is non-combat, you get +2 (or 1d4+1) from Harrowing, +1d4 from adventure's suit. Not bad e.g. for Constitution checks, if none of your characters have Fortitude. And I am speaking about the horrible, plagued adventure with extremely contagious Blood Veil and many ways how to become Plagued.
I would take Enhance and/or Aid over Harrowing any time, though :)