Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 30 – Ambitionism (Patreon)

Phew, this one has become one of the longest running series I've written and we've still got Ambitionism, Champion, Dreamism, Monster Knowledges and Gatherism to get through before I'm up to date. After that I can finally tackle The King, Wanderer – Luck and the People of the Dream Keeper campaign. Which should put a lid on everything in the Gambler's Chest Expansion (GCE) and I'll be able to write that in depth review of the entire GCE for here and over on BGG. I'm certainly nowhere near something I'd call mastery of this expansion because it's so intricate and complex but at least with that done we can start looking at various Knowledge/Gear combo builds and break them down.

With that in mind, lets take a look at Ambitionism.

This is the first of our two Tier 3 Philosophies and both of these are interesting as they break away from the previous Philosophies in some ways. What we get are very powerful suites of rank tables and knowledges in exchange for survivors who are intended to not be eternal pillars of your settlement. I find this a very interesting design decision as it ties back towards the intended experience of survivors being temporary, ephemeral parts of an overall whole that is the Settlement. With Arc Survivors we got this solid foundation of workhorses that come in the Tier 0 to Tier 2 levels of philosophies and their associated survivors. Then at the top end, once you have your fundamentals in place, you get to rock it with these legends and the more temporary design that they have should be less of an issue thanks to the fundamentals of the settlement already being in place.

Once of the aspects of Knowledges I like so much is that in a similar way to Weapon Masteries they represent a permanent form of progression for the settlement, but they push past Masteries and excel as they have more defined “save points”, places where a knowledge levels up and locks in the upgrade for all future survivors who gain that same Knowledge. With Weapon Masteries our milestones are very far away and our “save points” are created via Family, but their we get offspring that have a reduced amount of Weapon Proficiency Levels when compared to parents.

That means the Weapon Mastery system asks players to be really hyper conservative with their potential masters, as until they complete their chosen weapon track they are pretty much indispensable. It's friction I've never really liked because in truth I would prefer these masteries to be tracked by the settlement, or at least have a milestone lock at Speciality level. It's a lot of fun to let loose and take risks in this game, but it's often not the right way to play the game because of how frankly “essential” the higher level parts of the game make Fist & Tooth and Shield Mastery feel at times. It is worth noting that Shield Mastery is less essential these days because better armor point levels on armor sets have started to be set at appropriate levels across the board instead of the insufficient amounts that many Generation 1 armor sets have.

That small chunk knowledge progression system is why I like the Arc Survivor system so much, one can argue Arc Survivors create really powerful survivors that can strong arm the game into submission more easily, but I don't think that's a downside. The “power trip” part of games does matter, and having the players take the dominant position once they progress enough is a great reward for all the learning and false starts along the way. So I don't consider that a negative, especially when the positive is that the settlement's power progression is broken into smaller milestones. It keeps you hooked and pushing forward to see what new things these knowledges unfold into, and when you know what they are you still have the massive amount of combinations that the game's cards can be arranged in to explore.

To bring it back to Ambitionism, all of these portions of Philosophy that are underpinning the system is why I have very much embraced the impermanence of Ambitionism survivors and come to adore both them and their Tier 3 cousins the Champions. Ambitionism Survivors follow an arc seeking for greatness, but this kind of greatness isn't that which comes from hard work and graft, it's instead more akin to a form of manifest destiny; an internal concept of exceptionalism that at times dips into narcissism (though I do hope we get a narcissism philosophy separately in the future cause that would be very fun to explore). The Path of Ambitionism is a road paved with immense self belief to the point of arrogance. These survivors do not just want to be the very best like no one ever was, they believe they deserve to be that, they believe their destiny is to be greater than the boundaries of the settlement that birthed them.

The mechanics of this concept put them in a similar category to the Twilight Sword or Katana users, they have a form of growth that has an ultimate end goal resulting in departure from the Settlement. I've always liked this, that some parts of the settlement splinter off and take their stories away into the darkness alone. I'm sure their fates are going to be just fine out there in the world of stone, bone, blood and sucking, soulless darkness. They've got this.

Hunt XP Track, Neurosis & Tenet

As to be expected from a late game Philosophy, our Hunt XP track is very slow in developing, taking four boxes per rank, though of course this is going to be faster to pass through due to the higher level monsters giving more hunt XP per victory. That faster XP gain has since Arc Survivors become good because we have less time in the campaign to play. I really like how much that this system has turned hunt XP on its head and made it something that is purely desirable rather than sometimes a mixed bag. We're long past the days of trying to scam Ageless onto as many survivors as possible, instead we're racing up the ranks to unlock new toys for the current and future survivors to play with.

