Scouts: Outskirts & Scout Discoveries – An Initial Impressions Summary & Review (Patreon)

Spoilers for:

• Scout System
• Outskirts
• Scout Discoveries
• Smog Singer Hunt Events

I have mixed feelings about the Scout system; and as all of the current writing of initial reviews is a journey towards writing a full review of the Gambler's Chest expansion I want to sort out what they are exactly. Are the scouts a good addition? A bad one? A trade off/somewhere in between? As such, over the next two weeks I'm going to pull the system apart and look at its broad thesis, individual goals, aspect advantages and disadvantages, all with the goal of getting to a point where I have solidified my opinion. Even if that opinion ends up being “it's complicated”. Now, of course, Kingdom Death: Monster is a sandbox game; there are a multitude of successful pathways to play and very few truly wrong ones, so whatever opinion I end up on is not a definitive one, there can be others. But I don't feel I can give such a mammoth undertaking as the “basically an entire new game using the original system but jamming loads of more complex options on top of the previous work” that forms the Gambler's Chest, without taking my time in playing it and breaking it apart before putting those pieces back together.

This week I'm going to take a hard look at the Scout system, I've now used it quite extensively and I've also watched a lot of video footage for the same lantern years from other players like Trent “BigDeno” Denison, Josh & Matt of TWIST Gaming and Forged by Geeks. I've also chatted some with other players and observed opinions from the community (in particular I've been seeking out people who really love the new scout system so I can understand what gels for them, but of course there's not a lot out there at this very early stage). That has helped flavour my thoughts a bit and also challenged them in a few spaces, and it's also made me feel sure that the first step I need to go through in order to properly unpick this tangle is an honest assessment of all the gear cards that come with the Outskirts.

The Dread Pack Gear Grid

We can't explore the Scout Gear without first taking a look at the place where it is utilised, the Scout's Gear Grid. Gear cards with the Scout keyword can only be equipped in the Dreaded Pack gear grid that the Scout utilises. This is a four slot gear grid that has the item, scout, stinky and heavy keywords, inflicts -2 movement while in use and allows the Scout to activate the Logistics of Deathstory event if they are alone on the hunt or alone at the start of their act during the showdown. We'll look at Logistics of Death next week, so this time the focus is the movement reduction, the keywords and the gear grid itself.

Of the four keywords, it is the heavyand stinky ones that are of key focus, both these keywords have properties which are called by other parts of the game's systems. Stinky is a mostly neutral, slightly positive one who's main downside exists when fighting the Dung Beetle Knight (it focuses stinky targets above other threats with some AI cards). Heavy on the other hand trends quite negative with settlement events like Cracks in the Ground causing a full archive of all scout gear on a 1 and on a 2-5 it often kills the scout outright because they almost always have the lowest movement. What isn't completely clear is if the Gear Grid would be lost also on that 1, because the Dreaded Pack is simultaneously a piece of gear and a gear grid. Hopefully we'll get an FAQ on that one in the future. It is also worth briefly mentioning that you cannot depart with Cursed gear in the gear grid (and if you gain it on the hunt, that survivor is not allowed to be the scout in the future, ever. Note it on the survivor's sheet).

The -2 movement is another large drawback for the scout, while 4 movement is a manageable number, 3 is one that carries a huge amount of negatives due to the breakpoint for a lot of showdown strategies requiring at least 4 movement. The main reason for this is the reduction in spaces that your survivor can interact with, losing one movement is -3 spaces they could have reached with a normal activation/attack. Two movement is -6 spaces, a massive increase and that's without even considering that the Scout is not a resilient combat unit so they need evasive manoeuvrers and tactical positioning to keep them out of the monster's direct attacks (or sometimes indirect ones). This situation makes a pair of boots an almost essential part of the scout's selection and most of the time you're going to be picking the Vermin Bellyboots as a default option due to all their +movement and partial protection from targeting.

