Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 15 Romanticism Knowledges (Patreon)

We now get to go into one of my favourite suites of knowledges here in this article and there can be no mincing of words when describing Romanticism's knowledges; this is a powerful set to have in your knowledge deck. A large part of the reason for that is Romanticism's focus on knowledges and lumi as a core mechanic, when a card type is focused in part or full on the mechanic which introduces it into the game there is a natural trend towards a higher power level for those cards. That is because they are synergistic with themselves and also everything that was introduced alongside them.

As a consequence, romantic is packing the single best knowledge in the entire game, one that you want to have on every single survivor you send out on a hunt. This is because it has a massive amount of generic value to give and it doesn't encroach on the space in the way that having any other knowledge on a survivor naturally does. We'll get to that knowledge at the end of this article, one should always save the best number for last.

Wanderlust – Core tenet

• Type: Lumi gain

• Stages: 1 (Epiphany)

• Observations Required: 1

• Advancement: Depart with 6+ lumi

• Lumi Costs: 2

• Bonuses: Whenever you gain hunt XP on hunt/showdown, gain that much lumi

• Parallels: None

Wanderlust is a strong signpost tenet for what Romantic is offering to the settlement, this is a knowledge that gives out lumi, meaning that survivors with Wanderlust are going to be able to stock up and afford the more expensive offerings from the Forum settlement location.

This is also the first time we encounter the “Epiphany” mechanic, so we'll take a moment to explore that here.

Epiphany. A novel discovery. The survivor gains a new knowledge that does not replace the old knowledge. It is possible for a survivor to replace the knowledge that gave birth to the epiphany if all their knowledge slots are full. However, the old knowledge remains in the settlement's knowledge deck.

Epiphanies are an alternative way for survivors to gain new knowledges, with the difference between them and the normal route is that the Epiphany does not replace the original knowledge at all (as per quoted rules text above); the survivor who gains it can choose to replace it if they so desire (as long as it is not their core tenet), but they can also simply have both at the same time. The original staying in the Knowledge deck means that more bulk is added to that deck (increasing variance of Forum offerings); but if the original knowledge is good, that is not a serious issue.

One could consider a traditional observation upgraded Knowledge to being like a Pokemon evolving; you still have the same Pokemon, however it has changed and (hopefully) become more powerful. In contrast Epiphanies are more similar to a Nincada evolving when you have an empty slot in your party; you get an additional Pokemon with Shedinja. All of this has both mechanical and flavour based impact on your game. It is generating a new knowledge, but it is also preserving the original one. That adds more variety, but also bloats the deck if the original philosophy is something you do not care about adding to survivors in the future. Deck bloat isn't something one has much control over though.

The tricky spot for this one is how a Romantic Philosophy survivor with all three knowleges slots full will be forced to replace one of the other two options because of Wanderlust's core tenet status for them. Everyone else will have three options to replace. This situation is not a big deal however, because it is based on Lumi amount at the point of departing. Don't want that epiphany to happen? Spend some Lumi beforehand.

As for Wanderlust itself, gained early (as it will be on a Romantic Philosopher) this is a lot of Lumi gains which can be utilised to secure some expensive and powerful knowledges. It's also got synergy with Gloom Cream (Slender Man Gear Card) as that can reduce your Hunt XP level, meaning you can gain more hunt XP and lumi. This knowledge also has mild anti-synergy with Ageless, but that is not something which has any real consequences, Ageless doesn't reduce the total amount of hunt XP you gain, Wanderlust simply gives you more control over how much the survivor gains and when they gain it.

This is just a very good Philosophy with a lot of inherent value and is an easy pick up due to it paying for itself with a very minimal amount of hunts. You can also generate a lot of Lumi quickly in a year on a survivor by hunting the Phoenix, something that's even more profitable when you have the aforementioned Gloom Cream.

Imagination

• Type: Weapon Proficiency Training

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: 1

• Advancement: Depart with 12+ lumi

• Lumi Costs: 4

• Bonuses: Once per lantern year you may spend 3 lumi to gain +1 weapon proficiency

• Parallels: Nightmare Training, Petal Spiral, Victory Rewards

Imagination is a very strong knowledge that lets you convert lumi into weapon proficiency. One of the biggest hills for settlements to climb in every campaign is completing weapon proficiencies (particularly Shield, Spear and Fist & Tooth) and also getting Weapon Mastery earlier on a younger survivor means more showdowns with that full mastery play. As such imagination is not a complex knowledge, but it is a really good one that works well with the Family innovation to give you more survivor options for longer.

The Epiphany here is quite a difficult one to achieve, there is so much value in spending 3 lumi every lantern year you can manage for all survivors that departing with 12+ lumi is a real challenge and has a real cost in development speed. Imagination is good, it helps us get the big job of completing weapon proficency over and gives us more time with Weapon Masters on hunts. Simple, powerful, onto its Epiphany.

Freedom

• Type: Survival Action

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: N/A

• Advancement: N/A

• Lumi Costs: 6

• Bonuses: Once per round spend 1 lumi to perform a survival action, this can be a repeat of a survival action already performed this round.

• Parallels: Extra Sense, Sweet Battle

I am still not entirely set on if Freedom is worth holding back on spending the 3 Lumi for gaining Weapon Proficiency; however if this is gained on a survivor with a Weapon Mastery, or I have ways of generating a big burst of Lumi during the settlement phase then departing with the 12+ Lumi is absolutely going to happen. Freedom is strong and I do want to unlock it, but the trade off tension between weapon proficiency and the observation condition for Imagination is a real and interesting decision space.