Our Neurosis of Spoiled is a relatively mild one, we're encouraged to hunt varied monsters/monster levels already by the Arc Survivor system. So having your Ambitionism survivors skip a hunt to sulk if they've not pushed further forward towards greater glory is both mechanically sound and thematically delicious.

Our Tenet of Privileged is the really spicy part of this set up, we do not know what it is going to be until we get through the Rank 1 table so it is best we go there and take a look at the unlock system before getting into the meat of what this represents.

Rank I – Favoured Child

Before we start, I wanted to praise the artwork that runs through this book and the story that it tells, we have four images that depict three characters throughout stages of their lives. Two of these survivors become Ambitionists (for lack of a better word) but the third does not, and so he falls away from their tale. Our first image here shows all three members of the trio, with the future Ambitionists both placed above their third playfriend (the one who is left behind) which I think nicely shows that they are already taking the physical position of being above the others signalling the eventual climb for status and growth that these two will have.

The jumping boy, who I'll nickname Lion and the Girl who I'll nickname Antelope because of both the costumes they wear hear and also the way that these animal monster themes are carried forwards as motifs – are our stars. Circlet who is laying on the ground, seemingly knocked down during play, is already showing that he is not destined in the way the other two will come to believe they are.

Rank 1 gives us +1 courage and +3 lumi; this larger amount of lumi exists in part to fuel the costs of the table we are about to roll on.

With a 1 or 2, we get to draw three knowledge cards and choose one of them to become our Tenet knowledge. With a 3 to 7 We get to draw not just those three knowledge cards, but we can spend 1 Lumi to draw an additional card, up to the maximum of 3 lumi spent. This is part of why we are given that bonus lumi, but at Collective Cognition 34 (CC 34) we also get +1 strength and the option to spend 3 lumi in order to gain +1 accuracy. This is an interesting little interaction, if our survivor doesn't have any extra lumi from any other sources then when they reach this point at CC 34 they have that decision of reaching for more Knowledge Tenet options or taking one of the three offered but also getting +1 accuracy. It's nice to have little micro decisions like this to weight up and make. Our roll of an 8+ gives us six knowledges to choose from as our core Tenet and at CC 37 we instead get to “tutor” any knowledge from the deck that we desire. We'll get back to this in a moment, but first let's finish the table.

It's not all upside, if we have CC 41+ then the ugly head of narcissism and jealousy raises itself up under the guise of Introspection. With two+ Ambitionists in the settlement we're going to have to nominate one, gain +1 strength for both survivors and then set Rivalry to happen the following LanternYear with both this and the nominated survivors as the Rivals.

Rivalry is a nasty little Settlement Event card as you can see in the above image. Not only can it stop the rivals departing, but it can also come back over and over with more and more survivors being driven to blows with each other. The lingering effect of Duel is also very expensive to trigger and has a high chance of killing one or both of the survivors involved. Having two Ambitionism Survivors duel to try and clear Rivalry from the timeline can be quite a risk.

So Ambitionism is clearly trying to tell us that having more than one survivor with this philosophy in the settlement carries with it a real risk that their egos will clash, leading to conflict. Most Ambitionists are not going to become lifelong partners like Antelope and Lion, they're more likely to engage in Highlander level antics, tearing each other apart until there is only one.

To return to the gaining of a Tenet, this is one of the most exciting parts of this Philosophy, usually we're locked into a specific Tenet for each philosophy, that becomes a core part of our build and we have no flexibility in respect to that. We have to combo the other two (or Three with Romanticism giving us extra slots) around that core Tenet and that is if it provides any potential synergies in the first place. Survivalism's Tenet of Tenacity for example is just “good stuff” survival tokens and doesn't really offer that much to build around.

This really is a wild place where you're only limited by your imagination and contents of the Knowledge deck. Ambitionism survivors with this flexible core Tenet design offer one of the best canvas boards to paint builds upon and that makes them even more exciting. Beyond that it's frankly really hard to be specific in this part of the article except that I am confident that many powerful builds will lean on this as its core element, especially when you can tutor any knowledge you desire as your springboard.

Rank II – Upstart

Again to return to the art, we can see here that during a lecture given by an experienced, injured survivor (perhaps Circlet from the first image, but more likely a representation of the settlement Elders) that both Antelope and Lion are distracted and not paying attention. Antelope has a vacant expression and her tablet appears to be doodled upon, while Lion looks utterly disdainful about the whole situation while he also stares off in the same direction.