That brings us to the last sticky issues one has to navigate through the Scout system, gear slots and affinities. Your normal average survivor has nine slots, of which five will be typically devoted to armor, one to a weapon and then the remaining three are left for whatever support/flex/shields that a survivor wants to carry. The core of this system is that every single gear card you take on the hunt has the large opportunity cost of eating up a space in a limited layout; this is further compounded by affinity demands. Those demands are so steep that a gear card not having affinities can be make or break in deciding if it is good enough for a particular survivor, there are exceptional affinity free gear cards, but all of them (except for the Death Mask) could be improved by adding affinities to the picture.

The scout has the same issue, except they only get 4 gear card slots, instead of a gear card taking up  ~11% of their gear grid, it now takes up 25%; an increase of more than double. It makes for an interesting puzzle for the players, but it also means every single card has to be hugely impactful; you simply don't have room for situational cards. All four cards need to lean into the specific strategy that your scout is employing and that scout strategy also needs to feed into the other four card tableau/survivor engines in the hunt party. It's asking a lot, like an awful lot. So much that I think even with 6 slots things would still be incredibly tight to the point of forcing survivor gear grids into homogeneity.

So, lets get to those gear cards shall we?

Outskirts & Gear

As it has been shared via the Kickstarter, we'll begin with a look at the Settlement Location itself.

The first things we can see, outside of the Scout/Gear/Survivor rules, is the following:

• This location leans heavily into Perfect Resources
• This is the only place where Hollow Stone resources are (currently) used
• You can gain a maximum of one Hollow Stone a lantern year and that requires an endeavor
• It also wants resources like Iron,Vermin and Broken Lanterns (not just any old scrap, specifically broken lanterns)
• Two of its gear cards are locked behind innovations from two different trees.

It's a lot, and one has to hold these in mind when assessing the gear cards, because these cards are very value heavy, they require a lot of investment from difficult to acquire resources, stuff that may take time, other gear or good fortune to gain.

Let us get onto the gear cards, we'll go through them in order on the sheet.

Stone Face Cloak

3x Hollow Stone, 1x Organ

This iconic gear card for the scout requires resource gathering for three lantern years in order to construct it. That is quite an undertaking early on, due to how important endeavours are for a wide range of early game progression. This is an expense you'll probably have to pay due to the cloak being a two armor location gear card (head, body) and also allowing the scout to get off the Showdown board and stay safe (even achieve the victory against the L3 Crimson Croc). With just 4 slots a card like this is virtually an essential piece of protection for the scout and before gaining this one tends to have to lean into protection gear like the Fecal Salve.

Unfortunately, it is not just heavy, but it is a heavy armor, meaning that if you take it against the Smog Singers and encounter the Beached Mudwhale, it will break all fragile gear. While normally one wouldn't take fragile gear against the Smog Singers anyway, the Scout Lantern is something of an exception to this, but more on that later.

Despite that, it is almost impossible to pass up on this particular gear card because of the armor point compression and evasive abilities it offers. You are going to want a Stone Face Cloak in most scout gear grids and you will have to have a good reason why you are not using it.

Rating: Staple

Scout's Lantern

3x broken lantern

In any game with decks of cards, one of the most powerful things you can do is manipulate them. In KDM we have already seen time and time again just how strong card selection like the Cat Eye Circlet and Rawhide Headband can be. The Scout's Lantern offers this, but for one of the most impactful decks in the entire game – the Settlement Event deck.

This deck can dominate the game experience at times by throwing out crippling cards, some of which can undo literal lantern years of work and that is a very hard thing to give up. I have literally had this gear card save my Fist & Tooth survivor from being murdered, and I have also had it save the Scout from falling into Cracks in the Ground. It's completely unique and the only insurance you have against the randomness outside of increasing your cheating count for Story in the Snow.

The main negative here is that it has fragile which means I have not taken it out against the Smog Singers without already having a spare back in the settlement.

Rating: Staple

Vermin Bellyboots

1x Perfect hide, 1x Vermin

As mentioned above, 3 movement is a bad breakpoint for a survivor, 4 is an acceptable number though. So the +1 movement on the bellyboots indicates a clear understanding of the importance of going from 3 to 4 from the designers.