Once you have Freedom this is a very strong knowledge (as one would expect for a 6 Lumi cost); survival actions are the way that survivors break the 2 vs 4+ dynamic on the showdown board (I class the AI deck and the HL deck as separate enemies, something I'll talk about in a video soon); every dash/surge survival action is an extra half an act for a survivor, encourage can negate the monster's attempts to deny survivor units turns, dodging multiple times per attack can blank a monster AI card and being able to double dash-cancel can make the monster do nothing at all for its turns. There is so much you can do with survival actions and this knowledge increases that range significantly. Also there is a neat interaction with Rawhide Armor, which will still trigger its set bonus 50% survival gain because the trigger for that is 'perform a survival action'.

This is a huge haus of a card and provides so much value and strength for the survivors who have it. It also gets around things that denies you spending survival, because you are spending lumi instead (Frenzy will disable Knowledges and deny the use of survival actions as per p.73 “Losing Access to Knowledge”). So ultimately it is worth unlocking, but not so much on a survivor who is spending their Imagination Lumi to rank up one of the more critical Weapon Proficiencies.

Eudaimonia

• Type: Understanding Gain & Temporary Luck Generation

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: N/A

• Advancement: N/A

• Lumi Costs: 6

• Bonuses: +1 understanding whenever you make an observation. You may spend any amount of understanding before making a wound roll to get that much luck.

• Parallels: None really

Eudaimonia, in Aristotelian ethics, the condition of human flourishing or of living well. – Britannica

Understanding is good, in fact it is better than courage. Understanding is really good when you are a Romantic settlement because it hands an increased speed of getting to roll for Ageless at max understanding. Once you have maxed out your Understanding, the second part of this Knowledge comes online and allows you to have a reserve of luck that you can gush all over the right HL Card.

It is also important to note that the first ability on Eudaimonia falls off the further into the campaign you get, because you just have less knowledges where you can trigger observations, but certain tactics like discarding a nearly completed knowledge in exchange for another one with multiple observations can be employed if you don't care about completing certain knowledges.

Simple, clean, powerful and has an "evolving" form in that it is still useful even if you have completed your Understanding track already.

Fortis Fortuna

• Type: Lumi Gain

• Stages: 3

• Observations Required: 4/8/-

• Advancement: Perfect Hit/when you spend X lumi gain X observations/-

• Lumi Costs: 2/4/5

• Bonuses: +1 lumi on a perfect hit, once per round/+1 lumi on a perfect hit/+1 lumi on a perfect hit. On arrival may spend 3 lumi to increase the range of perfect hits for the current lantern year

• Parallels: Other Romantic knowledges, Timeless Eye, Dark Eye

Fortune Favours the Brave (aka You make your own luck).

Perfect hits! Oh boy, just writing about anything to do with Perfect hits always gets me really excited and I have to restrain myself from running off to the table in order to play with more perfect hit builds. Fortis Fortuna is one of the sweetest versions of this with it providing not only a reward for scoring perfect hits, but also a place to spend them. That's what we call in the card game area an “enabler and pay off in one card” and they as long as what they are doing is powerful they are always strong as heck. This is a lumi generator that also lets you increase your perfect hit range, thereby increasing the number of perfect hits you get per showdown and how much lumi it generates.

This is just really good, I don't really know what more to write because like many other elements in this knowledge it is pure, simple and effective good stuff. The only survivors who do not benefit from this are ones that have specific Knowledge combo set ups, or ones who do not attack.

Potentia Est

• Type: Extra Knowledge Slots

• Stages: 2

• Observations Required: 3/-

• Advancement: Depart with 4 knowledges/-

• Lumi Costs: 2/4

• Bonuses: +1 knowledge slot/+2 knowledge slots, +1 Torment

• Parallels: None

Knowledge is power indeed. No other knowledge in this game has a truer name than Potentia Est; and you know me, I've left the best till last for this knowledge. Potentia Est starts off by giving the survivor who has it +1 knowledge slot, which it fills by itself. Meaning there is no slot cost to this knowledge at all. Then, once you have departed 3 times with Potentia Est plus three other Knowledges it evolves into +1 torment in exchange for +2 slots (+1 slot overall).

Knowledges are really powerful (D'uh); turns out having four of them (plus Potentia Est) is really strong. There are so many four knowledge combos that have incredible strength that one day we'll get to listing various knowledge combos and probably have a whole article on just the four slot combos.

I wrote last time that there was a knowledge which all survivors wanted, this is it. Potentia Est is the single best knowledge in the entire game because it lets you have more knowledges at just the cost of the lumi paid to get it and +1 torment.

Every survivor should have this, I don't need to review it any more than that.

Summary

Romanticism is not only a thematic flavour win, this pool of knowledges might also be the cleanest set of designs in the game. They are straightforward and constructed with either multiple applications or redundancies that ensure they always have some utility even if their original use has become obsolete.

If there was a lead contender for the best knowledge in the entire game, it is Romanticism and it is not even close. There are absurd things you can do with many other knowledges (such as Homicidalism) and there are REALLY cool ones like Marrowism, Verminism or Faceism which I love using, but the absolute top dog is Romanticism and I don't think we'll see anything come close unless Barbarianism comes out and it has something as strong/versatile as Potentia Est.

Until then, every Arc Survivor campaign should pick Romantic unless you have a good reason, like you are a filthy hipster contrarian or a tycoon from Industrial Birmingham in the age of machines and brass.

Scientia potentia est!