by eriktheguy
So I was comparing knife strike to Energy rush. Both are scamp powers and cost 2 cheese and are used on your own turn.Knife strike allows 1 attack with each knife and dagger you have. I looked through the deck to find them all. There are 2 daggers and zero knives. I know there are some other items in the deck with 'dagger' in their name, but assuming they don't count as daggers...
In this case knife strike makes at most 2 attacks. You need to pay the cheese before you make or see the results of the first attack.
Energy rush makes 2 attacks regardless of your equipment. You can pay the 2 cheese for the second attack after making the first, which means you can decide whether the second attack is still necessary, or you can use cheese generate by the first attack to pay for the energy rush and make the 2nd attack. In this way energy rush is strictly more powerful than knife strike.
Both abilities synergize with 'Give Order' equally well.
Both abilities are scamp only, and Filch is the only scamp, so there are no instances in which you will take knife strike because energy rush is not available.
You can only use one ability in a turn, so there are no instances in which you will take knife strike in combination with energy rush.
The conclusion is that there is never a reason to take knife strike.
Even if we assume that throwing and striking daggers count as 'daggers' for the purpose of knife strike, the ability is still almost useless. Energy rush can be used with weapons that are more powerful than daggers, and will always work even if you are captured and lose a second dagger.
You can only carry over one search card per game, so even if you find that second dagger, knife strike is slightly worse in each chapter unless you manage to find another dagger. Since you're holding 2 of the 4 daggers, 2 of the remaining 60ish search cards will be daggers.
Once you find your third dagger you need to pay 6 cheese to level up and get dagger strike, then cheese for each use in the rest of the chapter. At the end of the chapter you lose the extra dagger and it goes back into the deck, your ability becomes dead weight again until you pull out another dagger.
Energy rush can also be used for movement, searching, using items, etc.
My best guess is that this card was written early in development, before the makers realized there were going to be 2 daggers and 0 knives.
If you're looking for a quick-and-easy house rule, either make knife strike cost 1, or let it work with any sharp weapons, or even do both. Even if you're starting each round with 2 daggers or dagger+sword, knife strike still has less versatility than energy rush. It will only really be far-and-away better in the odd instance when you find 3 sharp weapons, and then only for the rest of the chapter.
I guess you could abuse this by having someone like Nez who doesn't use equipment 'caddy' a dagger between chapters for you, but I still don't think it's broken since 'dodge' and 'energy rush' are still comparable in power.