On top of that though, these boots provide another layer of protection for the Scout by forcing the monster to target other survivors if they are also eligible targets. This is a huge deal, perhaps even more so than the Cloak; due to how it lets you really lean into good positioning to keep the scout protected. Bloom Sphere always was a great little protection item in the Plumery suite, this one is even better.

Rating: Staple (OH NO!)

Hunting Salve

1x Fecal salve (aka 1xorgan), 1x Perfect Organ

Gear cards that archive themselves have to do a lot of work to justify their position, Dried Acanthus gets a full pass because it provides +2 survival when departing as a passive ability, is cheap to craft and only archives when preventing loss/permanent damage to a survivor unit. The hunting salve on the other hand is really expensive, it's a quarter of your gear grid and all it does is let you skip a hunt card once, then poof, it's gone. That's a bad deal in most circumstances.

There are edge cases where you might want this, for example if you are going against the Phoenix and only have survivors who will be erased from time if you draw Time Flows Quackwards. However, this is still only a single instance and then your slot is empty. Maybe if this cost just 2x organs then I could see some uses for it, but this is an expensive item resource wise and as such I really cannot justify putting a single use gear card into a 4 slot gear grid.

Rating: Bad

Grimjaw

1x Iron, 1x Perfect Bone

The scout dagger is an absolute doozy of a weapon that's worth rushing a piece of iron to craft this because of how powerful early resources can be when setting up. A good amount of resources early one helps get the ball rolling down the success trail; a place where it can pick up more and more resources like a grisly version of Katamari Damacy. It's why the Scavenger Kit is such a good craft, so even a “nerfed” version that requires wounding the monster with a weapon and only gives Monster Resources is still one of the best early to mid-game crafts out there. I got one early and used it alongside the Scavenger Kit. It also helped to give me a place where I could concentrate on getting Dagger Mastery online.

I'd also like to briefly note that the upgraded Pattern version of this card, Reaperjaw, has an extra bonus if you have a Grimjaw in the gear grid as well. It's really not worth the slots to have both Daggers in your gear grid, but it does exist and it might be useful for certain hunt compositions. Reaperjaw itself is just strictly better than Grimjaw, so if you can upgrade it, you will.

As an aside I can see an alternative Scout Build using the Peace Dagger from the Smog Singers here instead. That way you generate and endeavour instead of a resource, which may be something very valuable depending on the settlement's nature, make up and death principle.

Rating: Staple until its strength falls off

Bloodpack

1x Hide, 1x Perfect Organ

I'm not going to get into this in much detail; it is expensive, it is fragile, it has no affinities, it does nothing unless a survivor specifically dies from bleeding and you win the showdown and even then 60% of the time it does nothing at all.

I'd rather feed that Perfect Organ to a baby during the special birth event than use this item. I can't even see myself using this with the Crimson Crocodile Scout weapon, because it's just better to invest time and resources into not dying in the first place!

Rating: Bad

Disguise Kit

1x Bone, 1x Hollow Stone, 1x Organ

Requires: Face Painting

OK, so this item is a gear card with a viable use. It is 100% effective and does not even archive itself when you have used it. Just look, it does exactly what the Blood Pack does, but instead of archiving it instead kills the Scout. A survivor who will be 100% disposable if you are using the Disguise Kit in the first place, because who on earth would put a valuable survivor in a disguise?

The reliable, repeatable nature of the Disguise Kit means that you can plan around it and form an appropriate strategy. For example if you have a Homicidalism settlement going on, then the Disguise Kit can be used to protect the investment you have put into the killer. Which will keep them safe until they reach their awaited destiny.  Likewise you can have a Dead Inside deadism survivor as the Scout and not lose popilation. That means there are uses where this item can shine and that makes this good in the right situations.