Gain +1 understanding, +3 Lumi and roll that D10.

Rank 2 is where our Ambitionist gains their Ambition Knowledge, while they can gain others from the Forum, this is the only rank where we get to unlock one directly. It's also a very fun and playful level, the 1 to 3 result is in particular one of my favourite descriptive passages as it has our Ambitionist learn to conceal their constant napping in class by painting eyes on their lids and gaining [K] Font of Ingenuity. With an additional bonus on the 3 result at CC 38 where you gain +1 evasion by learning from a fellow classmate to use makeup as camouflage. There's a little odd friction here where you may have a settlement without Face Painting that has Ambitionists using makeup, but we can easily explain that oddity in whatever manner that takes our fancy.

The 4 to 6 result unlocks [K] Death Education and the 6 result at CC 34 also provides +2 Courage and +2 Understanding, that means a guaranteed minimum of 3 Courage and 3 Understanding before we consider any other bonuses.

7 to 9 gives us [K] Aspirational Ethos and the 9 in combination with CC 44 provides the incredible boon of +1 movement and +3 ranks in Any Weapon proficiency. With good Family management your young Ambitionists could already be well on their way to becoming Weapon Masters quickly. Sword is probably the Mastery I'd want to have on my Ambitionists due to how Rank 3 works, but Shield is a a possible alternative.

Finally with a roll of a 10 we get +3 Lumi and our choice of either [K] Death Education or [K] Aspirational Ethos. I'll look at all three of these Knowledges in the next article.

Rank III – Destiny

Antelope and Lion are depicted here discovering a relic of destiny, perhaps a version of the Visionary's Sword mentioned in the rank text. I like the little details that keep them consistent with their themes, Antelope is wearing a Screaming Antelope mask and Lion in addition to his tattoo and “mane” has a Cat Eye Circlet on his brow. Also in this image they now look present with full attention on the Sword that Lion has drawn forth from what we can assume is a lone grave.

We gain +3 lumi and roll 1d10 as we're into the portion where relics start to rear their head. So before we get into that, it's worth just briefly looking at what we know about Survivors called Visionaries, because this is where their relics come into play.

Most live drab lives, nurturing fantasies of their world painted in bold colors. Visionaries are those few who come across relics that empower them and demand they take action. Often these individuals lead many to their deaths, building staircases of corpses they climb toward lofty ideals. – Visionary (Female/Male)

On a 1 to 3 we get the Visionary's Sword, with a 4-6 we get the Visionary's Shield and with a 10 we reject these relics and forge our own path. Gaining +1 to each attribute and the Restless ability which lets us ignore any Skip Next Hunt text plus an additional +2 Endeavours when we are a returning survivor.

The main bulk of these is tied up in the three different relics, so we'll look at each in turn. But before we do, note that each of these has the Cursed keyword as standard across these relics and is mostly a balancer to stop you shifting the gear away before the Ambitionist departs in Rank IV (Crystal Skin scam anyone?) They are also Selfish, meaning that no other “other” keyword gear can be in the gear grid and as other gear Saviors cannot ever have them in their gear grids.

Visionary's Sword

This weapon is the reason I mentioned Sword as the proficiency of choice previously, as you have a 30% chance of gaining it and it is the only one of the three relics that is offensive in orientation (well the Shield is, but we'll get to that) and has a Spec/Mastery that leans into that offensive role I think that is a good enough reason to lock in Sword. Even if you get the Shield or the Circlet you can still run a sword if you want to.

This sword is an absolute beast, which it should be because of when you get it. That (2/6+/14/Sharp) profile means that it's wounding 25 toughness on an average roll (5.5 Sharp Roll + 5.5 Wound Roll) without even considering what the survivor has to add onto that. It also has a very nice supporting ability in that the first survivor in a round who misses their attack rolls gains a [Knight]&[Bolt]. One of the best ways to lean into this is with slow weapons because they have a very all or nothing part to their 1 speed attack roll, and as a bonus this even works with cumbersome weapons because it supplies both activation elements as a package.