Rating: Situational to Good

Scout Whistle

1x Hollow Stone, 1x Perfect Bone

Requires: Heart Flute

At least this one doesn't archive itself, but what it does is 80% of the time it allows a scout to draw the monster's attention for a turn. That can be very useful if you know what move the monster is going to undertake and also the Scout is out of range.

The thing is though, the Scout is very soft and squishy, if the scout does not have suitable positioning, or the monster has absurd movement/teleportation, then this item drops in value a lot. There will still probably be a window where the Scout can use this, it is just a shame that 20% of the time the whistle does nothing at all except fill 25% of your slots.

Rating: Situational

Outskirts Summary

You may have noticed a problem here, I've rated four cards as staples, that means with the right resource draws the gear grid is permanently fixed at Cloak, Bellyboots, Grim/Reaperjaw and a Scout's Lantern. Everything else is either bad or situational at best. That indicates we have a really poorly balanced settlement location here, there's a right answer, which is not healthy for the Scout gameplay loop.

Next up we have the Scout Discovery stuff, if you've not seen them and do not want them spoiled, here's my Singing Armor music band to provide a break and jumping off point.

Beyond them comes spoilers for the Crimson Crocodile, Smog Singers, Screaming Antelope, White Lion, Phoenix and King Scout Discovery gear/tablets.

Scout Discovery Gear

There will be more on Scout Discoveries next week as they do a lot of interesting world building, but here we are just going to examine the gear cards, to whit the Scout Tablets and other rare rewards that can come from the first defeat of a L3 version of a monster (with the exception of the King, because that's coming later).

Before we get into the individual cards, a few things to note in general, in addition to taking up a precious, precious slot the tablets all also provide an ability for using against the specific monster they were gained against and they are also heavy. The key issue here is that you've already beaten an L3 version of the monster in order to gain this, so the benefit from the tablet has to be really significant or vital in certain specific situations.

Crimson Crocodile Tablet

In essence you get to spend 1 survival to ignore the targeting requirement for Coagulated. This is a big old duff because one can always just position better or even sacrifice an attack to “scrub” the coagulated off the top of the deck and into the discard. I did not find this tablet useful at all and I would only take it if somehow in the future the Scout got a specific “tablet” slot.

Rating: Bad

Crimson Crocodile - Hostox the Gloaming

This rare axe is a real treat, it's got a bonkers amount of stats piled into it, balanced by a drawback that can be turned into damage with some good old Red Ring abuse (Spidicules item). However, the only times that it will fail to wound most monsters is either when you hit the trap twice in a round, can't surge after hitting the trap once or you run out of insanity to activate this because it is Sentient.

There are also fighting arts that can prevent a survivor from dying to bleed immediately (or you can disguise kit) so there's a lot of insurance here. This is the very definition of a fun and exciting weapon that asks you to live life on a razor's edge. I love this weapon's design so much and I have had a delightful time using it because of how it demands and rewards aggressive play. DASH, CHOP, SURGE, CHOP. IMA DO IT 'TIL YOU DROP.

Rating: Great, in fact as good as you can get without being completely a staple.

White Lion Tablet

So here we get an alternative version of Dash that can be used for other survivors. Honestly you should not be taking this one unless your settlement doesn't have Dash for some inexplicable reason. I do like the lore deepening that indicates white lions hunt via sound, even if it seems a bit odd that their Instinct suggests they hunt by scent, but regardless of that this is a 50% chance of getting to “dash” another survivor to the blind spot, if the blind spots are not occupied. It doesn't even help you level up the White Lion specific knowledge.

You don't need this to beat L3 White Lions, it just doesn't do enough, or really anything that matters at all. Maybe one day I'll find some niche situation where having this can generate meaningful value during the showdown, but that day is not today.

Rating: Bad

Smog Singers Tablet

Smog Singers are not good at fighting, you really don't need to spend survival to kill them faster than you are already doing with surge, devastating and savage. They're punching bags already. It does however help give you additional observation triggers for the Smog Singer knowledge Relentless II, so you might bring it to one Smog Singer fight in order to complete that knowledge.

Rating: Situational

Smog Singers – Belching Bagpipe

Gained from the Scout Discovery event. The Belching Bagpipe is a heck of a ranged weapon that competes with some of the mid game bows. However, its lack of a weapon type in combination with low accuracy and a weak Ballad leaves this one in an odd place. I have had this available and I have just not wanted to use it because Undeathableis not a reliable form of protection, 50% of the time a survivor won't die. Which means potentially, if you keep winning the coin flips, your survivors will never die. However, you can't rely on that, which means you're left asking if you'd be better off running other cheaper or more offensively orientated Ballads instead.

Instruments are a gamble anyway without the Grim Mufflerand this one doesn't even have a showdown ability that works outside of bizarre builds like the “Healing Factor” Gorment Armor builds (builds that seek to ignore armor and instead use Gorment Armor + Regeneration Suit to ride through severe injuries. These builds got a HUGE boost with the Faceism philosophy knowledge of Stone Heart (+2 to Severe Injury Rolls) and there having Undeathable will provide an extra level of insurance against dying to a headshot, but that isn't a huge concern because you'd need to take multiple head hits for that to be an issue anyway.

This weapon does do something in addition to the Ballad, but I am just not convinced that it is enough when it's a “typeless” weapon without affinities, poor accuracy and no other abilities. Sad bagpipe noises, my Scottish Great Grandmother Mrs. Warby would not approve of this representation, but she didn't approve of anything except for bagpipes and looking down on the English.

Rating: Situational to Bad

Smog Singers – Ghost Pepper

Also gained from the Smog Singer Discovery event, this Strange Resource gives a single survivor the ability to consume, gain the benefit and then instantly eject it from their (behind I guess?) when consuming. A lot depends on what you have available to consume and if there are additional benefits to that consumption. Doing this with Gormundism and Stat tokens seems like the biggest payoff because tokens are “something” for the Ghost Pepper to trigger off.

Rating: Situational to Good depending on what you are able to consume.

Screaming Antelope Tablet

Protection against archival of valuable weapons is worth something. However, you need to either scout the hit location deck or take a blind gamble on this being worth something. Once again, because the Scout has limited slots this is a hard one to justify, but maybe if you had a valuable high speed weapon like Hostox with its 9 speed you'd be interested in using this one.

Rating: Situational

Phoenix Tablet

Lets not mince words, Rewind is one of the more potent defences that the Phoenix has, so being able to ignore that in exchange for 1 survival and having to draw the HL cards face down one at a time is valuable. It also means you can “draw” the trap and still generate wounds via the HL cards you revealed before the trap punishes you. This system also greatly rewards the use of Devastating weapons.

In addition, before the GCE there wasn't much of a reason to go after multiple L3 Phoenixes, but with the indomitable resources providing patterns that improve and power up the armor set alongside Collective Cognition we now have a goal to hit at least three of them. In those situations I would take the Tablet along to the showdown over the Reaperjaw and that's enough to make this particular tablet worth it.

Rating: Good

King Tablet

The King is another monster you're going to want to face multiple times at L3 thanks to the combination of the showdown being excellent and the rewards worth the squeeze. This means  having Hushedon tap for the price of 1 survival is worth a lot and again this is a showdown where I would likely forgo using Reaperjaw, which isn't worth much against such a high toughness number in exchange for this tablet.

Rating: Good (Provisionally)

Scout Discoveries Summary

So the main experience I've had here with the L3 Scout rewards is that the non-tablets are most of the time either good or at least interesting, while the tablets tend to be worth more when you're facing the tougher monsters. I don't much feel the need for a tablet against the L3 Node 1 & 2 monsters, I'd rather have the higher resource generation the dagger provides, but against the more dangerous beasts in the latter nodes the Tablets do seem to outpace the Dagger due to its hard limit on viable toughness numbers.

Next time we're going to take a look at the Scout System as a whole and weigh up the pros vs. cons. But before then, please can you write below your experiences and thoughts on the scout system over all. Has it been a hit, miss or somewhere in the middle for y'all and why is that?