Also as a little sweet bonus Locked ensures we're never disarmed while using this pointy stick. Not all monsters Disarm, but those that do can force you into taking a tempo loss during the showdown or even put everyone out of position

Visionary's Shield

This shield might be one of the most quitely impressive single gear cards in existence. It has an incredible (1/5+/15/Clobber 15) profile, Clobber gives +X strength when attempting to wound a Super-Dense hit location, meaning we have the ultimate weapon for bashing Dung Beetle Knights over the head right here. It's also got one of the sweetest defence profiles with that Deflect 3 that lets you spend deflect tokens to ignore hits for other survivors within 4 spaces of you. This is absolutely a centrepiece tank shield that has almost no comparative equals, I absolutely love getting this thing and it's also great that as a shield it doesn't really care as much if you have mastery levels or not. They are a nice bonus, but this weapon performs even if you gambled on getting the Sword instead and missed. Ambitionism Survivors are not the kind of survivor that you want to work towards max Weapon Proficiency most of the time anyway.

Visionary's Circlet

In the world of Kingdom Death, Circlets are often in competition for the top tier of item types, the Visionary's Circlet does something that looks absolutely bonkers, you get +1 survival taking a Dodge Survival action. Meaning that you in essence always have that Dodge on hand and as long as you're using it each turn (i.e. being attacked by the monster) you'll never run out of a supply to cover other Survival actions. You also start the hunt phase 3 spaces closer to the monster, which is something I appreciate as the Hunt Phase is very much a tool to wear down your survivors and also you should be done with Bone Eater Encounters by the time you get this so missing out on potential spaces where you'll encounter them is less of an issue.

Two of these three gear cards ask us to build our Ambitionism survivors as front line tanks or bruisers. Trading blows with the monster while the other survivors scramble about like supporting characters in our story. They're thematic, powerful and fun without being too strong.

There's also a tidy bit of synergy with Regalism present here, that Tier 2 Philosophy is all about the Sword & Board and Ambitionism provides us with an impressive sword or board to use in conjunction with that.

Rank IV – Shine

In our final look at these two, we see Antelope and Lion set out away from the settlement, following the call of destiny. Lion still holds the sword he found in the previous rank art and Antelope has joined him with her own relic, which is I believe the circlet on her head but it could be the shield as both pieces of gear don't match the Visionary artwork. We got to see both of these characters cast in photoresin, two models I wish I had been able to pick up at the time, but perhaps they will come back in plastic in the future. Here's these two sculpts.

I really like the armor designs they have here, I'm not sure if we've seen them as part of upcoming expansions or not, but the sculpts are gorgeous and ripe for being a part of a "Philosophies of Death" collection of themed survivors.

Rank 4 is the rank where your survivors leave you, the confines of the Settlement are not enough to contain their continuously growing egos and so they will always leave. However their departure does bring with it some other impacts, hopefully positive.

So what we're looking at here is essentially a population loss or gain when an Ambitionist reaches Rank 4. The bad result is the 1 or 2, which strips away 1+1d5 survivors from your pool and you may well seek to reroll that, especially if it hits you during the completion of your first Ambitionism survivor's arc.

The 3 to 8 result offers +1d10 survivors with an additional +1d10 survivors on a 6+ with CC 51. I think it is hard to not look at Collective Toil as a Principle that synergises with this as that offers an extra +1 endeavor per 10 survivors in the settlement. But there is some tension here, Accept Darkness gives survivors more durability, which means that Ambitionism Survivors have a slightly higher chance of reaching rank 4 in the first place. It's a trade off and remains one of the spots that I think is most interesting where the Principles are concerned, Accept Darkness vs. Collective Toil is the only Principle pairing where I don't think there is a right answer at the moment, every other pairing is either a choice depending on situation/player experience or Romantic vs. whatever the other one is called who cares it's not even good without Arc Survivors around. Even here we keep that tension between Collective Toil vs. Accept Darkness and I think that's neat.

The 9 and 10 result gives us the Spark of Aspiration ability, which is +1 random knowledge whenever the survivor is named. It's worth noting that sometimes a survivor can lose their name, for example when fighting the Phoenix, so this is an ability that can trigger more than once. Though it's typical it'll trigger just a single time in most cases. We also get on the result of a 10 with CC 53 the bonus of 1d5 positive attributes that you get to assign to the nominated survivor and unless I've misunderstood this, you don't have to distribute them evenly.

Next time we'll get into the three knowledges, but as it'll otherwise be a short article I'll also take a look at some interesting and/or powerful Knowledges that are worth considering as Tenets if you draw them. To that end I'd like to throw it open to you guys, pitch some Tenets at me, I'll explore them and if they're looking tight and/or interesting I'll include them in the article crediting you.

So go ahead, give me your top number one knowledge that you have experienced as a good core to build around tenet (feel free to mention the supporting knowledges as well, but just one Tenet knowledge per person please, I'll take your first suggestion).